A Liminal Space

Parker Palmer writes that some leaders “shine a light that allows new growth to flourish, while others cast a shadow under which seedlings die.” He warns that by failing to examine our shadows, we feed a dangerous delusion that leaders too often indulge: “that our efforts are always well intended, our power is always benign, and the problem is always in those difficult people whom we are trying to lead!”

We see this everywhere these days—people in power blaming others for everything wrong and refusing to take responsibility. It’s almost become normal. In this current political mess, I find myself looking inward more toward the things I’ve learned about myself that I actually have some control over.

When Light Becomes Shadow

Over a decade ago, I started learning about the power of influence and how walking in another’s shadow can keep a person in darkness, slowly killing the light inside our soul. It happens gradually, like a frog in a pot where the water is slowly heated up.

I don’t think most of us ever intend to walk in someone else’s shadow. I think most of us are truly looking for the light that seems to shine just beyond them.

It’s been so important for me to realize this about myself—so I wouldn’t believe the lie that I was only ever darkness. No, on the contrary, I was only ever looking for the light. But in the process of seeking light, I discovered the shadow of another and myself.

Where it gets really confusing is how lost I got in that darkness while perceiving it as light. I believed that in his shadow I was safe. But I wasn’t safe at all. I was more lost than I’d ever been before.

The Blame Game

People said I should have known better, should have understood as an adult that it was wrong. I realize today that trying to prove there was such a thing as abuse of power to others who were living in the shadow of the same institution was a waste of time and energy. No amount of educational videos from professionals or even the leader’s confession of sin would convince others of the truth that they, too, had been led astray.

Led astray by a system that taught us living in the shadows was just the way it was supposed to be. They had embraced the belief that they were only ever doing what was best for everyone, and if there was a problem, it must be someone else’s fault.

The Way Through

The only way out for me, as Palmer says, was into the darkness of all I’d believed I was capable of and out into the light of who I could be. Palmer quotes Annie Dillard, who says we must “ride the monsters all the way down until we break through to something precious—the unified field of our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, to the community we share beneath the broken surface of our lives.”

Palmer writes, “Good leadership comes from people who have penetrated their own inner darkness and arrived at the place where we are at one with one another, people who can lead the rest of us to a place of ‘hidden wholeness’ because they have been there and know the way.”

Why We Stay in the Shadow

They say children in abusive homes blame themselves because the alternative—that their parents are the problem—leaves them powerless. I think that’s why so many of us cling to toxic leaders who do nothing but cast shadows. Maybe admitting they’re the problem would mean accepting we have no control.

Whitney Houston sang about refusing to walk in anyone else’s shadow, about going inward and learning to love herself. I think she was onto something crucial.

The toxic faith I grew up with convinced me that looking inward was dangerous—that if I dug beneath the surface, I’d discover nothing but the rot of an irredeemably sinful heart. There was no goodness to be found there, only corruption that went all the way down. But what happens when someone already drowning in that internal darkness looks outward and sees nothing but more of the same?

When it finally sank in that the belief system I’d poured twenty years of my life into wasn’t going to catch me when I fell, I had two choices: surrender completely or turn inward and search for something to hold onto. There wasn’t anywhere else left to look.

But that desperation became my saving grace. What I discovered in that inward turn was a deep connection that actually satisfied me. Now the battle is staying focused on it. I have to keep reminding myself to slow down and go deeper.

Because what I see playing out on social media these days feels way too familiar—the same toxicity I experienced in religion. Leaders casting shadows while people believe they’re looking out for their best interests. It’s hard not to stare too long and remember the damage that following the wrong person caused, to see that long dark shadow of blame and shame being cast onto others.

The Light Beyond

But I’m learning to remember that just beyond the darkness, there is light. Light and beauty and true connection with each other. I’m also realizing that we are all leaders in some capacity. What are you leading out of? What are you casting onto others? Shadow or light?

We are always casting something—we can’t help it. The question is whether we’re conscious of what we’re putting out into the world.

Resources

Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer