Sun Child Creativity: An Antithetical Approach to Suffering Artistry
If you've spent any time in therapy — or the #TherapyTok vein of the social algorithm — you've likely heard about the 'inner child,’ originated in concept by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Jung. Your inner child is a representation of those childlike aspects of your now-adult self, enlivened by play and experimentation and grounded by a sense of safety and affirmation. Although our optimally-functioning inner child is expressive and self-assured, we often refer to these entities as ‘wounded,’ a metaphorical description that points to unresolved childhood issues that need tending to as we get older in order to maintain healthy relationships — with our loved ones, our careers, our habits, our attention, our selves. (It’s important to note that we don’t need to remember these wounds explicitly — they imprint on our brains from the very moment of birth, before we’re consciously aware. And before you point any fingers, know, too, that trauma isn’t always inflicted intentionally, but is more so a matter of life. For example: I was born with pulmonary stenosis, a heart defect which required surgery at birth. Though necessary, and a procedure for which I am eternally grateful, I can only imagine the fear that my little baby body knew, still new to breath and wet from the womb.)
The prescription for those wounds which need tending is aptly called ‘shadow work,’ the exposing and integrating of the dark side of the psyche, repressed because it comprises fear, trauma, anger, etc. Neither our child self nor our adult self likes to feel those things, so we often avoid the work — it can feel more painful to uproot some hurts than to keep them buried. At least, there, deep underground, we don’t have to acknowledge them.
But, as an adult, our shadow self's unresolved fear, trauma, anger, etc. might hurt us more than we realize, leading us to self-destructive (‘self-sabotaging’) patterns. This can show up in romantic relationships, of course, by our tendency to drive away a potentially good partner because “we're just going to mess it up anyway," or by undermining our career growth because we're subconsciously afraid of what success will actually require of us (i.e. more responsibility, more visibility, more integrity), or by refusing advice from a loved one because we can’t bear the thought that we aren’t perfect, or even right. And that's a tough pill to swallow for an inner child, especially one wounded.
Without a mindful headspace and the physical infrastructure (habits; lifestyle; intent; effort) to support healing, those childhood wounds compound and create in us defiant, impatient, unhappy adults, driven by our egos as protection mechanisms. (“If I break up with him first, he’ll never even have a chance to hurt me.”)
And as an artist, in particular, your self-sabotaging shadow self might show up as procrastination — fear, anger, or anxiety about entering the studio — so you stop creating altogether; or maybe, you do find it in yourself to paint, but only after a glass of wine or two. The substance softens those fears, albeit momentarily. But the problem persists.
What is it that casts the shadow?
I was familiar with these concepts — inner child, shadow work — when I'd started seeing a therapist last summer, knowing I ~do~ have a striking tendency to procrastinate creatively, choosing instead to scrub my floorboards or organize the folders on my desktop than actually sit down and write the freaking blog post already.
We spent my first few sessions getting straight to work, my therapist patiently nodding along and jotting notes while I shared about my background (born in Colorado; the oldest of 3 sisters; lover of ballet) and lamenting life’s paradoxical questions: Why do I feel that I can either make good money or have a fulfilling career? That I can be kind or respected? That I can be an artist or a mother (and why do I think it would be stupid to think I could possibly be both)?
What surfaced in those early appointments was interesting: I can be quite binary in my thinking — very black-and-white. I've always said I'm a woman of intensity, which starts in my all-or-nothing thought life: money versus happiness; career versus family; me versus the world.
Of course, my creativity is an extension of the way in which my brain works (optimally or otherwise, but either way, I'm working on non-judgment), so, inevitably, the subject of my artistry came up, some sessions in.
It was a Wednesday afternoon on Zoom when, choking back tears, I finally let her have it: "Why, why, why" I demanded of her, "do I do all this work for nothing? I journal. I meditate. I walk. I scream; I cry; I punch my pillows. I hit the gym and do Pilates and I'd absolutely run if my body'd let me. I've sat in the dark and quiet and breathed myself into altered states of being. I'm in therapy, for crying out loud. And I still feel stuck so often. I'm still scared of a blank canvas; a stark-white piece of paper. What am I doing wrong? What the hell am I missing?"
She paused for a few seconds. Feeling embarrassed, I wondered if my sorry case might be above her pay grade. Then, screen to screen, she looked at me, frowning with sympathy and perhaps a little pity, and offered: "Sophie, it sounds like you're identifying pretty strongly with your shadow child. But have you heard of the sun child?"
"No?" I inquired. "I haven't, actually?"
I took a gentle inbreath — a real breath of fresh air. My body settled; she had my full attention.
The sun child theory
The sun child, a theory from psychotherapist Stephanie Stahl, juxtaposes the 'spontaneous, joyful' sun child and the 'fearful, insecure' shadow child.
The function of an inner sun child is to offer its grown-up-self a sense of optimism, trust, adventure, and curiosity. It was clear to my therapist, who at this point in time, understood my inclination toward binary thinking, that I'd become very well-acquainted with my inner shadow, but I wasn't leaving room for any other version of the self to exist.
Shadow work is effective — necessary, even — but when we become our shadow self, in identifying too strongly with it, is when we start to lose the plot.
Now, this is an important note about inner work: The goal isn't to eliminate your shadow child, but to integrate it (by awareness and ultimately, acceptance) — and instead allow your sun child to have a voice, too, leading you into more free and joyful expression, uninhibited by fear, anxiety, or unworthiness. This, the integration, is a practice in "yes, and" — not one or the other.
"We know [these inner selves] intuitively as aspects of our own psyches, strands of our own being, groping toward fulfillment…and they have to be faced and honored, or they will consume us (eat us up)," writes Jon Kabat-Zinn in Wherever You Go, There You Are. "These stories remind us that it is very much worth seeking the metaphorical altar where our own fragmented and isolated strands of being can find each other and 'marry,' bringing new levels of integration, harmony, and understanding to our lives — to the point where we might actually live happily ever after, which really means in the timeless here and now."
On the following page in my paperback edition, he continues, "we each contain both a prince and a princess (among countless other figures), and there was a time we each radiated with the golden innocence and infinitae promise carried by youth."
And there it is: our beloved sun child, innocent and radiant, full of promise and eternally youthful, age no matter — nestled alongside its inner opposite, the shadow, both playing their part to create in us healthy, whole, integrated people. To abandon or identify wholly with either one would be ego-driven, a false bravado, masking as suffering or sunshining.
That’s because to be human is to know both joy and sorrow, allowing each to amplify the other. And to be an artist, authentically, is to be most human: expressive of all that is true in that single moment when the note is played or the paintstroke laid.
Doing this work, the inner work, has greatly improved the quality of my life: I love (and like!) myself more; I have a greater capacity to love (and like!) others; I am more grounded and more thankful; and it's helped me develop a day-to-day resilience — that I also think comes with maturation and wisdom via experience — which creates space so that all of me, sun and shadow alike, are compassionately validated and appropriately expressed.
And because our creativity is an extension, a physical expression, of who we are, I've begun to exercise my sunnier disposition in my making of things, too. This blog post has been good practice; instead of fearing the infinite possibility of a blank page, I remember that, actually, this is a joy (!); I am without constraint; I do this because I love it. Creativity is anything and everything that I want it to be, especially if I get out of my own way and remember that the point is play. And if, in this post, for example, I don't like the way something reads, I delete it, and I try again. All is well that ends well, so long as I am well in its process.
Create from pain; create from play
There’s something else about the earlier Kabat-Zinn passage that warrants contemplation, aside from a reference to the radiance of youthfulness. In the “timeless here and now” — the quantum field, in which all events coexist; every possible version of each of us infinitely — we are not our earthly titles. I am not Sophie, daughter, sister, artist, writer. Those are merely identifiers from my ego, and well-intentioned as ego might be, I am an expression of God, a vessel for Source to experience life from this perspective. When we can tap into the present moment while we are creating, to separate ourselves from those narratives which can manipulate the experience (“I don’t deserve to call myself an artist,” “I’m not good enough to keep going,” “Who in their right mind would have made the decision I just did?”), we realize that we are SuperStacked: everything, everywhere, all at once; observing, learning, playing, feeling, breathing, beating, being. And in this place, there is no such thing as fear. There is only “yes, and…”
It’s as James A. Michener says: "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.”
And Alan Watts, the philosopher and author of one of my favorite books, The Way of Zen, put it simply: “Don't make a distinction between work and play. Regard everything that you are doing as play, and don't imagine for one minute that you've got to be serious about it."
When Picasso said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child,” I imagine this is what he meant. Children play with abandon; they are wild and free and honest, unconcerned with how they appear to others (often talking out loud to their toys or the trees), unconstrained by the titles they’ve given themselves. They are fully embodied in their existence. There’s something to learn from this kind of play. Our grown-up challenge is to allow the sun to teach our shadow: Come on out, it’s safe to be.
Although to suffer is one way to live the artist’s experience, you don’t need to suffer to be an artist. You can be wild and whimsical and whatever else sounds fun to you. You can paint and cry and scream and dance, if that prompts flow. (I, myself, am of the drawer-dancer type.) Let go of those stories that talk you out of it. Separate yourself from the stories you tell yourself about the type of artist you are and especially the type you should be. There is no such thing. Creating is zero-stakes, a miracle in and of itself. Approach the studio willing to play. And while you’re there, allow yourself to be fully present, lost in the primordial sauce of being, exactly as you are: here; now.
