Owning Your Own Shadow by Robert A. Johnson

Author:Robert A. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

Projecting Our God Image

To fall in love is to project that particularly golden part of one’s shadow, the image of God—whether masculine or feminine—onto another person. Instantly, that person is the carrier of everything sublime and holy. One waxes eloquent in praise of the beloved and uses the language of divinity. But this experience is from the extreme right-hand side of the seesaw and invariably constellates its opposite. When in-loveness turns into its opposite, there is nothing more bitter in human experience. Most marriages in the West begin with a projection, go through a period of disillusionment, and, God willing, become more human. That is to say, they come to be based on the profound reality that is the other person. While in-loveness is close proximity to God, love based on reality serves our humble condition far better.

Though no one notices at the time, in-loveness obliterates the humanity of the beloved. One does a curious kind of insult to another by falling in love with him, for we are really looking at our own projection of God, not at the other person. If two people are in love, they tread on star dust for a time and live happily ever after—that is so long as this experience of divinity has obliterated time for them. Only when they come down to earth do they have to look at each other realistically and only then does the possibility of mature love exist. If one person is in love and the other not, the cooler one is likely to say, “We would have something better between us if you would look at me rather than at your image of me.”

A James Thurber cartoon sums up the stage of disillusionment: A middle-aged husband and wife confront one another with the words, “Well, who took the magic out of it?” True, when the projection of in-loveness is exhausted, the other side of reality—and the very dark possibilities in human exchange—take over. If we can survive this, then we have human love—far less exciting than divine love, but far more stable.

The shadow is very important in marriage, and we can make or break a relationship depending on how conscious we are of this. We forget that in falling in love, we must also come to terms with what we find annoying and distasteful—even downright intolerable—in the other and also in ourselves. Yet it is precisely this confrontation that leads to our greatest growth.

I recently heard about a couple who had the good sense to call upon the shadow in a prewedding ceremony. The night before their marriage, they held a ritual where they made their “shadow vows.” The groom said, “I will give you an identity and make the world see you as an extension of myself.” The bride replied, “I will be compliant and sweet, but underneath I will have the real control. If anything goes wrong, I will take your money and your house.” They then drank champagne and laughed heartily at their foibles, knowing that in the course of the marriage, these shadow figures would inevitably come out.

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