Outsourcing the Shadow: in Couples, in Business, in Activism

Written By Geneva Tolentino

Finding the places where we enable each other and inviting more light.

Hi,

Here’s a picture from this week, I am in Bali working on a project to develop an Esalen style campus. It’s an outrageously beautiful vision and three years underway, in collaboration with local Indonesians and global thinkers. I will tell you more about it in the coming year. I am starting this week’s post with all the commercial things, which I try to do once a month.

Please consider these offers and what resonates for you:

Alright, please stay connected! Next Free Online Satsang is 2/15/26 at 10 am Pacific Time. Join my Living Tantra community WhatsApp to be notified of PopUpPractices and Satsangs. On to this week’s post.

XO CMM

Outsourcing the Shadow: in Couples, in Business, in Activism

The husband who is the radiant charmer while his wife becomes the unmagical planner. A teacher who is the visionary charismatic front man while the devotee holds all the unpleasantness of laundry, conflict, deadlines. A sister who is super competent while her brother stays charmingly befuddled. Again and again, similar quiet division: one person carries this, the other carries that… but not as complementarity, rather as ways to avoid becoming whole. Ways to keep lying to oneself about what is really happening.

Pointing this observation at at myself, I remember allying with someone who loved money—because I was money-avoidant. I let her hold that part of life for both of us. And then she cheated me, and I was (o the shock!) surprised! But had I not outsourced my relationship to money, this never would have happened. My avoidance created the opening.

I also noticed I outsourced my receptivity by giving all the time. I came to see that if I’m always the one offering, I never have to tolerate the vulnerability of receiving—of needing, of being met. Someone else carries the receiving, and I stay safe in the giving position.

These are examples of shadow outsourcing. It is an evolutionary edge, to look at the transpersonal habits, where our bodies, minds and psychoemotional adaptations are embedded in a network of others, often without awareness or conscious consent.

It’s not just “charmer and holder.” It’s any time two people split wholeness between them rather than each carrying their own.

  • One person becomes the angry one. The other becomes the peacekeeper.

  • One carries the ambition, the other carries the rest.

  • One holds the chaos, the other holds the order.

  • One is the sexual one, the other is the spiritual one.

  • One is the responsible one, the other is the free one.

  • One speaks the hard truths, the other maintains the warmth.

Many couples, partnerships, and family systems find their own particular division—often without realizing it. And both people get to avoid the parts of themselves they’ve assigned to the other. The one who carries the anger never has to find their tenderness. The one who carries the tenderness never has to find their teeth.

The one who’s “responsible” gets to feel superior—and never has to risk play, desire, or being wanted for something other than usefulness. The one who’s “free” gets to stay light—and never has to meet the weight of consequences, continuity, or care.

The one who gives all the time never has to feel the vulnerability of need. The one who receives all the time never has to feel the responsibility of offering.

When this pattern is running, both are outsourcing. Both are avoiding. Both are incomplete in exactly the ways the arrangement requires.

A giveaway that the split is operating: when your partner does the thing you’ve assigned them, you feel irritation or relief. When they stop doing it, you feel panic. Wait—you were supposed to be the organized one. You were supposed to want the sex. You were supposed to handle the money.

We often misname these divisions as personality. “She’s the organized one.” “He’s the emotional one.” But sometimes it’s not who they are. It’s what they’re carrying so the other doesn’t have to.

There can be a cruel trick buried in the pattern: when someone gets tired of carrying the split-off piece and finally sets it down, the system can treat them as broken. What’s wrong with you? You’ve changed. You used to be the easy one.

Another giveaway: when you’re drawn to someone precisely because they carry what you won’t, and then you resent them for it.

One of my students told me, “I chose her because she was good with money. Then I resented that she was focused on money.” In the same exercise, another person said,
”I chose him because he was spontaneous. Then I resented that he couldn’t plan.” The quality that attracts is often the disowned shadow seeking a home. The betrayal or disappointment that follows is the shadow’s bill coming due.

This isn’t inevitable.

Two people doing their own work don’t need to split wholeness between them. They can both be tender and fierce. Both responsible and free. Both give and receive. Both hold weight and shine. The split is common—but it’s not the only way.

The seeing that begins to dissolve it:

  • What am I carrying so you don’t have to?

  • What are you carrying so I don’t have to?

  • What part of myself have I made you responsible for?

  • What quality drew me to you that I now resent—and what does that say about what I’ve refused to develop in myself?

Integration means taking back your own. The peaceful one learns they can survive their own anger. The angry one learns they can survive their own softness. The responsible one lets something wobble and doesn’t die. The free one stays with something difficult and doesn’t disappear. The giver learns to receive without feeling diminished. The receiver learns to offer without losing themselves.

It’s not about balance. It’s about wholeness—each person carrying the full range of themselves, so no one has to hold someone else’s unlived life.

For me right now, the edge is receiving. Letting myself be given to without immediately reciprocating, without earning it, without flipping back into the comfortable role of provider. It’s harder than it sounds. The giver position feels safe—generous, capable, in control. Receiving asks me to need. And need has never felt safe.

But that’s the work. Not to become a receiver instead of a giver. To be both. To stop outsourcing half of the human experience to whoever will carry it for me.

I am asking: What would this relationship look like if neither of us was assigned to carry what the other refuses to feel? For me, it would look like two whole people, standing where the split used to be.

Come on Retreat in 2026

  • Mystic Heart Ceremony in April in California: Flexible accomodations (as tents and public sleeping are always possible),but if you want a glamping tent or an actual room, those are getting tight.

  • Bhakti House Immersion in May in Portugal: We have one room open for the Portugal retreat (1-2 people), and one share possibility.

  • Solstice Pilgrimage in June in France: Adam Bauer is hosting this with an exquisite local historian.

  • November Bhakti house immersion at my place in Hawai’i: This isn’t up for registration yet, Katie says she heard from a few of you, please be patient with us. This year we are going to open the houses and you pick the dates, from 10 to 30 days. We will be doing rolling style programming. Daily asana and devotional practices, talks and field trips, with various guest teachers and experiences throught the month.

Geneva Tolentino
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How to Feel Yourself. The Home-Body.