The Only Way Out Is Through: Shadow Work, Anger, and the Paradox of Healing

Reflections from a young men's healing and initiation retreat — on shadow work, the paradox of transcendence, and why feeling what we've been avoiding is the doorway to liberation.

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I want to share a few reflections from a young men's retreat I just facilitated — one focused on healing and initiation.

This particular group was predominantly young men in a Buddhist studies program who had just come out of a week of silent retreat. They were 18 to 25. And as facilitators, we took a real risk stepping in: would they be able to dig in, find something, and have the commitment and resolve to stay with a process that can be quite grueling and painful? Because what we're looking at in this work is unconscious shadow material — material they themselves can't see. Through trained eyes and through the lens of the group, it's obvious. But for the person in it, it's invisible.

They showed up more fully than I could have anticipated.

One of the things that becomes so clear in this work is how hard it is to discern between who we actually are and the shadow parts that run our lives. There's a passage from The Initiation training I work within that describes how the initiated man or woman is psychically differentiated from their parents — and how that actually looks like leading their own life, not just playing out the unfinished business or the unconscious downloads that got passed down.

“The uninitiated woman or man has not established their psychologically healthy, separate identity. Thus, they will tend to live out their mother’s and/or father’s shadow in no little amount of confusion and pain.”

That's what we were orienting toward all weekend.

One of the most striking things I witnessed was how trusting these young men were to go into territory that, within the Buddha Dharma, is often taught as a place not to feed or indulge — something to practice with, transcend, and release. The number one of these being anger.

So we would reach these moments in the process where someone would begin to feel mad, and we'd encourage them to lean into it. And what would happen — almost every time — is that both the teachings and their own conditioning would pull them back. There was this conceptual overlay: "Oh, but this is what I'm supposed to get rid of. If I express it, I'll just reinforce it. It'll just grow stronger. I'm trying to release anger and ill will…"

I remember one young man in particular. He was deep in his process, starting to access something real — you could feel the energy building in his body, his breath changing, his hands tightening. And then, right at the threshold, he went quiet. Pulled back. Looked almost apologetic. As if feeling it fully was the transgression, not the suppression.

That moment is what I want to speak to.

What I hold and witness again and again through this work is that the only way out is through. My teacher London says it this way: what we touch fully resolves completely. And there's a critical component to the healing and awakening journey that asks us to be willing to lean past our edge — physically, and also in terms of the beliefs that start to emerge at that edge.

From a Buddhist standpoint, backing away from anger might look like skillful practice. But in all actuality, it can be a deep psychic defense. It can reinforce the very mask that covers the shadow parts we had to hide as young kids because it wasn't safe to express anger in the first place. We can become very sophisticated at rationalizing and justifying — even fully merging with — our unconscious adaptive survival strategies. In The Initiation training, we call this the child. And the more sophisticated the rationalization, the harder it is to see.

What was so moving was watching these young men show up to that task anyway. Through deeply embodied practice and really concise emotional expression, we were able to help them identify how these masks operate in their lives. We were able to make the unconscious conscious. My teacher Rodney Smith speaks often about how the awakening process can be mapped along a spectrum from unconscious to conscious — and once we made these things visible, something really shifted.

A deep anger protection — when that energy is disowned — can be the source of so much suffering. So much passive aggression, so much depression, because it's a part of ourselves we're not actually in relationship with. We don't even know it's there. But by making it conscious and clear, we can begin to get into relationship with it. And that requires that we actually start by feeling it.

It can be a double bind: I don't see it, so I won't go there. I don't want to feel it, so I won't see it. Through the art of deep group process, we're able to bring people through a sequence that lets them begin to play in the spirit of these energies they'd rather not have. And when there's enough participation, enough voice and movement and support from the group, people are really able to fully let go — and in doing so, begin to find some essential core part of themselves that got left behind. Usually it's a deep vulnerability. The rage is covering over sadness. The mask is covering over tenderness.

For anyone genuinely interested in liberation — and I mean that word in the fullest sense — we have to be willing to go just about anywhere inside ourselves. This is more of a tantric approach than an early Buddhist one, I'll acknowledge that. But what was so striking was seeing the direct translation of these embodied group processes into such profound humility, and such a widened capacity to feel and be with and love and hold.

That young man who went quiet at the threshold? By the end of the weekend, he was holding space for another man's grief with a steadiness and presence that I don't think he knew he had. That's what becomes possible when we're willing to feel what we've been avoiding. Not just for ourselves — but for everyone around us.

The most astonishing truth in all of this is that there is an infinite world of possibility within each heart and mind. These young men are the young men of our world today. And what was possible for them on this retreat is possible for every young man on the planet.

It is heartbreaking to know that not every young man will have the opportunity to be deeply seen, held, and healed in the presence of a strong, trustworthy group of men. But we brought it this weekend. We felt it all. We played so full out that each and every man retrieved a critical piece of his humanity. We did it together — healed and showed up for one another. And it only took two days. Not even.

We had the space and time to tap back into something so essential to our nature as men. Deep down, we know how to love and heal and hold one another — in fire, in truth, in tenderness, in challenge, and in play. When we reclaim those fragmented parts of ourselves, we gain access to a range within ourselves and with each other that allows for a radically expanded expression of our humanity. We become more whole. We step into a fuller version of our power.

And there is so much true power in the ability to go to the places that scare us most, feel the pain there, and remain connected to our own heart and the hearts of others as we do. That is real strength.

So many times throughout the retreat, a young man deep in his process would say: "This is so hard. I don't want to go here." No shit. We spend most of our lives avoiding these places. And in doing so, we reinvest in the very suffering that drives us. But if we turn toward it — if we trust the process, trust the group, and let ourselves be held beyond what we're initially capable of seeing for ourselves — we gain access to something that can't be taken away.

There is so much hope in that. Hope for the world. Hope for our men. 

I'm beginning to offer young men's healing and initiation retreats. If this resonates with you, or with someone you know, I'd love to be in touch.