The Shadow of Obedience-Compliance Revisited

Back in September 2009 , I posted about my shadow of obedience or compliance. In that post, I never really addressed how that shadow was keeping me from living a life of authentic, empowered self-expression, only how my resistance to that shadow keeps me in a world that is unworkable.

I want to start using a different term for shadow, because I have noticed how that term can be confusing to some readers, even though I have addressed and re-addressed my definition countless times here on this blog. I define shadow as simply “unconscious belief or behavior” so I will use that term “unconscious belief/behavior” to see how it might clarify what I am trying to do with my life in examining the multiple layers of my unconscious belief/behavior, like peeling away the layers of an onion to get to my core, that is, who I am. And to be clear, I don’t mean “core values” because values is just another word for belief and that means I have unconscious values that can block my access to my authentic self, as well.

The unconscious belief/behavior that can be found in obedience or compliance is a reflection of my own resistance to being a fully realized, responsible, human adult. It has been showing up or has been appearing to me all of my life as resistance to authority, whether it be political, social, religious or even moral authority, that is, a definition of what it means to be a “good” or “just” or equally a “bad” or “evil” person by the way I behave towards others.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to say that acting in obeyance or compliance to an authority outside myself is a bad thing or that it is a good thing either. I am, however, trying to say that unconscious belief/behavior in the area of obedience or compliance to an authority outside of myself can be a trap that keeps me stuck in the idea that I really have no freedom and that if I act or react in any way against an authority of some kind, that I am, in fact, a rebel.

How did I get myself into this trap, because I did get myself into this trap all by myself even if I believe that others helped me, others like my parents, my teachers, my bosses, or the cop who pulled me over for some reason, or just in the idea that I must listen to authority “for my own good.”

The answer is “I got myself into the trap of obedience or compliance when I identify both with whatever authority I have established for the moment and when I identify with the idea that this authority is right and therefore I am being made wrong. This is the shadow of obedience or compliance, where my ego creates an identity and when it does that, it creates separation between myself and that which I objectify as authority.

What happens then, when I identify with authority outside of myself as an object or as effect?  Can I be authority as subject and cause instead? The answer is, of course, YES! Is it that simple? YES! Does it mean that it is easy? Heck NO!

So now I will bring us back around to the difference between obedient or compliant as a way of belief/behavior and obedience or compliance as a way of being.

When I am obedience or compliance as a way of being, I shift from reacting to authority “out there” to choosing authority as a mirror of who I am. When I do that I become authority. When I am authority, I have nothing to resist or rebel against. When I am authority, it is easier to see the lesson that I created for myself to learn. When I am authority, I am also obedience and compliance, which is a way of being, not obedient or compliant, which is a way of behaving. When I am obedience and compliance, the world is workable, I am authentic and I am truly FREE.

The Shadow of Obedience/Compliance

One law for the lion and the ox is oppression - William Blake

At a site I often visit and contribute answers to questions called Answerology.com, I read a question from a man who asked “As your child grows up at what age do you expect to be able to hold them accountable for their disobedience or wrongs.” Looking at the question as I believe most would do, I would have probably answered the question with something akin to “It depends on the child” until I realized that according to many schools of thought surrounding accountability, including my own, I cannot hold another person accountable, that I can only hold myself accountable. I further believe that accountability is, for the most part, an unteachable quality, like discipline or integrity, yet it is a quality that can be instilled in a person at an early age by providing a safe, non-judgmental space for the person to properly access the consequences of their own behavior. Unfortunately for most of us, the demands of living leave us with little time to make that kind of environment available for our progeny and we surely cannot expect that state-funded public education or even most private or charter schools to have the where-with-all to providing such a safe non-judgmental environment for instilling qualities like accountability to thrive, so that both our child-rearing and educational system are left with relying on obedience and compliance in order to have the time to teach knowledge and skills needed to survive along with providing a meager amount of life-enrichment through activities like music, art and, dare I say, sports. Can all we ever hope for in our children is that they become obedient and compliant to the expectations of the society into which we have chosen to birth them? Here in, I believe, lies my own shadow of obedience/compliance, for I have chosen, for the most part, obedience and compliance over standing for my own accountability and integrity.

I recently spoke about a shadow I called virtue. I raised the question of whether or not virtue is a quality to which it is necessary to aspire if we are present to the idea that we are not separate from each other or from our source that some may call God, for if we really are all one, would we not always be acting in alignment for the highest good even without being able to consciously know what that good is?  Are obedience and compliance virtuous and the only way to prevent lawlessness, unworkability and chaos?  I say no, for I not only believe that I can, but also I believe that I actually do live in a world where integrity is simply the state or condition of being whole and complete and where I am accountable by honoring my word.  What I mean by honoring my word is that if I am unable to keep my word I will communicate as soon as I know I am unable to keep my word to those who are counting on me and I will clean up any messes with those who counted on me that resulted from not keeping my word. From this state of wholeness, I believe that by honoring my word, I create  workability.