Shadows are on your side
I ran home - again. I ran home because i am definitely addicted. I managed to shave off 15 minutes. How is that possible? I have a theory - it's because i knew exactly how far far was and did not hold back. So i shaved 15 minutes off. It's good. Now that the running has started i can see how well linked it is to the thinking that takes place - or the possibility of thinking.
Today, i swept up all my diaries, books, notes, etc and went outside to sit in the sunshine and plan. I'm not sitting here any longer, i thought, and just went to the picnic benches that surround the office and sat, beneath a rowan tree that was buzzing with bees and wrote, a dreamt and planned.
As you know, i have been trying to simplify my life and looked at the things that i could cut back and there was nothing i could cut back. So i then i decided, ok i will do these things, but i will do them with simplicity and beauty. And this will certainly slow me down. Anyway...it's an experiment.
Shadow has sort of come into my life again because of a really small incident. There is a photograph of someone who i mistrust utterly - because of what this person did to me and someone said we should rephotograph this person. Why? I thought. This photo makes this person look like a used car salesperson. Which is exactly what they are. Smarmy shitty, untrustworthy, slippery git who treats people abominably. There are not many people in my life which i feel such repulsion for. It takes all of my willpower sometimes not to say to this person, i think you need therapy. You really need to go away and sort yourself out. I am disgusted that i am disgusted by this person. I am. And also because i know that the things which disgust me most about the person are probably things which disgust me most about myself.
I know that at some level i operate disingenuously. Perhaps because i am in PR and have to put on that veneer of smarminess. I can't bear the way i talk to media people. Making that pitch. I can't bear the way i have to spin - you know - tell bits of stories. I can't bear the way i have to be false to people whom i really think i have nothing in common with. And i suppose, even as i write this the word compassion keeps coming into my head. You have to be compassionate Stephanie, be compassionate. Not just with yourself, but with this person. But oh, god. Be compassionat to this person... it's such a tall order... so that's the stupid way shadow is manifesting itself right now.
I have also found myself hiding from people because i owe people so many things, but the running has allowed me to perhaps oxygenate parts of my brain again, enjoy the sunshine, feel good about my body and therefore good about myself and i'm beginning to shake myself a bit and begin to say - i actually don't have more to do - it is exactly the same - the only difference is the sunshine. It means that i garden a whole lot more and therefore so many things which i otherwise would have spent doing indoors in front of a computer i now am not doing. So, having admitted i'm hiding from people i can say this to people as well - that i've been hiding from you - and actually people are a lot more forgiving - which is what usually the case.
I've been reading also about the creativity of the shadow. Is it even wise to think that we can create from shadow? I know that it is always there, but creating from shadow alone is dangerous. It is like indulging in your dark side. And we see the fruit of shadow creation everyday - most especially in these celebrity/gossip magazines. What are they about? Fundamentally they're about people wanting to see other people suffer. There is a pattern - a beautiful but weird looking celeb - like Jordan or Posh or Tom Cruise - is help up for both adulation and ridicule. Adulation because they are rich and famous, but ridicule because their lives are supposedly utterly messed up. And the people who buy these magazines are like vampires, feeding off the pain of these celebs. That is shadow creativity. It is the industry of the dead. Necrophilia at its worst.
I think we can understand the shadow, embrace it and be humble about having integrated it. Create from it? Jealousy, hate and fear - all bundled up in a big ball of anger...no thank you.
OK, i guess i should get working on a few things now that the blog is outta the way. The other thing that became really apparent to me is that i was quite annoyed at the persona which the organisation i work for is attempting to undertake. You may wonder why does she not just say she works with the XXXXXXX - i don't do this because Google now scoops up all mentions of the XXXXXXX and then sends it to the Head of PR's inbox. Imagine. It's big brother at its finest. I found this out because i discovered that he had read the blog - and the reason was cos i had mentioned the XXXXXXX. Freaky huh? So anyway, they're undergoing this rebranding exercise as a young hip and withit organisation - it's a bit sad really because the people who work for it and belong to it and not Greenpeace. They are not. It's like watching the nerd trying to be cool and it is painful. Speaking as a nerd myself, but perhaps on the less nerdy spectrum in this case, but by no means less nerdy in many other contexts, i recognise this at once and go, it is so wroooooong inside myself. But who i am to say anything to anyone else? I just want an easy life. I do what i need to do beautifully and simply and properly - and i've realised that most people don't want to hear another person's truth - it jars with their own sense of narrative. So i just keep quiet about it. But whenever the topic does come up, it makes me cringe.
OK, must go now... off to another three hours of working.
Today, i swept up all my diaries, books, notes, etc and went outside to sit in the sunshine and plan. I'm not sitting here any longer, i thought, and just went to the picnic benches that surround the office and sat, beneath a rowan tree that was buzzing with bees and wrote, a dreamt and planned.
As you know, i have been trying to simplify my life and looked at the things that i could cut back and there was nothing i could cut back. So i then i decided, ok i will do these things, but i will do them with simplicity and beauty. And this will certainly slow me down. Anyway...it's an experiment.
Shadow has sort of come into my life again because of a really small incident. There is a photograph of someone who i mistrust utterly - because of what this person did to me and someone said we should rephotograph this person. Why? I thought. This photo makes this person look like a used car salesperson. Which is exactly what they are. Smarmy shitty, untrustworthy, slippery git who treats people abominably. There are not many people in my life which i feel such repulsion for. It takes all of my willpower sometimes not to say to this person, i think you need therapy. You really need to go away and sort yourself out. I am disgusted that i am disgusted by this person. I am. And also because i know that the things which disgust me most about the person are probably things which disgust me most about myself.
I know that at some level i operate disingenuously. Perhaps because i am in PR and have to put on that veneer of smarminess. I can't bear the way i talk to media people. Making that pitch. I can't bear the way i have to spin - you know - tell bits of stories. I can't bear the way i have to be false to people whom i really think i have nothing in common with. And i suppose, even as i write this the word compassion keeps coming into my head. You have to be compassionate Stephanie, be compassionate. Not just with yourself, but with this person. But oh, god. Be compassionat to this person... it's such a tall order... so that's the stupid way shadow is manifesting itself right now.
I have also found myself hiding from people because i owe people so many things, but the running has allowed me to perhaps oxygenate parts of my brain again, enjoy the sunshine, feel good about my body and therefore good about myself and i'm beginning to shake myself a bit and begin to say - i actually don't have more to do - it is exactly the same - the only difference is the sunshine. It means that i garden a whole lot more and therefore so many things which i otherwise would have spent doing indoors in front of a computer i now am not doing. So, having admitted i'm hiding from people i can say this to people as well - that i've been hiding from you - and actually people are a lot more forgiving - which is what usually the case.
I've been reading also about the creativity of the shadow. Is it even wise to think that we can create from shadow? I know that it is always there, but creating from shadow alone is dangerous. It is like indulging in your dark side. And we see the fruit of shadow creation everyday - most especially in these celebrity/gossip magazines. What are they about? Fundamentally they're about people wanting to see other people suffer. There is a pattern - a beautiful but weird looking celeb - like Jordan or Posh or Tom Cruise - is help up for both adulation and ridicule. Adulation because they are rich and famous, but ridicule because their lives are supposedly utterly messed up. And the people who buy these magazines are like vampires, feeding off the pain of these celebs. That is shadow creativity. It is the industry of the dead. Necrophilia at its worst.
I think we can understand the shadow, embrace it and be humble about having integrated it. Create from it? Jealousy, hate and fear - all bundled up in a big ball of anger...no thank you.
OK, i guess i should get working on a few things now that the blog is outta the way. The other thing that became really apparent to me is that i was quite annoyed at the persona which the organisation i work for is attempting to undertake. You may wonder why does she not just say she works with the XXXXXXX - i don't do this because Google now scoops up all mentions of the XXXXXXX and then sends it to the Head of PR's inbox. Imagine. It's big brother at its finest. I found this out because i discovered that he had read the blog - and the reason was cos i had mentioned the XXXXXXX. Freaky huh? So anyway, they're undergoing this rebranding exercise as a young hip and withit organisation - it's a bit sad really because the people who work for it and belong to it and not Greenpeace. They are not. It's like watching the nerd trying to be cool and it is painful. Speaking as a nerd myself, but perhaps on the less nerdy spectrum in this case, but by no means less nerdy in many other contexts, i recognise this at once and go, it is so wroooooong inside myself. But who i am to say anything to anyone else? I just want an easy life. I do what i need to do beautifully and simply and properly - and i've realised that most people don't want to hear another person's truth - it jars with their own sense of narrative. So i just keep quiet about it. But whenever the topic does come up, it makes me cringe.
OK, must go now... off to another three hours of working.
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