IFS Parts and Creativity I
I found some writing-related parts during some spelunking (ie meditation) this week.
The first that appeared was a huge, ravenous shark. Total Jaws demonry. This was the creative endeavor, wild, out of control, ready to devour any and everything in its way: My time. My children. My confidence. Anything that might be standing in the way of me and a finished written product. This part is insatiable, it is beast.
This part did nearly devour me about a decade ago. We had just moved to Ohio, my mother had died after a year of treatments for leukemia. All I wanted to do was to vanish inside my work. And it fully complied. I don’t even remember what I was writing. I just needed to not be present, in reality. New place, new challenges, who am I, hadn’t we just moved so I could write, in the bucolic countryside? And now we were here, mere miles from my childhood home? (OK, over 90, but still: closer than I’d ever imagined probable.) My kids would come home from their first days at school and I struggled to listen to them, deeply preoccupied by the twin voices in my head, the one trying to hold on to the narrative I’d been crafting; and, its constant companion, the one that told me how shitty what I’d just written was.
The shark is driven by the motivation, the fierce desire to hold on to the inspiration while it is with me, the flow of the narrative, its direction, shape and form, because I forget everything, I lose everything, and I have to work harder than most to make something good. The inner critic is the water in which they all swim. Jaws tries to protect me from my own insufficiency, my fragmented ADHD brain, forgetfulness of words and what, exactly I was saying, where I was going. Shark has learned, along with so many others, that I am not to be relied upon, not to be trusted.
If Shark had its way I would spend full days, weeks, months away from home, holed up somewhere, trying to make this goddamn fucking magic work. I think of Philip Roth, William Styron, Norman Mailer, in their office kingdoms, working feverishly while his family loathes him. I quit writing, abruptly: I am letting myself off the hook. I am saying no to any muse that passes by.
This is not my family’s fault; this is the fault of my own unworthiness. I cannot write without panic-level anxiety and stress. My mental health cannot hold a candle to the merciless Shark. And I have no business putting it as risk, when others rely on me. It is like taking the hot rod out to a county lane while drunk, like bringing all the family wealth to the poker game: no longer mine alone to gamble.
Is this hard for you to imagine, writing, when some part of you hates yourself? Or acts as if it does; closer examination shows that this part believes in you, believes you should be better, that you are capable of it – a glimmer of connection here, of attachment, of belief in you. Even a part that scorns us fully – You are in fact a piece of shit, the worst human who ever walked the earth, capable of nothing, lazy and useless – can we find any positive intent with it? If not, can we find some way of feeling compassion for ourselves, living with such a brutal part?
In opposition to the Shark is the Starfish. She is solid, firm, barely moving. There’s no flexibility with Starfish; she exists, clinging to the ocean floor. Shark can’t really get to her. I don’t really know anything about Starfish anatomy, but I picture a living creature like a hand spread out inside of the calcified exterior. Like a clam, or a shellfish. OK, fine, yes: She is safe and reliable but doesn’t grow, and now I also see that nothing gets past that exterior. So be it.
Two other parts make their appearances, for shits and giggles: A lobster and a guppy, sort of why can’t we all just get along? But staying far clear of the two opponents. If this sounds like fun to you (IKR?!) listen to some of Richard Schwartz's meditations, which you can find on YouTube, Insight Timer, almost any meditation app. I may have one or two up there as well. And if you want to take it further you can do some of Jung's active imagination work -- or read my post next week, when I'll tell you how it worked for me.
