listening to the unheard you.
Thirty years of doing the work.Still learning.
Oliver created Shadow Journaling after feeling frustrated that so much journaling advice never gave the depth he needed. Through studying Jung, Robert Johnson, Debbie Ford, Nathaniel Branden, Kay Adams, and Gloria Kempton, Oliver found a thread that helped him, and later his students, go gently into the shadow, with a light, with support, and the confidence that we will grow.
Shadow Journaling is about listening to the unheard you.
Certified Instructor
Kay Adams' Journal to the Self Program
Council Member
International Association for Journal Writing
Cofounder
Barcelona Journaling Festival
showing up (almost) every morning
It was May 1984. A six year old boy was being treated for a small cut on his head.
"Don't worry, you're going to be fine," the nurse said, putting a plaster on.
It was really nothing, but as a six year old boy, they wanted him to feel safe.
The boy was me, and I had been taken by ambulance to a local hospital after a car accident. My uncle was around somewhere, also unharmed.
My father, however, was not. The last time I saw him before I arrived at the hospital, he was behind the wheel of the car. Covered in blood from head to toe. I was told later he had been hit in the forehead with a rock roughly the size of a brick.
I remember seeing the rocks falling off the truck coming towards us. My dad was driving, and I sat behind my uncle in the passenger seat.
I tried to shout something, to warn him. For years after I told myself and those around me that I had seen the rock. I don't know if that was true.
My father ended up with brain damage after several complications. From that moment on, he was no longer able to be my father in anything but name. He is still alive.
This was my first real meeting with Life (capital L). I was witness to what I called "my dad's accident" for many years. I didn't allow myself the chance to be a participant.
By denying myself participation I was denying myself the chance to heal. But I was also doing more than that.
I was denying myself ownership. I was giving myself permanent victimhood.
Not only did I lose my dad to brain damage, I also "lost" the chance to recover. I was so distraught and felt so deeply and unfairly treated by the universe, my self-punishment would be so severe there would be nothing the universe could do but save me.
The universe didn't ride in on a white horse and fix things. I had to do that myself.
Shadow Journaling is the horse I built, if you'll excuse my metaphors.
Everything I teach is something I do on a regular basis. This is lived experience, and the result of a deep practice.