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PERSONAL SHADOW WORK: Where is your dark twin hiding? · This Jungian Life Podcast

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• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
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  Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
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  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
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  Speaker 3: One of our most popular episodes to date is an
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  Speaker 3: episode we did a couple of years ago on working
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: with and integrating the personal shadow. And of course, shadow
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: work is really up in the collective. It's something that
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  Speaker 3: you kind of can't escape if you go on social media,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: everyone is talking about it. And of course, it's a
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Jungian idea. Jung came up with this idea that we
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  Speaker 3: have these forbidden parts of ourselves that are called the
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: shadow and that Confronting and integrating these parts are really
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: important for psychological growth. But the question is, how do
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: you know what your shadow is? That's quite a task,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: even to begin to know what your shadow is. And
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  Speaker 3: I think that, you know, in the collective right now,
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  Speaker 3: the discourse on TikTok and other social media platforms makes
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: it seem like it's a very easy thing to figure
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  Speaker 3: out what your shadow is and do the shadow work.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk a little bit about that because
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  Speaker 3: we would like to posit that it might be a
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  Speaker 3: bit more complex than that. And here's Young. He says,
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  Speaker 3: to be fully aware of the shadow would be an
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  Speaker 3: almost superhuman task. So acknowledging that it's not something that
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  Speaker 3: can be easily done and that coming to terms with
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  Speaker 3: the shadow and even identifying it is really complex.
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  Speaker 4: So with that, I think we ought to take a
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  Speaker 4: step back and just at least kind of review very briefly,
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: you know, what is it that we mean by shadow?
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  Speaker 4: I think there are three main kinds of aspects to it.
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  Speaker 4: You know, one aspect is something that we just never knew.
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  Speaker 4: It's shadow is whatever is in the unconscious, right? in
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: its broadest way of being understood. So it might just
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  Speaker 4: be something we never knew, we never came across. It
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: might be something that we've forgotten. But more typically, it's
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: what we have repressed, rejected, denied, because it's associated with
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: feelings that are so uncomfortable. The feelings that just make
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  Speaker 4: us squirm of, of fear and disgust, anger, a sense
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  Speaker 4: of deep moral transgression. So for those reasons, because they
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  Speaker 4: are anathema to us, very much dependent upon the families
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  Speaker 4: we grew up in and the cultural context and the
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  Speaker 4: religious tradition we grew up in, these are things that
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  Speaker 4: are unbearable. And so we push them under, push them aside,
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  Speaker 4: and try to keep them relegated to the unconscious so
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: they won't bother us. But everything in the unconscious has
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: energy and can slip out and jump out and tackle
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: us unawares. And at the very least, shadow takes energy.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: to keep it locked up, shoved down, set aside. And
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  Speaker 4: of course, at the worst, what we cannot acknowledge consciously
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: is going to come up to bite us in the
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: you-know-where when we're least expecting it.
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  Speaker 1: I think that, Deb, you beautifully described the way the
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  Speaker 1: shadow system is maintenanced. That once there is the land
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  Speaker 1: over there, where all the degenerate parts of ourselves abide,
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  Speaker 1: and then there's the moat in between it, and then
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  Speaker 1: there's the good side of me over here that's bright
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  Speaker 1: and shiny, and that it feels very distressing when any
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  Speaker 1: of the degenerates are waving at me or starting an
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: insurrection internally. But shadow is not created by the ego.
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  Speaker 1: That's something I wanted to help people understand is, that
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  Speaker 1: shadow creation is an unconscious process. And it comes from
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  Speaker 1: the enormous, powerful instinct to be part of the group,
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  Speaker 1: to be cared for, to mirror and belong. And that's
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  Speaker 1: communicated to us in thousands and thousands of ways, even
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: from infancy. So one of the things that's been discovered
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  Speaker 1: in early infant studies and affect studies is that shame
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  Speaker 1: is thought to be one of the primal emotions that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: babies are born with, along with things like anger and
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  Speaker 1: fear and joy. And one theory is that the baby
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  Speaker 1: is tremendously attuned to any expression of disgust that the
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  Speaker 1: parent seems to generate while they are interacting with the baby,
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  Speaker 1: and the baby experiences it as a kind of distressing jolt,
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  Speaker 1: just the way we experience shame now. And so we
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  Speaker 1: are subtly acculturated from early infancy to be attuned to
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  Speaker 1: the positive responses of our caregivers, and then in increasingly
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: more sophisticated and thoughtful ways to thoughts, words, actions, and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: belief systems that once again, our environment approves of, and
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  Speaker 1: we highly register things that the environment pulls back from,
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  Speaker 1: expresses hostility or disgust. And we are designed to push
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  Speaker 1: those impulses away. But we don't feel bad about them
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  Speaker 1: when they first come up. It feels perfectly normal to
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  Speaker 1: do everything that we do. as babies and toddlers and
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  Speaker 1: as young people. It's the system that first creates the shadow,
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  Speaker 1: and then by the time we're well-cooked, we come out
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  Speaker 1: of the oven, whatever age that is, where I'm fully
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  Speaker 1: baked and browned, and I pop out of the pan,
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  Speaker 1: then I've got this thing I call a personality, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm not even aware of all of the things that
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the environment recoiled from. And then we go marching off
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  Speaker 1: to high school or college, And just as you were saying, Deb,
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  Speaker 1: we are on the side of keeping the retrograde parts
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  Speaker 1: of ourselves far away. And we reinforce it by feeling
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  Speaker 1: we too, oh, that person is terrible. That person's disgusting.
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  Speaker 1: I just can't stand thus and such. And so the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: shadow system, like a government, is up and running until midlife. Oh.
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  Speaker 3: So Joseph, you're identifying that the development of the shadow
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  Speaker 3: is a developmental process that goes along with the development
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  Speaker 3: of the personality. And Jung said that, just as you
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: were saying, that as we grow, we learn what things
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  Speaker 3: are not appropriate and those get relegated to the shadow.
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  Speaker 3: And Jung once said, the shadow is everything we don't
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  Speaker 3: want to be. And so it's there and we're not
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  Speaker 3: really aware of it. You know, it's not too far
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  Speaker 3: away from ego consciousness, which is why it often shows
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  Speaker 3: up in dreams as a human figure.
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  Speaker 1: Or when we're drunk.
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  Speaker 3: Or when we're drunk. But Jung also said it complements
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  Speaker 3: the persona. So the persona is the face that we
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: show to the world. It's the mask that we show
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  Speaker 3: to the world. It's kind of who we want the
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: world to think we are. The shadow is everything that
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  Speaker 3: we want to make sure the world doesn't think about us. So,
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  Speaker 3: one of the things that I think about is what
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  Speaker 3: kinds of things might be in the shadow. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: some of them are sort of... you know, fairly predictable,
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: you know, aggression, sexuality. These are things that we might
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  Speaker 3: be told by our parents, caregivers, culture, teachers. No, no, no,
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  Speaker 3: you can't be that. But a lot of times there's
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: a family culture And in different people's family cultures, there
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  Speaker 3: are certain things you're not allowed to be. So it
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  Speaker 3: might be that your family, you had to be practical.
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  Speaker 3: That was your family. That was the family ethos is
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  Speaker 3: you must be practical. And then what's likely to be
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  Speaker 3: in the shadow is anything that feels impractical or whimsical.
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  Speaker 3: I know in my family of origin, there was a
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  Speaker 3: real value around modesty. So one thing that was really
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  Speaker 3: frowned on was any time that being kind of boastful
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  Speaker 3: or kind of attention seeking was like, oh, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 3: not that. So that really wound up being a shadow
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  Speaker 3: characteristic for me to the point that, and this is
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  Speaker 3: the other thing about shadow is, and we'll get into
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  Speaker 3: this in a bit, but we project it out on
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  Speaker 3: other people and then we really hate it. Joseph, you
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  Speaker 3: started to kind of go there too. We get really
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  Speaker 3: turned off when we see someone else living out our shadow.
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  Speaker 3: So I've always felt really irritated, especially by women who
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: feel really comfortable kind of claiming center stage. It's like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: it's like nails on a chalkboard.
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  Speaker 4: I want to go back to what you said, Joseph,
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  Speaker 4: just sort of highlighted that it's an unconscious process. You know,
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  Speaker 4: so Lisa, you're aware of, you know, the family value
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  Speaker 4: of from your family of origin about modesty. But most
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  Speaker 4: of the time, we're not that aware of. It takes
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  Speaker 4: a lot of work.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And it's not like when I was a kid, I thought, oh,
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  Speaker 3: my family's very modest. It wasn't conscious, right? This is
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: something that I've become aware of. But we might be
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  Speaker 3: able to ask ourselves, what was the thing I was
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  Speaker 3: really not allowed to be in my family of origin?
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  Speaker 3: What was the family value?
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  Speaker 1: Right, because when you're living it, it just seems like normal,
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  Speaker 1: like fish didn't discover water.
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  Speaker 3: It's the brine we're pickled in.
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  Speaker 4: That's great. There's an automatic cutoff switch, like a circuit breaker.
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  Speaker 4: You just don't even allow yourself to know that you
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  Speaker 4: wish for this or you want that. It just cuts
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  Speaker 4: you right off before you can even... contemplate consciously the act,
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  Speaker 4: sort of like, gosh, I was taught to be this,
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  Speaker 4: but actually what I'd like is to be the lead
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  Speaker 4: role in the freshman play, and I'm going to try
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  Speaker 4: out for it. No, no, no. The circuit breaker comes
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  Speaker 4: right in. You know, I think I could be an
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: alto in the chorus, and I could be helpful, and
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  Speaker 4: I'll be part of it, and that's all I want.
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  Speaker 4: And so that's part of why shadow work is so hard.
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  Speaker 4: We don't know what we don't know.
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  Speaker 3: Great.
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  Speaker 1: It's really hidden from us and needs to be hidden
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: because it helps us be successful in the world. People
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  Speaker 1: who don't have a shadow complex wind up in constant
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  Speaker 1: conflict with the prevailing culture, which can make it hard
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to thrive.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think everybody has a shadow, though.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: That's what I mean. Well, I think that this goes
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to something that Jung had written about not having a persona.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: That if you don't have a persona, then basically it's
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: kind of all the things are running around. The shadow
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  Speaker 1: is there. That there isn't a bifurcation there that we
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: really need, which is this kind of social lubricant so
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that we're not constantly... You know, a braiding against every interaction.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Joseph. It does help us. The
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: development of the shadow is necessary and it's in the
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: interest of adaptation.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: It's a functional complex, which is an organ in the psyche.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: So how do we start to identify what our complexes are?
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  Speaker 4: And we started to veer into this a little bit ago.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: Jim Hollis, who's written a number of books that we
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: can heartily recommend for interested audiences on Jungian concepts, says, oh,
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: if you want to know what your shadow is, just
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: ask your best friend.
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  Speaker 3: Actually, what he says is ask your spouse.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: Oh, worse and worse. And if your spouse... or a
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: good friend comes up with something that you don't like,
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: just notice your reaction. Just notice, like that person said,
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: I was needy. It was like, oh, no, I'm not.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: You might not say anything, but just notice what comes
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: up inside of that instant feeling of, what you touched
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  Speaker 4: on at the outset, Joseph, shame. I can't be that.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: I'm not that. I'm not needy, am I? And just
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: sit with that as an awareness of your emotions, your
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: feelings will tell you because you'll feel like you've been stung.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: So that's the bad news. But the good news is
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: if those are things that, trusted others have observed about you,
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: how do you then take that into consideration?
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: So I remember, you know, I remember being in the
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: room when Hollis was teaching us and he was teaching
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: us about the shadow and he was like, if you
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: want to know what your shadow is, ask your spouse.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: And of course, everyone laughs, right? And it's kind of
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: a funny idea. It's interesting, like what would What would
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: your spouse say about you? You might have some inkling
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: or it might really surprise you. Joseph, I remember a
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: time when we were in training and I can't remember
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: what brought about this discussion, but you and I were
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: talking about something and you sort of reflected to me like, Lisa,
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: here's how you come across. And it wasn't really how
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: I saw myself at all. But you basically, in so
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: many words, You know, I think you were very gentle
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: about it, but I think what you were trying to
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: tell me was I kind of come across like a
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: little bit like a ton of bricks. You didn't say
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: it like that. But that I kind of come across
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: as a little bit intimidating, maybe even. And I was like, well,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: that's not how I am.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: But it was really startling. I think we were talking
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: about what I might be provoking in, for example, the
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: analysts that were training us or something. And it gave
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: me a lot to think about. It was a big surprise.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And this is also so much of what we do
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: early in analysis, that once we have a trusting relationship,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: that we're pointing out things that are not conscious. that
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: are also causing the individual suffering.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And if they did know it, then they'd have their
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: hands on the controls a little bit and perhaps use
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: it when it really needs to be used, but often
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: kind of put it in the passenger seat when it's
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: causing problems.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, one of the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: ways you can get to know your shadow is to
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: really bring, you know, really have an analytic process because hopefully...
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: your therapist or your analyst will let you know. Now,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of therapists find it very difficult to reflect
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: this kind of material to someone because it's upsetting. We
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: want to be nice, and we want to be supportive.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: And we're told that we should be affirming and all
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: of that. But it's not helpful to avoid reflecting shadow
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: qualities to someone. I mean, The psychoanalyst Karen Morota points
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: this out that in adult society, if you do something
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: that routinely offends or puts off other people, they'll just
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: stop answering your texts. They're not going to tell you.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, when you're kids, kids will sometimes give each
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: other really bruising feedback, but at least it's helpful. I
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: remember when one of my kids, you know, was pretty bossy.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: some of the other kids were kind of letting her
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: know that. And I, and I, so it was hard
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: to watch, but I was like, well, that's, you know,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: she's having some, she's getting some feedback, you know? Uh,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: but we don't get feedback as adults. We just have
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: people kind of ghost us or we don't get the job.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: And that can be one of the really important roles
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: of an analyst is to say, well, you know, or,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: or therapist. Um, I think I can see maybe how
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: that happened, because, you know, sometimes I experience you this
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: way and it's possible that other people experience you that
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: way too and they might find that off-putting.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: So it's hard to hear, but the reality is it's
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: happening anyway. It's not as if you can just avoid
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: it and, you know, that somebody's kind of rubbing your
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: nose in it. It's acting on you. To use the
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: example you just gave us, people are constantly ghosting this person.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: And the person is just bewildered and hurt and insulted
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: and angry and, whoa, let's just take a look at this.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: something is happening. And usually there is data, just behavioral dynamics.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: It's not that a therapist or an analyst is going
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: to say, well, you know, you always just come across like,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: it's like last week, I remember you mentioned this and
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: the week before, and then, you know, a number of
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: times this has come up. So to lift up the
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: behavioral dynamics, or outer world dynamics. And also to say, well,
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: you know, this is welcome to the land of shadow.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: And it is bruising to the ego as it always is.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: We have these images of ourselves, our personas, the bright, shiny,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: wonderful face we want to show to the world. But
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: not only is that not true, It's not all we are.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: And some of those traits that are not in good
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: service to us in the waking world, if we can
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: import them into consciousness, they can be really of service.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: A person whose shadow is very needy can learn how
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: to seek help, learn how to seek support. I'd like
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: to ask for support. And who do I want to
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: ask for support for what? Somebody who is ambitious. Go team.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: How do you use that for your own life and
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: your development? So it's our unconsciousness that's doing us in.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Not likely, not likely the trait itself.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Well, and I just want to say that that's really
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: well put, Deb. And I just, I want to say
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: another word about being a therapist because there are a
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: lot of therapists that listen to us. When someone's, let's say,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: been perpetually ghosted and maybe has gotten like this much
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: feedback and relays that to you in session and you
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: can see what, like you can draw the lines and
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: you think you know what's going on, we feel like,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm I'm thinking of many times that this
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: has happened and it's like all my impulse is I
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: just want to comfort the person and the person maybe
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: feels outraged and like, why does this always happen? And
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: people are wrong and people are bad. And there's a
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: part of me that wants to go, yeah, people suck
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: that they keep doing that to you. that's not ultimately helpful.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: If you think you know what's happening, you know, you
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: need to stick your courage to the sticking point and
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: say something, you know, here's what might be happening. That's,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: you know, you need to do it gently, like you
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: did with me, Joseph. But you got to give some
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: people helpful feedback.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: And we have to just be comfortable with fact that
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: there are these feelings in the room without rushing to
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: comfort and gloss them over and change it to a
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: good feeling of like, well, this is really very big
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: and there's a big feeling in the room and we together,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: we can tolerate that. We can look at it. We
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: can be curious about it. we don't have to run
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: away from it. That's part of what the problem is,
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: is the running away from it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So let's come back to the idea of, um, you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: hunting for shadow, fishing for shadow, which is, you know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: someone's told me that we all have shadow and now
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go on the hunt and try to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: bag me or net me a shadow. And, uh, And
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: so there we are, you know, out in the jungle
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of our lives, you know, looking for evidence of it.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: And one thing that we've said is, you know, we're
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: scanning the horizon and it's the thing that we have
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: a very strong, often negative reaction to. So let's just
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: choose something that is very common in the shadow forest,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: which is dishonest. Oh, that person is such a liar.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: They're so dishonest. Now dishonest sounds pretty whitewashed. A liar,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: a cheat. So because we have a really intense reaction,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it's not just like, oh, that's not very nice. But you,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: like your face gets red when you're talking about it.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: One of the things that's difficult is that the word
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that our psyche uses to accuse the other is lie.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: code for something in the shadow that you actually language differently,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: but it's the same thing.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Interesting. Say more.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: So one of the ways, because what I'll see in
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: superficial treatments of this, oh, you accuse them of being
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a liar, so you must be a liar. And then
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: people walk around saying, I'm not a liar. But what
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: it is, it's actually just the word, that you're not
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: allowed to think of yourself as a liar. So one
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of the things that you can do once you hear yourself.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: A liar, you know, and you're.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Snorting, is to just look up a long list of synonyms.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm not a liar, but are you ever misleading?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Are you ever evasive? Dissembling? Ambiguous. Economical with the truth. Misleading.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Do you ever blur the truth? Just spin doctor a
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: little bit of this or that. Maybe sometimes you're just
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: a little calculative. Or have you ever just tossed around
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: some obscure facts? Have you ever tried to disguise something?
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, because... the blanket word,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the hiding word, which is liar. And we lift that
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: up and then all these little moths come out.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: And make that sound. That's great, that's great, yeah.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: But then all of a sudden it's like, oh, oh yeah.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I never thought that lying was just like me half-truthing
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: something over here.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So we have to be tricky with ourselves So you
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: take the word that you use, you take the accusational word,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: which is the way that your defense system tases the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: information and keeps it in the land of the bad people,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and you find the synonyms, which actually creates the bridge
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: between who you are now and that other difficult self-confession. Mm-hmm.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: That's great, Joseph. There's a bunch of things that you said.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: First of all, I love that even the term you
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: ended with, self-confession. But this idea, you're exactly right, that
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: it's never, when we get incensed and outraged, for example,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: whether it's by a friend or a colleague, a work
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: colleague or a sibling or a politician, right? if we
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: have a really kind of strong outsized reaction to something
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: that someone did, even if it's, you know, genuinely horrible,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: if we can feel that it's just sort of, it
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: has so much energy for us, it's like, okay, but
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: where's that in me? But like you're saying, it's not,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: it's not going to look exactly as it looks. And
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: so finding it in ourselves is, I love your idea
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: about just going to a thesaurus and just looking at
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: the language. That's really great. So what we're talking about
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: is projection. Yes.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: That's exactly what we've been veering into.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you want to take it away, Deb, and
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: talk a little bit about that?
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: First of all, here's another process that, like shadow itself,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: is unconscious. So it just happens. In the blink of
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: an eye, uh, and it bypasses consciousness, you know, that
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: that person is a liar. Oh my God. I can't believe, well,
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: you know, we have the outrage. We have what the
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: person did. Um, we have our feelings. It's clearly out there.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: And then we can do the process that we've just
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: articulated about looking for synonyms. But projection is also how
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: we first encounter the world. And I like to think
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: of it, here's my image for it. It's like one
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: of those big rolls of film that come in one
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: of those great big round flat cans that's about this high. If,
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: in fact, that's the way film comes anymore.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: I don't think it comes like that anymore. Once upon
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: a time.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: But while it's all rolled up and it's in the can,
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: you can't see the movie. It has to be out
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: there so we can see it. If it's in here...
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: I don't have a way to observe it, to know it.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: It's sort of like asking myself, what is my spleen doing?
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: Beats me. So first it goes out there, and then
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: we have to take it in, which is what you
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: were talking about, Joseph, with looking up the synonyms. I
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: see it in this person. You know, that despicable guy
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: from two floors below in the terrible department where they
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: never do anything right. And that gives us a chance
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: to see it and bring it back inside of where
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: might that be in me. And your point, Lisa, is
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: so well taken that when we're outraged, when our feeling
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: is out of proportion, Then we know like, whoa, something's
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: happening in me. I'll loop back to what I said
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: at the beginning too. Just notice your feeling reactions. You
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: have a big feeling about something, notice. And then ask
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: yourself more about that later, you know, when the flames
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: have died down.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's something called like emotional reasoning, right? Which
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: is a cognitive fallacy. So like that, if you feel
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: something really, really, really strongly, it must be true. And
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: I think that being aware of shadow work is a
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: time to say, well, if you feel something really, really, really, really,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: really strongly, there's probably some truth in it. And you
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: might want to wonder about what unconscious stuff is getting activated.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: So to kind of use myself as another example in
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: all of this, you know, there was this woman who
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: I knew at some earlier point, part of my life,
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: and she was a work colleague and She was pretty
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: and she was like one of those women who was
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: pretty and knew it. And she, you know, I know,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: you know, like women like that, the way they carry
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: themselves and the way they talk and they really like
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: don't mind being the center of attention and everyone's paying
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: attention to them. And they're kind of smiling and glorying
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: in it. And just the way she carried herself and
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: smiled and laughed. Oh, just hated it. And I, you know,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: and this was like, okay, so why am I having
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: such a big reaction to this and having shared my
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: story that you were not allowed to be anything but
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: very modest in my family of origin? You know, you
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: can see why that would really drive me crazy because
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: she was being, you know, kind of a show off.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: And so that was my invitation to kind of wonder, okay,
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: what in me is getting, what string in me is
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: getting plucked? And it's this potential in me to be
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: a show-off. Hello, here I am doing a podcast that
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: I had disowned. And so it just really bothered me
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: when I saw this woman.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: We exaggerate it when we're in the accusational defense. And
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: we need to kind of, it's like a homeopathic remedy.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: We have to titrate it way down so we can
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: put a little of it under our own tongue and say, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I am kind of like that.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's great. I like that, the accusational difference.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: And then over time, yeah, over time, then we can
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: actually really swallow the whole thing.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: It takes time.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: But it takes time, and we have to, what we
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: realize is by being able to say, well, you know,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I do like being a show-off, is when we can
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: say that and not feel like our stomach is flipping.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: then what we've really done is we've been able to
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: stand up against the guardians inside of us, which are
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: really the numerous reinforcements from school and parents and church
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: and every place else that have been internalized, the firing
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: squad inside of us that line up there. And we realize,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, I can say I'm a show off
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and no one destroyed me.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Or I didn't burst into flames or I wasn't struck dead.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And that, You know, maybe I can behold this of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: myself and maybe nothing horrible will happen. Now, this is
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: all predicated upon the fact that you have enough ego strength.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: And one of the precursors for shadow work and why
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: shadow work is not done with children. I mean, I
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: know this.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Do not try this at home.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: No, but you've got 11-year-old kids looking at, you know,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: TikTok wizards telling them how to find the darkest parts
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of themselves and fly that flag that we need a shadow.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: We have to put some things away that are too raw,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: too antisocial, too disapproved of until we have an ego
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: that's strong enough that you can sit across the table
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: from the show off or the one who likes to hate,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: or the violent one. And you can actually have an
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: equal conversation with the violent one that lives in the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: deep forest inside of you. Because if you can't do that,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: if you're 10 and you're raised in a horribly violent home,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and then you show up and you start being very
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: violent with other 10-year-olds, the system is going to shut
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you down and the system is going to regulate you.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: you were prematurely introduced to something that should be put
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: in the shadow.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Well, and when you're 10 and 11, the job is
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: to build up an ego.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And you have to kind of stay on the light
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: side of things, be a good boy, be a good
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: girl until you hit middle up midlife. And that's the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: other thing is shadow work is work of midlife.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: It isn't the work is 17 years old.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: And we're talking about having a conversation with, With those
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: parts of ourselves. We're not talking about acting them out.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Being possessed by a shadow is dangerous.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Unless you decide that you want to do a podcast. Nope,
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I'm kidding.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Let's just say, being a show-off, dancing naked in front
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: of your... bedroom window when you're third.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: I've asked you not to talk about that.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going to name you, Deb, but now you've
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: outed yourself. That can cause a lot of problems. But
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the idea of, I want to be seen, I want
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: to sing and dance, and I want to be free
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: in the right measure, in the right place. And you
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: can fantasize you're dancing naked in front of the window
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: while you're on the podcast. Not that I'm doing that.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: But there are places where a shadow can play. Right.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: There are ways it can be integrated, but it's a
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: long-term process of deep psychological work. It isn't a superficial fix.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: It's the beginning of the individuation process, which happens really
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: around 30, 35. Yeah. So mom, dad, protect your kids
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: from their shadow. from your shadow and their shadow, by
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: the way, let them be bright and shiny. Let your
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: teenagers stay on the shiny side of the landscape. There's
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: plenty of room to discover relative evil inside of ourselves
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and not until you've got plenty of muscle.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: I want to say one more thing about projection is
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: when we project something on someone, there is always a hook.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: So there's, you can't, my thing about projecting the show
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: off on someone, I couldn't project this on, you know, Diane,
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: the mousy accountant in the office. That's not where the
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: projection landed. It landed on this other young woman who,
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: you know, she did have a little bit of equality
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: and other people would probably agree with me when I said, oh,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: she's such a show off. Other people said, well, yeah,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: but it didn't bother other people the same way it
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: bothered me. So it was there objectively, but my response
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: to it was really disproportionate. I want to.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: Move on to another way to identify shadow. And that
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: has to do with the things we are identified with.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: You know, so if there's a really passionate identification with,
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: let's say, a political party, you know, a football team,
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: you know, a value. I am a good person.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I am. I am a good person. Yeah.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: Okay, we'll just let that go by.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: For the time being.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: But those things we are strongly identified with, and you're right.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was really funny, but it's true. People
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: that say, I'm good. I would do anything for anybody.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: See our episode about martyrs.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: So what are you identified with?
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: What feels unassailable, like you couldn't tolerate someone attacking you
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: for that?
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You're in the White Tower.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the things that comes
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: up for me about that, Deb, is I think probably
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: the greatest literary example of shadow, and one that's very
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: easy to think about, is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: by Robert Louis Stevenson. So there is the cultured, elegant Dr. Jekyll,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: who is revered by everyone in Victorian society in which
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: he lives. And then he creates this opportunity for this
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: other side of himself, Mr. Hyde, who's violent and has
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: low appetites and will do anything kind of amoral or
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: immoral even to satisfy his baser appetites. And that's an
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: extreme example of what you're talking about, Joseph. But Dr.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Jekyll's like, I'm a doctor, I'm a good person. But
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: what gets left out of that identification? What's the other
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: side of that identification? So if you say, well, I'm
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: a vegan person, What's the other side of that? Where
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: is that in you?
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: A really more modern example is that movie Fight Club.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: So this guy has a split personality, Jekyll Hyde. But
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: what's on the other side is just fighting, like fist fighting.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, it becomes this apocalyptic thing at the end.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: But the shadow thing is that all these men are
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: walking around in civil society and they're a maitre d'
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and they're this, they're that. And then all of a sudden,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: this sub-character, this Mr. Hyde, inside of this mild-mannered guy,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: begins to set up these basement fight clubs where people
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: are invited to just come and punch the crap out
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of each other. And then these tremendous scenes where he's
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: walking through the city. Men have stitches on their or
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: big bruises on their eyes and they're all standing up
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: in this very dignified way and they're just kind of
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: ever so slightly nodding at each other that this introduction
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to shadow and just this primal war making boxing really
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: shadow and the power of it and by the way
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: how many men relate so dynamically to that movie yeah
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: having suppressed that kind of male boxing aggression, that impulse
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to punch and fight, that it hasn't just been sublimated,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: but it's been so repressed, so banished into the forest,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: and men have lined up in mass to keep that
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: all so far away, that then, of course, it comes
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: back to us in theater, which is very good because
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: then we get to imagine our shadow.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: Great example of shadow dynamics and of course i had
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: to look it up but the famous um quote from
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: it is the first rule of fight club is you
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: do not talk about fight club so broke the rule
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: but it has but the point is it's brilliant because
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: it's like okay this has to remain unconscious it has
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: to remain a secret the secret yeah we can't know
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: we can't know that about ourselves It's what we can't
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: allow ourselves to do.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't know how many of the listeners
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: have seen this movie, but I remember when it came out,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: and I had no idea. A bunch of people said,
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: let's go see this movie. And I said, okay. And
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: I sat there in the theater, and I was like, oh, oh, no,
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: I can't look at that. And that was my call
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: to attention of like, wow, this is so cringeworthy for me.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: And here it is, this movie in a theater filled
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: with people. Everybody's watching it. I and maybe some few
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: other people were closing our eyes and horrified by it.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: So it's like, huh, I wonder where that lives in me. Joseph,
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: you're nodding in a particularly knowing way.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Well, because I have these experiences in theater and movies
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: all the time. One of the things that I experience
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: is vicarious performance shame.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, God.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: If somebody is on stage and they're performing really badly,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I experience so much shame inside of myself. And they
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: could be just like singing and dancing and flubbing it
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: all up. But it's like I am red and writhing
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: in the audience. Excruciating.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Excruciating.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: It's excruciating. So that's, you know, the shadow of my incompetence.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Or like that kind of naive incompetence, you know, is
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: just so painful for me to sit with.
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: So again and again, we return to the theme of notice.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Notice when you have a strong reaction to something. Just notice.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: And then get curious about it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I'd also like to say that shadow making is, can
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: happen sometimes later in life. That things can disappear into
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: the forest that used to be out front. So I
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: will tell a story on myself. So I was raised
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: in a very working class New York home. Both of
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: my parents were raised in abject poverty. And they kind
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: of slowly made it into the lower middle class. It
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: was very difficult for them. And so we did the
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: best we could. So one of my family's favorite things
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to do, and I mean like the extended family, is
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: that when you came home and bought something, you had
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: to take it out of the bag, show everybody, and
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: particularly talk about what a bargain you got. So this,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: normally it costs 70 bucks, but I got it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: It's a steal.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: It was only- $ 11 at the whatever store over there.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: And then this enormous kind of glow of approbation. Oh,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: you did it right. You did it right. And mom
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: would do it. And grandma. My grandmother, who I love,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Grandma Julia. So she lived in Queens. And she was
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: determined on a very little salary to shop for us
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: as children. And she was one of the telephone operators
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: at the Roosevelt Hotel. Back in the day where you
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: had like cords that you plugged in and out of
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: holes and you're, you know, pressing buttons around there. And
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: so she would go to a department store in the area.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: She would find a couple of pieces of clothing that
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: fit us. And then she would transport them to a
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: different department and hang them up there. And then she would,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: and then they would take like weeks to cycle back
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to where they were and she would recognize them again
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: because she would go every day after work. She would
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: take them and put them somewhere else like, you know,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: in the linen department and it would take weeks to
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: walk themselves back. And so by the time she had cycled,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: she had lost the clothing and it had been found again.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: It had been marked down to almost nothing. And so
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: this enormous shrewdness And then she'd bring home this clothing
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: she wanted to give us. Now, I was much older
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: before I found out my grandmother's technique. But there was
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: such pride in the shrewd deal. So fast forward, I'm
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: in Washington, D.C., which is a highly conservative city, and
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I'm getting my undergraduate degree. And I'm walking around. And
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the first conversation I would have with anybody, if they
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: complimented something, was to tell them what a bargain it was. Oh,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: what a nice shirt. Oh, thanks a lot. I got
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: it for $ 10 down at the so-and-so, but normally it's
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: about $ 35. And it came in red, but the red
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: one was a little more expensive, so I'm wearing the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: blue one, which was only $ 3. How are you? Like,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: that was my greeting card.
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: So this is like, why am I being ghosted?
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Like, messed up. And so this is going on and on.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: And then finally, it's not so egregious. It's not like
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: criminal behavior, but I'm like this thing that's in the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: shadow because financial modesty is very powerful and more so
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: the further South you get. And I live in the
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: deep South now. So all of a sudden, you know, I'm, Again,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: I'm in my late 20s, and no one has told
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: me this before. But I'm having someone who's much older
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: than me over to the house, and they're saying, oh,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: your antiques are great. And then I'm launching into my
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: story about how much I paid for all the antiques.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: And then she very so softly says to me, you
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: don't have to do that.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: LAUGHTER She was like an analyst. That's great. That is great.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: It was like an entire piece of my childhood just
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: tumbled through me. No one had ever said that. Again, harmless,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: but costly.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Socially costly.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Although, Joseph, I do have memories of you coming to
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: Philly for the training weekends. And I'd be like, where
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: are you staying? And you'd be like, oh my God,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: I got this great hotel room.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: $ 500 room. I got it for 99 bucks on Expedia.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: I remember Deb looking at me and like, I think
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: she's listening to me and she turns to Lisa or something.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: She's like, why does he always do this? It was
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: so mystifying. I was like, I can't stop. I can't
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: stop talking about the bargain.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: But actually, it's a great example of using and integrating
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: shadow because I admired your ability to go online and
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: check out Priceline and whatever other sources you had And
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: you've always been just great with your phone. And you
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: could just do this, do this, do this. And kaboom,
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: land on some great hotel room.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Find the deal.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: And I couldn't do that. I just stayed at the
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: same hotel over and over and over.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: The faithful hotel, yeah. Yes.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: But, you know, I mean, we're having fun with this
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: and that's, you know, I love that. I love laughing
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: it up with you guys. But I do want to
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: kind of bring it in here as we're kind of
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: getting ready to wrap up to actually what it feels
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: like to really recognize a shadow. Because, again, I think,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: you know, in some sources online, it's made to be
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: like almost like a cognitive process. Like you can just
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: find it. And then you can do away with it,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: and then you're all good. But it actually, I mean, Joseph,
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: you used this word when we were prepping for the episode,
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: and it just is so perfect. It's really deflating to
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: recognize shadows.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: It is shaming, and it is, because it really lands.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: But, you know, and I want to say it is shaming,
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: but I want to make a little bit of a
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: distinction because I'm thinking of an experience I had some
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: number of years ago where something landed really hard and
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: I could see, I could really see my shadow. And
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: that my shadow had led me to do things that
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: I wasn't proud of. And, you know, that's another thing
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: to do when you're looking for shadow is look at
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: your behavior differently. Where do you kind of act out
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: and you look back and get like, what was I doing?
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I had done something that I really shouldn't
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: have done. And it wasn't the right thing to do.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: And when I thought about why I got there, it
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: was because of this shadow quality. And it really hit
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: me like a ton of bricks. I did feel ashamed,
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: but not in that sort of shame spiral way where
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: I knew that I'd sort of it would all go
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: back to normal in a day or two. And I
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: feel like myself, it was like, it was shame, but
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: it was also something heavier and actually more substantial that
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: I really got a glimpse of my own tail. And
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: I knew I had to just sit with it. And
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: it was like physically heavy. And I remember I just
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: had to go outside and take a long walk. It's like,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: oh shit.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: You know, that is me.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's, um, This is hard work. It's really
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: hard work.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: I want to take us to a place I bet
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: a lot of listeners are waiting. I bet they go
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: there to our dreams. And Marie-Louise von Franz has this
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: great thing to say about that. She said, we may
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: resent it when one of our peers criticizes us, but
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: what about when our own dreams reproach us?
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: Oops.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: And shadow is a key component of our dreams. Shows
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: up all the time. This is just regular dream material.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: You can count on your dream maker lifting up some
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: of your shadow, which in dreams is often identified. as
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: someone who is the same sex as the dreamer. So
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: if I have a dream about some other woman who
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: is some sort of decrepit, unsavory, whatever else kind of person,
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: my first reaction would be like, oh my gosh, there
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: was this weird... person in my dream. I don't know
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: what that was about. Well, that is part of me.
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: And it might not be so big and ubiquitously. It's
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: a huge part of my personality. But it might be
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: that that was some part of me that showed up
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: in an interaction a few days ago where I felt
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: like that or I acted like Like that. I didn't
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: have a feeling of basic equanimity or equality. And I
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: felt like that.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: So if you have especially a same-sex figure, but it's
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: not always the same-sex figure in the dream.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a monster.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: That's behaving in a way that you're like, oh, that
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: was outrageous what that person in the dream did. It's like, oh,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: wait a minute. you know, that we're, you know, that's,
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: I need to look at what that, what that part
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: is and what it might mean to me. And I
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: also want to say, you know, we've, we've just finished
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: writing our book that's coming out in November. It's called
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: dream wise. And there's a chapter in there on shadow.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that, that we did that,
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: you know, helped me get my hands around this concept
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: even more. It's always helpful to write about things, to
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: learn about them is it's it, you know, a lot
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: of times it's the same sex figure, but, But sometimes
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: our dreams show us acting in shadowy ways. So we
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: have a dream where we're doing something really, really not okay. And,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: you know, it might be that the dream maker is saying, hey,
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: you better take a look at this. This is what
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: it looks like. This is, you know, it's just like
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: we were saying in the beginning. You ask for feedback
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: from people. Well, your dream maker will give you feedback.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: And I want to say that the feedback is, It's
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: not so that you can cage yourself up more fully.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Right, great point.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Which is really important. And, you know, we can talk about, oh,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: here's some feedback. I mean, it's because nobody loves it.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's painful stuff. But Jung has this great quote,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: how can I be substantial if I do not cast
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: a shadow? I must have a dark side also if
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I am to be whole. So one of the things
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: that happens is that People who have enormous shadows often
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: have very ephemeral qualities in their personality. I had a
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: friend that I passed away in Johnson City, Tennessee. And
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: she and I had a long talk once. And she
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: said she had been diagnosed with Parkinson. It was becoming very,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: very difficult for her. And she said in a deep
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: southern accent, Every morning when I woke up, my mother
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: would tell me, be nice. Every time I went to bed,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: my mother said, remember, be nice. And here I am, 55.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: My life is looking very bad. And all I can
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: think of is all the other things that I wish
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I had done that were not so nice.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: It was powerful. I mean, I felt it and she
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: was very nice in all the socially appropriate ways that
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: one can be boxed in. And then here when her
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: life was becoming very limited and there were so many
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: things she could not do because of the limits of
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: her body, couldn't even imagine doing. She was in a
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: state of appropriate grief around that. So shadow helps us.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: And shadow often, if nothing else, adds. an enormous authority
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: to the ego. I really want people to sink into that.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: When you know something evil about yourself, you can stand
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: before evil and not collapse.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: And I'm wondering if it's a good time to remind
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: listeners that we have another episode on how to work
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: with shadow. Maybe we can link that in the show,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: these show notes, and then perhaps it's time to switch
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: to a dream. Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: Join us in dream school at this union life.com and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: find out. Jung wrote dreams are a little hidden door
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: Dream school is a unique experience. Self-paced online program you
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: can start at any time that unlocks access to your
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: inner world. Our 12-month program provides the support, knowledge, and
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: guidance you need to reach within, decipher your personal dream code,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: and harness it to optimize your life. By enrolling, you'll
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: join an affirming community of fellow travelers, each pursuing a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: unique quest.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: And it's fun. Join us on an adventure to wholeness
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: and healing through understanding your dreams. Go to thisjungianlife.com and
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: click on Dream School. You'll be taken to our secure checkout.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Once you join, you'll get immediate access to our first
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: three modules. You can get started right away. We look
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: forward to seeing you there.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: Today's dreamer is a 63-year-old woman who works in a
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: small YMCA. And the dream is called The Black Light,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: The Vulture, and The Cat. So here's the dream. I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: am at work. My mother and my brother's wife show up.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: My mother is upset and my sister-in-law is trying to
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: soothe her. My mother tells me her cat is missing
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: and there's a vulture in their yard. It seems she
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: does not want to investigate, but she has brought me
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: a black light and some rags and wants me to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: look at them with the black light for evidence of
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: the cat and compare them to rags I have. I'm confused,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: but go along with it. I say it is day.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: The black light only works in darkness, but we'll try.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: I can't get the black light to work. My dad
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: appears and says, you have to light it with a match.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: I try to do that and suddenly an orb appears.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: I ask if it's a Christmas ornament. I'm beginning to
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: get exasperated and finally I say, do you want me
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: to go and see what the vulture is eating? And
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: my mother says, it's a brown vulture, not a black vulture.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: And I wake up. So her associations, or excuse me,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: her context, she says both parents are dead. I'm about
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: to enter couples counseling with my husband. Not that I
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: necessarily feel it's related, but I am apprehensive. We have
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: a solid marriage, but in some ways I feel alone
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: and emotionally unfulfilled. I was very close to my mother.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: For the feelings in the dream, she says, I wanted
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: to help my mother, but I didn't understand her reasoning.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: Why she wouldn't just face the difficulty and look for herself.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: But I was willing to look. And for associations, she says,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: brown vultures are turkey vultures. I love birds. I know
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: a lot about them. My husband especially enjoys watching vultures
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: soaring above an outdoor restaurant we like to go to.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: I think vultures signify change. Maybe they are the cleanup
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: crew of nature.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Well, my first just energy about this is out here
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: in rural North Carolina, vultures are unbelievable. unbelievably helpful. And
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: it is remarkable how quickly they will clean up carrion.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: And it's so different. I mean, for instance, when I
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: live in Virginia Beach, if some poor wild animal has
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: been hit, it'll sit on the side of the road
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: for weeks and weeks and weeks. If an animal dies
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: at the side of the road in North Carolina, it
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: is gone the next day. I mean, Which is so
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: remarkable that the cleansing effect of the turkey vultures and
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: how effective they are at kind of policing the world
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: and facilitating this putrefaction. It's remarkable, actually.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: And have you heard of a sky funeral?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I have.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: No, what is it?
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm not sure what sect it is, but there's
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: a religious sect in India. And Joseph, do you know
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: who it is that practices this?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: I know that it is in Tibet. It may also
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: be in India, but it is a common practice in Tibet.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: So when you die, they take the body, and I
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: believe they tack it into pieces, and they put it
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: ceremonially on a mountaintop. for the carrion to come and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: feed on it.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Actually, the family observes that it is part of that
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: all things rise, all things sustain, and all things dissolve.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: And seeing the rise and the dissolution of the body
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: as part of the larger natural cycle.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: So there is something really archetypal here. So it's a...
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: It's not a dream that's immediately clear to me, but
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: let's just look at it. My mother and my brother's
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: wife show up. My mother is upset. My sister-in-law is
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: trying to soothe her. So we have, this is really
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: about the mother. Yeah, three women.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: But let's pause for a second, because I think it's important.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: I am at work.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: And my mother and brother show up. So it could
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: be relevant to wonder if this is in the work complex.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: And that all these other really powerful complexes could be
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: intruding on the work environment and the psyche wants perhaps
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: that to be seen.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: So there's sort of an implication. The cat is missing
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: and there's a vulture in the yard. And at the end,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: she says, do you want me to go and see
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: what the vulture is eating? So somehow I think there's
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: an implication there. That the cat has been eaten by
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: a vulture. We never come out and say that, but
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: that seems to be the fear maybe that's floating around
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: through the dream, is that the mother's cat.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Except that would only happen if the cat was dead.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: And in forensic crime scenes, you use the black light
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: to find evidence of bloodstains.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: Oh. I was wondering about the black light.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Because they fluoresce.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: Do they?
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: They do.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how do you know this, Joseph?
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: I think I've seen this in a bazillion movies.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: Oh, okay. Your past life as a detective. What I
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: am going to is the very beginning of I'm at work.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: There are three women, and then all this stuff about
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: the black light, which I didn't know about, Dad appears.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: How do we get the black light to work? But
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: you can't do it. It's a Christmas ornament. All this
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: is sort of distractions. And then we get to, you
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: should pardon the phrase, the meat of the matter. And
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: she says, do you want me to go see what
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: the vulture is eating? You know, and that there is
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: the common sense, you know, forget about the rags and
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: the black light and whether it's a Christmas ornament and
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: all the rest of it. Nobody wants to go and look.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: And then the mother says it's a brown vulture, not
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: a black vulture. Well, you know, it could be a
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: purple vulture. But the point is we haven't done the sensible,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: direct thing, which is to go and look, which makes
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: me wonder about what is it perhaps that is not
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: being looked at in waking life where there are all
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: these machinations about lights and orbs and what color vultures
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: are and all the rest of it. And I wonder
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: about what she says in her associations about entering couples counseling.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, it sounds like couples counseling is making
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: her a little apprehensive because what will she find when
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: she looks and, And I do wonder a little bit
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: sort of like why the mother is showing up, right?
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: And so I would have a question for the streamer.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: What was your parents' experience? marriage like? What did you
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: see there? And, and, uh, you know, because it sounds
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: like there's, it sounds like something about the mother complex
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: doesn't want to know. Doesn't want, she doesn't want it investigated.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: She's upset that her cat is missing, but she doesn't
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: want it investigated.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: So all of that, I want to parse it out
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: because I think there's a lot of subtle material moving
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: through this. So the mother complex shows up and the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: sister-in-law is trying to soothe her. So you might imagine
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: that the sister-in-law is more of a shadow figure. So
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: what we have now picturing is that there's an aspect
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: of her own shadow that that is still focused heavily
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: on her deceased mother and is holding this concern that
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: the mother is distressed and something is to be done.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: So what this makes me think is that one of
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: the great difficulties when anyone who's close to us dies
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: is that we have to live with the narrative that
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: we have about our relationship to that person. And often
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: this happens when we retrospect on the death of a parent,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: for instance, we can often be left with guilt and regrets,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: things that we wish we had said, things we wish
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: we had done, things that we are bearing that in
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: some way are unresolved. So the shadow is aware of
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the mother's suffering. The ego is not comforting her. The
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: shadow is comforting her. Now, How useful it might be
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: for someone to discover that I am unconsciously hovering around
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: the distress of the mother. Could that be relevant to
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: the work environment? Very much so. It could very well
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: be that there's someone in the work environment that she
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: is unconsciously relating to like a mother. And is she
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: being overly solicitous in some fashion? Overly soothing, overly caretaking.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: So just one question. But let's assume this has to
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: do with her own unresolved material with her own mother.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: The mother then seems to be giving the problem, the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: thing she is being soothed around, which is that her
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: cat is missing and the black light shows up as
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: possibly a forensic thing and By asking her to look
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: at her own rags and see if there is blood
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: on them, potentially, or her rags, the issue is that
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: the archetypal feminine on some level is missing. What does
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: it mean to have a mother whose instinctive feminine is missing?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: And what might the impact be relative to her marriage
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: if she associates it there? or relative to how she
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: deports herself in the work environment. If the mother had
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: no access to her cat energy, which is an enormously
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: important dynamic in the feminine, is it possible that the
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: dreamer also doesn't know how to recognize her cat energy?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that her cat is dead, but it
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: may mean she doesn't know what that looks like as
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: often is true. If the parents, can't put words, or
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: really are not conscious of something, often then is the
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: work of the child, or now the adult, to figure
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: out what that might mean. Rags are often used to
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: clean things up, right? We have a rag pile. We
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: use it to scrub, to dust, to this, to that.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: You have rags in a garage to wipe up the grease.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: So rags are evidence of the things that have been
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: cleaned up. So she feels confused, understandably, And then the
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: thing that would reveal the hidden information, which is the
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: black light doesn't work. Suddenly the father appears. This is
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: the first masculine image and the father often associated with
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: logos and ego consciousness lights offers a match. And then
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: suddenly there's, a glowing orb that doesn't seem to be
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: revealing anything about the black light, but is associated with
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: Christmas around the winter solstice, which is associated with the
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: birth of light. So we have this abandonment of looking
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: into the darkness for the answer. And so now we're
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: going to look into the light for something. The orb
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: is also a symbol of the self. So it may
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: also be that she has been looking into the unconscious,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: and perhaps there's a question as to whether or not
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: she really can discover what she is looking for in
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: the retrospective position, looking back to the dead mother, looking
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: back to the childhood, perhaps. The light and the orb
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: may offer a prospective position, which is, Maybe it's time
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: to look forward to the birth of new light, Christmas,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: to the birth of the new child inside of you,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: the divine child. She can't make sense of any of it,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: and she's exasperated. I don't know what's going on with
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: my mother. I don't know what's going on with my father.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Will anybody tell me what they want from me? Pause.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: That's the problem. Because it's at that moment we see
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: that the dreamer is caught in the poella. Will some
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: parental figure make sense of what's happening here? Tell me
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: who to be and what to do. And that brings
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: us full circle to the work situation, which is if
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: you're projecting mom or dad or any number of things
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: onto the work authority figures and you're sitting there saying,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: will someone just tell me what to do? She has
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: no initiative. And the sad thing is, if you had
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: an inner cat, you'd have initiative. Because cats are remarkably
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: self-determining creatures and they will maraud through your house and
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: do whatever the hell they want to do. So I
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: think the moral of the story for me is, go
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: find a cat inside of yourself and you might not
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: need to ask the parental figures inside of you and
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: outside of you, what you're supposed to do or how
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to understand what's going on around you. Whew. Yeah.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: Um, I have that, that sort of pinged a few
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: things for me and I, I feel like I'm, I'm
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: not sure I'm going to be able to land at
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: this totally Joseph, but, but, um, this idea that, that you,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: that you had about, um, kind of the Puella. I mean, here's,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure I would totally go with Puella. But here's,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: here's what it broke loose for me, which I think
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: is related is, I'm thinking again about the marriage, you know,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: if you're like, well, I have a solid marriage, but
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: I feel kind of lonely in it. There's a way
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: that you haven't entirely owned your responsibility in the relationship.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: And I say that with all compassion because I think
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: this happens to lots of us. We want to be generous.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: We want to be a good companion. We want to
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: be a good partner. We are maybe a little conflict avoidant.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: And so we don't let ourselves know that we feel
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: like we're not getting enough. And so over time, that
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: can really kind of calcify things and create a big chasm,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: create a lot of distance. But it does kind of
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: come from almost wanting to be agreeable, of kind of
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: wanting to be told what to do, instead of kind
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: of standing up being like, no, I'm going to go
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: find out what's wrong. You know, it is, I think
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: the kind of headline for the dream maybe is there's
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: a problem and there's ambivalence about finding out what the
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: nature of the problem is.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: And I do wonder, I mean, I know it says
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: we're at work and we always say, you know, if
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: it's said at work, it might be about career. But
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: I also wonder about the word work because it could
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: be that the marriage needs work. And we do refer
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: to the work in therapy. So I, I'm, I'm, I
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: have a kind of question about that. Um, and then
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: of course, it's so interesting, the idea of black light, which, uh,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: you know, reminds me of the alchemical black sun. Um,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: that there's something really dark, but there's also light in it,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: which might perhaps prefigure what it's like to come to
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: terms with what's really disappointing in the marriage. But what
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: are the possibilities around that? as well?
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: Wow. I think you guys have done really an amazing job. And,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: you know, the only thing I can add is I'm
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: at work, but what's the work? Is it inner work?
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 4: Is it marital work? Is it career work? What work
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: are we talking about here? And then as I did before,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 4: I go skip to the end. And finally, I say,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: do you want me to go see what the vulture
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: is eating? And my mother says, it's a brown vulture,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: not a black vulture. So that is not an answer
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: to the question.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: No, it's not an answer to the question.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: And also our dream ego, as you guys, especially you, Joseph,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: have parsed out, is she's asking, do you want me
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: to go see? And I would love to change that
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: statement to, enough already, I'm going to go and look.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: It's interesting, Joseph, you did that great thing with the rags,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: that they're evidence of what has been cleaned up. And
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: then the dreamer, of course, associated vultures with being a
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: clean-up crew. So something's been cleaned up, but it's hidden.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: It's not clear what's been swept under the carpet, maybe, emotionally.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: The other thing I want to point out, because I
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: really do think this has something to do with separating
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: from the parental imagos on another layer, is that even
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: in the significant context of the dreams, She says, we
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: have a solid marriage, but in some ways I feel
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: alone and emotionally unfulfilled. I was very close to my mother.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: And that those things flow in sequence. Our writing is
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: so wonderful manifestations of psyche. The words we choose, how
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: we sequence them. So for her to just, if we
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: just change the punctuation, I feel alone and emotionally unfulfilled.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: I was very close to my mother. So again, there's
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: a way in which the mother and the father, for
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: that matter, the parental imagos, can interfere with our access
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: to animus in a woman's psyche and our access to
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: bonding to the adult partner. That doesn't mean that we're
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: behaving in childish ways or that we don't have wildly
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: successful lives, but these are Very subtle, subtle, subtle dynamics.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: So feeling alone and emotionally unfulfilled, I was close to
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: my mother. So just take that phrase. I wonder how
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: intimate and emotionally fulfilling the relationship to the mother really was.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: Because in the dream, the mother is very indirect. It's
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: very difficult to understand what she wants from her. It's
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: very difficult to understand what's happening. And the daughter is
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: soothing the mother. The mother is not soothing the daughter. So,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, we can make all kinds of stories about this,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: but the image in the dream is that the mother's
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: needs and distress are the dominant thing rather than the child's.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, again... We don't know her mother, but it
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: is possible, if this isn't outpicturing, that there's a real
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: wound there about who takes care of you and the
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: parentification of children. And is that part of the feeling
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: of being alone and unfulfilled? Does it really have anything
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: to do with the spouse, whereas in fact is a
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: much deeper relational wound that might be much more successfully
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: dealt with through a retrospective analysis. And if that were healed,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: she might find that many relationships are more fulfilling, including
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: the marital, and that she might feel connected to life
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: and to many people, including the spouse, if she can
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: move outside of the mother's narcissistic complex.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:23:32
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• 1:23:37
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• 1:23:40
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