Romancing the Shadow

by Connie Zweig

  While she gave lip service to the adage that “slower is better,” she did not understand that it is more than a tactic or ploy to reel in a man. Many relationships burn out quickly with too much sex, too many demands, or too much neediness too soon. To go slowly is to allow for time itself to influence the process: time to relax together, time to see the Other and be seen, time to get past initial projections and gain a sense of each other’s authentic identities.

  Suzanne, a father’s daughter and journalist for a local newspaper, suffered great pain at midlife after a series of abusive relationships. She felt extremely depressed, even futile about creating the kind of partnership she dreamed about. In expressing the lack of positive models for intimacy in her own life, she said: “I look to my left and I see a married couple fighting constantly. I look to my right and I see a man abusing his girlfriend. I look behind me and I see my parents, who divorced when I was three. And I look before me, into the future, and I have no image of a creative, fulfilling relationship.”

  In therapy one day, Suzanne reported overhearing her mother say on the telephone: “Oh, Suzanne never married.” She stopped cold at the simplicity and finality of her mother’s statement. She felt as if, by not coupling, she had become a Crone twenty years too soon. The therapist asked her to examine her feelings by writing the story of a visit with the character of the hopeless single woman within her, the one who never married. Her story follows:

  She doesn’t go out much anymore. She doesn’t answer the phone. The machine is unplugged. To speak to her, you have to drive up the mountain, wind around the curves, and climb to her front door, past the wild jasmine and the broken stairway. There’s no bell, no way to get her attention. You just call out her name—she’s always there. And slowly, if she feels like it, she finds her way downstairs, opens the door a crack, and lets her eyes and eyebrows ask what you want. When you say you want to speak with her, she doesn’t say much. “Not much to tell these days.”

  The signs of another, busier life still lie around the house. A computer and its printer, hardly used. A fax machine, unplugged from its source of life. She’s not dressed, of course. She wears a sheer flowing gown, purely for comfort. She sits without speaking, waiting without eagerness, without curiosity even. She sits, a vacant kind of look on her face, no rush to get on to something else, no question to fill the empty silence.

  She lifts her hands and refolds them in her lap. “I never married,” she says quietly, to no one in particular. “It’s because I never married.”

  I get up to leave. She sits while I let myself out, knowing somehow that I had received the answer to my question.

  By expressing her hopelessness and helplessness through creative writing, Suzanne slowly uncovered the rage that was buried deep within her. She was enraged at her father for rejecting her feminine beauty at a young age, turning her into a tomboy. And she was enraged at her male lovers, who also overlooked her particular kind of beauty in their search for a more stereotypically feminine woman.

  After writing this piece, Suzanne had a clearer image of this hopeless part of herself, differentiating it as a character at the table. She began to realize that the hopeless single woman was not her entire identity, but only one character of many. She discovered that her underlying rage—her fear of destroying her father or of being destroyed—was the key shadow issue. As she learned to witness and center herself while she explored her rage and her deep desire for intimacy, her depression lifted. And the one who never married gave up the seat of power and began to take more of a backseat. As she began to deal with her rage, tentative feelings of hope returned and, with them, she began to recover her passion for life.

  Both of these female figures—the ever-hopeful one and the hopeless one—are shadow characters in the single woman’s inner world. Each one keeps the dream alive somewhere in the chambers of the heart; each one lets the dream die from time to time, while the woman turns her focus elsewhere, such as to work or friends. Each one pretends to be an authentic voice. But, in fact, both use shields to defend against the appearance of the authentic Self, which lies hidden beneath the shadow.

  If you are single and ever hopeful, what loss do you defend against? What do you need to grieve? If you are single and hopeless, which character blocks your larger passion for life?

  SINGLE MEN AND THE SHADOW

  Many single men also suffer with similar feelings of isolation and futility. Noel, thirty, a youthful, athletic-looking mother’s son who worked as a metal sculptor, came to therapy with the following story. One evening in New York, when rain was pouring outdoors, he felt restless and decided to go out despite the weather. He walked to the elevator, descended, walked outside, and then changed his mind, abruptly returning to the apartment. But he could not sit still with his feelings indoors, so he put on his jacket once more, returned to the elevator, and walked outdoors. Then, again, he returned to his apartment—startled at his own behavior.

  He spoke slowly, shaking his head, “When I realized what I was doing, going back and forth like that, I started to feel nuts. I just wanted contact, I told myself. But in reality I was trying to avoid my feelings of panic. I was unable to be alone in my apartment, alone with my feelings, my unceasing desire for sex and my terror of failing at sex. I wanted women so much, but I hated them for having so much power over me.” Noel had discovered within his feelings of panic an obsessive character that, in the past, had protected him from experiencing just those anxious feelings.

  Like many heterosexual young men, Noel had spent years in emotional turmoil obsessing about women and acting out sexually. He had fantasies of having anonymous sex with women on the street, wondering if they were attractive enough for him, then wondering if they would desire him in return. His pain was so great that he had decided to put his life on hold because he did not feel loved for who he was. He had even made a decision to postpone a career until he found a woman to love him as is, “without the props of material success,” as he put it.

  Noel explained that historically woman had liked him for his intelligence; many wanted to be his friend, but not his lover. And this pattern of physical rejection had caused him great pain, reinforcing his lifelong feelings of homeliness and insecurity. At some point he decided that he would not befriend a woman unless she agreed to have sex. He no longer wanted to feel liked but not desired.

  Like the craftsman god Hephaestus, who was thrown out of Olympus for a physical deformity and betrayed by his wife, Aphrodite, Noel felt banished from the heavens of erotic love and was rejected as a lover. He had tried to escape into his labor of love, sculpture, which sustained him for a while. But before long Noel could not tolerate feeling isolated from women, so unconsciously he tried to deal with his fear and rage by proving himself sexually with more than a hundred partners rather than by learning how to be intimate. Like Hephaestus, who shaped Pandora from the materials of his burning forge, Noel longed to shape the woman of his dreams and bring her to life.

  Eventually, he became so anxious and confused that he stopped dating and started therapy. During the first year of shadow-work, he began to unravel the complexities of his mixed feelings toward women and toward himself. Using the breathing practice to witness his thoughts and feelings, he began to see his fear of sex and his problem with premature ejaculation as symptoms of his fear of intimacy. He discovered that his passivity camouflaged buried aggression, which was unacceptable and so stuffed into the shadow.

  Slowly, with time, Noel learned to listen for his own needs and to honor them. His addictive sexuality decreased, and his erotic desire became more internalized and more related. As a result, in order to become aroused, he needed to feel connection and intimacy with a desirous, receptive woman. He was no longer aroused simply by the appearance of a woman’s body part. In effect, he had integrated his sexuality in a deeper way, becoming a more sensitive lover. Then he was ready to resume the search for a partner.

  Single homosexual men also feel the loneliness and h
opelessness of a single life. But these issues are often compounded by shame, ambivalence, and confusion about their sexual orientation. Jungian analyst John Beebe describes the quintessential feeling of being gay: a strong sense of destiny to place one’s life in the hands of a person of one’s own sex, as well as the uncertainty of how to find that person.

  Many of the Greek gods are attracted to same-sex lovers, although none is exclusively homosexual. And in most cases, the immortal is drawn to a beautiful mortal man, who is assigned the receptive role. For example, Zeus seduces the innocent Ganymede, becoming an emblematic older man-younger boy pair. Eventually, Ganymede is taken to Olympus and made immortal, becoming a cup-bearer to the gods and remaining eternally young.

  The life of Apollo is also filled with stories of homosexual passion. When he pursues the handsome youth Hyacinthus, son of the Spartan king, his eros is returned. The two hunt and play together until, one day, in competition Apollo throws a discus, which hits the younger man full in the face, killing him. Apollo’s medicinal art fails, and Hyacinthus dies in his arms. From his blood Apollo causes a purple flower to grow, which bears the name of his lover even today.

  If you have felt isolated and unattractive seemingly forever, what family sin do you carry into dating? If you are sexually obsessed, what deeper feelings lie hidden in the compulsion?

  AN ARCHETYPAL PERSPECTIVE ON DATING

  As these case histories illustrate, people’s shadow issues become the catalysts for their development, bringing them into therapy and deepening their self-awareness. For people like Hillary, Suzanne, and Noel, who are not single by choice but seek a loving partnership, we prescribe a little shadow-work. They might explore which myth they are living out as a single person. They might ask themselves which gods are alive in that myth and which are banished into shadow.

  To put it psychologically, they need to befriend those parts of themselves or characters at the table that they have rejected and repressed into shadow. And they need to acknowledge and contain those persona parts that they have unconsciously chosen to play out, those characters that have usurped the throne, which keep them from attaining their desire. At different stages of life, one archetypal pattern may be in the seat of power and determine our intentions and behavior during dating, whereas at another stage a different god or goddess will influence a choice of partner.

  For instance, some women believe consciously that they want marriage or children, yet remain caught in the pattern of a virgin goddess who thrives on independence and invulnerability. Like Artemis, a woman may flourish in the great outdoors, unbound by the tasks of home and family or the ardor of a lover, but bound intimately to her own brothers. In her twenties and thirties, she may resent her suitors and keep them at a distance or choose only those who would never qualify as lifelong partners. For her, dating partners may be temporary liaisons to share an adventure, men who need a lot of distance, or female lovers.

  Then, in her forties, she may be shocked to find herself feeling lonely and depressed as Artemis recedes from center stage. Her developmental needs may suddenly contradict the ruling archetype, requiring the emergence of a new pattern, such as Demeter, the goddess of motherhood. If her ego remains identified with the old pattern, this transition can be confusing and painful.

  One woman, whose erotic beauty had seduced many men into short-term encounters with Aphrodite, suddenly found herself trying to get pregnant in her late forties with a totally inappropriate partner. This impulse swept her away like a strong wind. She reported: “My god, I can’t believe I did that!” She had not recognized the swift emergence of Demeter, whom she had scorned all her life. Rather than reduce her desire simply to biology and hormones, she came to understand that these urgent unconscious needs to feather a nest, which could have ended in disaster, reflected a changing of the gods in her psychology. And she began to hear the authentic voice that required her attention.

  Other women desperately want to bond with a man but remain single into their forties or fifties for other reasons. These women may have rejected Hera, the archetypal wife whose primary relationship is to her husband. With the advent of the women’s movement, Hera was banished to the cultural shadow, disparaged as dependent and selfsacrificing. So for a woman to allow herself to experience this pattern, she must go against the cultural grain of feminism, feeling her options too constrained, or fearing her loss of identity by aligning with a man. For some women, the long-term rejection of Hera brings depression, emptiness, and a feeling of incompleteness if it is a self-betrayal, a rejection of the voice of the authentic Self. For others, Hera does not need to be lived out and alternate sources of satisfaction suffice, such as single motherhood, friendships, and creative work.

  But, at the same time, many women were raised by Hera mothers who gave up education or career to marry, so a rejection of her involves personal shadow issues as well as cultural ones. Women who tell themselves emphatically that they do not want to be anything like their mothers, that her choices and her suffering are reprehensible, may have unknowingly exiled Hera from their lives, and, perhaps, alienated an aspect of their own souls.

  Similarly, women who want urgently to have a child but have failed to create the circumstances to support this wish may have an injured relationship to Demeter, the archetypal mother whose primary bond is with her child. Demeter, or motherhood, may be sacrificed if Hera, or being a wife, is too threatening because she reminds us too much of the mother who has been banished into shadow. In recent years, some women have chosen single motherhood and in that way allowed Demeter to emerge without Hera’s binding relationship to a man. Or they may uncover an Athena-, Aphrodite-, or Artemis-style of mothering, which is more suitable to their independent natures.

  Some men who seek a loving relationship but fear the commitments and responsibilities that accompany it unconsciously may be living the puer pattern: They are drawn to the freedom of creative possibilities but are frightened by the limits of long-term relatedness. These men feel that they are being suffocated by commitments and can only imagine what will be sacrificed if they commit to one love for a while. They cannot conceive of what will be gained.

  Like the woman who unconsciously rejects Hera, the puer man who is unwilling or unable to become a husband or father may outwardly express a desire for a long-term relationship. But when a potential partner appears or the time for commitment to a relationship approaches, the puer character steals the seat of power. Then the man feels ambivalent and confused, rejecting that part of himself which desires a committed relationship.

  Some men also deny their own desires to become fathers, perhaps fearing or resenting the provider role and cherishing freedom over responsibility. Certainly, there are few mythological or cultural models for fulfilling fatherhood. When Paul’s lover became pregnant unexpectedly, he uncovered a deep desire for a child that he did not know lived within him. “I didn’t want to become a dad. In fact, it involves everything I don’t like about becoming a more mature man—the financial limits and responsibilities, the sexual monogamy, the settling down in one place. But with the pregnancy, I melted. I discovered that I was ready.” Paul chose to give up his independent, jet-setting lifestyle in order to create a family and welcome his child, thereby uncovering gold in his dark side.

  What gods or goddesses live in your shadow? How do they sabotage your efforts at authenticity and bonding? How can you encourage their expression or begin to meet their deeper needs?

  DATING: THE SHADOW’S SEARCH FOR SHELTER

  On the outside, dating may look like a pursuit in which, traditionally, the woman runs away just fast enough to get caught. The man pursues her image of beauty, while she chooses him for his power, money, and resources. Each seeks sexual attraction, compatibility, and security on a conscious level. But beneath the boundaries of awareness, another process of dating is taking place.

  We define this inner process of dating as the shadow’s search for shelter in a projection that fits early childhood pa
tterns. By re-creating the past, the shadow tries to help us to feel safe, cared for, and loved. It attempts to achieve these ends by re-creating with a lover the primordial unity we felt in early life with a parent. Then we unconsciously transfer responsibility for our survival from our parents to our partners. And we imagine that our partners will love us the way our parents never did, nurturing our deepest needs and fulfilling our deepest desires.

  At the same time that the shadow is pulling us into the past, re-creating imaginary early bonds that we had with our parents, the force of the authentic Self is pushing us toward development, toward more consciousness and freedom. We propose that, with shadow-work, dating can become a conscious, meaningful process, rather than an unconscious, seemingly meaningless series of failures. Dating as shadow-work requires a willingness to look within and identify early childhood patterns and characters at the table, those sources of family shadow that influence our attractions and responses to potential partners. In addition, it requires a willingness to identify the wounds of previous relationships so that we don’t unconsciously repeat the same patterns, becoming wounded again and again in the same ways.

  Instead of blaming others for not making the grade (“There are no men who know how to be intimate”), or blaming ourselves for a fatal flaw (“I was molested by my mother so I can’t trust women”), we can learn to identify when a particular character takes over and re-creates the same old patterns of pain. We can stay tied to the breath, learn to honor the needs of the shadow without surrendering to them, and follow the call of the Self by risking greater authenticity. With this practice, we can become more authentic in our encounters, seeking real contact with the other person in a mutual exploration rather than showing a false front to achieve a preconceived outcome. As we become less defended and more vulnerable, we can learn at the same time to honor our own limits and protect our own boundaries. Finally, if we can trust the magic of the process, rather than strive with ego to make it happen in a particular way, it may rise to another octave—romance. And we may find a relationship that nurtures soul.