The white woman and the spiritual ick

Did you notice how I skipped posting last week? I really avoided writing this.

“I think it’s time you allow your spiritual self to show up in your work.” Cringe. Ack. Please, for the love of patchuli, NO! It was a recommendation from my beloved life coach, Jeanna Giraldi. She seems to have an uncanny ability to push me toward the next ledge in my life where I need to leap.

Jeanna has been by my side since Perfectly Queer was only four chapters and a dream in my heart. She’s the one who propelled me to submit my book proposal to Hay House, even after every cell of my brain screamed “This doesn’t feel like something we can do!” and every cockle of my heart yelled back, “Shut up, brain! What do you know?!”

(My inner voices don’t give a rat’s keister about using “polite words” with each other.)

It’s been almost a year since Jeanna made that request for me to share more of myself. And it’s no surprise that the most prominent shadow that surfaced when I started Nancy Levin’s workbook Embrace Your Shadow to Find Your Light was that of my spiritual connection.

The push-pull of spirituality in my life

Through the shadow exploration process, I’ve unearthed so much more than I expected about why I have mostly kept my spirituality to myself. My memory took me back to years ago when I shared a blog titled “Did God Make Me This Way?” It was about my experience that being gay was how I was created and that it did not put me in opposition to my creator.

Preschool Jillian with her “Jesus Loves Me” crown… no asterisk or condition.

After my book, that blog was the second most vulnerable piece I had put out into the world. It’s one that resulted in some social media “unfollows” from Christians in my life who perhaps didn’t appreciate my hot take that a life with my queerness was actually EXACTLY how God wanted me to live. Some Christian friends stuck around but dropped comments like “We have very different values.” I’ve still yet to figure out how my existence is a value. Anywho…

As with all shadow work, the shadows around my spirituality relate to me trying to reconcile what I know to be true with what is palatable and acceptable within mainstream society. While I’ve grown more comfortable with standing out, I still fight the primal fear of taking actions that might get me excommunicated from the clan and no longer invited to the fun summer wooly mammoth BBQs.

From the metaphorical to the metaphysical

Closet doors are perhaps not the best (and even quite possibly the worst) metaphor to describe this internal work. It’s a complex process of navigating through the layers of stories and beliefs we hold, to separate what is actually true from the fear-driven, control-driven, or ego-driven bullshit we were told was truth. Doors, in most cases, open pretty easily and you go from being on one side of the threshold to the other.

That resembles approximately nothing of my experience coming out at 38 as a lesbian who was married to my college sweetheart for over a decade, with two homeschooled kids and a small business in tow. There was nothing easy about it. There was no clear delineation that said, “You were this, and now you’re that.”

A shadow really is the more appropriate and accurate description of what is happening when we decide to look inside and face the aspects of ourselves that we suppress, repress, or deny.

Friendly Advice: Take a huge swig of coffee and stick with me through this visualization to see if it matches any of your shadow work experiences.

Picture something true about yourself that you’ve denied, suppressed, or repressed in your life. Got it? Now envision that thing like a magnificent nugget of gold inside of you. Not some stale chicken nugget. An actual valuable and illuminating piece of who you are.

With me?

Your soul is like the flashlight that wants to illuminate this magnificent piece of you. Societal stories, conditioning, and the beliefs you were raised with, however, are all things that change the angle of your soul’s flashlight.

What that means is that instead of being allowed to shine your light directly on that gold nugget, the light backs away from it and shines a light from a different angle. Oh, and also, your soul’s flashlight weighs A TON. It took lots of heavy societal conditioning to get it to move and it may take even more heavy lifting of your own to move it back to its rightful place.

Shadows are a distorted projection of reality.

What happens when we shine a flashlight at an object? We may end up not seeing the object itself and instead see a large, distorted projection of the object as a shadow. (Like seeing the silhouette of a weird unicorn-iguana hybrid, rather than the actual hand and butterfly that is being illuminated). In this case, your golden nugget of magnificence is now being shown to you as a dark, mysterious object that you know is inside of you but you struggle to identify.

Shadow work is the process of taking back control of your flashlight and not allowing others (or yourself) to misdirect where it goes. It means overcoming the fear of that big, dark, unknown to come closer to the truth of who you are inside. And, as I mentioned, the soul’s light carries some serious weight. It doesn’t just move around inside all willy-vanilly. Whatever knocked it off its angle will take time and effort to shift that light back to where it belongs.

Still with me?

Within the concept of shadow work is also the concept of the golden shadow. I don’t have time to dive deep into it in this blog, so take it from Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, who said, “Like all aspects of your shadow, your golden shadow is a part of you and is self-suppressed. Except, unlike the shadow, if it were to emerge it would be a significantly positive experience in your life.”

That’s right! Like sifting through the box of crappy cereal when you were a kid, there’s a prize at the bottom! You still have to eat the crap, cardboard-flavored flakes, but you know that it’s worth it to arrive at something truly wonderful(ish).

If you can shine your soul’s light back in the direction it was meant to be, in that direction of unconditional self love that you once had as a fresh lil bebe, you can begin to unveil new-to-you (they were always there) aspects of yourself that you’ve only previously admired in others.

It was with you all along, baby. Your magic is there if you’re willing to look for it and let it shine.

Why is a “spiritual closet” so difficult?

Through my own internal work, I’m realizing just how many stories I still need to clear away before I can let my spiritual self fully out into the world. I asked AI to show me what a “spiritual white woman” looks like and I’ve had to sit with my feelings around what it brought up. (See image below.)

Ask AI what a spiritual white woman looks like and AI will deliver.

I have to sit with my feelings around the word “spirituality.” I have to sit with the heaviness I feel toward organized religion and how it has disempowered so many from recognizing the voice of their creator.

I have to sit with the beliefs I hold about money, worth, my business, and what it all means if I include my connection to source in the writing and consulting that I get financially compensated for.

I have to get over the narrative that I’m not just “spiritual” because I secretly hoped that my mom would buy the Pure Moods CD box set from the informercials in the 90s. I have to get over that showing up as spiritual doesn’t mean I’m going to change my name to Moonbeam Sparkledust and try and sell you on converting your minivan into a healing mobile ashram where you can make my famous “high-vibe casserole” from Pinterest.

And also, I am working on releasing any judgment I feel for Moonbeam Sparkledust on how she shows up because, at the end of the day, I know that everyone is showing up in the best way they know how. Her existence does not actually change the way I have to show up.

Lastly, I have feelings of shame about being a white woman who adds her voice to the spiritual conversation. I remember reading a piece penned by my dear friend and indigenous healer, Asha Frost, titled “Dear White Woman.” Asha bravely poured her heart out and shared the trauma and harm that is caused by people (most often white women) misusing or adopting indigenous spiritual practices without knowledge, understanding, or respect for what they are doing. I could feel the pain in her words from people like me who claimed we were smudging or saging with gusto, while Indigenous people were banned from practicing their own medicine for decades and centuries.

To be clear, Asha didn’t cause this shame and it’s not hers to resolve for me either. Her letter was an invitation for us all to explore our own ancestry and historical practices and to use indigenous practices with knowledge and reverence. As a woman of European descent, I don’t know where I came from before Christianity took hold. In a way, I feel spiritually untethered to my ancestors. But I know I can get back to them and it’s part of my work to do.

Okay golden nugget, now what?

Perhaps our spiritual connection is such a challenging one because it’s so intrinsic to who we are as people. Because of that, it can put us at odds with anyone who tries to convince us that what we know as truth is wrong. There is a desire to keep my connection to all that is close to my heart because anything I share opens me up to criticism. In some ways, it feels like I am inviting some people who I know will try and push my flashlight back off course.

It’s also ignoring the fact that by being vulnerable, I am more able to find those in my life who support me in shifting my flashlight to exactly where it needs to be. In being vulnerable, our golden light can become brighter and we can help illuminate that light in others. When we show up fully and authentically, our light shines on those who feel good to us because they too have worked through their shadows.

Celebrating with the speaker lineup at Katy Rey’s Celebrate YOU event.

Brene Brown discovered in her research that the opposite of belonging was not exclusion, it was fitting in. I will hold that with me as a reminder that any time I conform myself to be the person who fits in, I am robbing myself of the opportunity to truly belong.

Belonging takes courage. Vulnerability takes courage. Shadow work takes courage.

Here is both my present challenge and my joy—to explore the ways of sharing how my connection to all-that-is was developed and how that connection continues to grow in a way that both feels true to me. And when I show up in this way, I can better serve others on their own sacred paths.

I am here now.