Golden Shadows

You may have run into the term “Golden Shadows.” Recently, I saw a talk by Ben Tannahill on the topic that was quite good. 

Shadows are those unhealed parts of ourselves we carry around; the unresolved experiences or trauma. They’re kept unconscious as a coping strategy to avoid pain. This makes them shadow-like.

However, we can also carry resistance to our qualities and gifts. Say you loved to sing and express as a child but your caregivers shut you down for being “noisy.” Experiences like this can cause us to repress our expression. We can learn that expressing is painful. And then we add narratives to keep them that way. “I’m no good at that.” “I could never do that.” The joyful child’s expression becomes a repressed “golden shadow” instead of joyful self-expression.

Note here that there’s no blame. You responded naturally to feel safe and wanted. Your caregivers responded naturally to the circumstances as well. There was no desire to repress you, just to moderate and learn how to be with others. But it’s hard to reason with a child. And we don’t know how to dial it down.

Sometimes, self-statements have some validity. We learned we’re not very athletic, for example. However, if we notice we’re projecting onto others, like idealizing someone with a trait we admire… that may point to a golden shadow. Are we obsessed with an athlete or a singer or a spiritual teacher?

Certainly there can be other reasons for an obsession, but if there’s a lot of emotional energy around it, it can be a flag for our self-suppression.

Other flags are expressions of helplessness, or pessimism, or negativity directed at others who do express. Often, this suggests trauma in the mix too. These responses express pain avoidance (facing our unresolved experiences).

Perhaps you surround yourself with people you can live vicariously through. Or you have an unhealthy aversion to such people.

To heal, we want to become more conscious of how we are around this potent topic. Then we want to learn how to go towards the pain rather than avoiding it. As Ben said, this way we can unlock what is true for us.

Not that we need to become a famous singer or athlete. Just to open up that expression in our life.

After some healing, our next step is action. We need to “introduce something fresh” to take a step towards expression. It can be a small step, but a real one. This way, we can reprogram our responses and become truer to our being. There is rich joy and fulfilment in shedding our golden shadows. We can unlock unseen gifts and abilities.
Davidya