An article by Marianne Hill – Founder and Director of Healing The Shadow

Our Need For Connection

When exploring love and intimacy I look to the ‘Lover’ (or ‘Feeling Body’) archetype – the side of us that longs to connect, that is vulnerable, sensual, creative and open. The need of this part of us to connect – to bond with other human beings, with ourselves, with nature and with spirit, is the most fundamental and the most powerful drive we have as human beings. There are many well documented examples that demonstrate that humans and most other mammals place connection above food and physical wellbeing – sometimes even above their own survival.

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An article by Marianne Hill – Founder and Director of Healing The Shadow

When I’m exploring the shadow with my clients I speak to the many different parts of them that make up the whole person. Here I’d like to introduce you to a particularly unsettling type of part that I come across in my work – a type if internal ‘shadow predator’.

We all have many different parts, each with different points of view, different ideas about our life and different feelings. Some of them carry very strong energy and emotion.

Everyone is different and all their parts are unique and have their own flavour and character. In Healing The Shadow one of the aims of our work is to get all of these different parts working together. They are all of value in some way and a necessary part of the whole. When all our different parts work together towards the same goal life can feel much more harmonious and have a greater sense of flow.

However…., sometimes when we’re doing this work we come across a part of us that seems to be completely destructive. It doesn’t want to work towards any goal, or to contribute in any way to our life.

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An article by Marianne Hill – Founder and Director of Healing The Shadow

Our shadow, by its very nature, is out of our sight. Either it is completely unconscious or it is right out on the periphery of our consciousness. The shadow consists of parts of us we have hidden away and are trying hard not to see. One way of thinking of this is to imagine that we have a bag which we drag along behind us, it is out of our sight, but we are very aware of its weight, and the energy required to pull it along with us through life. In this bag we have hidden away all the parts of ourselves that we don’t want to show to the world – the parts we have cut off, repressed or denied. This bag forms our shadow. We can’t see it, and we hope against hope that others can’t see it either. Continue Reading

An article by Marianne Hill – Founder and Director of Healing The Shadow

Disconnection

London, 1992. I found myself alone, with a young baby, in a big city I didn’t know, teaching science in a tough Comprehensive. Life was hard, I was out of my depth and lonely. I needed help. The doctor suggested a counsellor. She cost £30 an hour. A bottle of wine at the time was about £7. Being on a very tight budget it didn’t take me long to decide that alcohol was going to be the best way to get some regular respite from my overwhelm and exhaustion… I could afford to have a glass of wine 7 nights a week rather than support for 1 hour a week. Also, my counsellor didn’t quite seem to be giving me the kind of support I needed, although I couldn’t work out what was missing… Continue Reading

An article by Marianne Hill – Founder and Director of Healing The Shadow

In the previous 3 communication articles we have explored communication of the facts, our fears and fantasies, our feelings and how to move forward from here. Here we complete the picture by exploring the value of expressing our boundary. We call this section our fortress. This is where we protect and defend ourselves from experiences that cause us pain or difficulty. Continue Reading