Shadow Work: Frivolity

Shadow Work: Frivolity

I've taken a few workshops of Kimberly Theresa, and she always discusses the concept of shadow work. Simply put, whatever irritates you in others is a part of yourself, or, alternatively, your "shadow" that you are not willing to look at and work with. So it just follows you around.

In one of the workshops, she asked for an example of an irritating quality, "Entitlement", called out one man. I thought that was such a telling trait, that with that one idea "Entitlement bothers me", that man just gave me enough information to craft him a life story, if I wanted to.

Mine is "Frivolous". The Frivolous bothers me. And let me define this with an example. It's important to note that by frivolity, I don't mean gaiety, or taking interest in life's details.

Here is what I mean:

A woman is giving birth. She's screaming, and doctors are running around her- her husband holds her hand. A nurse walks in "Oh, the sheets are tucked in wrong!".

Or:

You just climbed the top of Mount Everest. You are standing around with your buddies friends, looking at a sunset, and one of them goes, "Dammit, I got the strawberry chapstick. I always keep meaning to get cherry. By the way, I wonder if I remembered to pay my credit card bill".

Or:

The president is giving a speech. It's about the economy. You and your three brothers just lost their jobs. Your uncle is watching the speech with you as well. He remarks "I can't believe the President is wearing blue, everyone knows black is in nowadays, what is he thinking?"

This is not to be confused with humor. I love humor, particularly absurd humor, and the pattern of contrasting the serious and meaningful with the lighthearted and absurd. It does not bother me when someone *intentionally* comments on the President's mole, as a way to contrast with the "seriousness" of the event. That strikes me as funny.

Frivolity, however, drivers me crazy. Frivolity occurs when someone does not at all appear to notice that anything meaningful is taking place, and is genuinely convinced that the mole, the sheets, or the chapstick, are a worthy topic of conversation at the moment.

Why does frivolity scare me? Because I'm scared of solipsism, that what strikes me as meaningful (birth, death, choice, kindness, courage) is as relevant to someone else as chapstick. That I am alone in this type of experience and exploration.

Also, it irritates me because it steps upon my ego, or my meaning-generating narrative self. I am in the middle of a narrative, I am experiencing attachment and emotional up and downs, an adventure, a story....and instead of sharing this experience with others, BAM my story turned into an absurdity by a simple "I can't believe the bedsheets aren't tucked in". Dude, you just ate my meaning. Not cool.

If I wanted to go deeper into an authentic, non-defensive self, I think I can begin by finding meaning in absurdity, not away from it, and also by having faith in my own experience. If it is meaningful to me, it is so, without need of another's opinion. If a woman is giving birth, she is not going to stop giving birth because a nurse made a frivolous remark about the sheets. So I need to have faith that I am not going to stop being, becoming and experiencing because of a frivolous remark, too.

.....dammit, I think I just assigned myself some homework. Especially working with this in terms of yoga.