Facing the Shadow.
If you follow Jung’s work, there are numerous lectures on Empaths and how they come to be and the process by which they awaken, and how they confront the architects of their creation. Their Shadow.
Empaths are created in chaotic environments. That chaos can be emotional, environmental, financial, familial, or All-of-the-above!
Empaths born into environments with only one of those challenges are already facing a coping setback in life. The worst case scenario, the poker ‘sympathy hand’, is when the Empath is born with something that initiates them, AT BIRTH.
Crossfire Hurricane. What do you get when abject poverty marries hyper conservative Catholicism, and they have a colicky baby? “Jumpin Jack Flash, howling at his ma in the driving rain!!”
There was a documentary featuring an orphanage in an Eastern European country. They entered the room where the infants were held. It was uncomfortably silent. The filmmaker asked, “why aren’t any of them crying?” The nurse replied, “because they know nobody is coming.”
It took a confession to reveal the truth about my earliest days. I’ve talked to people who had colicky babies. Saints would struggle. I knew the typical duration of this ailment. I knew the guilt it must have caused to not be able to endure the crying. Especially if you’ve been carrying your own childhood traumas, are abjectly poor, already have a child, and are struggling. So what can you do? You put the colicky baby in a room by itself and you shut the door to silence its cries. I asked, “that was about 6 weeks?” The truth was soul draining. “No. 6 months.”
I’ve tried to think of words, of various ways to articulate what it must feel like to be that baby from 0-6 months. As Jung has said, for an Empath to heal, to become whole, they must face the shadow of their initiation. Below is the best explanation I could come up with. It came to me walking home. I didn’t make it. I was on my hands and knees on the banks of the Ohio River, at the public landing in Cincinnati, flooding it with tears, begging for it to end. And it did. It flooded the river and sent the tears flowing away to allow me to start rebuilding.
Empath Initiation at Birth
Imagine if you will you are awaken by a jump scare of epic proportions. When you awaken, you are in a place so fantastic and inexplicable it causes fear enough to make you cry. So much, your eyes are blurring your vision. There is nobody around and you begin to call out.
Inside you notice a pain you’ve never felt which is increasing quickly adding to that fear. A pain that alarms you as it feels like it could end your life so you start calling for help. The lack of reply and increase in pain compound. Panic sets in and the cries turn to pleas. The lack of response creates thoughts of guilt. There must have been an offense. And so then the apologies come next. Desperate apologies.
A figure becomes present with a soft light, speaking, but you don’t understand. You can sense and feel, but do not you comprehend the sounds. It seems they are asking if you want the pain to stop. Yes, yes, please make it stop. Even if it means death, they ask? Yes, yes. Fine. Even that, please just make it stop. And for that one moment, there is relief, this will end. Finally.
The figure looks at you sympathetically, turns, then vanishes, the pain returns, and you scream, Noooo! As you explode in pain and evolutionary despair, the apologies start again, and the begging begins again too. Imagine facing that emotional trauma now. On purpose. To release it.
The Rebuilding.
The rebuilding started years ago. Knocked down many times. But it continues and will never stop. Empath at birth. How do I know I will succeed? Because that’s all I’ve ever done. That’s why there is now the Circuitdelic Laboratory.
Poverty. Two narcissists. 28 years in corporate America. 5 broken bones. 40 stitches. Countless surgeries. Numerous brutal, random attacks requiring hospitalization. None of that killed me. This won’t either.
The other side is recognition. Part of the work that was done was to face the hurt I myself caused to others who were also just looking to be loved. Empaths have deep memories. The truth is known. The truth is felt. The pain I caused you is returned back to me. It is my obligation to be whole. I fulfilled it. I am sorry for the hurt I caused you. You loved me. I know.
YouTube Video which came to my feed. Shadow Work is Dangerous.
