98. Creating Yourself - the most fabulous art you can make

 “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

 Carl Jung 

Wondering how to become self actualized, individuated, and your unique you? This episode covers the most powerful of all the archetypes...it is the one you get to create. It is the Self archetype and we are talking about the ways to explore yourself and integrate your conscious and unconscious. Time to start getting to know yourself on a deeper level!

Transcript

 “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

 This quote from Carl Jung starts us off today, and we are talking all about creating your own unique self archetype. Welcome to the modern Creative Woman, where we are exploring the art and science of creativity so that you can become your most expressive, creative and authentic self. Let's get into this. Let's get this started. 

Welcome in and thank you for joining me on this audio creativity journey. 

We've been talking the last few weeks about archetypes and Jungian psychology, and we've looked at the shadow and the persona, the anima and the animus. And today is all about the self archetype. The archetype of the self is truly an image of wholeness. It's integrating the conscious aspects of the self with the unconscious aspects of the self, and it is a lifelong process to create who you are. It's completely unique to you. It does have some parameters around a whole human being and around conscious and unconscious aspects. It really requires that we use every aspect of us. No piece of us is wasted in the creation of the self. It is shedding what is no longer useful and embracing what feels true and authentic. And while this archetype is available for everyone. What it looks like to you is completely unique. It's specific to you and it's your creation. Remember, archetypes are those fundamental components of the collective unconscious. So the self archetype, we all have an idea of what that might be like to feel relaxed and at ease and comfortable with ourselves, and to feel really good about all the parts of ourselves, embracing the aspects that we like and the ones we don't like, just allowing them to be there. And this symbol of self is, you know, part of this universal, primordial image. We all have an idea of what it means to individuate. That's what Jung calls it when we become the individual. And he speaks so much about culture and the influence of the collective unconscious. He was one of the first psychologist to write about adult development, midlife and beyond. He rejected that idea that we were born with. The blank slate, the tabula rasa. Like Freud wrote about wrote about. Carl Jung was the first psychologist to write about adult development and working its way through midlife and beyond. He always rejected the biological ideas of Freud that things are determined biologically, such that we're just blank slates, and whatever we have when we come in is then, you know, imprinted upon by our family and society, and that's it. That's who we are. Carl Jung believed in this collective humanity that there is the history behind us, the humankind history that has led to each one of us being here. And these ideas are critical and relevant and very, very important, especially now when so many people are finding ways to project negativity and find disturbance in other people and other cultures. It's thrilling to consider that the self archetype is one that we get to create. There are all of these archetypes that exist in. They get played out day after day. They inform. Who we think we are. They inform how we act. The artist, the child, the miser, the mother, the rescuer, the seeker, the judge, the hermit, the victim, servant, the rebel. All of these are powerful archetypes. And when I say them, you can picture what they are, and probably name films and movies that use these archetypes to tell the story. However, the self archetype is one of the four classic archetypes the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, and then the self. Each of these are embodying a different facet of our human experience. Remember that Anima is the feminine archetype within men. The animus is the masculine archetype within women comes from the root word animate, which is really about bringing life to things. And so remember, the anima and the animus are the creative seat of the self. And the self is where we get to start having fun and creating an original, unique version of ourselves. You and the self archetype is about orientation and meaning. And inside the modern creative woman we talk a lot about purpose and meaning and really women search for meaning. The self archetype is really about wholeness. It's about the individual. And the individual, of course, then relates to other people and the collective. The self is this very interesting process of integrating and unifying our consciousness and our unconsciousness. And it's so exciting to think about being able to create ourselves as we wish ourselves to be. And we've talked about the mandala as an archetype. The self is often depicted throughout art, across cultures as a circle, a mandala or a square, and sometimes a square within the circle. And remember, the self transcends the ego. Many people get stuck thinking that they're pursuing themselves, and what they're actually been pursuing was something closer to ego rather than self. We all love hedonic pleasures, and those are the pleasures that we experience in the world. Because they happened. They're always kind of available. You could get a new pair of shoes, have hedonic pleasure, you could enjoy a hot fudge ice cream sundae and have some hedonic pleasure. You could get a compliment. All of these are pleasures that are always available. There are hedonic pleasures in work. We might pursue more income or a different position or greater responsibility, and we get the promotion. And then after a little bit of time, we resort back to our pre pleasure level of feeling. The hedonic pleasure does not last very long. And many people I have worked with are pursuing something that is this external pleasure, and then they achieve it and wonder why they are not experiencing long lasting, sustained enjoyment of their lives. The problem is usually pursuing something related to the ego rather than the self. Now you can pursue a promotion at work. Hedonic pleasures will always be there, but we can't get confused about who we are and think that we are a person who makes money. That's just not the self. Sometimes people compare their car to their neighbours car and that's not self either. That's all about ego and having something that someone else doesn't have. Or keeping up with the Joneses is what we used to say when I was growing up. Those pursuits, they're fine. It's totally fine to pursue hedonic pleasure, but we have to go deeper. I have an interview coming up soon with Doctor Amy Koji, and she talks a lot about the different kinds of happiness and what happens when we get on that hedonic treadmill. We keep pursuing, we accomplish, then we feel bad again. So we pursue. Accomplish Philbert again. It's never ending. A new purchase will not sustain your happiness. It'll give you a little bit of pleasure, but it will not sustain a raise will give you some pleasure, but it will not sustain your happiness. Engaging in the work of the self is one way to create sustained pleasure and enjoyment in your life. And it's the incredible aspect of becoming the woman you've always wanted to be. You might wonder about archetypes and and why I've devoted three episodes to archetypes. It really is about knowing more about yourself and others and your community. It can give you a greater appreciation of your favorite shows and movies and books. We talked last week about being comfortable with our anima and animus and being balanced in those. And I talked a lot about the dangers of what can happen when people are unbalanced in those areas, and it leads to a judgment towards others, and specifically a disregard and a violation of rights. There's a real personal drawback when we fail to cultivate our anima and animus and balance it. It's really dangerous on the outside. But when we fail to work on our self archetype, then being the woman we want to be, it's a huge loss to ourselves. We really can feel like we're regretting not having become the woman we wanted to be. Understanding who you are as a person is good for you as an individual. It's also good for society. It's good for all the people around you. When you understand your true self and embrace the self archetype, you end up with a much more clear thinking. It's easier to understand how to set and hold boundaries. It benefits the people that we're in relationship with. Two we're less defensive, less likely to take things personally, and it gives us the ability to predict what we want to do. It gives us a tool by which we can make decisions. It's like a measuring stick. Is this aligned with my true self or not? Does this get me closer to the woman I want to be? Or does it take me further away from the woman I want to be? So working on the self is something we do inside the membership. And in each of the classes were focused very much on the idea of your purpose, your mindset, and making full contact with the present moment. And each of these strategies directly impacts your ability to connect to yourself in a truly meaningful and deep way. And my personal favorite reason for paying attention to these archetypes is it gives us the necessary fuel for our own creativity. Remember I said last week, the anima and the animus are the seat of creativity. That's the place that animation happens. We become lively and zesty, and that zest for life comes from the mix and the balance and the contrast in these parts of our lives. Why would some people not want to have personal insight and gain an understanding of themselves? If you're here listening, it's not you that I'm talking about. You're obviously curious about yourself, but why would some people back away from this kind of work? Well, many people have these entrenched systems of avoidance where they've kind of painted themselves into a corner and they don't want to change anything, and they are not interested in learning anything else that could disrupt a very carefully constructed narrative. Sometimes people have these overly rigid boundaries around their personality, and I don't mean boundaries in the good way. I mean a wall. And they become very rigid. They become overly focused on right and wrong and preoccupied with that idea that there is a right and a wrong instead of there is a way and another way. And that inflexible thinking causes a lot of people to resist insight or take the action to try and change just a little bit. Another reason that people might resist growing and changing is their fear of ambiguity. Have you ever met someone who is so focused on the black and white of the picture, the the clarity, the rules, the this particular system that needs to be used to solve a problem? It might show up at work, it might show up in relationships. But this discomfort with ambiguity causes so much tension within the individual and to the people around them. We need to be able to tolerate not knowing moving, even when we're not completely certain that it is the right move. We have to be able to tolerate ambiguity. Other times, people don't want anything to do with insight and change is because they fear dealing with their past traumas, and they've created a infrastructure to protect themselves. And they fear that if they address their imbalance, if they talk about some of the things that have happened to them that they've experienced, they worry that everything will fall apart and collapse. And they're very fearful of this. And sometimes people have what looks like a lack of curiosity. And it's really a defense mechanism, not being curious about yourself and others and how you're presenting yourself in the world is a real failed defense mechanism. There are so many things that you can learn about yourself and others through the use of archetypes. If you think about some of your favorite books, you can start to see characters developing over time. The heroine's journey, the Hero's journey. Going through a struggle, the heroine collects people and supports people and creates her own family, and together they can resolve the problem. You can look at the self archetypes reflected in your favorite movies as well. In my antiracism group, we recently read the book James by Percival Everett, and I loved this book. It was so rich a retelling of Huckleberry Finn. And at the end of that book, I closed the last page. Wishing, dreaming. I could come into myself as much as the character James came into himself. By the end of the book, where he knew himself, he spoke his truth. He acted on what was important to himself in this completely free way. So when we look to people we admire or characters we admire in books and movies, what is it that we like about them and that can give you a clue towards yourself? Everything that you're curious about is like breadcrumbs leading you towards yourself. Remember that self archetype is the unified, conscious aspects of ourselves and the unconscious aspects of ourselves. It requires us to dig deep and explore our unconscious memories attributes and try and reveal ourselves to ourselves. Introduce ourselves to us. Of course, making art, spending time in therapy in groups where people can give you honest feedback is really, really helpful. To have a mentor and a guide, a coach, a therapist who will comment on. Aspects of you that you may not be aware of about yourself is the hugest gift you can give yourself to put yourself in that vulnerable position and allow yourself to receive useful feedback. And I'm not talking about feedback from family. I'm talking about feedback from someone who has an interest in your success and who is trained to comment and direct you. Creating your self occurs through individuation, which is what Jung called it, and it means adapting and integrating all of those parts of your personality. It also means being okay with the parts that you don't like. There are certainly parts of myself that I feel uncomfortable with, or embarrassed about, or simply unfamiliar with, and just noticing that it gives you a little bit of rest. It takes so much psychic energy to repress, to hold back, to deny. It's liberating to just notice. Oh, there's a part I don't like. Oh, there's a part that I think I could work on. Being able to do that kind of work is what's leading you towards integrating yourself. There is no end goal here when you're working on the archetype of you. And becoming yourself. It's all process. There are things you will do right. Make art. Talk with a therapist. Join a group. Be in nature. All of these things will help you know more about who you are. Traveling, reading, going to a museum and looking at art. Any of the things that light you up inform you about yourself, but it never ends. You're not going to next week say, oh, check done. I am now individuated and a fully actualized human being. It's just not how it works. We keep moving in that direction. What a relief that there's no end goal. That's the end. It's a process we keep moving towards over and over again. We take action towards what's important to us. We become more and more patient with ourself and others, and we seek to know more about our unconscious. You have had moments where you felt fully alive and most like yourself. And I'm not talking about nostalgia and looking back on some loosely constructed good old days. I'm talking about moments of great clarity, of insight, of knowing that you were on the right path, or moments of feeling like you could trust yourself and your intuition. Those are breadcrumbs that lead you to the integration of your self and lead you to create your own self archetype. This is a powerful way to start imagining the woman you want to become. And I want to become a modern, creative woman and I keep moving towards that. Every day I try and take actions that demonstrate to myself that this is the direction I'm going and remember our purpose. Our values are a direction like going west around, around the world we go. We never reach quote unquote west. We keep going. It's a direction that we move in. And the more we move towards understanding ourselves, the more we heal, the stronger we become, and the the process of relating to others becomes easier. We're able to provide more support to others, and we're able to be less offended by the actions of others. We become truly independent, individuated, and free from the psychological burden of trying to suppress who we really are. If you've ever thought about who you want to be remembered as, that kind of legacy can lead you in a powerful direction. The idea of would you rather be disliked for being the woman you are and speaking up? Or would you rather be liked for a woman that you're pretending to be, or you're faking it, or you're hiding some aspects of yourself? At the end of the day, we all want to be the woman. We want to be liked or disliked. We want to be her the self archetype that we create. I really want to encourage you to figure out how you're going to do this process. It is a lifelong process, and if you fail to make time for it, you'll end up in that situation where you've been striving towards a false self or ego, or creating your life in a way to please others. And when the woman I work with are crafting their life to please others, they become very resentful because no one else agreed to this. It's just this silent inner agreement that we had with ourselves. I will make everyone comfortable and then they will like me, but no one else has agreed to that. Zero people have agreed to that, and no one would because it's a ridiculous comparison. We would never say to someone, yes, you be who I want and I promise I will like you. It doesn't work that way. And yet so many women are doing that in the world. We simply are unable to fulfill this silent contract with ourselves, that if we do what we think everyone else wants us to do, and we become what we think everyone else wants us to become, that they will then like us. It just doesn't work that way. If they like you, it's because you've been faking it. If they don't like you, then you become very resentful. Nobody made the agreement to like you if you bend over backwards to please them. So opening yourself up to self discovery to be the person that you want to be isn't going to change what's important to you. You're still going to want to spend time with your family. You're still going to want to contribute to whatever it is that you like to do, but it lets you drop the resentment. It lets you drop these imaginary agreements that many of us make thinking, if I do what they what I think they want, then they have to do what I want, which is to like me. So go ahead, be open to whatever you can be in your own awareness. You can write down your dreams, make some art, right? Just do a free writing for five minutes. Put the pen on the paper and see what happens. Do not pick your pen up until the five minute timer rings. I think going to the museum and looking for an image that you love and an image that you hate is a great place to start. Maybe even find it a picture or a piece of art that disgusts you. Really find the thing that's most revolting, and then go find the thing that's most pleasurable to you and snap a picture. Or buy the postcard and figure out why am I enthralled with this piece of art and disgusted by this piece of art? That is a great way to begin. And of course, museums are an incredibly important tool in the field of art therapy. It allows us to receive information about the creative process. It lets us see the archetypes. Of course the design, the symbols, the technique are all relevant in the art history capacity. But when you go to a museum looking for a painting that matches your current emotion, or you do the assignment I just gave you, which is to go find a piece of art that enthralls you and one that disgusts you. That kind of work is really powerful in knowing yourself and becoming the woman you want to become. Requires you to go figure out what you don't like just as much as what you do like. I believe in the United States, we are in a time, and perhaps around the world where women are reconsidering what they've sacrificed and. Focusing much more on an equal and just society. All of this requires anima and animus balancing. And this is the kind of work that really helps us make social change. Taking action to know yourself truly and to really understand the self archetype and how it plays out for you. Your unique self is a huge contribution to the world. It matters so very much that you become the woman you always wanted to be and then some. It's not merely enough for us to get out of a hole. I really want all of us to excel and be truly involved in our values and doing what feels important to us. It's different for everyone. The self archetype is different for everyone. It matters so much that you move towards it and it does not have to be a grand plan. You don't have to run for office or do anything front and center of anybody. This is about figuring out what you desire, what you like, what you don't like. It truly is a gift to the world. To become a woman who knows herself, appreciates herself and no longer judges herself, accepts her things she likes, things she doesn't like, her quirks and foibles, as well as the things that make you truly special. The things that you like about yourself. There is no wrong way to go about creating your own self archetype. I do have a few ideas of what you need to get started. One. You need a supportive community. Absolutely. You need people around you who will support and encourage this kind of work. If you could work with an individual, a therapist, a mentor, a teacher, a guide that is huge, someone who will appreciate you unconditionally and still be able to point out your areas where you have blind spots. You need art. You absolutely need art and the creative process. You need nature. You need to be out in the world. Trees. It's an amazing concept that psychologists and researchers are studying what it's like to be among the trees. And forest bathing is still a hot topic in research, and that's the act of being out in nature and what it does for us biologically and emotionally. Knowing yourself requires a little effort. It requires taking the uncomfortable things and making it all fit together in your jigsaw puzzle of yourself. It's essential that we not burn out during this process of upheaval, politically and in our own personal growth. It's important that we rest, we nourish, and we take the time to engage in things that delight us. If that's all you did to discover yourself, I think that would be an amazing start to just see what delights you. Drop me a letter. I would love to hear from you. I had some really amazing messages this week. Robin sent me a message about the last podcast and and linking all of these things that I'm talking about into politics, and trying to have an understanding of where we need to go next is so, so important. And Shane sent me a letter in the mail, the good old fashioned mail with a picture and a quote from Viktor Frankl. This is so sweet. So thank you so much. The quote that Shane said, between stimulus and response, there is a space in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. So that's from Viktor Frankl. And if you have yet to read man's search for meaning. Please, please, please get yourself a copy. Thank you so much for joining in for today's podcast of the Modern Creative Woman, and I want to personally invite you into the classes. We meet three times a month at lunchtime on a Tuesday, and you get a little bit of a class. You get some art making time and the ability to just slow down and connect. If this kind of work speaks to you, if you want to know yourself more, if you are ready for your own insight and creativity, come on over. You can sit with us. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level, I want you to know you have options inside the membership. And if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Backus. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month, all those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative Women. Com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode