This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:30] Laura Camien: Welcome to The Spark File where we believe that everyone, everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:45] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:46] Laura Camien: And I'm Laura Camien.

[0:48] Susan Blackwell: And we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

[0:53] Laura Camien: You should know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[0:59] Susan Blackwell: But hold the phone.

[1:01] Laura Camien: You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a Spark File?

[1:05] Susan Blackwell: A Spark File is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:11] Laura Camien: Every episode, we're going to reach into our Spark Files and exchange some sparks.

[1:16] Susan Blackwell: And you never know, we might even talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:21] Laura Camien: Dialects.

[1:22] Susan Blackwell: And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take one of these sparks of inspiration and make something of your own.

[1:27] Laura Camien: So without further ado, let's open up The Spark File.

[1:34] Susan Blackwell: I have to tell you, I, when you said that, and you never know, you never know.

[1:43] Laura Camien: So back on the artist date episode, I think I might've mentioned one of the things that I did was get my library card.

[1:50] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[1:51] Laura Camien: And I took my little library card and I used it to activate my Libby app, which is where you can download both books and audiobooks right to your phone.

[1:58] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[2:04] Laura Camien: And I have been listening to the awesome audiobook of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[2:11] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I hope so.

[2:12] Laura Camien: And when you said that, you never know, I was like, never know, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is a great book and I think probably a great spark for another day, but oh my God, that book is good.

[2:22] Susan Blackwell: I'm ready for that spark.

[2:24] Laura Camien: You give it to us when the time is right.

[2:28] Susan Blackwell: Laura, teaser, have you read that book?

[2:32] Laura Camien: I said, when you told me this earlier that you've like a while ago that you were reading this, I was like, I've read that, right? And I, everything that I hear come out of your mouth, I'm like, I can't recollect that. So maybe I didn't.

[2:46] Laura Camien: Well, let me tell you, you're in for a treat. I won't say too much because I think I will do a spark on it, but you're in for a treat because you are somebody who loves history and you love New York and you were born.

[3:01] Susan Blackwell: I was born in Long Island, but my dad was born in Brooklyn on Flatbush Avenue.

[3:06] Laura Camien: Yeah. Yes. Which is referenced. And as somebody who loves all the aforementioned, I'm going to get into it.

[3:14] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God. It is the most amazing slice of life set in New York in the early 1900s.

[3:21] Laura Camien: It's awesome.

[3:22] Susan Blackwell: I'm so excited.

[3:23] Laura Camien: You know what? I'm going to order that book today.

[3:26] Susan Blackwell: Don't order it.

[3:27] Laura Camien: I have to.

[3:28] Susan Blackwell: You go and you get it from the library.

[3:30] Laura Camien: You need to get my library.

[3:31] Susan Blackwell: That's my next artist date. Get my library card.

[3:33] Laura Camien: I love it for you.

[3:36] Susan Blackwell: Thank you, Susan. Today's episode has been brought to you by the New York Public Library.

[3:42] Laura Camien: That is its own spark too. The library.

[3:46] Susan Blackwell: The library.

[3:47] Laura Camien: There's a whole thing. When she's little, she goes to the library all the time and is like, can you recommend a book for an 11-year-old girl?

[3:58] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God. I love, I have like three different, I've been wanting to do a spark about libraries. I have these three, I have three different books that are like gorgeous coffee table books that are like the most beautiful libraries around the world.

[4:09] Laura Camien: And I'm just like, if only our podcast was a visual podcast that I could be like, and look at this and look at this staircase and I want one of these slidey ladders.

[4:22] Susan Blackwell: That's so awesome.

[4:23] Laura Camien: That's awesome. Yeah.

[4:25] Susan Blackwell: All right. But that's not today's spark. That's just some bonus stuff.

[4:28] Laura Camien: That's just some bonus chit chat. Laura Kamien, you actually do have a fully fledged spark.

[4:37] Laura Camien: I do. I do. And today's spark is actually brought to you by my shadow self who apparently needed some attention lately. So I'm going to get into it. Are you ready?

[4:50] Susan Blackwell: I'm into it. Yes.

[4:52] Laura Camien: I'm into it. All right. So for the last month or so, I kept sort of accidentally knocking into Carl Jung quotes and theories and beliefs. It kind of started when I did the spark on how not everything is a mirror. Sometimes it can be a window, not a mirror, right? We can observe some crazy going down and not take it on ourselves.

[5:15] Laura Camien: And as I was researching for that spark, it was theorized that one of Carl Jung's beliefs may have been bastardized over time by, you know, Instagram therapists and whatnot. And instead of what he actually said, which was that everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves. We got the oversimplified, other people are mirrors and everything is a mirror because our reactions to other people reveal our unconscious.

[5:50] Laura Camien: But I said it then and I'll say it again, Carl Jung never said that everything is a mirror. He believed in discernment, not just blanket self-blame and ooh, this is information about me.

[6:05] Laura Camien: So after that, I started to see more and more Jungian theories fed to me, of course, on Instagram, but also in articles that I was reading. And then one of his ideas like came up in conversation. So you know what I decided to do, Susan? I signed up for a seven hour course called Introduction to Jungian Psychology.

[6:28] Susan Blackwell: What the fuck?

[6:32] Laura Camien: That's right. I did that.

[6:34] Susan Blackwell: When did you have time to do that?

[6:37] Laura Camien: It's a prerecorded course. So you know how I turned off all, like not all, but most of my streamers. Now the exciting videos I have to watch are educational videos on Jungian psychology. In case anyone was wondering what I'm up to in the dead of night, when my bedtime procrastination has kicked in, when the city has gone to sleep, I am snuggling up to the teachings of Carl Jung.

[7:05] Susan Blackwell: Aren't you classy?

[7:06] Laura Camien: I'm classy.

[7:07] Susan Blackwell: I'm so classy. A tree is growing in Brooklyn.

[7:14] Laura Camien: So what I'm going to share with you today is just the tip of the iceberg, Susan. Just the tip.

[7:21] Susan Blackwell: Oh God.

[7:22] Laura Camien: Susan, just the tip.

[7:25] Susan Blackwell: Laura.

[7:26] Laura Camien: There is no way to share all of his teachings, but I'm going to share some particular ideas that resonate for me and relate to, of course, our creativity.

[7:37] Laura Camien: So for those of you who are not familiar, Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, psychologist, who founded the School of Analytical Psychology. Analytical psychology is really just a term that referred to his own Jungian psychology. It was meant to distinguish his work from Freud's psychoanalytical theories.

[8:03] Laura Camien: The two of them collaborated for about seven years and that ended, that collaboration ended around 1913. So they wanted to like make distinctions between their work. Obviously, both of these gentlemen have made lasting contributions to the field of psychology.

[8:23] Susan Blackwell: In case you're curious, Susan, about the main differences between the two men, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and their psychological theories, I'm going to give you a hot take. This is all my own and therapists will be rolling over in their graves, even thinking about what I'm about to say.

[8:41] Laura Camien: And live therapists will just be rolling their eyes.

[8:44] Susan Blackwell: We'll be rolling their eyes.

[8:45] Laura Camien: Everybody's rolling something.

[8:48] Susan Blackwell: Therapists are getting rolled.

[8:50] Laura Camien: Getting rolled by this. I may have oversimplified it here, but to me, as I understand it, the major difference between the two is sex.

[9:03] Susan Blackwell: For example, earlier, Susan, when I made that joke about just the tip, if I was speaking to Freud and said that phrase, he would need like two seconds to analyze it. Freud would say, yes, this is about sexual desire, sexual repression, sexual negotiation. The unconscious mind is expressing itself through humor.

[9:29] Laura Camien: Because Freud believed that a huge amount of human behavior, including jokes, is the unconscious mind sneaking repressed sexual material past our social filters. So Freud, almost everything is about sex, truly, or repressed sexual desires.

[9:48] Laura Camien: So Freud hears just the tip and he basically says, correct, Laura's unconscious would like to have sex, case closed. But if you brought that same phrase to Carl Jung, the conversation might take a different turn. Jung might say, okay, yeah, sexuality is part of the picture. But what I'm really noticing is that the joke is playing with a boundary. There's the suggestion of crossing the line paired with the reassurance that the line isn't really being crossed.

[10:23] Laura Camien: That kind of tension between impulse and restraint, order and chaos is where Jung believed the psyche does some of its most interesting work. That is shadow, that's trickster energy, that's the human psyche flirting with the edge of the forbidden in a way that still feels socially safe.

[10:47] Laura Camien: So Freud hears the joke and says sex, Jung hears the joke and says, ah, the eternal dance between the civilized self and the shadow self. And if I do say so myself, I think this is a perfect example of their entire disagreement. For Freud, it's about sex. For Jung, it's about the soul.

[11:09] Susan Blackwell: So there we have it. We're all caught up to date on Carl Jung versus Sigmund Freud.

[11:15] Laura Camien: Thank you for that.

[11:16] Susan Blackwell: You're so welcome. We sort of bump up against these things all the time, but I have never taken the time to really dive much deeper.

[11:26] Laura Camien: Can I introduce you in a course on Jungian psychology?

[11:30] Susan Blackwell: I'm so stoked that you now have this in your brain, because that means in some ways we have this in our brain.

[11:38] Laura Camien: Our conjoined brain now has this information.

[11:41] Susan Blackwell: What Freud and Jung would say about that, but I love that you love it.

[11:53] Laura Camien: To sidebar for a minute, this will help secure it in your mind, like something we all know about Freud. So Freud, it's all about the libido for him. And when you accidentally reveal your inner desires with a slip of the tongue, it's called, of course, a Freudian slip.

[12:08] Laura Camien: So that's part of his legacy, is that according to him, we're always revealing our sexual desires by little things that we say. Susan, have I ever told you one of the most mortifying Freudian slips I've ever made?

[12:29] Susan Blackwell: No.

[12:30] Laura Camien: I'm going to die. I can't believe it. Am I actually going to tell this story?

[12:35] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[12:36] Laura Camien: You're going to tell it right now.

[12:37] Susan Blackwell: I'm going to tell it now.

[12:39] Laura Camien: On a hot mic, baby. I'm going to tell it now. My palms are sweating.

[12:45] Laura Camien: So years ago, I was working at the Sundance Film Festival, and I was working in the PR area, which meant that all the fancy people were coming through and getting photos taken, like doing meet and greets and all that. And one night, Channing Tatum came in, and I met him at the door. My job was to greet him and walk him over to where he needed to be. So I say hello.

[13:11] Laura Camien: And we're walking along and one of the other like ladies that I work with sees me and she goes, Oh my God, your hair looks gorgeous. Because I had gotten a blowout that day. So Channing looks at me and says, It does look really nice. And I said, Thanks. I love a good blow job. You've never told me that. I almost died. It's literally was like, Please let me sink into the floor. Never to be seen again. I love the thought of you at like 97. Just rocking the porch of the old folks home. And you don't remember at all. But you do remember that. Let me tell you the time I met Channing Tatum. So good. Oh my god. No, that's a Freudian slip, folks. What was his response? Did you look into his face and clock his response?

[14:09] Susan Blackwell: I couldn't look at him, Laura. I have no idea because I was busy dying. It's amazing. Later on, he did like find me and ask like where the bathroom was also part of my job. But I could barely look at him. Barely look at him. I was like, Oh, it's right over there. It's right upstairs. Today's Spark is not about Freud. And despite the conversation thus far, it's not about sex. It's about Carl Jung. So Carl Jung rejected the idea that human beings are born as a blank slate and that our experiences shape our thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. Instead, he believed that there are universal experiences that are inherent to the human experience, such as belonging, love, death, fear. These experiences he called the collective unconscious. And he was famous for expressing a lot of them in what he called the archetypes. We do not have time to crack into all that today. But I would like to talk about the collective unconscious.

[15:19] Laura Camien: So how he defined the unconscious collectively and personally, he said, the unconscious mind is everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment thinking. Everything of which I was once conscious of, but have now forgotten. Everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by my conscious mind. Everything which involuntarily and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do. All the future things which are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness. All of this is the content of the unconscious. Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot. It's a lot going on in there. And so one of his most radical ideas was that the unconscious mind isn't only personal.

Beyond our individual memories and experiences, he believed that humans share this collective layer of the psyche, a kind of psychological blueprint. He called that the collective unconscious. That's why certain symbols and myths and mythology stories appear across cultures and across centuries of time, like the hero's journey, the wise sage, the trickster, the dark forest, the idea of rebirth after descent. According to Jung, these patterns arise from deep structures of the human psyche that all humans share.

[17:08] Susan Blackwell: So the idea that stories are universal completely fits with Jungian theory. He would say that we aren't just inventing stories. We're remembering patterns that already live inside all of us, which I think is pretty awesome. And when you look at the stories that get told, it, to me, that rings very true. But one of his other most famous ideas is that the shadow or the shadow self is personal and unique to each one of us. The shadow represents the part of ourselves that we reject, we suppress or deny qualities that our ego does not want to claim. The shadow contains our fears, behavioral patterns, coping mechanisms, and blind spots. It might even contain our belief system or our value systems if we've adopted those beliefs and values from somebody else or from society without really scrutinizing them.

[18:08] Laura Camien: Here's a key insight. The shadow doesn't only contain what we consider to be negative traits. There are positive things that we have pushed down as well. Maybe when we were younger, they were deemed too much, or they were threatening to people around you, or the whole crime of outshining. You may have repressed these positive traits, and that can sometimes be referred to as the golden shadow. But the shadow or the golden shadow, I know that was a new term I learned. The shadow or the golden shadow can also contain creativity, passion, ambition, anger, sensuality, brilliance, wildness, and so much more. Anything that we perceived was not acceptable or not advantageous to us, down it went. We pushed it down into the shadow.

Anything that doesn't feel acceptable to express gets pushed into the shadow. But getting to know what is in your shadow self can often be where creative breakthroughs happen, because the shadow contains energy that hasn't been allowed expression yet. It's so ripe and so ready to be mined for universal truths and personal truths.

[19:38] Susan Blackwell: When writing, I always think about what is the thing you are most afraid to put down on paper for this character or this scene? What is lurking in the shadows that you don't want to see? That is what I want to be shown in a story. I think I might have told you this, Sue, so forgive me for the repeat, but recently I was asked to be on a podcast, and I was asked what makes for a good story, like in the classic storytelling sense. I was like, well, first of all, there's real experts on storytelling structure. That's not going to be me. But I can answer personally what makes for a good story to me. I like a story that tells the truth, realizing of course that everyone's truth is not the same. But then something popped out of me that I didn't know I was going to say. I added, and better yet, if a story can reveal a truth to me that I have been hiding from myself.

[20:45] Laura Camien: Yes, we did talk about this. Off mic, we talked about it in relation to After the Hunt.

[20:53] Susan Blackwell: That's right. The reason why you really liked that movie is because there were aspects of that movie that shone a light on something in you. You were like, oh, I'm realizing something about myself. And it's not always. Mostly, it's not. I didn't want to see it. That's why it's in the shadow. That's why it was tucked away somewhere. I'm like, ew. Ew. So yes, that's like showing me something I've tucked away in my shadow self that I don't want to look at or I don't want to know about myself. And I love that in a story. I mean, it might be uncomfortable. I might not like what I see. But now that you have held a lantern up to that dark corner of my mind, I have to look at it. I am really into that kind of story. To me, I'm like, that's kind of what it's all about. I want to leave a piece thinking. And better yet, if I've learned something about the world, but also about myself or my place in it or my contribution to it.

[22:06] Laura Camien: So I think it can also be fun to think about the shadow self in regard to the characters that we write. What fears and emotions and characteristics have they suppressed into their shadow? What truth might be revealed to them in this story? Just something to make of it if we want to make something of it. So Jung believes that we can't pretend that our shadow doesn't exist. But we can't just look at our shadow either. Psychological growth requires integrating the shadow. You know how I said, once I see it, now I have to do something about it?

[22:40] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[22:41] Laura Camien: Yeah, he's all about the integration of these feelings. But the shadow self and the repression of these emotions and feelings or desires, think of it like holding a beach ball underwater, trying to sit on the beach ball while you're in the water, right? That beach ball is your suppressed emotions and fears. And if you try to push it down long enough, sooner or later, it is going to shoot to the surface, maybe pop you in the face. But it's going to happen when you least expect it. And unfortunately, if you don't examine and integrate your shadow self, you're going to spend your life sabotaging yourself over and over and wondering why things keep happening to you.

[23:25] Susan Blackwell: Jung said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. The thing is, what protected you when you were young is often what limits you as an adult. And by the way, limits your creativity. Because I would posit, and this is a theory I'm just saying off the cuff, but the truths that you can't address and reveal to yourself in your real life, I don't think those are coming out in your creative work either.

[24:02] Laura Camien: I completely agree. So think about that. So the personality that you constructed in childhood was designed to help you survive your environment. It wasn't actually designed to help you express who you truly are. So Jung promoted the idea of making friends with your shadow self. He knew that was not the easiest task, but it is the path to a healthy mind. He recognized the very strong desire in each of us to just avoid thinking about it, deny those parts of ourselves that we don't like, that we feel ashamed of, that we don't want to see. He said, people will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.

[25:03] Susan Blackwell: Another good character note, by the way, if you're wondering about character motivation, think about that. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. He also said, however, no tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. It's a little bit dramatic for my taste, but it is powerful. It is powerful. Connecting to all the parts of ourselves, he believed, is essential for our mental health.

[25:28] Laura Camien: Next up, Jung is famous for his ideas about persona. He used the word persona from the Latin word for the mask worn by actors in ancient theater to describe the face that we present to the world. It's the role we play so that we can function within society. Your persona might be things like the professional, the good parent, the funny friend, the reliable leader, the polished performer. These are not exactly fake identities. They're adaptations. They help us navigate the expectations of culture and work and family and community. Jung believed that the persona is absolutely necessary. Without it, social life would be chaos. But the persona becomes dangerous when we mistake the mask.

[26:22] Laura Camien: For our whole self, or when you forget that it is a mask. In other words, if you start believing this role that I play is who I am, for example, a doctor who believes they must always be competent and they can never express uncertainty, or a performer who believes they must always be charismatic or they have to be on all the time. Unsufferable. Insufferable. A leader who believes they must always be strong and decisive. When we cling too tightly to the mask, other parts of the psyche get pushed into the shadow. Emotion, vulnerability, creativity, anger, doubt, anything that doesn't fit that particular persona gets hidden away. And again, if ignored, these things will pop to the surface when you least expect it.

When I was working on The Spark Sues, I was reminded of how much Jungian psychology was present in Blue Man Group. Not overtly, of course, but for example, there were six archetypes that the Blue Man character moved in and out of, and they were never named for the audience. It was never like made obvious to the audience, but the actors were aware of them. And the archetypes were things like the innocent, the trickster, the scientist, the group member, the hero. And this idea of masks was there as well. Chris Wink, who really jumped up the Blue Man character from the beginning, would talk about how putting the blue makeup on for him was not about putting on a mask, but rather what it feels like when he takes off all of his social masks.

What is underneath all of that? And at Blue Man, of course, we believe that underneath all of those masks is the really juicy, universal human experience that we can all share, regardless of the details of our individual lives. It's the collective unconscious, that story or that knowing from deep within that has always been there. Finally, one of my favorite Jungian theories, most likely because I feel like it's been a personal effort that I became aware of in my mid-twenties and has been my goal ever since, is that Jung focused on the lifelong journey of becoming fully yourself. He called this process individuation. Individuation is the gradual integration of all parts of the psyche, the conscious and the unconscious, the light and the shadow, the masculine and feminine energies, the rational and intuitive parts of the self.

The goal here is not perfection. The goal is wholeness. So for Jung, a healthy life wasn't about eliminating contradiction. It was about learning to hold complexity and integrate it. He was certainly about the acceptance of our imperfections and accepting the fact that we contain multitudes and sometimes contradictory traits. Jung said wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one's being, but by the integration of the contraries. He really believed that if we don't do the work to discover and integrate our own unconscious, what we truly think and believe, who we truly are, then we are simply going through the motions of what we've been told to do and who we've told to be, which can be a pretty empty existence.

He was famous for saying, the world will ask you who you are. And if you don't know, the world will tell you. Jung observed that individuation accelerates as we get older. The first half of our life is largely external. He said, building identity, security, competence. But the second half is where things get really interesting. The second half calls for a reckoning with what has been unlived. I fucking love that. A reckoning with what has been unlived. And the personality that we built for the first half of our life is rarely adequate for this reckoning. Isn't that fascinating? It is. I'm going to leave you with this little thought. I know, for me personally, I lived the first 25 years of my life absolutely allowing the world to tell me who I was and who I was going to be.

And around age 25, I had to make a radical decision to burn it all down and start rebuilding from there so that I could figure out who I really am and then start to craft a life that would allow for my authentic and hugely imperfect self to move through space just as I am. And that takes a long time. This has been a long, long, long time. This kind of world, this kind of world, it's not built overnight, but it is possible to design your life to support your whole self. And I agree with Carl Jung, who said, the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. And that is my spark, Susan. I'm feeling Jung, cheesy, crazy, Laura Camien.

[32:22] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. And that's all you'll ever need to know about Carl Jung. Remember those therapists? They're all coming for me now. I'm just kidding. This was like the tiniest top line. Just the tip. I'm still stuck back on that you had time to take a seven-hour course. Hats off to you. But even if you shoved it in to late nights... Did I fall asleep to some of it? Maybe. That's okay. I feel like I've had teachers who would say, even if you fell asleep to it, it might still be getting in there. I'm thinking more about the what do we make of it for artists. And when you and I agreed on that point about if you don't consciously do that work to bring it to the surface and know it and integrate it, it might pop to the surface and pop you in the face, that kind of thing.

[33:28] Laura Camien: Yes. And if you are unaware of it in your life and unwilling to look at it, it will be difficult for you if you are trying to create something that goes there. I think you're still going to have that same block in going there.

[33:40] Susan Blackwell: Go ahead. I kept thinking about that after you moved on. And I do think that sometimes we have seen work where it has risen to the surface. Yes. It's popped up. And even if the artist doesn't have full consciousness or control of it, or maybe that's them trying to figure it out. I'm sure it's case by case. Or maybe that is it coming to the surface. If you sit down to write and you're open to it, those are those moments, I think, where people come back and read their work and like, I don't even remember writing that. Did I write that came out of me? Those magical moments, I think, can also be from the shadow self. If you're, you know what I mean, you're open to opening the doors and looking in those corners or allowing your mind to wander in there.

[34:31] Laura Camien: Yeah. I was just looking at this article that Helen Shaw wrote in the New York Times, and it reflects back on this piece, Rumpstick Road, which was one of a series of pieces that Spalding Gray made at the Wooster Group when they were all really young. And they were more like plays than his later monologues. And they were exploring things like his mother's suicide, and how, you know, what he couldn't know at the time he was so young, but it is discussed when he was making that piece as a young man about his mother's psychiatrist said to him, but don't worry, you probably won't commit suicide too. And of course, he ended up committing suicide. But I think about like this, as you're talking, I'm like, shadow self, did it ever get integrated? Was that even before he had consciousness and control of it, his attempt to process these things and maybe even integrate them?

[35:48] Susan Blackwell: This is so, so vast that I guess I'll just conclude by saying, I'm stoked that you have done this, the study that you've done around this. I'm fascinated. And yeah, really just the tip. It's really just the tip. But no, Suze, I think that's all really important in regard to the what do we make of it as well as I do think the writing about things can be our way of starting the integration process. And sometimes people are afraid to even write those things down on the page. And I just want to encourage people, do it, write it down, you don't have to share it with anyone, you can burn it later, you can, you know, whatever, drop it in the fire pit, it's gone forever. But you began to do the integration.

And then the other thing is that golden shadow. And when we think about so many creatives that we work with, sometimes the things that they have repressed are the most delicious, charming, delightful, captivating things about themselves, because somewhere along the line, someone told them that was too weird, or that it might pull focus from their sibling, or that feels arrogant. And you don't want to call attention to yourself or whatever the case may be. And I think exploring the golden shadow for artists is so essential, because there's so much juicy, unique you-ness in that. And we're missing it. We're missing it if you don't go there.

[37:33] Laura Camien: Well done.

[37:36] Susan Blackwell: Thank you. My God.

[37:37] Laura Camien: Enjoy. Enjoy a little Jung.

[37:40] Susan Blackwell: Feeling Jung. I guess that's it. This very classy, very smart episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape and the Mohican people. And as always, we hope it put another bunch of sparks in your file. Listen to us. If there is a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to work with us to accomplish your creative goals, email getcreativeatthesparkfile.com or reach us through our website, thesparkfile.com.

[38:08] Laura Camien: We'll even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission. First, you've got to share a creative risk that you've taken recently. You can follow us on social at The Spark File, and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five-star review this podcast. It really does help other listeners to find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you loved. And if you didn't like it, why don't you go to the bathroom, Channing Tatum? Get out of here.

[38:35] Susan Blackwell: Dialects. All comes together.

[38:39] Laura Camien: It all comes together. Well done, Suze. If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

[38:55] Susan Blackwell: You know, you got to take it and make it.

[39:09] Laura Camien: I jump into my spark file. Let's open up the spark file.