by Connie Zweig
But Denise’s judge character slings her arrows of projection, too. She sees Vicky as streetwise, tactless, loud, and hedonistic. She feels concerned for her friend’s welfare but does not visit Vicky’s home, distancing herself from the noise and chaos of the surroundings.
One night the demon shadow erupted and, bell ringing, the women began a round of shadow-boxing. At a potluck dinner party, Vicky arrived two hours late with the entree. She walked through the door and, distraught and panicky, looked at Denise, who shot a look of contempt right through her. In that moment, even unknowingly, Vicky’s judge character wrote off her friend.
Cronos, father time, appeared to be a catalyst: Vicky, chronically late, offended Denise, who feels disrespected when she is kept waiting. But this difference in timing was only the latest in a series of offenses that caused the women to make hurtful comments and eventually break off communication. They had reached a crisis of commitment and found themselves unable to go on.
One year later, encouraged by their mutual friends, the two women spoke for the first time. Vicky had felt judged in her friend’s eyes as loud, uncouth, unsophisticated, and out of control. Secretly, however, she held herself to be spiritually superior, closer to god. Denise had felt judged in her friend’s eyes as spoiled, too nice, and lost to god. Secretly, she held herself to be intellectually superior. Realizing the pain they had caused one another and the gold they had uncovered in their Otherness, the friends continued to share their fantasies of each other more openly and honestly. Money, which had appeared as the original shadow issue, actually camouflaged much deeper issues of soul.
RACISM AND ADDICTION BETWEEN FRIENDS
Maria, seventeen, was the only Latina student in a white middle-class high school. Her father, a dentist, and her mother, a legal secretary, moved into the white neighborhood when Maria was three years old. When she came to therapy, she felt deeply confused about her direction, her social life, and her best friend.
“The truth is hard to admit: I wish I were white. I’ve been the only Latina kid at school for so long that I’ve come to feel more comfortable with whites. Yet, deep down, I know I don’t belong. I suspect that no one really likes me; they just pretend to. They see me as brown, no matter what, no matter how hard I try to fit in. One day on the school bus all of these rowdy white boys from the football team got on at once. And no one would sit next to me. I mean, there were not enough seats for them, but they just stood up instead of sitting next to me. And I sat there, crying, in an empty seat.
“I guess I’ve felt this way forever—ugly, different, inferior. And I’m so ashamed at how much I stand out. I just want to fit in somewhere.”
Maria suffered terribly as a carrier of the collective shadow projection of racism. Internalizing white hatred of her, she learned to hate and reject herself, wishing instead to become like them, to become one of them, to belong. Because she could not bear to stand out, she tried to conform, underachieving in her academic performance and underplaying her artistic talents to avoid the attention of others. But, at the same time, another part of her wanted to prove something to the white kids—she was not ignorant, lazy, or boy hungry. She was not a stereotype, but a real human being. And their racism was simply wrong.
One evening, Maria attended a party in another part of town with her best friend Sharon. They were surprised to find a racially mixed group dancing and eating together. Sharon remarked, unthinkingly, “Gee, I wish everyone were white. I’d be so much more comfortable.” Then, terribly embarrassed, she turned toward her friend and said quickly, “Oh, I’m sorry, Maria. You know what I mean.”
The heat rose up Maria’s neck; the words escaped her. She felt shocked: Even her best friend was a closet racist. Even her best friend felt threatened by people of color. Even her best friend expected her to side with whites. In that moment, Maria felt lost, disoriented, betrayed. She knew that her longtime secret desire to be white was misplaced; she came to understand that her self-hatred stemmed from the racism of others, including her own father, who wished to socialize in an all-white world.
Maria faced a crisis of commitment in her friendship with Sharon: In uncovering her friend’s racism, she had uncovered her own. In effect, she had seen in the Other that which she did not wish to see in herself. She faced a difficult outer task: to befriend her own racist shadow in her friend or let the relationship go. And she faced an even more difficult inner task: to heal her own self-hatred and deepen her authentic self-acceptance. In some ways, Maria’s shadow-work is no different from each of ours; however, the added burden of collective shadow projection for people of color makes it particularly difficult.
Addiction also can test friendship by unraveling the threads of the Third Body. Some people find companions to act out a mutually acceptable path of action that is collectively rejected, such as getting high together. They then relate through their shadow characters, who sit at the head of the table on a drinking or drugging binge. But if one person becomes sober, realigning with the voice of the Self, and the shadow character recedes, the foundation of the friendship shifts. Then, the sober person may face a crisis of commitment, wishing to find other people who support the newfound sobriety.
Lenny, nineteen, faced this dilemma with his college roommate and longtime friend Jack, eighteen. The two young men had smoked marijuana together in high school and began to use cocaine in college. But Lenny recently found a passion for physics and decided to pursue academics more seriously, hoping to perform well enough to gain acceptance to graduate school. So he had become sober.
When Jack went on a cocaine binge that lasted for several weeks, Lenny imagined that he alone could help his dear friend by talking him down and motivating him to return to school, even though he had not succeeded in the past. “If I don’t rescue him, he’ll drown. I’m the only one who can make him sober,” Lenny said.
This caretaker character had a familiar voice. Lenny’s father had abandoned the family when the boy was twelve. In her desperation, his mother had turned him into a surrogate spouse, so Lenny knew well how to rescue others and take care of their needs. But he had never faced the pain of his father’s desertion. Many people who felt abandoned as children cannot bear to abandon another; unconsciously, they do not want to repeat the betrayal. So Lenny feels that he must take care of his friend, as if Jack were a vulnerable child. If Lenny fails to do so, if he faces his own limits or walks away; he becomes his father, whom he despises.
When Jack overdoses and has to be hospitalized, Lenny’s response is a surprise to himself: He shifts from sympathy to rage. “I’m furious at this guy. I don’t deserve to be treated this way. I mean, he’s choosing the coke over our friendship, over everything else. I hate his guts for that. Until today, I hated the drugs. They were the excuse, so I couldn’t even get angry at him. But now I’m furious. I want to move out of our apartment. I feel used and cheated. And I’m fed up.”
Like many people who love substance abusers, Lenny has to face the limits of his own efforts and the feeling of his own powerlessness as he watches his friend struggle with the demon cocaine. When this angry character emerged, he felt ashamed of himself at first. He felt disturbed that his response seemed so self-centered, rather than concerned for his friend. But the rage allowed him to separate from the rescuer character, who held him tightly in a familiar, family pattern. Lenny and his therapist cannot predict whether Jack will survive his addiction. But Lenny’s shadow-work is clear: He needs to romance the caretaker character so that he does not give himself up, witness the angry character so that he does not give up on his friend, and learn to honor the friendship with limits and authenticity. In some form, every friendship requires that we face these difficult tasks. Most of us cannot stand in for a friend’s fate; we can only stand by when he returns from the underworld.
Who is the racist character at your own table? How can you be an authentic, supportive friend yet know your own limits?
REDEFINING SUCCESSFUL FRIENDSHIP: A VEHICLE
FOR SOUL WORK
Jung has pointed out that bitterness and wisdom form a pair of opposites. “Where there is bitterness, wisdom is lacking, and where wisdom is, there can be no bitterness.” Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, he says. But wisdom is the comforter in suffering.
Clearly, our friends can be a source of countless disappointments and can evoke shadowy feelings of anger, envy, and betrayal. As these feelings accumulate in our hearts, disappointment can become the mother of bitterness, causing us to harden against our friends and turn them into foes. But disappointment can also become a strong incentive to clarify our perceptions of the Other and to modify our feelings accordingly. That is to say, disappointment can lead to shadow-work, which puts us on the path to wisdom and softens our hearts with compassion. As we develop the tools of shadow-work, we also enhance our capacities to deal with the issues of friendship: loyalty, abandonment, caretaking, addiction, racism, and betrayal.
Finally, friendship cannot be reduced to personal psychology alone; it cannot be explained away by psychodynamic patterns. Rather, friendship is a mystery, a constant source of wonder that is as near to us as our own breath. A soul friendship is a source of healing love, which can be given and taken as easily as a helping hand.
There is a story in the Talmud that illustrates the universal need for authentic friendship: When Rabbi Johanan fell ill, his friend Rabbi Hanina came to visit and asked him if he were capable of bearing willingly the punishment inflicted on him. Receiving a negative response, Hanina asked Johanan to give him his hand. When he did so, Johanan was healed.
Rabbi Hiya then fell ill. His friend Rabbi Johanan came to visit and asked him if he were capable of bearing willingly the punishment inflicted on him. Receiving a negative response, Johanan asked Hiya to give him his hand. When he did so, Hiya was healed.
With its conclusion, this teaching story illustrates the gift of the special soul friend: A prisoner cannot free him or herself. Each needs a friend, a loyal Other, to offer a healing hand. Paradoxically, the one who heals also is wounded; every friend is a wounded healer. And every friendship is an opportunity to heal and be healed.
CHAPTER 8
THE SHADOW AT WORK: THE SEARCH FOR SOUL ON THE JOB
Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
that brushes your heel as it turns going by,
the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.
Now you are only giving food to that final pain
which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,
but to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts
is the work; start then, turn to the work.
Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,
don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
and do not let the past weigh down your motion.
Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself,
for life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;
from your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.
—MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO
A first job is a rite of passage that carries weighty meaning: a separation from the family, a step toward independence, a nascent hope for a creative, successful life. We carry our ideals, perhaps our naïvete, into the workplace like a new suit of clothes. We imagine that our company will be like a family to us, our colleagues like friends, our boss like a benign parent who holds our best interests at heart. We assume that our efforts will pay off; our loyalty will bring security; our ethics will be upheld; and our energies will be rewarded.
In effect, we long for meaningful work that is worthy of our efforts, that fills us with enthusiasm or enthousiasmos, which in Greek means to be inspired by the gods. Besides earning a living, many of us feel compelled by Ananke, goddess of necessity, to contribute to the lives of others and to create something larger than ourselves.
If we imagine our own creativity, we long for beauty, novelty, and originality. We dream of getting a day job that permits us enough leisure time to write or paint. Or we dream of leaving our day job to start an entrepreneurial venture that is wholly owned and operated by us, that will not require the compromises of working for others.
Unlike the tight fit of persona work, in which we identify with a one-dimensional role, soulful work feels spacious. Ideally, it permits us to express our authenticity rather than bury our feelings in the shadow, so that we feel energized rather than depleted. Ideally, it connects us to bodily and environmental rhythms, deepening our internal harmony rather than mechanizing our lives. It allows us to make a unique contribution, which is needed and valued by others. And it connects us to something greater, a nobler purpose or participation in a larger community, which fuels our efforts.
A story about three masons illustrates how much this larger purpose affects the inner experience of work: When a mason was asked what he was building, he answered gruffly, without raising his eyes from the work, “I’m laying bricks.” The second mason, when asked the question, replied dryly, “I’m putting up a wall.” But the third man, on hearing the question, stood up and said with pride, “I’m building a cathedral.”
In a soul-centered organization, employees can risk some authenticity without fear of losing their jobs. They can also experiment with their creativity to some degree because they feel safe to learn on the job, take risks, make mistakes, and move on. Sometimes called learning organizations, these kinds of companies make room for experimentation and the creative spirit. They attempt to open communication rather than keep secrets. They attempt to honor diversity rather than homogenize workers. And they make an appropriate place for Cronos time, such as in manageable deadlines, rather than permitting this god to rule like a despot. In a soulful collaboration, agreements are honored, roles are fluid, conflict is handled through shadow-work, and the Third Body can be felt to contain the project.
There are many ways to fashion soulful work. People who work inside organizations may want to experiment with greater authenticity by expressing shadowy feelings more directly with colleagues and in this way breaking family patterns. Still others may strive to imbue the workplace with their personal or social values, such as empowering employees to innovate, respect racial or gender diversity, create energy-efficient programs, or donate corporate goods and services. Others may attempt to turn a creative passion into an entrepreneurial venture, like Mrs. Field’s Cookies, The Body Shop, or Apple Computers, thereby aligning activities that pay the bills and nurture the soul. And still others may decide to accept the limits of a day job and separate their employment from more soulful work by practicing a craft or working in the service arena after hours. Finally, we may detect the archetypal theme of our lives in our work patterns. Armed with this knowledge, we may discover why what we do is deeply matched with who we are, or why we suffer a mismatch.
One archetypal image of soulful work is Kwan-yin, the Buddhist goddess who hears the cries of the world, the sounds of human and animal suffering, and permits herself to be shaped by them. In one of her forms she has a thousand arms, and in each hand she holds an instrument of work: a hammer, a trowel, a pen, a cooking pot. The goddess has developed the skills to become effective in response to the needs of the world.
This fantasy image of soulful work, like the archetypal image of the Beloved or of the special friend, compels us to seek it out, to yearn for it. For a fortunate few, it can become reality. Work can offer the pride of accomplishment and the self-respect of financially providing for oneself and others. A rewarding collaboration can bear the fruit of friendship, as well as an inventive product or service. A smooth-working team, like basketball players in the zone, can bring the exhilaration of group productivity. And a taste of creative intoxication can leave us hungering for more.
For many of us, however, the new suit of clothes, a symbol of our hopes and dreams, begins to wear thin b
efore too long. If we are promoted, we may find that the weighty meaning attributed to a job quickly turns into weighty responsibility: We work long hours to solve problems under pressure. We are forced to cut back on loyal staff to meet budget requirements and to lower ethical standards to adjust to a commonplace business ethos: the bottom line. If we speak up against these efforts, we may step onto a roller-coaster ride that leads nowhere.
If we are not promoted, but passed over again and again, we may feel that our efforts go unrewarded. Heartsick with disappointment, we may disappear into the corporate grid and become depressed, resigned, or bitter. If we are fired, offered up as a sacrifice during downsizing or forced to retire early to bring in young blood, we discover that we are inessential and feel abandoned. And because our loyalty was unrequited, we feel betrayed.
In addition, the chances are great that we will have witnessed the power shadow emerge between collaborators as one steals credit for the other’s work; or the sexual shadow erupt between employer and employee, when a demeaning innuendo goes unconfronted; or the money shadow first evoke faint grumblings among employees, then cries of mutiny. Inevitably, work, which once glowed brightly with promise, becomes tarnished. And it begins to feel Sisyphean.
THE LOSS OF SOULFUL WORK: THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS
In a well-known Greek myth, Sisyphus, the clever king of Corinth, in his arrogance fought with the gods. Twice he achieved the unspeakable: He outwitted death. The gods, to punish his hubris, devised a tortuous task for him in the underworld: to push a stone uphill, watch it roll down upon him, and push it up again. Sisyphus was sentenced to this task for eternity.
Many people experience their work as a Sisyphean task: a monotonous, repetitive chore, a thankless exertion that leads nowhere, a useless effort that is doomed to fail. Whether they are factory workers on an assembly line, inserting the same parts into the same devices day after day; or corporate executives sitting in endless meetings in golden handcuffs; or homemakers washing limitless piles of dishes and laundry; or students doing interminable homework that has no relevance to their lives, they feel as if they are living the Sisyphus myth, as if they embody dutiful but fruitless striving.