One of the real keys is the central importance of relationship and relatedness when working with this material. So much of my early understanding and approach to the psyche and shadow was shaped by a kind of “transcend and include” narrative – a sense that the task was to metabolize and integrate the unconscious so as to “clear the way” for realization.

While I believe there were some useful pointers there, I have come to feel that framing also subtly perpetuated a split – a hierarchical relationship between the conscious, spiritually-oriented self and the messy, “less evolved” unconscious. A setup in which we were always trying to transform the material rather than entering into a genuine I-Thou relationship with it.

What has been so profound is discovering the power of shifting into a stance of open, receptive curiosity and care. To approach the figures, feelings and energies of the unconscious as relational presences, as “you”s to be met and engaged rather than just obstacles to awakening. To allow them to surprise and transform us as much as the other way around.

There is something about the quality of our listening and attunement – bowing to the autonomy and intelligence of what wants to come through, honoring it as an expression of the sacred even if it is disturbing or foreign to our conscious agendas. This calls us to continually examine the subtle ways we “use” psychological work and inner practices for egoic and spiritual aims.

In my experience, it is to the degree that we enter the unconscious in a spirit of humility, patience and genuine relationality that its healing and revelatory potential unfolds. The task is not so much to conquer or even befriend the shadow, but to discover the intimacy that is already here, the vast holding in which “light” and “dark” are co-arising and mutually illuminating one another. To allow ourselves to be re-parented, re-worlded by what has been kept out of the story.

Of course, this is incredibly tender and vulnerable work, and I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting a bypassing of discernment or healthy boundaries. If anything, I feel that a grounded embodiment and capacity for strong containment and discernment are even more essential when opening to the depths.

But within that container, within that safe-enough holding, there is a profound alchemy that can happen when we soften the internal “subject-object” split. When the unconscious is no longer just something to be integrated, but a vast Other with whom we are in ongoing, unfolding dialogue. It is here that we can begin to discover the ways in which the unconscious is not only a repository of splits and traumas, but the infinite creative womb of the Mystery itself.