"Sometimes I forget completely what companionship is. Unconscious and insane, I spill sad Energy everywhere."
--Rumi
--Rumi
Being troubled by the shadow in my own primary relationship, I thought it was high time I re-read what James Hollis has to say on the subject. The following excerpts are from his book, Why Good People Do Bad Things, Understanding Our Darker Selves:
"Our first relational messages are found in the primal bonding experiences... these parent-child encounters thereby constitute archaic messages that are always humming beneath the surface of our contemporary engagements with others. The more intimate the relationship, the more the archaic drama with its directives is present, whether recognized or not... while we believe ourselves free at any moment, how often are we in service to these archaic, primal messages, or better, are we ever free of them? Their ghostly presence in our social life and in our intimacies constitutes a continuing Shadow dimension whereby we are not who we are in the moment, but who we have been, reflexively, historically defined..."
"...the narcissistic agenda of any individual psyche will have a strong urge to impose itself upon the relationship in service to getting its needs met, even at the cost of the well-being of the other... The more damaged one's history, or the weaker one's sense of self, the greater is this narcissistic tendency and the more rigid and controlling the dynamics of the relationship... Thus, the Shadow of narcissism haunts all relationships, even the most evolved, and constitutes the ethical challenge of relationship, namely, 'to what degree can I truly love the Other by keeping my own needs from dominating them?'...
"...How many relationships are governed by the principle of love, by caring for the otherness of the other? How many are impaired, not through continuing enlargement and mutual support of their separate journeys, but by dint of habit, fear of change, lack of permission to live one's own journey, and refusal to accept the summons to their own responsibility?... love becomes a Shadow task for us all when it 1) asks more of us than that which makes us comfortable, 2) asks us to examine our own complexes and regressive imagoes, and 3) asks a greater generosity of spirit than we consider comfortable...
"...A relationship should serve the growth of each party toward becoming more nearly who he or she is capable of becoming. I do not see that a relationship in which people "take care of each other" is worthy of the name of relationship, at least not a loving, mature relationship. Love is supportive and caring, and therefore we freely offer gifts to each other... gifts that sometimes ask considerable sacrifice or ourselves. Kindness, affection, and empathy are part of any healthy relationship, and doing for the other is a gift to both of us, as long as it is not in service to an old codependency, or a sullen compliance...
"...Love asks independence of both parties, freedom, not control, not guilt, not coercion, not manipulation. Dependency is not love; it is dependency--it is an abrogation of the essential responsibility of each of us to grow up, to assume full responsibility for our lives. Not to take on this challenge is a flight from adulthood, no matter how mature a person may be in other areas of endeavor... We all find it easier to blame our partners than to grow up, or to recognize that we are the only ones present in each scene in that long-running drama we call our life. It stands to reason that we are the ones charged with its outcomes and consequences, not our partners. Acknowledging this responsibility is easy enough in the abstract, but it is fearfully challenging in the context of daily life when our will is fragmented, when we are vulnerable, and when we fall back into our archaic complexes...
"...(A typical marriage) carries and suffers the burden of our chief fantasy, namely, that the magical "other" will fix things for us, render life meaningful, heal our wounds, and help us avoid the task of growing up and facing the huge existential vacuum that all conscious souls must engage. Because life, with all its possibilities, all its decisions, is so huge, we cling to the small, and hope the Other will spare us the task of growing up. But, since they do not, cannot, and should not, we are angry with them. This is Shadow material, for it feeds on that which lies within us, that which makes us uncomfortable with ourselves, that which intimidates us...
"...acknowledging that we are the only constant in every relationship requires taking on the problem of our own Shadow."
--from Why Good People Do Bad Things, Understanding our Darker Selves, by James Hollis, Ph.D., pgs. 86-98.
"Our first relational messages are found in the primal bonding experiences... these parent-child encounters thereby constitute archaic messages that are always humming beneath the surface of our contemporary engagements with others. The more intimate the relationship, the more the archaic drama with its directives is present, whether recognized or not... while we believe ourselves free at any moment, how often are we in service to these archaic, primal messages, or better, are we ever free of them? Their ghostly presence in our social life and in our intimacies constitutes a continuing Shadow dimension whereby we are not who we are in the moment, but who we have been, reflexively, historically defined..."
"...the narcissistic agenda of any individual psyche will have a strong urge to impose itself upon the relationship in service to getting its needs met, even at the cost of the well-being of the other... The more damaged one's history, or the weaker one's sense of self, the greater is this narcissistic tendency and the more rigid and controlling the dynamics of the relationship... Thus, the Shadow of narcissism haunts all relationships, even the most evolved, and constitutes the ethical challenge of relationship, namely, 'to what degree can I truly love the Other by keeping my own needs from dominating them?'...
"...How many relationships are governed by the principle of love, by caring for the otherness of the other? How many are impaired, not through continuing enlargement and mutual support of their separate journeys, but by dint of habit, fear of change, lack of permission to live one's own journey, and refusal to accept the summons to their own responsibility?... love becomes a Shadow task for us all when it 1) asks more of us than that which makes us comfortable, 2) asks us to examine our own complexes and regressive imagoes, and 3) asks a greater generosity of spirit than we consider comfortable...
"...A relationship should serve the growth of each party toward becoming more nearly who he or she is capable of becoming. I do not see that a relationship in which people "take care of each other" is worthy of the name of relationship, at least not a loving, mature relationship. Love is supportive and caring, and therefore we freely offer gifts to each other... gifts that sometimes ask considerable sacrifice or ourselves. Kindness, affection, and empathy are part of any healthy relationship, and doing for the other is a gift to both of us, as long as it is not in service to an old codependency, or a sullen compliance...
"...Love asks independence of both parties, freedom, not control, not guilt, not coercion, not manipulation. Dependency is not love; it is dependency--it is an abrogation of the essential responsibility of each of us to grow up, to assume full responsibility for our lives. Not to take on this challenge is a flight from adulthood, no matter how mature a person may be in other areas of endeavor... We all find it easier to blame our partners than to grow up, or to recognize that we are the only ones present in each scene in that long-running drama we call our life. It stands to reason that we are the ones charged with its outcomes and consequences, not our partners. Acknowledging this responsibility is easy enough in the abstract, but it is fearfully challenging in the context of daily life when our will is fragmented, when we are vulnerable, and when we fall back into our archaic complexes...
"...(A typical marriage) carries and suffers the burden of our chief fantasy, namely, that the magical "other" will fix things for us, render life meaningful, heal our wounds, and help us avoid the task of growing up and facing the huge existential vacuum that all conscious souls must engage. Because life, with all its possibilities, all its decisions, is so huge, we cling to the small, and hope the Other will spare us the task of growing up. But, since they do not, cannot, and should not, we are angry with them. This is Shadow material, for it feeds on that which lies within us, that which makes us uncomfortable with ourselves, that which intimidates us...
"...acknowledging that we are the only constant in every relationship requires taking on the problem of our own Shadow."
--from Why Good People Do Bad Things, Understanding our Darker Selves, by James Hollis, Ph.D., pgs. 86-98.
