Romancing the Shadow

by Connie Zweig

  But we do not believe that the dissolution of the family and the concomitant lack of moral order we see around us stem primarily from an absence of moral order imposed from the outside. Instead, we suggest that in many homes the family soul has been sacrificed to maintain the illusion of the family persona. As a result, the family shadow erupts, ripping apart the fabric of life for its members.

  Like each individual, each family has a persona, a proper mask worn to gain acceptance in a unique subculture. Those families who have internalized a traditional Judeo-Christian image may wear the appearance of nice, honest, hard-working, churchgoing, charitable folks. Others, whose image is shaped more by an experience of the 1960s, may wear the clothing of free-spirited iconoclasts and reject the work ethic of the larger culture. Others, whose standard of behavior is shaped by a poor neighborhood in the inner city, may wear the mask of cool, indifferent underachievers who refuse to play society’s unjust games. Still others, who hold an ideal image of a highly educated, highly cultured family, may wear the appearance of wealth and elitism, force-feeding their young ones academic skills or extracurricular classes regardless of their individual tastes or talents.

  In each case, so-called negative behaviors and traits (rage, jealousy, adultery, greed, laziness, alcoholism) as well as devalued or latent talents (artistic, athletic, intellectual giftedness) lie concealed just beneath the surface, masked by the family’s proper presentation and forming the family shadow. This family shadow develops naturally and inevitably as the group identifies with ideal characteristics, such as politeness or generosity, and buries those qualities that do not fit their family image, such as rudeness or self-centeredness. In this way, the family persona and the family shadow develop together, creating each other out of the members’ life experiences.

  Parents, children, teachers, clergy, and friends add to the mix, helping to determine what is allowed to be expressed and what is not. For some families, emotional vulnerability and crying are encouraged; for others, they are banished into shadow. For some families, anger and conflict are tolerated; for others, they are the worst taboo. For some families, nakedness and natural bodily processes are accepted; for others, they are banned. For some families, artistic talents are supported; for others, they are considered a waste of time. In this way, anything can become shadow content; it’s not determined by the nature of the material but by how family members relate to it.

  If a young child feels violent toward another child and is told “Get over it” or “Stop that,” he will be forced to banish the difficult feelings into the shadow, along with the authentic part of himself that contains those feelings, as a natural defense against the pain of disapproval and abandonment by the adult. On the other hand, if an adult tries to understand and honor the child’s feelings, teaching him to talk them out or redirect them toward a constructive outlet, such as physical activity, the feelings are less likely to be banished into darkness only to erupt later as violent rage, dark depression, or alcohol abuse.

  Just as individuals remain unconscious of their personal shadow material, so family members remain unconscious of the family shadow, which contains buried secrets like a treasure chest stowed away in the attic. Like the personal shadow, the family shadow may appear unexpectedly, acted out in the breaking of family rules (“We don’t use that kind of language here”), impulsive acts (a child is caught stealing), compulsive behaviors (a teen suffers from an eating disorder), or mood disorders (chronic depression and anxiety). It also can be projected, such as when one member angrily blames another for a trait he cannot accept in himself (“I can’t stand when you cry like a baby and don’t act like a man”) or when one parent disowns a child’s bothersome trait (“That comes from your side of the family”).

  Families expel or hide from the shadow in another inventive way: family triangles. Partners may avoid conflict or reduce anxiety by focusing on a third person and projecting the shadow over there. A husband may displace tyrannical anger at his wife by routinely punishing a child. A wife may bond too closely with a young son, turning him into her idealized spouse and leaving her adult spouse holding the shadow. A woman may get rid of her own nagging witchiness by attributing it to her partner’s ex-wife, “that other woman.” A family unknowingly may turn one child into a “bad seed,” a scapegoat for the whole group, so that the others may carry on business as usual. As a result, the third person becomes the Other, the identified problem, keeping the temperature down between the partners and thereby maintaining the status quo, which camouflages deeper underlying patterns.

  In these ways family persona and family shadow play against one another like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in an ancient antagonism that keeps family members concerned with the outer props of life—an appearance of decency, financial security, the children’s education, caring for the next generation. But privately, deep in their souls, many feel as if they have missed the boat; they suffer with the suspicion that they have failed as partners and as parents. They surmise that there must be something more to family life than this façade.

  THE MISSING INGREDIENT: FAMILY SOUL

  We suggest that this missing element is family soul, a natural environment or psychic space that allows for the deepening and unfolding of family members’ individual souls. When the family soul is present, the members feel contained; they carry an internal connection with one another, rather than an imposed or obligatory relationship. When the family soul is palpable, the members feel deeply at home, seen and accepted for who they are. When the family soul can be felt, its members do not have to hide.

  When the family soul is present, the members feel genuinely loving toward one another and loved by one another. The Greeks had a term for this kind of family love: storgé. It refers to the naturally occurring devotion and affection that arise among family members, as distinct from agapé, spiritual love, or eros, erotic love.

  A soul-centered family honors individual differences and may even welcome, rather than repress, conflict as grist for the mill. It encourages learning and exploration of new attitudes, feelings, and competencies, rather than imitations and conformity. It works together to meet challenges and plays together to share the joys of life. The family soul creates a safe psychic space in which to do shadow-work and recharge individual soul.

  Family soul may be linked to the virgin goddess Hestia, who symbolizes the hearth containing the fires at the center of the household, the city, and the earth. There are no myths about Hestia; she merely stands firmly at the threshold of the home spreading calm, protection, and dignity. She turns the house into a home, a dwelling place where family members can feel that their own natures are accepted. When Hestia’s fires go out, as they have in so many homes today, there is no place for family soul, no calm that radiates out from the center. Instead, order may be imposed from any direction, creating a facade of togetherness.

  When this facade or family persona is strong, the space for soul shrinks. Members’ capacity to be present with each other in an authentic, vulnerable way is limited. Instead, they begin to act habitually, even mechanically, with each other, losing honesty and vitality. A five-year-old boy begins to act “like a little man”; a woman barely out of school behaves like a dutiful wife. Unconsciously, they fear risking disclosure because their feelings will be seen as unacceptable to those whose acceptance they depend upon. They fear risking nonconformity because they will be shamed and punished. Eventually, they feel that they have to hide from the very people who could offer them healing acceptance.

  Like precious heirlooms, the mother’s family shadow and the father’s family shadow become woven together, creating a tapestry of artificiality, disappointments, secrets, lies, and betrayals. If this is not recognized, it gets passed down to the next generation, bequeathing another legacy of pain. Without shadow-work, family members remain trapped in this web of parental complexes, homebound no matter how far away they travel.

  But with shadow-work the unconscious wounds of the family can set
us on the path toward consciousness. Instead of remaining profane wounds, instilling feelings of bitterness or thoughts of revenge, which restrict awareness from the ego’s point of view, they can become sacred wounds from the soul’s point of view, opening our awareness to a higher order. Instead of unconsciously learning to bury our wounds, we can consciously learn to carry them, identifying our projections and deepening our empathy for others and for ourselves. In this way, the betrayal and its wound become a vehicle for soul-making.

  If one person in a family begins to make these wounds conscious (“Yes, I can see I failed you in that way”), then that individual can bring reconciliation to the group, creating the potential for a greater family awareness and for the emergence of family soul. Learning to use the experiential tools of shadow-work, he or she can fulfill the Jewish proverb: “A son wishes to remember what his father wishes to forget.” For instance, when a man can feel the rage of his father well up in him in the presence of his young son, but instead of expressing it he can observe and contain it, he spares the next generation. When a woman whose mother remained disconnected from her own feminine beauty can discover the nature of that disconnection in herself, she can learn not to inhibit the feminine in her daughter.

  What lies in your family shadow? How is family soul sacrificed in your home?

  Facing these intergenerational family shadows, we can begin to redeem the family soul The first step is to identify the sins of our fathers and mothers.

  SINS OF OUR FATHERS AND MOTHERS: SHAME, ENVY, DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, ADDICTION, AND SELF-HATE

  Once upon a time, at the very beginnings of Western civilization, our most distant ancestors, the Titans, set a terrible precedent. Ouranos, god of the sky, and his wife, Gaia, goddess of the earth, bore six sons and six daughters. But the father hated his children and hid them in the dark hollows of the earth, where the light could not reach them. Infuriated, Gaia fashioned a great sickle, enlisted the help of her son Cronos, and plotted revenge. When Ouranos came at nightfall and lay across the earth with ardor, Cronos seized his father and used the mighty sickle to castrate him.

  Cronos later married Rhea, who bore three daughters and three sons, the first generation of Olympian gods. Cronos, whose name means time, reigned over a Golden Age with the orderly passage of seasons and the cycles of birth, death, gestation, and rebirth. But Cronos struggled against the very cyclical laws that he inaugurated. Told that he was fated to be overthrown by a powerful son, he, too, got rid of his progeny, flinging Hades into the underworld and Poseidon into the sea. Rhea grieved terribly, so when their third son, Zeus, was born she hid him in a cave on Crete and instead offered Cronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed instantly. Zeus grew up in secret and, with force and cunning, ultimately overthrew and castrated his father.

  But this shadowy pattern did not end here: Zeus was trapped by the same fate. Taking many consorts and fathering many children, Zeus believed that the offspring of Metis would be wiser and stronger than he. So, to avoid being overthrown, he swallowed Metis during her pregnancy, and the armored warrior Athena sprang forth from her father’s head.

  These three generations of devouring fathers have characteristics whose dangerous qualities reappear today in ancestral sins such as sexual incest, emotional incest, and even the murder of children by their parents. Or we might imagine these mythological fathers’ gruesome acts as stemming from envy of their children’s growing potentials, which evokes a power shadow. The terrible result: the emerging willpower of the new generation is cut short.

  This reenactment of family sins seems to be the shadow’s cruel way of challenging us to learn the lessons that our ancestors failed to learn. If we, in turn, fail to change, we perpetuate the family curse, as illustrated by adults who were abused as children who then abuse their children, and so on through the generations. Either we do some form of psychological work, like shadow-work, or the issues continue to haunt us. As Jung wrote: “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” It also appears in the lives of our children and in the lives of our children’s children.

  Certainly, intergenerational sins may be passed on in biochemical predisposition, such as in fetal alcohol syndrome, endogenous depression, or schizophrenia. But we are not using “sin” in that way. And we are not using it in the conventional way, as the breaking of religious or moral law. We refer here to sin as maintaining destructive unconscious patterns that keep us trapped in the family shadow. If individual development has meaning and purpose, as we suggest in this book, then the etymological root of “sin” applies: To sin is to be off the mark, that is, to inhibit development, contracting backward into regression rather than expanding forward into growth.

  In the psychological transmission of sins, unconscious feelings and attitudes are passed on from grandparents to parents to children or from older siblings to younger ones. The elders’ hidden conflicts, anxious worries, and buried wishes are absorbed by vulnerable young minds, leading to the same attitudes, gestures, and emotional states. Like little sponges, children pick up hatreds, depressions, fears, and addictions, even if they have never been mentioned aloud,

  These sins are transmitted in a variety of ways. If a man continually makes belittling looks or degrading remarks about his wife’s appearance, he shames her in front of the children. They, in turn, begin to devalue her, naturally identifying with the more powerful parent. At an unconscious level, the children absorb sexism, perpetuating a collective shadow; both boys and girls learn to devalue the role of wife and mother. But, at the same time, even though the shame is not directed toward them, because they love and identify with their mother they internalize her reaction. In this way, they themselves are shamed, and they learn shaming behavior.

  Eventually, they may develop a shame complex, becoming sensitive to rejection, eager to accept blame, and hungry for acceptance and approval At the level of soul they feel unworthy, debased, and unlovable, anxiously anticipating the next shaming moment. At the center of the complex sits an archetypal image: a worm, a termite, a dark spot or glob of black goop. As a result, a shame-based person longs to be invisible, to remain hidden like a sea anemone which, when touched, quickly closes up.

  Shame, then, is a gatekeeper of family shadow. It props up the family facade and reinforces denial. It encourages projection and guards against any new knowledge that might puncture the family image. Shame divides us from ourselves and from those we love. It banishes the family soul. For all of these reasons, arenas of shame point toward healing; they carry the potential for the restoration of authentic feeling.

  Who shamed you? Who is the character at the table who carries your family shame? Whom do you shame? What is the deeper need lying hidden in your shaming behavior?

  Envy also transmits family sins. A man who strives to provide for his family may envy his nonworking wife’s solitary time. On the other hand, a woman who sacrifices her career opportunities to be a stay-at-home mother may envy her husband’s achievements. In addition, she may succumb to the danger of envying her children’s opportunities as well. If she lives vicariously through her daughter with conscious pride, she also may suffer with unconscious resentment and express it with unconscious anger. If her own dreams and ambitions have gone unrecognized, if she regrets her unlived life and feels herself to be a failure, she may develop a vested interest in shaping her daughter’s direction. Her daughter, in turn, may feel trapped by the mother’s need to live through her. She may silently rage against the older woman, eventually sabotaging her own success with self-destructive acts, such as eating disorders. Or she may accommodate her mother’s wishes, becoming an obedient daughter but sacrificing her own authenticity.

  The shadowy feeling of envy, then, arises from the discontent and resentment aroused by obstructed desire. We feel that if we lack a coveted possession or a prized opportunity, we are less than the person who has it and less than who we can be. As a result, we kneel and bow before the object
of desire, placing ourselves in an inferior position, creating the two poles of have and have-not. For some, to envy a person is to project a god, missing altogether their human foibles and limitations.

  Whom do you envy? What is the deeper desire lying hidden in this feeling? Who envies you? How does it feel to be envied?

  Anxiety also transmits family sins. If a parent did not feel safe as a child and became distrusting of others, fearful of simple behaviors such as flying or driving, or unable to relax or sleep properly, her child is probably susceptible to this same anxiety. One woman, a highly successful screenwriter from Chicago, had so internalized her anxious mother’s fear of life that she thought constantly about the impending disasters that would arise from any decision she might make. She lacked any kind of spontaneity and felt dread about the smallest risks. She developed intricate perfectionistic behaviors for fending off the shadow. And her own self-worth remained inaccessible until she acknowledged her long-concealed rage at her mother’s imperfections.

  Who in your family carries the anxiety? What makes you nervous, anxious, afraid? How does an anxious shadow character sabotage your intentions? What do you need to feel safe?

  Depression is also a carrier of family sin. A parent may look at a child without hope or touch a child without warmth. A mother may not get out of bed for days at a time; a father may withdraw into television night after night. Through repetitive behaviors that suggest feelings of emptiness, helplessness, or hopelessness, a parent unknowingly leaks depression into a child. In this way the pain of depression is perpetuated through the generations, much like a contagious disease.