Day 1, Session Zero

6/16/21

Procrastination was the flavor of the day. I told myself it was because I was waiting for feedback on my most recent attempt at storytelling, but I knew it was because, every time I tried, it didn’t feel right. It felt like I was always trying to tell someone else’s story when I wished I could tell my own. Unfortunately, the only way to do that without sounding insane or narcissistic was to package it as fiction. It was hard enough living a life that included the gods when I’d been raised by Catholics, skeptics, and naysayers. But having to claim that my life was made up left me depressed and wanting to give up.

Hemming and hawing over my options in life outside of writing professionally weren’t helping either. It left me overwhelmed and brought my motivation to a standstill. Fuck, my only motivation to get out of bed was a full bladder. That, plus the self-conditioning to do something productive before I was allowed to sleep again, was what was keeping me alive for the most part. That and the ever-present cheerleader in my head, teasing me with thoughts of how wonderful life could be with my freedom. The dreams were great, but dreams don’t change circumstances.

Trying to communicate with the gods didn’t help. It was a hit-or-miss more often than not, sometimes I’d have a good day and be able to hear them clearly enough to feel them beside me. Most days, however, I ended up questioning whether or not they were really speaking with me. The only thing that came through clearly seemed to be the same thing they had been pushing with others on social media who shared their interactions with their deities; Do Your Shadow Work. One problem with that directive, though. I have no interest in practicing magic. I went cold turkey with that shit a long time ago after everything seemed to blow up in my face as a result. It also doesn’t help when the background I came from dictated that claiming to be a witch would prevent me from being taken seriously as a person. Hooray, Brainwashing!

In truth, I am a Spiritualist who understands the basic mechanics of spell working. My education? Being a dumb-fuck kid who saw “The Craft” in Middle School when it first came out and started trying to do magic before understanding it, then living with and learning from the consequences. High Intelligence, Low Wisdom equals smart enough to know better but too dumb to quit. That being said, when it comes to my mental health, I prefer to take a more scientific approach, relying more on psychology and philosophy than faith. I worked through my issues in my own way, ferreting out the roots of my trauma and ripping them out, looking at my behavior and seeing where I was myself versus when I was reflecting those that tried to control me. I had finally gotten to the point where I felt like my own, independent person again, ready to live my own life free of the toxicity, starting with finding employment after a mental breakdown had me in isolation for three years... Just in time for COVID-19.

At the time, I took that as a sign that maybe I should try to write a story for the mass market. I spent all of 2020 trying to accomplish this, fighting with the standard writer’s neurosis of self-doubt and the ever-present loneliness I have always felt. By the end of the year, I had a shit-ton of versions of the same story, but none of them ever reached the point of feeling finished. Enter 2021. Still working on the same story, with the same characters in a different setting, the well dried up in April after a trip to Louisianna for a week starting Easter Weekend. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it back, so I gave up on it. Deciding that was a sign that I had wasted enough time trying to be a professional writer, I tried to come up with a new plan to earn my freedom. That was when I started to accept the gods, if for no other reason than to have someone to hang out with when I felt isolated.

Up until then, my only research into spirits had been segregated to the scientific aspect with an emphasis on Spiritual Communication with ITC research, spirit boards, tarot cards, and so on. The perpetual search for validation so I could prove to the world, once and for all, that I am not delusional and I do not belong in the nuthouse. My acceptance of the gods was not my attempt to seek their guidance or assistance in life, it was simply to make contact in a way that I could record both sides of the conversation. My thought was if demons and human spirits could connect with the spirit boxes, why couldn’t the gods? My experiments, however, like my writing, would only get so far before it felt like failing. And, it seemed the only advice I would get from them was to do my Shadow Work.

Fine. I’ll at least look into it and see what it’s all about before dismissing it completely to go get a job working in Customer Service. I’d tried doing my Shadow Work once before, after finding someone who was trying to teach people how to do it with step-by-step instructions and workbooks. However, that resource dried up almost as soon as I’d found it with only one week of the program published. So, I had a packet that was basically nothing more than an explanation of the Inner Child after a big section on self-esteem and Self Care that seemed more complicated than was needed, followed by a half-assed attempt at an intro to Self-Discovery. Truth be told, it was probably for the best that I didn’t continue waiting around for the individual to finally post more content.

So, with the most basic, limited, misinformed knowledge, I could start with, I said fuck it and decided to do it myself. Like I said, smart enough to know better, but too dumb to quit. If I’d taken the two seconds it would have taken to do so, I would have done a simple Google search for “What is Shadow Working?” and discovered the psychological and philosophical aspects of Shadow Working (see Carl Jung, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). That would have appealed to me and lit a fire under my ass, as it deals with the integration of all aspects of the spirit, hunting down all of the fragments of one’s self and putting them back together. But, I didn’t. The first attempt with the packet had been enough to make me want to avoid it like the plague. So, on Day 1, I did.

Knowing doing my Shadow Work was the only direction I would receive when it came to the bigger picture, I instead decided to let the spirits pick what to turn on for background noise while I groused over being a failed writer. In retrospect, I should have known they were up to something. After spending entirely too long letting Lucifer binge-watch the Simpsons, as well as his own show on Netflix, the Twins, Deimos and Phobos, came forward. As the Gods of Psychological Warfare and Patrons of the Horror Genre, I should have known there was fuckery afoot when they chose the MCU.

Thankfully, before I could binge the entire timeline, Cassia called for her nightly chat, to make sure I wasn’t dead and hadn’t gone full feral cat, right around the time when a chuckle broke through the ennui, the sound foreign enough for me to pause and analyze it.

*****

“Sassy Bucky Barnes makes me chuckle in Florida,” Iona said in response to the friendly greeting of her best friend, Cassia, when she answered the phone.

“Did you just make a Ben Brainard reference?” Cassia asked.

“Yes,” Iona said simply, nodding once to herself in confirmation.

“You spend too much time on the internet,” she said.

“Or not enough,” Iona pointed out. “But it made me realize, when I chuckle like that, I don’t get the right expression to it,” she added, going back to her original thought. “It sounds the same and, it’s really is just me chuckling but, when I make it, I look like I’m up to something sinister.”

“I know the sound you are talking about, and I agree,” she said bluntly. “Then again, when you get a good laugh going it takes years off my life,” Cassia said with a snort.

“Considering the source, that doesn’t surprise me,” Iona said dryly.

“I’m not sure if I should be insulted,” she said slowly.

“I meant the source of the noise, not the comment,” Iona said with a small derisive snort. “If someone like me is amused enough to laugh, chances are, the ones involved in the situation will only survive if they’re immortal,” she added as she flopped back against the mattress of her daybed, staring up at the plastic stars stuck to the ceiling, glowing amidst a field of black.

“Uh oh,” Cassia said, making Iona chuckle a bit. “Someone’s having an existential crisis.”

“Being existential does not automatically mean I’m in crisis,” Iona assured her. “Am I contemplating my existence concerning the rest of the universe? Always. Such is the way of the Daímonas. Am I in crisis or need of assistance on an emotional or spiritual level as a result? Not at the moment. I’ve made peace with the Darkness,” she admitted, surprising herself with how easily she could say it and truthful it felt without the bitterness or spite to it.

“Daímonas?” Cassia asked in confusion.

“The Greek word for Demon,” she said. “For oversimplification’s sake, a Demon is just a spirit born in Darkness. But the word Demon almost feels like hate speech. The only difference between a Daímonas and a Demon is that the Daímonas have decided to let go. Let go of the hate, let go of the hurt, let go of the rage, spite, and pettiness, let go of that which is toxic in exchange for peace and a chance to experience something better. The same definition can be applied to natural Shadow Workers in the human population. The Daímonas are the ones who weren’t so lucky as to have any innocence survive the experience, but are willing to let go of the trauma and no longer let it define them.”

“So, what’s eating at you so much that you’re acknowledging the truth of your spiritual origins?” Cassia asked, taking a deep breath and making a noise of getting settled as the audio coming through that sounded like she put it on speaker.

“It’s my writing,” Iona admitted. “You read Star-Crossed Lovers?”

“It was good but depressing as hell,” Cassia confessed.

“Exactly,” Iona said. “The only reason why I decided to write Star-Crossed Lovers was that it was either Fanfiction or Modern Greek Mythology, which is basically Fanfiction for the Greek Pantheon.”

“That explains a lot,” Cassia said with a chuckle. “How much AO3 have you consumed?”

“Entirely too much,” Iona admitted. “Hey, at least I’m not giving in to the morbid curiosity that leads to Rule34 and questioning things about myself I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

“True, but still,” Cassia said. “What about your Tiefling?”

“Fuck, I haven’t written for her in over a year,” she admitted, thinking of the D&D character she’d first developed as a tool to remember how to be a person.

“You think you’re ready to take her back on?” Cassia asked gently and Iona took a steadying breath as she considered it. “I mean, I get if you’re not.”

“It’s not that,” she admitted. “Yeah, writing for her is rough, but it helped me get through the worst of it after I tried to punch my own timecard,” she said with a sigh as she focused on the growing discomfort in her gut as she thought about reading back through it. The unease built as she continued to consider chasing that storyline until she internally relented to the gods’ direction. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” Cassia asked.

“For making me see what the real problem is,” she said, “and it’s not my writing.”

“Do I want to know?” Cassia asked.

“Two simple words to describe the worst part of Spiritualism for the practitioner,” she said leadingly as the line filled with a groan she could feel in her core.

“When was the last time you did your Shadow Work?” Cassia asked after a pause.

“The last time I wrote for my Tiefling,” she said.

“You’re fucking kidding me. And you get onto me about doing mine,” Cassia said and Iona could hear the wry twist of her lips as she spoke.

“I get onto you because I care about you,” she said. “You can, and do, recognize toxic personality traits in others, but you maintain the hope that they are different or can change for the better. Unfortunately, that makes you bait. Because you still have the capacity for unconditional love and trust, toxic people will try to prey on it. I get onto you about doing your Shadow Work because it helps protect you from the manipulation, forces you to see the soft spots those that would take advantage of you might target, so you know to protect them,” she explained.

“So, what’s your excuse?” she asked.

“I’m a coward,” Iona said.

“That sounds like a shitty excuse,” she said.

“Why do I have a feeling your mom-gene is going to kick my ass if I don’t do it?” she asked, wondering if that little message came from Cassia or the redheaded goddess that rode shotgun with her.

“It won’t be my genes,” Cassia corrected, confirming Iona’s suspicions. “It’ll be my foot.”

“Fine,” Iona said with a huff. “I’ll start on it tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh,” Cassia said dubiously.

“I promise I’m not procrastinating,” she said. “I’ve been awake for seventy-two hours, trying to write, which is self-defeating because I haven’t let my brain rest. That’s not exactly the frame of mind I should be in when starting something as intense as Shadow Working can be.”

“Fine, but no more excuses.”

*****

After hanging up with Cassia, I sat down to get a plan of action together; some kind of schedule to make sure I followed through with my plans to do my Shadow Work, as well as write a story I could start a career with. Deciding to use my Shadow Work as a basis for a fresh writing project must have given the gods an idea; instead of me meditating to communicate with them, usually stoned off my ass, then trying to remember the conversations when I was sober and ready to write, they decided to play their own characters in the narrative. Sidenote: Tricksters are fantastic for NPC interactions.

*****

“Define Shadow Work,” Deimos, in the skin of a character she’d created named Crazy, said as he leaned back in his patio chair the next morning after Iona had finished her coffee and wandered outside to do her gardening. As usual, when she told him that she was interested in anything dealing with Spiritualism, he was all ears, lounging in the shade with his sunglasses on, his lanky form stretched out with his fingers laced over his stomach and his ankles crossed, wearing a Cannibal Corpse band t-shirt and jeans over his work boots. “You’ve heard the term before, but do you know how to define it?”

“Why do I have to define it?” she asked with a frown.

“Because Shadow Working is intensely intimate to the person who is doing the work,” he said. “I want to make sure you understand the fundamentals.”

“The best I can come up with is ‘the process of chipping through the Ego to tap into the Id,’” she said as she carried the quarter whiskey barrel full of buttercups over to him, claiming the chair beside him to transfer the smaller of the plants into new planters.

“Define the Ego,” he prompted, the tuft of hot pink hair on his head looking like an oversized, precariously placed peep turning to look at her when he did.

Deimos was, for all intents and purposes, her best resource when it came to the subject. He was the one that had first begun teaching her about it when he realized she was doing it naturally, though he maintained his stance that her work, until then, had been half-assed because it was done out of self-preservation instead of a desire for self-improvement. But he wasn’t much for lecturing or coddling, especially since he knew her history and experience. He didn’t want her trying to do it alone with her darkness, but he wasn’t going to hold her hand, either. Instead, he agreed to point her in the right direction and then let her do it herself, sticking close in case she needed a sounding board or assistance. Iona paused for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts and sifting through them to find the right words based on her limited research. “Which definition do you want; basic noun, psychoanalysis, or philosophical?” she asked and the corner of his mouth lifted a little.

“Go ahead and fire off all three and then redefine it in a way that feels unique,” he said.

“Ego, noun, a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance,” she said and he nodded, continuing to do so as she did. “Psychoanalysis, the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. Philosophical, a conscious thinking subject. I think, therefore, I am.”

“And how does that all apply to Shadow Working and Spiritualism?” he asked.

“The Shadow is the Ego,” she said, taking a deep breath, pausing to think before continuing. “It’s every whispered voice I have heard in my head, judging my character from the outside perspective. The Ego, the Shadow, is how I believe the outside world would see me if they took the time to look. It is my sense of self, comprised of all the things I have been taught to think in the form of, ‘how are my words and actions going to be viewed by those exposed to my existence?’ Does that sound about right?” she asked, not sure if she got it.

“If it feels right for you, I’m not going to correct you, but yes,” he said. “With your definition in mind, why is Shadow Working so important for a Spiritualist to do and, yet, so difficult?”

“It’s difficult because no one wants to look in the mirror to see their inner demons lined up, waiting to kick their ass,” she said, feeling a twist of dread in her gut. “No one wants to chisel through the layers of uncomfortable, painful truths about themselves, their pasts and ideals, the actions and decisions they’ve taken as a result,” she said taking a shaky breath. “Especially when they know how bad the truth really is. But the Ego acts as a shell to protect the Id, the part of us that is pure, innocent, and capable of imagining with belief, instead of a wistful sense of hope that ends up turning toxic when the person holding onto it refuses to act towards making it a reality. What I call the Id, most refer to as the Inner Child,” she said, unable help to twist of distaste in her lips as she said it.

“Ok, that needs to be addressed,” Deimos said, lifting his head. “Why do you dislike that term?”

“Aside from the fact that it’s overused and cliched, thanks to the pseudo-psychologists, even though it’s actually an important concept?” she asked flatly and he raised an eyebrow at her over his sunglasses. “Because, for me, addressing the Id as the Inner Child opens the door to disassociation,” she admitted. “Everything that I have read about doing Inner Child work has the subject approaching it as if the Id is a separate entity, turning the person into their own parent. For some people, that might work. But, with the constant questioning of my reality, I don’t want to risk further separation and compartmentalization when it isn’t necessary. I’m tired of feeling fragmented.”

“Good,” he said firmly. “Now, why is it important to connect with the Id as a Spiritualist?”

“Because the Id is the part of the mind that can comprehend, connect, and communicate with the Deities. Unlike human spirits who speak from without, Deities speak from within, connecting directly with the Id,” she said. “The Id is the belief that the Ego dismisses as fantasy, imagination, and childish notions out of fear of misjudgment, feeling unworthy, and/or causing conflict.”

“Excellent,” he said simply. “And that’s important because?”

“That’s where the magic happens,” she said. “That’s where wishes and hopes become intentions and goals. Where plans are dreamt up for a better future.”

“You have been listening,” he said and she chuckled at him.

“Of course, I’ve been listening to you,” she said. “It’s not like I could ignore you if I tried.”

“Oh, you’ve tried,” he assured her, making her chuckle again. “Ok, so you have the basic understanding as to why you need to do it, but, up until now, the only Shadow Working you’ve done has been the original stories you’re been writing to help you work through your issues. Why go after it now with such focus?”

“Is this one of those Old Sage moments where you know the answer but you want me to tell you anyway?” she asked dryly and then rolled her eyes when he just stared at her from behind his sunglasses. “Because the therapy I have gotten has helped me manage, but it feels like I’ve outgrown it. I get that I am mentally ill. I get that it’s a chemical imbalance in my brain and that trauma either caused or compounded the effects. I get that I was suicidal because of the circumstances I was in when I had a mental breakdown, not because I was too weak to keep going or because I was a failure. But, except for the fact that I am semi-stable now, those circumstances haven’t really changed. But, to change the circumstances, I have to want to move on.”

“And you don’t feel like you do right now?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I do,” she assured him. “I’m tired of the constant struggle to hold on to the progress I have made on my own. But, as long as I am in the same city as my toxic-ass family, I will never have the room I need to grow and free. I try going zero communication and, the next thing I know, the entire extended blood relation network is calling to guilt me into reconnecting, claiming family is forever. Trying to break a blood bond with a toxic family is like breaking the chain only to have them start whipping you with it. I need to get far enough away from it to at least get it down to an echo of what it is now when they decide to lash out,” she said getting quieter as she said it, her hands stilling in the process of replanting until she dropped what she was holding as her body clenched and panic started to rise in her chest. “That’s why I can finish a writing project,” she whispered as it hit her. “I’m not afraid of failure; been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the scars from it. I have failed in every way possible, sat there and analyzed to see what I did wrong, learned from the failures, and always moved on, so why be afraid to write a character based on myself when I know that’s how I Shadow Work?”

“Go on,” Deimos said leadingly when the words dried in her throat, feeling raw from screaming, though she was silent.

“I’m afraid of being right,” she whispered.

“About what?”

“About everything,” she said easily.

“You are,” he said easily and seriously, making her feel the weight of truth in his words by tilting his sunglasses down to look her in the naked eye. “What now? What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m afraid that if I succeed, I will never be free of my family,” she said, feeling like she was coughing it up and swallowing hard as a result. “If I succeed, they will hound me forever, claiming I owe them for it, that I only succeeded because of them and, if I don’t give them what they want, they will try to force me to, using my mental illness as their in to try and establish a conservatorship even though I am lucid and competent. How would I ever be free of that?”

“You wouldn’t,” he said firmly and she felt the dread jump into her throat as her vision blurred.

“So, what do I do?” she asked, trying not to sound desperate as a panic attack started to grow.

“You’ll never be free of your family. Your family will always be with you. But family is not defined by blood,” he said. “When you think of me, the love you feel is unique to me. You don’t know how to love conditionally, but you set boundaries with your love by identifying people as family members when you let them in,” he said and she felt a hard thump in her chest as she felt him pulling her out of the panic. “Blood does not define family. All that provides is genetics. Family is how and who you chose to love, regardless of biology. With me, you called me cousin. The moment I heard the word leave your lips; I was stunned because I felt it. I knew that meant that you would love all of me, no matter what, for as long as we both existed, even if I annoyed the piss out of you, as long as that love was returned. Then you shocked the shit out of me by allowing me the chance to play father-figure when you needed it, even if it was just to watch Horror Movies together. Why do you think, as soon as you decided to do some precision work on your spirit, I immediately came over uninvited?”

“Yeah,” she said a little breathlessly as she tried to force a chuckle to clear her eyes. “I’m not going to lie; it was a shock to see your Weirdo ass out in the sun waiting for me. A pleasant and welcome surprise, don’t get me wrong, because I do love you and miss you when you’re gone, but I didn’t even know you were here until I opened the door.”

“A little red robin flew through the graveyard and whispered in my ear what you were up to around midnight last night. I figured, since you’re the type that doesn’t know how to relax without watching movies or streaming shows, you’d get started as soon as you were done with your coffee. Thankfully, you have started getting pretty predictable with your acts of devotion, so I was only out here waiting for an hour,” he said, shaking his head in dismissal of any guilt she might feel over making him wait. “But that does bring me around to Rule Number One and the First Step to Shadow Working with precision,” he said. “With all of the trauma and toxicity you have to get through to get to the Id, you need to make sure that you have an After Care System. Self-Care is a huge part of getting through everything that you deal with in the process, regardless of whether or not you get help.”

“I’ve been doing better,” she said in her defense. “I’ve moved past feeling like getting out of bed is a celebratory achievement,” she added a little grumpily.

“I know,” he assured her with a small indulgent chuckle. “But your version of Shadow Work is like being a battlefield medic operating on themselves under fire. It’s like that because you are a soldier that should have never existed. You didn’t stand a chance because the brainwashing and gaslighting came from your parents. Add to that a violent sibling carrying down the legacy of a tyrant and you grew up with the worst of humanity as your examples. Somehow, even with that sloppy stitch and patching, even though your spirit is more Scar Tissue than nerve, you have managed to piece yourself back together in a way that works. What I am going to help you do is like having a specialized surgeon cleaning up what’s already there in a clean, sterile environment before sending you home with After Care instructions. But, as we start to reattach more nerves and get rid of the excess Scar Tissue, you’re going to feel everything, which can be overwhelming after being numb for so long. I need to know that I’m not being ignored when I harp on you about taking time to rest and heal properly,” he warned.

“I hate crying,” she said as she took her gloves off and wiped her face.

“I know, sweetheart,” he assured her. “But, once you reach the point where it actually feels better when you do it, you’ll know that you’re on the right track. You wanna take a break? That last one was big straight out of the gate. Fear of success at the cost of your freedom to the point where it has paralyzed you into inaction?” he said with a slight wince.

“Fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if left unchecked,” she said quoting his own words to him and making him smile again. “After Care?”

“Ok,” he said and sat up to lean in closer to her with his elbows on his knees, “you, again, I love you, but your disorganized mind has a very scattered depiction of what Self-Care is. Yes, basic Maintenace of the Meat Suit is vital to keeping it alive and viable for the spirit to inhabit. This is why you eat good foods, drink your water, take your vitamins, shower, etcetera. But Self Care comes in five categories; Mental, Physical, Emotional, Social, and Spiritual. A perfect balance of the five categories of Self Care is the basis of unconditional love that originates from within. Actions taken to achieve that balance should be done with the intent of healing from the progress you’re making, not to spoil yourself. If you feel guilty about taking care of yourself, there’s a problem. You need to analyze that guilt and find out why you feel guilty about it. When you figure it out, write it down. That will serve as your record that you have faced that fear before and conquered it so you don’t have to go through it fresh if it happens again.”

“Why does it sound like there is more work involved in the After Care than there is in the working?” she asked with a frown, already feeling tired.

“I know it sounds like a lot when you break it down to the five parts, but you don’t have to address them separately,” he said. “Every morning, you get up, you eat your breakfast and drink your coffee, then check on the garden, doing whatever work you see needs done. Usually, it’s only an hour from opening your eyes to when you’re finished and headed back inside, but you satisfy needs in four different categories by doing it; Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual. With twenty-four hours in a day, eight of which are dedicated to sleep, you have sixteen more to work with. You saw how fast you can get through each layer of your Shadow if you approach it with resolve and intent. And you did that on your own. It doesn’t take deep meditation. It doesn’t take any spell work. It takes bravery in the face of your own fear. And you are one of the bravest people I know. You’ll blast through your Shadow and leave yourself raw, probably sleep for three days, and then be back at it if I don’t slow you down.”

“I take it that’s why you’re here,” she said and he nodded.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, taking a deep breath. “We don’t have to cut all the way down to the root of it. You’ve done surprisingly well on that front by confronting your trauma head-on, accepting it, and trying to move on while still living in a toxic environment. Instead, we are going to focus more on the future. We are going to break down and address every aspect of your fear of success as opposed to rehashing your past traumas. Starting with acknowledging your privilege.”

“Huh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I know, I can hear the shrill voices of those who scream at you to check your privilege with a silver spoon hanging out of their mouths,” Deimos said, taking a deep breath. “But, like calling the Id the Inner Child, the term is used by those who don’t understand it in ways that diminish the importance. Trust me. You start by acknowledging your privilege and the Ego will unravel. And before you allow yourself to get offended, remember that the only people without privilege are the dead because it is a privilege to walk the Earth as a human.”