Originally published at: https://integrallife.com/the-shadow-of-trump/
Psychotherapist and developmental theorist Kim Barta joins Keith Martin-Smith for a deep dive into the psychological and developmental dynamics surrounding one of the most polarizing figures of our time: Donald Trump.
And also, it would be foolish to forget about all the harm one man has caused.
Not everything is projection.
Some anger is proper concerning things one should ne angry about.
If someone burnt down my neighbors house, anger toward that person is not “projection” nor is anger and revulsion towards those who provide the match and gasoline or who gleefully cheer as they watch the house burn.
Indeed, in shadow work we often run across the shadow of “there is something wrong with me”. Its one of the top three sources of shame. One does not feel they have the right to be angry and this is projected outward as " you have no right to be angry and all anger is a shadow i must fix - in you."
This is the point where shadow work becomes counterproductive because it doubles down on green shadow rather than integrating red.
Fully integrating healthy red means accepting anger as a valid emotion when appropriate.
Part of reclaiming ones wholeness, particularly in communitiea at Green is to reclain valid and healthy anger.
I deny the Green premise that being disturbed is a sign of shadow.
There are many things one should be disturbed about. Rape, child molestation, exploitation of the weak, abuse of power, racism, arbitrarily ruining tens of thousands of peoples lives, taking food from those in need, fraud. The list goes on and on. If one is not disturbed by these things - there is something wrong with that person. Even Jesus wept. Jesus Christ was disturbed. Not because he was “in shadow”, but because he did not hide from the sins of the world or try to rationalize or spiritually bypass them.
There is no clear line that can be drawn. There will always be lack of clarity whenever one considers the totality of the human condition.
However. I do reject outright blanket statements that shame valid emotions. For example: “the degree one is disturbed is the degree of the projection”. This is a suprising statement of nonsense coming from a licensed therapist trained in shadow work.
It isnt even shadow if you recognize an emotion and own it. Its perfetly Integral behavior to see a thing, be disturbed by it, accept the emotion, then judge the one doing it to be harmful and dangerous. Ironically, denying this to oneself is the shadow, not basking in the full light of it.
The invitation instead is to recognize “I am angry. Here are valid reasons why i am angry. I can logically trace the actions of this individual or group to be the cause of demontrable harm to myself or another individual or specific group. I will empower my valid emotions and take the following actions to oppose this group or individual. When i take these actions i will recongize how this gives me a feeling of empowerment”
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"Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you." - Joseph Heller’s Catch 22.
I’d send this Keith/Kim dialogue to all my friends if I could, a good deep dive … along with the Ray Bennet leavening commentary.
Just an ongoing and personal squint: I notice a consistent avoidance of the word “freedom” in discussions such as these. “Equality,” equity," “fairness,” sure, but “individual liberty” seems to have been suspiciously relegated to the “politically incorrect” column. Now There’s a shadowy blind spot I’d like to see “unpacked,” as they say, by the Integral elite.
A really great conversation; I would give it a 95% if I were grading it, haha. Two things: I thought it was a little slow getting into nuance and a more comprehensive commentary about shadow dynamics–the initial conversation might have one think that only perception, projection, and emotion mattered, whereas finally there were remarks about reasoned (or even moral, I would say) judgments being legitimate in and of themselves. Also, I think it needs to be emphasized that two things can be true at once: I can project, say, my dictator onto another, but that other can also indeed be a dictator. I think most of us know this, but thought it was given inadequate emphasis in the conversation. But again, overall, primo!
“This is the point where shadow work becomes counterproductive because it doubles down on green shadow rather than integrating red.”
Great point. It’s an odd sticking point of green that on the one side all emotions are inherently sacred, and at the same time negative ones about other people are inherently shadow (an over generalisation here but that’s the bias point). Rather than it’s not the amount of emotion on display, with is the driving force of any transformation, it’s the meaning made behind it, the worldly impact one has when running with it.
If you consider your healthy rage that evil out there in the world you’ve literally warped your own healthy emotion in to shame. It’s taking someone’s pathological energy and taking it deeply inside of yourself. Not all shadow is external to internal, some of it is golden shadow, or the less appealing version of that as just crap you’ve inherited from outside of you that needs to be purged.
I would say internally, if you cannot recognise evil in yourself at all, or imagine yourself acting in evil ways this is moral arrogance. But if your psyche is more nuanced than pure raw black and white evil, then yes there are folks who relatively are vastly worse than others, and the world needs to enforce healthy boundaries. You don’t get such things without powerful emotions.
I think part of this is Integral’s bias towards the causal, 7th chakra, peace, and unity. Rather than the soul/6th chakra which is more equipped to wrestle with the world of duality. Good and bad energies/ embodiments/ shadow subtle energy. You wouldn’t say “that’s too much soul energy”, either it’s emotion and potency wrapped up in a balanced heart or it’s not. Balance doesn’t mean watering all reactions down to zero. That’s not shadow integration, that’s spiritual bypassing and being sat on a smug meditation stool in the sky.
And then what do you fall back on, endless soft compassion due to someone’s childhood trauma, rather than healthy boundaries and accountability. And some of that is healthy, but not all shadow and evil comes from trauma, sometimes people grow to be actively worse.
“This is a suprising statement of nonsense coming from a licensed therapist trained in shadow work.” Yes although there is a huge amount of therapy mired in this limit of green.
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