Shadow of Chaos
chaos, n. - complete disorder and confusion
The Shadow of Chaos, essentially, keeps the world running. Chaos is the perpetuation of competitiveness. Not the friendly type you see in sports, but dark competition that rules much of business and even governments. Richard Rudd includes religion and science as well. He notes how religion sets out to separate each person from the Divine. That in order to access God (Gods, Goddess, Divine, Source), it must be based on someone else’s perception of worship. Then with Science, he points out the genetic fate where our genes are programed for certain things that cannot be escaped. “We are either shown divinity only to be denied it, or we are shown freedom and then placed in a world of merciless competition in which only the lucky the or strong can thrive.”
Yet at the crux of it all, life is meant to be cooperative and not competitive. Society operates from a place of survival. Even in looking at the Autonomic Nervous System, we see that each human being has a part of our brain that has not evolved beyond that of a lizard. Our brains operate on doing everything it can to keep us safe even when the “danger” is as simple as a relationship and not some tiger or snake that might kill us. The shadow of chaos is rooted in fear.
The Repressive Nature of the Shadow of Chaos is Anal… As in Anal Retentive… As in “control freaks”… This is where we are so afraid of the chaos that we seek to control everything and everyone around us to maintain an illusion of control. Note: It’s just that. It’s an illusion. The only thing we have control over is ourselves. All else is a mystery. I can also see people-pleasers fitting in here. People-pleasing is a form of manipulation meant to control others emotion and how they view the people-pleaser.
The Reactive Nature of the Shadow of Chaos is Disordered. In short, this is based on rage. It is the all consuming fear of the Repressive Nature. Rudd describes it as “aggression, sometimes anarchy and always destruction.” Perfectionists and over-achievers may also fit into this category. Again, these are forms of trying to control, but have a bit more of an aggressive side to it.
When I think of the the spectrum of the Shadow of Chaos, I see Russia and its attack on Ukraine and its citizens as the Reactive/Disordered side and the United States and European Ukrainian allies as the Repressive side. Russia (though, more specifically, Putin) is rageful at the loss of territory over the years. This rage has come out as a desire to take back all of the previous Russian Empire’s land by means of aggression and destruction. The Ukrainian allies now are fearful (and rightly so due to loss of life and the other horrors of war) by trying to control everything they can.
For a different take on this shadow, I’ll use one that is less about obvious destruction, but shows the impact of the aggressive drive for competitiveness. In the small town that my mother lives in, there is a man that moved back and slowly started buying up all the businesses in town. He set lower prices and forced many other local business owners to sell their businesses. He subsequently bought those, too. He came town and set out to aggressively compete with other business owners. He misuses his labor force (there have been lots of complaints), he lowers the quality of food at all of his eating establishments (the worst ratings in town are all his establishments) and has created his own “tourism bureau” outside of the town’s chamber of commerce to only promote his hotels (also, some of the worst ratings in town). In the business world, what he did was good business. Yet, as a community member and a human being, what he did (and continues to do) is pure shadow. There is no cooperation within the community. He seeks to control all of it at the expense of the community he is a part of. It’s selfishness at its most basic level.
How to work with the Shadow of Chaos:
Embrace the chaos. The only thing you can control is yourself and your reactions/responses.
Work on your self-awareness. Become aware of your moments where you seek to control or are being ruled by selfishness. In short, figure out when you’re being a dick, then, stop being dick. Life is hard and it goes a lot more smooth when people work together and aren’t out to get one another.
Focus on play. Think of kids playing and using their imagination. Translate that innocence and innovation into your life. Have fun. Do team sports. Solo sports. Do something that you loved to do as a kid.
Heal your Inner Child.
Get creative. Do art. Color. Design something. Decorate your spaces. Do something that gets your creative juices flowing.
Not sure how to work with this? Check out this Blog Post here to see how to work with the Shadows. Also, feel free to check out my courses Honoring Your No and Owning My Sh*t here to help work on that self-awareness piece.
EDIT from 8/31/2023: In GK 7 (Here), we learned of the Shadow of Division, which has a direct correlation between profits over people. In this post I used an example of a businessman in town that puts profits over people as his way of operating, a clearer example of the Shadow of Division. My use of that example in this post isn’t altogether inaccurate. The example I provided is what came to mind when contemplating this specific Gene key. Also, the example reflects a shadow aspect of Capitalism and there can be more than one Shadow, especially when we discuss systems of oppression.
It doesn’t feel wrong to leave that example here, but it does expose a deeper nuance in the human experience. When we stick to rigid, linear thinking, we often leave out nuance and details that impact the original thought process. Allowing ourselves to be challenged is how we grow, adjust and, perhaps, even change our mind. Instead of changing the post to reflect this new information that challenges it, instead I’ll just leave this edit. There are old blog posts that I wrote when I first started writing that no longer feel relevant or an adequate representation of where I’m currently at. I thought about deleting them, but decided to leave them up even if they now make me cringe a bit. It does not mean that I need to look back on myself and my experience with shame. Growth isn’t shameful and neither are the steps we took to get there.
Not sure how to work with this? Check out this Blog Post here to see how to work with the Shadows. Also, feel free to check out my courses Honoring Your No and Owning My Sh*t here to help work on that self-awareness piece.
Disclaimer: What I find unhelpful with the Gene Keys text is that it is more spiritual than realistic, especially when these states are resulting in mental illness. Maybe all mental illness has a root in shadow, but that isn’t for me to say and it is super invalidating for people who experience these states. So as you read through this, or any of these shadows, know that your own experience is valid regardless of impersonal spiritual texts. This goes for Gene Keys, Human Design, and any other spiritual text even from world religions. If these texts invalidate a person’s humanity, then it’s the text that is the problem and not the person. Always use personal discernment. More of my two-cents on spiritual and religious dogma, modalities, and texts here.
