Embracing Your Shadow: A Guide to Existential Kink

3 minute read

Are you ready to explore the hidden depths of your psyche and unlock new levels of self-awareness? As a depth psychologist and practitioner of non-monogamy, I've found that understanding and embracing our shadow selves is crucial for personal growth and healthier relationships. Today, let's dive into the fascinating world of shadow work and existential kink.

What is Shadow Work?

Shadow work is a tiny sliver built from the immense psychological theories of Carl Gustav Jung. It involves exploring the parts of ourselves that we've rejected, repressed, or denied. Shadow work not just about confronting our negative traits; it can also involve reclaiming positive aspects we've pushed away. For example, I once shoved my leadership qualities and intellegence into the shadow because I feared being perceived as “too big for my britches.” (What a tell that I was raised with old New Englad Puritainical values)  Through years effort, I’ve actively reintegrated those traits, claimed them fully, and reap the benefits of claiming what I had shoved into my golden shadow.

The Paradox of Shadow Work

One of the most challenging aspects of shadow work is accepting the paradoxical nature of our psyche. We may simultaneously enjoy and despise certain experiences or traits. This is where existential kink comes into play – a method developed by Carolyn Elliott that encourages us to find pleasure in our unwanted experiences. 

Existential Kink: A Practical Approach

Existential kink involves a meditation practice that helps us confront and embrace our shadow aspects. Here's a simplified version of the process:

1. Identify a persistent negative pattern in your life.
2. Notice the physical sensations and emotions associated with this pattern.
3. Allow yourself to feel these sensations without judgment.
4. Recognize the hidden pleasure or satisfaction in the experience.
5. Embrace the paradox of simultaneously enjoying and disliking the situation.

Personal Growth Through Discomfort

As we practice existential kink, we learn to hold space for seemingly incompatible truths. This skill can be incredibly valuable in various aspects of life, including non-monogamous relationships. By acknowledging our shadow aspects, we become more self-aware and better equipped to navigate complex emotional landscapes.

Building Confidence in Your Shadow Work

Remember, shadow work is an ongoing process. It's not about "fixing" yourself or eliminating unwanted traits. Instead, it's about integrating all aspects of your psyche to become a more whole, authentic version of yourself. As you practice existential kink and other shadow work techniques, you'll likely find yourself more confident in facing life's challenges.

Enhancing Relationships Through Shadow Work

Understanding and accepting our shadow selves can profoundly impact our relationships. By owning our "darker" aspects, we become less likely to project them onto others. This self-awareness can lead to more honest, compassionate connections with partners, friends, and family members.

The Risks of Misusing Shadow Work

It's important to note that shadow work isn't about indulging in harmful behaviors or using it as an excuse for poor choices. The goal is to acknowledge and integrate these aspects of ourselves, not to act them out destructively. Always approach shadow work with care and, if needed, the guidance of a trained professional.

Conclusion: Embracing the Complexity of the Human Psyche

Shadow work and existential kink offer powerful tools for personal growth and self-discovery. By learning to embrace the paradoxes within ourselves, we can cultivate greater self-acceptance, improve our relationships, and live more authentically. Remember, the journey of self-discovery is ongoing – be patient with yourself as you explore these depths.

Next Steps in Your Shadow Work Journey

Ready to dive deeper into shadow work? Consider these steps:

1. Start a shadow work journal to track your experiences and insights.
2. Practice the existential kink meditation regularly, even if just for a few minutes each day.
3. Join a community or workshop focused on shadow work to share experiences and learn from others.
4. Explore resources like "Existential Kink" by Carolyn Elliott or my sexual shadow masterclass for more guided exploration.

Remember, the path to self-discovery can be challenging, but it's also incredibly rewarding. Embrace your shadow, and watch as new dimensions of your authentic self emerge.

Episode 164 Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated, and may contain some errors.

Joli Hamilton
Welcome to Playing With Fire, the podcast for people who are ready to custom build their love.

Ken Hamilton
We're talking about non-monogamy however you design it, as an individuation opportunity.

Joli Hamilton
Want to leave the default and make your life spectacularly you? You're in the right place.

Joli Hamilton
Let's talk about shadow stuff today.

Ken Hamilton
Shall we like talking about shadow stuff?

Joli Hamilton
Shadow stuff? I thought we specifically discuss existential kink as a particular method of doing shadow work. And existential kink is, is not all of shadow work by any means.

Ken Hamilton
Tell us what existential kink? Well, existential

Joli Hamilton
kink is a particular method, a way meditation, a way of doing your shadow work that was described by Carolyn Elliot now love Well, Carolyn Lovewell, in the book, existential kink, and Carolyn's got a pretty broad public profile, her works out there in the world. And I came to it because I was looking for a community of people who are practicing modern shadow work, but I also trained in Union psychology. So I was coming into existential kink, I certified as an existential kink coach, because I was very curious about this, this particular modern perspective on Shadow Work. And when I got there, I found Yeah, I like it. And I also really felt deeply grounded in my own background as a union and archetypal psychologist. So I really, I feel like I have a strong positionality when it comes to doing this work and applying it. But not everybody really wants to do shadow work. And I just want to say if this, if this stuff, if the idea of doing Shadow Work is overwhelming to you remember, you get to dose it correctly for yourself. Right, like we're going to talk about what shadow is. Yeah, that's how, and yeah, what it means to do shadow

Ken Hamilton
is and what shadow work? Sure.

Joli Hamilton
So what's the before I give technical definitions, do you want to talk about what you think of because I can give very technical definitions? Like we could just jump right in there? Fine. Yeah.

Ken Hamilton
I, I think of shadow I interact with shadow as the parts of me that I have decided not to look at, over over my life.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, well, you're right on So Young's Pythias quote, on what shadow is, and Jung is the one who coined that particular word, that turn of phrase, but the concept of there being stuff that we don't look at it goes much further back than Jung, but the Pythias quote is, that shadow is that which a person person has no wish to be. Shadow is that which a person has no wish to be that's in collected work. 16, paragraph 340. So it's, it's what we reject, suppress, deny, what we reveal about ourselves, what has no chance to be known about ourselves. Okay,

Ken Hamilton
so. So there's the unconscious, which is all the things we don't know about ourselves. Yeah. And then there's the shadow, which you're saying, is this stuff we don't want to know. And that's certainly not all of the unconscious, because I've had stuff come up from my unconscious, like, Oh, I wish I'd known that was there.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, I mean, I think this is this is where it gets a little tricky, because you could actually use the concept of shadow as something that is more morally neutral, right, we could talk about golden shadow the parts of ourselves that we don't know how to integrate about ourselves that we do. We do, theoretically want them and like them, but they still lie in the shadows. So another way to think about shadow is to consider that it is where all of the stuff that we don't know about ourselves where that lies. So if you like the metaphor of the shadow is beautiful. It's it's the shadow, therefore it lies. So okay, let's use a Disney reference. When Mufasa and Simba are looking out across the plains, alright, they're looking off out across the Sahara. Savannah, and he says, What's that over there in the edge? Oh, you are king of Everything the light touches? What's that over there? The light wasn't touching this one area, right the shadow. But also I mean, there's stuff that is it is confusing to us that we're not sure how we feel about it. So all of the stuff in our unconscious I mean, we're never going to know everything the unconscious is vast, to the point of ineffability the personal unconscious and then there's the collective unconscious, the the the archetypal layer of humanity that is far bigger than I could ever hope to know and integrate. And if I were to try to integrate all of that into my my one being I mean So definitely a risk of risk of serious psychosis. So the point isn't to try to integrate everything. And yet, so much of what we have shoved off into the shadow or what has gotten relegated there is due to our particular socialization the way our society told us to be what we imagined we needed to be in order to be accepted by our family, by our community. Right. We there are plenty of things I'm thinking about you right now, you I remember you describing to me how your parents never really talked about things. And but you made conclusions, right. Like, like thinking about sex? Like, did your parents ever talk about sex? No. Did they ever make it clear that they were heading off to the bedroom to bop around? Nope. And yet, and so they didn't say anything negative about it? No. But what's the impression you drew about how you should feel about your sexual urges? Well, I

Ken Hamilton
shouldn't talk about them. You shouldn't talk about them. Things that I shouldn't talk about, there must be something wrong with them. So you want because the reason that I wouldn't talk about it is there must be something wrong. That was my conclusion.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah. So as a child, you made this, this leap this this, you just you made a, you made an inference? Yep. And from somebody else might have actually inferred quite the opposite. Someone else might have said, Well, nobody's saying anything. So I don't know. I guess I get to decide whatever I want about it. But frequently, we pick up these just from our parents, we pick them up from a broader social context, right? So we're socialized and socialization is not a bad thing. But we're socialized. And along the way we are. We're constantly inferring what the rules are, what how we can stay in the in group and how we cannot be cast aside how we can remain one with our community. And it's, I mean, it's just profoundly impactful that we, we cut off parts of ourselves to fit in, we amplify other parts of ourselves that we imagine are wanted and Wantable. Sex is one of the things that I find often gets shoved into the shadow. In fact, I have a whole masterclass just on identifying your sexual shadow material. But it's really important to me that we also remember that there are qualities and facets of the shadow that are not things that we inherently think are bad. So if there's if I think about let's say, perversity, right, like what, what is kink and perversity, right? What's all the stuff that I've decided, let's say I've decided that hitting someone and getting off on hitting someone, even in a consensual way, it just, it riles me up. Now, I might have labeled that and shove that into the shadow. But I could equally shove beauty intelligence, things that I desperately want to be into the shadow. So

Ken Hamilton
I mean, I have an example of that. My leadership qualities, because I didn't want to take responsibility for anything. I shoved all of my leadership qualities into my shadow. And I left them there for a really long time. And now with my word for this year being LEED, I'm trying to get familiar with those pieces that I shoved aside and get them back out of the shadow. And that's what I think of. That's one aspect of what I think of shadow work, being like, okay, identifying that no, these these are qualities that exist in me, but I've been denying them. Right, so now I want to get familiar with them. And this in this case, from my point of view, I'm trying to get familiar with positive aspects of me things that I want to bring forth, but you

Joli Hamilton
somehow have rejected or suppressed or repressed this, you denied it, or you just maybe just other day even I remember thinking because I am I am what people generally consider to be a natural leader in any situation I find myself and I am apt to be immediately thrust into a leadership role or to embrace one of my own volition. So you have often projected out all the leadership NISS right in our household onto me, and in doing so actually, divest it nor from yourself so you can shove it further and further into the shadow and then start judging yourself for not having this thing that you that you've cut off from yourself. Right, exactly. I love the concept of the show. because it doesn't actually have to be. It's not about whether somebody else judges this quality, to be good, bad or indifferent. It's about whether I have rejected or repressed or denied this facet of me or this facet of humanity. So not all shadow is negative. And it's certainly not all negative to you. The shadows what you can't accept, it's what you are unable to embrace about yourself. So shadow work, then it would follow is the process any process by which you become aware of what you're denying what you've repressed what you've hated about yourself, right? What you what you have cast out and cast away, and young spoke of shadow as the apprentice work, meeting once shadow, to, to come to to really acknowledge and be with it. And this isn't something you do all at once, by the way, you don't go away for a shadow work weekend and come back like check. I did that. That's not That's not the thing.

Ken Hamilton
Sound.

Joli Hamilton
It's possible. Well, it's I mean, it's silly, right? Because we're also always in the process of living and therefore, and cultivating ourselves being part of a collective being part of a society being part of a family making relationships in which we often mold ourselves, curate ourselves, reject parts of ourselves. So that it is common that we do more of that we do lots more of that earlier in life, our childhood or adolescence, our young adulthood, or even our middle adulthood, where we're really still trying to get our feet trying to make sure we know who we are. Hopefully, a lot of us make a shift at least at midlife to recollecting more of ourselves.

Ken Hamilton
But up until that point, every time you find yourself in a new situation, you may find yourself adding to the shadow or extracting from it like

Joli Hamilton
when you're 57. Do you still find yourself having added things to the shadow that you did not realize you were Yes, recently? Yeah, yeah, maybe I'm 47. Same, same. So we're never done with this. It's not such shadow works on a thing you do. It's not a journal that you buy and you like, check you like you fill in those particular worksheets, and then you're done. And unfortunately, The Way Shatta Wale work has been splintered off from the rest of union psychology is a little unfortunate, because Shadow Work standing on its own can be valuable. However, there is this impression going around that it's something that we do and then is done. And that's just not the case. Also, we lose some of its depth when we when we Splinter it off from its archetypal basis. So shadow work can be any process there are lots of processes, where by you come become aware of what you've denied about yourself, you recollect those bits you a union way to put this would be to say you remember them, you stitch them back on, right like you remember yourself imagine that you're a little doll that's had only little bits cut off, and then you stitch them back on and you you there's this new sense of wholeness that comes from recollecting those aspects of yourself and this is really tricky, because shadow, some of it really is terrible. Some of it really is horrible. Shadow Work does not mean embracing and enacting. Yeah, it does not mean enacting evil action. It does not mean becoming an asshole. Or doing cruel things to prove that you're in the cool kids club. Who's like I'm an asshole watch. I'll show you how I'm a fucking asshole. That's not it either. And in fact, I grew up with a lot of that around there was a lot of shadow identification. Shadow identification is just another way of like letting the pendulum swing so far that now I have become one with I'm enacting this ridiculously unconscious level of Yeah, I'm just gonna be this so if humanity includes this darkness this this badness I'll just be it is it is complicated to hold the tension of Yeah, what if i What if I become aware of without saying I'm just going to give in and live into it and and be whatever kind of asshole I feel like being in any moment?

Ken Hamilton
Yeah, I don't know. Does this sound like a paradox to you? So I find parts of myself that I don't want to bring out into the world. But pretending they're not there. I know I've learned and from you and from my own experience, that just pretend They're not there. He's just gonna let them come up whenever they want to. So yeah, so I don't want these parts to have a say in the world and Indic tech dictate my actions. But I need to accept them. So I need to accept that they're there. But not let them.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, there's a difference between a willingness to accept this reality and embodying it, and deciding that, because this is a reality, so the fact that I am a human being with the capacity for evil action for cruelty, I can, I can understand that and witness it without going out and proving to myself by taking those actions. And for some people, this part of the conversation might feel super obvious. But I think it's really important that we talk this through the doing shadow work feels different. For for all of us. For some people, it's gonna feel like tiptoeing up to the edge of what we have always repressed or what we've denied, or what we find so important, we can only see it out there in other people and saying, oh, oh, those that those others are, I am like them. There's a seed of that within me, right. Most frequently, how we identify shadow is through our projections. So that is a way and we can talk about projections a little bit more in just a second. But that's one way. Another way, though, is for there are plenty of people who enact the shadow, they embody it, and they perpetrate in this world, they perpetrate really awful action. And sometimes, sometimes that action is on a grand scale. And almost everyone can agree like, wow, that is horrifying. Sometimes that action is on a small scale, but he's still truly, truly awful. And until I can, until I can face that within myself and acknowledge like that was me, I did that I and I, I have taken some of these actions. I have thought these thoughts I have felt these things. And I have acted in these ways. We keep we keep not allowing ourselves to see that which makes it nigh impossible to do the repair work, to apologize to take accountability. And then to learn how to prevent taking action on our shadow qualities. In the future.

Ken Hamilton
I thought I was getting pretty good at embracing multiplicity and, and embodying multiplicity. And then I started really working with some of my really destructive shadow elements. Acknowledging that I was not just those elements like that, that in the moments when I would get caught up in a part of me that is manipulative, or violent or abusive. Getting getting caught up in those moments. could feel like that's it. That's all of me.

Joli Hamilton
Right? Because it's really easy to get subsumed, as

Ken Hamilton
you said, identification. This would be yep, I identify with that now, and I don't see everything else,

Joli Hamilton
we fall into the false dichotomy of if I'm not, then I must be evil. And that is all that I am. Which means there's no good in me, right. And that also means I'm not actually connecting my ego and self I'm not I'm not staying connected to my capital S self. Right? If I get subsumed with shadow, and I lose myself that way. That's why this is work of maturity. This is literally evidence we're doing this work is evidence of a maturing being. So whatever age you are, you're not too late to come to the party like this is really profound work. And there's a great quote from Robert Johnson, on how we can start to do our shadow work. by recollecting our projections, he says, unless we do conscious work on it, the shadow is always projected. That is, it's neatly laid on someone else or something else. So we do not have to take responsibility for it.

Ken Hamilton
And that's how we can see it like humans

Joli Hamilton
are projection machines. We do this this is a normal psychological process. We project the stuff we cannot stand we cannot tolerate within ourselves. We see it out They're so really simple, really simple way to put it as somebody who drives you bonkers. They really like the way that they're being in the world just it just gets under your skin, it just bothers you. Great, they are a great place for you to start looking for. It's not they may, they may have truly icky qualities, that's true. But the fact that it's bothering you so much is a potential way for you to see what bothers you about you. So I want to separate the two acts there, you can absolutely judge someone's behavior as problematic, abhorrent, fine. You can also at the same time, do your own work of saying, Yeah, and I am not entirely different from that other human being. What part of me is so bothered, so triggered, like being triggered, it's great. It's great if you can be triggered, and understand that your trigger is an invitation to your shadow work. Like winning, you are winning, because in that moment where you pause to say, Who that person gets to me. Okay, now I have the opportunity to lean in and do my shadow work.

Ken Hamilton
So yeah, so we've spent some time going over shadow work. And I feel like now we're starting to edge over into the existential kink. Approach. Yeah, doing the shadow work. So yeah, there's, there's something that's triggered me. What's my next move?

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, so existential kink itself. The simplest way to put it, it's, it's a meditation on what you cannot tolerate about yourself. It's a it's a short practice, but it's meant to be done in repetitively, so that you can begin to actually like, integrate, integrate does not mean to make it go away. Integrate means to take this in this, in this case, integrate would mean to take this quality and fold it into Oh, no, this is actually part of what it is to be human, I need to understand it well enough, and allow it to exist within me. It's not simple. The existential kink practice is, in some ways, pretty straightforward and simple. You can, we can put the link in for the straightforward meditation on doing performing the existential kink. Meditation. And I don't know, I like it. Because it's straightforward. And it starts with just identifying something that you frickin hate. Something that you don't like in your experience, who doesn't have something that they don't like, in their experience, right? Any persistent negative pattern, any issue that's going on in your life, especially something that feels like you have no control over, maybe that's the most important part, actually, in this moment is. A lot of times when we're talking about coaching or personal growth, we look for the places where we have control, we look toward Well, I can I can change this in my life, I can change that, or I always have, I can always change my reaction to things my response to things. Yeah, and then there's all that shit that it feels like you have no control over, right? If you have anything in your life that it feels like you have no control over, that's a great place to start. Just noticing what's going on what the what the predicament your soul is in around this thing that you have no control over. Relationship dramas are a pretty good one. Like we all have relationship dramas. And I don't just mean romantic relationships are family relationships are often a really fruitful place. I know. Mine are,

Ken Hamilton
I have a collection of work relationships that bring up for me, things that clearly point me at my shadow work. And

Joli Hamilton
for me, I'm Oh my God, I've owned so many businesses in the course of my life and doing my work around that has been profound, like what it feels like when my when, when my business feels like it's just not under my control. It's just happening at me. Like I can't figure out the next thing or I don't understand. So wherever you feel like you're in, caught in a negative pattern, and you have no control, that's a great place to start. So you identify it and then the next step, probably the hardest step of the whole process. It's not a long process. It's it's a few steps, like seven steps. So once you've identified you need to notice, but you need to notice something very specific. You're gonna notice the zing the the reaction the emotion I'll charge the pleasure sensation, you might have a pleasure sensation that you don't recognize this one. What is what is the sensation that you're experiencing? without judgment? Like? Well, you could do this right now. So you have you have a work situation, that is stressful because you don't have control over deadlines. You don't have control over expectations, you didn't get the right to write the contract. And you don't actually have any authority over most of the people working on the project, even though you have authority over your direct reports. There's all these other people, right? You have all of that going on? Can you let yourself notice the charge in your body? When you think about the issue? I

Ken Hamilton
I have thought about some stuff that happened this week from this point of view. And it is really interesting, the the set of reactions I've had, that my initial interpretation is, this sucks. I don't like the way this feels. But then I wait through like social conditioning. And realize it's not entirely true. Yeah. Who among us likes to argue?

Joli Hamilton
Lawyers? I would think people are

Ken Hamilton
lots of people, right lawyers, people who are doing for a living. There's there are a lot of things.

Joli Hamilton
A lot of sales comes out a lot of arguing, right? Yeah.

Ken Hamilton
And so there's there are elements of an arguing is like, it's a simplification, but it it'll do realize that I enjoyed experiencing what felt like the exercise of power, personal power, not like structural power, where we were but just being someone who held his ground and said what he wanted to say. Even though it didn't necessarily achieve the goal, my goals, my personal goals for what I wanted to have happen in this conversation.

Joli Hamilton
So let's slow down. Because now you've you've made a whole bunch of meaning making on top of it. So you missed the step. The step is to notice the charge. Notice the emotional charge notice the the actual visceral sense, what is the chart that you get thinking? Like go go into that? Remind yourself

Ken Hamilton
that situation? My physical sensations, physical

Joli Hamilton
sensations would be a good place to start when we're going to notice what's going on in our body? Yeah, I would go with a physical sensation

Ken Hamilton
because I was going for the pleasure of exerting power. That's so

Joli Hamilton
weird. How do you notice that? How do you notice pleasure in your body?

Ken Hamilton
That pleasure is somewhere between like my brain stem in the back of my behind my lungs? Okay, so like behind your sternum, like the whole running from the top of my neck down to

Joli Hamilton
and what kind of what kind of sensation is it? Kind of a pickle? Pickle? Do you feel any heat or wait? A hair texture of prickle

Ken Hamilton
slight outward pressure? And

Joli Hamilton
do you feel more than that? What other feeling words? So beyond sensations other other feelings attached to

Ken Hamilton
my feeling wheel? I know feeling Yeah, I can I can think of what it feels like

Joli Hamilton
you go hand your feelings wheel.

Ken Hamilton
Feelings wheel. Yeah, if

Joli Hamilton
you want your own feelings wheel with sensations attached we'll put a link in the show notes for Lindsay Raymond's work. I think her feelings wheel is spectacular

Ken Hamilton
buzzing energetic

and satisfied.

Joli Hamilton
Oh satisfied, okay.

Ken Hamilton
So now satisfaction of feeling right. Right. Okay.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, righteous. Okay, awesome. So you're noticing that charge. Now let yourself feel it. Instead of resisting the feelings associated with this so called achy situation. Just let yourself feel those sensations and those feelings without judgment.

Ken Hamilton
And for me, this is the biggest hurdle to feel them without judgment. And I'm getting better at it. But it's taken some practice.

Joli Hamilton
It takes a lot of practice for me to I'm I feel like a natural judger. But what happens if you just let yourself feel it? So imagine yourself put yourself back in a couple of the phone calls you took earlier this week. Just the ones where you got off the phone and you were like feel that really like, use your imagination, close your eyes if you need to, to let yourself feel into that moment of dysregulation, right? But without judgment, just feel the sensations in your body. Okay.

Ken Hamilton
That's good. And so the, the thing, the hurdle that I've been having is understanding what without judgment means. Because I've been thinking, No, I'm not judging it, but I am. But I'm still I still am. I still am, I still am. But now, I'm remembering a feeling I once had, where I was feeling intensely frustrated while driving. And I was at a stoplight. And I made the conscious decision to just feel it. And it was, that was an easy, it was a very simple situation, the situation was gone. So I could just feel it. So I'm kind of trying to tie to that sense. Okay, so nothing has to happen as a result of these feelings. Yeah. And that, I think, is where I've been tripping myself up, like, okay, without judgment. Sure, now I want to do something, oh, that's a judgment actually, to take action on it is to apply judgment to it and meaning to it and so just a feeling, okay. So just the feeling, not a big fan of most of that feeling, okay.

Joli Hamilton
Now. So now, drop them another layer of judgment away, and allow yourself to feel that that prickle the let yourself feel the the what you named as energetic and satisfying. let yourself experience the satisfaction of this so called unwanted experience. Now, a way to hold this paradox because this is a this is about working with paradox is to remember, you aren't just this, this incarnation of your human body, you are also I don't know some ridiculous, ineffable little spark of soul, like you're here. You're here, you get to experience this, this weirdness that prickle that, that judge, can you just let yourself feel it? And feel a word that I'm going to put in another word that may feel really a lot of resistance? Or you might not? Can you feel the pleasure, the hidden pleasure in this?

Ken Hamilton
Well, when I add all those things up, it it is hard to feel them in isolation, like, without connecting to my memory and memory other times that I have felt these feelings. But part of the pleasure that I feel comes from the memory of other times that I have felt these things, right?

Joli Hamilton
Well, when you're feeling this, like really stay try to stay with the experience in your body. And without judgment, recognize that you get to have sensation. And if there's, if you were able to hold that sensation, just as sensation. Without a without a label for it, what does it feel like now?

Ken Hamilton
Right, it feels like it did before, but with less judgment.

Joli Hamilton
And with less judgment, with

Ken Hamilton
less judgment. It is more. Well, it's simpler. It is just the feeling. It's just just the sensations and the experience the somatic sensation of being in the moment. Yeah, without the judgment of what it means about me what it means for the future or the next time just without thinking about any of those things. It is just what it is. Yeah.

Joli Hamilton
And so what if you say something just playfully say something like, I'm going to stop right now pretending that I don't enjoy this. I'm asking you to play with me here. I'm gonna stop pretending that I don't enjoy this.

Ken Hamilton
This is where we got to in the first conversation that you and I had where I was like, nope, nope, can't do that. can't

Joli Hamilton
or won't push it. I know. Yeah,

Ken Hamilton
I mean, I've been we've already been through it. I mean, yes, the of course it's won't.

Joli Hamilton
What if you didn't need to shame yourself for? What if I didn't? What if you didn't need to shame yourself for feeling pleasure about this?

Ken Hamilton
Oh, I don't need to shame myself. I want to Yeah, why? Yeah. Why? Don't know exactly. Well, every time

Joli Hamilton
I come up against a desire to shame something, I'm always I'm always now very aware of why the word kink is an existential kink. So Carolyn, hit on something really smart here. And she called this purse, this part of Shadow Work, existential kink, not because we're all strapping on the leather, and getting out our floggers, though, you're welcome to if you want. And personally, I'm into it, but because it is kinky, to recognize, oh, oh, I have this stuff in my life. I have this situation, I have this drama that I play out over and over again. And I keep pulling it into my life. I keep circling around and I keep bringing it these are situations that we just have repetitive patterns, right, I asked you specifically to choose something that is a repetitive pattern in your life. You have been experiencing this sensation around this pattern for what, three decades or more now.

Ken Hamilton
Sure, yeah. So can

Joli Hamilton
you just let yourself feel the pleasure of Wow, nice, nice job.

Ken Hamilton
So I'm gonna stop pretending that I don't enjoy it.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, what if I stop pretending that I don't enjoy it? I'm 100% allowed to enjoy these sensations.

Ken Hamilton
And right, okay, so staying away from the judgment and the implications and whatnot. Yeah, I can. I can acknowledge that. I enjoy that.

Joli Hamilton
I don't need to shame it.

Ken Hamilton
I don't need to shame it. It's right there. It's it is how I respond to those situations. I

Joli Hamilton
like this weird prickly feeling. I like this. This, this sensation up and down my neck behind my sternum.

Ken Hamilton
I like this weird sensation. Now here's where and this is I don't this is either paradox or multiplicity because I also don't like it. It is both pleasurable and no feelings. We'll again, let's see here. What else is it?

Feel feels a little well, there's some disgust in there too.

Joli Hamilton
Okay, mine if I get really personal now. Sure. You ever been on a leash? Yeah. Have you ever been on a leash naked doing things? Yes, I have. Have you ever been? Well, no. Have you ever been on a leash naked? told to do things that you found repulsive?

Things that were disgusting.

Ken Hamilton
Repulsive is stronger than I would use, but definitely not 100% pleasurable. Or

Joli Hamilton
have you ever been in a situation where you were able to do something that you found? Ik? Because you were also getting off on it? Yeah. Yeah. So have you ever experienced electrical play? And did you experience the sharpness of that play?

Ken Hamilton
Yes.

Joli Hamilton
Simultaneously. Did you also notice that you felt pleasure in your cock? Yes. Was that confusing?

Ken Hamilton
It feels like there's another word besides confusing, because when I think of confusing, I think oh, there's a puzzle to be solved. I wasn't trying to solve it. I was just experiencing the dichotomy. Exactly.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. All right. So in that situation, so you're on a leash, you got a harness on, you're being told to do something that you would not choose to do with your conscious ego. And there you are. You're taking part you're experiencing electrical shock. You're like, sensation is everywhere. And you're Cox pretty happy about at all. But you're not trying to solve anything. You're not trying to make it different. So what are you doing? You're embracing the paradox exactly as it is That's it. That's the whole game. That is the work of just willingly holding space for these two seemingly incompatible truths to coexist. So

Ken Hamilton
she really did nail the name, she nailed the name that is existence in accepting incompatible truths. So all over the place,

Joli Hamilton
but she added something in and this is why I do think it is it's brilliant, insofar as it is named, especially because the kink the word kink, right now, at this time and this age, we mean it to be like, Oh, you get off on that, that is pleasurable to you. Okay, so, it now I know, just by the look on your face, that my having called to attention the times that you have allowed yourself to experience some challenges, challenge like physical challenges, or some repulsive behaviors or some some achiness while also getting off. I know that you also feel some pride in there. There's some like that you I've been witnessed you also holding the tension of pride. So it's not just two things, multiple feelings.

Ken Hamilton
My hyper vigilant partner here, detecting pride in through the camera. Well, Sir face that I've got right now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Joli Hamilton
So what if all of this all together? What if you now go back to that original sensation? So you have these extraordinarily frustrating conversations with people who are not understanding you, you're having to do jobs that don't feel like they're your job? You're if you're having to juggle too many things you're taking in so much information? You say you don't like that. But you keep allow, you're like you're pulling it into your life like that is your work life? What if it's a yes. And can you feel the pleasure if you stop judging it? So you said there were actions? And I mean, I could think of what the actions were. Some of those were things that I know you were not, if you were in a cold and aroused state, you would say, I don't want to do that. I don't want to take that action. But I didn't aroused state. In a state when you can hold the paradox and aroused state is a time when we are holding paradox, especially at aroused state. When we are experiencing that perversity, our own perversity, the desire to experience impact or to experience teasing, or to experience even like a drawn out orgasm, or sensation that feels really like, Oh, my God, I would never want this much sensation. Except please don't stop. Yeah. Yeah, that's the same thing. But we learned to apply it to situations that are also mundane. What if you apply it to this seemingly non sexual non kinky non fun work situation? What happens then? So now go back to that, can you? Can you allow yourself to identify the pleasure in that work drama? In the sensations of it?

Ken Hamilton
Yeah. Yeah.

Joli Hamilton
It's not. It doesn't have to be, you know, like, holy, you don't if you don't feel it in every way.

Ken Hamilton
And it's not I don't have to condone the situation to acknowledge the pleasure that I get out of it. Yeah. And I don't have to pursue more situations like that. Just you know, just because there's pleasure in it. 100%. Knowing that that is part of what's going on,

Joli Hamilton
right? Yeah. So this is why it's a wonderful thing to apply to situations where I feel I have no control. Because just because I feel like I have no control in the situation I'm in doesn't mean I need to go replicate that. If I if I will. I closed a business once. I felt like I had no control. It felt like it got out of hand it felt like I was at the whims of the economy and clients and all and my competition. Yeah, well, I I could figure out how to hold that how to do the shadow work, how to hold the the pleasure of that helpless victimization, I was feeling and I also don't need to go start that business again. I get to decide to make a different choice. So this isn't about wallowing in it forever. This is about what if I, what if I don't resign myself to the situation but I just removed my unconscious resistance to the fact that This is here, this is my actual life. What if I'm experiencing this sensation? And in itself? I don't have to judge as good or bad.

Ken Hamilton
Okay. Okay, so having, having gone through the meditation having, which, as you said is a you know, it's a repeated thing, don't do it. Don't expect it to just work the first time and be one, you know, just keep doing it

Joli Hamilton
not fixing a situation. Situation you're just trying to bring attention to. Yeah, we're practicing holding that paradox of this this thing that my conscious ego says it? No, I don't want that. Except I also keep having it in my life. So there it is, in my life. And so what do I do with it while it's here? I can be I can be actively working to create a new reality for myself, while also saying yeah, but while the situation is here, I'm going to be with it.

Ken Hamilton
Yeah, there's something in the book that that caught my eye, which is the having as evidence of wanting, I wrote my own notes around that. But right now at this part of our conversation, I think, right. So if you've got something, look for what it is, that you do want from it, that does bring you something that your does bring you some kind of pleasure.

Joli Hamilton
I think that's a great point. So you now could go back, let's let's return to your your earlier statement about your word for the year. I'm not sure whether that was in this conversation earlier. One, your word for the year is leadership. Yeah. And so you're working on your leadership, and part of leadership, right is experiencing what it is to, to be to deal with whatever the circumstance is right? To be very present to it. Yeah. If you perceive yourself as a victim, who is just experiencing your coworkers and the situations, and there's nothing you can do. Are you practicing leadership? Are you actually experiencing leadership? Don't you need these exact situations in order to move from this with this victimized consciousness into a place of leadership? Totally. It was a, it's a brilliant way to go. So unconscious way way to go unconscious can to create these situations to allow you to experience fully what it is to be a whiny victim in this situation. That's right, in a relatively safe container. Yeah. Right. Like it has chosen a relatively safe container to let you explore and experiment and feel this. But now if you don't do the work of bringing your conscious attention to it, yes, no, you could play this out for the next 2530 years until, you know, okay, well, that's all she wrote. And then you're dead. And then what? Like, oh, by the way, don't die in 25 years, I got more stuff to do with you. But you if we don't do the work. So this is why shadow work is about bringing connection contact between our unconscious material and our conscious ego, our consciousness, our center of consciousness, which our ego is, it only has just so much capacity at any one moment, right? It can't bear everything. But we can keep bringing little doses. So an existential kink meditation is designed to be a 15 minute practice tops, I often do it for less than that I'll do like a five or six minute meditation. And I'll often do it as part of a bigger practice, like I'll do it as part of my cold plunging practice, or I'll do it as part of a walk outside. I do it as a method to remind myself that in small doses, I can bring conscious awareness to the fact that my unconscious self is really creative, and will keep bringing me the lessons I need over and over and over and over again. And I can choose to either enjoy that get off on it. Or I can keep acting like it's just happening to me. Yeah.

Ken Hamilton
Okay. So bringing attention to these areas is huge. That's that is that's enough. Like that is a like for a practice getting to that point and repeatedly paying attention to these things that that's very big. Is there any are there follow up steps in the existential kink? Well process or the

Joli Hamilton
existential kink meditation is a practice that stands on its own there. Is there is more to existential kink. But honestly after existential kink, I would actually recommend taking a diversion over into some deeper depth psychological work because from there I actually find recollection of projections, golden shadow recollection, doing archetypal work, that's all really profound. So for me, that's the direction I would suggest going. Also, you could certainly take on reclaiming sexual shadow. That's another avenue and we can make sure that the sexual shadow masterclass is linked here, that's an opportunity, people who are like, Oh, I definitely have some reclaiming of shadow I would like to do, it's often hard to know, from where, where do I, where do I go, Where do I get that. But we, you know, Shadow Work, and a much broader perspective on what it is to do our Shadow Work is what we do in the individuation alchemy program that I run, which you're actually participating in this year, as a participant, not, you're not teaching, leading you lead with when you're in your opening with me, but you're participating,

Ken Hamilton
the series that's being so

Joli Hamilton
individuation alchemy is a program that i i only run once a year, it won't unroll again until January of 2025. But if people are looking for a guide, as they go on their on their journey of individuation of figuring out how to bring your unconscious material forward and work with it in a at a pace that is appropriate for you. It's an option. And it's a it's a pretty affordable option when we consider what it often takes to invest in depth psychological work. So I'll make sure there's a link in there, we're only taking waitlist signups right now. But that because it doesn't start for another dome eight months. But yeah, we can make sure that that's up there. Because it's a, it's a great thing to know that there. There is an immense amount of technique and work that can be done in this realm. But it often feels really lonely and a lot of union work and depth work. When you read about it, it it reads as hermetic work. Like I'm gonna go seal myself off and do this alone. But I see it actually working much better in community where I feel like, yeah, it's my work to do. But I'm not actually alone. I'm a human. Yeah,

Ken Hamilton
having the community. hearing other people's stories of their experience, comparing it to my own sharing mine the support is it's very, very different from the salt airy analysis I've done before.

Joli Hamilton
So we'll make sure the sign up link is, is there so that people can get on the waitlist for next year, because it's a very limited program. I can only take on just so many alchemists in each group, there's only so much but thanks for bringing it up. I appreciate it. And thank you for volunteering. I know that, you know, getting called into the center of the circle

Ken Hamilton
wasn't quite where I thought this was going. But it was it was beautiful. This is this is how this is a much better description of what it was then what I was going to say, instead of just walking through

Joli Hamilton
it. It's more fun to do it than to talk about it. That's right. Thanks, Ken. Thank you