The Second Task - Exposing The Crude Shadow

In this conversation, Edwina Murphy-Droomer and Inarra Aryane Griffyn discuss the theme of exposing the crude shadow in the story of Vasalisa. They explore the psyches of the stepmother and stepsisters, highlighting the internal voices of jealousy and mean-spiritedness that can arise within us. They share personal experiences of dealing with jealousy and the importance of developing assertiveness and boundaries. The conversation emphasizes the understanding that we are all products of our environment and the need to cultivate self-love and compassion. They also introduce the concept of sympathetic joy as a practice to counteract jealousy. The episode concludes with a discussion of the next task in the Vasalissa series, which is navigating the dark.

Takeaways

• Jealousy and mean-spiritedness are internal voices that can arise within us, often stemming from external sources and experiences.
• Setting boundaries and expressing anger are important for maintaining healthy relationships and self-esteem.
• Understanding that we are all products of our environment helps us approach others with empathy and compassion.
• Relighting the fire within ourselves requires embracing the uncomfortable and expressing our true selves.
• Practicing sympathetic joy, or experiencing joy for others, can help combat feelings of jealousy and cultivate a sense of joy within ourselves.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:09 Exposing the Crude Shadows: The Psyches of the Stepfamily
• 8:01 Setting Boundaries and Expressing Anger
• 10:46 Understanding Our Environment and Cultivating Empathy
• 18:17 Relighting the Fire Within: Embracing the Uncomfortable
• 26:49 Sympathetic Joy: Cultivating Joy for Others
• 34:41 Conclusion

Transcript

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (00:01.924)
Hello again, beautiful souls and welcome to the second task in the story of Vassalissa. Edwina Murphy -Drummer is my name and I am here with Inara Ariane Griffin. So tonight we are talking all about exposing the crude shadow. So if you haven't yet listened to the reading of Vassalissa, I really do encourage you to do that. This all sort of is out of context and a bit strange to.

know what we're talking about unless you've actually listened to the story. So take this opportunity to curl your feet under you, get comfy in a lovely on a maybe on a couch with a cup of tea and just sit back. Hopefully you've got no distractions around you as you tune into the reflections that we have for you tonight about the stepmother.

and stepsisters in the story of Vasilisa. So when I think about the psyches of the stepmother and the stepsister, which they, you know, these stepfamilies show up in a lot of these old fairy tales. And even if you can think of them in the sort of the Disney stories as well, the Cinderella stories and so on.

This psyche, you know, just remembering once again that yes, there's an external aspect of this, but it's, you know, more importantly than that, we're thinking about it in terms of the internal, the voices that we internalize, the mean voices, I think it's like the mean girls at school, the ones that sort of look at you and say, wow, that's a nice outfit. And then behind your back, they're like, my God, did you see what she's wearing?

We all know those voices. So it's the voices that are really the jealousy, the jealous voices. So, you know, in the story of Vasilisa, they think she's too lovely and too kind and too pretty. And that's feels threatening. It feels like, you know, they don't want her around because somehow her being her makes them feel bad about themselves. So we have this.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (02:16.612)
internal voice within us and I know that it's never something that I feel particularly proud to talk of but jealousy is something that can raise her ugly head at the most unopportune moments and I think Edwina no stop why are you doing that but yeah that that sort of jealous feeling it's I don't know if she'll ever leave me.

She's there, but at least I recognize her. How about you Inara? What's, you know, what's the mean girl voice in you or the unkind voice that can raise up and strike you in unopportune moments?

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (03:01.01)
Well, I would say a couple of comments on this. It's really interesting that it's always pitched as the stepmother being the bad and the stepsisters, you know, these bad characters, the evil stepmother witch in so many stories. And in society now, what we've got is we've got an enormous amount of divorce and splits. And I think in England, it's like one in five.

marriages will end in divorce. And so it's inevitable that there's going to be this reframing of the modern family, right? And on a personal level, I was a stepmother and I was the good stepmother, you know, and the mother was the complex, complicado, if you like, in the, in the scenario, I was very willing and open to that. So it

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (03:31.972)
Mm.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (03:55.954)
I just wanted to mention that because it's always the stepmother given the bad role. Now in my life also, I've had somebody in the relationship of stepmother and I found it really complicated, right? So it's like these twists and turns. And I also have experienced a lot of bullying. So bullying was one of the themes that I've had in my life. And I would put that down to being an outsider that because I would move to different

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (04:08.132)
you

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (04:25.106)
countries back and forth between actually England and Canada. When I went into a new school, I would experience like really pretty bad wicked bullying. So my, when I have jealousy, it's, it's envy of a safe space, envy. It's not so jealous. It's more like, Ooh, I want to be in that group that already exists. I want to be

you know, accepted and jealousy, the only time it's really come up for me, it's, it's was in a relationship where I never ever felt safe. When men helped me to feel safe as somebody who's had abandonment issues, I don't experience jealousy, but I've seen it as something that is the most destructive energy. And when I have felt it, it feels disgusting. It's like,

Unlike rage or anger, which does not feel disgusting. It feels like what it is, rage or anger, but jealousy has got this sticky cloying, you just, you don't want to think about it, but yes, it's back in your head, that kind of energy. And I think it's a very difficult energy to deal with and it's incredibly destructive.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (05:44.484)
Yeah, yeah. And I do think it's, it's very prevalent as in so much as it's something that's almost cultivated and seen as a normalized through movies and through stories that we see, you know, this kind of pitting each other against each other. And, you know, I think it's something that's really amplified in stories about

womanhood, interestingly. Yeah, so when I think about that, when we talked, you know, in the last episode about the two good mother, I know just to read a tiny excerpt from the book, which is from newest edition, which is on page 86, Clarissa

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (06:16.722)
Yeah.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (06:39.14)
summarises this section. She talks about learning even more mindfully to let go of the overly positive mother, finding that being good, being sweet, being nice will not cause life to sing. So in the story of Vasilisa, she's, you know, they, the stepmother and the sisters hand over all the grotty tasks to her and the hard tasks. And she just does it in

the hope that she'll ingratiate herself with them, that she will then be acceptable the nicer she is. But we know that that's actually not the way to create connection and friendship. So experiencing directly one's own shadow nature, particularly the exclusionary, jealous and exploitative aspects of self, the stepmother and stepsister, acknowledging these unequivocally, making the best relationship one can with the worst

past of oneself, letting the pressure build between who one is taught to be and who one really is, ultimately working towards letting the old self die and the new intuitive self be born. So I think that for people that have had that sort of bullying, particularly at school, a lot of people have it in the workplace as well, but I know that

most girls can have identify with some stories or experiences of that bullying voice. And it is that bullying voice that we tend to then internalize. And then that voice is the voice that raises up when we face fear of doing something different or face fear of judgment or face fear of being excluded for something because of a decision that we're making. And so that's the crude shadow.

psyche that we're talking about. It is the voice that comes up and says, you know, who are you to think you could do that? Or, you know, it's the nice voice that is, you know, looking at you going, yes, aren't you lovely? Or you're so smart. But in the background, it's just like there is no truth to that. Yeah, I, you know, as I think about this part of

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (09:02.5)
the psyche, I think, you know, when I see the struggles that women have, the questions that I get asked, I feel like this is one of, sadly, one of the most powerful. It is the undermining kind of side of the way that we speak to ourselves. Yeah, I don't know if there's any other stories that are raising up for you particularly, Inara.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (09:27.794)
Not stories, but I think that when I hear this as an issue, and it really is, it's like women pitted against each other as one is better than, rather than both are equal and different. It's always about boundaries. So we are not taught as young girls to have strong boundaries. It's like you're just like a sponge that goes around in the world and

I actually think that issues around rage, for instance, like it's unbecoming. You're not allowed to be angry. It's not pretty when you're angry. If we had elders or leaders who are speaking into that feminine rage and saying it's completely acceptable, it's absolutely, there's a place for you to be angry. And here are some excellent ways of doing it. So in some of the work that I do,

for instance, I have so many clients who are unable to express rage. It's like they're really angry, but there's nowhere for them to put it. And so I came up with a ritual that was called a rage hole. And you dig a hole in the earth because the earth, mother earth can handle anything. She has had to deal with so much abuse and you know, can handle the energy.

So earth is a great element for dealing with it. So you dig a hole and then you might want to put some little symbols in it. You know, it could be crystals. It could be photographs of some situation, whatever it is. You put your symbols in, you lay down flat on the ground and you cover your head with a blanket or a towel. So your head is completely in the dark and then you scream your fricking head off.

as loud as you want to, because all of that is the unacceptable side of women. Now, when you give women or girls the rights to have boundaries, like that, you know, that is a no. I've spoken a lot about nos on this podcast so far. But then we have something which is like the pitting up against different people. It's like, no, I'm not one of your group.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (11:50.002)
because I actually feel this way and I'm okay with that, you know? And we could learn those very early on where it's okay to be different and it's okay to have a different opinion and not to go along with the kind of mainstream, always the popular girls usually, bullies are damaged. 100%, there'll be something if you look at it, really what's going on with bullies. And if you address the bully in the group, the main one,

they will usually shrink after a while, right? So we know there's sort of damage for them behind the scenes and they're expressing something. It might be a problem at home, you know, the family is breaking down. And if we could actually start to see what it is, like that's unacceptable behavior, but what's really going on for you as well, that you are such a hideous bully out in the world. Cause you know, where are you able to express yourself? Probably nowhere.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (12:48.292)
Yeah. Yeah.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (12:49.522)
That's why you pick on somebody, you know, it's, it's that kind of thing. We've got to go a bit deeper with it.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (12:53.508)
Yeah. Yeah. I know that, you know, when I think about examples in my life where I've really, you know, had that just that volcanic eruption of emotion one, you know, I'm thinking of it. Yeah. I not there's not a lot, but there's a there's a few and so they stand out because I, I, my go to was to be nice to try and

make the situation better and make the situation go away. The idea of confrontation just horrified me. And I remember it was after my first husband had left and he'd come back and he was going to take my car. And, you know, please know that there's always two sides to these stories, but this is, you know, this is my side of it. And I can remember at that time,

point, like I just was so irate and in such a place of I cannot believe this is happening. And I exploded and this banshee that came out and I can still remember the look on his face, look on his face as he just kind of looked to the ground and quietly backed away and left. It's like I'm not doing battle with this woman. But it was like it is this this

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (13:59.154)
Okay.

haha

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (14:16.804)
Being unable to have a really clear, strong, assertive voice that is just like, this is not okay. If we don't have the practice of doing that in our lives, then we get to this point where we completely lose the plot. So thankfully the older I've got, the more I've learned this assertive voice. There's been other situations, you know, I went through years of very toxic relationship.

with my mom, unfortunately. And I can remember times when, you know, like I wouldn't say things to her, but I would leave and I can remember getting in the car, holding the steering wheel, just like, just about pulling it off the stem, screaming into the windscreen, you know, like the sheer frustration and distress and rage and just like, the emotion was so enormous because I just didn't have

that assertive voice, that clarity, the wild woman psyche that just has those boundaries, that conviction and clarity about what's okay with me and what's not. So I would stand and take this, what was my experience of abuse and unkindness and unfairness and just kind of swallow it. And then when I was out of the space, it would just explode. So I think, you know, for the...

women listening to this, I'm sure everybody can identify times where there was times at school when you just put up with being spoken to like rubbish by even by teachers, by other kids or by parents or by peers and we just kind of swallow it in the hope that it'll just go away and we haven't developed that part of our psyche that gives us those boundaries and that strength and that assertiveness.

that is so necessary, not only for us, but the more that we have that the greater teachers we are for the people that are trying to work out their own emotional intelligence. So we can become a stronger voice and examples and role models for other people that are working it out for themselves. Yeah, I feel like I've gone on a bit of a, but you know, that really, yeah.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (16:38.482)
That is great. You need a Rachel.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (16:41.764)
Yeah, it really is that and when I see other women with those clear ways of being that clear assertiveness and boundaries, I just have so much respect for them. You know, they barely have to speak, you can sort of see this strength in some women, which I see in you, Anara. But it's this it is a very, very appealing strength because it makes people feel safe.

around you. It makes people feel safe around people that have that level of assertiveness. You know that what you see is what you get and there's a truth to it that is very powerful.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (17:22.578)
Well, I think the main thing that holds us back is not feeling that we're lovable, right? So whenever we go off on one, as they say in England, she's gone off on one again. It's always like the fear and the threat is you will not be loved. You are unlovable in the world. And that's one of the biggest lessons I think to learn that

You are always lovable if you love yourself. So I, I recently, during COVID, my parents live in Canada and we had to, my parents have had a very unusual situation. They split when I was 11 and they got back together 32 years later. And so 32 years later, it looks like the family is, you know, for some people who have no idea, it looks like we've always been together.

And in fact, that is not the case at all. There's been this huge piece where both parents, if you can believe it, were with Hungarians, like the Hungarian other, and for many years, and then my mom's husband died and my father had already split with his long -term girlfriend partner. And suddenly it was through conversations they got back together. But reframing that,

early family was like, okay, you are treating me like I'm an 11 year old when we come back in because there's this expectation that I'll just be nice and this and that. I've always had a complicated relationship with my mom and a super easy loving one with my dad. So over the last three years, especially during COVID, I would fly over there and we'd have to, we were really together.

because there was nowhere to go out for tea or anything, no entertainment. And of course what arose was some of the earliest stuff. And I had this moment where I was like, this is not okay. And I have to deal with it differently as an adult. And at one point I had to say to my dad, will you support me? Cause he's always the nice guy. My mother's always the, you know.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (19:47.218)
more feisty, difficult one. But I said to him, will you support me in this argument? Because I said, it's going to be ugly and it has to be done. And he was like, yes, I will. So he came into the room with me and my mother deflects a lot, right? So she looks, she won't look you in the eyes. She just blasts you with this quite a dominating energy. And the only way to do it was to ramp up the anger.

It wasn't a conversation that could be had. I tried, you know, that was the beginning, nice girl, cause I'm, I'm not nice girl, but I'm always peace negotiator in that circumstance. I've always been that. And I went from being peace negotiator to literally standing up, pulling her up by her shoulders, holding her in front of me and screaming in her face. And I felt so like out of control, but my dad was just like, mm hmm.

Like, mm -hmm, it's, yep, this needs to be said. It's okay. And so I felt there was a kind of balance. Anyway, we got seemingly nowhere because she, I like to conclude an argument and then we go to bed in peace, but she won't do that, right? So it's just, there's nobody gets anywhere. However, I said, all right, I'm going to go into town, drive off for two hours, do some whatever. And when I came back,

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (20:47.14)
Yes!

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (21:07.784)
Yeah.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (21:16.562)
the door was locked and I had this palpitations from teenage should because she used to lock me out of the house if I was late or anything. So I was back in this state of, my God, like it's got so bad. You know, this is the ultimate rejection. And then I knocked on the door feeling like truly defeated and ghastly. And then she came to the door and she just opened her arms and

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (21:19.812)
Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (21:43.602)
took me in and hugged me and she said, you don't need to worry about this. You don't need to worry about this. And it was like, it was really like a miracle for me because I accepted myself in the worst, you know, rage level. My father witnessed it and allowed me to be that, you know, loud and crazy. And then it was the breakthrough. And I got to see that actually

sometimes you need to make a stand that strongly for something and for yourself. And it righted the whole boat afterwards. It was the, you know, the thing that caused the peace, but it was like a fricking war. It was really... Volcano!

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (22:25.956)
Yeah.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (22:29.395)
Yeah. And I know, yeah, it's, it's a ghastly feeling, because it really is an out of control feeling. And you know, like, in the moment, it's like, this shouldn't be coming out of my mouth, and I can't stop it. It's just, it's got to come out. But I you know, the thing that's coming to my mind that I really want to, to bring forward is

the knowing that we are all a product of our environment, every single one of us. And when we understand that with certainty, that every person on this planet is the way they are because the environment that they've grown up in, the people they're surrounded by, the culture they're in, we are who we are because the environment that we've been raised in and that we live in.

And we only know what we know. We only know how to behave. We only know the stories that we've heard. We only know what we know. And so when people are operating in a way that feels like, what is going on? Why on earth are you, you know, the people that trigger us or we trigger other people. When we remind ourselves that we're all a product of our environment, it gives us all a place to grow from.

where none of us are stuck in concrete and can never change or never become something different or more. The whole purpose of Inara and I's conversations in here and sharing stories is seeing the same but different. It's seeing that we're all have these experiences and we come to these places of being with the knowledge that we have because of the environments that we've been in. So when I talk about

my relationship with my mom or with my ex -husband or with other people in my life. It's always with the absolute love for them and absolute love and understanding that they were where they were when the situations arose because of the environments that they grew up in, because of the beliefs that they had just the same as it is the beliefs that we have. So.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (24:47.94)
The whole idea of this is that when we know better, we can do better. So when the crude shadow, the stepmother, stepdaughter voice, stepsister voice comes up within us, those voices have come to us and we've learned them usually from an external source and then we've embodied them and then we speak them to ourselves internally.

And so it's just recognizing it. It's just that recognition. And when we start to make every decision from this place of self -love, from this place of I get to love myself and be nice and kind and loving and gentle and generous and curious with myself, then we get to give that with more generosity to other people. So that's, you know, like that is.

the purpose behind all of this work that we're doing. And the reason why it's so important is going to unfold as we start looking at the next task, because when we don't have an understanding of this work, when these crude shadows, these voices, the too good mother, the step family.

internally those internal voices speak to us like this this is when the fire goes out which is the next sort of part of vasalisa's story the fire goes out the light goes out and we've all been there when it's just like you feel like your life force has just leaked out and you feel in that place where it's just like you

It's hard to make decisions for ourselves. It's hard to trust ourselves. The connection to intuition is just gone. It's like somebody save me. We've all been there. I've been there more than once. And that's when the fire's gone out. So as we move into the next tasks in the Vassalissa, the nine tasks series, we'll start to talk about how we go in search of that fire and relighting it again.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (26:38.418)
Yeah.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (26:58.322)
And I think for the listener, if you now have a moment to reflect, you know, is jealousy or any form of envy or bad speaking to yourself coming up for you when you hear this kind of conversation? Is there something that you yourself are suppressing, holding back? You've got no boundaries on it whatsoever. So if you're in a difficult, toxic

situation, are you losing your voice? Those are the kind of things that would be very useful at this point, because that suppresses your intuition. The minute that you're in a suppression world and not expressed, that right there is, it's like lethal. You can't even hear yourself, your inner movements, your inner desires, what you really want.

And some of these more extreme things like the ugly side of life, they are the access to the greatest power, not the least power. It's like stepping back into the uncomfortable and really going into the thing you can bring in self -love and go, yes, I understand where it comes from, but sometimes the journey has been so long, right? Like where we picked up some of these things, they're so ancient.

And it's just about expressing it now, like allowing yourself the right to say, hey, you know, whenever I look at X, Y, and Z, I feel jealous. You know, often it's like I have a friend who grew up, this is classic, a friend who I see as skinny or, you know, thin, normal.

I never, it never even crosses my mind that somebody like this friend of mine could consider themselves having an eating disorder, right? Because from the outside looking in, she looks fine to me. She looks very attractive. but she was brought up in a working class household where all the men were given more. So she was brought up with many brothers and she was the only daughter. And so the mother naturally would feed the men more.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (29:16.946)
because women stay at home, that was the story, and why would she need to eat more? And she does joke about it. She says that if there's a buffet, like she can't control it. Like she has to heap everything on because there was this competitiveness around eating, which has led to some very bad thoughts as an observation. She's a dear friend of mine.

very bad thoughts about herself all the time. Like she's not good enough, she's not thin enough, she's not attractive enough. And we know where it comes from all the way back there, but it's like sticking a diffuser in there. It's like, you again doing this thing. I asked her to, one New Year's Eve, I got her to smash her weight scales with a hammer. We were doing...

actions for one another to sort of support each other on the path. And I was like, this is my task for you. You are going to take that thing out and smash it. And for a few years, I think she lived without it, but one has definitely snuck back in the home. So it's like constant interruption that we need to do these, these unpleasant thoughts about ourselves.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (30:27.492)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So the three words that Clarissa gives us for contemplation that if you haven't got the book and you haven't seen it, I'll give you these three words, because I would love people just to give it some thought. And not only is it something that perhaps is done to us, but how are we perhaps doing it to other people or where have we fallen into the trap of doing it to other people? And it is the exclusionary

behaviors, the jealous behavior is an exploitative. So in the story of Vasilisa, the exploitative behaviors is that, you know, you do the cleaning and you go and get the fire, you know, it's, it's those things that are given to her to do. And just to wind up, I, I have a practice that is actually a Buddhist practice.

that I use with jealousy when she raises her head and it is a sympathetic joy. So if you see somebody else that's on a magnificent holiday and you think, you know, good for them at that moment, or somebody that's made a bucket load of cash or somebody that's lost a certain amount of weight or somebody that's in a magical relationship when you're struggling or whatever it is that causes that.

jealousy. Sympathetic joy is a way of experiencing joy for somebody else. And it is a Buddhist practice, you can go and look it up. And it is a it is a win -win because the more that we can experience joy for somebody else, the more joy that we experience and so and vice versa. So that's just a little tool that I use for those of you that like me.

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (32:17.22)
sometimes suffer with the jealousy beast. It rises her head. I'm just wondering if there was something that Clarissa gives us as a finish up. Maybe it's, it is this.

Conversely, and perhaps somewhat perversely, when the fire is put out, it helps to snap Vasilisa out of her submission. It causes her to die to an old way of life and to step with shivers into a new life, one which is based on an older, wiser kind of inner knowing.

I think that's the spot to leave it. Because if you're in that spot of, you know, when the fire's gone out, it's actually a really great launching pad into a whole new experience of life. So thank you for being with us with this episode. And we look forward to sharing with you in the next episode, which is navigating the next task. The third task is navigating the dark.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (33:29.01)
Ooh, I like it!

Edwina Murphy-Droomer (33:34.148)
All right, beautiful souls, that's it from us for this episode. So much love and bye for now.

Inarra  Aryane Griffyn (33:38.994)
Bye.