Embracing Your Shadows with Alex Amorosi

Britt East [00:00:02] Welcome to Not Going Quietly, the podcast where we inspire growth, beat down biases and get into all sorts of good trouble with your host, Britt East. No topic is off limits as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose, and joy. So get ready to join us for some courageous conversation, because not going quietly starts right now.

Britt East [00:00:30] Hey everyone, welcome to Not Going Quietly, the podcast for outraged optimists and heartbroken healers all over the world, where we surface life's searing truths in the name of radical togetherness. I'm your host, Britt East. I'm so excited today because one of my very favorite people on the planet is rejoining us. It's been over a year since we had him on the show. I'm so excited to chat with them. So let me introduce you. If you didn't catch his previous appearance to Alex Amorosi.

Britt East [00:00:57] Alex has been practicing and teaching spiritual healing arts for over 25 years. He began his journey as an agnostic and skeptic, and has spent many years coming to understand the subtle realms of the mind and reality from a grounded, analytical perspective. He has extensive knowledge of human, energetic and physical anatomy from almost 20 years of teaching yoga and almost 15 years practicing Reiki and energy work, he has evolved a unique approach that combines coaching, energy work, yoga and physical movement, meditation, and teachings from medical and classical traditions. Alex has been studying and practicing astrology since 2016. He incorporates ideas and techniques from the Vedic astrological tradition of India, the Hellenistic astrological traditions of ancient Greece and Rome, medieval astrology, visual astrology and evolutionary astrology. He does it all. Alex finds the symbolic language of astrology to be a powerful method for understanding oneself and the patterns in one's life. Alex is also a practicing Buddhist and classical music enthusiast with a special love of Mozart, Sebelius, Mendelssohn and Berlioz. He is a history and philosophy buff, cat dad, proud gay man and member of the Lgbtq+ community expiring ex fiction author and general lover of life Alex Amorosi. How the hell are you today?

Alex Amorosi [00:02:17] I'm fantastic and even better that I'm back talking with you on this podcast, so thanks for having me.

Britt East [00:02:23] It's so great to see you again. It's been way too long. Over a year, which is absolutely ridiculous. And our previous conversation was one of my very favorites of the season. So I'm just really excited to to to dig in this. And you know what got me thinking about, chatting with you again was one of your wonderful recent email newsletters. And by the way, if we'll give Alex's socials in the show notes so you don't have to jot them down and so you can follow them. But you got to sign up for his email newsletters. He's such a fabulous writer. And, he wrote something recently to the effect of, the one way of understanding what we, a lot of us call our shadow aspects is to see them as places that we can't see within ourselves. And so, Alex, can you tell us what that means? What does shadow work mean? You know, can you start to define it and then tell us what you kind of meant by that thesis?

Alex Amorosi [00:03:17] Sure. So, you know, shadow, you know, it can mean several different things. But, you know, if you think of the beginning of what. Was that, was it a cartoon or a show from the 40s? You know, the shadow knows, you know, what lurks in the dangerous lurk in the hearts of man. The shadow knows. You know the shadow is the place that the place is within us that can sort of pull the marionette. Strings on our behavior and our thoughts without us realizing that that's happening. And, you know, it can looks, it can look many different ways. And a lot of times what we find about shadow aspects, quote unquote. Is there usually some sort of suppressed repressed aspect of us that was never given its day in the sun? And it can also. It can also mean other things too. But I think, you know, if we're talking about, you know, gay and queer people. What we usually call our. Shadow are the the bits of us that got left behind in the past. And they are trying their goddamn best to make themselves known in some way, shape or form. Sometimes that comes out as behavior or actions or thoughts or words of behavior that we're not we're not super proud of. And it is most extreme edge of the spectrum. It can be destructive, but shadow work is coming to, you know, get out your proverbial answer to go into your psyche, into your mind, usually with a guide or a therapist or a counselor, a coach or somebody who's going with you. To look at those spaces and see what are they, what kind of force are they exerting on your life or your psyche? And then how do we give them what they need? Because what I found was shadow aspects and shadow parts of us or parts of us that have been sort of cut off or separated or are in the psyche in a way where we're not sort of we don't have conscious access to them. Each one of them carries an authentic piece of who we are and a gift. And so as we reintegrate them, we begin to learn about them. We begin to see, like, what did that? What did that kid meet? What did that teenager need? What does that young adult need? There's a way. Will we bring them back into conscious awareness and then they don't feel like they have to drive the car anymore. They don't have to get our attention anymore because they've gotten our attention. And then we also reintegrate. And I think this is so important, but we reintegrate the gifts that they hold for us. Because they hold a gift.

Britt East [00:05:39] Yeah. So you got me thinking. All sorts of visuals. You're so poetic. It's like, first I had this visual of, like, we're all just basically meat puppets at the whim of our subconscious and stuff. It was like, okay, that's scary. And then I got this other scary, nightmarish visual of, like, almost like the, these hands coming up from the grave kind of pulling us down in these, like, cheesy horror movie. And then I got this other scary visual. You notice the theme? This other scary visual was like children of the corn kind of thing, where it's like this little group of people trying to control us that we have to like, beat down. Or I think you said integrate, which sounds way nicer. So talk me off a ledge like shadow as a word itself just intrinsically sounds scary to me. It's like, I don't want to deal with that. I I've got work to do. I'm busy. I have to make dinner and stuff, and now it's like I'm being controlled by these subconscious sublingual energies and forces inside me.

Alex Amorosi [00:06:34] Ark I know it does sound like that. Doesn't it? It can sound very intimidating. but you know, if you think about it in. Everything is. I'm going to get a little like if I go way off the ledge of pedantic philosophy here, just really me in. But you know, everything in the universe is light and dark. Everything is yes or no. There's a dualistic nature to the reality we live in. And, you know, the shadow, the shadow itself doesn't always have to be thought of as like this little mini, you know, you're the minion of your shadow. In fact, it's it. It's the part of us that we, the parts of us reason negate it. That's the way I like to think about it. So we, you know, think about it. Think of our experience as gay men. Right. We learned very quickly as gay men growing up what parts of ourselves are acceptable to other people. You know, I'm whether I'm funny, whether I'm a great, you know, whatever. I serve people in some wonderful way. I have some wonderful gifts. But we quickly learn how to manage that, sort of like it's okay to be like this, but it sure is not okay to be like this. So that sure is part that's not okay to be that goes into shadow. In other words, I can't be my whole self so I separate out. There's a yes part of me and a no part of me in astrology would say there's a Jupiter. Part of me. Yes, and there's a Saturn part of me I know you know. And that those parts of us that we have to keep, probably for good reason at bay for a long period of time, probably for our safety. Or at least our are at best our perceived feeling of safety, at worst our actual safety. They want nothing more than to be reintegrated back into ourselves. In other words, our soul seeks its full suppression in all moments, all the time. That's what our soul is seeking is full expression. So when we when we look back at those parts and they seem scary and I get like it's, you know, I get those sort of zombie images of like, I'm going down into a fight. This stuff. Well, you're really doing is going back to rescue a part of yourself that just had to be suppressed for a while, and that that would look different for all of us. But I think, you know, as gay or queer people, a lot of times it could be something as simple as, you know, the way we watched our wrists before out of the closet or the pronouns that we use or, you know, lying to ourselves about who we actually really were, all of that can create a space within us that will seek to be known in some way. And that's where I say, like the shadow knows, right? There's that sort of like twisting from behind the scenes of like, because it's trying to make itself known, not because it's trying to screw up our lives or hurt us in any way, but reintegrate back into who we are.

Britt East [00:09:11] Yeah. So last time you and I chatted, we talked about, searingly about some of the, ways that it's okay to be gay in a ways that it's not okay to be gay. And you alluded to that. So I wanted to tease that out with shadow work, like, one of the, yeah. Or what is required of us by my straight allies here. So, you know, maybe I can be this kind of gay, but that kind of gay is threatening. In other words, maybe I can be the kind of gay who adds color to your life and dresses fabulously, as long as it's not too sexual. And makes witty remarks and sexually nonthreatening to you as a straight person. But I can't be the kind of gay that is a fully realized sexual being. I can't be the kind of gay who has a litany of complaints or psychological damage from the closeted experience, who remembers how my bullies tormented me and what they said and who they are and what they look like on my Facebook feed. And so and so when you started talking about, the Shadow, I started, in relation to queer self-expression, I started thinking about pride, which we're recording this on July 1st, 2024. So Pride season has just ended, you know, officially, you know, depending on when you're where you are, it can go on for a while. And, I am, working at a company that thinks it thinks it's a really good idea for me to run pride and for me to, you know, to use free labor to, you know, make all the straight people feel really great about working there and really great about themselves and, you know, so, whereas when I. Look within me. And, at all the peaks and valleys of my emotional landscape, to survey, where parts of me can be expressed and where they cannot. It becomes really obvious that, the various settings were unpalatable or unpalatable. And so I was hoping you could talk about maybe the difference between rules, like, for instance, professionalism as a role, like as a, as a yoga teacher, you might behave in one way with one set of constraints, whereas a corporate or so you might behave in a different way with a different set of constraints, or in your free time, you know, roles versus this shadow work that is always same. I still get this image of a potboiler. It's always there, lurking and, like you said, longing to be expressed.

Alex Amorosi [00:12:11] It's kind of like living life on simmer. When someone has a strong shadow, it's like there's a, there's a you can see it. I can see it energetically in someone's face. There's a little bit of like tension right under the eyes where you can see like something's wanting to be expressed here is shown authentically. And, you know, that's a great question. Your roles when I'm training yoga teachers. I don't do that so much anymore. When I used to, I would say be yourself as a yoga teacher. So obviously, you know, whenever we're in any type of setting where ourselves, but there's there is an appropriate way that we carry ourselves within whatever setting that is. You know that. You know we have to be we have to be mindful of that. But I think that when is as gay is as a gay man and, it's only, I'm in my mid-forties now. It's taken me this long to realize how I've done this and how insidious it has been.  I have realized, well, it's okay for me to talk about my partner in a certain context, but it's only that I have one. Not that we have a relationship where it's not that we have, you know, that we've gone and done this together and like, it's all just that's the certain thing. And it's okay to know that I'm gay, but only in the sense that it's sort of like feels okay to somebody else. And, you know, I think the long and short of it for me has been lately. When when we when we start excavating the shadow, when we start healing those poor little parts of us that we've, you know, for whatever reason. I've had to go literally, you know, maybe even into the closet, even when we're out of the closet you start centering yourself in your own life again as yourself. And I feel like, you know one thing. That happened for sure, for me, I don't know if you out of this experience, this is what I think happened in our generation a lot, was I would hide in the company of women because I felt safer with them. But I could only be a certain part of myself with them. I could be the helper. I could be the funny one. I could teach them all about blowjobs or. Yes, I like that, but I couldn't. But it that's where it ended. It had it, it had a for them. And I was the satellite then. And that's where I kept certain parts of me. Sort of like if you think about like one part of me was facing the sun, that was the acceptable part, but the other part was facing outer space. That's the shadow. That's the part. Like they don't want to see that. And I know on a very felt level that. If I show that part of myself, I'm not as safe as I was. So I think that the roles we hold, you know, whether. It's in our jobs, whether it's in our family roles, in our relationship roles, yes, of course, we carry ourselves slightly differently. I'm different with my friends and I with my students than with my clients in some way. But it's when we feel like in a general sense, especially, I think, in our in our friendships and romantic relationships where we have to decenter ourselves in order so. That we can show only a certain aspect of ourselves that is acceptable and non-threatening, like you said. You know, it's like I really resist the idea of sort of the neutered gay man helper that comes, swoops in and he is so funny and he fixes everything in your life. You just love it. But then he always has to fucking go like he has to leave after that. And you know, I don't that really. And one of the things that really struck me is like, you take like the writing of Schitt's Creek, where the writing of David and Patrick that Daniel Levy wrote I was I was mesmerized by that whole relationship. And I thought, why wait? This is just like they just fell in love and it's just nice. And the relationship, oh, oh, it's about them. It's about their relationship. They're the star of the show. He's not leaving after He's funny and going off somewhere else. It centers on him. And I feel like the more it fell for gay queer people, the more we censor ourselves in our own lives. We center our happiness our desires, our authenticity, who we are. And yes, of course, it's modulated a little bit in the roles that we play, because that's just what we do as humans, you know, in society but the more we do that, the less those parts of us, the shadow parts that are represented in, you know, in astrology that are represented by the planet Pluto. That really they don't need to feel like they have to have such a grip because they're not gripping. You know, I really want to emphasize this. I know how scary it can sound, but they're gripping because they're scared, because they don't trust. What if I let go here? And what's going to happen? And I think what I what I'm discovering for myself is as I let go and as I'm more of myself. Yes, friendships change just happened to we recently where friendship just blew up and at the same time I now can be more of myself in who I am because there were certain aspects I couldn't show there because it wasn't safe or acceptable. So I feel, you know, it's a very complex topic, but I think the biggest thing to say is that when you do this work, and I can't recommend enough having help to do this work, you know, it's, you know, to really work with someone who can walk with you through that world. When you do that, you not only reclaim all of yourself, you reclaim the gifts they hold because each one of those shadow parts holds a gift in our queerness and art. For me, I, as I just said, identify as a boring old gay man. But like, you know that our gayness. And all of its aspects hold great gifts for us. Not for everybody else for us. And when we really integrate that into ourselves then we are fully resourced to really do some good work in the world. But I think it really starts at the beginning of really integrating that back in our own hearts.

Britt East [00:17:44] Yeah, I'm so excited because I just feel like we've picked up picked up exactly where we left off a year ago. It's so funny. And, so please, listeners, if you haven't seen the previous episode, please take a look. One of the things we talked about in that episode was how I was I'd been having a tantrum at the time about the expression love equals love, which I'm just like, whoa, sick of. I'm like, I get it. Love equals love. You know, and I just it's I become exhausted by because, inadvertently, what we're signing on for is a homogeneity that many of us didn't intend. You know, there's nothing more beautiful than marriage equality. But the inadvertent consequence. Unintended consequence has been something called respectability politics, where it's inevitably the, white cis men have benefited most. And then, a lot of our straight allies were able to just check, us as queer people, meaning the entire community off the list, not realizing we have a very diverse community every so many different wants and needs and cultural markers and identifiers and languages. And marriage equality is one piece of the puzzle of civil rights and equity. And, and so this kind of homogeneity where, people require us to be the, you know, validating mirrors of all that they would like to express but feel too constrained to do that thrill that is really tantalizing in our youth that you alluded to, Alex, especially, and the often problematic relationships of, straight cis women and, gay sex men, which there's such a beauty and healing to the dark side. So often there's that denial of the selves, the parts of ourselves on both sides of the equation. Is it better to go on express, like when we inadvertently require our women friends to be fabulous as well and look a certain way to a certain size or shape and then whatever they require of us. And, and so I really loved the way that you spoke about that. And, it started making me thinking, like, if we can't see our shadow aspects, I mean, that's kind of the whole point there in the shadow you can't see. And like I said, the other side of the moon or something, how the heck do we come to know them? And you, you know, you talked about a guide and stuff and it made me think about mythology. Use the guide across the River Styx as the whole Persephone, the myth and all this kind of stuff. It seems relevant here. Could you talk some about that?

Alex Amorosi [00:20:27] Yeah it's there's. Yeah, the way we see it is we take an honest look at our lives and we see what we're doing and that, I'm not saying that's easy to that. That sucks.

Britt East [00:20:40] Yeah. You just lost me.

Alex Amorosi [00:20:42] Yeah. I don't want to take an honest look at my life. I just want to live. Just shut up. Oh, gross. But yeah, because it's like, you know, because there's so much to say here with shadow and projection and holding of energy we can get into. But the reason I talk about a guide and I always think of because, you know, I was in it's took six seven years of Italian in school. So I studied the Divine Comedy in Italian. And so I know like Virgil Goes to Dance and to hell. Right. And what he's showing him is this is what this means. He's a more impartial source. He's he's more wise. He's kind of Dante's therapist showing like, well, this is why she's spinning in a tornado, and this is why this guy is in this nasty sludge. And it's very difficult for us to put together our own patterns and correlate them because we correlate them with what's. Going on in our lives. Often because we're so up close to them and we have such biases with them. So the role of a counselor or a therapist or a coach or someone who's standing back and helping, you see like, well, I'm noticing this is happening and like could it correlate to this? I'm noticing this is happening. Could it correlate to that? Help us draw connections we often can't find quite on our own. But I think that, you know the shadow into itself to begin to know it. Is to take something that feels not too threatening that you want to change. So not going for the big stuff or to the traumatic stuff, because that's stuff you really do want to be working with someone with but like, I have a habit that I would like to change. I'm not changing it. I keep going back to the same. You know. I'm Kim Jane, drawn back to the same protective behavior or coping mechanism, whatever it is. And just being curious why? What? When was the first time I did that? When did I learn it wasn't acceptable to take care of myself, or it was dangerous to fully express myself? And I mean really not inappropriately, but just fully express who I am. Sometimes those answers are readily apparent and sometimes they're not. But I find that the door to the shadow is always curiosity and a sense of peace and a sense of sort of dispassionate curiosity. So one thing I say to myself is, no matter what, when I ask myself this question, no matter what I see, I promise I will love myself no matter what I see. And even if I have some real culpability in in the situation or the relationship, whatever it is I'm willing to see it because when I see it, it comes back to me. It's, you know, in many, you know, I don't want to any by any means, paint all indigenous healing traditions with a broad brush because I think that's done way too often. It's so fucking insulting. But just in many indigenous healing traditions, there's the idea of the shamans using the soul retrieval, where you're pulling something back to the self, where you reintegrate into oneness. And that's one of the things that can happen. But it takes, you know, one thing I want to say here is that it takes tenderness and it takes patience and it takes often some help. But one thing I realized, and this was a major realization I had about 12 years ago now, is that the journey is worth it. Because on the other side, you feel so much happier. And God damn it, for us, especially as queer pupils, we just deserve to be happy to be really authentically happy. Not showy, happy, but happy, you know?

Britt East [00:24:15] Yeah, not not perform happiness, but actually to, to embody happiness. Yeah, it's it's almost like you're describing self empathy. And I think a lot of people get hung up on self empathy because they, they think that it means excusing their own behavior when it's really I think, and, you know, I want to know what you think too. It's almost more like sitting with your own behavior while also holding a tender heart. And then I wonder if curiosity naturally emanates from that.

Alex Amorosi [00:24:45] Yeah, I think so. I think so. You know, you can hear that. And I think, you know, one one where place my mind would go is, well, that's awfully self indulgent, indulgent and frees you of any responsibility to anybody else, you know. And what you're saying, I think is exactly right. It's like I'm sitting with myself, which is not easy to do. I'm sitting with the ramifications of what I've done. It's not always about what I've done. Sometimes it's about recognizing what happened to me. You know? And that's that's really difficult when you realize, like, wow, people around me didn't protect me the way they should or, you know, they treated me in a way that wasn't right. But I became so used to it that this seems like it was. There's a lot of ways that it can show up, but to sit with yourself with a tender heart. And is not to excuse yourself, it actually, I think, allows you to take accountability, or seek accountability in a much more. I was, I learned in a much more effective way because when I sit with myself and I say, like, you know what else? You really fucked that up. You really fucked that up. And you know, cheers. Where there is some response, this is why. And I know why I did, I know why I did it, I knew where the hurt came from. I know where the powers came from. Then you say, okay, you did that, you can apologize. You're not going to hold your whole life back for it. You're not going to kick. Yourself all the time that it happened. You're not going to say what? You're not going to. Beat yourself up over it. You can know what happened. You can take accountability for it, make the necessary amends. But what I think is really important with that is that to understand that that is the reclamation process. We can also seek that from people and we can seek the immense, we can seek the accountability, we can seek the responsibility. We're not always going to get it. And the question then remains, what I think is great about doing this work, as I've discovered for myself, is when I reintegrate those aspects into myself. It doesn't. As much as I would like them to. They may not be able to, or as much as I would like to be able to make amends, and I can't for whatever reason. Once I've integrated back in myself I know that I have the power to move on and trust. Have confidence that the other can do that as well in their own time. But I don't have to feel like I have to beat myself up or be responsible for to hold on to it or drag it around with me like a bag of rocks that I'm carrying around all the time. I can truly let it go, but that's a process, and sometimes it happens quickly. Sometimes it can take years to integrate that kind of process.

Britt East [00:27:16] And again, it sounds like you're talking about over a releasing of the of the performance of being with what is. Which is also, I think, maybe the beginning of empathizing with the other person in the case that you kind of drew on, maybe if there was some harm done. And so it's like maybe if I fully empathize with myself and, and, hold a new level of awareness and consciousness around my actions, my choices, maybe that also allows me to empathize more fully with someone else. One thing we can talk about are some examples of these shadow aspects. Like, you know, what first comes to mind are like, of course, all the caricatures like addictions and compulsions and obsessions and avoidance surgeries and clean behaviors. And what it's like is that all that these are that we're talking about.

Alex Amorosi [00:28:11] No, I think it's a shadow. Well, let's talk about the different ways shadow can show up. First is that shadow. Also. And I think this is especially important for us as queer people. Shadow is also no. Shadow is shadow is shadow is boundary. Shadow is represented by in. The in the pantheon of planets or symbolism of Saturn. Right. This idea of. This is a boundary. This is a no not everything. You know, when we go into saying I. Yes, yes, say yes to everything. That's not why all the time. And so shadow also is finding a sense of the power within us to assert a force against something in the name of our own sense of integrity and safety. That's one, one definition, but I think shadow can also show up in. You know, so many times when I'm working with clients they'll say to me something like, along the lines of, I just want to be a good person. I think I hear that in some way, shape or form. Whether I'm doing a reading, whether I'm doing coaching work, I hear that I just want to be a good person. My natural question is always, what makes what makes you a shitty person? What makes you so bad? What makes you not a good person? And we all have our reason, right? Like, you know, whatever it is. And sometimes they're very legitimate reasons. And there are misses. They're always legitimate reasons. But we we take what we have done or what has happened and make it who we are. And when we make it who we are. Then that becomes a sort of shame identity. We hold it as a very sort of dark sense. We got very invested. There's a shame within me and it's me and it's like, no, it's how you are responding to what happened. Whether you did or was done. It's how you're responding to or integrating or how is integrated with your especially with kids, how it was handled after, you know, whatever happened to you. So when we allow ourselves to see that our shadow can be the place where we just feel like somewhere in me I'm wrong, I'm bad, and I have to atone, or I have to do, or I have to be fabulous, or I have to be funny, or Aftab a perfect ass, or I have to like, you know, I have to, you know, whatever the whatever. The thing is, I have to have, you know, the job of all jobs, whatever that is, if it is making trying to make up for that space where you feel like I'm not good, I'm just not good. That's when it becomes shadow. And I think, you know, maybe that's part universal, of the human condition, I don't know, but, you know, we we just saw last week, we went to see, inside out to which was totally adorable. And I'm not usually a Pixar person, but it was it's really was adorable. And that's the core belief. I'm a good person or I'm not. I'm not good enough, right? I'm a good person or I'm not good enough. And going into the shadow going into our shame is is going to understand we responded to certain. situations the way we did or certain relationships. What happened, what we did, what was done, was done to us. And then what we can do is we can see. The often how cruelly we have judged ourselves. For things that were not our fault or that we did that we didn't intend to do. Or maybe we didn't tend to do it and we didn't know any better, or we felt powerless. So we really went in like, you're gonna hurt somebody. But we come out of it realizing that doesn't make what I am bad. It makes what happens. Something that needs to be addressed. And I feel like, you know, the you know, what I want for us is especially as gay men, to know so much is that, you know, the core of what we are all beings is love and only love and not love. That's the opposite of hate. Not love. That is some sort of has a counterforce. It's it's just pure love. And that kind of unconditionally is very difficult for us, because it feels like. But you don't know. You don't know what happened. You don't know what I did. You don't know. And that's that's always the pushback, you guys. But you don't know this. And like, I don't know. And I'm sorry for anything that happened to you that was horrible because it should not have happened. It it was wrong. But now that it has happened, how can we free you from your own self-blame, your own shame, so. that you can move forward in whatever fucking life you want to live that brings you joy and brings abundance to you and others.

Britt East [00:32:46] You know, I had kind of a realization when you were talking that the adverse experience is not the shadow, it's our response to it that is the shadow behavior. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it's almost like, you know, we all have adverse experiences growing up, no matter who we are or where we're from or whatever. And some of us, for whatever reason. Our responses to those can be to choose to stay stuck in habitual, sublingual subconscious ways. You illustrated one choice of staying stuck. Or maybe even a couple actually, that that you encounter as a healer, one of which is I just want to be a good person. That's the same to a certain lens. While an honorable desire can often mean I'm actually saying the exact opposite and living the opposite of what I'm telling you is that. I'm not a good person and I never will be. And you can't make me and you can't. And that's the shadow. It's not the adverse experience. It's that unintended, subconscious sublingual response to it.

Alex Amorosi [00:34:10] Exactly. So we know that in a traumatic when a traumatic event happens, especially to any of us, but especially when we're kids, if there's an adult who is present, who can attune, who can integrate the experience with the child, there's less of a chance of them forming a traumatic stress response to a post-traumatic stress response to it. Because the it's fully processed in that moment, and they have to use the nervous system of the adult, the energy system of the adult, in order to regulate that for themselves and understand something that's doesn't make sense on a very fundamental level, doesn't make sense. Now when we just went. Many times that doesn't happen. So whether it happens to us as adults or kids or whatever, something goes underground. Something tunnels underground. And usually something like it for especially for kids. I did something wrong. I'm bad. I'm fundamentally what I am is wrong and bad. And I think that when we, you know. And this is why I think it's so important to work with someone on this because like you said, some of this, some of this stuff is not cognitive or lingual lingual. It's it's, it's pre verbal or it's pre our cognitive ability to understand what was going on. But. When we're shown, and we work with someone who can help walk us through that forest, to use the metaphor. There's a way in which we begin to realize that. It wasn't about what I am. It may be about the circumstances surrounding me, the people who are around me. It could have been any other. But it wasn't about what I am. And that releasing of that shame of like what I am is not bad. What I am is not wrong. You know, one of the reasons I love you know, the last I laughed, we laughed. I the last thing I ever fucking thought I do of being is astrologer. The last thing I ever thought I do in my life. I was like that's the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life. But it was the most helpful tool I ever had of showing me. I'm not fucking wrong. I'm here as a representation of this all. God, you know, we're all part of this cosmos, you know? And and I'm not I'm not fundamentally bad. No, I have fucked a lot of shit up in my life, and some serious shit has happened to me, and I don't excuse it, the behavior in any way, or deny accountability to myself or anything and anything to me. But I also can see it from the perspective of it wasn't about fundamentally who I am. It was. It wasn't about that.

Britt East [00:36:50] So then you referred to this a few times already in the conversation. How do we start to integrate our shadows? What does that even mean? Because it's still it's like, okay, bad stuff I experienced or my stupid ass responds to stuff I experienced. I still don't like it. I still don't want it. What do you why would I want to integrate that?

Alex Amorosi [00:37:09] Maybe you don't have to all the time. Maybe we get too obsessed with it. You know? Maybe it's just like, it's okay, girl. I'm just going to let that go to chalk that up to being 20. And that was stupid. And whatever, you know, it can be. That's that's good. I mean, you know, here's the thing. But I think sometimes, you know, integrate. We were an integration obsessed healing society, I mean integrated I'm going to be a perfectly integrate. You know, sometimes I think it's a bit like, you know what? You were just 22 and you were dancing on the table that night and it wasn't a good idea. Like, you just shouldn't have done it, you know? Like it wasn't a good look. Now there's a video of it. It's never coming down, you know, like that sort of thing. Fine. Let it go. Move on with your life. But I think the aspects of ourselves that that feel like they are, if we can't move forward in some way, if we don't have joy and fulfillment in our life in some part of our lives. If we are. You know, go down the list of coping mechanisms that are causing us suffering. Then I think the integration is important because. Those those from my standpoint, energetically, those behaviors are happening. Because there's a part of us that feels like it's missing that we're looking for. That that I can't quite let this go because it feels like part of myself just isn't here. And we might not realize that on a cognitive level or be able to put language to it in that way. But we will search for that part of ourselves in. You know, it could be a substance, it could be an activity, it could be in sex, which I think in our community is a major way where we search, you know, search for the parts of ourselves. There's got to be part of myself in this thing. And if I could only do it one more time and one more time and one more time, I'm going to find it. And then I hate to be cliche here. I know you might want to just get ready. So I'm going to warn you. But it's inside of you and it's always been there, you know? So here's the thing. Here's all right, all right. For all the gay boys here, we got Wizard of Oz right there. And if I'm giving a spoiler to The Wizard of Oz, reprioritize your life and go, I'm sorry. Just go deal with your life, because I can't. I can't be responsible for that. But what it's going to say to Dorothy, you know, she clips her heels in the lines like, why the fuck didn't you just tell her that? He didn't say, it's the gay dub, right? If I just tell her that before she went through all this fucking bullshit, you know? You. Thanks a lot.

Britt East [00:39:30] There were flying monkeys for Christ's sake.

Alex Amorosi [00:39:32] No kidding. Did, like, just sparkles, like, get into your brain and, like, you know, you know what's wrong. And she says, but it's really true. She goes, she wouldn't have believed me. She had to find it out for herself. And that's where I think that we when we're integrating these aspects of ourselves. It's because we have to. We have to go on that journey ourselves. We can have guides. We can have really helpful guides on that journey. But we're going on that in order to reclaim an aspect of our self that. No one can reclaim for you. And sometimes, you know, I'll be honest, Brit, it's not fucking fair that you have to go back and get it is somebody else's fault, is somebody else's. Somebody else fucked up big time. But when you do, since that has happened, we go back. To get that part of ourselves. Because for me, you know, it was something that used to happen for me. I'm like struck that if that person is going to control my whole life, no way. No fucking way. And that is reintegrating those parts of ourselves so that we feel once again, like, I have that part of myself I lost. And I don't have to keep searching for it in places that could harm me or somebody else. I have it now, and I'm able to moves forward with who I want to be and who I came to be in this lifetime, a much more holistic way.

Britt East [00:40:58] Yeah, I feel like in some cases it's as often expressed because nobody comes to a healer saying, hey, I want to work on my shadow stuff unless they're, you know, a healer themselves. Yeah. So it's I think it's often expressed like, why can't I be happy? This, this sense of stuckness, this undertow to somebody's life, this gravitational pull that is preventing you from being fully expressed like the language used. So we talked about like, the, you know, what it is we talked about, like, you know, who can help us? And, I guess I'm still, like, stuck on, like, what does integration even mean? If this shadows the shadows, it seems like there's, like this, you know, if anytime you have a duality, there's a border. So it's like, hey, you know, what is integration? I'm like, what does it even mean? How do you bring the shadow to. Is the goal to bring it into the light? Is the goal to liberate it in some way, to allow it to be expressed like, how does that work?

Alex Amorosi [00:42:03] You know, integration I think is. Feeling if my definition of it, I'm sure is the psychological definition that I'm not, I'm not. So anybody who out there who knows the psychological definition, this is just mine, but is feeling like my authentic self. But I also fucking pretend I don't have to put on a show. I don't have to be a great helper. Right? I don't have to do any of that fucking bullshit. I just like right now. You hear me swearing? This is me. I have a mouth like a truck driver. I grew up in East Boston, Massachusetts. Like I just have a mouth. That's part of me. And I don't feel anymore like I have to hide. That part of me. And I can also come on podcast, like, pretty sure it's like it's a swear, but but there is a sense where I think, you know. We also, but we also in a some sense we don't integrate, like Mike and I were talking about this last week. Well, some parts of it, some parts of us are, like you said, more roles that we put on their characters that we play for a little while. And it's perfectly fine to play a character provided you know you're doing that. So I think that we can become ups. One thing I think we can become obsessed with is we're not integrated enough so we can't go on with life. We can't live because I haven't integrated. And I'm like, well, we're always going to be living, growing. And change is always gonna be parts of us that are being pulled in here, and there's always parts of us to feel like, you know, I put on my character to go do this because it's fun. Like we were we were down in Provincetown at a wedding last weekend. And like, I put on my dancing character now, I don't dance like I did when I was 20, thank God. But like, you know, no one needs to see that. But like, it's a character for the night. And then we go back to our hotel room, we just go to sleep like I'm back to being myself. That's fine. That doesn't have to be integrated. What I'm saying is, where are the parts of yourself you feel you've left behind? That that you're searching for, that you're looking for, that you have to go down. I'm sorry to use the cliche again. The yellow brick road. You got to go down and find them for yourselves. Because when you find them, you feel like, oh, I don't have to spend so much energy searching anymore. I can just be who I am.

Britt East [00:44:06] Yeah. And that, you know, it's it's so confusing without a guide. Especially because. Yeah, the ego is so insidious. And so just when you think you have it figured out, which should be a red flag, by the way, it's like, okay, wait, I'm actually not actually being my full authentic self. Fully express whatever. It's like I'm actually just actually indulging some of my base instincts. I'm actually just giving myself free rein to be a jerk or whatever. So it's like it's real easy on our own to kind of with the best of intentions, kind of one step at a time go astray. I mean, all of a sudden you look back and you're like, oh, shit, I'm a mile away from the trail. And that's where this guidance piece comes in handy, I think, because people like you can be like, girl, what are you doing?

Alex Amorosi [00:44:57] Yeah. That's interesting. Let's talk about why that might be happening. You know, think. Oh. You know, you know, and and the thing is too, it's, it's diff is differentiating between and it's a tough one. This is why we need guides. Right. Is that you know is a differentiating between this is my authentic self because we all presents ourselves differently. We all have different sort of ways. We, you know, the different flowers that we are all bloom differently in the world. But is it something you actually want to be doing? Like, I see this a lot with gay men. I search for myself. I see it with my clients, my friends. I well, I think it's so important for us as gay men to always know, like, what do I actually want to be doing? Versus what am I pursuing? In order to not in order to try to get something back that I'm not finding through that particular avenue, you know, and like, that's where the NC, that's where I think a guide can be really helpful is like saying like, well, cool. If you want to change that and you're you don't want to be doing that. Wait a why do you keep going back to do it and be. What would be the actual authentic desire. And a lot of times, you know, it's very it's very tender. Most men are desperate. It's very like, tender and, you know, simple. Like, I want to feel safe. I want someone to love me for who I am. I want to feel like. Yeah.

Britt East [00:46:22] I just had a flash. Sorry, I.

Alex Amorosi [00:46:24] Don't. Please.

Britt East [00:46:25] I just had a flash. And you're talking about, like, from, example from my own life. There was a while where I think mainly actually, when I was deep into yoga. This was a long time ago. And I felt like, oh, I have reached a place where I mean, non-attachment sounds grandiose, but it's like I don't long for anything. And as I continued walking that path, eventually what I realized is the shadow coupling to that experience was I don't have any opinions. I don't have any desire because I think I'm not worthy.

Alex Amorosi [00:47:09] Exactly.

Britt East [00:47:10] And so it's so, so insidious. We can be so like, we can convince ourselves to go actually, of so much of so many shenanigans, of some so much out there that now I celebrate a lot more of the mess and the chaos. Maybe you're kind of like you were alluding to the messy me. As opposed to the sensation of like, oh, I think I got it. As soon as I encounter that, it's one thing to think, oh, I think I got it with a math equation or a spreadsheet or something or something, but it's like as soon as it comes to something as mysterious, noble and profound as the soul or the self I think I got, it's a really great reinforcement for something.

Alex Amorosi [00:47:56] Oh, it's the best one. It's the rest of the and you're sitting like, oh. Check that off the box. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not attached anymore. And all of you I know, but all of you are poor.

Britt East [00:48:07] Yes. And that's it.

Alex Amorosi [00:48:09] That's another go a separation. Yeah.

Britt East [00:48:11] That's another one that it got me to was like I had a pattern. Have a pattern of wanting to check things off my life list.

Alex Amorosi [00:48:20] Yes.

Britt East [00:48:20] Which is because I have to get somewhere, because where I am is intolerable. Who I am is intolerable. And so that's the shadow work of place. On the surface. It can look like, oh, I'm goal oriented. Oh, I'm professional. Successful. Oh, I get an A oh, I'm the best little boy in the world. All these tropes and cliches that a lot of gay men have out there because we we, on some profound level, know how truly unappealing we are and unacceptable how unpalatable we are. Instead of saying, I'm going to be unpalatable and make them gag.

Alex Amorosi [00:48:58] Except I'm going to be who you know, I'm not going to be who you're projecting. You need me to be.

Britt East [00:49:06] Thank you.

Alex Amorosi [00:49:07] In order to feel comfortable. Yes, yes. You know, like I'm just not. And, you know, it's it a it is very insidious, how that happens. And it's very deeply ingrained. And trust me, when you do spiritual work, it's all the more insidious. You you give a great example of that. You know, I've I'm not attached anymore. I've become enlightened. I've done this. I'm like. Yeah, but Curry gets to change the cat litter. And empty the dishwasher. I was so, so, so living in life, girl, you know, like this is still happening around you. In, in your, you know, so all of that can happen and I think that oOne of the ways that these things go underground, too. I think for us as gay men, Britt, is that, like I said, the things that are unacceptable are unsafe and I want to give us a good leeway with that. Like one thing I find when working with gay men a lot, and we're doing intuitive and do intuitive work with them, or we're looking at their chart. So there's, there's an intrinsic a shadow.

Alex Amorosi [00:50:04] Also is a know like we talked about. Right. There's a response to a boundary being infringed upon in some way and simply not being able to hold someone you love or someone you care about their hand in public purse. We automatically a lot of times go to, you know, I'm just going to release their hand. I'm going to look around me, I'm going to make sure. And I still catch myself doing this sometimes, some to all the time. There's that in Trenton, but the eyes and back of my head, so to speak, of who's around us right now. But what I catch. But what first happens when we need to let go of the hand. Or we need to not give a hug. Or kiss to somebody that we love in public. Is not fear. It's anger. It's rage. It's it's a big no. It's like, how dare you? I'm not doing anything wrong. Why are you in my space? But to stay safe, we often push that back because we feel like might. And it might be very true. My resistance here. Could be really dangerous. And it's not appropriate. But that anger doesn't go away. That. No, that assertion of power, of delineation, of like your experiences over there and my experiences over here, it doesn't go away. It goes underground. And then it will try to get our attention in some way. That's also a shadow. I think a shadow comes up very powerfully for us this game.

Britt East [00:51:18] Yeah. That's profound. You know. We rarely applaud each other's boundaries, especially if we perceive they cost us anything or inconvenience us in any way. Yeah. And so when we're setting boundaries and obviously boundaries, there's a whole range like you want to talk about, we're really serious and urgent. Yeah. But there's, there's, there's little boundaries as well. And when we're setting these boundaries I was starting to wonder, like, okay, well how can we foster the inner fortitude? To whether the resistance we will inevitably experience from other people who encounter our boundaries.

Alex Amorosi [00:51:57] Well, if we take this off the table, what we said before, where there's safety involved, right, where any kind of safety involved, because obviously you have to keep yourself safe. You know it. No situations. I think it's first knowing that. This is interesting, this is actually come up very powerful in my life over the last couple of months is my denial of this boundary to myself is not helping me or the other person. And I think we really tend to think of, you know, boundary. You know, for me, boundary is like, this is what's acceptable to me. This is what's not acceptable to me. It's not about what yYou do or don't do. Now, if you don't want to honor that, then we have to have a discussion about the role that you for. You know, whoever this is, has in my life, has in your life. But I think that, you know, when we don't honor ourselves, we don't honor like, you know, you know, I, I require this or I won't be spoken to in a way like in that way or I won't, I won't have my time infringed upon in a certain way. If I don't honor that for myself, I don't honor that other person. Because what I'm saying, what I. Because then there's a muddy mess of where you end and I begin. And there's also, there's a merging that happens. And I think also but I think also from a more self oriented perspective I'm really not honoring myself. I'm not listening to that part of myself that. When I listen to it, it may be hard, but I can look myself in the mirror in the morning. I can say, good job, girl, you did it. You stood up for yourself. You asserted what you needed. And I think over time, what I've noticed because I used to be very, very accommodating and very pleasing and very whatever you need, I, I was so sorry for even existing. Oh my God, like I used to be, all that it was very hard for me to look at myself in the mirror, and I think that's a real test in the morning. I wouldn't lie, I would not look at myself in the mirror brushing my teeth. I would, because I couldn't face how I had betrayed myself by a death of a thousand cuts. And those about when I really started asserting my boundaries and in a mostly d diplomatic way, sometimes less diplomatic, but mostly diplomatic, I began to feel more integrity with myself. And I also began to realize, you know, just for myself as a pleaser. I recognized that I was also showing confidence in that other person's ability to figure something out for themselves. They could date. They don't need to infringe on. Me in this way. I don't need to be showing up in this way to like, placate or solve something, for they're capable to. And that was sort of behind my own pleasing behaviors. Like, I don't really believe you're capable, so I'm going to come in here and swoop in, aren't I amazing? But when I realized I'm like, I have confidence in that person, in their abilities, then it may take them months, years, decades or their whole life to figure it out. But I have confidence if they can't, it's not my job to be inside of that scenario. That helps a lot. But I think mostly that you're honoring both people in their relationship. Makes up artist.

Britt East [00:55:00] I'm inacting shadow right now. How do I know when I'm done with shadow work and how do I get an A? Is there extra credit? Wait, is there extra credit? I know you're in charge.

Alex Amorosi [00:55:09] This is very much what you should be asking. Can I can I do it perfectly? I know, and I have similar I know, I'm like, when do I get my mark? When do I get my rewards from the universe? What is the universe like? When do I get to, you know, the session, the check? Yeah, the shadow badge. Like I wrote a check. Now, when do I get to cash it? When's the account? I don't know if you're ever fucking done. You know, I, I really don't. I think one thing I think is really important, I think there's a, there's a very necessary part of life where. You do some really intensive work. And you heal as much as you can. But there was a point I got to beginning last year. Much of the last time you and I talked to have a podcast. And I said, you know, Alex, you're healed enough. Your shield's enough. You're integrated enough. You'll always be integrating something, always be discovering something new. But I think I also make the distinction for myself and sometimes with clients, about the difference between healing and growth. And we're always going to be growing and expanding and we're always going to be doing better. You know, I've worked with clients approaching 90 and, they still at 90. How can I do this better? How can I think about this differently? How can I relate to this? You know, what does this say about what's coming? They're still curious and interested in wanting to grow. So I think growth is always happening. I think healing is something that we do for amounts of time to address something that is specific. And then there's a time to and this is probably the hardest part of healing. This might be triggering. I'm sorry if it is, but it's something I do believe with healing, there's a time to put it down. There's a time to say I'm healed and I've done enough here. I can go live life just like everybody else. I can have joy just like everybody else. And yes, I'm a messy, imperfect human. And I always will be until the day I die. And that's just the way it's going to be. But I can do a little better than I did yesterday. And I'm sorry to say, there's going to be no A or mark on the chart. Or you did it. Gold star in the forehead. I don't think that happens, but I think that, you know, there is a difference between healing and growth in my mind.

Britt East [00:57:18] Yeah. And it's like, at a certain point, if you spend all your time, attached to healing activities, it's like, okay, now it's time to go make a mess.

Alex Amorosi [00:57:28] Yeah, it's time to do it because healing healing can become an identity, right? You know, one of my very first I, one of my very first Buddhist teachers who I eternally admire and love and remain indebted to in so many ways, talked all the time. This is I was about 19 when I was first telling the time about spiritual ego, about. And you can take the ego like you just you just said beautifully, the ego is so insidious and it can take anything and make it another cloak to wear, another set of clothes to put on and very easily. You know, I really I'm always helium, always doing, I'm always, always this or I'm always in shadow processor mode. And you're not you don't let yourself live. Because I mean, I'm realizing I'm almost 45 now. I'm like, well, this rodeo really doesn't go on forever, and there's so much to enjoy. And it doesn't, you know, and I think sometimes we can look for I want to do I want to heal or be perfect or get it right, so I never have to experience that again or I never have to or I never do that again. And I think we can get much wiser, especially with age. But I think we're always growing, you know, you've seen it, you know, I'm sure when you meet somebody who even as an or, you know, in their 70s or 80s is curious, is interested. There's a youthfulness, there's a vitality, there's a sparkle. And that comes from the sense of incompleteness. That there's something still that I'm growing. I'm curious about. I want to learn. I'm reinventing, and I see again my clients. I tend to see clients, you know, 60 and older much of the time. And I see all the way up to 90 there's that quest. Still. Let me reinvent myself. Let me try something new, let me explore. And when we can let our that's what I believe draws life force through us is that ability to really recognize I'm never going to get all of this done. I can heal and sometimes I can heal as best as I can, but I also am worthy of living my life and enjoying it as who I am.

Britt East [00:59:27] Yeah, and and anything else might be shot up because it has been such a pleasure to talk with you today. Thank you so much. I just learned something. Every time we sit down together. I really appreciate it.

Alex Amorosi [00:59:41] Thank you, my friend. It was. Thank you for inviting me back. It's always so much fun to be in conversation with you. So thank you for having me.

Britt East [00:59:46] Absolutely. And like I said, listeners, we're going to load up the  with goodies so you can sign up for Alex's amazing email newsletters. You can follow them all, all the socials, and get in contact with him if you want to work with him. And, you made it through another episode of Not Going Quietly. You did it. Now it's time for you to go have a messy adventure. You've sat down. You've you've eaten your broccoli. You've gotten your spiritual wisdom for the day. Now go out there and have a messy adventure. Until next time. My name is Britt East, host of Not Going Quietly. Bye bye.

Britt East [01:00:20] You've been listening to Not going quietly with your host, Brit East. Thanks so much for joining us on this wild ride. As we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose, and joy. Check out our show notes for links, additional information, and episodes located on your favorite podcast platform.