Dr Connie Zweig: 0:00

I really believe that shadow is leading us around by the nose to find someone who can kind of compensate for our missing parts. That’s the opportunity of love. That’s one level of opportunity for love. It’s one level of being awake in relationship, recognizing what traits are you drawn to? And what is your partner carrying for you that you need to carry for yourself?

Intro music: 0:37

You’re listening to Awake in Relationship with Silas Rose.

Silas Rose: 0:53

Hello, dear listener. This is Silas, and I welcome you to Awake In Relationship. It’s been a while since I last published, so I’m really excited to invite back to the show Dr. Connie Zweig, who is an internationally recognized author and expert on shadow work. You’re probably familiar with the French saying, every rose has its thorn. When it comes to relationships, especially intimate ones, that thorn is usually some aspect of the shadow making itself known. It’s a murky ground that often contains a treasure trove of unmetabolized experiences, emotions that we’ve held since childhood and, paradoxically, our brilliance, the latent potential and talents yearning be expressed. This is why so many great teachers, leaders, healers, and artists were also known for their dark side. There’s a lot of energy and power contained in the shadow, which is hard to relate to. I think this is why so many spiritual seekers passed in prison and made the mistake of just bypassing it. And in a time when 50% of marriages end in failure, and more than one-third of us live alone. Shadow work can be the key to unlocking our deepest desires and realizing the potential of conscious relationships. Dr. Coney’s a wealth of wisdom on this topic and I encourage you to also check out episode 52 where we go into spirituality in the shadow. Enjoy. So

Silas Rose: 3:01

Connie, welcome back to the show.

Silas Rose: 3:07

,Its been a while, tell me what you’ve been up to.

Dr Connie Zweig: 3:09

Well, I never know how to answer that. Life is so complicated, you know. Because there’s been this resurgence of interest in shadow work, which has really been the focus of my career for 40 years now, my earlier publishers, of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow reached out and said, let’s bring out new editions of the books and catch this wave. So I’ve been doing a lot of interviews and webinars on shadow work. Meeting the Shadow is kind of a landmark overview of the topic, 65 different essays by all kinds of thought leaders. about the shadow in every arena of life, from family and relationships to the body and health, politics, creativity, work, and so on. And Romancing the Shadow is more focused on relationships and the method I developed of shadow work. And so each of these revisions have new writing and they’re updated. And so that’s why I… Wanted to chat with you again because so much has happened since we spoke about the other books. I wrote a book on the inner work of age, which extends shadow work into later life, and another book on meeting the shadow on the spiritual path, which extends shadow work into religion and spirituality. But today, given the title of your podcast, it’s so perfect. Awake in relationships. What does that mean? What does it really mean to be awake or not awake? Unconscious in our relationships. And I think that’s just a great theme.

Silas Rose: 5:11

Yeah, I know. It’s a bit of a, you know, a koan. Because I’m definitely not prescriptive around that. But definitely, you know, the topic of conscious relationships is… And especially… in our current age, in the digital age, I think it’s really lights me up.

Dr Connie Zweig: 5:32

Yeah, and it’s a koan in the sense that it’s worth contemplating. It doesn’t have a simple one-dimensional answer. But for me, it means if we’re awake in our relationships, our partnerships, our family relationships, friendships, work relationships, kids and so on, if we’re awake in them, for me that means two things. One, we have shadow awareness. And two, we have spiritual awareness. Right? So we don’t deny the red flags or the conflicts and the shadow boxing that arises in every relationship. And at the same time, we don’t deny the essential nature of every human being. which is spiritual, whatever we call that, the true self, the Buddha nature, the Christ nature. And when we’re awake to that in other people, especially with people we love, we respond differently.

Silas Rose: 6:50

What do you think is… driving a kind of renewed interest in shadow work right now?

Dr Connie Zweig: 6:57

Well, younger generations, a book just sold on TikTok of a million copies, Beth’s Shadow Work. And so I think it’s finding new generations. And partly because people are seeking solutions to their suffering. There’s a lot of, there’s a deeper understanding of trauma now in the collective. And people want to explore more profound modes of healing than cognitive behavioral and grief therapy and, you know, this stuff that’s kind of supported by the AMA and the drug companies, right? So psychology, historically, 100 years ago, was oriented to the unconscious with Freud and Jung and their followers. It had an orientation to depth that it doesn’t have now in most practices, in most books, and so on. It’s hard to sell a book on psychology that’s really about the unconscious because they just want quick, brief therapy. Six steps to recovering from trauma, right? And the kids are getting fed up. You know, it’s not working for them. And so they’re searching. And it’s meaningful that they’re finding this huge resource from Carl Jung and then all the people who’ve come after him who’ve taught and written about the shadow. So

Silas Rose: 8:40

For those that perhaps haven’t heard Listen to our previous interview, and I definitely recommend that you do. I’ll post a link in the show notes. Maybe you could talk a little bit about your career trajectory. You’re a retired Jungian therapist now. What got you interested in this work?

Dr Connie Zweig: 9:00

I had an unusual experience in childhood. My mother got us all into therapy. We went to family therapy together, the four of us. at a young age. So my sister and I kind of got used to talking about feelings and problems and so on. In my 20s, I got involved with Transcendental Meditation and ended up having some very positive experiences. But after a few years, I started to see the shadows in the organization, in the teacher, in the group think. in the hypocrisy that was going on. And it was very disturbing and heartbreaking to me. So I went from kind of idealizing TM to feeling very disillusioned. And that got me back into therapy, and I chose Jungian analysis because Jung includes the spiritual in psychology. And I wanted to understand why I had made these choices. why I was drawn to this charismatic teacher and this practice, which had turned sour for me. And the first dream that I had in my first analysis was about the shadow. And it kind of introduced me to this idea that we all have this part of ourselves that holds our secret, forbidden, avoided, taboo feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. And that happens because when we’re growing up, we get these messages from all the adults, that’s bad, little boys don’t cry, or little girls don’t get angry. Or little kids don’t touch themselves, you know. Or what would the priest say about that? You’re going to go to hell. Or whatever the message is. And all of that content then goes, we call it repression. It’s repressed into the shadow. And this happens to everybody. There’s no way around it. And as we form the shadow, we also form the conscious personality, the ego, which carries everything. the feelings and behaviors that are permitted, whether it’s politeness or generosity or kindness, right? And so our shadow and our ego are developing in tandem. And Carl Jung used to say, the essence of the shadow is pure gold. And as I began to kind of dig around and excavate in my own shadow, I found a lot of really interesting material that I had banished there. And then I decided I wanted to help other people learn how to do that. And so eventually I developed a method, because Jung’s method was basically dream work and creativity, what he called active imagination. And so I developed a method for uncovering parts of the shadow that we can work with one at a time and make a conscious relationship with. Take them out of the dark unconscious and into the light and make a relationship with.

Silas Rose: 12:40

So, so you wrote the book, Romancing The Shadow back in the nineties. Uh, what do you think has changed or how’s your, your kind of approach or. view on this work evolved?

Dr Connie Zweig: 12:55

Yeah, I was in my 40s when I wrote that book. Now I’m in my 70s. So there’s been a lot of development. I have not stopped working on myself. And as you probably know, when you’re a therapist, I was in clinical practice for 30 years. You’re constantly self-reflecting. It’s called countertransference. So I was always working on myself when I was with patients. I continued my meditation practices. And so I’m aware now, and I wrote about this in the new edition, both of the new editions, to update them. I’m aware now of… the widespread use of shadow projection across the world. So in our country now with the president, shadow projection has been weaponized. And he tapped into this part of each of us that has anger and hate and prejudice, right? And he opened the door to it through saying, okay, shadow projection is okay. The result is we turn people into an other. We dehumanize them. Let’s say immigrants or trans people or gay people, even women. So if we look at the main isms of our day that are the real serious problems, sexism, xenophobia, ageism, racism, antisemitism, anti-Palestinian, all of these kind of seemingly intractable global problems are rooted in shadow projection. And it’s shocking to realize that, but it gives us a framework in which to look at the headlines and understand more deeply what’s going on in our politics, in our culture, in our social body, and that it’s not localized. It’s not just police brutality. It’s not just anti-DEI or critical race theory. It’s not just sexism that continues to keep a woman out of the White House. All of it is rooted in shadow projection, which is unconsciously attributing to another person or a group, that which we can’t see in ourselves, that which is intolerable, unacceptable, ugly in ourselves. And so we have them carry it for us and they are X, Y, Z, and therefore they should be deported or they should be tortured. I’m thinking of the wars and genocide, right? or they don’t deserve government benefits. Whatever the issue is, it’s this us and them thinking that’s rooted in our shadows. And so even though I understood that in the 90s, I didn’t understand, because it was pre-Trump, I didn’t understand the global kind of universality of it and how politicians… actually use it and how cult leaders use it, right? Religions use it to create, we have the one way and you’re going to hell, right? All kinds of different groups use shadow projection to create us in them. So

Silas Rose: 17:07

how does the shadow show up in intimacy?

Dr Connie Zweig: 17:12

Part of what happens is Let’s start with dating. So we meet someone and we go, oh, he’s cute. He’s a possibility. And our hearts open and so do our imaginations. And we start to fantasize about who he is or who she is. She’s smart. She’s attractive, right? She’s independent, right? Or he’s got a good job. He’s got a good family. And we fantasize that these traits are who the person is. But what’s happening is we’re projecting. We don’t know the person, and we don’t know the complexity of their shadow issues. And so we get married thinking that we know this person, but what’s happening is, Each of the members of the couple is carrying this long bag of shadow material behind them. Right? One of them is carrying shame. One of them is carrying secret addiction. One of them is carrying a lot of anger. One of them is carrying self-doubt or self-hate, which most people don’t see in the romantic phase. of a relationship when you’re in a projection. Okay, so then they’re married. And then they wake up one day and they go, well, that’s not who I married. That’s not who I wanted. That’s not the guy who opened the door for me. Now he’s yelling at me. How did this happen? Right? So we meet the shadow in these ways that are surprising and disturbing. And I would say that’s the reason for the high divorce rate. Because we get married in the romantic cycle before we really know each other’s shadows or our own shadows, what we’re bringing to it. And so we give up. We don’t have the tools. So she doesn’t have the tools to deal with his anger. Or he doesn’t have the tools to deal with her depression or whatever it is, right? We don’t have the practices. We don’t have shadow work. We don’t have the insight. We don’t have the therapist. And so we give up.

Silas Rose: 19:53

Let’s dig a little bit deeper into that, actually. What would shadow work look like, say, in a long-term relationship or a couple that’s kind of reached a crisis point?

Dr Connie Zweig: 20:08

I call it a crisis of commitment. They either have to break up or grow, right? So let’s say there’s a man who’s in his 40s and he’s been married and his wife divorced him after 12 years. So he’s used to intimacy and feeling comfortable with someone. And he’s drawn to a woman. who’s a stockbroker. She’s never been married. She’s very independent. And when she pursues him, I mean, when he pursues her, sorry, she runs away. She feels overwhelmed by his needs. And she starts criticizing his neediness, right? I can’t take it. You’re too needy. I need space, right? And he feels like he can’t get enough love. from her. So what I suggest is they stop and stop blaming the other one and look within. Who is that shadow part in the man who’s pursuing this woman who seems unavailable? And he calls it the pursuer. And we trace back, where does the pursuer come from? It comes from his childhood in which he felt really alone and neglected. And then he married his wife, and he didn’t feel that for a while because she was there for him. And so now he thinks that this new woman is the solution to his feelings. So he’s projecting onto her whatever we call it, the good mother, the good wife, the fulfiller of his needs, right? He’s never been responsible for his own emotional needs. He doesn’t know how to calm himself and fulfill himself. So he’s going after her. And she has the opposite wound. She’s been suffocated and smothered by her family, and she just wants to be free. So she’s lashing out at him and she calls her shadow the distancer. And so the pursuer and the distancer are in this dynamic. And I would say that most relationships have some version of that.

Silas Rose: 22:55

I was going to say that that seems like a real cruel twist of fate.

Dr Connie Zweig: 22:59

Yeah. Most relationships are about finding that psychic territory where both people are can tolerate the intimacy, right? Where one isn’t distancing and one isn’t pursuing because they find this space that works for both of them. So it may not be as extreme as this one. So she explores, where did the distancer come from? Well, her family was smothering and enmeshed, and she just wants to be free and independent. But she’s attracted to to his capacity for intimacy because that’s what’s in her shadow. And he is attracted to her independence because that’s what’s in his shadow. And so slowly, slowly, they work not together, but with their own shadows. He learns to become more self-sufficient. She learns to tolerate more intimacy. and communicate when she needs space. Not with criticism and pushing him away, but just saying, you know what, I need some time to myself today. And as they do that, they begin to build this safe container where they can communicate their needs and also be together in an intimate way.

Silas Rose: 24:30

So would you say so much of attraction is really… kind of this unconscious impulse towards healing?

Dr Connie Zweig: 24:40

You know, I really believe that. I really believe that shadow is leading us around by the nose to find someone who can kind of compensate for our missing parts. That’s the opportunity of love. That’s one level of opportunity for love. It’s one level of being awake in relationships. recognizing what traits are you drawn to and what is your partner carrying for you that you need to carry for yourself because you don’t want to be projecting that so what do you need to be carrying for yourself so that two whole people can get together rather than you know this half a person and half a person carrying their big bags behind so

Silas Rose: 25:32

do single people get a hall pass from shadow work?

Dr Connie Zweig: 25:38

Oh, absolutely not. No, single people feel shame about a failure to bond. Some feel really lonely and isolated. Some feel desperate. Some feel rejected. So all these feelings can be recreation of past early experiences that are in the shadow. And they might pretend that they don’t feel those things, but when you start digging into the inner world, you find… And I don’t want to say that everybody needs to be in a relationship. I mean, there are many monks and nuns who… feel their primary relationship is with the divine and they don’t have what I’m describing. But people who want to be in a relationship and are not mostly have those feelings. So they go out on a date and they’re anxious. They’re self-conscious. They don’t trust themselves to see the red flags. They don’t trust themselves to feel confident. Right? So those are all shadow issues.

Silas Rose: 27:00

This might actually be an interesting transition point to thinking about approaching a long-term relationship by design rather than by default.

Dr Connie Zweig: 27:13

Well, as I was saying earlier, a lot of it is about communication, which people are scared of because they’re scared of getting rejected. So my husband and I met… at a dinner party 30 years ago from a mutual friend, and we discovered that we were both involved in transpersonal psychology and meditation. And I was kind of excited about it, and then he never called me. And then this friend had us over again with some other people, And Neil and I had this more extended conversation that I really enjoyed and found out more about him. He was divorced. He had kids. He was from another country. And he didn’t call me. So I called the mutual friend, and I said, why don’t you tell him I’m interested in him? And he said, why don’t you just call him? Here’s his number. So I did it. And after our first date, I couldn’t get rid of him, basically. I mean, he really pursued me after the first date. And… I’m mentioning that because I think some women still stand on this kind of role, this story of roles that the man is supposed to reach out, right? That the man is supposed to make the first move. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I mean, there’s all these stereotypes in the manosphere about masculinity and all this crap. If you meet a man or a woman and you feel a resonance, a fit, a deep connection. Yes, there’s going to be shadow stuff going on, but there’s also going to be a possible relationship there. So what happened with us was he then started chasing me and I freaked out. And I had been independent and I had been single up until my 40s. I had not been married. So we immediately started doing shadow work. He didn’t know my books. He didn’t know the language. But we immediately started to talk about what he was experiencing when he was pursuing me and what I was experiencing when I was being pursued, sharing our inner worlds, because we were both psychologists. So we were sharing our inner worlds from the very beginning. And when you recognize that someone has the capacity to do that, the capacity to meet you where you are, you know, this similar level of development, then it’s worth staying around and checking it out. Now for me, because I was so aware of shadow stuff, He started asking me to marry him about a year later, and I just kept saying, no, I’m not ready. So I needed to be with him for five years to feel that I knew all the stuff I needed to know. All the stuff about his psychology and his kids and his ex-wife. and how he was shaped in his childhood. I needed to understand that. And that may be extreme for people who are listening. Maybe they can do it in one year. But you know what I would say? Don’t make that decision in less than a year.

Silas Rose: 31:38

That seems like a very exceptional way kind of situation that I think most people kind of stumble into relationship.

Dr Connie Zweig: 31:49

That’s right. But you asked me, how do we do it intentionally? You know, and if you stumble into it, you’re in projection and you’re trying to meet your unmet childhood needs to be seen, to belong, to not be abandoned. Those are running the show if you do it quickly. from the shadow. Those are running the show. So I needed to be sure that I was with a guy who was self-aware enough, you know, that he could meet me. So I really, I advised all my clients to go slowly. And part of it is sex. You know, people have sex so quickly and they think they’re intimate and they think they know each other. No, it’s not. It’s not the case. So I just advise people to slow down and really take the time to get to know each other. My

Silas Rose: 32:46

final question, relates to something you talked about earlier Jung talked about, which is the shadow contains 90% gold. What is that gold?

Dr Connie Zweig: 33:03

There’s several levels to that. So when we talked about the distancer and the pursuer, So for the pursuer, the guy in that case, he discovered that he was pursuing because he didn’t know how to be alone. He didn’t know how to meet his own needs, how to nurture himself. And he was trying to get it all from her, as he had done in his first marriage, which I’m sure is part of what ended the marriage. So the gold was that he could learn to meet those needs for himself. He joined a men’s group. He learned how to play chess. He did a whole bunch of things that enabled him to find gold, to find self-sufficiency without putting that onto the woman. Another way to think about the gold in the shadow is because anything can be repressed in childhood. It’s not just, quote, negative things. It’s only negative to the ego. So if you’re in a family that says to you, we don’t care if you want to draw or paint or dance or daydream, you have to start making money. And so you have to get good grades and go to business school. All of those talents and dreams go into the shadow. They get sacrificed. And often at midlife or later life, when you retire, those dreams come back. They return into consciousness. Like my literary agent who retired from a successful business to paint. That’s gold in the shadow. That’s a way to live your life from your dreams that were forbidden to you, right? So that’s just a different way to talk about that image of gold in the dark side.

Silas Rose: 35:20

Well, Connie, thank you so much for this conversation. I really enjoyed it.

Dr Connie Zweig: 35:26

Thank you, Silas.

Silas Rose: 35:28

I’m wondering how people can connect more with your work.

Dr Connie Zweig: 35:33

Well, I’m teaching a lot this month and next month, and the schedule is on ConnieZweig.com. You can also find me on Substack, Shadow Work Awareness, where I’m doing recordings and live streamings with someone else. I have a podcast with my husband for people who are interested in spirituality. My husband is awake, and our podcast is called Dr. Neal’s Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality.