August 17, 2023 • 35 mins
Connie Zweig, Ph.D., just released the book Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening.
A guide to rekindling spiritual inspiration after betrayal and disillusionment.
Within each of us is a spiritual longing that prompts us to unite with something greater than ourselves. Yet, no matter the spiritual path we choose, we inevitably encounter our own shadow. This guide explores how to use shadow work to recover from spiritual abuse or betrayal and move from spiritual naivete to spiritual maturity.
Explains why we are drawn to charismatic leaders, what we unconsciously give away to them, and how to reclaim our inner spiritual authority. Explores how to recover from spiritual abuse or betrayal by a teacher or group, including breaking free of denial, projection, and dependency, using psychology and shadow work. It extends #MeToo into the spiritual domain and tells the stories of contemporary clergy and spiritual leaders who acted out their shadows in destructive ways, leaving their followers traumatized and lost.
Within each of us is a spiritual longing that prompts us to unite with something greater than ourselves, to awaken to our unity with all of life. Yet, no matter the spiritual path we choose, we inevitably encounter our own shadow, those unconscious aspects of ourselves that we suppress or deny, or the shadows of our teachers and their secret desires about money, sex, and power. Meeting the shadow can derail the journey, but according to Connie Zweig, Ph.D., we can learn to recover from losing faith and move from spiritual naivete to spiritual maturity.
We talk about
Our vision of religious and spiritual life must expand to include the human shadow. It is crucial to acknowledge the yearning that drives us toward the spiritual path, as it can lead us toward either ecstatic, transcendent experiences or terrible suffering. We must be wary of projecting this yearning onto an authoritarian teacher, priest, or guru who abuses their power, as this can have disastrous consequences. It is essential to learn from the cautionary tales of contemporary teachers of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Catholicism, who, by acting out their shadows, have left their followers traumatized and lost. We can learn from renowned teachers, such as Sufi poet Rumi, Hindu master Ramakrishna, and Christian saint Catherine of Siena, whose lives unfolded as they followed their spiritual yearning. Meeting the shadow is a painful but inevitable stage on the path toward a more mature spirituality. It is vital to use spiritual shadow work to reclaim inner spiritual authority, separate from abusive teachers, and heal from betrayal.
Connie Zweig, Ph.D., a retired psychotherapist and former executive editor at Jeremy P. Tarcher Publishing, is co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow and author of the bestseller The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of the Sufi Poet Rumi. She has been practicing and teaching meditation for more than 50 years.www.conniezweig.com
A guide to rekindling spiritual inspiration after betrayal and disillusionment.
Within each of us is a spiritual longing that prompts us to unite with something greater than ourselves. Yet, no matter the spiritual path we choose, we inevitably encounter our own shadow. This guide explores how to use shadow work to recover from spiritual abuse or betrayal and move from spiritual naivete to spiritual maturity.
Explains why we are drawn to charismatic leaders, what we unconsciously give away to them, and how to reclaim our inner spiritual authority. Explores how to recover from spiritual abuse or betrayal by a teacher or group, including breaking free of denial, projection, and dependency, using psychology and shadow work. It extends #MeToo into the spiritual domain and tells the stories of contemporary clergy and spiritual leaders who acted out their shadows in destructive ways, leaving their followers traumatized and lost.
Within each of us is a spiritual longing that prompts us to unite with something greater than ourselves, to awaken to our unity with all of life. Yet, no matter the spiritual path we choose, we inevitably encounter our own shadow, those unconscious aspects of ourselves that we suppress or deny, or the shadows of our teachers and their secret desires about money, sex, and power. Meeting the shadow can derail the journey, but according to Connie Zweig, Ph.D., we can learn to recover from losing faith and move from spiritual naivete to spiritual maturity.
We talk about
- Explanation of the shadow
- Why shadow work completes us
- How the shadow can be projected onto others
- Religious betrayal and spiritual abuse
- Are you being gaslighted?
- Definition of spiritual integrity
- How culture is intertwined with religious, sexual abuse
- How to pick a spiritual teacher
- Spiritual integrity
- Consequences of spiritual abuse
- Watch the movie Wild Wild Country on Nexflix
Our vision of religious and spiritual life must expand to include the human shadow. It is crucial to acknowledge the yearning that drives us toward the spiritual path, as it can lead us toward either ecstatic, transcendent experiences or terrible suffering. We must be wary of projecting this yearning onto an authoritarian teacher, priest, or guru who abuses their power, as this can have disastrous consequences. It is essential to learn from the cautionary tales of contemporary teachers of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Catholicism, who, by acting out their shadows, have left their followers traumatized and lost. We can learn from renowned teachers, such as Sufi poet Rumi, Hindu master Ramakrishna, and Christian saint Catherine of Siena, whose lives unfolded as they followed their spiritual yearning. Meeting the shadow is a painful but inevitable stage on the path toward a more mature spirituality. It is vital to use spiritual shadow work to reclaim inner spiritual authority, separate from abusive teachers, and heal from betrayal.
Connie Zweig, Ph.D., a retired psychotherapist and former executive editor at Jeremy P. Tarcher Publishing, is co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow and author of the bestseller The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of the Sufi Poet Rumi. She has been practicing and teaching meditation for more than 50 years.www.conniezweig.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:51):
Welcome to offer it the Consciousness toTransforming podcast for exceptional twenty first century leven.
We have a very fascinating show.Today, we're gonna go to the
dark side. We're going to bespeaking with doctor Connie's Wig and her latest
book is Meeting the Shadow on theSpiritual Path, that dance of darkness and
(01:11):
light in our search for spiritual awakening. And you know, sometimes, folks,
we get all caught up in thelight, the light, the light,
and we forget that there's an opposite, the shadow. And it's just
as important to explore and understand theshadow as it is to explore and understand
the light. And doctor Connie willenlighten us on this more in a few
(01:34):
moments now. The information Sheldon getOver uses intuitive and pragmatic insight to help
you shift your consciousness to break throughblocks and release energy that is no longer
needed, as we're going to helpyou let go of the BS that's been
holding you back. But you guysknow, I always ask are you truly
ready to? And by the way, folks, BS is belief system.
(01:57):
A bit about me for my newlisteners, Intuitive since birth. I'm a
third generation Intuitive with over three decadesof experience supporting people to break through the
blocks along their path. I'm astrategist for personal and professional transformation, revealing
cutting edge information that enables you toprosper and drive. I spent twenty five
successful years in corporate America as anexecutive sales professional, and I'm the founder
(02:22):
of Healing Fidgets Ministries in the NorthernCalifornia Children's Education Network of five or month
C three nonprofit. I provide consultationsand healings in all areas of life,
but heal the mind, body spiritconnection, allowing you to live your very
best life now. My clients tellme that I keep it real while providing
them with accurate information to a systemalong their journey as a spirit living in
(02:46):
human existence. But they also sayif you really don't want to know,
they don't ask on ache. Mybackground includes a doctorate metaphysics, reggy Master
teacher or day minister, and clinicalhypnotherapist. Do you a stress, depressed
or posessed? I can help Tofind out more about me and the services
I offer. Go to my websitethis money Chapman dot com. I invite
(03:08):
you to like and follow me onFacebook and LinkedIn. My guest Today.
Doctor Connie Zueg is a retired psychotherapistand former executive editor at Jeremy P.
Tarcher Publishing, and is co authorof Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow
(03:32):
and author of the best seller TheInner Work of Age, Shifting from Roll
to Soul, and a novel AMoth to the Flame, The Life of
a Sufi poet Roomy. She hasbeen practicing and teaching meditation for more than
fifty years. She's a mom,she's grandma, she's an all roundest,
(03:57):
wonderful person, and and she's awife too. Don't let me forget about
that. And you can check herout at her website. And I'm going
to spell it for you. CO N n I E c W E
I G dot com. Again,let's c O n I E z w
(04:19):
E I G dot com. WelcomeConnie. Hi'm Onnique. So for some
reason, that bio is missing thenew book title. Oh what's your new
book title? So what we're hereto talk about is Meeting the Shadow on
the Spiritual Path that just came outa couple of months ago. Yeah,
(04:42):
and I mentioned that right at thetop of the show. So we're gonna
delve right into meeting the shadow onthe spiritual path, the dance of darkness
and light in our search for awakening. Such a great title, and you
do a lot of work with thisshadow site. So I applaud you for
that. Because so many are focusedon the light, they forget that we
have a you know, opposite side. It's important to know who we are
(05:04):
in total. So tell us overall, why this book. You've written so
many books on the shadow work,Why this particular book? Well, I
started meditation at nineteen when I wasvery young, and became enthralled with sitting
(05:25):
practice and my longing for the divine, my longing for connection with the transcendent,
or what we now call non duality. And I spent a number of
years in that organization until it beganto go bad and what was kind of
(05:46):
an open system became very hierarchical.People began to lie and compete for practices.
Money became more and more of anissue, and so I left that
group, and that experience really stayedwith me. And as I began to
(06:06):
explore research spiritual communities today, Idiscovered how many of them, how many
people are going through similar experiences ofreligious betrayal, spiritual trauma, and disillusionment,
whether whatever the denomination, whether ina Christian church or Jewish synagogue,
(06:31):
with a swami or roshi, ora yoga teacher or a lama Tibetan lama.
There are a lot of scandalous allegationsabout charismatic teachers acting out and spiritual
communities becoming coercive and and so Iwanted to apply what I've learned from depth
(06:55):
psychology about how our unconscious minds were, how the shadow operates. I wanted
to apply that to our spiritual lives. Okay, well, you've definitely done
a great job doing this, andI want to ask you this question upfront
before we delve in a little bitmore. Do you separate religion and spirituality
(07:19):
or do you consider them intertwined.Well, you know, religion is very
institutionalized in the West, and spiritualitytends to be more unaffiliated with lineages or
denominations. Although there are spiritual peopleand every religion and religious people in every
(07:43):
spiritual religion, right, So myfocus is not so much on that.
It's more on the universal longing oryearning that people feel, whether they're in
organized religions or small spiritual groups,there isn't The souls yearning for the beloved
(08:03):
is what the poets call it.And that longing is what brings us to
clergy or gurus in order to feela connection to the divine and find practices
that work for us. Okay,wonderful. I just was wondering if those
are difference, because I make astrong demarcation between the two. Religion is
(08:26):
one way, in spirituality is another. Now, your book, the underpinnings
of it seem to rest on twowords to me, and that's holly longing.
What is wholly longing? And howdoes it help us? So it's
what I was just talking about.It's that restless whisper in us for more,
(08:48):
that intuition that knows there's more thanthe material world. There is more
that I am, more than whatI do. I am more than my
roles. I am a bit ofGod, spirit Essence, Buddha, nature,
Christ nature, whatever our languages forthis, there is a part of
(09:11):
us that longs for that, therecognition of that and the connection to something
beyond ego. And the famous poetgot to call this the holy longing.
Okay. And when you delve inand connect with your holy longing, does
(09:31):
it accelerate you on your path,whether you choose the religious route or any
other spiritual route. Well, thisis very individual, so some people are
aware of this yearning for more andsome people are not, but it may
be guiding them anyways. So ouryearning can bring us to teachers and communities,
(10:00):
but it can also lead us astray. So if we are drawn to
a charismatic teacher and we believe wecan only connect to the divine through that
person, and it turns out thatthat person is human, he has a
shadow, or she has unhealed woundsor maybe authoritarian tendencies and then begins to
(10:26):
act out let's say power, sex, or money, then our longing has
led us to a place, toa dark knight of the soul, you
know, to a meeting with theshadow on the spiritual path. It doesn't
mean that we're off the path,because most traditions actually include this moment,
(10:48):
like dark Knight of the soul.They have different names for it. So
this doesn't mean that we're off thepath, but it means that our longing
has landed on an inner appropriate objectthat is not treating us with kindness and
compassion, even though those may bethe words, okay, could you give
(11:09):
us an example of that place.So in chapter five of the book,
there are dozens and dozens of examplesof teachers in different traditions who were acting
out their dark sides, even thoughthey claimed to be in advanced stages of
awakening or enlightenment. And that waslike a paradox that I really tried to
(11:33):
understand and found some very interesting explanationsfor how this could be happening. So
for some examples, people might haveheard of Oshow who used to be called
Rajnish and how you know, peoplewho followed him to India and then to
(11:54):
Oregon had ecstatic experiences, and manyof them report to profound spiritual insight.
And at the same time, thecommunity really turned dark. There were guns,
there were drugs, there was conflictwith the police. There is a
(12:15):
film about this called Wild, WildCountry that's really worth watching. It's a
documentary on Netflix. And what Ifound is that there is a pattern in
all these communities that's the same.So, for example, in a Tibetan
Buddhist community in Boulder, Shogian TrumpaRimpichet founded the Shambala community, and Europa
(12:39):
University Europa became a famous university there, and he was sexually assaulting women,
and he was alcoholic. And atthe same time, he like Osho,
he wrote brilliant books, brilliant wisdomwas being transmitted, and yet he was
living out a lot of shadow material. And then the person, the man
(13:03):
who he appointed to be his heir, also was sexually assaulting people, knowing
that he had AIDS and actually gaveHIV to several of his students. And
there are many, many stories likethis of people in every tradition who somehow
(13:26):
have a spiritual line of development thatmay be highly refined, and yet get
stuck in moral development or emotional development. And because those are undeveloped, they
act out shadow material. They actout the remains of ignorance in their need
(13:50):
for power, or their greed formoney, or their desire for sex.
Some of it is cultural differences.Is because a lot of them come from
other cultures that may be monastic orsexist and patriarchal, and then they come
here and you know, they're facedwith these huge cultural differences and they get
(14:15):
lost. And so my question inthe book is two sided. What is
going on in the psychology and theunconscious of these teachers they may be priests
and ministers and rabbis also, orwhat is going on in the unconscious psychology
of the devotees, the believers,the seekers, and how do those two
(14:41):
meet? How does the unmet childhoodneeds in the seeker, maybe the need
for belonging, for an ideal parent, or for love and approval. How
do those those needs meet up witha teacher who needs to be adored,
(15:05):
needs to be worshiped, needs todeny that he's having sex. You know
a lot of them say they're celibate, but they're having sex, or needs
to accumulate rolls, royces and privatejets and so on. So how did
those psyches meet? And that wasthat was a central question for me.
(15:28):
It remains a central question for mebecause I and this is my you know,
like personal I guess wall if youwill. I find it difficult,
especially and that's why that's the religiousroute. When I was sixteen, I
was raped by the preacher in thechurch. And then you hear about the
Catholics and you know, the havingsex with the kids. That they had
(15:50):
a sex with an adult, that'stheir business, but what a child?
What is wrong in society altogether.I don't understand how they can justify what
they did with it. In mycase, it was justified with God forgives
and you know, I was scarredfor life at at that point. And
(16:11):
so how do people follow that?And then how do people still stay in
that same role with other people justbelieving in them. It's like people take
off your blinders or something. Idon't understand that. Could you help me
walk me through that in the samevein helping someone else in the audience,
my nigua, I'm so sad tohear that that happened to you. And
(16:37):
and it's also it's not that unusual, yeah, unfortunately tragical, And it's
not only in organized religion. It'salso in a lot of these more mystical
esoteric groups that some of this isgoing on. You know, Bakram,
the founder of hot Yoga, wasa total sexual predator. I mean these
(17:02):
are now there are documented reports ofthis going on in all these different arenas.
So so how can I explain this? So some of it in some
cases is about celibacy and male teacherswho are repressing their sexuality, their needs
(17:26):
and desires, whether they're priests orswamis or yogis, and some of it
is about you know that they theshadow. The shadow is anything that is
unacceptable or taboo or shameful in thatperson's psychology. It's not opposite as you
(17:52):
were saying initially, it's only oppositeego. So they present the ego to
the world and we learn what thatmeans as a child. It means we're
kind, we're polite, we're empathic, you know, we do well,
we're productive, and so on.And the traits that are that are shamed
(18:17):
or punished go into the shadow.So maybe as an intuitive you know about
the subtle body and the chokras,so there is shadow material in every chakra.
So if there's shadow material in thesecond chakra, which is about sexuality
(18:38):
in that priest or minister, andhe's unaware of it, he is at
risk of acting that out outside ofhis egos control. It can erupt outside
of his control, and if he'sin a position of authority, and especially
(18:59):
if he's narcissistic, then he's goingto feel immune to consequences. And what
happens is that the systems, theinstitutions are kind of built to protect them
and enable them. They don't wantto take down the institutions. We've seen
this with the Catholic Church since thenineteen eighties now that they have been basically
(19:23):
paying to get rid of these legalcases hundreds of millions of dollars now since
the eighties and have done nothing tochange the system that allowed for all of
this childhood sexual abuse to happen.So the same thing happens in these other
systems. They don't want to losetheir empires, and so the systems act
(19:49):
like alcoholic families where the leader slashfather is narcissistically acting and abusing someone.
The other members of the family orthe community are keeping secrets and enabling this
person in order to prop up theimage of the community. In some cases,
(20:15):
the leader is drinking alcohol or withoshow using drugs, and the secret
is the glue that holds it alltogether until somebody has the resilience to move
from being a witness or survivor tobeing a whistleblower and speaking the truth and
(20:40):
filing a legal case or speaking outto the press. Until someone is able
to do that, all of thesesecrets are holding the church or the songa
together, and so this is justlike an alcoholic family. And you know,
people who grew up in alcoholic familieswill unconsciously resonate with the system.
(21:06):
It will feel familiar to them,and they may be attracted to it.
And if they believe that this clergyperson is their only intermediary to God or
the most enlightened person on the planet, then they're going to obey. They're
(21:26):
going to keep silent, They're goingto do everything they can to continue to
have that special relationship. And Iinterviewed many, many women who had sex
with their clergy or their gurus,or their shamans or their rosies for just
that reason. They had many rationalizations. You know, it's good for my
(21:49):
evolution. I feel special. He'llnever hurt me, you know, I
feel chosen. And so the questionthen becomes what is consent? Can a
woman consent in the circumstances when theman holds her spiritual well being in his
(22:15):
power, if he says to her, if you don't do this, your
whole family will go to hell?Can she consent? Or if you don't
do this, you know you'll havebad reincarnations for lifetimes. Can't she really
consent? And so this system getsset up where that dynamic is frozen in
(22:40):
place sometimes for years. I justwas talking to a woman who had a
sexual relationship with maharishi who brought TMto the world for many years. He
was saying he was celibate to theworld, and she was having sex with
him for many years, and shewas keeping the secret because she felt chosen
(23:00):
and special. Yeah, she feltchosen special to reinforce his lie. She
felt chosen by him because he toldher that she was the only one he
was having sex with. Yeah,but he's having sex and he's telling the
(23:22):
others know he's not. So it'sall he's telling other people to be celibate.
So that hypocrisy is poisoning the system. And you know, my,
when I did this research, itwas very disturbing because this is epidemic in
spiritual communities, not just religious communities. Oh yes, you know, alternative
(23:48):
spiritual communities. It's epidemic, andit's not only about sex. I had
someone tell me, you know,my guru started out asking for tithing,
and then he asked for a portionof our income, and then when our
parents died, he wanted the estates. He wanted all the land and the
property that was left to us.So there's financial coercion going on as well,
(24:15):
and we see some of these teachersenriching themselves when their students are,
you know, doing savor or servicefor pennies. It's just mind boggling to
me how people can be so controlledlike that. I mean, where's our
(24:37):
objective thinking. I know we've beenprogrammed, you know, as children to
a certain degree, but at somepoint we have the ability to rationalize things
for ourselves, and it just seemsweird. And I completely agree with you
ten thousand percent about the abuse ifyou will in the spiritual community. I
(24:57):
was shocked. I was really shocked. So I guess it's important overall just
to be aware of what you're dealingwith. I don't have the answer to
get around it. Well. Iteach people how to learn shadow awareness,
how to recognize when you're in denial, when your own shadow is activated,
(25:22):
because you're projecting onto this person partsof yourself. You want certainty, you
want answers, you want to betold how to live. Then certain material
is going into your shadow. Likeyou just mentioned critical thinking, it's being
buried. Lots of authentic feelings arebeing buried in the shadow, like anger
(25:45):
and grief because those are not acceptablein spiritual communities, and our capacity for
agency to act on our own behalfis being buried in the shadow because of
what I've been talking about, howinvested we get in this relationship and in
feeling belonging, and in fear ofbeing excommunicated and being alone without meaning and
(26:11):
purpose, And so there is alot to lose when we leave a community,
as I discovered for myself. Atthe same time, the second half
of the book is about spiritual shadowwork. How do we reclaim all these
lost parts of the self that belongto us, that belong in our own
(26:33):
treasury, our own spiritual light,you know, our own essence that we've
given away to someone else, ourown independent thinking, and the authentic feelings,
our own bodily instincts, our gutinstinct. I had a woman say
to me, my body kept tellingme it was dangerous, but I wasn't
(26:56):
listening. So our bodily instincts areburied in the shadow, and so end
up in denial and rationalization. Icall it spiritual rationalization. You know,
people say to me, well,he couldn't be doing that, or he
wouldn't be enlightened. They're just allkinds of ways that people rationalize the bad
(27:19):
behavior in order to stay in thecommunity to get more I guess information or
whatever. It's not just information,it's it's having a place for our holy
longing. So if that teacher isthe object of our longing and we believe
(27:41):
that he or she is our salvationor our path to enlightenment, it's it's
very profound. It's a very deepand devotional relationship for many people, you
know, and so it's not aneasy it's not easy to give up on
(28:03):
it and leave, and it's notalways the answer. Leaving is not always
the answer. I mean, Igive some examples in the book of people
who stayed and really helped to redesigntheir communities, you know, to reimagine
them and redesign and rebuild. Soit's very individual answers. And for people
(28:26):
who might be listening to us andsuffering from this kind of betrayal and trauma,
there's guidance in the book about howto recover. And I also want
to invite people who are interested inreading the book. I'm creating free online
groups that are organized by your timezone, and so if you want to
(28:51):
send me an email, Connie's Wigat gmail dot com. You can put
Spiritual shadow Work in the subject lineand send me your time zone and I
will connect you to other people toread together in community online. They're free
and leaderless groups and do this worktogether. And there are hundreds of groups
(29:15):
now all over the world that aredoing this spiritual shadow work. Well,
that's excellent and I'm glad that you'reputting that out there now. At the
same time that your book, Meetingthe Shadow on the Spiritual Path is out,
there is another book that you alsohave out I don't have a copy
of it, but please tell usthe title and tell us about the book,
(29:37):
please. Well, you know,in my career of exploring and writing
about the shadow, thirty years asa psychologist and people coming to me with
their unconscious issues. When I enteredmy late sixties and began to think about
retirement, I was looking for materialto read about the unconscious attitudes and beliefs
(30:03):
and images that we have about aging, and I can't find anything. There
was not a single book about it. So I wrote The Inner Work of
Age, Shifting from Role to Souland explored how people can really detect these
inner obstacles that are unconscious and beginto make them conscious, like say the
(30:29):
inner agist, the way that we'veinternalized agism from our culture and end up
hating ourselves and our bodies as weage. So there are different unconscious dynamics
going on that will keep us froma fulfilling experience of the later stage of
(30:51):
life. And the spiritual work thatfor me is involved with aging is to
be here to shift our identities fromrole what we do, to soul who
we really are. And as webegin spiritual practices and find the right contemplative
(31:11):
work that fits us and do ourpsychological homework around cleaning up the past,
then we can begin to make thisshift in identity, which for me is
really the spiritual intention of the newlongevity. We have all these extra years
(31:32):
now to do spiritual practice and toreally move into another level of consciousness.
Yes, and you know, Ifind it interesting being in that seventy is
you know age group that going fromrole to soul. You know, when
it's happening, it's like this silentbut visible awareness and your psyche and it
(31:56):
prepares you should you pay attention forwhat's next. And I'm finding it to
be a beautiful experiment Oh, I'mso glad. Yeah, well, our
time is almost up. But I'dlove for you to give us a pearl
of wisdom that the audience can takefrom either this book or just your general
knowledge. You know, I thinkfor anyone listening, there are resources to
(32:27):
help you go deeper in your ownself reflection and your own self knowledge.
And even if you're very busy withwork and building a career, or you're
an activist in social justice areas,or you're raising a family, whatever your
circumstances, you can find some timeevery day to be self reflective and to
(32:57):
do some inner work and connect withyour shadow, connect with the part with
the blind spots that are outside ofthe light of awareness, and see how
they're affecting you. Whether they're affectingyou in your intimate relationship, you know,
where you keep having the same fightsor a friendship, or with a
(33:22):
child or an adult child, ora parent or a grand parent. How
is a shadow kind of sabotaging yourconscious intentions? And what do you need
in order to make an internal shiftto live a more conscious life. So
that's my invitation, and every oneof my books is about that. Romancing
(33:45):
the shadow focuses on relationships and theinner work of age focuses on midlife and
beyond, and meeting the Shadow onthe Spiritual Path focuses on our spiritual relationships.
So if you're interested in reading thatlast book, as I said,
with other people, you can shootme an email Connie's Wide at gmail dot
(34:09):
com and please don't forget to giveme your time zone and I will send
you to a group to do thiswork together. All right, Thank you
very much, doctor Connie. Weappreciate you joining us today and sharing your
insight. Thank you very much.Thank you money for your time the whole
(34:30):
problem. And then know the audienceappreciates listening, and I appreciate the audience's
time and their attention. But everyone, please remember the most important choice that
you can make is what you chooseto make important. Consider making the masterful
choice of reading The Shadow on theSpiritual Path about the blessings light move to
(34:51):
all a copy
Welcome to offer it the Consciousness toTransforming podcast for exceptional twenty first century leven.
We have a very fascinating show.Today, we're gonna go to the
dark side. We're going to bespeaking with doctor Connie's Wig and her latest
book is Meeting the Shadow on theSpiritual Path, that dance of darkness and
(01:11):
light in our search for spiritual awakening. And you know, sometimes, folks,
we get all caught up in thelight, the light, the light,
and we forget that there's an opposite, the shadow. And it's just
as important to explore and understand theshadow as it is to explore and understand
the light. And doctor Connie willenlighten us on this more in a few
(01:34):
moments now. The information Sheldon getOver uses intuitive and pragmatic insight to help
you shift your consciousness to break throughblocks and release energy that is no longer
needed, as we're going to helpyou let go of the BS that's been
holding you back. But you guysknow, I always ask are you truly
ready to? And by the way, folks, BS is belief system.
(01:57):
A bit about me for my newlisteners, Intuitive since birth. I'm a
third generation Intuitive with over three decadesof experience supporting people to break through the
blocks along their path. I'm astrategist for personal and professional transformation, revealing
cutting edge information that enables you toprosper and drive. I spent twenty five
successful years in corporate America as anexecutive sales professional, and I'm the founder
(02:22):
of Healing Fidgets Ministries in the NorthernCalifornia Children's Education Network of five or month
C three nonprofit. I provide consultationsand healings in all areas of life,
but heal the mind, body spiritconnection, allowing you to live your very
best life now. My clients tellme that I keep it real while providing
them with accurate information to a systemalong their journey as a spirit living in
(02:46):
human existence. But they also sayif you really don't want to know,
they don't ask on ache. Mybackground includes a doctorate metaphysics, reggy Master
teacher or day minister, and clinicalhypnotherapist. Do you a stress, depressed
or posessed? I can help Tofind out more about me and the services
I offer. Go to my websitethis money Chapman dot com. I invite
(03:08):
you to like and follow me onFacebook and LinkedIn. My guest Today.
Doctor Connie Zueg is a retired psychotherapistand former executive editor at Jeremy P.
Tarcher Publishing, and is co authorof Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow
(03:32):
and author of the best seller TheInner Work of Age, Shifting from Roll
to Soul, and a novel AMoth to the Flame, The Life of
a Sufi poet Roomy. She hasbeen practicing and teaching meditation for more than
fifty years. She's a mom,she's grandma, she's an all roundest,
(03:57):
wonderful person, and and she's awife too. Don't let me forget about
that. And you can check herout at her website. And I'm going
to spell it for you. CO N n I E c W E
I G dot com. Again,let's c O n I E z w
(04:19):
E I G dot com. WelcomeConnie. Hi'm Onnique. So for some
reason, that bio is missing thenew book title. Oh what's your new
book title? So what we're hereto talk about is Meeting the Shadow on
the Spiritual Path that just came outa couple of months ago. Yeah,
(04:42):
and I mentioned that right at thetop of the show. So we're gonna
delve right into meeting the shadow onthe spiritual path, the dance of darkness
and light in our search for awakening. Such a great title, and you
do a lot of work with thisshadow site. So I applaud you for
that. Because so many are focusedon the light, they forget that we
have a you know, opposite side. It's important to know who we are
(05:04):
in total. So tell us overall, why this book. You've written so
many books on the shadow work,Why this particular book? Well, I
started meditation at nineteen when I wasvery young, and became enthralled with sitting
(05:25):
practice and my longing for the divine, my longing for connection with the transcendent,
or what we now call non duality. And I spent a number of
years in that organization until it beganto go bad and what was kind of
(05:46):
an open system became very hierarchical.People began to lie and compete for practices.
Money became more and more of anissue, and so I left that
group, and that experience really stayedwith me. And as I began to
(06:06):
explore research spiritual communities today, Idiscovered how many of them, how many
people are going through similar experiences ofreligious betrayal, spiritual trauma, and disillusionment,
whether whatever the denomination, whether ina Christian church or Jewish synagogue,
(06:31):
with a swami or roshi, ora yoga teacher or a lama Tibetan lama.
There are a lot of scandalous allegationsabout charismatic teachers acting out and spiritual
communities becoming coercive and and so Iwanted to apply what I've learned from depth
(06:55):
psychology about how our unconscious minds were, how the shadow operates. I wanted
to apply that to our spiritual lives. Okay, well, you've definitely done
a great job doing this, andI want to ask you this question upfront
before we delve in a little bitmore. Do you separate religion and spirituality
(07:19):
or do you consider them intertwined.Well, you know, religion is very
institutionalized in the West, and spiritualitytends to be more unaffiliated with lineages or
denominations. Although there are spiritual peopleand every religion and religious people in every
(07:43):
spiritual religion, right, So myfocus is not so much on that.
It's more on the universal longing oryearning that people feel, whether they're in
organized religions or small spiritual groups,there isn't The souls yearning for the beloved
(08:03):
is what the poets call it.And that longing is what brings us to
clergy or gurus in order to feela connection to the divine and find practices
that work for us. Okay,wonderful. I just was wondering if those
are difference, because I make astrong demarcation between the two. Religion is
(08:26):
one way, in spirituality is another. Now, your book, the underpinnings
of it seem to rest on twowords to me, and that's holly longing.
What is wholly longing? And howdoes it help us? So it's
what I was just talking about.It's that restless whisper in us for more,
(08:48):
that intuition that knows there's more thanthe material world. There is more
that I am, more than whatI do. I am more than my
roles. I am a bit ofGod, spirit Essence, Buddha, nature,
Christ nature, whatever our languages forthis, there is a part of
(09:11):
us that longs for that, therecognition of that and the connection to something
beyond ego. And the famous poetgot to call this the holy longing.
Okay. And when you delve inand connect with your holy longing, does
(09:31):
it accelerate you on your path,whether you choose the religious route or any
other spiritual route. Well, thisis very individual, so some people are
aware of this yearning for more andsome people are not, but it may
be guiding them anyways. So ouryearning can bring us to teachers and communities,
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but it can also lead us astray. So if we are drawn to
a charismatic teacher and we believe wecan only connect to the divine through that
person, and it turns out thatthat person is human, he has a
shadow, or she has unhealed woundsor maybe authoritarian tendencies and then begins to
(10:26):
act out let's say power, sex, or money, then our longing has
led us to a place, toa dark knight of the soul, you
know, to a meeting with theshadow on the spiritual path. It doesn't
mean that we're off the path,because most traditions actually include this moment,
(10:48):
like dark Knight of the soul.They have different names for it. So
this doesn't mean that we're off thepath, but it means that our longing
has landed on an inner appropriate objectthat is not treating us with kindness and
compassion, even though those may bethe words, okay, could you give
(11:09):
us an example of that place.So in chapter five of the book,
there are dozens and dozens of examplesof teachers in different traditions who were acting
out their dark sides, even thoughthey claimed to be in advanced stages of
awakening or enlightenment. And that waslike a paradox that I really tried to
(11:33):
understand and found some very interesting explanationsfor how this could be happening. So
for some examples, people might haveheard of Oshow who used to be called
Rajnish and how you know, peoplewho followed him to India and then to
(11:54):
Oregon had ecstatic experiences, and manyof them report to profound spiritual insight.
And at the same time, thecommunity really turned dark. There were guns,
there were drugs, there was conflictwith the police. There is a
(12:15):
film about this called Wild, WildCountry that's really worth watching. It's a
documentary on Netflix. And what Ifound is that there is a pattern in
all these communities that's the same.So, for example, in a Tibetan
Buddhist community in Boulder, Shogian TrumpaRimpichet founded the Shambala community, and Europa
(12:39):
University Europa became a famous university there, and he was sexually assaulting women,
and he was alcoholic. And atthe same time, he like Osho,
he wrote brilliant books, brilliant wisdomwas being transmitted, and yet he was
living out a lot of shadow material. And then the person, the man
(13:03):
who he appointed to be his heir, also was sexually assaulting people, knowing
that he had AIDS and actually gaveHIV to several of his students. And
there are many, many stories likethis of people in every tradition who somehow
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have a spiritual line of development thatmay be highly refined, and yet get
stuck in moral development or emotional development. And because those are undeveloped, they
act out shadow material. They actout the remains of ignorance in their need
(13:50):
for power, or their greed formoney, or their desire for sex.
Some of it is cultural differences.Is because a lot of them come from
other cultures that may be monastic orsexist and patriarchal, and then they come
here and you know, they're facedwith these huge cultural differences and they get
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lost. And so my question inthe book is two sided. What is
going on in the psychology and theunconscious of these teachers they may be priests
and ministers and rabbis also, orwhat is going on in the unconscious psychology
of the devotees, the believers,the seekers, and how do those two
(14:41):
meet? How does the unmet childhoodneeds in the seeker, maybe the need
for belonging, for an ideal parent, or for love and approval. How
do those those needs meet up witha teacher who needs to be adored,
(15:05):
needs to be worshiped, needs todeny that he's having sex. You know
a lot of them say they're celibate, but they're having sex, or needs
to accumulate rolls, royces and privatejets and so on. So how did
those psyches meet? And that wasthat was a central question for me.
(15:28):
It remains a central question for mebecause I and this is my you know,
like personal I guess wall if youwill. I find it difficult,
especially and that's why that's the religiousroute. When I was sixteen, I
was raped by the preacher in thechurch. And then you hear about the
Catholics and you know, the havingsex with the kids. That they had
(15:50):
a sex with an adult, that'stheir business, but what a child?
What is wrong in society altogether.I don't understand how they can justify what
they did with it. In mycase, it was justified with God forgives
and you know, I was scarredfor life at at that point. And
(16:11):
so how do people follow that?And then how do people still stay in
that same role with other people justbelieving in them. It's like people take
off your blinders or something. Idon't understand that. Could you help me
walk me through that in the samevein helping someone else in the audience,
my nigua, I'm so sad tohear that that happened to you. And
(16:37):
and it's also it's not that unusual, yeah, unfortunately tragical, And it's
not only in organized religion. It'salso in a lot of these more mystical
esoteric groups that some of this isgoing on. You know, Bakram,
the founder of hot Yoga, wasa total sexual predator. I mean these
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are now there are documented reports ofthis going on in all these different arenas.
So so how can I explain this? So some of it in some
cases is about celibacy and male teacherswho are repressing their sexuality, their needs
(17:26):
and desires, whether they're priests orswamis or yogis, and some of it
is about you know that they theshadow. The shadow is anything that is
unacceptable or taboo or shameful in thatperson's psychology. It's not opposite as you
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were saying initially, it's only oppositeego. So they present the ego to
the world and we learn what thatmeans as a child. It means we're
kind, we're polite, we're empathic, you know, we do well,
we're productive, and so on.And the traits that are that are shamed
(18:17):
or punished go into the shadow.So maybe as an intuitive you know about
the subtle body and the chokras,so there is shadow material in every chakra.
So if there's shadow material in thesecond chakra, which is about sexuality
(18:38):
in that priest or minister, andhe's unaware of it, he is at
risk of acting that out outside ofhis egos control. It can erupt outside
of his control, and if he'sin a position of authority, and especially
(18:59):
if he's narcissistic, then he's goingto feel immune to consequences. And what
happens is that the systems, theinstitutions are kind of built to protect them
and enable them. They don't wantto take down the institutions. We've seen
this with the Catholic Church since thenineteen eighties now that they have been basically
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paying to get rid of these legalcases hundreds of millions of dollars now since
the eighties and have done nothing tochange the system that allowed for all of
this childhood sexual abuse to happen.So the same thing happens in these other
systems. They don't want to losetheir empires, and so the systems act
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like alcoholic families where the leader slashfather is narcissistically acting and abusing someone.
The other members of the family orthe community are keeping secrets and enabling this
person in order to prop up theimage of the community. In some cases,
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the leader is drinking alcohol or withoshow using drugs, and the secret
is the glue that holds it alltogether until somebody has the resilience to move
from being a witness or survivor tobeing a whistleblower and speaking the truth and
(20:40):
filing a legal case or speaking outto the press. Until someone is able
to do that, all of thesesecrets are holding the church or the songa
together, and so this is justlike an alcoholic family. And you know,
people who grew up in alcoholic familieswill unconsciously resonate with the system.
(21:06):
It will feel familiar to them,and they may be attracted to it.
And if they believe that this clergyperson is their only intermediary to God or
the most enlightened person on the planet, then they're going to obey. They're
(21:26):
going to keep silent, They're goingto do everything they can to continue to
have that special relationship. And Iinterviewed many, many women who had sex
with their clergy or their gurus,or their shamans or their rosies for just
that reason. They had many rationalizations. You know, it's good for my
(21:49):
evolution. I feel special. He'llnever hurt me, you know, I
feel chosen. And so the questionthen becomes what is consent? Can a
woman consent in the circumstances when theman holds her spiritual well being in his
(22:15):
power, if he says to her, if you don't do this, your
whole family will go to hell?Can she consent? Or if you don't
do this, you know you'll havebad reincarnations for lifetimes. Can't she really
consent? And so this system getsset up where that dynamic is frozen in
(22:40):
place sometimes for years. I justwas talking to a woman who had a
sexual relationship with maharishi who brought TMto the world for many years. He
was saying he was celibate to theworld, and she was having sex with
him for many years, and shewas keeping the secret because she felt chosen
(23:00):
and special. Yeah, she feltchosen special to reinforce his lie. She
felt chosen by him because he toldher that she was the only one he
was having sex with. Yeah,but he's having sex and he's telling the
(23:22):
others know he's not. So it'sall he's telling other people to be celibate.
So that hypocrisy is poisoning the system. And you know, my,
when I did this research, itwas very disturbing because this is epidemic in
spiritual communities, not just religious communities. Oh yes, you know, alternative
(23:48):
spiritual communities. It's epidemic, andit's not only about sex. I had
someone tell me, you know,my guru started out asking for tithing,
and then he asked for a portionof our income, and then when our
parents died, he wanted the estates. He wanted all the land and the
property that was left to us.So there's financial coercion going on as well,
(24:15):
and we see some of these teachersenriching themselves when their students are,
you know, doing savor or servicefor pennies. It's just mind boggling to
me how people can be so controlledlike that. I mean, where's our
(24:37):
objective thinking. I know we've beenprogrammed, you know, as children to
a certain degree, but at somepoint we have the ability to rationalize things
for ourselves, and it just seemsweird. And I completely agree with you
ten thousand percent about the abuse ifyou will in the spiritual community. I
(24:57):
was shocked. I was really shocked. So I guess it's important overall just
to be aware of what you're dealingwith. I don't have the answer to
get around it. Well. Iteach people how to learn shadow awareness,
how to recognize when you're in denial, when your own shadow is activated,
(25:22):
because you're projecting onto this person partsof yourself. You want certainty, you
want answers, you want to betold how to live. Then certain material
is going into your shadow. Likeyou just mentioned critical thinking, it's being
buried. Lots of authentic feelings arebeing buried in the shadow, like anger
(25:45):
and grief because those are not acceptablein spiritual communities, and our capacity for
agency to act on our own behalfis being buried in the shadow because of
what I've been talking about, howinvested we get in this relationship and in
feeling belonging, and in fear ofbeing excommunicated and being alone without meaning and
(26:11):
purpose, And so there is alot to lose when we leave a community,
as I discovered for myself. Atthe same time, the second half
of the book is about spiritual shadowwork. How do we reclaim all these
lost parts of the self that belongto us, that belong in our own
(26:33):
treasury, our own spiritual light,you know, our own essence that we've
given away to someone else, ourown independent thinking, and the authentic feelings,
our own bodily instincts, our gutinstinct. I had a woman say
to me, my body kept tellingme it was dangerous, but I wasn't
(26:56):
listening. So our bodily instincts areburied in the shadow, and so end
up in denial and rationalization. Icall it spiritual rationalization. You know,
people say to me, well,he couldn't be doing that, or he
wouldn't be enlightened. They're just allkinds of ways that people rationalize the bad
(27:19):
behavior in order to stay in thecommunity to get more I guess information or
whatever. It's not just information,it's it's having a place for our holy
longing. So if that teacher isthe object of our longing and we believe
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that he or she is our salvationor our path to enlightenment, it's it's
very profound. It's a very deepand devotional relationship for many people, you
know, and so it's not aneasy it's not easy to give up on
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it and leave, and it's notalways the answer. Leaving is not always
the answer. I mean, Igive some examples in the book of people
who stayed and really helped to redesigntheir communities, you know, to reimagine
them and redesign and rebuild. Soit's very individual answers. And for people
(28:26):
who might be listening to us andsuffering from this kind of betrayal and trauma,
there's guidance in the book about howto recover. And I also want
to invite people who are interested inreading the book. I'm creating free online
groups that are organized by your timezone, and so if you want to
(28:51):
send me an email, Connie's Wigat gmail dot com. You can put
Spiritual shadow Work in the subject lineand send me your time zone and I
will connect you to other people toread together in community online. They're free
and leaderless groups and do this worktogether. And there are hundreds of groups
(29:15):
now all over the world that aredoing this spiritual shadow work. Well,
that's excellent and I'm glad that you'reputting that out there now. At the
same time that your book, Meetingthe Shadow on the Spiritual Path is out,
there is another book that you alsohave out I don't have a copy
of it, but please tell usthe title and tell us about the book,
(29:37):
please. Well, you know,in my career of exploring and writing
about the shadow, thirty years asa psychologist and people coming to me with
their unconscious issues. When I enteredmy late sixties and began to think about
retirement, I was looking for materialto read about the unconscious attitudes and beliefs
(30:03):
and images that we have about aging, and I can't find anything. There
was not a single book about it. So I wrote The Inner Work of
Age, Shifting from Role to Souland explored how people can really detect these
inner obstacles that are unconscious and beginto make them conscious, like say the
(30:29):
inner agist, the way that we'veinternalized agism from our culture and end up
hating ourselves and our bodies as weage. So there are different unconscious dynamics
going on that will keep us froma fulfilling experience of the later stage of
(30:51):
life. And the spiritual work thatfor me is involved with aging is to
be here to shift our identities fromrole what we do, to soul who
we really are. And as webegin spiritual practices and find the right contemplative
(31:11):
work that fits us and do ourpsychological homework around cleaning up the past,
then we can begin to make thisshift in identity, which for me is
really the spiritual intention of the newlongevity. We have all these extra years
(31:32):
now to do spiritual practice and toreally move into another level of consciousness.
Yes, and you know, Ifind it interesting being in that seventy is
you know age group that going fromrole to soul. You know, when
it's happening, it's like this silentbut visible awareness and your psyche and it
(31:56):
prepares you should you pay attention forwhat's next. And I'm finding it to
be a beautiful experiment Oh, I'mso glad. Yeah, well, our
time is almost up. But I'dlove for you to give us a pearl
of wisdom that the audience can takefrom either this book or just your general
knowledge. You know, I thinkfor anyone listening, there are resources to
(32:27):
help you go deeper in your ownself reflection and your own self knowledge.
And even if you're very busy withwork and building a career, or you're
an activist in social justice areas,or you're raising a family, whatever your
circumstances, you can find some timeevery day to be self reflective and to
(32:57):
do some inner work and connect withyour shadow, connect with the part with
the blind spots that are outside ofthe light of awareness, and see how
they're affecting you. Whether they're affectingyou in your intimate relationship, you know,
where you keep having the same fightsor a friendship, or with a
(33:22):
child or an adult child, ora parent or a grand parent. How
is a shadow kind of sabotaging yourconscious intentions? And what do you need
in order to make an internal shiftto live a more conscious life. So
that's my invitation, and every oneof my books is about that. Romancing
(33:45):
the shadow focuses on relationships and theinner work of age focuses on midlife and
beyond, and meeting the Shadow onthe Spiritual Path focuses on our spiritual relationships.
So if you're interested in reading thatlast book, as I said,
with other people, you can shootme an email Connie's Wide at gmail dot
(34:09):
com and please don't forget to giveme your time zone and I will send
you to a group to do thiswork together. All right, Thank you
very much, doctor Connie. Weappreciate you joining us today and sharing your
insight. Thank you very much.Thank you money for your time the whole
(34:30):
problem. And then know the audienceappreciates listening, and I appreciate the audience's
time and their attention. But everyone, please remember the most important choice that
you can make is what you chooseto make important. Consider making the masterful
choice of reading The Shadow on theSpiritual Path about the blessings light move to
(34:51):
all a copy
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