The Shadow within Ourselves

The Supervisor, Rob, on one of the dive boats to the Barrier Reef that I work on, is one of those typical London style bit of a geezer (think Ray Winston crossed with Michael Caine). On one level he is fun, makes jokes, but on the other he is the big I AM. There is an underside to him that betrays all this 'I'm a lovely bloke' aura. It is the arrogance of someone who has a chip on his shoulder. Even after working for 3 weeks as a snorkel guide, I asked to be signed off and he said I had to spend a day with him to see how he does it. So despite me having given snorkel briefings and marine talks that you can count on two hands I had to see how he did it.

It has got to the point that he now lords it arrogantly over customers on the boat. Today two guys came on and asked to dive. It was a busy day, but he could have easily accommodated them, but they were tall, good looking and when he asked if they could snorkel, they joked that they were better than the Japanese (they were Czech). To that he commented that that was very rude and that they can forget about diving that day.

Also, we had a lovely Russian family on board today. I consider that they were educated and wealthy - and all spoke immaculate English. They had all their own equipment including a camera set up that looked like the Star Trek Enterprise with headlamps. They wanted to rinse their gear. I didn't get the full picture, but I could see them talking and I could tell that Robs voice was doing the put down arrogant tone.

In the visitors book today I gave it to the family to fill in their comment was:

"The dives were wonderful and the reef and staff were amazing. Rob was extremely arrogant to me and also to my son who was upset by his attitude".


And so... he is now being accused of the one thing that he loathes in other people.

And so to the shadow within ourselves...

How do we identify shadow material within ourselves? One really easy way is to look at people who we absolutely loathe. They represent something we loathe within ourselves, our shadow material. Example?

I once asked a friend what kind of people irritated her the most. Her response?

"People who just go on and on and on and never make their point. I just hate that. That just keep rattling on and on, repeating themselves over and over again without ever getting to the point. I just hate that. Why don't they say what they mean rather than repeating themselves over and over again?"

(She continued on for another 5 minutes, but I'll spare you. You get the point.) I've noticed this about myself. People who really annoy me are usually doing something I do. Sometimes I'm aware that I do it, sometimes I'm not, unless I pay attention to what I'm "hating" in otherwise.

The more strongly I'm irritated by someone's behaviour, the bigger the shadow in myself.

It is an interesting exercise and it is SOOO TRUE!