What you will receive:

• 4 Live Webinar Sessions with Q & A
• 4 Links to the Recordings

Course Description

 “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” – C.G. Jung, CW 9i, Para. 126

Carl Jung coined the term “Shadow” to refer to the personal unconscious, that part of the mind/body that carries our rejected, unacceptable feelings, beliefs, aspirations, and behaviors. These unconscious forbidden parts – rage, jealousy, shame, addiction, resentment, lust, unlived talents and fantasies – often erupt in repeating patterns and sabotage our conscious desires. We will explore the individual shadow and how it blocks our aspirations, how it erupts in relationships and destroys intimacy, how it’s banished into the unlived life and narrows our possibilities, and how it emerges in our spiritual lives, often leaving us disillusioned. With shadow-work, we can learn to identify the shadow before it erupts, defuse negative emotions, release the guilt and shame associated with them, recognize our projections onto others, and achieve a deeper, more genuine self-acceptance and authenticity with others. Although we think of the shadow as dark, its essence is pure gold.

Weekly Schedule: Course Overview

Class 1: Meeting the Shadow: This class explores the nature of the human shadow and how to begin to detect it in yourself. You will learn how to attune to the cues that a shadow part is emerging, form it into a shadow character, and begin to “romance” it, or make a conscious relationship with it. We will explore two examples with time for self-reflection.

Class 2: Shadow-boxing in Relationships: This class explores how the shadow arises in romantic relationships and friendships, often causing hurt and even a feeling of betrayal. You will learn how to attune to the cues that a shadow part is emerging in relation to someone else and how to observe it, rather than act it out. In this way, we can break free of hurtful, destructive patterns and move toward more conscious relationships and a deeper intimacy, which I call “a shadow marriage.”

Class 3: Reviewing Your Unlived Life in the Shadow: This class demonstrates how to do a life review that connects our conscious, lived lives with our unconscious, unlived lives in the Shadow. When we bring our unlived talents and aspirations into conscious awareness, we can reclaim them now, whether they are creative dreams, unfinished projects, or new ventures. This includes time for self-reflection to begin the life review.

Week 4: Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: I set the context for exploring shadow in the spiritual arena in the post #MeToo era. I introduce the longing for the divine or god image as the hidden object of desire. Then I explain how this is projected onto human beings – in parental and archetypal projections – and how this process can go awry. We also explore power, sex, and money shadows, and how to reclaim what was lost in the projection for our own development. This includes self-reflective writing.

This course is ideal if

• You encounter repeating destructive emotional or behavioral patterns
• You struggle with self-acceptance
• You engage in the same relationship conflicts again and again
• You are in midlife or beyond and yearn to express lost talents, dreams, or desires
• You have met the shadow of a spiritual teacher or community and want to recover your inspiration.

By the End of this Course You Will Be able To

• Define the personal shadow
• Identify a shadow character, or unconscious part, that is sabotaging your intentions
• Identify a shadow character that is sabotaging one of your relationships and learn how to break the pattern
• Identify an unexpressed trait, talent, or behavior that is buried in the shadow and that you wish to express now
• Identify a trait or quality that you projected onto a spiritual teacher or community.
• Explain when or why the projection broke.
• Describe several ways to reclaim projections for spiritual recovery.

References

Class 1: Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side by Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams

Class 2: Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life by Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf

Class 3: The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul (2021) by Connie Zweig

Class 4: Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening (2023) by Connie Zweig