Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark. (Zen proverb)
As a child, my greatest fear was vampires. Maybe I should put that in the present tense, because I’m not too crazy about the idea now either. But when I was a child, I was terrified. I can remember my first awareness that such frightening beings might exist came when my older sister showed me a horror comic story about them, and from then on, I was convinced they were real.
While over the years, I’ve revised my concept of vampires, I still “believe” in their reality. How many of us don’t get a shudder when we read these lines from Giron-Cerna’s Dracula:
–he holds down the curtain on morning, growing out of dry bones and bitter dirt. Shaped by forced labor in a stone country without trees or running water, he devours the gentle sweet thoughts that caress the softest folds. Blooming flowers wither and faith turns in on itself.
As a child, I believed that “they” were monstrous beings who were after me, and if bitten by their horrific fangs, I too would become a vampire, a being without true life who preyed on others in the deepest darkness. Now, as an adult, I have come to know that I can still become “possessed” by a vampire, and that some of the forms his possession may take are a negative self-image, morbid self-doubts, the need to be a victim and take on others’ burdens, self-pity, the blocking of creativity, arrogance, jealousy, and addictive behavior.
If any of these sound familiar to you, don’t be surprised. They seem to be part of the human condition. In particular, these traits are often the dark side of those who are drawn into the helping professions, where I spent much of my life, the opposite side of the coin from the deep compassion, empathy, desire to serve, and the need to understand that most helping professionals possess.
These unpleasant aspects of ourselves, this shadowy side of our personality, our inferiorities, our unacceptable impulses, our shameful actions and wishes, are difficult and painful to admit. It contradicts who we would like to see ourselves as, who we would like to seem to be in the eyes of others. So most of us suppress or deny that we are that way, and often project these traits onto others, seeing in them the very nasty, unsavory qualities we would like to deny in ourselves. Uh, oh. Talk about trouble between individuals, groups, even entire nations!
But hey! How if we each started recognizing the “vampire” within, however embarrassing or distressing or scary, acknowledging its unpleasant qualities and offensive behavior, coming to terms with its mischief and inadequacy, owning its character as ours and no one else’s? Remember the one thing that the vampire cannot tolerate is the light of day. So owning these qualities, in full recognition that this is by no means all or even most of who we are, bringing them out into the open, into the light, deprives “the vampire” of its power — Because once we own it, we now have the power of choice — we have the power to choose what we will ethically and morally do about these long-hidden impulses or fantasies. That’s darned hard work, too, but not nearly as hard as keeping it all stuffed down inside ourselves!
And we might even find that this very frightening “vampire,” this part of ourselves that we have so not liked, is worthy of our compassion and understanding, and even love.
Kinda gives new meaning to the idea of “loving our enemies,” doesn’t it, if we can admit that the true enemy lies within?
Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something that needs our love . . . (Rainer Maria Rilke)