A couple of years ago I read a book about shadow work and ever since I have been trying to confront my shadows. They vary from big shadows that influence my daily life to little shadows that I didn’t use to notice easily. I started writing them down whenever I notice one and by looking them in the eye and thinking about them they slowly vanish from my routines.
A healthy habit but for reasons unknown to me some shadows seem good at hiding.
One of these shadows is ‘my household demon’ and it is a bugger. This shadow is always lurking around the corner and expresses itself whenever I need to tidy or clean things.
This shadow completely overtakes me and thus awareness is nowhere to be found. It took me years of shadow work before I ever even noticed that this little demon is a well known shadow of mine.
So I named it my little household demon. Looking it in the face just wouldn’t be enough for this demon in my head. So let me first explain what happens when this demon pops up. Whenever I start to tidy or clean anything in my house I loose my awareness and I let this demon take over my mind. When I start tidying something always tends to fall or break and immediately my demon takes over. It will be saying things in my head like “why does this always happen to me?” or “why can’t anything ever go right?”.
It might seem harmless to you but these thoughts act like a mood catalyst. Without me even understanding what is actually going on, I start hating tidying and find myself a victim of my situation.
All of the sudden I’m in a fowl mood, all of the sudden I can no longer keep my cool. And of course everyone around me suffers. It’s not their fault and I know that but because I let this demon take over I lose all control.
Until recently when I noticed that this was just another shadow of mine and I started writing it down, I started to look this demon in the eye. I asked myself 5 basic questions concerning my shadow that I found in a book I read about shadow work:
- What does my shadow do?
My shadow hates cleaning and tidying and I start dreading it immensely. During cleaning I start comparing my efforts to the efforts of all the other people in my household and it makes me even more mad. Then when something goes wrong I feel like a victim, full of anger, annoyed and drowning in self-pity. - Why do I do it?
First of all, I spent the first thirty years of my life not understanding the concept of tidying and cleaning. Honestly, I was more of a mover of things. And second of all I let this demon spiral me into a low frequency directing all available energy towards annoyance, self-pity and sadness within the first seconds. When these emotions hit me they are loosely followed up by my impatience (which is another shadow of mine, much bigger and on the background of many other shadows). This emotional state remains until the moment where I become aware. This moment didn’t use to come because I was simply incapable of seeing the situation for what it is.When I really think about it, I think I have let me pity myself for a long time all because I was depressed as a teen and back then I simply wasn’t capable at tidying. My mom would yell at me to clean my room, but back then she didn’t know that I was wearing my “happy mask”. I wasn’t happy at all. My mind was poisoned and I lacked the awareness and knowledge to overcome this emotional state.
- What is the effect on myself?
I am completely ruining the whole household experience for myself. Oh how I can enjoy a neat and clean house. Then why do I let myself hate the process? When I was a young girl I used to love helping my mom out with chores. Ironing, washing the dishes, shopping, I loved it! I even had my own little ironing board! Somewhere along the way it went wrong. Fortunately now I know it is complete bullshit so now it is time to start actively working on my awareness concerning this matter. - What is the effect on others?
People around me will receive the worst of me. In my head I hear things like “Why does he never help me?” or “Why am I the only one taking responsibility for this time and time again?”. Immediately I get torpedoed into victimhood and it is not a pretty sight. - How can I change and heal?
By writing it down and asking myself questions I am moving my shadow from my unconscious into the active part of my brain. I am gaining awareness just by looking into it. The next step is to analyze it and to try to gain awareness in the moments where my shadow pops up. Anything you give your attention to will grow and thus awareness paired with attention will help me clear it up step by step. I used to love doing household chores as a child and as an adult I really enjoy the fruits of household labor. So how do I turn the task itself into an enjoyable activity again? It is time I own up to it, time to see it for what it is. I perform these tasks for me, because it makes mé happy. That should be enough! By facing my chores step by step I try to make it more manageable. Just thinking about it isn’t enough. I need to remind myself and actively erase these wrongful emotions that I have created during a time of depression and the long unaware recession that followed.
So there you have it. This is how I try to conquer this little demon.
This demon that I created a long time ago. It is time to let her go. It is time to enjoy household chores and value it for what it is. A clean house equals a clean mind and cleaning my mind is of the utmost importance to me. That on its own should be enough but as you know with all healing it comes in waves. So I will be facing this demon every time and try to gain awareness sooner rather than later. I will try to laugh about it, simply because I understand it is not real, it is not true. And one day I will look back at this text and it will be a past issue.
“If you want to improve your life, clean out a closet.”
