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Connie Zweig is one of the most incredible thinkers and therapists working with Shadow, which is the Jungian concept. She wrote many, many years ago, the anthology of thinkers on shadow called Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. Then she wrote a book called Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life, which is how to do shadow work in your immediate relationships. She wrote a really beautiful book called Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening, which is essentially about this idea that you never fully transcend shadow. And sometimes where we observe shadow is where there's sometimes the most light. And it is I think for anyone who has experienced any religious trauma or is a member of the Catholic church—she writes about a lot of these communities where the leaders or gurus are not doing their own shadow work and what that can then create the ripple effects of that on the culture.

Nobody is immune. Nobody gets to skip those steps. Her latest book is called The The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, which is what we're going to talk about today. And it's about ageism, yes, but it's also about life review and the ways in which we adopt identities and a lot of shadow identities without really being conscious of what we're up to and what happens as we have to start to put them down. It's a midlife book and a book for older people theoretically. But it's also a book that I think I would've loved to have read 10 or even 20 years ago. It's really about eldership and what that means and how that's not necessarily assigned to becoming a senior. That is a stage that we can get to sooner or later or not at all. But achieving elderhood is definitely one of the goals of my life. So let's turn to our conversation now.

Connie’s first episode on Pulling the Thread: “Embracing the Shadow”

The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul

Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening

Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

A Moth to the Flame: The Life of the Sufi Poet Rumi

Connie Zweig’s Website

ELISE:

It's nice to see you again. Thank you for coming back. People loved our first conversation. We covered shadow, we covered meeting the shadow on the spiritual path, meeting the shadow. I've read everything you've written. I love you.