Dancing in the Dragon's Den: Rekindling the Creative Fire in Your Shadow

By Roseanne Bane

There are tremendous personal benefits to realizing and integrating the shadow part of the personality. When we can look at the "disowned parts of ourselves," we release a great deal of energy that can be used for creative expression. Dancing in the Dragon's Den is a practical self-help book that can open up your life in ways you have not yet dreamed of. Bane talks to you directly-she is warm, friendly, and supportive as she outlines the process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicolas-Hays, Inc
• Release date: Oct 1, 1999
• ISBN: 9780892545612

Book preview

Prologue

If you’ve ever had an urge to create something and gotten started, only to stop for one reason or another, this book is for and about you. Or if you’ve had the desire but never started, maybe because you doubt you can be creative or because you think creativity is reserved for special people, this is for and about you too. The desire to create is a creative beginning.

We all have some part of our creativity that’s waiting to be expressed. Maybe it’s the sunsets you’ve never painted, the pots you’ve never thrown, the buildings you’ve never designed. Maybe it’s the blank page, the blank canvas, the blank stage, the unyielding lump of clay or marble or emotion that you’ve stared at for hours, knowing you want to do something with it but not knowing what. Maybe it’s the life you’ve never fully lived.

This book is about that.

Some people think they’ve never had a yearning to be creative. They’ve been taught to believe they’re not creative. They have been taught a lie. The life force is creative energy. To live is to create. To live fully is to create fully. To deny or restrict creativity is to deny and restrict life.

Most of the people who believe they aren’t creative won’t read this book, and that’s sad because it’s for and about them too. This book is especially for those of us who were taught that we aren’t artistic because we couldn’t draw in grade school or act in high school or write in college, but still hold a spark of hope that we might have some hidden talent.

This book is for all of us who are both attracted to and a little afraid of our own creativity.

The first thing we must know is that we are not alone. Look around; the next person you see either struggles with this dilemma or has given up the struggle by unconsciously blocking his or her creativity and, as a result, struggles with the surrender. It makes no difference whether that person is a successful, recognized artist or a hopeful unknown or someone who has given up any hope of being artistic. We all struggle with our desire to create fully—and thus live fully—and with our fear of what will happen if we do.

There is only one journey. Going inside yourself.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

The second thing to know is that this struggle is perfectly natural. We have good reasons to be both attracted to and afraid of our creativity.

In the more than ten years that I’ve taught writing and creativity, I’ve seen the pure joy that occurs when a student discovers that he or she is creative, that’s it’s okay to be creative, and that however he or she expresses that creativity is acceptable, even desirable. I’ve also seen students falter although I thought they had tremendous promise. I’ve come to recognize that faltering is part of the cycle of living a creative life. Some of those students have persevered, allowing themselves to struggle and fail and struggle some more and eventually succeed. Others quit. I’ve come to see that quitting is also part of the cycle. We all quit at some time, and we can unquit at any time.

Quitting is not an act of cowardice or laziness. It is a reasonable response to a real threat. How can creativity be a threat, and if it is, how can we hope to express our creativity fully? That’s what this book is about.

We don’t often talk about the threat our creativity holds for us. We talk about how being in the creative flow is a blissful state. All the books, tapes, and seminars that tell us how to be more creative at work, in our relationships, and in our art assume we want to be more creative and promise we will be if we’ll just learn a new set of techniques. We do need to learn techniques and develop our craft, but it usually isn’t lack of knowledge that keeps us from being as fully creative as we yearn to be. It is our fear.

We’re so busy telling ourselves how wonderful it is to be creative that we conveniently forget to mention, even to ourselves, By the way, I’m afraid of this creativity. I’m not just afraid that I won’t be able to do this or that I’ll be criticized or rejected, I’m afraid I don’t want to do this at all. When I open up and explore my creativity, I scare myself.

We don’t want to give up the joy of creativity, and even if we did, our creative urges would not be ignored. We don’t want to go back, yet an unnamed fear keeps us from going on. We are blocked, not just in our art but in our lives.

The only truly satisfactory solution is to acknowledge the shadow of fear that accompanies the joy of creative expression and then, as Susan Jeffers says in her marvelous book of that title, feel the fear and do it anyway.

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.

RICHARD BACH

Illusions

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron writes, When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction. This is true because, as Cameron explains,

Art is an act of tuning in and dropping down the well. It is as though all the stories, painting, music, performances in the world live just under the surface of our normal consciousness. Like an underground river, they flow through us as a stream of ideas that we can tap down into. As artists, we drop down the well into that stream. We hear what’s down there and we act on it—more like taking dictation than anything fancy having to do with art.

Herein lies the source of both our joy and our fear. What Cameron describes as dropping down the well is the process of exploring our unconscious, hidden self. Not only do we open ourselves to God when we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to our unconscious as well.

The underground river is the stream of the unconscious. It is a flow of ideas and inspiration from a divine source that we can access through our subconscious or unconscious mind. In Jungian terms, our personal unconscious connects us to the collective unconscious. In spiritual terms, our Higher Self connects us to the Higher Power and our creativity connects us to the Creator. However we describe it, what I have observed in my own life and in the lives of my students and friends is that opening ourselves to our creativity requires opening ourselves to our own unconscious.

The problem is that the unconscious is unpredictable. Sometimes I’ve dropped down the well and discovered an idea for the next scene in my novel. Sometimes I’ve dropped down the well and discovered old resentments I needed to address in my personal life.

The unconscious holds energy and inspiration for creative expression. It also holds our shadow-self, what Carl Jung described as the person we have no wish to be. In the process of opening ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to this shadow, the denied and repressed parts of ourselves. No wonder we’re afraid.

We’re afraid that to be creative we will have to become everything we don’t want to be. We’re afraid that the myth of the dysfunctional, egocentric artist is true and that being a great artist necessarily means being a rotten human being. But dysfunctional artists are not creative because of their egoism; they are creative in spite of it. The uncomfortable truth is that there are ways to be truly and deeply creative without behaving as a rotten human being, but not without acknowledging our potential to be a rotten human being. We don’t have to become the person we have no wish to be; we have to acknowledge that we already are that person.

The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.

MAY SARTON

To be truly creative, we need to be aware of the difference between acting out and acting on. Jung called this distinction taking moral action, which means acknowledging our dark inclinations as part of our human heritage, rather than pretending we don’t have any, and then relying on our highest values to choose how we will act on what we find in the deepest parts of ourselves. Those who don’t consciously act on their shadow will unconsciously act it out. If you don’t own your shadow, it will own you.

To deny the dark potential is to deny an enormous part of ourselves. It takes a great deal of energy, energy that is diverted from creative expression. It is to deny that we are truly, fully human and to deny the depths of our humanity that makes our creativity meaningful.

Echoing both Cameron’s image of the unconscious as a well and Jung’s comment that the shadow is 90 percent gold, Joyce Sequichie Hifler writes about our fears of tapping the depths of our soul in A Cherokee Feast of Days:

Giving up robs us of drawing up gold from our own depths. Imagine having a well, a very deep well, that is topped off with several feet of tainted water. But deeper down, the water, the a ma,’ is clear, and down even further it is a spring, a spring that bubbles cold and pure through deposits of gold. Should we give up because of what we saw in the beginning? Or would we want to tap the depths and clear away the polluted water and get down to the very best? If it is true that we only know five percent of who and what we are—then, it is possible that we have untapped depths, where our being is pure and free of contamination. Should we give up such a rich experience because of what we have seen on the surface?

With knowledge, commitment, and reliable support, we can let go of the surface life of spending our energy repressing our shadow—and our creativity along with it—and become fully alive, fully creative, fully moral and human. We can walk through our fears to claim our larger Selves on the other side.

This book is about how to do that.

ONE

RECOGNIZING

YOUR CREATIVITY,

SEEING YOUR SHADOW

CHAPTER  1

Into the Dragon’s Den

THE DRAGON IS A POWERFUL SYMBOL in both Eastern and Western mythology. For the Chinese, dragons bring good fortune and were once the exclusive sign of the emperor. For westerners, dragons are darker and more dangerous. Our legends describe fire-breathing dragons guarding golden treasure hidden deep underground.

When I first started working with the dragon as a metaphor, I saw it only as a harbinger of darkness and destruction. My journey of discovery began fifteen years ago, when I received an invitation from my psyche. Perhaps summons would be a better word because it was the call to begin the spiritual work of acknowledging and integrating my shadow, the parts of myself I had disowned and cast aside.

It was no coincidence that I also received an invitation to explore my creativity at the same time. My interest in writing then was, to a large extent, an attempt to lose myself in the flow long enough to forget the misery of going through a divorce I didn’t want. I wrote powerful, dark stories during that time of my life, and that was no coincidence either.

Most of the stories I wrote then disturbed my family and friends. They scared even me, and, at the same time, they amazed me. I recognized that the emotionally disabled characters I wrote about were thin disguises of myself. But I didn’t know that the value of these stories lay in the process of writing them. I thought I was writing them for publication or at least for my friends to read and respond to. But they were painful to read, almost impossible to respond to, and nowhere close to being ready for publication. I didn’t know it yet, but my creative flow was in service to the spiritual and psychological work I needed to do.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a safe place to do that psychospiritual work. My family and friends didn’t know how to respond to the shadowy, draconic aspects slipping out from behind my goody two-shoes persona. With the best of intentions and the worst of effects, they encouraged me to not think such dark thoughts. In response, I cut myself off from them, certain that if my writing was too hard to talk about, then what I was feeling and thinking was unquestionably too horrible to speak aloud.

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

I didn’t have resources or awareness. I didn’t know who I could talk to. What my shadow brought up was too shameful for me to acknowledge. I didn’t see my unconscious as a well that I could learn to draw pure water from; it was a slimy, black dungeon, and my shadow was a dragon haunting me from its depths. I was lost in depression, which I now see was sheer exhaustion from the effort it took to repress my shadow. In despair, I attempted suicide.

In an attempt to do away with my shadow, I nearly did away with all of me. I learned a dangerous, hard lesson: we aren’t supposed to do away with our shadows. We can’t. We can’t cut off our shadows without cutting and mortally wounding ourselves.

In the years that followed, I knew I wanted to write, but the images came in floods that I didn’t have the word craft to keep pace with, interspersed with long droughts when I felt bereft of inspiration. I feared any sign of the depression returning, and yet I had learned to associate the energy of writing with the energy of pushing the depression away. I thought that if I felt too good, I wouldn’t have the inclination to write or material to write about, and if I felt too bad, I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all. I spent so much energy shoring up the levees against my shadow, I had no time or inclination to trust the joy of floating down the river.

The psyche, our Higher Self, yearns for wholeness and works through synchronicity (meaningful coincidences). I was eventually given resources and awareness. I found a community that encouraged me to restore my faith in the God of my understanding, and I regained my emotional and spiritual footing. I lucked into a job writing for and editing a newspaper that addressed the ideas and issues I was most interested in. Later, someone insisted I accept the offer to attend, free of charge, a workshop led by Jacquelyn Small, author and pioneer in transpersonal psychology. I was on a journey back to my hidden self, and the workshop introduced me to traveling companions. I found a safe container for and a loving community to support my shadow work, this time with understanding and compassion. My psyche had sent me another invitation. Perhaps my Higher Self recognized I had finally learned enough spiritual manners to RSVP appropriately to this one.

It does not do to leave a dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

J. R. R. TOLKIEN

The Hobbit

Once I thought the dragon was a symbol of my depression and therefore something I needed to conquer. Gradually, I realized that my dragon-self held years of repressed anger, and—although I didn’t want to burn anyone to a crisp—that dragon-self was the source of important insight and power. First I acknowledged that aspect of myself, then I learned to accept and eventually even embrace my shadowy dragon-self. And just as in the legends, the dragon had a treasure horde to share with me.

Today, with a safe place and supporting friends, most ventures into the dragon’s den—into the depths of my hidden self—are still frightening or uncomfortable. The difference is that now I know the journey has a higher purpose. I’ve learned that it is possible to repress the shadow—but only at tremendous cost to the totality of the psyche. I’ve learned that when I allow my shadow out of the self-imposed dungeon, I do experience fear, but I’m always given the gifts of creative energy and insight. I’ve learned to trust outcomes to a Higher Power, to trust the wisdom of my Higher Self, and even to trust my shadow to deliver the gold it holds. Fifteen years ago I could never have foreseen the day when I would willingly enter the dragon’s den and learn to dance with joy there.

It is my privilege and my joy to share what I’ve learned to guide others in discovering that creativity and shadow rise together from the unconscious. I’ve watched with love and awe as others descended into the depths of their unconscious and returned with creative insights and energy that are gifts not only to themselves but to everyone they come into contact with.

Many of us are surprised, awed, or shocked at what comes out of ourselves when we create. Michael, a former publisher finally pursuing his dream of being a writer, started a free-form writing exercise that became, to his surprise, the beginning of a murder mystery. He was surprised by how it felt to write the grisly details of the murder scene and shocked that such images came from his own mind.

This [the unconscious] is the source of all creativity, but it needs heroic courage to do battle with these forces and to wrest from them the treasures hard to attain.

CARL JUNG

Paul, struggling with his Ph.D. dissertation in English, wrote, just for fun, a first-person narrative explaining why the main character is a hit man. When I offered to read it, his manner told me that, more than hearing what I thought of the story, he wanted (and feared) to know what I thought of him. Did I think he was weird or strange or bad for writing such a dark story?

The surprise at what we create is sometimes so uncomfortable, we cover it by denying that what we’ve done really is artistic. I often see fear in students’ eyes and hear apologies in their voices when they talk about a new project or medium they’re exploring. I know it’s not art, Sandy confessed, but I like romance novels, and I thought I might try writing one, as if writing a romance novel isn’t a project of worth and so Sandy had the freedom to try.

When Judy shyly showed the greeting cards she embossed and colored by hand, she insisted before anyone else could comment, It’s not much. The woman who showed me how does so much better, as if to say with pride and awe, I did this! Isn’t it great! would tempt the gods to punish her for hubris.

This misplaced humility is a common shadow aspect in people exploring their creativity. It is, I’m certain, a behavior we have learned to protect ourselves; so it is something we can unlearn when we realize we don’t need to protect ourselves in this way any longer. But until we realize that, we are afraid.

In her book Source Imagery, Sandra G. Shuman asks: Why is the fear so prevalent? What is its cause? The need to depreciate our originality, to tear down what we have made in our own and others’ eyes, is almost compulsive. It’s as if we must steadfastly keep something hidden from view, something bad and disgusting that being creative exposes to the public eye. What is this negative feeling or projection all about?

It is about our shadow and its connections to our creativity. No wonder we’ve repressed our full creative potential. To express our full potential, we must consciously work with our shadow, which can be frightening. It’s often a struggle. Yet if we don’t work with our shadow consciously, we pay the price of diminished creativity, and we expose ourselves and others to unconscious shadow outbursts anyway.

Creativity and shadow are inexorably intertwined. Some people think craziness is a prerequisite for an artist, while others see artistic endeavor as a safety valve that allows an individual to avoid madness. But shadow is not insanity, although sustained resistance to the psyche’s call to integrate shadow may look like insanity, and the struggle to acknowledge and integrate shadow sometimes feels like losing your grip. Creating is much more than an avoidance technique or a coping mechanism. And integrating the shadow is much more than a way to break through blocks, although that would be reason enough for many people to undertake it.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

Jung said the shadow is 90 percent gold. As difficult as it may be to recognize at first, the shadow—your shadow—holds a tremendous gift, a saving grace you need to be fully creative and fully alive. We don’t have to be Christian to recognize the wisdom of Jesus’ words: If you bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will save you, but if you fail to bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will destroy you.

As you work through this book, you will find, as I and my students have found, that creative work and shadow work are both spiritual issues and that both your creative nature and your shadow are truly 90 percent gold. You may be uncomfortable when you first venture into the depths of your full Self, but I know that you, too, can discover the joy of dancing in your own dragon’s den.

What to Expect

Exploring your shadow and your creativity is not the work of an evening or two. Plan on reading and responding to one chapter of this book per week.

I’ve discovered, usually to my chagrin, that reading, writing, or teaching about the shadow often invokes my own shadow. Shadow is a faithful companion, always willing to give me a new lesson. My ego is not always so compliant, and I frequently struggle to accept the lesson my shadow offers. I suspect you’ll have similar experiences, so I recommend you take this process slowly. Always be gentle with yourself. One chapter a week is plenty.

Another reason not to rush is that tapping blocked creative energy can cause your interest and imagination to outstrip your skill. Patience is vital. So is accepting mistakes as part of the process.

Don’t worry if, in one week, you don’t assimilate all the concepts and completely resolve the creativity and shadow issues that arise in response to a chapter. It’s likely that you’ll complete this book one chapter at a time, then return to various lessons from time to time. Each time you return, the experiences will be different because you will be different.

The truth is, everything is contained in the self. The creative power of this entire universe lies inside every one of us. The divine principle that creates and sustains this world pulsates within us as our own self.

SWAMI MUKTANANDA

The first part of the book, Recognizing Your Creativity, Seeing Your Shadow, will give you a map of the dragon’s den in the form of background information about what your shadow is and how it is connected to your creativity. The second part of the book, Embracing Your Shadow, Expressing Your Creativity, will lead you through the process of using the energy and insight of your shadow to rekindle your creative fire. There are exercises at the end of each chapter, and you’ll find that the first part of the book prepares you for the experiential work of the second part.

It’s important to find safe places and people to support you as you do this creative and shadow work. I’ll discuss this in greater detail as we go along. For now, know that when you get to the experiential work of the second part of this book, you will want and need people who love you for yourself and who are willing to support you as you move through unfamiliar territory. Your support network will probably include both friends and professionals. Part of what can surface as you explore your shadow and creativity is old, old pain that has been stuffed away for years, even decades. These issues can be the raw material for significant psychological growth. Get seasoned guides, including a good therapist you can count on.

One important source of support is the stories of others who have made the journey into unfamiliar territory before you. You’ll find those in the third part of the book, Surrendering to the Creative Shadow Process, which presents insights my former students and I have gained from exploring the depths of our creativity and our shadows. It begins with a retelling of two myths of descent—the story of Inanna, a goddess who descends into the underworld to visit her sister Ereshkigal, and the story of Persephone, who is dragged unwillingly into the underworld. Aided by observations drawn from Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s audiocassette Creative Fire, you’ll discover that both myths have rich insights about the connections between creativity and shadow. Combined with real-life stories of others who’ve made the descent into the dragon’s den, these myths will help you understand why it is important to stop resisting your own descent and begin the often difficult, but always re-warding, journey inward. When you want a little extra support as you work through chapters 7 through II, you may want to skip ahead to the stories in chapters 12 and 13.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

CARL JUNG

I’ve been enlightened by Carl Jung’s explanations of the shadow and its functions in our psyche as I explored the connections between shadow and creativity. Ill refer to Jung and other writers from time to time, but this book isn’t strictly Jungian. You don’t need to agree with— or even know about—Jung’s theories to apply the ideas and exercises in this book.

Practices That Lead to Personal Insights

The exercises at the end of each chapter will give you ample opportunities to experience what the chapter’s concepts mean to you. Each exercise has a number of possible correct responses; any answer that gives you personal insight is right. Often it is our ego’s need to be correct that gets in the way of surprising, and therefore useful, responses. Try to set aside your ego’s desire to be right. We’ll try a number of different approaches to perform an end run on the ego so you can see what your sometimes elusive and less articulate shadow has to say.

Read through all the exercises and select about half of them to work through. I strongly recommend you do at least one of the exercises you’d really rather avoid. But if there’s one that terrifies you, make sure your support network is available before exploring it, or, if you don’t feel safely supported, postpone that exercise. Again, be gentle with yourself. Use your own judgment. Only you can tell how much emotional stretching will be healthy and when you should stop so you don’t tear spiritual ligaments.

But don’t worry, the exercises are not going to be excruciating. Some of them are meant to be fun, even downright silly. Be sure to do some of these too. Go ahead, have a little fun.

In the search for ways to get our egos to take a break long enough to gain insight to our shadows, exercises that allow us to free-associate are often useful. A technique my students and I find particularly useful is freewriting, which Natalie Goldberg describes in Writing Down the Bones. Basically, freewriting is writing without stopping and without fretting about your spelling or punctuation or phrasing (which is, of course, your ego trying to be right again). The trick is to keep writing, keep your hand moving, even if you have to write I don’t know what to write over and over. Eventually, your internal editor will get so bored with writing I don’t know what to write that it will give up and go away, and then you’ll be free to risk writing something unexpected.

We do not write in order to be understood, we write in order to understand.

CECIL DAY-LEWIS

If you are already doing some kind of journaling, continue the practice. If you aren’t, establish a time when you can be alone and uninterrupted for about twenty minutes every day. I recommend writing first thing in the morning. When you first wake, your brain waves are slower and you’re closer to your unconscious. You’ll remember your dreams, and dreams are a significant way your Higher Self communicates with you. If you can’t or won’t journal in the morning, pick another time of day, preferably a time when you’re able to relax and open your awareness to your unconscious by simply sitting quietly for a few minutes. Be consistent in your timing so your unconscious will know when to expect you to listen.

Don’t get hung up in thinking you need to write great prose; you don’t even need to write at all. If writing feels too cerebral, or when the words seem flat or won’t come at all, drawing is an alternative way to fill the journal. Everyone’s Mandala Coloring Book by Monique Mandali is a great place to start playing with colors and design in a healing, insight-producing way.

My own journals would never qualify as great prose; they can best be described as pages of petty complaints and seemingly unimportant detail interrupted by occasional flashes of insight. But the surest way I’ve found to get those flashes of insight is by sitting down every day to write or draw whatever comes to my mind without censoring it or trying to be clever. Goldberg calls it freewriting; Cameron calls it doing morning pages. In Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande calls it effortless writing, when the unconscious is in the ascendant. Whatever you call it, your unconscious will quickly learn that you’re open to receiving messages at this time. By regularly using writing and drawing to listen to your unconscious, you’ll reap amazing benefits.

Another practice that works very well for most people is guided imagery or guided visualization. At the end of each chapter, you’ll find directions for a different inner journey. It is impossible to read the visualization instructions from the book and take the journey at the same time. I lead students in guided imagery often, and I’ve found I simply cannot have the experience they do. I suggest you either read the instructions onto a tape and play it back for yourself or have a friend read the instructions to you. At the very least, read the guided imagery to yourself and close your eyes at the end of each paragraph to picture what has been suggested.

I don’t warn you against action. I just want to cheer you up by saying that nervous, empty, continually willing action is sterile and the faster you run and accomplish a lot of useless things, the more you are dead.

BRENDA UELAND

If You Want to Write

Check the Mixed Media listing in the resource directory at the end of this book if you’d like to order a CD recording of these Dancing in the Dragon’s Den guided imageries. There are other guided imagery recordings listed in the resource directory, and although not all of them address creativity or shadow directly, you may find many of them helpful.

Some people prefer not to receive suggestions while making an inner journey. With or without guidance, quiet time spent in contemplation or meditation will support you in this creative shadow exploration. I recommend a regular practice, daily if you can fit it into your schedule.

I’ve just suggested that you read one chapter of this book every week, do about half the exercises at the end of each chapter, freewrite or draw every day, and practice meditation regularly. I’ve also suggested you think about developing a support network. What have I left out? Oh yes, in the midst of all this extra work, do make time to play. Despite predictions to the contrary, the Puritan work ethic is not dead. For most American adults, play is part of the shadow; we’re responsible, serious adults who don’t have time for frivolities. When we undertake creative or shadow work, it is essential that we remember creative and shadow play as well. Many spiritual traditions pay homage to the Trickster or the Sacred Clown, recognizing humor’s value in the midst of the serious business of spiritual growth. Just ten minutes a day will do wonders, although I recommend setting up an hour of playtime once a week or more. Make time to have fun with your creativity and your shadow.

When playing with your shadow there will, of course, be some inclinations you don’t want to act out even though you do acknowledge their existence. That’s no reason to ignore the many harmless desires we can make room for. For many women who do too much caretaking, this may be as simple as taking an hour to do what you want for a change. For many men, it may be nurturing yourself instead of being dependent on a woman to take care of your emotional needs. Man or woman, you may very well be surprised at the sudden surge of creative juice you feel shortly after you’ve raided your partner’s supply of bubble bath or stuck your tongue out at your boss’s back or thrown darts at a picture of that family member who always gets your goat. You’ll find suggestions for creative and shadow playtime activities throughout the book. For now, just plan on making time for some of those forbidden joys.

Shadow-work is the initiatory phase of making a whole of ourselves.

JEREMIAH ABRAMS

I recognize that what I’m suggesting is a sizable time commitment in what is probably an already over-busy life. Please bear in mind that the rewards of exploring your shadow are no less than the full, free expression of your creativity and spirituality. This book will lead you through a major transformation if you allow it. Making time for yourself is the first step in allowing yourself to make the changes your spirit cries out for.

Will you give yourself five hours a week to have the life you’ve always wanted? How about three hours a week just to check it out? If not, perhaps it’s best to put this book on the shelf until you’re willing to give yourself and the world the gift of your own life. Remember, your psyche has its own wisdom and its own timing. If now isn’t the time, now isn’t the time. There is no need to judge or rationalize; when it’s time, it’s time.

If you’re ready, let’s begin.

CHAPTER  2

Mapping the Psyche

Introducing Ourselves

WHEN