Deeper Shadows

The Strengths Cafe is an online publishing project sponsored by Innovative Resources.

find out more:

• view Shadows on IR's shop site

In the Mailbag

Hi John,

Just to let you know I attended a four-day reality therapy workshop where we used the Shadows and Deeper Shadows cards. They were fantastic. We created stories using the pictures and then role-played. People in the group used their creative writing and story telling skills beautifully. The cards really helped us to touch base in terms of what a person may be thinking and feeling, and how we could assist clients to self-evaluate and plan for the future. They worked so well and helped us, as participants, to connect with each other. It was the first time that I have used them, but won't be the last.

Cheers,

Steve Phillis

Team Leader, Youth and Family Connections Team,

St Luke's Anglicare.

Hello,

When I purchased the Shadow cards at an American Counseling Association Convention one of the salespersons asked if I would provide feedback about my experience with using this tool. I am a mental health counsellor at a small university, and several of my students/clients are art students. I have found the cards to be particularly helpful in working with students who are having difficulty disclosing or focusing on the issue that has brought them to counselling.

Today I used the cards in a group and asked the students to provide consent and feedback for your company. Here are the student group comments:

‘The cards are insightful and thought provoking, revealing. This is an interesting way to explore ourselves and others.'

‘The cards are used in a very interesting way to make me think about myself. They got me thinking that is for sure.'

‘The cards were a very interesting tool to introduce feelings that people in the group can relate to that person.'

‘The cards are very good at evoking strong emotion. The artwork and details are very powerful.'

As the facilitator of the group, I noted that several members shared more in this group than any other prior meeting.

I truly appreciate the use of a new tool that helps me help others. Thank you!

Mental Health Counsellor, USA.

'Working on Shadows was a dream come true for me because I have always liked painting pictures that tell a story. But that is not what most people want on their lounge room walls. People often simply want pretty things. But these cards invite you to delve a little deeper and give an opportunity to tell a story.'

Carolyn Marrone, Artist

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The Gentle Art of Sharing Stories and Feelings in Japan

By Linda Espie, grief and bereavement counsellor, educator and author

'I liked to use the Shadows cards and see the darkness I feel. We don't often use darkness as a focus; it was good self-awareness for me.'

Palliative care nurse

In several visits to Japan over recent years I have appreciated using The Bears and Strength Cards published by St Luke's Innovative Resources and translated into Japanese in 2004. I have also enjoyed using Koala Company. These card-based resources are very popular with participants as introductory warm-up exercises and as ways of taking people a little deeper into self-disclosure. They assist participants to make new connections and build relationships. As a counsellor and facilitator working in grief and bereavement education it has been exceptionally valuable to draw on these resources to enhance individual work and group dynamics.

In July this year, I was excited to broaden the horizons by taking a set of Signposts and Shadows to use in the advanced level of education I deliver to Japanese health care professionals. Those attending were receptive to these creative gems, even though, in the case of Signposts, there is an English phrase on each card … and most participants do not speak English! The words were no distraction. The beauty and resonance of the photographs in Signposts transcended culture. Similarly, participants used Shadows with interest and wonder.

'We each chose a different Shadows card. All agreed the card reflected our personal daily life and for some, our past experience. This was a good introduction to each other.'

Pastoral care worker

Introducing an experiential approach to learning and working with groups in Japan has been a gentle process requiring great care, and intricate attention to detail and instruction. Sharing in pairs as a way of exploring thoughts, feelings, reactions and experiences has been greatly facilitated by using St Luke's materials.

Self-disclosure (even in small groups) and speaking with an audience can be challenging for anyone and is not common place in Japan. Loss, grief, death and dying are often painful experiences to witness and can often be even more difficult to discuss. Almost all the participants I work with feel reluctant to express personal and professional views, recount experiences and share emotions. These emotions seem to be well-contained yet I sense they are just below the surface.

Participants take a huge risk when, following an invitation to reflect or respond, they literally 'take the microphone'. The silences and the experience of grief itself can be palpable. But inevitably, patience, gentle encouragement and warmth enable some people to contribute out loud. My experience is that this 'easing into' active involvement increases with time, and the innovative resources from Bendigo are integral to this process.

'The three of us chose the same Shadows card with the green growth among the trees which were quite dark. Even so, we spoke together focusing on hope.'

Unit nurse manager

It is a privilege working with and alongside such dedicated Japanese professionals. My relationship with my work and all those I am fortunate to meet in Japan is a great joy. Introducing Symbols to Japan in January 2007 will be exciting - stay tuned!

The Masks of Grief

Bette Phillips is Family Support Services Coordinator for families and individuals bereaved by workplace fatalities. She also facilitates grief-related workshops, one of which focuses on the masks of grief.

Work-related Grief Support (WGS) has been providing support to bereaved individuals for about eight years now. Work-related grief includes any death where work has been a factor including traumatic incidents such as industrial accidents, suicides, stress-related heart attacks, farming accidents and asbestos-related deaths.

WGS is sponsored by, and works closely with, The Victorian Workcover Authority to ensure that each family or individual has broad and informative access to support and information. As Family Support Services Coordinator for families bereaved by workplace fatalities my work is often quite diverse. Much of the work is done in the home of the bereaved individual (or family).

It is important to me to ensure that each visit leaves the individual with the belief that their grief has been heard along with a feeling that they have some empowerment over their future. This also means that I need to be creative with each visit, difficult when the grief is often so raw and the words are stuck … deep down in the soul.

Hidden feelings and masks

I have used the Shadows and Deeper Shadows cards in workshops. I regularly facilitate a workshop that focuses on the masks of grief. One module encourages the participant to choose a card that reflects some of the hidden feelings that they keep inside when in public to appear normal.

The card that shows a brick building, for instance, has a small vase of bright flowers in the window. One woman said that the building reminded her of her emptiness and feelings of loneliness, yet the flowers showed that there was still a flicker of life deep in her being. Her mask reflected starkness of colour using veils over the mask (several layers) and a brightness under the veils to show that one day she would find a way to show that aspect of herself once more.

Another card showing a mug and cracked glasses reminded a woman that she felt 'shattered'; her mask showed cracks and fissures strongly imprinted all over the mask.

The making of the masks was done in silence so that each person could concentrate on their thoughts and feelings, and stay in touch with the level of energy they were experiencing. One mask was bright and shiny with a sad face underneath; another beautifully jewelled indicating the children still surviving with a beautiful centerpiece for the son who had died. Another showed a number of veils suggesting that no one could see the 'real me'; and yet another was painted simply with a single tear.

Bringing Shadows into Your Practice

Using Shadows to Explore Fears and Sorrow

To be human is to struggle with fears and sorrow. By their nature many of these struggles are difficult to identify, difficult to understand and difficult to talk about.

We can develop different strategies to avoid facing our fears and sorrows. But sometimes avoidance comes at a price; if they fester they can deplete one's energy, they can destroy hope, they can diminish the person.

Facing fears and sorrow with honesty takes courage and often the help of others. Shadows is one simple tool that may help us to reflect on the sources of our fears and sorrows and help us discover pathways to resolving them.

Useful questions to ask

Some ways of facing up to our fears and sorrows using Shadows may be to begin with questions such as:

• Can you pick one card that says something about what is making you anxious or fearful?

• Can you say where this anxiety or fear comes from?

• Is the fear always there or does it come and go?
  

• Can you tell me about the times when the fear is not there? What is different? What are you doing differently?

• You seem to be really sad. Is there a card that describes or sums up your sadness?

• Which card comes closest to how you are feeling?

• What is it about this card that is similar to how you are feeling?

• Have you felt like this before? What have you done that has helped? What could you try this time?

• If this picture is about you, what do you imagine the next scene might look like? What will you be doing?

• Is there one small step you can take to feel less anxious or less sad?

In her book The Universal Heart (Viking, Ringwood, Australia, 2000), Stephanie Dowrick writes, 'Grief, jealousy, envy, frustrated longing, feelings of rejection: these are part of all family relationships, however outwardly benign a family may appear. Yet they are often not identified and are rarely resolved through explicit understanding and acceptance.'

Fears and sorrows are often intricately tied up in our relationships with family, friends and colleagues. As conversational prompts, the Shadows cards invite discussion of these relationships, including aspects of them that may be difficult to talk about.

Questions such as the following may be useful:

• Who else in your life is part of this picture?

• Are they also fearful or sad?

• Do they know how you are feeling?

• Are they part of the problem or part of the solution?

• Are they the people you are missing?

• How might you go about inviting them to a discussion about this picture?

• Are there others who should know how you are feeling and about the progress you are making?

Using Shadows for Creative Writing

As writers, and aspiring writers, we face the same challenges as all artists; two of the toughest being motivation and inspiration. Not to mention frustration, despair and the gut-wrenching fear of facing a blank page or computer screen. We all aim for the same result; the joy of getting the words down 'right' -creating sentences and paragraphs, verses and stanzas, that express what we feel and resonate with those who read them.

But sometimes we need a prompt, and visual prompts in particular can be powerful stimulants for writing. They can dredge our deepest memories, help us pick the thread of a story, and provide us with characters and situations to explore what we might not have considered otherwise.

Trying on someone else's shoes

In many ways writing is like acting. To write well, you need to be able to immerse yourself in another person's situation. You need to feel what your character is feeling. Of course, we all bring pieces of ourselves to everything we write.

Choose a Shadows card that has a person in it, and write from that character's perspective. Put yourself in their shoes. What are they thinking, feeling, dreaming? If you have trouble starting, pretend you are that person writing in their journal.

Emotions

Good writing is all about emotions. We tend to do our best writing when we focus on those things that we are passionate about. If you are totally wrapped up in the emotion when you write then there's a good chance the reader or listener will feel it too.

Choose a Shadows card that evokes a certain emotion, then write about it without stating it. Try to convey the emotion you or your character is feeling through action and image. Poetry might be easier than prose. In a group situation you might read out your pieces and see if others can guess the emotion you were trying to portray.

Linking stories/building plot

Every Shadows card has a story-or several stories-to tell. But can you see links between any of the card's; pictures that pick-up the thread of another card's story?

Select a Shadows card-now try and find other cards that add something to the card. You could use several cards to build a storyboard and create a plot for a larger story.

For larger writing workshops: break into small groups and ask each group to choose six cards that form a story. Have each group report

Using Shadows to Explore the Shadow

Shadows is a tool that can help people identify and name elements of the Shadow that aren't conscious or are just becoming conscious.

• Can you choose a card that has a message for you?

• Is there a card that 'speaks' to you in some way?

• Is there a card that makes you feel emotional?

• Is there a card that creates a particular feeling or reminds you of something from your childhood?

Asking such questions as someone scans the array of cards (or studies them one by one) invites the person to get in touch with thoughts or feelings that he or she may not have been conscious of previously.

It is important that the person makes their own choices, does their own sorting and articulates their own meaning. It may be useful to sit in silence for a while, giving valuable

time for the person to reflect on the significance of the picture before he or she speaks. Be aware of when the person is ready to start.

Some questions that might open up conversation are:

• Can you tell me a little about the picture you selected?

• What does it mean for you?

• So why this picture now?

• Is there anything happening in your life that makes this picture particularly relevant?

• Does this picture bring to mind an image of your own that is meaningful to you?

• Is there anything in the picture that scares you or makes you uneasy?

• Does this picture describe or suggest events from your past? Are these events clear or hazy? Are they painful to talk about?

The pictures may also suggest relationships where shadow issues have arisen and these might be explored by asking such questions as:

• Tell me a story about you and this picture.

• Are there other people who are in the story who should be in the picture?

• Does the picture remind you of other people and situations you would rather forget?

• How did these other people change the direction of your life?

• How are they like you? How are they different?

Because exploring the Shadow can touch on buried thoughts and feelings that are very sensitive and painful, such conversations should be entered into carefully. The person

themselves should always be able to determine what they want to discuss and when is the most appropriate time. Being respectful means one is always cautious about making

assumptions and inferences, being provocative and drawing conclusions.

All the above suggestions are made with the understanding that such questions would only ever be used within relationships of trust between the people involved in the

conversation.

Reflecting on Practice

Sue and Tim meet monthly to reflect on their practice. Tim works as a community health nurse running groups on health issues from managing diabetes to caring for adolescents; Sue is a counsellor for families. When they meet they each bring something from their practice they want to think about more deeply-a question, an incident, a concern. The idea is to help each other tease out what this means for them; why it is important. For this session, Sue has suggested they use the Shadows cards to see what that might raise, whether using the cards brings up an issue in a different way.

They take it in turns to explore, asking each other questions like:

• Why is this important for you?

• What made this card stand out?

• What is it about the picture that meant you chose this one?

• What thoughts and feelings do you have about it?

• What does this say about what assumptions and values are important to you?

• How does this connect to how you see yourself as a worker?

• What might this mean for how you work in your current practice in this organisation?

Tim goes first. He selects the card picturing tree trunks in a forest with some new growth of leaves at the bottom of one of the trees. For Tim, the picture symbolises the isolation of the different programs he works in. He is feeing that the funding of his programs and the organisation generally means that his work often feels disjointed-not connected to other work in the organisaion. Like the trees, the programs seem to grow separately, he feels isolated from the other workers. Although his programs are going well (they, like the trees, are sturdy) this doesn't fit with how he thought his work should be.

Sue asks him about what this means in terms of his expectations and assumptions about work. Tim struggles to answer this; at one level this is what he wanted, he likes the programs he runs and enjoys the contact with clients. As he talks he becomes clearer that he assumed that the organisation would have formal ways for workers to connect with each other and to help workers make connections across programs. He realises that he had expected this to be done for him rather than to see that as part of his role as a worker. When Sue asked what connections he could make, he acknowledged that there were potentially many links with other workers and that he could initiate these himself. When he went back to the card he realised that symbolically the image also reminded him that all the trees were growing from the same soil, in the same environment, connected by sunlight and shadows. He felt energised to start looking for more connections in his workplace and to be active about generating them himself.

Sue chose the image of the bed that it seemed only one person had slept in. She had been increasingly conscious and concerned that in her work with families, fathers seemed to be absent, even when they were still living with the family. Having a double bed with two pillows symbolically reinforced for her the expectation that both parents should be present. Sue had a sense of discomfort about the absence of fathers in her practice. She wondered whether there was something she was doing that gave them or the family generally a message that they weren't needed.

When Tim asked her where this might come from she acknowledged that in her own family of origin, her parents operated very separately-with her mother making all the decisions about home and family. She had worked hard in her own relationship not to repeat this pattern on the assumption that having both parents involved was important. Tim encouraged her to tease this out more; in the process Sue linked both her own experience and her training in family therapy to her values and assumptions. For example, these included the assumption that everyone in the family affected each other and the value that both parents should participate in caring for their children, so that both needed to be involved in family counselling. Having clarified why this was important, Sue decided she needed to be more active in promoting this in her practice. She decided to offer three early evening appointments on Thursday evenings to encourage working partners to come to counselling sessions (while still allowing choice); to be more assertive in intake sessions about the need for both parents to be involved; and to explore whether there were issues about this for families. She decided she would use the image of the card to remind herself-no more unslept on pillows!