Creativity & Shadow-Work; Opening the Portal

This talk explores the archetype of creativity—preparation, incubation, inspiration, production—and adds the dimension of Shadow. At each stage of the creative process, whether in writing, painting, science, or music, there are potential unconscious blocks. If we use shadow-work to identify the internal saboteurs, who stand as guardians of the creative unconscious, and learn how to observe them without following them, we can open the portal and experience more flow than frustration in our creative endeavors.
Course Objectives:
1. Identify the steps of any creative project.
2. Identify an internal creative block.
3. Personify that block as a shadow character.
4. Begin the exercise of traditional life review.
5. Uncover a trait, talent, or dream that was banished to the shadow.
6. Choose to reclaim that lost trait now.
Suggested Reading: The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul by Connie Zweig, Ph.D. (September, 2021) and Romancing the Shadow by Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf
Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi. Her forthcoming book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, (Sept. 2021), extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift to soul.