The Tortured Soul
The Grain of Sand Creates the Pearl… of Unhappiness
Today we meet the Tortured Soul, kissing-cousin to the dreamer. This pained creature won’t prioritize healing because it’s identity is tied up in another very, very special pet project to which it has pledged its undying allegiance. The tortured soul holds onto the myth that the grain of sand, or impurity, leads to the pearl. Important aspects of life are neglected in the intense pursuit of this mythical pearl.
The tortured soul is loath to widen it’s perspective and become mentally healthy, because it fears it will lose access to pearl-forming magic-dust. It holds on to its pearlescent identity tightly and gets defensive if it is threatened in any way. The tortured soul knows just how fragile it’s project is and works hard to keep it away from the harsh light of reality. It thinks too small in a way that is protective or too grandiose in a way that is not connected to reality.
The problem is that few goals are best served by this type of narrow devotion, especially if the treasured identity neglects the body, health, or relationships of the wider support system. You can’t win a formula-one season if you never take pit stops or mistreat your crew.
Essentially, the tortured soul clings to an inadequate and wishful childhood identity. This is less painful than facing the messy reality of applying itself in the real world. The tortured soul usually self-selects out of growth-inducing relationships and healing containers as these are likely to challenge the treasured identity.
The tortured soul is closely related to Jung’s concept of puer aeternus, or the eternal child that never grows up. This is also referred to as Peter Pan syndrome and relates to Freud’s primary narcissism and Winnicott’s infantile omnipotence. All of these concepts involve resisting hard realities and clinging to an idealized never never land of childish conceptions and magical thinking.
A common etiology is that the tortured soul became too entangled with the primary caregiver who could not let go of her treasured child and created an all-too-cozy situation to serve her own needs. Growing up inside this enmeshment, the tortured soul is now unable to give up the magical playthings of childhood in exchange for the more useful playthings of adulthood.
In the healing process:
Like a donkey with blinkers, the tortured soul limits the healing project to only affect areas that do not threaten its pet project. Wherever possible, it uses therapy to mine for treasure that can be directly applied to its pet project. Often this means strip-mining an area of limited potential while a valuable gold vein lies untouched. The therapy sessions in Curb Your Enthusiasm come to mind here.
The tortured soul greatly underestimates how much change is required to heal. The pet project will ultimately not be left untouched. Indeed, the whole creative department will be turned inside-out.
When it does heal, the tortured soul can become a force of nature, having an impact that is 10x or 100x more than the identity it was protecting. Its creativity can then help to make the world a better place for all.
How to work with the tortured soul:
Create a value hierarchy. This can be done as concentric circles with the highest value in the center. If something other than a good life or health is at the center, I predict a lot of suffering. As Stephen King puts it “art should support life, not the other way around.” If money is at the top of our hierarchy, we will never be wealthy, just rich.
Notice whenever we get defensive or hooked into the tortured soul role, especially about a special project. See if we can slow things down with say deep breathing. This helps to defuse or unblend from this part and connect to our wider nervous system. Once we are grounded, check again if there might be anything of value in what we are hearing.
Find ways to simplify the creative process and get to market sooner so that we can get more real world feedback. Louis CK described instituting George Carlin’s approach of throwing out all of his old jokes each year and starting again from scratch. Before that he had spent 15 years reworking the same “shitty hour” that even he did not like. This start-fresh approach dramatically turned things around for him and lead to the creative voice that we now know.
Work at being in community with others. As an African proverb suggests: “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”
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