Diving into the Shadow: An Introduction

Summary

Feminist Survival Project: "Diving into the Shadow—An Introduction"

August 27, 2025 | Hosts: Emily and Amelia Nagoski with Becca and Chris
Podcast summary by [Assistant]

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Overview

This episode introduces the concept of “the shadow” from Jungian psychology and explores why and how “shadow work” can be a valuable practice for feminists—and anyone—seeking to understand the parts of themselves that are hidden, denied, or shamed by themselves and society. The discussion is practical, compassionate, and often witty, balancing lived experience, metaphor, and scientific grounding.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining the Shadow (00:53–02:05)

• Jungian Concepts: Becca explains that "the shadow" comes from Jung—an archetype representing the parts of ourselves incompatible with our self-image or that we've learned to hide because society punishes or rejects them.
  • Quote: “It’s just made up of the parts of yourself that you have been punished or parts that you have witnessed other people being punished for exhibiting. And so you have learned to hide those parts of yourself. You put them in the shadow.” — Amelia (01:50)
• Archetypes: We all have “caretaker,” “leader,” “sage,” etc., and each archetype has its own shadow.

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2. Pleasure-Favorable vs. Pleasure-Adverse Emotions (03:00–05:04)

• Panksepp’s Seven Core Emotions: Amelia outlines emotions aligned with pleasure (lust, curiosity, care, etc.) and those society often teaches us not to show: fear, rage, panic/grief.
  • Quote: “Rage is the emotion that’s about moving toward to destroy. Fear is about running away... Grief is about feeling isolated and trapped.” — Amelia (13:31)
• Cultural Suppression: Especially for girls and AFAB people, rage and grief are shadowed—leading to an internal “closet” filled with denied emotions, referencing Monica's closet from Friends.

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3. Shadow in Daily Life & Relationships (10:25–16:40)

• Mirrors: People who trigger us often reflect those shadow traits.
• Discrimination & the Collective Shadow: Cultural shaming (e.g., of fatness, non-normative behavior) creates a collective shadow, reinforcing exclusion through bullying and reward for conformity.
  • Quote: “When you see a person whose body does not conform... that's your shadow saying, you better not let that be you.” — Amelia (11:46)

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4. Why Do Shadow Work? (13:10–17:43)

• Indicators for Shadow Work:
  1. Stuck in fear, rage, grief
  2. Repetitive patterns, cyclic issues
  3. Persistent sense that “something is wrong”
  4. Worrying you’re “the asshole” or have qualities you dislike in others
• Song Moment: Becca jokingly sings, “Am I autistic or am I an asshole?” as a way of expressing self-doubt about shadowed parts (16:05–16:46).
• Quote: “If you recognize in yourself... ‘I feel like I'm alone and I can never be connected.’ First of all, it's not true. You're listening to our voices. You are therefore connected.” — Amelia (14:06)

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5. When and When Not to Do Shadow Work (18:07–21:41)

• Not for Beginners: If shadow is trauma-based, seek professional help. It's confronting and can be destabilizing without support.
• External vs. Internal Problems: Sometimes what feels like a “shadow” problem is about environment (job, relationship, housing)—not your psyche. Change the concrete first if possible.
  • Quote: “Shadow work will change your internal circumstances... If your problem is made up of external circumstances, change your external circumstances.” — Amelia (20:28)
• Personal Story: Becca shares a detailed story of how leaving a toxic relationship with her husband’s ex-wife improved her life (21:41–25:54), illustrating when the “problem” is outside, not inside.

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6. Conflict, Power, and Shadow (26:10–30:16)

• Resource Struggles: Power struggles are often about control over limited resources (money, time).
• Shenpa: Introduces Pema Chödrön's idea of getting “hooked” (shenpa)—being unable to let go of emotional responses, especially when old wounds get pressed (30:57).

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7. Practical Shadow Work Techniques (33:26–49:57)

A. Dreamwork (Jungian Analysis) (33:26–41:45)

• How To:
  • Before sleep, write a question.
  • Upon waking, note the dream in the present tense, give it a movie title/tagline, interpret all elements as “parts of self.”
  • Focus on emotional responses, ignore dream dictionaries.
  • Nightmares = gifts: “If you can turn toward that scary, bad stuff... you can learn so much if you're willing to.” — Becca (40:34)

B. Parts Work / Internal Family Systems (IFS) (41:49–46:29)

• Methods:
  • Identify/analyze internal “parts” (e.g., anxiety as a woman with flaming hair).
  • Converse with parts compassionately: ask their role, age, what they protect.
  • Recognize protectors/exiles; update them when necessary (e.g., “I’m 48 now, you can trust me”).
  • Note: Some frameworks differ for neurodivergent folks (“the self is autistic”).

C. Reflection on People You Hate/Worship (46:44–51:00)

• Mirroring: People you loathe or idolize often mirror the shadow traits you’ve suppressed (e.g., shaming someone for surrendering a pet).
  • Quote: “The people you hate are mirrors that only show you the parts of yourself that you like the least.” — Amelia (46:29)
• Worship as Distance: Placing people on a pedestal disconnects you from their (and your own) traits.

D. Feedback and Attention (51:11–54:18)

• Projection: When others shame you for “wanting attention,” they’re projecting their own shadows.
  • Quote: “They’re telling you what they want and what they believe they are bad for wanting.” — Amelia (51:46)
• Gendered Socialization: Women are allowed things only if forced upon them; wanting is shadowed.

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8. Memorable Closure: Poetry as Synthesis (55:08–58:15)

• Rebecca Dupas’s Poem “How to Slay a Dragon”:
  • Narrates a dialogue with an internal critic (her shadow), shaped by cultural judgments around age, marriage, and success.
  • Key Message: “Until you let their opinions go, you are the only dragon that needs slaying.”
  • Quote: “Your inner thoughts really are that rude? You need to get to therapy and get them people's opinions up off of you, because I know your life is beautiful, but the question is, do you?” — Rebecca Dupas (57:00)

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Notable Quotes

• “Your shadow is your Monica’s closet of personality traits, life experiences, emotional responses. And for a lot of people, everything they’ve ever experienced that goes in rage is hidden from themselves in their shadow.” — Amelia (05:08)
• “The thing about shadow work is, it's not an easy entry-level self-help tool. It's for when you want to go into the harder places.” — Amelia (18:07; paraphrased)
• “The people you hate the most are just mirrors, reflecting back to you the things you like the least about yourself.” — Amelia (11:27)
• “If you’re worried you’re an asshole... shadow work.” — Becca & Amelia (16:28–16:46)
• “If your shadow is made from trauma, neglect or abuse, you’re going to start with a professional. You’re going to start with a helping professional.” — Amelia (19:08)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:53 – Defining “the shadow” and Jungian background
• 03:00 – Primary process emotions and pleasure valence
• 05:28 – How shadow forms, especially for girls/AFAB
• 10:25 – Relationships as mirrors; collective shadow
• 13:10 – Why to do shadow work
• 18:07 – Risks and cautions of shadow work
• 21:41 – Personal story: When the “problem” is outside
• 26:10 – Power struggles and resource control
• 30:57 – Emotional “hooks” (shenpa)
• 33:26 – Dreamwork: process and example
• 41:49 – Internal Family Systems and "parts" work
• 46:44 – Reflection: People you hate/worship
• 51:11 – Projection and “just wanting attention”
• 55:08 – Poetry: “How to Slay a Dragon” by Rebecca Dupas
• 58:15 – Episode wrap-up

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Tone & Language

Conversational, supportive, peppered with humor and cultural references (Friends, Twilight), candid about struggles. The hosts invite vulnerability, normalize difficult emotions, and resist shame-based narratives.

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Final Note

This episode is a deep but accessible introduction to shadow work, offering both frameworks and practical strategies. It urges listeners to compassionately explore what they most want to deny, with the reminder that true flourishing requires integrating all parts of the self: “You are the only dragon that needs slaying.”

Transcript

[Amelia]

Update on the dizziness. I have in fact gotten a drawer dishwasher and it is, it's so good.

[Becca]

It's so good, right?

[Amelia]

It's so good.

[Becca]

It's so expensive.

[Amelia]

Yeah, so expensive.

[Chris]

But.

[Amelia]

And because we have mid century cabinetry, it took the guys an hour and a half to install it because they literally had to do carpentry.

[Becca]

Oh, hell. See, we had ours built into a kitchen.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

At the time that you were having your kitchen.

[Becca]

When we were building the kitchen.

[Amelia]

Building the kitchen from almost nothing. So, so, so that's, that's the update there.

[Becca]

What we're actually talking about today though is shadow, which is a concept in psychology. And the question is shadow can. It's science.

[Amelia]

And the answer is kind of. So let's start with.

[Becca]

It's Jung, the basic what the fuck is that? It's from Jung, Carl Jung, who was kind of a contemporary of Freud. And the basic what the fuck on it is that there's archetypes, according to Freud, within the collective unconscious or cosmic consciousness or the field.

[Amelia]

It's the thing I call the field.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Becca]

It's. It's where the magic trick takes you. It's the psychological place where the parts of yourself that are incompatible with the story of who you are. So there are these archetypes and one of the archetypes is the shadow, which is actually just a group of things that are.

[Amelia]

It's just made up of the parts of yourself that you have been punished or parts that you have witnessed other people being punished for exhibiting. And so you have learned to hide those parts of yourself. You put them in the shadow.

[Becca]

And the rest of the archetypes are based on the idea that every single human, no matter who you are, no matter where you're from, humans experience universal things such as caretakers. If you're a human and you never experience a caretaker, you will die before you achieve consciousness.

[Chris]

Right, right.

[Becca]

Leadership, connectedness, these are archetypes because we all have experience with these things and every single one of them has a shadow. So for example, if we were talking in a sciency way about it, we'd be talking about the pleasure adverse processes of emotions in your emotional floor plan like you talk about in Come Together.

[Amelia]

Right. So I talk about the sort of seven based on Jak Pangsep's model of the seven primary process emotions. Some of them are pleasure, favorable, where when you're in that emotional state, it's easy for your brain to experience pleasure. Those are lust and seeking or exploration, curiosity and play approach and usually Care. These are. Yeah, well, we can't say they're the approach motivations because rage is also an approach motivation, but it's approach to destroy as opposed to approach to explore, approach to express affection, etc.

[Becca]

Things that we would describe as having positive valence.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Which is why they're the pleasure favorable ones.

[Chris]

Okay. Yeah.

[Amelia]

And then there are the three that in our culture, we are almost universally taught do not belong in what I'm going to call polite society. And those are fear and rage. Those would be familiar to anybody who's ever learned fight or flight. Fight is the rage space in your emotional brain. Fear is the flight space. And the third one, which we talk about even less, and that's panic grief. So panic grief is sort of the flip side of care. It's about being isolated. If you think of an infant who the only thing that, like, they're well fed, they're clean, they're just lonely.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And so they express panic because when you're an infant, your life literally depends on your adult caregiver coming when you need them. And so if you're alone for too long, you start to panic and you make the baby panicking noises. And if that continues for too long, at a certain point, your brain as a baby is going to push you off an emotional cliff into the pit of despair. And that is the grief side of this emotion that Jac Panksep calls panic grief. So this is where depression lives, obviously.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And usually, I mean, I cannot tell you how many people who were raised as girls look at the emotional floor plan. They see the list of emotions they try and think into. Like, what does it feel like? What puts me in that space? What does that space feel like? What pulls me out of that space? And they're like, I think I just don't have a rage space.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah, that was me 20 years ago.

[Amelia]

A lot of AFAB people rage. Is this like Monica's closet full of just unsorted big tubs of. It's not fucking fair.

[Becca]

What does Monica's closet mean?

[Amelia]

Oh, so on Friends, there's an episode. Monica from Friends is a character who's very organized and tidy, but she has this closet. It's like a closet closet of shame. Shame is actually panic grief rather than rage, but where she hides everything that doesn't belong. So your shadow is your Monica's closet of personality traits, life experiences, emotional responses. And for a lot of people, everything they've ever experienced that goes in rage is hidden from themselves in their shadow. Does that make sense?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

So in Jung's framework, it's more about kind of personality traits, characteristics, but it is all about flip sides. So, you know, a leader is an archetype, and the flip side of that would be, you know, a dictator, which is a dick made of potatoes. The flip side of, I don't have them in front of me. Sorry. But it's about flip sides.

[Amelia]

Let's pause and you look him up.

[Becca]

Let's pause and I'll look him up.

[Amelia]

And to be clear, this whole archetype thing, no, it is not science. In the transcending episode, we talked about how science cannot science the field directly.

[Chris]

Yet.

[Amelia]

So this archetype thing is like a model. It's a heuristic. It's a way of thinking about culture and relationships and personality. So don't. Don't take it to science and literal. Take it as a metaphor. Okay, so we have leadership. And. And Dick made a potato.

[Becca]

And.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, the.

[Becca]

And like the sort of the. The liberator, which sometimes we see as the outlaw archetype of somebody who lives, you know, outside of the law, but, like, carving their own path. The. The shadow of that is the criminal, the sage, the part of you that is wise. The shadow of that is the elitist, the snob.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

That hurts me to say, because that's an important shadow for me. Arrogance was a shadow trait that I have wrestled with for a lot of people.

[Amelia]

Arrogance is a shadow trait.

[Becca]

Yes. I'm absolutely not alone, but I do feel personally attacked by Jung.

[Amelia]

So there's like, the light side is the part of you that is wise, and the shadow is the part of you that is a. Know it all, cranky bitch. You can't shut up.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Pedant.

[Amelia]

Pedant.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Becca]

So that's the idea of how personality aspects are represented in Jung's archetypes and how each of them has a shadow, which is a flip side, which is just the version of the same thing that is sort of socially negative.

[Amelia]

Right. And from a neurological point of view, what I talked about before were the primary process emotions. These are like the basic elements that all other emotions are made of. So when you combine the basic. It's like the color wheel. When you combine red and yellow, you get orange. So when you combine rage and fear, one of the responses you can get is defensiveness, which is. If you get into a defensive state, that's a sign that somebody is, like, pushing up against your shadow, and you're like, I don't want to reveal to myself or this other person that something about me is hidden. So I'm gonna stand in front of this wall and guard it. I'm gonna defend this part of myself to make sure nobody sees it. You get defensive when people point out something about you where you're like, no, it's not.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

And that would be. So, for example, part of the mastery aspect of archetypes. The master or a hero, someone who is expert, who can use that for good. And then the shadow version of that is the villain. Someone who responds instead of with generosity, maybe with just protecting itself.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Becca]

Okay. So for me, this Jung approach to shadow work has been really valuable. There are people in my life who I don't get along with. And some of those people have people who have the kinds of personality traits that I am so afraid that I also have. People who are too much like me for me to like. People who bring out in me my worst.

[Amelia]

The things that you dislike most about yourself that you have been taught, some of which you have just been taught are bad and some of which you like just purely as your best self. You notice that trait coming out and.

[Becca]

You'Re like, oh, man, that is.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So one of the ways to notice that there's an opportunity to do shadow work here in my life is there somebody who just the thought of them raises your muscle tension and your blood pressure and your heart rate. Like, you just cannot.

[Becca]

Like, you can't even think about them without getting mad.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

That person is a mirror who reflects back at you the things you like least about yourself.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Amelia]

The things that you have been punished for. So a lot of the ways that discrimination works, even if only punished by yourself.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

But often punished by the external world.

[Amelia]

Fat people world, man. When you have a feeling that happens inside you, when you see a person whose body does not conform with the culturally constructed aspirational ideal, when you feel that feeling, that's your shadow saying, you better not let that be you. Or if it is you, you better be ashamed of yourself and try to put her on a performance that shows people how you are trying hard not to be that thing that's your shadow.

[Chris]

Oh.

[Becca]

And then you get rewarded for it for showing that you're trying hard.

[Amelia]

Trying hard not to be that thing. You often get rewarded for punishing or torturing people who are not part of the mainstream. That's what bullying is, is when you're mean to somebody and everybody around you rewards you with laughter and back pats and.

[Chris]

Yeah, right.

[Amelia]

So there is a sort of collective shadow. And when we attack someone who activates the shadow inside us, like we all together reinforce the idea that.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

That doesn't belong here in the human community.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Which is why laughter and making fun of the things that truly don't belong. That's why comedy is one of the most powerful tools against autocracy.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Is because we're shining a light on the shadow itself.

[Becca]

So really what we're talking about here is why to do shadow work. Why to reflect on how shadow is maybe interfering in your thriving or preventing you from being your best self.

[Amelia]

So if you're spending a lot of time feeling those three pleasure adverse spaces. Fear, grief and rage.

[Becca]

Fear, grief and rage.

[Amelia]

And let me make it clear that rage includes hate. Rage is the emotion that's about moving toward to destroy. Fear is about running away from something, moving away from something to avoid because it can hurt you. And grief is about feeling isolated and trapped. And it is real. It is a normal part of the human experience and it is the most dangerous one to get stuck in. So if you recognize in yourself an experience that's like, oh, I feel isolated and trapped. I feel like I'm alone and I can never be connected. First of all, it's not true. You're listening to our voices. You are therefore connected.

[Chris]

Hi.

[Amelia]

That doesn't make the feeling any less true. And it makes it the most important one to process so that you can transition out of it into a different state so that you can, you know, live joyfully, have access to the pleasure favorable emotions. That's. So that's. If you're experiencing those real chronically, that's a reason to do shadow work. If you have patterns in your life that seem to repeat over and over again. Like if you feel cursed in any way because like, all your relationships end and they all end the same way, there might be a part of you that is recreating it because your shadow, but you can't see it because it's your shadow. You can tell it's a pattern because it repeats in different circumstances. Like it happens at work. And then it recapitulates itself in your personal relationships, for example.

[Chris]

Right.

[Amelia]

If you feel another reason to do shadow work, if it feels like there's something wrong that you can't change and, and you maybe can't even clearly identify it. And we're not talking things that are outside your locus of control. So no individual can change the political landscape that requires all of us. So it, it will probably feel like there is something wrong that you can't change, but sometimes you can't change it. Because it truly is outside your locus of control. But is there a piece of something that's wrong that is within your locus of control? And then the last reason I think why it can be important to be like, oh, it's time for me to do. To go and explore the parts of myself that I have been shamed and judged for is if you have. And this is a feeling we have had, the reason it's on the list is because it is a thing.

[Becca]

Am I autistic or am I an autistic?

[Amelia]

Literally wrote a song about it.

[Becca]

Divergent or justice, introverted you are. Am I sensitive or just spectrumy? How do we explain what my weirdness is? Am I autistic or am I an asshole?

[Amelia]

If you're worried you're an asshole, okay.

[Becca]

That's the thing.

[Amelia]

Or anything that you do not wish to be. I'm worried I might be exactly the thing I don't want to be in the world.

[Becca]

By the way, the answer to the question in the song is, por que no los dos?

[Amelia]

Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes, asshole.

[Becca]

Why not both?

[Amelia]

Every day? Every second. Autistic.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Okay.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So. Okay, wait.

[Becca]

So reasons to do shadow work where you're experiencing fear, grief and rage.

[Amelia]

You're stuck in the pleasure adverse feelings, and you need to move through them.

[Becca]

That prevent you from living with joyful, thriving abundance.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Being stronger than the fire. Like, if the fire is consuming you, shadow work can help you.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Number two was chronic patterns that you recognize of, like, problems that are. That seem to be, like, repeated, like, in a variety of circumstances.

[Amelia]

How could it possibly be that my romantic partner and my boss are the same kind of dickhead? For example.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Becca]

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the problem. So three was you felt like there's something wrong that you can't change.

[Amelia]

Yep.

[Becca]

And the fourth was that you worry you might be the asshole or something.

[Amelia]

Some other thing that you're worried that you truly do not want to be that. And you're worried that maybe you were racist.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

And a Reddit thread answers you.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

You're maybe the asshole.

[Amelia]

I'm afraid I did something that was a racism. What do I do? Shadow work. Yeah, I'm afraid maybe I did a fat phobia. What do I do? Shadow work.

[Chris]

Shadow work. Yeah.

[Amelia]

There are times when not to. Like, this is. We're not talking about beginner stuff with shadow work. We have actually delayed making this episode for a long time.

[Becca]

A long time.

[Amelia]

We've been talking about it.

[Becca]

I talked about it for, like, Eight weeks on, when I did Lives, I talked about it. Oh, yeah, we're making this shadow episode. And it's August now.

[Amelia]

And the reason it took so long, well, there's any number of reasons why it took so long. Maybe our shadows were stopping.

[Becca]

Lots of reasons. But mine weren't. I texted every week, shadow FSP this week. And you were like, I migraine. And you were like, not today.

[Amelia]

But I mean, I have been getting a lot of migraines lately. So if your shadow is made from trauma, neglect or abuse, but this idea appeals to you of turning toward the dark and difficult places, you're going to start with a professional. You're going to start with a helping professional.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Rather than go there alone.

[Becca]

And if you suspect, ooh, maybe this shadow is made from trauma, neglect or abuse, don't start alone. Get help before you start. Because, yo, shadow work is hard. It's confronting.

[Amelia]

It's very confronting. I mean, by definition.

[Becca]

I mean, that's the point.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amelia]

If another reason when maybe shadow work is not the right approach. If the problem you're trying to solve, like if you feel stuck or trapped in a situation, if that problem exists literally in the physical world and can be changed by changing your place in the physical world, changing your external circumstances, shadow work will change your internal circumstances, which will in turn change how you interact with the world and thus change your external circumstances. But it changes your internal circumstances. If your problem is made up of your external circumstances. Change your external circumstances. I'm not saying this is easy, but I'm saying it is a necessary part of the process. If you're in a job that is dragging you under, I know this is easier said than done, but find a different job. Leave that job. If you're in a relationship that is just dragging you under, shadow work can help you, but you gotta leave the relationship. You gotta let go of the idea that if I don't make this relationship work, then I am a failure because this relationship failed. And I was taught my whole life that making relationships work is how I can measure whether or not I'm a good person.

[Chris]

Right, Right.

[Amelia]

Like letting go of that, that's shadow letting go of that and jumping into the abyss of the unknown of being not in that relationship anymore, you gotta leave the relationship. If it's. If you're a housing situation, and I mean, this might be the hardest of all to change potentially, if you're a housing situation, you feel trapped and isolated and, and it's dragging you under, you gotta change your housing situation. That is not simple. It is not easy. And shadow work can help, but it will only. Shadow work can only be like a. Like a support until you actually change your life circumstances. I just feel like it's important to say, like, not all problems are caused by.

[Becca]

I have a concrete example to demonstrate how true this is. I wrote the foreword to a book called Stepmom Made Easy. It's coming out in the fall. And if you're interested in having a relationship with someone who has kids, I really genuinely recommend this book. It's great. And I wrote the forward and it made me confront my own step parenting. And one of the most difficult things potentially in step parenting is dealing with the former partner. And my husband's former wife has a lot of things in common with me. He's got a type. You know, we're both strong personalities. We're both like ferocious fighters for the things we care about. And she fought ferociously against me. She told her kids lies about me. She let me give you the one final act, her one final act in my life, that when Malin retired from teaching and agreed to move with me closer to my job, because we had spent our entire relationship so far living where his kids lived because they went to school and his youngest is going away to college. And we are now free to go wherever we want because the kids are scattered and they'll have to come to us no matter where we are. And Malan, my husband, had had a dozen surgeries at that point and was living with chronic pain. And I had been fighting for him to retire for a couple of years already. And he finally agreed one year before he maxed out his retirement, 29 years. And he was going to get a lot less money from his pension because of that one year. And by law, because he had been married to his former wife while he was a teacher, by law, she was entitled to a certain percentage of his retirement. So when she heard that he was retiring early, she called to say, you can't retire early. It's irresponsible not to max out your pension. You know, think of the children. The children are going to college. They're grown. He's paying for their college. And. But she called because what's happening, I believe, is that she's not going to get her maximum portion of the pension. And she called to say, you can't retire. It's irresponsible. Whereas I had been encouraging to retire because he was living with chronic pain, chronic illness, and it was best for him. And she was fighting for her side. And I was fighting for my side. And that's the kind of shit she would do all the time. And after that day, we moved away and we don't have to talk to her ever again. My life got so much better after that day. I had so much less stress. I had so much less chronic rage. And it's because the difficulty was removed. She was actually bad, doing terrible things and making everything hard. And when that relationship ended, when I no longer had to have that relationship in my life, I genuinely felt better.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Every day. I think. I think that I don't know how you feel about including a personal story like that, but it's a really good example.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

That's why it might be worth including. Even though I know.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

I mean, I really don't want to drag my kids into anything, my step kids into anything like personal. But I think they're. They're adults.

[Amelia]

They are full adults.

[Becca]

They're in their late 20s and early 30s. I think they know. I think they must have perceived by now.

[Amelia]

Yeah.

[Becca]

That dynamic they must have understood.

[Amelia]

So I want to dig into like what the dynamics are that made that what it was so that it is generalizable. So it is the case that there are people who live contrary to your values.

[Chris]

Right.

[Amelia]

And when they fight for their values, you will experience it as it will. It will activate your shadow because they're living contrary to what you consider to be the good. Power is controlling access to resources in which someone else has a vested interest. This was the definition of a power struggle.

[Chris]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amelia]

Who controls access to what?

[Chris]

Yes.

[Amelia]

Time is the number one most limited resource. It's the only resource that once it is gone, you will never get any more back. So a lot of conflict in relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, personal relationships is about how people spend their time. Because when you spend time in one place and not in another, there is no. But I will go back and spend that time a different way. Another, like you just. It's gone. There's only 24 hours in a day, so. But money is another one of those resources.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Amelia]

And Malan was in a position where he controlled access to the money.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Amelia]

And let's.

[Becca]

She works full time, she has her own full ass income and he'd been.

[Chris]

Paying.

[Becca]

Almost his entire teacher's salary in child support forever.

[Amelia]

It was an enormously generous situation for her though, whether or not she perceived it that way.

[Becca]

Right.

[Amelia]

So. But I want to indicate that like what's happening here is that there's people whose values are organized differently from yours and you are struggling over controlling access to a pretty limited resource.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And it's also, like, we can add in the complexity of the time because you wanted to spend time with your husband. She did not, though. I mean, that's arguable, but. But, like, your time with him matters.

[Becca]

She also, like, claimed they were still married in the eyes of God. And the week before our wedding was on the phone arrang the kids to visit for our wedding and said on the phone in front of the kids, amelia is the reason they broke up.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

We had to sit them down and have a conversation where Melon so graciously sat down and said, amelia's not why your mom and I broke up. We did that all by ourselves. It was, like, the most smart and sensitive and emotionally intelligent.

[Amelia]

Very good human being.

[Becca]

He's so good. He's a good human being.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

So, like, when I say spending time with.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Okay. Anyway, just another example of just how controlling. That was one of the ones she told about me to the kids.

[Amelia]

You are. You became a choral conductor. You wanted to be a leader.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

You like having control?

[Becca]

I love control. Yes, please. All the control and the having to keep my mouth shut in front of the kids and not bad mouth. I like. Malin was, don't say the bad things in front of the kids. And I was like, I respect that you have made that choice, and that's what you want. And I agree. I believe it's the right thing to do.

[Amelia]

But, God, it was so hard to do not to defend yourself, because she's saying that you are things that live in your shadow. You're like, I have worked so hard all my life not to be exactly the things that you are saying.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Let me tell these children, whom I love like a mama bear.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

That I am not the things that I have worked hard all my goddamn life not to be.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

But I. I reframed it as. What the mama bear does to protect them is keep this inside. I take this hit to save them from it. That made it much easier.

[Amelia]

Let's. Let's offer a coping strategy.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Amelia]

Taking this hit, like, there is gonna be injury. There is gonna be emotional hurt. And I wanna, like, grab the phrase, take this inside and say, and then allow it to move through me.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Allowing it to move through me came later with the later.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Cause letting this stuff go is really hard. So.

[Becca]

But it's also the. The real problem was that it was every week.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

From my whole life until the youngest.

[Amelia]

Your whole adult life?

[Becca]

Yes, my whole adult life until the youngest Went to college.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So PEMA Children teaches about the concept of shunpa, which is the feeling of being hooked. Hooked. Emotionally you get like sucked into a dynamic where you can not let it go.

[Chris]

Yeah. It's itch.

[Amelia]

I gotta scratch it. Both of us are. Both of us are quite prone to shenpa. I would say you even more than me.

[Chris]

Oh yeah.

[Becca]

100% I agree. Yes.

[Amelia]

Like even once a problem has been solved, you could you perseverate in your feeling of hook.

[Becca]

I do. Perseveration is a thing that I do.

[Amelia]

You continue to be angry about the fact that the problem existed in the first place.

[Becca]

That's not always true.

[Amelia]

That's not always true.

[Becca]

But it is.

[Amelia]

It's more true than Look.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

I'm working on.

[Amelia]

Totally. And that's the thing is like in those instances, that's an opportunity for shadow work.

[Becca]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amelia]

So let's talk about how.

[Becca]

How to specifically, what is shadow work practically?

[Amelia]

I think if there's anyone listening who wasn't. While we were talking about that, who wasn't thinking about somebody in their life who just like brings it out in like the. Just like the. You're so lucky. So lucky. You're so lucky not to have anyone.

[Becca]

Like that in your life.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Because I. I know you are thinking of somebody who you might have had to work with at a job that you otherwise really liked.

[Amelia]

Three people.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amelia]

Those people are not gonna listen. How does I can say their names? Pam, Maureen, and to the lesser extent, less. I loved that job in so many ways, but the motherfucking boomers could not cope with me. And part of that was because I, you know, all conflicts take two people. I am not saying I didn't have a role in that dysfunction, but they brought out the absolute fucking worst in me.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

They made me so emotional that I was unable to function professionally.

[Becca]

You had to leave that job because of them?

[Amelia]

Well, no, I had to. I would have to leave meetings.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Like I just like. Or I'd have to like stop participating in a meeting. And it certainly did not help in the. Whether or not I stayed anyway. So.

[Becca]

How to dreamwork. Specific practical tips for.

[Amelia]

So we want to talk about how to do. So we're talking about containers, techniques, strategies for move. Because what you're going to have to do is move toward the scary parts that live inside you.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

In a context where you are actually safe because the scary parts inside you cannot actually hurt you.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

And I'm going to start with Jung. Jung did dream analysis and I had A Jungian flavored psychologist when I was in therapy during my doctoral program. And she taught me this particular strategy for dream analysis. Before you go to bed, you write down a question. And when you wake up from a dream and you remember the dream, you write down everything in the dream that happened. And then you give the dream a title as if it were a movie. And maybe like a tagline as if it were a movie. And then go back and think about what's in the dream, bearing in mind the idea that everything in the dream is you. Dreams come from your own electrical and chemical brain changes. During REM sleep, literally everything is made of you and inside you. Like, it's possible that sometimes you have a dream that's just like a memory of like whatever happened of in a, in a real thing or, you know, and even there's real people who, you know in your dream, but they represent a part of you.

[Chris]

Right.

[Becca]

Just like my husband's ex wife represents a shadow part of me. When my husband's in a dream, it represents a very good, wise part of me.

[Amelia]

Controlling, selfish. Yeah, okay.

[Becca]

Thanks for being specific. The building is usually a metaphor for the self. So one time I had a dream about a big tall tower with a hole that went straight down the middle through all of the floors. That night I had asked my, my, I had asked my dreams, hey, is this digestive distress I'm having stress induced or is it due to a, you know, structural problem within my body? And I had this dream with this building with a hole in the middle. And like, could it be more easy to interpret of myself with a, with a, an open tract that was damaged and a mess? And yeah, it turned out I had, I had structural, diagnosable medical problems in my digestive system. Anyway, and so bearing in mind that everything in the dream is you, bearing in mind that archetypes represent a collective unconscious. So you can kind of rely not necessarily on a book that tells you what a thing represents. That really isn't the way it works.

[Amelia]

That really isn't the way it works.

[Becca]

But things do show up in patterns. A lot of people have dreams about a president. Maybe not like nowadays presidents represent something different than they did, but like a leader, right? Someone who represents a wise leader person, a part of you that is wise, maybe so. And so you've got these archetypes potentially. So these are the three ways to look at the stuff in your dream. Everything is you. Things are represented according to the collective unconscious, and that is archetypes, but also your perception of those things.

[Chris]

Right.

[Becca]

Makes sense.

[Amelia]

I need an example of a.

[Becca]

Well, the president was an example of an archetype.

[Chris]

Right.

[Amelia]

And your perception of the building with a hole that went all the way through it, and there was obvious, like.

[Becca]

Damage and broken buildings are representations of the cells.

[Amelia]

So that's an archetype. And your strong emotional response to what was happening down there in the hole was like, oh, shit is broken.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Oh, no.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Oh, no. Everything's wrong. Why are we living in a building like this? We've got to fix it.

[Amelia]

There you go.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

And then I woke up in the morning and looked at the question I had asked and was like, I don't even need to write this dream down.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Becca]

So everything is you. And also, are there any books that.

[Amelia]

A person could turn to if they want to know more about how to use Jungian dream analysis?

[Becca]

I never got a book. I don't know anything about the books. All I know is I use this process and my dreams tell me very. They're so literal and helpful. It is fantastic. And I started with the Ask a question. Describe the dream. When you write down the dream, you write it in the first person. I am running down an infinite hallway. There's something chasing me. You know, I turn into a room. Like, whatever it is, you write it down in the present tense.

[Amelia]

I turn into animal dogs in particular pretty often. Do you?

[Chris]

Interesting.

[Amelia]

So I can actually run.

[Chris]

Cool.

[Becca]

Oh, that's sad.

[Amelia]

Well, anyway.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

So doing the whole, like, writing down the dream in the first person, giving it a title as if it were a movie, giving it a tagline as if it were a movie, and seeing how those things answer the question that you asked. That's a very structured procedure that I don't really do anymore now. I often don't have to write it down anymore. I can just wake up and be like, what was that dream? And think it through again. And I'm so practiced at this that, like, the connections come to me without having to go through this process. But that's how I started. And then I learned how to approach art in the same way and to analyze works of art according to this. Like, everything is you, everything is the self, and all the people and the places are representations of parts of the self, which makes analyzing art fascinating and amazing. But anyway, that's. That's a. That's a very practical, concrete process for starting shadow work is when. When the dream is scary, it has stuff in it that you don't like. And you're like, no, I don't have that in me. And I think this is one of the reasons people hate nightmares.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Is because they. They show them this bad, scary stuff inside of them. But, like, we all just have bad, scary stuff inside of us. Like, it's just true.

[Amelia]

One of the most important moments when I was like, I could not be doing this burnout work by myself. It really has to come with you. Was when we were presenting at, you know, a big social media company, one.

[Becca]

Of the big tech companies.

[Amelia]

Yeah. And somebody. We were talking about sleep because I cannot stop talking about sleep. And someone raised their hand at the end and is like, but what if. What. What about nightmares? And your instantaneous response.

[Becca]

What a gift.

[Amelia]

What a gift.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

If you can turn toward.

[Amelia]

And it was this, like, enormous emotional reframe.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

If you can turn toward that scary, bad stuff. And instead of being like, I don't have that.

[Amelia]

That's not good.

[Becca]

I'm gonna. But being like, oh, my God, I contain multitudes. Like, that's a. You can learn so much if you're willing to. I mean, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable.

[Amelia]

And for that person, they come to a stress workshop at their job.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And they're willing to raise their hand and ask.

[Becca]

Having nightmares.

[Amelia]

Nightmares.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Like, amazing.

[Chris]

So. Yeah. Yeah.

[Amelia]

Whereas I would have given a. Like, dreams are random. You did give a dream sensory. I did give that answer.

[Becca]

And then I grabbed the microphone and was like, what a gift.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And I was like, man, I gotta get better at my job. No.

[Becca]

The reason we do it together is because you. You, art and science, and we both have. But I gave the answer she needed.

[Amelia]

Benefited much more from your answer than from my. Like, it's a, like, multi sensory, deep, profound hallucination generated from random firing in your brain during rem. Right.

[Becca]

You allowed her to be neutral. And I was like, or maybe it could be the thing that makes the best of our life so much better.

[Amelia]

Okay. So dream work is one way to.

[Becca]

Do shadow work, a practical thing you can do.

[Amelia]

Another one is a therapeutic intervention. And I actually am gonna mostly be like, read no bad parts by Richard Schwartz. This is internal family systems work, or parts work is how a lot of people talk about it, where every internal experience you have is a part of you and your emotional job. It happens all in your imagination. You unblend. You get some observational distance from that part and allow it in your imagination to be personified as something. So, for example, my anxiety is personified as a woman whose hair is made of fire, and she's in a panicked emotional state. So I take a step back so the anxiety is actually happening in my body when this happens. But I can take one step back and witness my anxiety and allow it to become personified in my mind. And she's running around with her hair is literally fire. And what she wants me to do is put out the fire. But what she needs me to do is find a way to allow her to be calm. Because her natural state, the reason she exists, is for her hair to be on fire. Because it is sometimes the case that there's something badly wrong. But her hair being on fire is not the thing that's badly wrong. She can live forever that way. So there are different kinds of parts that you're going to meet. My anxiety is a protector. Usually your protectors are there to protect your exiles. And both your protectors and your exiles may be part of your shadow. Your exiles are usually very young parts. They are the parts that have been the most badly injured. And your protectors are there to protect the exiles from your day to day life. They're there to make sure you don't get fucking triggered.

[Becca]

I'm just gonna add here that dreamwork is a lot like parts work, except this kind of established recurring cast of characters is inherent to parts work. And dreamwork is not like that. It's whatever happens to you.

[Amelia]

Not everybody has a recurring cast of characters. Like the way I have developed relationships with my anxiety and my depression and my suicidal thoughts. Like, my depression is my blueberry pie. My suicidal thoughts are the zombie leprechaun I've talked about before.

[Chris]

Yeah, I don't have any of that.

[Amelia]

I have recurring. I have built relationships with parts of myself that seem to be kind of sort of permanent. Yeah, there's actually been. I've listened to a podcast about IFS and autism, and some allistic ifs practitioners are like, meet the autistic part of yourself. And autistic IFS practitioners were like, nope. So when you create distance, when you unblend from your parts, you are yourself with a capital S. This is you are self, right?

[Chris]

Oh, I see. Yes, yes, yes.

[Amelia]

And the self is autistic. So I'm glad that that conversation sort of has happened and it's spreading more and more among the IFS practitioner community that like when you have an autistic client, the self is autistic. It is not a part. Yeah, the way you relate to your parts or like, the nature of your parts may be different because yourself is autistic. But like, for example, I can. I can do ifs work for an hour and a half at a time. Literally, just like lying in bed, having emotional experiences, crying sometimes sobbing hard, just having a relation, turning with kindness and compassion and curiosity toward my own parts. So you talk to your parts and you ask questions like, what do you, what is your job? What is your role here? Why are you here? How old do you think I am? I've had parts that think I'm in the fourth grade and I have the wonderful opportunity of updating them that I am 48 years old. I made it deep into adulthood. I got three academic degrees, I wrote a whole bunch of books. I married somebody amazing like, look, I did it and therefore you can trust me part to be able to cope with this. And you can go on vacation. And the parts are usually so exhausted from working so hard to solve a problem that hasn't existed since I was nine.

[Chris]

Right.

[Becca]

The part of you that smacked me in the face with a baseball bat, which happened in the fourth grade, but.

[Amelia]

I didn't like, there's no part. Anyway, we've. Yeah, anyway, like I'm not going to be able to give you a full rundown of how to do ifs. You're going to need to read a book or talk with a professional about it. Okay. So another way to do shadow work is just think about people you either hate or worship. And I wanted to. And we've already talked a lot about like how the people you hate are mirrors that only show you the parts of yourself that you like the least. And learning to turn toward those parts with kindness and compassion, recognizing that like all traits live inside everyone. And just because you long to be universally kind and compassionate, non judgmental, doesn't mean you always will be. Very, very quick example on We Rate Dogs. Recently, Matt, who's the guy who runs We Rate Dogs, talked about a post from a Humane Society volunteer who found a Chihuahua in a crate left on the side of the road, a suburban road with a sidewalk dog in a crate with a bag of like food and toys and everything just left there. And a lot of people were like, can you believe someone would just leave their dog there? And they believe they're acting from like their righteousness about protecting animal welfare. And Matt, being truly excellent human being, said, I absolutely can believe somebody would do this. We offer no support for people who are in a dire situation and can no longer provide their animals the home they need. And this person left this dog in a place where there's a lot of traffic. They're going to be found very soon and they left everything that dog needs to thrive. The dog was taken immediately to a shelter, was found to have a lot of very expensive medical needs. And how about instead of, I can't believe it. I am so sad that this person was in a situation where they could not continue to provide the home their beloved pet needed, and this was the only way they had to get their dog to a better. A place where someone could provide the help that they needed. How about the fact that so many people reacted with. Can you believe it? Is exactly the kind of shaming that prevents someone from surrendering their pet to a shelter where if you do take.

[Becca]

Your pet who needs a lot of medical care, a lot of times there are programs available that will help support paying.

[Amelia]

Yeah. Which people don't know about. And they don't know that the people who work at the shelter are going to have compassion for your situation because they see it multiple times every single fucking day. They know how hard it is to surrender a pet.

[Chris]

Oh, my God.

[Becca]

Thunder and the safest, best thing to do for a pet is to keep it in the home where it is already loved.

[Amelia]

Yes.

[Becca]

So that's why there are programs available just to help you meet medical needs.

[Amelia]

To help you learn how to deal with behavioral issues.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

But the fact that people react with. They think it's their sense of justice, but it's actually their fear that they might ever find themselves in a position where they're unable to continue caring for those they love.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Another reason why people are so afraid of unhoused people on the street.

[Amelia]

Absolutely.

[Becca]

Another reason that conservative senators are so afraid of gay men. That was a very specific example.

[Amelia]

But it's also. It's also people you worship. So this is. It sounds like worship means a good thing, but worship means you put them on a pedestal. It means you've created distance between yourself and that person. So men who put women on a pedestal are creating distance between themselves and the feminine parts of themselves, for which they have short, surely been punished since very early in their lives. So when you meet a man who says he worships women, that's a giant waving, flashing red flag.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And if you have someone you worship, chances are you're creating distance between yourself and some trait that you have been punished for.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Okay. So that's three strategies. I would say. One more. And this is the thing that's, like, very true for me.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

So when you express your opinion in your area of expertise, say you're at your job, and there's something that arises that is like your Immediate area.

[Becca]

Oh, I can help with this.

[Amelia]

And you express your opinion and they say you just want attention. You just want to be right. You just want. You just want the money, you just want to. You just want to contradict. You just want to be a naysayer. You just want to stand out. You just want to make waves. Whatever they say, they're telling you what they want.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

They're telling you what they want and what they believe they are bad for wanting. If you say, I think what's happening right now is you're telling me what you want and what you believe you are bad for wanting. That's not going to get you anywhere that you want to go.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Becca]

Can I say that has been a large lesson for me to learn.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Ditto. The reason that is because.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Because I. And I think it's the autism. I have so often been confronted with the. You just want the attention. You're just doing this for the attention.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

Like, especially in my, like in the ways that I have been successful as a sex educator, it has gotten me attention.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And like I don't want the attention. I don't want it. I want to teach people to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. The way I can do that at the largest possible scale is to have people's attention. Alas.

[Becca]

But if it were your choice, you'd never be perceived by anyone.

[Amelia]

People would just find the book spontaneously and never know my name and just be helped by the books I wrote and like never have. Never pay attention to me. I don't want. But so many people long for the attention that I. Yeah.

[Becca]

And it's a common thing that people shame others. We say all the time for like, especially like adolescent girls, they just want attention. Even for young children, they just need attention. They just want attention. As though the need for attention isn't a basic human need that we should all meet if we are caregivers of that person, but because we've been shamed ourselves for the idea that we just want attention.

[Amelia]

We just want the attention.

[Becca]

We shame 3 year olds for crying because they want attention.

[Chris]

Yeah. Go.

[Amelia]

So in the Twilight books, Bella doesn't want a big wedding, but her future sister in law requires her to have a big wedding where she has a beautiful dress and there's all these people and all these decorations and she gets all this attention and she's a pretty fucking princess, right?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

And she likes it. But she was, because she's an archetype, she is not allowed to want it. She is only allowed to like it if it is forced on her.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Amelia]

When you are raised as a girl, you are taught that you're not allowed to want things and you're only allowed to like the things that you shadow wanted if somebody forces you to take them. So I want to close not with us, but I'm going to ask Rich. We'll put a link in the.

[Becca]

In the.

[Amelia]

In the episode description to an episode to. To. To YouTube short that's just a couple of minutes long. We'll play the audio of it. You can. This is a poet, Rebecca Dupas. I think D U p A S maybe Dupas. I don't. I don't know which pronunciation it is, but she's spectacular. And do you want to click the link and listen to it so you know what it's about? Yeah, just a couple minutes.

[Rebecca Dupas]

She said, oh, how long you been doing poetry? I said, many years. More than 20. But when I caught her expression, my smile started to fade. She said, more than two decades. And you still performing around the way. I at least thought you'd been on Broadway or a national stage. My nostrils flared. I shifted in my seat. I adjusted my glasses. I said, what you say to me? She said, I'm just saying more than 20 years should probably bring you fame. I said, well, the fact that I'm still in demand leaves me amazed. I'm grateful. I looked at Sis again. There was no scales, no sharp talons, but it was a little smoke on her tongue. She was hateful. She said, how old are you? I took a long look around the room. I was hinting at Sis to go on and move. I was trying not to be rude. I said, I'm in my early 40s. She said, True, I don't see no ring. I said, no, baby girl, not yet. She said, oh, so you ain't meet nobody who wanted to take you off the market? I said, well, of the few men that I dated, there was one I thought I would be with for life. But it didn't work out that way. She said, mm, another independent woman who can't find her Mr. Right. I said, sis, you wanna fight? But she laughed at my offense. Instead of falling back, she.

[Amelia]

She leaned in.

[Rebecca Dupas]

She said, you sitting here like you ain't got no friends. At least tell me you got some kids. I said, I don't have no time for this. My life is beautiful the way that it is. She said, oh, you one of them? I said, one of who? Friends. She said, you the type to meet a grim reality with toxic positivity you sitting there like you never wanted to be mommy or wifey. I said, you're talking to a woman who has a radical acceptance for whatever God has for me. I said, honestly, I'm at peace. And I remembered I didn't even have to be in this woman's vicinity. I started to gather my things up quickly. I said, for the record, I didn't enjoy your company, but since you forced yourself upon me, the least you can do is tell me your name. Sis. Gon say same. I said, same as what, Girl, stop playing. She said, same as the woman that I'm talking to. Boo. She said, sis, I'm you. I'm the dark corners of your brain. I give voice to what your subconscious be saying. She said, you met a lot of hurt people who wanted you to feel the same. You used to ignore it, but now, in the quiet corners of your day, you start to regurgitate all of the negative things they used to throw your way. She said, look around, sis. I'm not even here. But I'm glad that you can hear. Your inner thoughts really are that rude? You need to get to therapy and get them people's opinions up off of you, because I know your life is beautiful, but the question is, do you? She said, right now. Now you sounding like your own biggest hater. And I wanted you to know that until you let their opinions go, you are the only dragon that needs slaying. Thank y'.

[Chris]

All.

[Amelia]

The title of the poem is how to Slay a Dragon. And it says in a couple of minutes what it took us an hour to describe, which is what poetry is for.

[Becca]

That's what poetry's for.

[Amelia]

And with that, we did it. We finally recorded the Shadow episode, just.

[Becca]

Two, two and a half months later.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Amelia]

All right, cue the ukulele.

[Becca]

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the problem.