Latest / No Mess, No Magic / Shadow Work with Chelsey Pippin Mizzi - Part 1
Transcript
- Monica Hay: Hello and welcome to the No Mess, No Magic Podcast with Monica Hay. Today we have a dear friend, Chelsea Pippen Meese, joining us. I said it right. Is we're good, we good. Perfect. Thank you for joining me, Chelsea. Chelsey: You did. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to have our chit chat as a recording recorded archive. ⁓ it's such a delight to to I'm sure share some wildness with our listeners here. Monica Hay: Yes. So if anybody d who doesn't know Chelsea, ⁓ Chelsea is one of my dear friends who I've I've hung out with her in France and her lovely little house and we had a lovely week last year. And I like low key wanna like go back and do that again. I don't know if we can make that happen. But Chelsey: back get the right train Monica Hay: Okay. We will talk about that story in a different part of the podcast. But yes, if you're listening, my husband and I got on the wrong train at one point during this trip last year, and that's a whole story, and we won't go into it in a second. So, who is Chelsea? ⁓ Chelsea is an author, a tarot reader, and a well being practitioner supporting writers, artists, and small businesses, small business owners every time. I introduce people, I fuck it up. ⁓ unblock and unlock creative magic. Her books include The Tarot Spreads, Your Book, a number one Amazon bestseller, Tarot for Creativity, which I can show off. On YouTube, I am showing this beautiful book, which I have kind of ruined because I use it all the time. ⁓ and then we also have which is Tarot for Creativity is runner-up for Best Tarot book, the Chelsey: The best. Monica Hay: At the 2024 Tabby International Cartomancy Awards, and most recently The Shadow Path, which is also a beautiful book. Her writing and tarot work have been have appeared in New York Magazine, Literary Hub, Craft Magazine, and other titles. She also publishes The Shuffle, which is a bestselling substack exploring the intersection of spirituality and creativity through weekly journaling sessions, tarot led interviews with creatives, and regular insights on creative living. I'm personally part of a shuffle and it's lovely. So yes. Thank you for being here. So much what? Chelsey: So much mutual. I was gonna say so much mutual admiration and then I was interrupting you to say that. Monica Hay: I love that you I mean, I admire you in many ways. I don't know why people would admire me, though I think saying that is probably stupid. Chelsey: Well. It is because I and we'll talk about shadow work in a minute, but I love being in your orbit. You've introduced me to so many wonderful people and ideas, and I'm a member of your Writers Way membership, and I write with with you and your wonderful team of writers every week. And you got me into keeping an attic notebook, which means that I'm consistently writing fiction. So yeah, admire admiration all around, Monica. Monica Hay: Yes. See, women supporting women. We love to see it. We love to see it. So we're gonna talk about shadow work today. And I'm I'm really excited. I don't it's funny because I mentioned in my my email to you that shadow work and parts work have a lot of intersection, which I'm really excited talk about. ⁓ have you done parts work before, Chelsea? Out of curiosity. Chelsey: Formally I'm aware of how all of that works and certainly I think it's thematically something that comes up in the writing work that I'm doing, but I'm not a trained part works practi I am not a trained parts work practitioner, nor is that the kind of core of my own therapeutic treatment that I am in. ⁓ but I think when you're I am ⁓ Monica Hay: Yes. Chelsey: I'm a former theater kid. I thought I wanted to be an actor and director. I studied writing at school. I now work with the tarot and the nature of tapping into different parts of you is something that I think creative people understand really naturally. Yeah. Monica Hay: Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I just taught a workshop was it last week? My second in-person workshop ever, because my very first you were there, funny enough. anybody who's listening, ⁓ Chelsea and I we were at a retreat last year. We were both faculty at an Enneagram retreat. And it was my very first time teaching a workshop in person because I started my business after COVID started, right? So I I haven't had a lot of experience with in-person. And there's like a magic Chelsey: It was great. Monica Hay: an in-person work that I really enjoy ⁓ being part of. But it's also very nerve-wracking. Chelsey: For sure. Monica Hay: I'm not like in my cozy room with a blanket on my lap. And like, you know what I mean? It's just different. ⁓ okay. So I wanna ask. So this topic, I'm very excited about it, especially because I think a lot of creatives have heard the term shadow work, but don't really know what it is. ⁓ what exactly is shadow work? How would you describe it? Chelsey: Yeah, that's a great question. You're gonna run into many practitioners who who think differently about the idea of what shadow work is. I'll tell you from my perspective and from the study that I do. The idea of the shadow, the idea of the shadow was coined by a psychologist, Carl Jung. ⁓ it's it came up through his mentor Freud before that, but but Carl Jung really championed this idea that. Within all of us is a like wealth of unconscious material that is either unconscious within us because we just don't know it's there yet, it's just undiscovered material, things about ourselves that we just don't know yet, things we may like, things we may dislike, things that we may be curious about, etc. You know, ways that we feel, and also things that we may have atten intentionally rejected about ourselves. ⁓ A big one for for me is curiosity. Often lives in the shadow. If you've been told as a child not to be nosy or that it's not polite to ask questions, a lot of the time what we do is we go, okay, well, I just don't have any questions then. And we convince ourselves that we don't have questions, we stop asking them. We don't even know what we're curious about or what questions we want to ask as we move move into adulthood. So it's not that we're going through a loop in our head going, Don't ask the question, don't ask the question. So much have we absorbed the idea that. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: It's rude to ask questions, it doesn't occur to us that we have one, and those questions are living in the shadow. That kind of curiosity can live really deeply, so you may not even know you're interested in something because you've been told not to ask questions. and so there's this. Yeah, psychological idea that we're not tapping into our full selves often. And shadow work is about discovering those parts of ourselves that have been buried. It's not about going into the kind of dark of ourselves in terms of Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: things that are horrific or traumatic. Though experiences that were horrific and traumatic may have an impact on what's going on in your unconscious, what's going on in the shadow. But it has much more to do with just like what's sitting in the shade of our human experience. And I think that's a really important distinction that I make in the way that I work with the shadow is the word shadow, though you get a lot of people talking about the dark kind of Monica Hay: Right. Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: metaphorical darkness of evil and and badness, shadow itself is is a really neutral concept physically in our world. Sometimes in the middle of winter, stepping into the shadow is really cold and it's really hard to be there and we need to be out in the sun. But in the heat of summer, we wanna be in the shade. We wanna step into that protected space that's keeping things cool. And so when we think about the relationship to things within us that may have been living in shadow, it's not that those things are shadowy and dark and scary monsters. It's that those things are out of the light. And maybe it's time to bring them in the light, and maybe they live there for a sense of safety. and and having a conversation with ourselves about what do we want to shed a light on, what what do we want to keep safe for ourselves, how is how are we tapping in to those depths instead of just kind of pretending they're not there because ooh, that's dark and scary. When actually there's a lot of really beautiful material in there. Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. I love that. I love that. John one second. He's gonna edit this. I had this weird cough bubbling up. Hang on. John delete this part, sorry. Chelsey: ⁓ bless. Take a water bite. Monica Hay: I don't know why I have a cough. Are we do we have the same water bottle? ⁓ my god. Chelsey: DOOOO Well, that's adorable. Monica Hay: That's adorable. You can keep that part in John. The same water bottle. Okay, I love this. I'm very curious. When you were first taught well, first I had another a we ⁓ like a side question. You were were you taught that you shouldn't ask questions as a kid? Like was that a thing? Chelsey: It's not that no one ever directly said to me, don't ask questions, but I grew up in Midwest America where politeness is the absolute norm. And ⁓ I think culturally, and I think that's an interesting thing to point out about the shadow, Monica. It's a really great question because we have both personal shadow, which is about like our direct experiences and how we may have Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: you know, buried stuff down. another good example is like the way that we dress. We may not want to ruffle any feathers with the way that we dress, da-da-da-da. We may not want to fully express ourselves because we've been taught ⁓ somebody has told us specifically, you can't dress like that, you look weird, da-da-da. but we also have kind of cultural collective shadow, which is much more about the structures and the institutional thinking that can have a really deep effect on what we feel is appropriate. Monica Hay: Right. Yep. Chelsey: what we feel is allowed to bring light onto. and I think for me, I I grew up in the in church, I grew up in Midwest America where and I grew up moving around a lot. And so I was often meeting new people after new people after new people and not having Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: Safety of like, ⁓ I'm it I've developed a deep enough relationship with this person that it feels safe to ask a question. And so I think when I do my own shadow work, definitely I think there's this thing around, is it safe to ask a question? Is it safe to have a question at all, even if I'm just asking myself? And I think a lot of that comes not from directly being told I couldn't, but from society and my experiences mirroring back to me that may not be safe for whatever reason. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: And so when we're thinking about the shadow, we're thinking about the way that society has kind of told us or our environment has kind of told us that we may or may not be safe to do something. It may be safer kept in the shade. It may be something like a bear we don't want to poke, even if it's a beautiful thing. ⁓ And we may have also had really personal direct. sometimes traumatic experiences where an individual has hurt us or told us we can't do something or we've had an experience that we never want to think about. Both of those things live there. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: And often when we're thinking about the collective shadow, when we're thinking about the way that we're impacted by by greater society, the things that we've buried are really beautiful things actually. those aren't things that that need to be kept out of sight, but they're things that we don't know how to safely engage with. Monica Hay: Yeah. Right. Right. And I'm okay, I have to ask. So you wrote a whole book, a whole ass book about shadow work. Like this beautiful book, The Shadow Path. And what like what inspired this work? Like where did you when did you first come become interested in this stuff? Chelsey: Really great question. In my first book, The Terra Spreads Yearbook, I had a chapter. That book moves through four seasons of the soul. So growth, care. It's been a long time since I wrote that book. Growth, care. Monica Hay: You can grab the book. Chelsey: I know I'm gonna have to. Gro what is the third? Well shadow is shadow is is one of them. ⁓ my gosh. Monica Hay: So relatable. This is how humans are. Change. Chelsey: Change. Growth. Growth. Care change and shadow. And I was really looking at the ways that book offers ways to read tarot for yourself throughout the year. I knew I wanted to do something seasonal while also I have raging ADHD and I didn't want people to feel like they couldn't start it at any time or they had to go through it in a specific way. So I wanted it to to be available and kind of a seasonal experience, but also like you can make of these seasons what you will. So I like this idea of the soul seasons that we're moving between and and so I chose shadow as as one of those seasons. The idea of the shadow is really intertwined with the tarot. So I I worked with the tarot before I really Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: Consciously was doing shadow work education. I I have read tarot for for many years now and have taught lots of creatives how to read. And one of the things you're doing when you're tapping into the tarot is tapping into that unconscious element. You're having a conversation with parts of you that may not be rising to the surface or that may not feel safe. The tarot creates a little bit of a container in which it is much safer and more well contained to Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: approach those things and it may reflect back to you things that you didn't know about yourself. It gives you this place to go, I'm not digging around in there, I'm being offered something and going, well, how is this true for me? And how have I never thought about that before? Because you've got really, really rich images for meditation in the tarot. So so when I wrote my first book, The Tarot Spreads Yearbook, tarot tarot and shadow are interlinked. I created this season of shadow, so I was thinking about it in that way. And ⁓ so I wrote that book. I wrote tarot for creativity and then Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Mm. Chelsey: I was wondering what's my third book gonna be. And I was like shadow work, Shadow Work was having a little bit of a moment. There were several books out about it. There wasn't a specific book about tarot and shadow. There wasn't a specific book for creatives about shadow. And I found personally what was really challenging for me was that a lot of the books you would pick up about Shadow were either like achingly academic, really inaccessible, or they were Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: They were really negative. They were really about like confronting your own trauma in a way that I find Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: really you want to do that with with a a therapist or a practitioner. That's not something that you want a book to guide you through necessarily deep diving into your trauma immediately. And so I was like, wouldn't it be nice if there was a book out there that was about meeting those unknown parts of yourself in a playful way, in in a way that wasn't about Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: unearthing trauma, but much more about unearthing things that that we miss about ourselves or that we maybe didn't know were there and connecting to to that kind of what Jungian psychologists have referred to as the golden shadow, the idea of the things that are kind of buried deep down there that are really beautiful. So I was much more interested in that aspect. For creative people, I think often we don't know where the treasure is buried. And so and so shadow work can really help us unearth where the treasure is buried, how how we use our own voice, how we show up to our work and to our readers. Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: to our audience or our customers in a way that feels really authentic, in a way that feels vulnerable without again being deep ending into our trauma or things that we're protecting our from ourselves on purpose. But there's something really beautiful about being able to be in closer conversation with the kind of other side of you. ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: That doesn't that doesn't come to the surface very often. So I was really interested in in it from that perspective. And I realized the more I was kind of pulling the book together, that my relationship with the shadow predated my tarot work by a lot. I trained as an actor. ⁓ and so one of the things you do when you're in in a play is you when everybody gets around the table and and works through the script, you do a lot of work before you ever stage the play to understand what's going on underneath the surface of the Monica Hay: I love it. Chelsey: characters. So you're actually doing a lot of fictional shadow work as an actor a lot of the time. Writers are doing this all the time. We're going, well, what's the real motivation? What does the character need? How does the character need to learn and grow? And and we're using shadow work terminology really and not shadow work terminology, we're using shadow work Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: Activities and approaches to go, okay. Well, the character doesn't know this about themselves yet, but they're gonna discover it by the end. And so, in fact, shadow work is a key part. The dark night of the soul in any literary structure is kind of a meeting of the shadow, going, I'm confronting something that up until now I have not seen in myself. And maybe that's a negative thing, maybe that's a positive thing, but this is me meeting myself anew, and this is me growing and becoming somebody that I didn't know that I was or. Monica Hay: Mm. Yep. Chelsey: could be before. So the character arc is a is a shadow journey in many ways. And Joseph Campbell, who did the hero's journey, was very interested in the idea of the collective shadow and the personal shadow and how that kind of works through. So there's there's a narrative component that I think I was always playing with naturally as a storyteller and a and an aspiring stage performer and director that when I started thinking about Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: about it as a tarot reader and and about writing about it in my way, I was like, this has always been a part of my reflective practice and creative practice. Monica Hay: Yeah hang on sky John, can you put the cats in the other room? Chelsey: Kittens. Hi John. Monica Hay: Thank you. ⁓ really quick, can you turn your video on and back off? Like back off and back on. Yeah. Because you're frozen for me. I'm sure it'll fine for ⁓ people watching that yeah, it records itself. yeah, and so in in many ways a shadow is is like basically linked to the creative process, both internal and external in in your own stories. Yeah. Chelsey: Yeah, is it okay? Yeah. Yeah, 'cause it records yeah. Yes, there are a number of of Jongian thinkers who kind of took off from Carl Jung's original idea of the shadow who who believe, and I can't I will have to find the quote for you. I think it was his student Marie-Louise Van Franz, who is like iconic and wrote a lot about how the shadow comes up in fairy tales and and divination and all kinds of school stuff, cool stuff. But she talks about the shadow as the seat of creativity. We really can't drive the bus if the shadow's not sitting in there with us, ⁓ creatively. So Monica Hay: Yeah. I love it. I love it. And I am very curious when you're thinking about the shadow in terms of both our internal world and maybe the world of our stories. It sounds like it's it's very important so that we understand our characters and their motivations and we understand ourselves. ⁓ why else do you think is important to connect with our shadows? When you when you think about why like what the benefits that have been have given you or that has it has given you and people around you. Chelsey: Yeah. Well I think first and foremostly it's never a journey that's finished, right? It's it's something that in like new stuff is kind of Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Chelsey: getting buried in there or or like crystallizing in there all the time because we're dynamic beings. And I mean what is the point of life if not to know yourself intimately? And I think for creative people, all the more important, right? The the more intimately we know ourselves, the bigger our well of creativity becomes, the more questions that we're asking, the more journeys and explorations we're going on. And I think if we're not, and you don't have to call it shadow work, you can call it call it whatever you want. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: But if we're not getting down to the subterranean layers of our own experience and existence, what are we drawing on to bring back out into the world? How are we coming to the world authentically if if we don't know what's going on in the soup of us at all? ⁓ Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Soup. I love that. The soup of us. Chelsey: Yeah, and so the soup of us. And so, you know, for for the kind of Yangian idea of the shadow, when we're talking about about it in a psychological and kind of therapeutic sense, we're thinking about, well, how do we allow this part these parts of us that that don't get pulled into the light, how do we allow them to exist within us so that we feel connected to the self? and like that's important for everybody. Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chelsey: ⁓ more and more as like, you know, we become I think in an internet society, knowing what's real. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: is also like an internal journey, knowing what's real about us. We perform a lot. I mean, you and I are sitting here having a very real conversation, but we're also in front of a camera. And like really coming to this conversation with you requ ⁓ for both of us requires, you know, you to have those thoughts about well, what am I actually interested in? So that I can bring that to the surface. It requires me to know to go, well, what do I really believe about this thing I want to tell you? And not what do I think people want to hear or what would be easiest. Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: Or what wouldn't rock the boat. And it's really only once we get past the surface level comfort into that deeper stuff that maybe is a little bit scary, is a little bit vulnerable, that's when we're doing something interesting. and that's when we're saying something that means something to people also. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Right. Yeah. It's really interesting because I I do a lot of parts work in my own therapy and she doesn't call it shadow work, though I'm sure she probably is familiar with the term. But it's funny because for many years I think I shoved a lot of parts down because I didn't it's not that I didn't want to face them, it's that facing them was Like I'm I'm relatively good at sitting with difficult feelings. Like I've, you know, I'm I'm a cancer meaning I have a lot of emotions. Okay. Your girl's an emotional person. But I think for a few years, ⁓ I didn't feel like I had the time or the space to like f you know, be with the parts that were trying to talk to me because I was trying to build a business and we were living in times when You know, I was trying to move to a different country. And like there were just a lot of pieces in my life that were telling me you need to focus on this and don't think about like the painful stuff. And I don't even think it was conscious, honestly. And that's like what you're talking about with the shadow work being so on like subconscious. It's like the parts of us that we that are that are hanging out there, but that we're not even aware of in daily life. Or maybe we're slightly aware of it. Chelsey: Mm-hmm. Monica Hay: But we don't like really de dig deep into it too much. ⁓ Yeah, I find this very interesting because I feel like it ha it does have a lot of similarities with Parts Work. And for those of you who are like, What the hell are you talking about? ⁓ Parts Work is created by oh ⁓ God, what is his name? I don't remember the guy's name. But it's created are you talk are you googling ⁓ Chelsey: You know I am. Monica Hay: Love it. Chelsey: should I should also know and I don't. Monica Hay: I think it's Schwartz. Chelsey: Yeah, I think you're right. It is Richard C. Schwartz. And that's internal family systems specifically. Monica Hay: Richard's Heath Swartz. And yes, it's internal family systems. And I've used it in in like a more, I would say, creative way, because I use it with my therapists. I also ⁓ there's a book I recommend for anyone listening. It's called Align Your Mind by Britt Frank. And this is a really helpful book on doing it kind of in a DIY way. Because you did mention like when you're looking at the shadow, we want should do it in a way that feels safe and if you do it with a practitioner, you know, sometimes you like you don't necessarily look at shadow work in the same way as like sh trauma work, right? Like that's kinda how you explained it. but I do think this book does give you kind of a container. This in line your mind by Brit Frank gives you a container for doing some of that on your own. Cause she gives you just a really good kind of explanation of what it is, things like that. But I yeah Chelsey: Yeah, I I think that that Young talked about many aspects of the psyche and and that is a foundational element for for what something like Parts Work, which is gonna be more clinically applied, is is based on. In the same way that Young was kind of taking Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: Freud's initial Fre Freud also obviously believed in the unconscious. He was really interested. His idea of shadow was very negative. He was like, there's all this stuff in there that needs to be fixed and corrected. And Jung came along and was like, hang on, hold on, what if there's good stuff in there? ⁓ and then his students really took that into Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: into what is not just not just like the psychoanalytic space but also like my first introduction to Younggian theory was in in my English degree ⁓ and looking at it as a a way of understanding what was going on again amongst characters. I think I probably read Young first while while thinking about literary theory. And and so so that kind of thought went much more psychoanalytic, creative kind of not not fully Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: witchy but much more analytical versus what you've got things like things like parts work is moving more into the clinical space and there's there's going to be more kind of like brain science behind it rather than creative or literary exploit exploration. But you'll find there's a mirror in both of those practices. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. There's a mirror. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also this we must talk about perfectionism. How how does perfectionism and shadow work intersect for you or with people you work with or in just in general? Chelsey: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think shadow work has a real place in healing perfectionism. Again, like we're we're always spiraling through new ways of addressing what's going on inside of us. And so it's not like a one-and-done healed. But when we're willing to look into what it is, what the fear, what the experience that sits below the need for everything to be perfect is, then we're kind of cooking with gas. And shadow work allows us to meet all of that. Monica Hay: Okay. Chelsey: It also allows us to get more comfortable being imperfect. There's a really great Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: Jungian writer named ⁓ Robert Bly, who talks about the shadow is this big black bag. And the more stuff you stuff in it, the heavier it is, the more you're carrying it around, and the less you you become, because you're shoving all the good stuff into the bag because you're trying to be good, you're trying to pass the test, you're trying to pass muster. And what I think, you know, writers who are perfectionists, and I am guilty of having been among you in at stages in my life, ⁓ are doing are. Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: going. Well anything that doesn't that I know won't please people or get the seal of approval goes in the black bag. But some of that's the most interesting stuff, like I said before. ⁓ and so when we're willing and comfortable to look at the parts of us that we'd normally put in the black bag and go, well, what's here to mine? Again, we're getting a lot more Authentic storytelling, we're getting a lot more originality. perfectionism comes from this place of, yeah, not wanting to ripple anything, wanting to be seen as good. But because we've narrowed our definition of what good is down to this like Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Chelsey: Really specific thing, we're missing all of the good that could be. You know, perfect is the enemy of good, etc. Shadow work is a tool for accepting that. And when we start to see the stuff that's like buried with us or unknown within us as like a really beautiful surprise, as something to engage with, as questions we want to ask, then all of a sudden the idea of perfect falls away, and the big, like impossible to fill containers. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: For what could be good replaces it. And I don't know about you, Monica, but like while I hold myself to a really high standard as a writer, and I and I often have to have that conversation about, well, is this good enough with myself? The work that I love and read the most comes from people who are like. this is what I wanna say more than this is per this is quote unquote perfect. ⁓ and that space of what I wanna say is what happens when we allow that Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: kind of unconscious part of us to bubble up to the surface and and shine and speak. But we can't do that if we walk around pretending like the black bag doesn't exist, like like there's nothing else to it but this kind of perfect standard that we're holding ourselves to. Instead of holding ourselves to a standard of what we think the external perfect rubric is, we're going, well what's in there that maybe I want to share? What's in there that's kind of cool that nobody's thought of before? You can't hold Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: something that personal to a perfection standard actually. And so the more we get comfortable with with play, and I do in my in in my book in the shadow path, I talk about shadow play a lot more than I talk about shadow work because part of anti-perfectionism as well is just going, well what if I tried this and say so what happened? The shadow loves that. It just wants to see what happens. It's just this part of you that's like, hey, I'm here Monica Hay: Right. Yes. Chelsey: Do you want to listen? Do you want to play? Do you want to try something? What if? and those are so key to the creative process, whereas perfectionism is going, not unless, no because, and we're missing all of the the yes and of ourselves. There's my theater background again. Yes and Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yep. Yeah. I love that. Well, I I love I love your theater background. I feel like all my all my friends that I love the most are I feel like are just like they were theater kids so often. Like Chelsey: We're the best. We're the best. Monica Hay: ⁓ I find it really interesting when we talk about perfectionism, how often it's ⁓ it's not necessarily only self-inflicted. Like a lot of it is, yeah, we're performing. And I think I wonder, I mean, I would I wanna I really want to talk to like writers who, you know, were born many, many years before the internet and like whose careers started before. social media and all these things like had happened because I I'm very curious how it's different for them back then versus now and like what kind of perfectionism can show up, if that makes sense. Cause because I think even for myself, I'll start like creating, you know, an Instagram post. And then my perfectionism brain will be like, hmm, how do I want to be perceived? And like Chelsey: Yes. Monica Hay: Anybody who's listening, I'm an Enneagram three, which I've talked about in the podcast before. ⁓ and Chelsea is a four, which I love. But you have some three. Yes. And for me, I think I tend to I mean, I can get down in there, but I also am constantly thinking about how I'm perceived by, you know, the the world at large. ⁓ and you know, part of me is like, this is not gonna go away because this is just like my personality type. But Chelsey: That's why I'm like, get down in there. Go hunting around. Monica Hay: I think there's also part of me that has noticed that when I am more just authentic and honest and when I just get down to the root of it, that there there is a lot more cool shit that comes up. And people usually respond to that better on my my channels and things like that. And so there's a lot of bravery I think that also comes with shadow work from what I'm hearing. Chelsey: Absolutely. Absolutely. It it is a hero's journey situation. There's a chapter in the Shadow Path where we do the the Shadow Heroes journey and kind of look at that as the experience because you do. You have to answer the call. You have to go down into the abyss. You have to bring something. You have to bring the elixir back. ⁓ I mean, Joseph Campbell was ripp ripping Carl Jung off. You heard it here first. Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm. Yeah. We it's so funny. I don't know a lot about Joseph Campbell, one of the writers in the membership really hates him because she's like has a PhD in this stuff. I I should have her on the pod and have her talk about it. 'Cause I don't know enough to like have an opinion. Chelsey: mixed relationship with with anybody who who anybody who does work like that where it's narrative theory there is definitely something very and and like i in fact kind of the approach to shadow work is the same way we're we're drawing in archetypes that can be really really powerful for unlocking Monica Hay: Yeah, for sure. Chelsey: what we need in order to do our work. And also, unfortunately, sometimes we're creating prisons out of those frameworks. And so and and Joseph Campbell for other reasons we don't you know Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: it it there's no debating the legacy of how he drew a lot of myth and culture and psychology together. It it it we would not have the literature and film that we have now without his analysis. And also it he was not a good person. ⁓ so so it's hard to it it it's hard to conflate. Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: those two things, but inarguable be the impact of him like curating lots of ideas together, which impact writers today in a huge way. ⁓ and a lot of that came from Young, came from Freud, came from people who were doing the work long before he was, and he was somebody who brought it all together. but yeah, I would listen I would listen to that podcast. yeah. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the episode. Yeah. She's probably listening to if you're listening to this right now, hi Leslie, I'm gonna invite you to talk about this. Chelsey: Yeah, yeah. I wanna hear more. Because I think it's a really inspiring framework and also we have to be able to break out of it. And and the same goes I mean, the idea of shadow is a really interesting framework. And also one of my big goals in writing the book was like I want to give people a lot of grace for this to be Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm. Chelsey: what they need it to be. And so again, I'm a very neurodivergent writer. And so I'm really interested in in giving you structure with rules you can break. And all of my Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: writing and books and the way that I run my journaling club, et cetera, is, you know, and that's why we get along so well, Monica. Cause we're like, let me help you. And also you can tell me to rip fuck right off and do it a different way. It's fine as long as you're doing it. and like that's that's integrated shadow work in itself to go, I appreciate what this thing has to offer and also I feel comfortable saying, I know what works for me because Monica Hay: Yes You tell me to fuck right off Yes. Chelsey: I've done the work of examining that and Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: am constantly getting curious about why things work for me, why something doesn't work for me. Am I feeling resistance or am I feeling my nervous system go, that's not in line with what I want. And it's only when we're asking ourselves questions, whether it's through shadow work or parts work or whatever language we want to use, at the end of the day, what we want to do is access the truest parts of ourselves so that we can make the truest work and be the most authentic people that we can. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I feel like I I feel like we should have a mic drop at that moment. ⁓ mic drop. I I know that Riverside doesn't do it, but I think there are certain books that when you like do this and like a mic drops. I okay, what are what are some examples of some shadow beliefs that riders might carry if you can throw any out there. Chelsey: It's not my story to tell, I think it's a big one. And that comes from a place of real compassion, I think, and empathy and kindness. But what we're absorbing is that whatever Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: Is within us has to move through a filter of what other people think is ours to tell. I think it's not my story to tell is a major, major shadow thought. Because first of all, it is your story to tell. Whether it's your story to sell is a completely different question to whether it's it's a story that's calling you to write it. And I think what what we're doing with the kind of Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yes. Chelsey: Internal editor. Julia Cameron kind of calls this the shadow the sensor in the artist's way. She talks a lot about the sensor. She's she's a little more Freudian in her approach to the shadow. She's got a really negative relationship with the sensor. ⁓ she's missing out on what maybe it has to offer a little bit, but but there's something about that that kind of editing: be good, be correct, be ⁓ thoughtful before you even you've even drafted the work. Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: We make it we make it thoughtful and correct and kind after we've drafted it. But if we don't allow the thing that's bubbling up inside of us on the page so that we can then think about how it's gonna per be perceived, we're never gonna write anything at all. ⁓ so it's not my story to tell is a big one. Why? Why is it not your story to tell? It's always if if the idea is there, it's Sorry, my computer just made a noise. If if the idea is there, it's your story to tell, you get to decide later if it's your story to sell, and that shouldn't stop the creative process. And and when you've got that kind of integrated shadow, you know I'm allowed to say, to tell myself this story, to put this on the paper. And also I trust my own discretion that when I read it back, Monica Hay: Love it. Yeah. Chelsey: I'm going to be thinking about how the reader is going to experience this, but I can't do that work until I tell myself the story, Terry Pratchett. ⁓ the first draft is always you telling yourself the story. ⁓ so I think that's a big one. I'm not a writer because I didn't go to school for for creative writing or for English, is something that I get a lot, which is Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: I did go to school for for creative writing. And I still wonder if I am. So it has nothing to do with with you going to school or not going to school. Some of the best writers that I know didn't go to school for writing or literature or anything adjacent. ⁓ so your education is not stopping you from being a really beautiful storyteller. Like the story's already in there, the story's living in the subconscious, the confidence is living in the subconscious, but that can't stop you. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: I don't I think writer's block comes from shadow stuff. I think writer's block is us going. I I am not one of those people who says writer's block isn't real. I think if you're experiencing it, it's real for you. and like you you deserve a lot of care and compassion if you're saying that rather than somebody going, it doesn't exist. But the question isn't like why like Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: the the remedy for writer's block isn't ⁓ giving up and it's not it's not being hard on yourself. It's getting curious because what unhooks writer's block is asking questions. And so when we start looking inward or looking into the story and going, what don't I d what do I not know yet? That's when we start to unlock something. And shadow work is all about going, what do I not know yet? What have I not discovered? ⁓ so so the assumption that it stops at writer's block. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chelsey: And that you can't move beyond it is, I think, a big one. yeah, or the same kind of like I don't have anything to say. You just haven't dug deep enough to found find what you have to say. And like I have that. Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm. Chelsey: All of these are thoughts I have had. My I'm minus the minus that I didn't go to school because I did go to school, but I still have the thought, am I a writer? I, you know, worked in a magazine in my twenties and all of my colleagues were getting calls from agents to write books and I was not getting those calls. And I remember being like, What am I what am I doing here? and and can I just not do it? Am I just not a writer? And I just had to find my own way and and really dig down and find what it was I really wanted to say. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: ⁓ Before that call came, and lo and behold, when I started doing something that was really scary for myself, publicly talking about my interest in the tarot, which had lived very much in my like before I got to know the tarot, I think I was really deeply curious about magic. I lived that out through through fantasy books and and series and whatever, but I wasn't, I didn't have any idea that there were like practices, occult practices that I personally was interested in. I was really reserved about that. And once I started playing with that and then started talking about that, that's when I started making the art that felt really meaningful to me. And that's when people started calling me. So it's kind of like Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: Once you once you own the thing you really want to say, that's when things start moving, not all at once and not all at the same speed and not forever in the at the same trajectory. But the more you're talking about something that really means something to you and like opening yourself up in that way, both to yourself and to other people, Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: That's when the best work comes, that's when people are s like seeing you for who you are and what you wanna say. And while that's scary sometimes, it's also the best way to be a human. Monica Hay: Yeah. What year were y did you start talking about the tarot online and starting to be more honest about yourself? Chelsey: twenty twenty one. So I I like s I started when I first started kind of like really deep diving into it and taking it seriously was during the the pandemic and I started a an anonymous tarot blog on the internet just to keep myself accountable and like to kind of like learn and be connected to other people, but I didn't use my name. I didn't tell anybody it was me. I didn't tell my friends. I like maybe I told, you know, Zach. Zach my husband knew that I was getting into it. And and my friend who had introduced me to the tarot, I didn't tell anybody else. And I really let myself kind of get comfortable with that first. And I didn't know how I was gonna explain it to my parents. which actually turned out much better than I thought it would. My mom owns all my books now. Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: Bless her. She just sent me a picture of her with my book in ⁓ in the States and and even my grandpa, who was very confused, ⁓ was it has actually been really wonderful about it. ⁓ but I yeah, I had a lot of hang-ups about how I not even because I thought I was gonna get disowned or anything, but it was gonna change the way that people perceived me. ⁓ I'm doing this witchy thing. And like I had to kind of work past that and start start owning it. And now I run a business doing it and I've written three books about it. But it but I had to do that work of going, it's actually safe for me to talk about this thing that's that I've just discovered about myself and let other people discover that about me too. And it's been the best thing I ever did. And I'm still learning that lesson all the time. Like Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: all the time. Every time I write something, I'm like, people are allowed to see me as a person who wrote this. That's okay. it it's new all the time and I'm always teaching myself that lesson. But the skills of being able to look at what's what really wants to come out of me and and supporting myself into bringing that into the light is is important. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I I'm very curious. Let's I'm I have like so many more questions. And do you have a heart stop at any point or are we okay? Chelsey: I do, I do, I have two. It's in five. Monica Hay: Is it in ten minutes? Chelsey: We can do we can do part two. I'm sorry I'm so loquacious. Monica Hay: No, it's okay. I love this. ⁓ I had a f I was like that is so funny. So, okay, I feel like we're gonna have to do part two, which cracks me up. Okay, originally you guys, we we almost accidentally booked for each other's podcast on the same day. And then I was like, ⁓ let's I'll book on Friday, you book Monday. And I had a feeling it was gonna happen where we wouldn't be able to get through all the questions in one time. Chelsey: Yeah, I have to I have Lee and Evan. I kind of love that. I I'm worried I'm worried for us on Friday when Well me. Monica Hay: It's fine. ⁓ 'cause I have I have a lot more questions and I feel like I have like half of my questions are st I I still wanna dig into it. So ⁓ we'll stop here for these questions. But the next episode I think I'll be talking maybe more about like the practical, like looking at your book, looking at some of the the different ways that people can start working with this. ⁓ Yeah, I love that. Chelsey: Yeah, we can do an exercise. Yeah. Monica Hay: I love that. Alright, well thank you for joining and we will see you on the next probably very soon in another episode.