The way I found to deal with the shadow in front of me

I was at the bar of a restaurant next door to my house the other day, waiting to be taken to the table, when a local resident struck up a conversation. He asked what I did. I explained that I was a coach and holistic therapist, he seemed quite intrigued (“nonconformist” would best describe it) and then asked, “But what do you really want to do with your life?”, to which I replied, “I’m already doing what I want to do.” I want out of life, I thought I had just explained. For me, it is a privilege to be able to help people in their development, in doing what they can to reach their potential.” Then a man from the back table said in a jocular tone, “John, she can help you reach your potential! Imagine that! Why don't you hire her?”

That same week I had a dream, I'm not one for having dreams where the lesson is clear, but in this one a speaker said to me: “You have to ask 'why?' three times, only then will you find the answer. Sometimes the third question itself is the answer.”.

When I got home, I decided to do the exercise:

– “Why do I keep attracting people who laugh at my work?”

“Because I don't take myself seriously.

– “Why don’t I take myself seriously?”

– Because despite all the feedback I get about my work, there's somewhere deep down that thinks I'm a fake.

– “Why do I think I’m a fake?”

– Because no matter how much I do, I never think it's enough: I don't meditate enough, I don't study enough, I don't clean my channel enough.

In other words, that man was just mirroring what was inside of me. The doubtful thoughts I had about myself, as if they weren't enough to occupy my mind, were now materialized in the voices of those two men.

Despite bringing the situation up to me and asking an internal question, one thing was still bothering me: although have shown me my shadow, how exempt were those two men from responsibility?

I posted this question on a social network and received a lot of advice, one of them very valuable: that I consider these people solely and exclusively as a manifestation of my subconscious to show me something I need to work on myself.

This task is not easy… One of the reasons is that I don't see my custom shadow on a woman, for example. With the exception of a single time, when a woman questioned how I practiced the profession of coach without having a psychologist degree, the fact is that I receive these types of comments from men.

 So, the way I found to deal with this type of situation was to do both: not taking responsibility for my inner work and blaming the other, but also not avoiding showing that person that the way they communicate is disrespectful (or at least that's how I feel about her way of communicating, as they say in Nonviolent Communication).

And a weapon that has been very important in this work is having educated me about four ways men have to communicateoften without realizing it:

• Mansplaining: union of the words “man” + “explaining” (to explain), when a man didactically explains something obvious to a woman, as if she were unable to understand or ignoring the fact that she already knows (how to drive, for example);

• Manterrupting: union of the words “man” + “interrupting”, when a man interrupts a woman because he thinks what he has to say is much more relevant than what she is saying (or maybe just because he thinks that can);

  
  
  

• Bropriating: union of the words “bro” (bro) + “appropriating” (to appropriate), when a man appropriates the idea of ​​a woman;

• Gaslighting: expression taken from a movie of the same name, when a man psychologically manipulates a woman in such a way that she begins to doubt her sanity. No, that doesn't just happen in movies! When a man says one thing and then denies that he said it, when he calls you crazy, etc… It's all in that package!

  
  

What I do now, when I think I'm going through any of these things, is ask the person, “Do you know what maintainrupting is?” and if they don't, I'll explain. Usually what happens is that the person has an awareness and is forced to look at that, how much he uses it. And it gets more impersonal than saying, "You interrupt me all the time!" So I leave her to deal with her shadow and I'll deal with mine.

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