Romancing the Shadow Quotes

“This being human is a guest-house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“Eventually, she discovered that she could respect some of his traits without becoming him.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“Authentic grief is humbling; it causes the ego to face forces that are much greater than it can even imagine and it teaches us how to find gain in loss. With authentic grief, then, our profane wound becomes a sacred wound, permitting us to molt out of the cocoon into a wholly new life. Going through the wound like a gateway, we emerge transformed”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“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.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“Ruth, thirty, discovered this link between financial and emotional inheritance when her grandmother left her a large sum of cash.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“Because much wealth is inherited, most self-worth is inherited as well, like a family sin. For many, to have financial worth is to have self-worth, regardless of the source of the money.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“MONEY SHADOWS: INHERITANCE, SELF-WORTH, AND GREEDINESS”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“With incest, a timeless taboo that lives in the collective body of humanity is broken. With incest, a household is cursed with a psychic affliction. With incest, a child’s natural erotic warmth and authentic openness turn cold and hidden as shame, like the original fig leaf, covers over a naked vulnerability.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“The shadow hides in our secret shames. To uncover the feeling of shame is to discover an arrow pointing straight toward shadow material, toward sexual taboos, bodily defects, emotional regrets—perhaps toward that which we would not dare to do but would secretly love to do. When shameful feelings are tucked away from those we love or even from ourselves, the shadow remains in the dark, out of sight of loving eyes and therefore unavailable for healing. What private thoughts or feelings most embarrass you? What trait do you wish to be rid of? In what ways do you feel unacceptable, dirty, or shamefully different?”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“Each of us is like Dorian Gray. We seek to present a beautiful, innocent face to the world; a kind, courteous demeanor; a youthful, intelligent image. And so, unknowingly but inevitably, we push away those qualities that do not fit the image, that do not enhance our self-esteem and make us stand proud but, instead, bring us shame and make us feel small.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“In therapy, Barbara did the slow, steady work of sorting through her father complex: She recognized how much she was like him and how much she disowned him. Eventually, she discovered that”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“discovered that she could respect some of his traits without becoming him. And she could be attracted to some”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“By re-creating the past, the shadow tries to help us to feel safe, cared for, and loved. It attempts to achieve these ends by re-creating with a lover the primordial unity we felt in early life with a parent. Then we unconsciously transfer responsibility for our survival from our parents to our partners. And we imagine that our partners will love us the way our parents never did, nurturing our deepest needs and fulfilling our deepest desires.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“one day, the rejected parent, like the banished soul child, returns in the sound of our own heartbeat, announcing that it’s time for shadow-work. These are the first steps in re-mothering and re-fathering ourselves, separating out our identities from those of our parents, from our inner parents’ voices, and from the larger cultural and archetypal influences. Only then can we provide ourselves as adults with those essential qualities and authentic feelings that we may have missed as children and that will nourish our souls.”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life

“All too often, people who blame themselves for an absence of intimacy suffer with an intense longing for love and the fantasy that, if only”
― Connie Zweig, Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life