“The uniquely competitive arts and entertainment world can easily trigger your worst unconscious conflicts.” – Psychotherapist Mihaela Ivan Holtz
How do actors and other artists make use of their inner emotional lives, including their shadow selves or dark sides, to be more alive and creative?
Actor Anthony Hopkins has talked about engaging with this side of ourselves:
“I’m not a psychologist, but at the back of it I think there is a feeling that everything is uncertain, there is no guarantee of anything and that causes us great fascination and fear.
“So we look into the dark side of ourselves and the world.
“I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, the dark side of one’s nature, and have fun with it.
“What happens if you don’t address the darkness in you? You become repressed, depressed and suicidal.”
(From “Anthony Hopkins: Hollywood Is ‘Full of Crazy People'” by Jeanne Wolf, Parade mag., Feb 11, 2010. Photo at top of page: Anthony Hopkins in Westworld.)
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In this podcast episode of mine, Caroline Myss talks about the definition of the Shadow and why it is so important to understand our Shadow’s contents.
This audio is from a free video series by Sounds True with Caroline Myss and Andrew Harvey: The Sacred Path of the Shadow
Listen to more episodes of The Creative Mind Audio Podcast.
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Mihaela Ivan Holtz , Psy.D., LMFT, helps creative people in TV/Film, performing and fine arts,
She also writes about the emotional and creative pleasures of their inner life – and its challenges – on her site Creative Minds Psychotherapy.
Here is an excerpt from one of her articles on the topic of unconscious conflicts:
Creating and performing are the sources of your life energy.
You trust your talent and you work hard to develop it.
You have big aspirations and dreams and you don’t want to settle for less.
At the same time, you feel confused, unsure, you may even doubt your talents and skills.
Part of you wants to continue. You know, at heart you are a creative, a performer.
Part of you wants to give up. The fear of not succeeding in the highly competitive world of arts and entertainment feels so big and real.
Aren’t things supposed to happen when you put in all the work, energy, and passion?
When you give all you have and it still doesn’t turn out as you hope, it’s confusing, isn’t it?
This confusion and disappointment can really hook into your unhealed unconscious conflicts and paralyze you.
And then, you go back and forth in your mind and heart, called to be seen and called to hide at the same time.
You don’t know which way to go… You wonder, “Am I chasing the impossible dream?”
The uniquely competitive arts and entertainment world can easily trigger your worst unconscious conflicts.
You hear things like “planets have to align for you to make it.”
And yet, many artists become successful every year.
While you may not be able to control when and how the “planets align” for you, you can align yourself with possibilities and opportunities.
Your unconscious mind can sabotage your dreams.
What if you could understand your unconscious mind and turn it into your ally?
How do you know if your unconscious conflicts are interfering with how you are building your career?
The hints are right there for you to see:
You want to be more confident in your auditions, but you don’t coach yourself to be prepared for auditions.
You want to master your guitar, yet you don’t seem to devote yourself to really practice.
You yearn for the big moment that you get that dream job, but you keep making mistakes on the small opportunities that can build your image.
You want to write your screenplay, but you find yourself procrastinating. …
The good news: You can work with your unconscious mind to support your creative endeavors.
Read more in her article:
Are you unconsciously sabotaging your creative career?
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Carla Gugino has commented about one of the challenges of her profession – as well as for anyone who aspires to be authentic:
“As an actor, you’re naked emotionally; you’re revealing yourself emotionally.”
She has also commented about an experience which can apply to any of us and hold us back from more fully expressing ourselves: self-criticism.
“What I’ve realized is that we’re our own harshest critics. We give ourselves limitations.
“But I want to push through that wall, on a creative and personal level.”
Another interesting comment she made:
“You know, I used to be made fun of as a kid for being really articulate; it was sort of like a strange thing.”
[Quotes are from her imdb profile.]
Being bullied or made fun of can lead us to feel ashamed, and to disown or cover up some our most valuable qualities – another way that not knowing our shadow self can be self-limiting.
Gugino’s comment about being ‘really articulate’ can refer to the experience of many gifted children. See my related site, mostly for gifted kids who have grown up to be gifted adults: High Ability.
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Trying to deal with feelings in destructive ways
Ben Affleck comments about the kind of struggle to stay creative without hurting ourselves:
“People with compulsive behavior, and I am one, have this kind of basic discomfort all the time that they’re trying to make go away.
“You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever.
“But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break.
“That’s at least what happened to me.”
From article “Ben Affleck Tried to Drink Away the Pain. Now He’s Trying Honesty.” By Brooks Barnes, The New York Times Feb 18 2020.
[Photo: Janina Gavankar, Ben Affleck in The Way Back (2020).]
Also see my article Actors and Addiction.
Using and misusing drugs, and engaging in addictive behavior, are potentially destructive ways we try to deal with unconscious feelings.
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What is our shadow self and how can it help us be more creative?
Psychotherapist David Richo points out, “Our scared and arrogant ego has an enormous capacity not to know itself.”
That can certainly apply to not knowing our shadow self more.
He goes on to quote Carl Jung:
“The shadow is the negative side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions and the contents of the personal unconscious…
“[The shadow] also displays a number of good qualities such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc.”
[From his book: Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power & Creativity of Your Dark Side.]
Quotes are from my post Collaborating With Our Shadow Side.
Psychologist Cheryl Arutt also talks about the concept of the Shadow Self that psychologist Carl Jung addressed in his therapy and writings.
She notes that our emotional health and balance, perhaps especially for artists, may depend on having some understanding and acceptance of the darker or less comfortable sides of ourselves.
And doing this also gives us more power to make aware choices rather than just react to life unconsciously.
She thinks that actors and other artists who are willing, in their creative work, to delve into the really “messy” feelings of being human (shame, devastations, disappointments, betrayals, traumas and other experiences), probably have a relationship with those feelings.
A number of actors confirm that idea, saying they are drawn to a role because they feel a strong personal connection with the emotional aspects of that character and story.
See more in article Psychologist Cheryl Arutt on Mental Health and Creative People.
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Psychologist Stephen A. Diamond talks about some of the shadow emotions we may have learned to disown or stifle.
He says there is a “very strong correlation between anger, rage and creativity, one which most people are not aware of.
“Most of us tend to view anger or rage negatively, associating it almost exclusively with destructiveness and violence.
“Certainly this correlation exists. But anger can also motivate constructive and creative behavior.”
Psychologist Rollo May introduces and defines the classic Greek conception of the “daimonic” or darker side of our being, noting that “the daimonic (unlike the demonic, which is merely destructive) is as much concerned with creativity as with negative reactions.”
He notes the acting of Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange “are good examples.
“These artists have learned how to harness the power and intensity of their own rage (among other daimonic emotions), deliberately tapping into their personal demons to animate and intensify their acting.”
(Photo: Jessica Lange poses with her photographs.)
From The Psychology of Creativity: redeeming our inner demons – a transcript of my longer interview with Stephen A. Diamond, PhD. [Private article for members – follow link to learn more.]
He is author of Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil and Creativity.
Listen to more episodes of The Creative Mind Audio Podcast.
Also see Prodded by our daimon muse to be creative
See more in my article Owning Our Shadow Self
From the article:
“When we cut away our shadows, what remains seems manufactured and superficial. You see, shadows add depth.
“Any decent artist will tell you that. A lack of shadows creates a flat and two-dimensional picture. Our beautifully complex personality is sanitized, simplified and stuffed into a box.
“When we take the time to look into our bag of shadows, something magical happens. We begin to see ourselves for who we really are. We start to understand that we weren’t born to be perfect.
“Our greatest qualities are tethered to our most feared flaws.” – Michaela Chung, an “Introvert Coach, Writer and Entrepreneur.”
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Emotional Health Resources
Programs, books, articles and sites to improve your emotional balance, mental health and wellness, and help master stress.
“Learning how to regulate internal states, how and when to use self-soothing techniques, and how to know when we are actually safe — these are key to emotional well-being for anyone, but for artists, they are especially useful.” Psychologist Cheryl Arutt.
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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