Me and My Shadow

As a coaching psychologist, what I'm about to say feels slightly ridiculous.

Actually, not slightly ridiculous. Just ridiculous.

It's something that has been happening my entire life, something I've worked with professionally for years, and yet somehow I only really saw it recently.

Let me pull back the curtain.

A significant part of coaching work often involves exploring where our behaviours, habits, beliefs and coping mechanisms originated. Not all coaching does this, but much of it involves understanding how certain patterns were formed.

Very often, those patterns begin when we are young.

As children, we are constantly trying to make sense of the world around us. We draw conclusions from experiences, conversations, corrections, praise, criticism and sometimes from things that were never explicitly said at all.

A child might conclude, "I'm not good enough." And because children are remarkably resourceful, they don't stop there. They develop a solution.

"If I keep my room perfectly tidy, I'll be good enough."

"If I get top marks, I'll be good enough."

"If I never upset anyone, I'll be good enough."

"If I'm perfect, I'll be safe."

What begins as a survival strategy becomes a lifelong pattern.

The perfectionism, people-pleasing, overachievement or self-sacrifice may have served a purpose at one point. Perhaps it helped secure approval, avoid conflict or create a sense of safety. But decades later, the behaviour remains long after its usefulness has expired.

It has become part of the operating system.

Much of what is sometimes called shadow work involves bringing these unconscious patterns into awareness. It is the process of exploring and integrating the parts of ourselves that have been hidden, suppressed or shaped by circumstances beyond our control.

None of that is my revelation.

My revelation came while working with a coaching client. Together, we were tracing some of these patterns back to their origins, trying to understand where certain beliefs had been formed. At the same time, I found myself living the very thing we were discussing. Not in a coaching room. In my own home.

I have a nine-year-old son.

Like all children, he is navigating challenges, frustrations and moments where he is learning how to fit into a world that often seems determined to point out where he falls short.

And suddenly I could see it.

I could see the messages. Messages delivered with the very best of intentions. The sort of intentions that, as the saying goes, pave the road to hell.

Corrections, Guidance, Advice, Teaching.

The constant desire to help him become a better version of himself.

Yet I can also see how easily those messages can be interpreted through the mind of a child. What if, despite my good intentions, what he hears is that he is not quite enough as he is? If I am honest, I fear there is more correction than curiosity. More instruction than listening. More focus on what needs fixing than what is already wonderful.

And I am not above the occasional cruel jibe, reminding him that he should do better, be better, as if I was ever any better myself. Without meaning to, I may be helping to create the very beliefs that someone like me might spend decades helping him unravel.

Shit!

And I remember what it felt like to receive those messages myself. I remember how quickly I transformed guidance into judgment, how easily feedback became part of my identity, and how those identities hardened into beliefs about who I was and what I was worth.

I know I will make mistakes as a parent. That is unavoidable. Every parent does.

But this feels like one of those moments where life places a giant flashing sign directly in front of your face and says, "Pay attention."

The big things are obvious.

We all know we should love our children, protect them and provide for them.

And I get it that it’s the small things that matter most. The passing comment, tone of voice, the decision to listen before we teach. The reminder that a child does not need to earn their worth.

But today I am thinking not that children don't need guidance. They do. But that they need something else first. They need to know, beyond all doubt, that before they achieve anything, before they improve anything, before they change anything, they are already enough.

And if I am honest, I don't know if I tell him that enough.

So perhaps I should stop talking about enough and start saying it more often. Because if he can truly believe that, perhaps he won't spend half his adult life trying to prove it.

What surprises me most is not the lesson itself, but the fact that I couldn't see it.

It is ironic. I spend much of my professional life helping people uncover unconscious beliefs and patterns. I help them shine a light on the parts of themselves that have been hidden in the shadows for decades, often formed in childhood and sometimes reinforced by well-meaning parents.

Yet this understanding was sitting quietly in my own shadow all along.

The evidence was everywhere. So bloody logical and the consequences, predictable.

And still, I couldn't quite see it.

Until I watched my son.