Dear Reader,

Nine years ago, for the first time in my life, I made the decision:

“I think I should find a therapist.”

Florian looked up from his morning newsfeed and breakfast of soft-boiled eggs inquisitively.

I knew that if I was going to halt at this crossroads and start to poke around at not only my own, not-at-all-pretty past, but some unknown, out-of-bounds ancestral past as well, I was going to need help. It was a big deal for me. I’d never been to a therapist before. I’m not saying I’d never needed one, it’s just that in the parts of Europe I’d lived in, you didn’t just go to see or ‘have’ a therapist. You only saw a therapist if you had a pressing issue.

“It’s like buying a pair of shoes. They might look great on the shelf, but you need to try them on and if you don’t like them or they don’t fit, you try other pairs on until you find the right pair for you.” Florian knew about these things.

It turned out to be more like online dating than shoe shopping in my opinion. I found the Psychology Today website for therapists in the Taos area, settled down with a coffee, my feet warming in front of the wood stove and perused their photos and profiles hoping to find the one that spoke to my soul. My choice was limited by the fact that I’d decided I wanted an older woman. Someone with life experience under her belt. I couldn’t imagine pouring my heart out to a young girl who hadn’t yet lived life. I also knew I needed someone who would hold me accountable. I knew my only hope for that was someone my senior. I suppose in today’s day and age that would be considered ageist. I didn’t care. I was taking Florian’s advice and looking for the right fit for me. I was beginning to get double vision reading profile after profile, that all boiled down to basically the same thing, i.e. they promised to help me find, joy, meaning and connection in my life. I was looking for something meatier, someone who would challenge me. Finally, after what seemed like hundreds of profiles, I was about to close my computer when Jill’s photo leaped of the page. There she was: my, older, wiser looking woman. I read her bio and knew instinctively she was the right one for me.

By the time the appointment came around, I was crossing my fingers that the immediate feeling I’d got about Jill’s online profile was right and it hadn’t just been wishful thinking. She was sitting on a large, peacock fan-shaped rattan chair in the corner by the window. At her feet sat a huge, long-haired golden retriever who, on seeing me, got up and meandered over for a sniff. He put me immediately at ease. I’ve always had the feeling I relate better to dogs than humans. Part of Jill’s long hair was tied up in two loose bouffant near the top of her head. The rest was hanging down past her shoulders. She was dressed unusually, which is the norm for Taos. Her long, nearly floor-length black skirt, extravagant blouse and funky, pointy, black shoes made her look like a retired actress more than a therapist. Though what I noticed most was her scarlet red lipstick that bled over her lips and around her mouth contrasting starkly with her snowy white skin.

I sat down on the sofa facing her. A massive painting that looked like a Buddhist Thangka mandala took up a good part of the wall. I later found out that it was one of hers. She hadn’t been an actress in her former life, she’d been an artist, a very good one at that. The painting’s huge expansive blue sky comforted me.

I made a pact to myself not to need the box of tissues that was sitting strategically on the arm of the sofa.

“Hello Cathy, how are you?” I liked her voice. It had a deep warmth to it that was wise and welcoming, but also strong.

Sitting there with her black robe and her dog at her feet, she morphed in my mind into Hecate, the Goddess of the Crossroads, who with her hounds, keys and two lamps could travel between the realms. I was secretly hoping she’d hold the light, so I could travel into the underworld and expose the secrets that kept me from my ancestral mothers, my own mother and myself.

Instead, she asked me why I wanted therapy, which I suppose was a normal question, as this was the first session. It took me aback a bit, though. I wasn’t expecting it. To be honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting. Right away, I did that thing I do when I’m nervous of going straight into the heart of a subject that is foremost on my mind, but the other person has no idea about. In other words, I talked randomly without stopping, like a runaway train. I started telling her, without filling her in with any background information, how I’d naively believed that the recent hysterectomy and ensuing ritual would be like a rite of separation and bring closure. Not just separation from the physical body part, but closure from the past.

“But I’m realizing that it hasn’t all gone away in one poof. Far from it. I know the cancer’s gone, but I get the feeling I need to do more than just get rid of my uterus. I need to cure my soul. I need to heal what caused the sickness in the first place.” I could tell from the way she cocked her head to one side as I spoke, a bit like my dog Max when he’s really listening, that she was following. She was truly hearing me. At that point, I already knew I could talk to her about anything. I know that should be true of all therapists, but what I mean is that I could talk about anything, and she’d know what I was talking about, which I know wouldn’t be the case with everyone.

I can’t remember exactly how the rest of the session unfolded. She asked me some questions and I basically told her my life story. I didn’t hold back. I was completely honest. I went into the nitty gritty of it all. I dug around in the dark and gloomy corners of the past without restraint. It was quite an eye-opener telling someone I’d only just met parts of my life I’d never told anyone before, including some things even I hadn’t re-visited since they happened.

After I’d finished, it felt like we were bathing in my past. As if, like an essential oil diffuser, I’d diffused my history in microparticles that now filled every inch of the room. Neither of us spoke. In that loaded silence, I realized that my life story didn’t fit with the person I had been brought up to be. Something had gone wrong. I’d gone wrong. The pieces of the puzzle didn’t match the picture on the box. When I was younger, I’d often felt that my path had mysteriously been mixed up with someone else’s. Given the white, privileged, middle class-ness of my parents, the places I grew up in, the schools I attended, which all amounted to what is commonly called upbringing, according to my logic, my life should have been more stable, easier, and lived a lot less in the shadowy margins of life. In my mind, my lifestyle and my relationships didn’t fit my upbringing. I’m aware I’m stereotyping, but all the same, at that moment, after hearing my story out loud, the thing that struck me the most was that between my childhood and my adult life, something didn’t add up.’

It was at this point in my life that my shadow began to reveal itself. By diving into the unknown, I was gifted the insights, pieces of the puzzle that had left me bewildered in that first therapy session. Building a relationship with my unconscious enabled me to understand that what hadn’t added up or made sense in my life were the portals or doorways to discovering the parts of myself that I’d abandoned and relegated to dead in the underworld. Piece by piece I dove down and reclaimed my fragmented self.

And as Jung says, the gift is in the wound. This work became the gift I could share with others. Having navigated my own shadow, discovered that it contained the best of me, I’m able and passionate about sharing the blueprint of navigating the underworld with others.

“We can hardly bear to look. The shadow may carry the best of the life we have not yet lived. Go into the basement, the attic, the refuse bin. Find gold there. Find an animal that has not been fed or watered. It is you! This neglected, exiled animal, hungry for attention, is a part of yourself” Marion Woodman

If you are intrigued by shadow work and want to know more, join Florian and I ‘On the Scent of the Shadow’ a live online weekend Connecting with Your Unconscious through Your Sense of Smell.

Cathy