I’ve been editing a book of interviews with prominent yoga figureheads. In the interview with Aadil Palkhivala, I came across an interesting bit of information that I want to share with you. Aadil talks about something called the “White Shadow.” In yoga lore (and Jungism, I believe, but not 100% sure because Jung books are like sleeping pills for me), our shadow side is our dark side, the stuff we bury deep and don’t want anyone to see: our shame, our envy, our anger, our “bad” emotions. Our white shadow is the shadow we create when we desperately attempt to mask or ignore our shadow side with forced positivity, gratitude and abundance manifestation language. It’s our veneer. Our social media self. It’s our absolute stubborn refusal to look at our shadow side.
Where I live, and in the yoga culture I was involved in for so many years, there’s a whitewashing that seems to happen around negativity. There’s a piety around being as positive and grateful as possible. You are constantly admonished to recognize your “true nature” and told that “everything you need is already inside of you.” Yet, this entire culture simultaneously revolves around trying to change yourself, to put you “on a path” to being a better version of you—a more positive, less sarcastic, more calm and patient, less reactive, more equanamous, less depressive, and certainly much skinnier version of you.
This is a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh that I think nicely differentiates between spirituality and vacuous positivity:
Call Me By My True Names
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
