Shadow Work and Unstorying

Course Description

One of the most basic and fundamental jobs of the mind is to create stories. We are meaning-making beings, who create narratives born out of an instinctive desire for safety, security, and belonging. We create stories about who we are, who others are, and about happenings in our world. Often these stories and their origins remain hidden and ‘in-the-shadows’.

How often do we question our stories? How often do we look at these powerful narrators of our reality, constantly weaving conscious and unconscious images and meaning into our experience of life? 

Many simply follow those stories of mind unquestioningly. The stories provide an identity and a framework for interacting with others. They help us find meaning in a world so full of uncertainty.

What if those stories were seen as both constructed and instructive for us? What if we could really see what our mind’s own narratives are trying to show us?

Unstorying is a shadow integration process that helps to see and understand the stories we carry through life. Both the ones we welcome and the ones we push away. It investigates the hidden messages the stories hold for us. It looks at the ways we can breathe through and around our stories. 

It gives us a tool that can free us from the illusory shackle that we are only those stories. Unstorying looks to the source of the story itself, and beyond even that to what exists in the space between stories.

In this 4-session experiential course, Nicole K. Miller will guide you through the myriad of stories you currently carry. Move towards a place of clarity and self-awareness, so that you might embrace all of who you are!

This course is ideal if

• Get unstuck from an area of your life that seems to repeat itself.
• Access a deeper level of self-awareness and self-confidence.
• Understand yourself, your perspectives, and your beliefs more clearly.
• Learn healthy strategies to interact with friends, family, and colleagues with clarity and empathy.
• Gain practical tools to address the challenges as they arise in your life.

Course Overview

Class 1. The Nature of the Mind and its Shadow Places

In this session, we will focus on the experience of being fully present, and on understanding the nature of the mind. We will also define key concepts, including Jung’s ideas of the Shadow and Individuation. We will delve into the shadow integration process of Unstorying. Exercises will include a simple creative activity and a journal write.

Materials needed: Journal, a sheet or two of loose blank paper, pencils or pens (various colors optional).

Class 2. The Stories We Carry

In this session, we will look deeper into the stories we carry, and get a feel for where those stories originated and why. We will then see how those stories carry through to our current day understanding of ourselves, and our interactions with others. Exercises will include a simple creative activity and a journal write.

Materials needed: Journal, pencils or pens (various colors optional), a sheet of blank paper (optional).

Class 3. The Web of Stories

In this session, we will explore how our stories create dynamics between one’s self and others in our personal relationships and in our workplaces. We will look at the system of stories that are present in any group dynamic. The focus will be on how to identify authentic and dysfunctional narratives and work towards unraveling, diffusing, and rebalancing that system. Exercises will include a journal write.

Materials needed: Journal. A sheet of blank paper and pencils/pens is optional for the creative exercise.

Class 4. Embracing the Shadow and Letting Life Unfold

In this session, we will look at why and how we can embrace our shadow stories and move towards becoming more whole and comfortable with all of who we are. Exercises will include two optional creative activities and a journal write.

Materials needed: Journal. Clay, rubberbands, or tin foil (optional activity #1) and pencils/pens and a sheet of blank paper (optional activity #2).

All classes are available now.

By the end of this course you will

• Understand how our shadow can influence our experience of Self.
• Identify your core stories, and how they flavor your interactions and experiences.
• Recognize the hidden stories of your Shadow and face them head on.
• Experience the silent spaces between the stories, and what that experience means for you.
• See the collective story constructs out in the world around us, and how they influence our personal story constructs.
• Gain more clarity in your interpersonal relationships, and in the stories within the conflicts that appear.
• Have more tools in your toolkit to call on when strong emotional reactions arise, when navigating liminal space, and when feeling stuck.