How to Work With Your Shadow – with Connie Zweig
Shadow work requires us to confront the parts of ourselves we've hidden away – often since childhood – to gain approval and avoid rejection. Each of us develops shadow characters with specific thought patterns, feelings, and bodily sensations that emerge in our relationships.
By recognising these patterns, we can uncover the valid needs behind our seemingly negative behaviours and heal the vulnerable feelings of unworthiness that drive them.
Connie Zweig, PhD is a retired Jungian therapist and author of Meeting the Shadow (a new edition is now available) and Romancing the Shadow (a new edition is also now available).
Her award-winning book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends shadow-work into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice.
Her book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening, extends shadow-work into religion and spirituality.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Cycle Breaker’s Path
A 2½-hour immersive workshop to heal your lineage, step into your calling, and reclaim your light.
Healing Your Relationship with the Masculine
A 4-week immersive program for women
Transcript
Today's episode is not just a conversation about shadow work.
Speaker:It is an initiation into the deepest work you could ever do with your own
Speaker:shadow, in relationships, in intimacy, in truly any area of your life.
Speaker:The shadow is invisible, elusive, and seductive.
Speaker:It hides in plain sight, and if we're not radically honest with ourselves, shadow
Speaker:work can quickly turn into shadow feeding.
Speaker:Most spiritual seekers bypass the true path because shadow work is raw, it
Speaker:is confronting, it is bringing to the light what wants to remain hidden.
Speaker:But there is also hidden gold, and something incredible that
Speaker:awaits us when we truly start to bring our shadow to the light.
Speaker:Our guide today is Connie Zweig, she's an expert and the pioneer, Connie is
Speaker:worldwide known as the shadow expert, co-author of the groundbreaking book,
Speaker:Meeting the Shadow and author of Romancing the Shadow and the Inner Work of Age.
Speaker:She's also the founder of the Center for Shadow Work and Spiritual
Speaker:Counseling, and spent three decades serving as a clinician, bringing
Speaker:the unconscious into the light with extraordinary skill and true depth.
Speaker:This conversation will change the way you see yourself in relationships,
Speaker:your intimacy, and even the way you approach aging and spiritual work.
Speaker:If you are ready for a real transmission, one that is raw, one that is embodied
Speaker:and uncompromising, this is it.
Speaker:First of all, I just wanna express that it's a, it's a true
Speaker:honor to have you on the show.
Speaker:Thank you for being here, Connie.
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:I'm excited.
Speaker:The way you teach about the shadow is truly, truly profound.
Speaker:I feel it really goes straight to the core.
Speaker:And you've said that spirituality itself can actually strengthen the shadow,
Speaker:like idolizing a guru, worshiping something, or even bypassing, all
Speaker:while avoiding the raw shadow material that remains untouched inside us.
Speaker:I also see the opposite.
Speaker:In today's world, I kind of, I call it spiritual nihilism, where
Speaker:where people are saying everything in this el is an illusion.
Speaker:Nothing matters or everything is the shadow.
Speaker:And, and both seem to avoid true shadow work in different ways.
Speaker:My question here is what is the true path of shadow work?
Speaker:Such a simple question.
Speaker:I, you know, I'm not sure how much to assume our listeners understand, so
Speaker:let's, can we start with the definition?
Speaker:Yes, please.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Because I think there's a lot of sort of mistaken identity around
Speaker:what the shadow is, what Carl Jung meant by it, when he coined the term,
Speaker:and what people mean by it today.
Speaker:Because shadow work is all over TikTok and everywhere else, and I think that,
Speaker:there's some confusion happening, So when we are very young and we're growing
Speaker:up, we get all these messages from all the adults around us about what's good
Speaker:and what's bad, what will bring us love and approval, and what will bring
Speaker:us punishment or criticism or shame.
Speaker:And we are like little sponges.
Speaker:And so we're just absorbing these messages from older siblings, parents, teachers,
Speaker:grandparents, aunts and uncles and so on.
Speaker:Churches, other religious communities.
Speaker:All these messages are kind of seeping in and what, what they're doing is they're
Speaker:shaping the content that goes into the shadow or the personal unconscious.
Speaker:So what's good, positive, approved of shapes the ego, the conscious
Speaker:personality, and the little kid says, I'm gonna be a nice little boy, or
Speaker:I'm gonna be a smart little girl.
Speaker:And everything else that's carrying what we think of as negative
Speaker:traits goes into the shadow, the unconscious, and forms that content.
Speaker:But it's only negative in relation to the ego.
Speaker:It's not inherently negative to feel anger or sexuality or whatever it is that we're
Speaker:stuffing at that moment into the shadow.
Speaker:So throughout the lifespan, there's this constant dynamic going on in
Speaker:adolescence, in early adulthood, in midlife where we're continuing to
Speaker:receive these messages about what's okay, what's not okay, what's taboo?
Speaker:Are we gonna try to express what's taboo like in adolescence, you know?
Speaker:Are we gonna rebel against what we're being told?
Speaker:And sometimes that's a conscious process and sometimes it's an unconscious process.
Speaker:But throughout the lifespan, this formative shaping of
Speaker:our psychology is going on.
Speaker:And, at different points, at different moments, sometimes in transitions
Speaker:or crises, um, difficult emotional moments, that repressed material
Speaker:that's hidden in the shadow will erupt.
Speaker:Maybe it's a pattern of criticizing your partner.
Speaker:Maybe it's a pattern of addiction with food or sex or love, or drugs or alcohol.
Speaker:Maybe it's a depression, an intractable mood.
Speaker:We don't know where it came from.
Speaker:Maybe it's a recurring dream in which we act out something that
Speaker:we would never do in waking life.
Speaker:So we meet the shadow in all these many ways throughout our lives as
Speaker:it erupts from the unconscious.
Speaker:Also in projection.
Speaker:So we recognize, let's say for example, we walk into a party and we imagine
Speaker:oh, that woman, she's so seductive and we don't know anything about her.
Speaker:Or that man, he's so aggressive.
Speaker:And then we recognize that we're projecting on that person.
Speaker:We get to know them, and they're not that way at all.
Speaker:So that's another example of how we meet the shadow in our daily lives.
Speaker:I think also a specific confusion is around the shadow and the ego where
Speaker:people say, well, the shadow is the ego, the ego is the shadow, they're the same.
Speaker:How would you define the relationship between the ego and the shadow?
Speaker:Well, if we really oversimplify it and we really sort of let go of
Speaker:accuracy, but we oversimplify it to understand it, they hold opposite trait.
Speaker:So if in your family, academic performance is praised and rewarded, and you work
Speaker:really hard in school and you come to believe that you're smart and successful,
Speaker:that's your, the development of your ego, your conscious personality.
Speaker:So what goes into the shadow then?
Speaker:The fear of not knowing, of looking stupid, of failing
Speaker:school or failing a test.
Speaker:So you can see how they carry sort of opposite qualities.
Speaker:That's kind of a simple way of looking at it.
Speaker:You know, the ego is not real.
Speaker:It's not a substance, it's not an object, it's a mechanism.
Speaker:It's a psychological mechanism that allows us to operate in society.
Speaker:But in the spiritual world, it's understood that it's not something solid.
Speaker:It's not something real.
Speaker:And the same is true with the shadow.
Speaker:The shadow is not a cave inside the mind where all of our secrets are hidden.
Speaker:The shadow is distributed throughout the body mind.
Speaker:It's in our muscles, it's in our nerves, it's in our
Speaker:feelings, it's in our thoughts.
Speaker:There's shadow material in the subtle body, in the chakras.
Speaker:Every chakra is carrying shadow material.
Speaker:And so it's in some ways also insubstantial, but it serves a function
Speaker:which is carrying, the forbidden material so that we can operate in society, so
Speaker:that we can be social beings, political beings, family members, and so on.
Speaker:Going back to the simple question I asked you at the beginning around,
Speaker:um, what I'm seeing, and maybe you'll agree that, that, that, that it can be
Speaker:easy to kind of avoid the shadow in the journey of trying to do shadow work.
Speaker:Things can become a projection.
Speaker:We can say, oh, I'm doing shadow work, but actually inside what's going on is
Speaker:wanting to be seen doing shadow work and be perceived as a spiritual person.
Speaker:And at the same time there can be a sense of, oh, well it's, it's all the
Speaker:shadow and you'll never find a way which can almost sound depressing.
Speaker:So, so, so what would you say to a person who would ask you, how
Speaker:do I make sure I'm truly working with the raw material of my shadow?
Speaker:You know, the nature of the shadow is to hide.
Speaker:It's tricky.
Speaker:So it's not surprising that people think they're grasping it and solidifying it
Speaker:and looking at it because in the next instant it's gone, You see through
Speaker:a projection in the next instant, instant, you're projecting again,
Speaker:'cause that's the nature of the mind.
Speaker:Or you begin to work on some habitual pattern in your relationship, and the next
Speaker:day you're repeating it again because the shadow is slippery and it's bottomless.
Speaker:We're never gonna become completely conscious of the unconscious.
Speaker:That's not gonna happen for any of us.
Speaker:And you mentioned spiritual bypass.
Speaker:So if we believe that we're doing meditation and spiritual
Speaker:practice to eliminate the shadow.
Speaker:In most cases that's an illusion, because it's not the level that
Speaker:spiritual practice works on.
Speaker:And so we can be sitting in meditation and feel still and quiet and fail to recognize
Speaker:that shadow material is bubbling up.
Speaker:Or we can learn how to witness our thoughts and fail to realize
Speaker:that some of those thoughts are rising from the unconscious.
Speaker:But in meditation, we're learning not to take them seriously.
Speaker:They're just clouds passing by.
Speaker:And so it can seem as if these teachings are contradictory, but what I wanna
Speaker:suggest is that they're just happening at different levels of being human.
Speaker:So what happens is we start to recognize what we're saying to ourselves.
Speaker:What are these repeating thoughts, these inner messages?
Speaker:And it could be in meditation, it could be in waking life, standing
Speaker:in the line at the grocery store.
Speaker:And what are the feelings that go with those thoughts?
Speaker:And what are the bodily sensations that go with those thoughts and feelings?
Speaker:And then we have three dimensions, body, emotion and thoughts.
Speaker:Three dimensions of what I call a shadow character, we personify it
Speaker:into a shadow character, and we give it a name, let's say we call it the
Speaker:critic, and we give it an image.
Speaker:Let's say the image of the critic is shaking your finger at someone.
Speaker:Now we have all these cues to recognize that this figure that was previously
Speaker:unconscious is now coming up when you're standing in the grocery line
Speaker:thinking about your husband and thinking about him in a critical way,
Speaker:or your wife, or your partner, or your kid, or your teacher, whoever it is.
Speaker:And guess what happens?
Speaker:Every single time the critic arises from the unconscious, the thoughts
Speaker:are the same, the feelings are the same and the sensations are the same.
Speaker:When I discovered this, it blew my mind.
Speaker:That's how we can begin to make a conscious relationship
Speaker:with these unconscious figures.
Speaker:So then we have a choice.
Speaker:Oh, the critic is here.
Speaker:Am I gonna act that out again and hurt my partner's feelings and create distance?
Speaker:Or am I gonna make a different choice?
Speaker:Say for example, use an I statement.
Speaker:I'm feeling angry, instead of you did that again.
Speaker:So we begin to make our relationships more conscious as we make our
Speaker:shadow figures more conscious.
Speaker:Now, if we are saying to ourselves, oh, I know I'm critical, I'll work on it, and
Speaker:that's that we're not really doing shadow work, because we're not really catching
Speaker:that energy when it needs to be seen.
Speaker:There's a reason it's coming up from the unconscious to be processed.
Speaker:Every shadow character has a valid need.
Speaker:One of the things I discovered with the critic is there's a valid
Speaker:need for distance inside of it.
Speaker:And often what happens is people get critical because they're unconsciously
Speaker:making distance, ' cause they don't know how to do it consciously, intentionally,
Speaker:Hey honey, I need a day to myself.
Speaker:I'll see you at six o'clock.
Speaker:And instead of doing that, they criticize the person and make the distance.
Speaker:And every shadow figure has a valid need like that, even the most destructive ones.
Speaker:You know, you mentioned the need to be seen.
Speaker:Often that's the hidden need in the in the shadow figure.
Speaker:The need to be seen.
Speaker:The need to be heard, nurtured.
Speaker:When you, when you say that the need to be seen, even when a person has a
Speaker:very strong projection, which is really pushing the other person away, often
Speaker:what's screaming underneath that is the desire to be held and to be seen.
Speaker:But of course, as you said, in a very unskillful way, because it
Speaker:has been so suppressed and that person doesn't know how to actually
Speaker:articulate that in a conscious, vulnerable, and, and, and grounded way.
Speaker:Connie, you said the shadow's nature is that it wants to hide.
Speaker:And I think that is what perhaps is one of the greatest challenges with shadow
Speaker:work, that we have to put that at the forefront of our awareness, that this
Speaker:part does not want to be made conscious.
Speaker:It doesn't want to be exposed to the light.
Speaker:I'm just thinking of an example in, in my own marriage, one of my
Speaker:biggest challenges that I, that I'm had to work for, I'm still working
Speaker:through, is that conditioning of, um, I didn't do anything wrong, right?
Speaker:I would have this reaction to things where my wife would, from
Speaker:a very loving place come to me and my response would be almost harsh.
Speaker:I didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker:It's not my fault.
Speaker:Causing tension in moments that were actually not just
Speaker:safe, but deeply loving, right?
Speaker:It kind of, this also leads into the whole topic of sabotage,
Speaker:if you wanna call it that way.
Speaker:But would you describe this as kind of the shadow coming from
Speaker:the unconscious in those moments?
Speaker:so what are you protecting when you say, I didn't do anything wrong
Speaker:as a kind of automatic response?
Speaker:Do you know what's the vulnerable feelings underneath that?
Speaker:Have you gotten
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That I, that I don't want to be a failure.
Speaker:And of course that led deeper into a sense of unworthiness
Speaker:that I had to work through.
Speaker:So you've done the next step.
Speaker:Once we have the shadow figure, then you trace it back in your history,
Speaker:and you identify when did you last feel that way, and then before that,
Speaker:and see how far back you can go that you're afraid of being a failure.
Speaker:How far back does that go, and what were the messages that led to that fear?
Speaker:What shaped that little boy to have that shadow character?
Speaker:So your whole story kind of opens up from that one moment, that one
Speaker:exchange with your wife, right?
Speaker:You begin to see this whole story that you've carried throughout
Speaker:your life and that you've told yourself over and over again.
Speaker:So if you have a parent who makes you wrong, who blames you, then you develop a
Speaker:certain kind of defense against feedback.
Speaker:You can't take it in because it's too scary.
Speaker:So what's the valid need in that?
Speaker:I don't know if you've given this
Speaker:yeah, no, a lot, a lot actually.
Speaker:but when you ask what's the, what's the valid need?
Speaker:It's that it is okay to be imperfect, to still be loved while being imperfect.
Speaker:And when I, when I gave myself that permission, I would then feel the love of
Speaker:my wife, because before I wouldn't receive it, because that shadow character was
Speaker:like, no, the heart closed in that moment.
Speaker:And when I gave myself permission to receive it, and I don't wanna make
Speaker:this about me, but I wanna make this really clear to the listener, it's,
Speaker:I could feel the love in that moment.
Speaker:It's like, wait a moment.
Speaker:You don't need to defend yourself.
Speaker:You don't need to say, I didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker:And even if I did something imperfect or forgot about something,
Speaker:I am still lovable, right?
Speaker:And, and that's a journey, of course.
Speaker:I don't wanna say I'm perfectly healed from that, but it's, it's it's truly
Speaker:incredible how something that doesn't seem like a big thing almost, that
Speaker:feels so natural in that moment, opens that kind of Pandora box into the whole
Speaker:kind of story and what has been running or, or has been in the background in
Speaker:one's life and, and sabotaging them from, from love, from abundance,
Speaker:from, from appreciating the beauty.
Speaker:Talking about spirituality here and the shadow and spirituality
Speaker:specifically in, in your decades of experience, what shadow and
Speaker:spirituality have you observed the most?
Speaker:So, When I was in my twenties, I got involved with transcendental meditation.
Speaker:And, was very excited to become a TM teacher as many people were in the 1970s.
Speaker:And I was really loving the meditation.
Speaker:But then after a few years, I began to notice the group became more
Speaker:coercive, kind of less open and, um, permissive and more coercive, more
Speaker:group think, more pressure to conform.
Speaker:People began to tell lies in order to get new practices, the teacher was
Speaker:doing things that were hypocritical, not following his own advice.
Speaker:And so I left and I was, it was a devastating, heartbreaking
Speaker:experience, because I just couldn't tolerate the hypocrisy and I lost
Speaker:all my friends in the community and I lost my practice and my purpose.
Speaker:And that kind of shaped me.
Speaker:And I think many people have their version of that experience.
Speaker:You You know, it could be in a church community or a synagogue.
Speaker:It could be in another kind of eastern path, a Buddhist or Sufi
Speaker:or shamanic path or Hindu path.
Speaker:Now with the psychedelic community, some of this stuff is happening.
Speaker:And so I ended up going to graduate school and writing about
Speaker:the longing for transcendence.
Speaker:That became my dissertation, the Holy Longing.
Speaker:And that then became a book, which is called Meeting the
Speaker:Shadow on the Spiritual Path.
Speaker:And I just felt compelled to understand how is it possible that in the most
Speaker:sacred arena of our lives, where we offer our souls, where we offer our
Speaker:devotion, you know, that so many people feel, disillusioned and even
Speaker:abused by the teacher or the group?
Speaker:So I just applied depth psychology to try to understand this.
Speaker:So what is the most common?
Speaker:I would say power, sex, and money are the three areas.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:So power shadow is extremely common in spiritual communities, partly because
Speaker:the teachers have not fully processed their own shadow material, and many
Speaker:of them come from other cultures and monastic life into the West, and there
Speaker:are all these cultural differences.
Speaker:Some of them have never seen sexually active people before.
Speaker:Some of them have never experienced the self-expression and autonomy,
Speaker:you know, of their Western students and don't know what to do with it.
Speaker:So they get more and more controlling.
Speaker:Some of them are identified with their minds and become
Speaker:dogmatic around their teachings.
Speaker:So there's shadow material that's unprocessed for everyone, and if
Speaker:you are carrying the projection of a thousand people, or in India, a
Speaker:million people and some teachers, right, you're carrying this massive
Speaker:projection and expecting to be perfect.
Speaker:Expected to be fully enlightened, whatever that means, and be the exemplar for all
Speaker:these people, it's a lot of pressure.
Speaker:And a lot of people crack under that pressure, and they crack
Speaker:around power, sex, and money.
Speaker:So, you know, there are stories in the book around teachers who are, you
Speaker:know, start out by tithing and end up taking the whole estate, uh, from their
Speaker:students, every bit of their money.
Speaker:Or assault, sexual assault of male and female students.
Speaker:Or marrying students where, you know, from my point of view, you can't
Speaker:really have a contemporary equal marriage in that situation, you're
Speaker:gonna have a different dynamic.
Speaker:Abuse of power around all kinds of control, what you wear, what you
Speaker:eat, who you marry, what you think.
Speaker:And so the students or devotees, some of them are set up for
Speaker:that by their family dynamics.
Speaker:So if there is a very kind of patriarchal, bossy, dominant father in the family,
Speaker:then that feels familiar to your psyche.
Speaker:It doesn't feel scary or threatening, it feels familiar.
Speaker:Oh, that's how it's supposed to be, right?
Speaker:If you were not seen as special and you are unknowingly, unconsciously coming
Speaker:into the community to have a special relationship with the teacher and you're
Speaker:chosen for whatever reason, for sex or for money or for power, then you go for it.
Speaker:And so there's this match between the teacher's shadow material and the
Speaker:student's unconscious shadow material.
Speaker:And then this dance takes place.
Speaker:And some people stay for decades, you know, live their lives that way and
Speaker:turn the other way when they see abuse.
Speaker:I mean, there's child abuse in some of the communities.
Speaker:There's um, you know, the term crazy wisdom is used to rationalize
Speaker:a lot of abusive behavior.
Speaker:And this is non-denominational.
Speaker:This is going, you know, in every single lineage this is happening.
Speaker:So, It's very tragic to me.
Speaker:Um, I interviewed a lot of people who've experienced this and, you
Speaker:know, found symptoms of PTSD and depression and also giving up, giving
Speaker:up on spiritual practice because that kind of disillusionment and harm, you
Speaker:know, lead people to hopelessness.
Speaker:The, the image I have in mind also is, or this metaphor we could say, is that
Speaker:it's almost like that the journey, where so many people, at some point in
Speaker:their spiritual journey, they start, they might start to think of fall under
Speaker:the illusion or this spell of, oh, I'm enlightened now, I have done my work.
Speaker:I, I and I, I listen, I've healed my, I've integrated my shadow,
Speaker:or, or whatever it is, right?
Speaker:Because they might have a peak experience, a real peak experience identifying with
Speaker:it and assuming, well, that's it now.
Speaker:And I think that these examples of gurus or teachers who are then misusing
Speaker:their power often in horrendous ways, it's also a warning for, in, in,
Speaker:in a way for every single person in that sense that we can all fall in
Speaker:the trap of believing we have, we've done the work we've, we needed to do.
Speaker:Whereas in truth, at least, I believe that a truly enlightened person,
Speaker:if you want to use that, that that word, is a person who will never
Speaker:say, I've integrated all my shadow.
Speaker:I am divinely enlightened.
Speaker:They're usually, from my perspective, a very humble person, a person who is
Speaker:very honest about their own shadow.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know that we can generalize about personalities in awake people.
Speaker:I think that, you know, Ken Wilbur has made so many extraordinary contributions
Speaker:to our understandings of these things.
Speaker:So, one is states and stages.
Speaker:So what you're describing is that people have experience an advanced
Speaker:state, and then they take that to mean they interpret that as they're awake,
Speaker:and so now they, they should teach.
Speaker:But they didn't actually attain a new stage of development that gets
Speaker:stabilized from which they can operate.
Speaker:And so they're really not prepared to teach.
Speaker:The other thing he c his con, well, there are many things.
Speaker:Among the many things is lines of development.
Speaker:So people can we develop along these lines very separately.
Speaker:So for example, you don't expect someone who's awake to be a mathematical
Speaker:genius or a music, a musical genius.
Speaker:Composing symphonies or something.
Speaker:So there's cognitive development, emotional development, moral development,
Speaker:relational development, artistic.
Speaker:So there's all these different lines of development.
Speaker:And so if somebody wakes up, as you say, but is still not that developed
Speaker:along the relational line, let's say, they could still look like they're
Speaker:arrogant or controlling or they don't develop morally, they have high
Speaker:spiritual attainment, but their moral line of development is not cultivated.
Speaker:Then what happens?
Speaker:They can act out their shadow material.
Speaker:Even without a lot of conscience, without a lot of empathy.
Speaker:I mean, we've seen these stories over and over again of these teachers who
Speaker:seem to be very advanced, but don't have empathy, and break the law and break the
Speaker:ethics and, and, you know, harm people that they're supposed to be caring for.
Speaker:So I think there are many levels of explanation and many different
Speaker:personality traits that show up.
Speaker:My husband is in an very advanced stage of awareness.
Speaker:He's not fully cooked.
Speaker:I mean, I live with him, right?
Speaker:I see him up close, but he lives full time in non-dual awareness.
Speaker:In unity with everything.
Speaker:That doesn't mean he would never claim that all his shadow material
Speaker:is processed or that his personality or his psychology is perfect.
Speaker:I mean, that's not what it's about.
Speaker:Moving into the topic of relationships, which you already touched upon,
Speaker:Connie, would you agree with the phrase relationships are the
Speaker:ultimate form of shadow work?
Speaker:You know, for me, relationships are the cooker.
Speaker:At different stages of our lives.
Speaker:Our relationships are different.
Speaker:So let's say when we're dating and when we're in the romantic
Speaker:cycle, most people don't show their shadows in the first year.
Speaker:I used to tell my clients, please don't get married for in the first year,
Speaker:because they don't know each other.
Speaker:They don't know each other in crisis.
Speaker:They don't know each other in mood swings or in all kinds of struggles.
Speaker:And so then after the dating, if people commit, what are they committing to?
Speaker:Are they committing to that persona that they've known for the first year?
Speaker:Or do they actually know each other's shadow materials?
Speaker:So, Neil and I waited five years before we got married, because we
Speaker:had had so many conflicts by then and we knew our shadow characters.
Speaker:And when we got married, part of our vow was to honor and respect each other's
Speaker:shadow, each other's shadow characters.
Speaker:If you have a persona, marriage, or a romantic marriage, you, you kind
Speaker:of set yourself up for shadow work being, you know, a big part of the
Speaker:relationship because you don't know what's coming, you don't really know the
Speaker:depth of the issues in each other yet.
Speaker:So yes, relationship is a vehicle for shadow work.
Speaker:Single people can also do shadow work about being single.
Speaker:Why aren't they in a relationship?
Speaker:Do they want a relationship?
Speaker:About friendships, about family members, about work, colleagues.
Speaker:So I think because our culture mythologize romantic relationships and everybody
Speaker:makes it so important and thinks that's what's gonna save them, that, that's
Speaker:kind of why this is, carries so much charge and so much promise, you know,
Speaker:if only I find the right person, I won't have to do shadow work all the time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and, and I think it's the, the opposite can be so powerful
Speaker:of that, the opposite of like, with the right person, we can do
Speaker:the deepest shadow work together.
Speaker:It's almost like you flip that on its head rather than, myth that, well, we
Speaker:an escapism from the shadow, ultimately, desire for union from an escapism.
Speaker:Of the shadow.
Speaker:And then leading to so many challenges.
Speaker:It, it's one of the, it's, it's also a vow that my wife and I have and have made
Speaker:the vow of that whatever arises, we always say that the highest priority is to move
Speaker:through whatever stands between us and the highest love or the highest union.
Speaker:So it's, it's almost like the relationship or the marriage is a, is, is constant
Speaker:shadow work, but not in a way people would think like draining and, and
Speaker:serious and heavy all the time.
Speaker:But almost like a looking forward even to a, to a degree.
Speaker:I mean, no one loves it, I would say, but even a sense of, okay, it, it will
Speaker:arise and it will arise again and again and again, and, and that's not a problem.
Speaker:That's, that's actually part of it being exposed, um, to the
Speaker:light or, or make conscious.
Speaker:So, is it ever the goal to be free of the shadow in a relationship, or is
Speaker:there always a dance with the unseen?
Speaker:Well, what you describe in your own marriage is so beautiful and not
Speaker:something to avoid or be afraid of.
Speaker:So if you're a seeker and you thrive in self-knowledge and learning about
Speaker:yourself and learning about your beloved and uncovering more together, then you're
Speaker:gonna want that kind of relationship, you know, and evolutionary couple.
Speaker:If you get stuck in your roles, if you get focused on kids or careers,
Speaker:some of that is gonna go into the background at different stages.
Speaker:You know, you may just not have the psychic energy to continually focus on
Speaker:each other throughout the whole lifespan.
Speaker:So shadow work changes later in life for couples and individuals.
Speaker:So Neil and I have been together 30 years.
Speaker:It's changed now.
Speaker:It's much kind of mellower, less drama, It doesn't mean we're avoiding, we're
Speaker:not, we're not intentionally avoiding meaning the shadow, issues come up all
Speaker:the time, but we trust that we have the tools and that we have the love.
Speaker:And I think, you know, Robert Bly, wonderful poet, wrote this
Speaker:poem called The Third Body.
Speaker:And the third body is like the third energy field in a, in a conscious couple
Speaker:that sits with you and contains you.
Speaker:And you can, it's kind of palpable.
Speaker:You can kind of feel that there's something greater than two individuals.
Speaker:And when that field is generated, there's a safety and a trust, and a
Speaker:sense like, let's say when you get triggered and you feel afraid, afraid
Speaker:of abandonment, or afraid of failure, or afraid of being criticized, that
Speaker:third body kind of supports you.
Speaker:And there's this felt sense of safety.
Speaker:It's not a cognitive thing.
Speaker:It's like, okay, I know we're together.
Speaker:This is holding us.
Speaker:And in that way, I think, um, in a long term relationship, shadow work becomes
Speaker:less scary and less confrontational.
Speaker:Like you said, it doesn't have to be so heavy.
Speaker:I believe that a lot of people have that fantasy that you also described
Speaker:about how one can get to this place.
Speaker:And, and I believe that in reality it is, it is very different.
Speaker:But what people are yearning for a relationship where, where they feel what
Speaker:you've just described, it is possible.
Speaker:The route there might just be very different than what our ego or what our
Speaker:beliefs tell us of how it is going to be.
Speaker:And tying this, this into identity.
Speaker:I believe that a huge aspect also is letting go of false identities.
Speaker:Things that we have identified ourselves with, things of who we believe ourselves
Speaker:to be or how things have to be.
Speaker:What do we have to let go of to make the journey of shadow work
Speaker:not just more enjoyable, but like you said, romance, the shadow.
Speaker:So as we go through the lifespan and we identify more and more with these limited
Speaker:identities of the ego, i'm a good student or I'm a good sister, or, I'm the best
Speaker:son, or, am a CEO, i'm a great therapist.
Speaker:I'm a black progressive lesbian, or I'm a white conservative, evangelical, right?
Speaker:All of these ethnic, religious, age related racial identities
Speaker:are all part of the ego.
Speaker:And this is a very big issue in our culture right now because developmentally
Speaker:people are identifying differently.
Speaker:Gender, sexual orientation.
Speaker:These are necessary steps I think, in human development,
Speaker:but they're not our true nature.
Speaker:They're not our spiritual essence.
Speaker:And so they can be traps.
Speaker:They can either be steps along the way if we do our spiritual practices or they can
Speaker:be traps that keep the ego held in place.
Speaker:You know, I am a traditional wife.
Speaker:I'm in a homeschool, my kids and teach them what's right and wrong, right?
Speaker:That can block a person from a higher state and ultimately a higher stage.
Speaker:So in later life, I think our task, especially with retirement, is to let go
Speaker:of the roles and the narrow identities that we've amassed over the years.
Speaker:And this is not an easy task because they're built in at this point,
Speaker:they're the operating system.
Speaker:And so we begin to identify them and disidentify with them.
Speaker:Okay, I am not that.
Speaker:Who am I?
Speaker:And that perennial question, who am I comes back again.
Speaker:Who am I really?
Speaker:And whatever your language or your lineage for that, you know, I am Buddha nature.
Speaker:I am Christ nature, I am spirit.
Speaker:I am pure consciousness.
Speaker:I am the breath that breathes everything.
Speaker:Whatever resonates for you, you can begin to practice sinking into
Speaker:identifying with that and embodying that.
Speaker:And that's part of the spiritual work.
Speaker:And so we let go.
Speaker:You ask, what do we let go of?
Speaker:And this is different for different people.
Speaker:You know, there are some people who are never gonna let go of being
Speaker:identified as a parent, right?
Speaker:That's just too much, too big a part of who they are.
Speaker:But when your career's over, you can let go of that role.
Speaker:If you become ill, you need to let go of being a healthy person.
Speaker:If you become, um, widowed, you need to let go of being a married person because
Speaker:life changes, everything keeps changing.
Speaker:And so our identities need to keep shifting, both with the
Speaker:circumstances and with our intention to wake up to a higher identity.
Speaker:And would you say that is an, that is an elemental part of shadow work,
Speaker:being able to let go of identities?
Speaker:I think some people have an intuition about this, Lorin, like you said, seekers.
Speaker:There's a resonance when people hear this, they know they're not their true nature.
Speaker:They know they've been living a story.
Speaker:They know there's more.
Speaker:I mean, this is what people used to ask me.
Speaker:I know there's more than this, more than this material world.
Speaker:More than our roles, more than money, more than success, more than psychology.
Speaker:So with shadow work, the way I cultivate it, because I'm a spiritual practitioner
Speaker:for all these decades, I didn't want people to discover their shadow characters
Speaker:and then fall into identifying with them.
Speaker:Another limited identity.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:And so the practice is really to witness that shadow character.
Speaker:You know, okay, let's say um, you steal something, but I am not a thief.
Speaker:I committed a bad act, but I am not a thief.
Speaker:So always when I taught shadow work, I taught meditation practice with it
Speaker:so that you could learn centering, quieting, and watching your mind
Speaker:as the shadow character arises.
Speaker:Okay, why do I have that impulse to steal that candy bar, whatever it is?
Speaker:And then practice recognizing that's a shadow character.
Speaker:It's not who I am.
Speaker:And that's always a part of it.
Speaker:You identify the shadow character and you add, you remind
Speaker:yourself it's not who I am.
Speaker:I'm so much bigger than that.
Speaker:I'm a soul on a journey.
Speaker:I'm spirit incarnated, right?
Speaker:Whatever, however you wanna say it.
Speaker:Not that little shadow character that acted out in that moment.
Speaker:I believe the importance here is also around embodiment, because of course,
Speaker:one could say, I am limitless spirit and, and still project their shadow, right?
Speaker:I like what you said before about the, the kind of the practicality
Speaker:of that, that in that moment when it arises, that's the ripe moment.
Speaker:That's the spiritual moment, quote unquote.
Speaker:That's the moment where a true awakening can can be born.
Speaker:Some, there's a saying that says the spiritual work begins on the
Speaker:meditation caution, but it really becomes ripe then in relationship
Speaker:when the shadow becomes triggered.
Speaker:And shadow work is spiritual work.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:One last topic that I, I wanted to go into is around
Speaker:specifically the shadow around sex.
Speaker:Because there's so much shame, so much shame around that, that for people
Speaker:to unpack other shadow characters might seem a little bit easier than
Speaker:to unpack the, the shadow character using your language around sex.
Speaker:How can one begin to truly unpack this and, and is there hidden gold in there?
Speaker:You know, I was in private practice for 30 years and I was very surprised
Speaker:that I discovered more charge and shame around money than around sex.
Speaker:Money is a really big shadow issue for people.
Speaker:Sexuality is complicated and I think very individual.
Speaker:And if, if our listeners wanna begin to explore this, you could ask yourself,
Speaker:what were the messages I received really early in life about sexuality?
Speaker:Did anybody speak openly to me about it?
Speaker:Did anyone educate me?
Speaker:Did anyone punish me, criticize me, say, for touching myself
Speaker:or touching someone else?
Speaker:And what happened as I grew up and went to school?
Speaker:What was the attitude from the school, the teachers and the peers?
Speaker:What was, what was the, the vibe in the sex education class?
Speaker:Can you remember that?
Speaker:Can you remember how the adults talked to the kids about it?
Speaker:And then as you kind of go through your life, you can look at your relationships
Speaker:through this filter, through this lens.
Speaker:What was your first sexual experience like?
Speaker:And what was your first ongoing relationship like sexually?
Speaker:Were you able to talk, ask for what you need, ask him or her what they wanted?
Speaker:Almost like a life review, but from the lens of sexuality.
Speaker:And then you begin to have the whole story of your sex life.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And the feelings and the behaviors.
Speaker:Did you ever act out in a wild way?
Speaker:Did you ever, um, hide your sexuality?
Speaker:What carries the most shame or awkwardness?
Speaker:What do you not want to be seen about your sexuality?
Speaker:And And what step might you take now to begin to liberate a little of that energy,
Speaker:to begin to express just a little bit, just begin to express something that you
Speaker:haven't expressed before, and then watch what fear comes up as you imagine that.
Speaker:What are you saying to yourself as you imagine taking that step?
Speaker:And what are you feeling?
Speaker:And what are the sensations in your body?
Speaker:Oh my God, I would go to hell.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:I wouldn't want anyone to know about that.
Speaker:Oh, this is so embarrassing.
Speaker:And you begin to kind of uncover who's the shadow character who's
Speaker:there, and where did it come from?
Speaker:And you have a choice.
Speaker:Do you want to leave it that way?
Speaker:Do you want, is this acceptable to you?
Speaker:It can be, okay.
Speaker:You're allowed to have limitations.
Speaker:Or do you wanna make a change?
Speaker:Do you wanna begin to romance that shadow character and not
Speaker:allow it to limit you anymore?
Speaker:And do I assume correctly that this could be applied in just the same
Speaker:way around money and around power?
Speaker:This deep form of self-inquiry and then seeing how it plays out.
Speaker:And just before we close today, it brings me back to something
Speaker:you said at the beginning of our conversation that it's always the same.
Speaker:The same trigger around money, the same thing we say to ourselves around sex.
Speaker:It is the same when it's the same shadow character.
Speaker:So the, the money character in the shadow character won't be this and the
Speaker:sexual character won't be the same.
Speaker:But when it's around sexuality, yes, that shadow character will be telling you
Speaker:the same thing, and that money character will be telling you the same thing.
Speaker:And that's what makes this work, 'cause then you can begin to
Speaker:have a conscious relationship.
Speaker:With that figure that was previously unconscious and you can choose
Speaker:to stop it from sabotaging you or limiting you or hurting others,
Speaker:And last question to take this even further beyond just having a, just
Speaker:having a conscious relationship with it.
Speaker:You also spoke about that often hidden within our deep desires.
Speaker:So perhaps going even beyond that, there is a deep creativity, even
Speaker:a joy, a blis, a deep sense of beauty that is then able to flow.
Speaker:Might, might that be the light at the end of the tunnel of doing this work
Speaker:at a really deep and devoted level?
Speaker:You know, shadows, just energy.
Speaker:It's blocked energy.
Speaker:It's blocked, um, juice.
Speaker:It only has a negative charge because we look at it that
Speaker:way from the, from the ego.
Speaker:So if it's released, yes, it can move into creative self-expression,
Speaker:it can move into deeper intimacy.
Speaker:It can move into greater joy.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:That's one of the promises of this work.
Speaker:From repression into self-expression.
Speaker:Thank you for sharing your depth with us.
Speaker:Um, for, for people listening to you today, perhaps they
Speaker:want to deepen their journey.
Speaker:Many of our listeners, they're deep on that path or others
Speaker:who want to begin that journey.
Speaker:What's the best way to start?
Speaker:Where can they find your work?
Speaker:Well, there are a lot of free videos on conniezweig.com.
Speaker:If you want to read, Meeting the Shadow just came out with a new
Speaker:edition and it just sweeps all the arenas of life, politics, creativity,
Speaker:relationships, health and the body.
Speaker:Um, everything you can imagine and the shadow.
Speaker:Romancing the shadow is the method for relationships, couples, and
Speaker:also friendships and workplace.
Speaker:Meeting the shadow and the Spiritual Path is.
Speaker:Particular focus on spiritual shadow, if that's of interest to you.
Speaker:And the Inner Work of Age is about, um, which shadows come
Speaker:up in midlife and beyond.
Speaker:I call it the inner ageist and the doer.
Speaker:And so if that speaks to you, you can check that out.
Speaker:I have a podcast with my husband that's called Dr. Neil's Spiritual
Speaker:Awakening to Non-Duality.
Speaker:So there are lots of resources available for people to follow up and
Speaker:um, I'd be happy to hear from you.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to these episodes.
Speaker:It is a true honor to have you here.
Speaker:If you haven't yet subscribed to the show, whether you're watching on
Speaker:YouTube or listening on Spotify or Apple Podcast or any other platform,
Speaker:I invite you to subscribe now.
Speaker:This allows you to gain immediate access once a new episode is released.
Speaker:And if you feel that this episode or any other episode can serve someone you know
Speaker:deeply, it would mean the world to us if you can share it with them, because
Speaker:it allows us to reach more people.
Speaker:It allows us to bring this deep and transformative work to
Speaker:more people and to expand it.
Speaker:Once again, thank you so much for being here.
