Writing and Creativity and Our Subconscious
Being creative involves self-awareness and respecting who we really are, including our unconscious depths.
Dr. Mihaela Ivan Holtz of Creative Minds Psychotherapy helps creative people in TV/Film, performing and fine arts.
In one of her articles, she notes:
"Maybe you feel you’re not able to really access your talents and skills to create your life...When your conscious intentions aren’t helping you to get somewhere in life, it’s time to get curious about what your unconscious has to offer...
There are many ways to invite the unconscious to the table.
Here are a few ways you can open yourself to explore and understand your deeper world – so, you can to start putting back together the pieces of your core self in way that it can tell its own story.
1. Dream Analysis: Keeping a dream journal and reflecting on recurring themes or symbols can provide insights into the unconscious mind.
2. Meditation: Regular meditation helps quiet the conscious mind, allowing unconscious thoughts and feelings to surface.
4. Art: Engaging in creative expression – drawing, painting, writing – can help express unconscious thoughts and emotions.
5. Journaling: Expressing yourself on the page – without concern for grammar or structure – can uncover unconscious thoughts and patterns.
6. Mindfulness Practices: Focusing on the present moment and observing your thoughts and feelings without judgment can make unconscious patterns more apparent.
7. Active Imagination: This Jungian technique involves engaging with unconscious content through imaginative dialogue and visualization.”
See more in article You Can Access Your Unconscious Mind to Achieve Your Dreams by Mihaela Ivan Holtz, Psy.D., LMFT.
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Jungian Depth Psychology
One way to gain more access to the creative possibilities of our unconscious is to do shadow work.
The dark side or shadow self of some people leads to destructive or violent behavior, but getting in touch with the hidden or disowned parts of ourselves can help most of us lead a more fulfilling and creative life.
One challenge is that facing those parts can be threatening and make us want to shut down or hide.
Melissa Kim Corter is a Jungian depth psychologist and author whose expertise "revolves around the shadow side of the personality. Her unique writing style blends psychology with symbolic forms found in film, fairy tales..."
This is a brief excerpt from her free interview The Alchemy of Fairy Tales & Jungian Shadow Work.
Corter notes "I was kind of a strange kid. I was highly intuitive and empathic.
"I didn't know at the time what that meant I didn't understand that I was attuned to other people's emotions. So I often would see sense and feel experiences that uh I had no conscious awareness of...
"I learned to navigate the world by reading these stories and resonating with the protagonist [such as] Little Red Riding Hood...
“There was something about these stories that allowed me to recognize patterns in my own life."
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Using the Shadow in creative work such as movies
The supranatural
The film Pan’s Labyrinth was acclaimed for its powerful story and richly beautiful as well as terrifying images.
Writer and director Guillermo del Toro once commented, “When you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of the reach of your physical world, art and religion are the only means to get to it.”
In an interview, del Toro spoke about humans having two levels of thought:
“One is conscious and the other unconscious or subconscious…
“Our problem is that we divide things that may be instinctive and collective and we have compartmentalized our perception so strongly that we only get them in glimpses and I think this is where the idea of the Jungian archetype comes to work…
“I believe that there is a whole dimension that I wouldn’t call supernatural but ‘supranatural,’ that I believe in.”
[From a San Francisco Bay Guardian interview.]
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Hear audio excerpt of a free 3-part video series by Sounds True with Caroline Myss and Andrew Harvey on The Sacred Path of the Shadow, in this podcast episode:
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