Dancing with the Boogeyman

by Pamelagrace Beatty

Have you ever had a childhood fear haunt you as an adult? I must confess, I have. For years I had a recurring dream about a monster in the basement of the old house I grew up in.  We left that house when I was sixteen but that nightmare about the monster continued well into my 30s.  It was the same thing over and over again.  I was in the kitchen and needed to go downstairs to the basement for something.  But when I opened the door there would be a big monstrous boogeyman there and I would try and slam the door shut on him.  There would be a struggle and I would wake up panicked. The dream really got on my nerves! What was that all about? And how can I stop it? I’m an adult. I no longer live in that house. Why is this nightmare still bothering me?

One day, as I was having lunch with a friend, I told him about the dream.  He was a therapist and he casually said, “Well, the next time you have that dream, just ask the boogeyman what he wants.” Sure, in the midst of being petrified with fear, in the middle of a nightmare, I’m going to have the presence of mind to say, “Gee, Mr. Boogeyman, what do you want?”  Right. However, strangely enough, the next time I had the nightmare I remembered what my friend told me, and I did ask the boogeyman what he wanted.  When I did that the boogeyman’s size diminished like a pricked balloon. He slunk away and I never had that dream again.

I have found over time, that facing our nightmares takes all the air out of them. It takes a lot of energy to avoid them or run away from them. Just turning around and facing them not only makes them less scary but gives us the opportunity to work through whatever it is that is bothering us.  Dealing with our “shadow side” is a case in point. 

We all have a picture of how we want to be and how we don’t want to be.  The psychologists say that sometimes our shadow side is revealed to us by what we don’t want to be.  We can get a hint of the shadow side by what we criticize in others.  If we have a lot of passion or heat in that criticism, we may be reflecting our own shadow side; the side of us that we repress, reject or dislike.  The psychologists call this “projection.”  We develop shadow sides or what has also been called “disowned parts of ourselves” over time, and this usually begins when we are young.  Sometimes we are taught certain ways of being are bad when, actually, it depends on the situation. It doesn’t necessarily apply in every situation, not sweeping like it is presented to us. 

For example, I got in a lot of trouble as a kid for making other kids laugh in school. I had a knack for being funny. My mother was not amused. My teachers weren’t either. I was strongly persuaded not to do that and the ability to make people laugh became a very bad thing to me.  So, I suppressed it. Of course, it would sneak out now and then.  It morphed into sarcasm which actually wasn’t  good, but I could sneak it in and laugh to myself. My audience, however, didn’t laugh. Finally, many years later, I realized as a speaker and workshop leader that being funny was a good way to relax my audience, keep them engaged and help them be willing to learn.  Making people laugh could be a good thing.  I took it out of the shadow self and made it a conscious part of my personality.

There are many things we are taught that are bad that actually aren’t but we may be hiding out from them within ourselves. Some aspects of our personality that hide the shadow self by masquerading as something good, like being fiercely independent, or a workaholic, or even very sensitive, may be accepted by society. The question is are these aspects helpful or destructive?  For example, I knew a man who was very dedicated to running.  He ran before work, after work and for hours on weekends.  When he was single, it was OK.  But when he got married, had three kids and worked long hours, running that much prevented him from being with his family. I wondered what he was running from.  Our mutual friends applauded his dedication.  His little girls, however, would ask, “Mommy when is daddy coming home?” Ultimately, he did make more time for his family. I imagine he realized that he was, in fact, running from something and no longer needed to do that, or perhaps he realized the negative impact on his family.

It helps to be aware of those aspects within us so we can make adult decisions about them. When we continue to suppress them, like my boogeyman, they keep coming back to haunt us. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology did a lot of work regarding the shadow or dark side of human nature. From his work we learned that repressing the shadow self not only led to mental health issues, chronic illness, anxiety, addiction, and low self-esteem, but also affected our ability to live up to our highest potential.

Getting the shadow self out into the open can be difficult. As I mentioned before, just looking at what we criticize in others is one way to see it.  Psychotherapy can be very helpful. Taking time out to be quiet and reflect on our actions is another.  Once we recognize that shadow self, we are half-way toward accepting it.  Accepting the shadow or dark side allows us to make intelligent and better decisions about how we deal with it.  It is even possible to use that in a good way. Just as I am selective and intentional about when and how I make people laugh. I don’t make them laugh at anyone’s expense.  I wait until they have all done their school work and we are on break.  Just kidding.  Knowing and accepting our dark side does make a difference in how we live and appreciate ourselves.  So, go ahead, dance with that boogeyman.