STOP BEING A "SHADOW SHERPA"!

Essay #3 More thoughts about Scapegoating from a Professional Apologist

In truth I had not intended to return to the subject of scapegoating, but writing about the topic of scapegoating, and engaging with people in the comments section, has fine-tuned my own awareness. I realised that I have more things to say after all (and there may even be an Essay #4)!

My first essay explored what scapegoating is and why this dynamic exists (and persists). It occurs in dysfunctional families where people outsource blame by projecting it onto a designated family member, who carries the collective shadow.

Essay #1 THE SCAPEGOAT

My second essay was written in response to a question from one reader: how do we heal it?

Essay #2 SCAPEGOATING

I do my best writing in solitude, but writing never exists in a vacuum. I am grateful that Substack, as a platform, gives me the opportunity to interact with my readers and receive questions and feedback in “real time”. This is very different from the process of writing a book, going through the editorial process and finally holding a published copy in your hands (by the time you are deep in other projects).

After writing the previous two essays, from a place of honesty and vulnerability, my own awareness has sharpened some more.

Let me start by explaining what shadow material and projection are. Our personal Shadow consists of everything that is too painful (or embarrassing or shameful) for us to admit about ourselves, so we stuff it in some closet in the deepest recesses of our own psyche. However, it is not going to “slip out through the backdoor”, it will make its presence felt in other (unconscious) ways. We are going to encounter it everywhere in interactions with other people. This is because we project unprocessed or unwanted thought forms, attributes or emotions onto other people. It is less painful to see it in them, but it stays in our field of awareness!

My own father committed severe domestic abuse, but seeing a homeless or injured child on TV would make him sob. My child self cowering in front of him, black and blue, bleeding and terrified, was something he managed to wipe from his retina and memory. Until he died, he denied that he had ever done anything violent or abusive. When I confronted him once, in my early 20s (and safely living abroad) he flew into another rage and said: “How dare you accuse me of this? Haven’t we told you to honour your parents as the Bible tells us to?” Instantly I had become the “perpetrator”, the person who “did wrong”.

Because my family made me the designated scapegoat from birth (see a previous essay titled The Changeling), I developed a habit of saying sorry all the time. As a very young child this was one defence-and-prevention mechanism I had easy access to. When I feared people were displeased or annoyed with me (about anything at all) I would get in an apology quickly, to stop them from turning their anger or full-blown adult aggression on me.

And you know, I was not even aware I did this!! Until I was an art student in Amsterdam, sharing a flat with two other people… One memorable day one of my flatmates (a student of theology) turned on me and yelled: “STOP APOLOGISING FOR THE FACT THAT YOU EXIST!!”

I just stared at her. I had no idea what she meant but she clearly felt very strongly about this. “You say sorry all day long, to anyone who crosses your path. I see you do it and I have never seen you do anything warranting such over-the-top and unconditional apologies. No, you just offer apologies to everyone around you. It is a HABIT and it is DISGUSTING! STOP IT!!!

WOMAN RUNNING WITH FOX CUBS, painting by the author

WOAH!! This was a wake-up call. So… at age 20 I spent weeks observing myself closely. Do I really do this thing? And yes, she was right. The word sorry (and the Dutch language has borrowed the word “sorry” to replace the more old-fashioned word “verontschuldiging”, so it is the same as in English) popped out without me giving it much thought. It was a long-term habit designed to appease people so they would keep their cool. (The shadow figures behind this habit were obviously my father and a mother who blamed me for triggering my father’s rage).

I tried hard to become more mindful of this habit, but after Art School I moved to London UK, via Stockholm in Sweden. In the UK, British politeness dictates that we apologise to the person who steps on our foot, in the London Underground or wherever. When this process goes right, both people (in some little bump or minor mishap) apologise at the same time. You smile and both get on with your day. You immediately forget all about it. It is just something you do to oil the social wheels. It is VERY British, just like the proverbial stiff upper lip (displaying a stoic attitude and fortitude in the face of adversity) or the art of using understatement.

For me the scapegoating dynamic (in my family of origin) only ran out of petrol when my mother died (two years ago). One extremely positive thing I have taken away from 55 years of being a “Shadow Sherpa” was a strong habit of doing shadow work and (eventually) developing an acute awareness of how ancestral fields operate. It is my observation (based on years of doing ancestral healing work in a diverse and multicultural inner city environment) that many people die with unresolved (emotional) wounds and resentments. Their “howl” for an apology still echoes in the ancestral field like a hungry wolf - even if their souls move on in the Afterlife. For that reason, apology work has a powerful place in shamanic healing work.

So you could say that I became a Professional Apologist!

SIGHTING OF BABY YAGA IN SWEDISH FOREST!

My childhood had also programmed me to perceive other people’s needs and take-on-reality as far more important and legitimate than my own. (Again, “reading people” kept me safe but this is unhealthy, enmeshed, co-dependent behaviour).

Through writing my recent pieces about scapegoating I discovered that the Apologist in me remains alive and hyperactive. I was still willing to offer apologies even when I did not perceive I had truly done something wrong (or I had chosen a course of action for well-founded reasons).

Let me also explain that I have a core belief that I remain responsible for my own actions and choices. So even if both of us have done wrong (in some interaction), I still need to apologise for my part in what happened. That is not at all the same thing as saying: “I shoulder all blame for everything that went wrong here”, but people often choose to hear it that way, thinking: “Ha! You see it was her! That means I am completely off the hook!”

You’d think that people are thrilled to receive an apology, right? That they would do some shadow work of their own and do some spiritual work in return, to close the gap of perception (around some occurrence or interaction) and restore good will and good faith?

So let me tell you what happened instead: when (unhealed) people see your willingness to apologise (and, frankly, humiliate yourself) they soon come up with even more things they would like to receive apologies for. And I am willing to put that down to the “hunger of ancestral wolves”, not character flaws because I believe in spiritual generosity. But… it creates a very insane and imbalanced situation. You do not get an inch of grace in return, only a demand for more-more-more.

I realised that I was participating in my own scapegoating, by inviting it! OUCH!!

DREAMING WITH MY WOLF PACK, painting by the author

So I am going to close yet another destructive loop, in my own life, by sharing the following insights:

#1 Apologise, in right measure (not too little and not too much), when you truly feel an apology is in order. A genuine apology does not demand an apology in return, but of course one hopes for some self-awareness and shadow work, generosity and “gap-closing” from the other person in response.

#2 If you truly feel you have not done anything wrong, nor acted in bad faith, say: “I am sorry to hear that you are feeling this way". This is clearly a sensitive issue/area for you. I have listened closely and I will try to be more mindful of that moving forward.”

#3 If even that feels like too much, say: “Isn’t it funny how two people can perceive a situation so differently? I truly do not perceive things the way you do, but let’s have a conversation about what happened here, where your version and mine get equal air time and attention. We are bound to learn something!”

In truth I habitually did #1, when often #3 would have been more appropriate (and productive).

This (fairly recent) insight has restored immense healing, emotional space and clarity to my own life. I am less prone to rumination and my ability to sleep has improved too. As my previous essays about scapegoating got so many “reads” and so many sincere heartfelt responses - I wanted to share this new insight with you. Of course it is entirely up to you whether you take it or leave it! But please do let me know (in the comments) if you want more essays about topics like this. I have no desire to exhaust my readers!

I try (but sometimes fail) to get out at least one essay a week (sometimes more), due to travel, international teaching commitments and family care responsibilities (our family lives with Alzheimer’s and I have written several posts about that). If you would like to see regular posts about about Nordic spirituality and my life as a Forest Witch (and of course short videos of all the wildlife here!), please follow me on Instagram or Facebook, thank you!

Imelda Almqvist, London UK

BIO FOR IMELDA ALMQVIST

Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seiðr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). So far she has written four non-fiction books and two picture books for children. Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019, Medicine of the Imagination - Dwelling in Possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020 and North Sea Water In My Veins (The Pre-Christian spirituality of the Low Countries) was published in June 2022.

The Green Bear is a series of picture book for children, aged 3 – 8 years. The stories and vibrant artwork, set in Scandinavia, invite children to explore enchanting parallel worlds and to keep their sense of magic alive as they grow up.

Imelda has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Mesolithic arctic deer shamanism.

Imelda is currently working on a handbook for rune magicians (about the runes of the Elder Futhark) and on more books in the Green Bear Series. Imelda runs an on-line school called Pregnant Hag Teachings, where all classes she teaches remain available as recordings, which can be watched any time.

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Online School:                  https://pregnant-hag-teachings.teachable.com/courses/

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