Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path with Dr. Connie Zweig

Dr. Connie Zweig, author of bestselling books on the Shadow, deepens and expands the theme of our last community gathering. Connie offers a presentation and group discussion which will move this topic into the spiritual domain.

Today we witness social media and published reports of spiritual teachers in every tradition who claim the highest reaches of human consciousness, yet who act out sexual assault, emotional abuse, and financial coercion in extreme ways—including Hindu swamis, Zen roshis, Tibetan llamas, Hasidic rabbis, Catholic priests, Protestant clergy.

Are you reading this and saying to yourself, “Not me. I’m not at risk.”

Or “Not my teacher. She’s awake.”

This denial is epidemic – and part of the problem. It leads us to look away from red flags – in ourselves and in our teachers – reinforcing spiritual naivete and often resulting in destructive behavior. This then leads us to ignore our own intuition, our bodily instincts, our sense of agency, and our intent to do no harm. In denial, we continue to imagine a religious or spiritual life without an encounter with human darkness.

How can we support spiritual teachers to add shadow-awareness to their practices?

How can we support students, before disillusionment, to cultivate shadow-awareness in themselves and to discern Shadow tendencies in others?

How can we support students, after disillusionment, who feel traumatized and betrayed, to uncover their unconscious projections and rekindle their yearning for awakening?

A fortunate few find the narrow path through the descent, the meeting with human darkness, and undergo an initiation: We travel from spiritual innocence toward a new level of consciousness—spiritual maturity. This is the dance of darkness and light in our search for awakening.

CONNIE ZWEIG Ph.D., is a retired therapist, and author of Meeting the Shadow, Romancing the Shadow, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, which extends her work on the Shadow into midlife and beyond, and the forthcoming book Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening (May 2023, now available for pre-order). Connie has been doing and teaching contemplative practices for more than 50 years.

Chapters:

00:00:00 - Introduction to the ASI Webinar and Shadow Work

00:02:46 - Connie Zweig's Books and Introduction

00:04:21 - Meeting the Shadow in the Spiritual Path

00:06:33 - Shadows in Religion and Spirituality

00:08:42 - The Development of the Shadow

00:11:12 - The Need for a Spiritual Justice Movement

00:14:36 - The Idealized Teacher-Student Relationship

00:18:01 - Unconscious Dynamics in Teacher-Student Relationships

00:19:54 - Coercion by Clergy and Spiritual Teachers

00:23:12 - Patterns of Spiritual Abuse

00:26:34 - Steps of Spiritual Shadow Work

00:29:35 - The Collapse of Projections and Inner Work

00:31:15 - Embracing the Darkness Within

00:33:28 - Discussion on Spiritual Abuse and Undefined Terms

00:34:58 - Repressing Unacceptable Feelings

00:36:33 - The Buried Material in the Shadow

00:38:07 - Projection in the Teacher-Student Relationship

00:40:09 - Discussion on Psychology and Pure Consciousness

00:41:24 - Dealing with the Shadow Side and Seeking Justice

00:43:27 - Responses to Religious or Spiritual Abuse

00:45:54 - Different Responses to Abuse in Communities

00:48:28 - Spiritual Community and Catalyst for Change

00:51:31 - Understanding spiritual abuse in a healthy community

00:53:55 - Dealing with Disruptive Individuals in a Community

00:56:18 - Reflecting on Projection in the Community

00:59:10 - Misbehavior among teachers

01:01:33 - Understanding the Scale of Abuse in Spiritual Communities

01:03:26 - Rethinking the Teacher-Student Relationship

01:05:41 - Acting out the Shadow while being spiritually advanced

01:07:31 - Tricky Situations

01:09:39 - Gratitude and Farewell