I used to work with someone who had major probs with authority figures.
He would get into gnarly, vindictive arguments with every single boss, and he’d do all sorts of petty things in between arguments to try and “get back” at them.
Meanwhile, whenever a supervisory position opened up, he was the first to apply. He really wanted to be in a leadership role, and I remember one time asking him what the attraction was.
He replied, “I just really want to be in charge of something.” (Which, in retrospect, was a startlingly honest statement.)
According to him, these chronic arguments were always his bosses’ fault.
He’d had many different bosses over the years, and all of them “just happened” to be super argumentative and, according to him, out to get him.
In other words, these people in leadership positions were the big, stinky Devil, and they were preventing him from getting what he wanted: a leadership position.
Coincidence?
I think not.
What if this guy was able to look at the common themes of those arguments…
…and get a smidge of separation from the actual, human bosses and his fiery dislike of them, peeking into the dungeon, so to speak, and seeing if some of the qualities he saw in his bosses might be residing, also, within him?
For instance, he saw all of his bosses as power hungry jerks, only in it to boost their fragile egos and not truly caring about the organization.
Yet his reason for applying for supervisory roles was, “I just really want to be in charge of something.”
Could it be that he hadn’t explored his own desire for power well enough…
…that maybe a part of him felt uncomfortable that he wanted to be in charge of people, so it was easier to project this “power hungry” energy onto his bosses?
(And I want to be clear: There’s nothing inherently wrong with him wanting power. But when we’re not in a conscious relationship to a desire, whatever it is, it tends to be expressed in wonky-ass ways.)
This isn’t to say that his bosses weren’t also power hungry. Who knows? As Jung would say, every projection requires a hook, however small, in the other person if it’s going to stick.
But if all we can see is the hook, we learn nothing useful about ourselves, and more frustratingly, we’re stuck repeating the same scenario with different people, over and over and over again.
(The Devil card is also associated with addiction, so this repetitive, go-nowhere energy is fitting.)
Okay, but how do we get out of this mess–how do we take the chains off?
Well, the Devil is also called Lucifer the Light Bringer, so handily, the salve to our wound can be found in the wound itself.
Jung believed that tension is what paves the road to growth, so the first step is being able to pause when we feel that tension…
…and recognize that, no matter how painful it might be, this tension offers the gift of expansion, hiding in plain sight.
We needn’t rush around trying to immediately eradicate the tension, much as the ego might want to, because this is like burning a letter from our unconscious, a letter that contains a map to our next stage of growth, before we’ve even read it.
(And then we wonder why we’re confused. We burned the map!)
After we’ve taken a step back, we can begin to explore the tension, taking it in small, digestible chunks if it’s a lot to deal with, and identify the contents we’ve projected that need to be integrated within ourselves.
Tomorrow, you’ll have access to my new course, Shadow Play, that details the step-by-step of how to do this…
…but for now, I want to go back to our example above to see how this guy might free himself from the Devil’s chains.
When we fall for the illusion that the monster is only “out there,” we will live a life endlessly fighting monsters, like broheim here forever fighting with his bosses.
(Remember, I’m not saying there aren’t “monsters” in the external world, only that we won’t be in any position to deal with them effectively if we haven’t reckoned with the “monsters” within.)
But let’s say this guy looked at those repetitive arguments and noticed…
…that what he especially hates about his bosses is how they never seem to give him a straight answer.
He digs deeper (again, this will all be outlined in the Shadow Play course), and he identifies a judgment that these bosses give him the runaround instead of communicating directly when the answer is no.
He sits with this for a few days, and it dawns on him that it’s actually hard for him to tell people no, and if he’s really honest with himself, sometimes he simply avoids people until they “get the message.”
Okay, so here’s what’s SO FRIGGIN’ COOL ABOUT THIS:
This dude’s psyche, by bringing him into conflict with all of these “bad” bosses, thereby generating super uncomfortable tension, brought to his awareness that he needs to learn how to say no.
And guess what? Developing that skill is directly tied to his ability to be an effective leader, which is what he wants.
In other words, the tension is specific to him, orchestrated by his psyche, to pinpoint precisely where he needs to grow, in order to be able to live the life he wants.
I mean, it’s pretty trippy and beautiful, isn’t it? Even in our angstiest moments, the universe has our back and is trying to help us remember our wholeness.
Now, you might say, “Yeah, but couldn’t anyone be annoyed by these bosses? How is the message specific to this dude?”
And to that I would reply, “Ah ha, anyone could be, yes, but not everyone was.”
There was something within this guy that gave him a heightened sensitivity to these dynamics–they really rubbed him the wrong way–whereas other people might interact with the same boss without issue.
And I’d be willing to bet that if, over time, this guy developed the skill of saying no, he would magically find that these bosses were perhaps not perfect cherubs, but way less annoying.
I bet he’d also be more effective at handling interactions even if they were somewhat annoying, because he’d have less unconscious, emotional entanglement clouding his vision.
Tomorrow, I want to connect all of this to the unconscious agreement I made with Harron, the bargain that we’d never ever get mad at each other…
…in order to help you spot unconscious agreements that might be limiting your life, too.
