2023-04-24

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

#DLQ10 (See Atlas/Maps/DLQ 10 MOC)

Why do I constantly feel anguish when it comes to dance? Why does dance cause me so much anguish? Why do I have such a tormented relationship with dance?

• Module 1: Mapping the Journey (Discernment)
  • Concepts
    • Fundamentals of Discernment
      • Cards/Problem versus Mystery: i’m trying to approach this like a problem to solve…when it’s really more a mystery
      • Cards/Absolute Certainty versus Wonder: I have a restricted view of the world
      • Cards/Perfectionism: I am a perfectionist
        • I should bring up the athlete perspective!
    • Cards/Desire: I desire to be great
    • Ignatian Discernment
      • Cards/The First Principle and Foundation: Dance is a gift, but it’s becoming the center of my life. It’s hindering my growth towards my goal: living with God, deepening my life
        • Wheel of Fortune v.s. Rose-centered window
      • Cards/Disordered attachments: Dance is my hook
  • Readings
    • Sources/Inner Compass
      • I like this quote, it’s dance-related: “These will become the music in my heart that leads me into the dance and overrides the fear that keps me clinging to the rails. "
• Module 2: Journeying Inward (Identity)
  • Concepts
    • Cards/Tangibles: I define myself according to these, in terms of dance
    • Cards/The Divided Life: i am divided from myself
      • Always on survival mode
    • Cards/Brokenness: I am attached to dance because it fills a hole for me?
      • Sources/Henri Nouwen on Brokenness
      • Cards/The wound is the place where the Light enters you
    • Cards/The False Self: all I see of myself
    • Cards/Self-rejection: I constantly reject myself
  • Readings
    • Sources/Images of Integrity - Across the Great Divide
      • the divided life is the wounded life
    • Sources/Being the Beloved
      • You will still have rejections. You will still have praise. And you will still have losses. But you live no longer as a person searching for his/her identity, but you will live it as the beloved.
      • The great struggle is to claim that first love
      • Hard truth: The people who love us do not always love us well.
      • How can we live this truth: that in this world, love and wounds are never separated?
    • Sources/Henri Nouwen on Brokenness
    • Authenticity
      • The shadow self may simply mean a part of ourself that does not fit into the light
      • if we act out this shadow side thoughtlessly, we are likely to get ourselves in to all kinds of unhealthiness
• Module 3: Journeying Forward (Purpose)
  • Concepts
    • Cards/Pusillanimity: I am living a small life
      • Self-love: Dance is a way I love myself
    • Cards/Ressentiment: I am highly envious of others
• Module 4: Journeying to the Unknown (Hope)
  • Concepts
    • Hope
      • It is not an expectation
        • That would be practicing absolute cerittude (e.g. meritocracy)
      • Not optimism or stoicism (two extremes)
      • Kahulugan (meaning); root word: “fall”. Things that fall apart will fall into place
  • Readings
    • The Book of Job:
      • no such thing as a meritocracy
    • “Everything Happens for a Reason”
      • Even in this darkness, I can still find beauty and love
        • I still enjoy the craft
      • “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain”
    • Suffering; A Sacred Voice is Calling
• Epilogue: Food for the journey
  • Hope or despair (module 4)
    • Marcel: hope beings from a situation of captivity
    • Rejection fatigue
    • Know that you always have the choice to continue
  • Selfishness or service (module 3)
    • It’s seen in what you prioritize
    • Recommendation: rest. Always think about who else can benefit
    • Henri Nouwen: “…Love not only lasts forever, it needs only a second to come about”
      • Love and dance
  • Fear or love (module 2)
    • C.S. Lewis: to love is to be vulnerable. this is what makes us truly human
    • “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

• I enjoy dance….
• But I am a competitive person in nature….I want the external validation
  • ^ so much desire for this, that nothing is ever enough….I never get fulfilled
  • Friend: Even if you get what you want, you’ll never stop comparing yourself. You’re in a constant state of comparison
• why am I so hard on myself?
• i have to talk about dance and spirituality
  • shows that you are more than yourself….expanding your vision
• Quotes
  • One of my favorite Bible verses is Psalms 30: 11.
    • You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy
    • https://radical.net/podcasts/pray-the-word/from-mourning-into-dancing-psalm-3011-12/
  • Rubem Alves: “Hope is the ability to hear the melody of the future. Faith is the courage to dance to it today.”
    • For module 4?
  • Albert Einstein
    • Dancers are the athletes of God
    • “…we are the dancers, we create the dreams”
  • Rumi’s Dance
    • Whosoever knoweth the power of the dance, dwelleth in God. Without love, all worship is a burden, all dancing is a chore, all music is mere noise.
    • Dance and poetry have one thing in common – ==freedom==, as mortals call it. 13th-century Persian poet Rumi would describe dance as connecting to our true essence. ==When we dance, we free ourselves.==
      • “Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
    • Freedom, just like poetry, requires ==sacrifice.== It is only through sacrifice that we attain freedom.
      • Cards/The wound is the place where the Light enters you
      • Sources/Inner Compass example
      • Dancing is not just getting up painlessly, like a leaf blown on the wind; dancing is when you tear your heart out and rise out of your body to hang suspended between worlds.
    • According to Rumi, dance is the ==very essence of life== that can be seen everywhere in nature : the sunlight dancing with the shadows, the wind dancing with the trees or the bees with the flowers. Rumi’s world is a world of wonders and in order to see it, we must dance!
      • Now is the time to unite the soul and the world. Now is the time to see the sunlight dancing as one with the shadows.
      • Cards/The Divided Life

• Narcissism
  • isn’t caused by an inflated sense of ego; it’s caused by ==insecurity==: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2021/march/narcissism-driven-by-insecurity--not-grandiose-sense-of-self--ne.html
  • Narcissistic injuries/wounds
    • https://psychcentral.com/lib/narcissistic-injuries-what-they-are-and-how-to-protect-yourself-from-them#overview
      • Narcissistic injuries are situations that trigger feelings of incompetence or unworthiness.
        • what narcissists might feel when they encounter ==criticism, loss, or perceived abandonment.== Even though they may not show it, they may experience humiliation and rejection. It’s their feelings in these situations that may be considered narcissistic injuries. Rather than express vulnerability and reveal how they feel, they may react with defiance, arguments, and even a  narcissistic rage attack.
          • Mom definitely has rage attacks
      • Example responses: gaslighting, silent treatment, arguments
      • Root causes: abuse or neglect during childhood, unrealistic parental expectations, excessive pampering and praise from parents, narcissistic parent or parents
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_injury
      • Another definition: ==emotional trauma== that overwhelms an individual’s defense mechanisms and devastates their pride and self-worth. In some cases the ==shame== or disgrace is so significant that the individual can never again truly feel good about who they are and this is sometimes referred to as a “narcissistic scar”
        • Cards/Self-rejection
      • Narcissists are often  pseudo-perfectionists and create situations in which they are the center of attention. The narcissist’s attempts at being seen as perfect are necessary for their grandiose  self-image. If a perceived state of perfection is not reached, it can lead to  guilt,  shame,  anger or  anxiety because the subject believes that they will lose the admiration and love of other people if they are imperfect. ==Because some children are raised to believe that love is conditional, obsession with being perfect becomes routine for them.== As a result, when failing in any aspect of life, the child will feel as if they are no longer accepted, causing a narcissistic injury. Examples of reasons why children would show narcissistic injury due to perfectionism include failing exams, losing in competitions, being denied acceptance, disagreement in conversation with others, and constructive criticism. 
        • Cards/Perfectionism
        • Cards/The False Self
• Black Swan (Nina as Narcissus)
  • Weeping for Narcissus
    • The essence of narcissistic injury is this: a person naturally grows their own sense of who they are, and seeks love and approval from important others. ==The narcissistic injury occurs when the important others attack that home-grown sense of self, and demand that an external standard be achieved instead.== So, natural sense of self is rejected as sub-standard; external sense of what self should be is imposed.
      • Cards/The False Self v.s. Cards/The True Self
    • Consequently, the narcissistic injury drives a ==perfectionism== that is un-natural (because it doesn’t actually fit with what the person wants ‘in their heart of hearts’), and can never be satisfied (because the external standard is alien, so any success can’t truly be felt as belonging to self).
      • Cards/Perfectionism
    • In the Greek myth, the beautiful young man Narcissus is cursed by the Gods to fall in love with his own reflection; but he doesn’t know he is in love with his reflection, he takes his reflection to be another person. That is the tragedy of ==narcissistically driven ambition==; the person who is so driven doesn’t realise they are chasing their own reflection, which they are doomed never to attain, however successful they are.
    • Applied to Nina, her injury is clear; she needs to be the Swan Queen to feel worthwhile because, in her narcissistically driven emotional reality, there are only two categories: ==perfection and worthlessness.== Incidentally, this dichotomy of perfection and worthlessness plays itself out well between Nina and Beth; the former’s star rising as the latter’s descends.
      • A binary way of seeing the world… Cards/Absolute Certainty versus Wonder
    • The influence of Nina’s mother sits heavily in the background, and it is striking that the film doesn’t make an overly big deal out of this. It is simply presented as the way things are, meaning that the full impact and implications of Nina’s homelife aren’t over played.
      • Damn same
    • There are no characters, even those whose approval Nina is seeking that have an effective existence independently of Nina. Consider that as an ==emotional reality; one in which people only exist in the context of your own goals.== That is part of the trap of narcissistic relating; Nina only ever relates to her own reflection, never the actual people she meets. That is true not only of the other girls in the company, but also director Thomas, and Nina’s mother; the two people whose approval Nina so desperately seeks.
      • Related to the Cards/Ressentiment I experience?
    • Consequently, it isn’t possible for Nina to receive human nourishment because at no point is she in contact with another person; she relates only to her own reflection. And reflection is a great way of explaining what happens when we project unwanted aspects of ourselves onto others; the other becomes a pool of water, upon the surface of which we see something of ourselves without recognising it as such. In a sense, ==all projection could be considered Narcissistic.==
      • Cards/Ressentiment…I am projecting onto the people I envy
    • I feel more able to weep for Narcissus; trapped as he is in a world of his own reflections, driven further and further into isolation by his need to attain perfection.
  • Aronofsky’s Black Swan as a Postmodern Fairy Tale: Mirroring a Narcissistic Society
    • Both Freudians and Jungians designate an individual’s perceiving a repressed aspect of the self in another as a projection: “if people observe their own unconscious tendencies in other people, this is called a projection ( von Franz 1991, p. 37).” Jung described this shadow as an inferiority that individuals may wish to “escape,” by “looking for everything dark, inferior and culpable in others ( Jung 1970, p. 203)”. As William Miller (1991, p. 39) states, “Projection is an unconscious mechanism that is employed whenever a trait or characteristic of our personality that has no relation to consciousness becomes activated. As a result of the unconscious projection, we observe and react to this unrecognized personal trait in other people. We see in them something that is part of ourselves, but which we fail to see in ourselves.” Furthermore, “…anytime our response to another person involves excessive emotion or overreaction, we can be sure that something unconscious has been prodded and is being activated (Miller 1991, p. 40)
      • Authenticity and Cards/Brokenness: shadow self
      • Cards/Ressentiment
    • Psychoanalyst  West-Leuer ( 2017, p. 1240) claims that Nina has a narcissistic personality with a “perfectionist ideal-ego” that “expects achievement, self-control, and functionality
    • The chief sign of the pursuit of perfection is obsession. (e.g. practicing, body dysmorphia)
      • Cards/Perfectionism
        • Perfectionism disables us from seeing life as it truly is (her hallucinations)
        • Perfectionism renders growth unnecessary and obsolete (inability to mature)
        • Perfectionism makes us harm ourselves and others more
      • Cards/Disordered attachments
    • Furthermore,  Woodman ( 1982, p. 13) states that this perfectionist attitude originates in a ==work-driven society in which individuals put on the mask (persona) of determined efficiency== and follow society’s “rhythms”, but that their animal nature is denied:
      • Cards/The Divided Life
    • The power play between Nina’s striving for perfection and her animal (sexual) nature soon becomes dangerous. As  Woodman ( 1982, p. 42) states: “Psychologically speaking, so long as conscious and unconscious are enemies, the ego experiences itself as in constant danger of death.” (i.e. black swan v.s. white swan)
      • Cards/Brokenness
      • Authenticity: tackling the shadow self
    • Vicky, Nina, and Beth’s obsessive quest for artistic perfection portrays the psychological and corporeal self-destructiveness of their obsession. Of course, the ubiquitous mirrors that Nina stares into refer to her internal conflict, but also serve as a crucial tool of her profession. As Alastair  Macauley ( 2011, p. 1) notes, ==dancers perceive in mirrors “both the ideal versions of themselves they hope to show to the public as well as their own failings.”== Ballerinas’ fixation on their bodies and movements clearly functions as a prerequisite for the near-perfect illusion that they present on stage.
    • As  Hotchkiss ( 2003, p. 13) states, “For Narcissists ==competition of all kinds is a way to reaffirm superiority”== and adds that narcissists (like Nina) ‘become ==compulsive== in their pursuit of perfection. Along the way, they crave admiration from others.”
      • this is why i’m so competitive…. Cards/False Humility and Cards/Ressentiment
      • Compulsive: Cards/Disordered attachments
    • However, the horror of Nina’s insanity and death undercuts her transcendent transfiguration and suggests a critique of a contemporary narcissistic society in which ==humans may sacrifice parts of their identity, their socially undesirable traits, in their pursuit of perfect images and performances.== This obsessive pursuit of perfection can result in a psychic, even actual death.
      • Cards/The False Self
    • Although Black Swan’s final scene suggests that Nina’s struggles have destroyed her, it does offer a moral: the obsessive quest for perfection can be fatal and humans can find happiness if they ==strive for wholeness== instead of perfection
      • “As I have argued above, it is Nina’s inability to integrate both her White Swan (her social persona) and her Black Swan (her shadow) into one harmonious whole that leads to her demise.” Cards/The Divided Life
      • Authenticity
    • Black Swan (2010): A Portrait Of The Artist As Narcissist
      • On one distinct level, Black Swan is a portrait of Nina as a narcissist.  We are not talking about the sort of self love that leads to healthy level of self-preservation and self-esteem – which Sigmund Freud referred to as “primary” narcissism – but a more extreme manifestation referred to as “secondary” or pathological narcissism…“Pathological narcissism is a life-long pattern and obsession with one’s self to the exclusion of all others and the egoistic and ==ruthless pursuit of one’s gratification dominance and ambition.==”
      • Pathological narcissism is considered a defense mechanism intended to ==deflect hurt and trauma from the victim’s “True Self” into a “False Self”== – an identity and narrative construed by the narcissist to be invulnerable, omniscient, and omnipotent that stifles and paralyzes the True Self into virtual irrelevance.  (Vanknin, p. 169.)  In this sense, Nina has undergone a split before she ever appears on screen for reasons to which we are not privy (and Aronofsky is not particularly interested in exploring).  That said, like Nina (and contrary to the more stereotypical portrayals within popular film), narcissists can be socially withdrawn and ==exhibit a false modesty and humility to mask their underlying grandiosity.==  (Vanknin, p. 39.)  And most tellingly, ==“the narcissist is incapable of enjoying anything because [s]he is in constant pursuit of perfection and completedness.”==  (Vanknin, p. 64.)  Indeed, we never see Nina taking any joy in her dancing – only in the adoration of the audience. 
        • Cards/Brokenness from the Cards/The True Self
        • deflected into Cards/The False Self that serves as an armor (Sources/Images of Integrity - Across the Great Divide)
        • Cards/False Humility
        • Cards/Perfectionism; Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good
      • This brings us to Nina’s mother.  Again, we are not witnesses to the actual factors that would have resulted in Nina’s pathological narcissism.  But narcissism tends to breed narcissism, and most pathological narcissists have at least one narcissistic parent.  (Vanknin, p. 493.)
        • “The narcissistic parent regards his or her child as a multi-faceted source of Narcissistic Supply.  The child is considered to be and treated as an extension of the narcissistic parent.  It is though the child of the narcissist seeks to settle ‘open scores’ with the world.  This child is supposed to realize the unfulfilled dreams, wishes, and fantasies of the narcissistic parent.” (Vanknin, p. 493.)
      • The narcissistic parent’s ==exercise of control== over her child helps sustain the illusion that ==the child is part of the narcissistic parent==, and that control can be guilt-driven (e.g., the reminder that her mother quit dancing at age 28 to have Nina) and goal-driven (e.g., providing “advice” on how to handle the audition process for the Swan Queen).  (Vanknin, p. 493.)  In this regard, Nina’s mother maintains Nina in a state of arrested development within a 12 year-old girl’s bedroom, refuses to acknowledge or inform Nina of callers, and drags Nina to the bathroom to trim her nails when it appears she may be hurting herself (rather than dragging her to a professional).
        • The Challenge to Love: the taking form of existence
      • The doppelgänger of Black Swan is a manifestation of a more general aspect of narcissism – self-objectification.
      • And then comes the break.  As a particular type of narcissist—socially inept in her obsession with technical precision—Nina’s ==False Self== fits neatly with the performances of the corps demanded of her in the past and the expectations for the White Swan.  But in Thomas’ interpretation of Swan Lake, portraying the Black Swan requires a certain “letting go” and a “seduction,” which are ==ill-suited to the False Self Nina has so carefully crafted and honed.  Nina needs a new False Self to pull off the perfection she seeks.==  If the vertical split of her psyche between her True Self and her False Self (pathological narcissism) occurred before we first met Nina, the horizontal split of her False Self between the White Swan and the Black Swan (schizophrenia) ultimately proves to be her undoing.  As expressed visually in the final performance, that horizontal split dramatizes—or gives an added dimension to—the vertical split.
        • Cards/The False Self as a mask (Sources/Images of Integrity - Across the Great Divide)
      • That is, beyond the vanity inherent in reflection, Aronofsky provides yet another separate (but related) motif to emphasize ==the duality of the True Self and the False Self that characterizes the narcissist.== But that duality also extends beyond Nina to the other artists and performers. What Aronofsky has to say about the fractured narcissistic psyche seems to apply in a more general sense.  What does it really take (psychologically speaking) to be an elite artist/performer?  What kind of person would sign up for that?  And would we all really want to be inside that headspace?
      • In The Red Shoes, Julian is distinctly desexualized, and the force countering the pursuit of Vicky’s art is romantic love and a future with marriage and a family.  In contrast, Thomas unapologetically links sex to Nina’s performance (on and off the stage), and ==Nina is bound by the demands of her own False Self and confined to a self-imposed state of arrested development.==  If The Red Shoes questions the effect of the relentless pursuit of artistic ambition on an otherwise talented and emotionally healthy person, Black Swan challenges its underlying assumption in the context of a much larger world – that is, ==can a talented and emotionally healthy person being even achieve that level of success?==
        • Cards/The False Self
        • Cards/Perfectionism
    • https://girlswhothink.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/black-swan-some-thoughts-on-perfection-narcissism-and-the-shadow/
      • As a psychotherapist, my perspective is grounded in psychological theories of attachment and of processes in the unconscious, and ==Nina’s pursuit of perfection is, in my eyes, deeply connected to her traumatic relationship with her mother and with herself.==
      • Nina’s very fragile sense of self was apparent to me right from the start of the film.  Portman plays Nina as strangely child-like while at home with her mother, and anxious, eager to acheive, and tightly emotionally constricted in public.  ==Nina is a narcissist, a person whose entire sense of self relies on the reflection she receives from others, rather than from her own internal sense of who she is.  Her identity relies on pleasing others by being perfect in the ways that she was taught to define herself==: with her precision of dance technique, her hard work and devotion to dance, her thin body, her sexual purity, her devotion and obedience to her mother, and her maintenance of her role as the “sweet girl” child figure.
        • Cards/The False Self defined by Cards/Tangibles
        • Lack of Cards/The True Self
      • Narcissism develops when a baby doesn’t get enough mirroring and attunement from her parent/caregiver. Instead of the parent watching their child to reflect back and validate emotions and facial expressions, the parent looks to the child for a reassuring reflection and attunement, and the child learns that she needs to meet the parent’s needs instead of vice-versa.  It can create the feeling that love is conditional on the child being a certain way.  Children are biologically programmed to love their parents, and to know that they depend on this love for their own survival.  So the child immediately catches on– I exist for my parent.  I am– I have to be– what my parent needs me to be.  A false self that is based entirely on approval, and composed of the qualities demanded (overtly or subtly) by the parent, is what develops.  All other parts of the child are repressed, and a real self is never created.  There is a feeling of being unseen.  The child, and the adult that that child becomes, has no ego… and therefore all that can develop is an inflated, grandiose self, or a kind of depressed nothingness.
      • Nina certainly has some of that inflated self– her dogged pursuit of perfection (in her dance, in her prissy attitude, in her eating disorder) shows us that.  And when we see more and more of Nina’s interactions with her mother, we get an idea of how she may have learned to lean so heavily on this idea of perfection rather than on her own imperfect humanness. We immediately see numerous subtle and not-so-subtle methods that her mother uses to control her– and we can only conclude that this control has gone on throughout Nina’s life.  We don’t have a hard time figuring out that Nina’s sense of self had to be constructed by her mother’s expectations, and that Nina probably never had a lot of room to become her own person. To her mother, Nina is not an individual, a person in her own right– Nina is only an expression or reflection of her mother. (The numerous paintings of Nina in her mother’s studio give us some indication of the degree to which Nina’s mother is enmeshed/obsessed with Nina.)
      • Certain human qualities are not acceptable for her to have.  She begins to repress them, to stuff them down into a little box deep inside of her.  Her need to be separate, her desire for recognition that she doesn’t have to share with her mother, her need to grow, her sexual self, her desire to ever be anything other than perfect… all of these get stuffed into that box.  Along with those unacceptable qualities and desires also go the feelings that she can’t express– like her anger, her hatred of her mother, and her aggression– and all the fantasies that go along with them.  Imagine all of that stuff together, packed in tightly.  It leaks out a little bit in everyday life, but only unconsciously, in the form of (arguably, socially acceptable) aggression against herself and her body, such as vomiting up meals and dancing past her physical limit.
      • It’s pretty normal for an artist to try to access or embody different parts of themselves in order to immerse themselves in an artistic process.  But Nina’s false self is so fragile and so restricted that she can’t access any different parts without that box full of shadow pieces spilling its guts.
      • She can’t express any of these feelings directly– she can’t discuss them or sublimate them into her dance or even develop a conscious awareness of them.  The hallucinations serve to express her disturbance, and simultaneously they protect her from the trauma of consciously acknowledging it.  But slowly they take her over more and more.  We don’t know whether Nina really dies at the end of the movie or not, but I can certainly believe that her self-destructiveness would go that far.  There was no more self-control or self-directedness in her anymore… her mind was taken over by her anxiety and her disturbance, and led forward (to finish the dance) by that still strong desire for perfection, that yearning to be lovable.
        • Cards/Ressentiment
        • Cards/Desire to be loved
      • A person who learns to stifle herself in the pursuit of perfection is a person who has been taught ==“I’m not lovable on my own, as the person I am separate from my accomplishments.”==  I thought that Black Swan was a beautiful illustration of this idea, played out to its extreme.
        • Cards/Perfectionism
        • Cards/Tangibles
        • Cards/Self-rejection
• Shining on the Stage: Narcissism and the Performing Arts
  • Performers should distinguish between an ==inner self and a commercial self== in order to eliminate the harmful effects of narcissism and to have a more peaceful and healthy performing life
  • Stage performers generally tend to have narcissistic personal traits. The studies showed that narcissistic performers are visionary and inspirational (Campbell, et al, 2011). Many times the society adores, watches, follows and loves them because they are determined and selfassured leaders (Dionne and Davis, 2012: 135-140). Their courage on risk-taking (Brunell and Buelow, 2017: 3-14) is interesting and exciting to watch because normal and standard actions are safe but boring. Thus it can be concluded that the society forces performers to be narcissistic to some extent, since performers should be applauded, liked, admired and gone after. ==If performers do not adore their own selves, nobody does==
  • The theory that low narcissistic individuals do not try hard to prove themselves to anybody and do not use self-enhancement opportunities (Wallace and Baumeister, 2002) strengthens the idea that narcissism brings success. It can be concluded that if narcissistic performers face negative feedback, sarcasm or criticism, they can get angry, frustrated and disappointed. Since the reaction was seen as an ego-threat, they can see this as an opportunity to prove their future success and work harder. Moreover, the study of Martinsen points out that narcissists have creative personalities and strong motivation (Martinsen et al, 2019: 166-171). This fact enables narcissistic stage performers to be more successful since stage is a creative working area. The coworkers and the audience of narcissists would be excited, and appreciate creativity and motivation which contribute a lot to the performance.

1. Let’s start with the surface – my relationship with dance and its effects on me
   1. Cards/Disordered attachments: I have a disordered attachment to dance
   2. Cards/Pusillanimity: This relationship is leading me to live a small life
      1. Self-love: the warped kind…it’s narcissism
         1. Narcissism is a personality trait that exists on a spectrum. It is characterized by high self-involvement and a need for admiration and attention.
         2. I am probably the covert type ^
            1. Difficulty taking criticism
            2. Feeling and expressing they are not good enough
            3. Often pretends to play the victim
            4. Shames and blames others for their mistakes
            5. Poor self-esteem
            6. Insecure and low confidence
      2. Connect to symptoms:
         1. Cards/False Humility
            1. Blocking me from engaging creatively with the world
         2. Cards/Ressentiment
            1. limiting my ability to see things objectively and engage creatively with others…a cognitive distortion
2. It’s more than dance….it has something to do with who I am 2. Cards/Problem versus Mystery: I think I’m approaching this the wrong way. 1. I’m treating my relationship with dance as a problem to fix, when in reality, it’s a mystery that I’ll never stop seeking to understand. 1. At first I thought of it as a decision-making process (e.g. Should I quit or should I stay?) Then I realized that I was asking the wrong questions 2. If we treat the question “Who am I?” as a problem, we answer with our tangibles. But if we treat “Who am I?” as a mystery, we acknowledge that there is more to us than this constructed persona. 2. This is more than just a relationship with dance. What I’m really talking about here is my relationship with myself. 1. Dance is a representation of external validation….success 3. My identity 2. Cards/Tangibles 1. What I do: I’m a dancer 2. What I have: teams, accomplishments, etc. 3. What people say I am: how “good enough” I am 3. Cards/The False Self: Bianca the dancer may be part of me, but it is not who I truly am 4. I need to discover who I truly am 1. Cards/The True Self: I need to connect with this 2. Cards/Brokenness: And I can only find this if I get in touch with my trauma. What is the hole dance is filling in my life? 1. Cards/Desire: Desires show how we are uniquely broken.
3. How can I continue dancing without pain? A.K.A. How can I stop tormenting myself?
   1. Sources/Inner Compass: Strategy of Liberation
   2. I believe that part of my purpose/vocation (loving others) can be fulfilled by dance
   3. Dance is a gift. I value dance, which is why I love performing, teaching and jamming with others

1. My relationship with dance (explained with Black Swan). 1.
2. My relationship with myself
   1. Cards/Problem versus Mystery: I’m asking the wrong questions
      1. Transition? Thesis statement?
3. Do I choose death or life?
   1. Death is despair…represented by Nina’s “suicide”.
4. Conclusion: shifting from despair to hope?
   1. Dance: from accomplishment to gift
   2. Talent? is Not a demand from God. It’s a present

1. Problem
   1. Life Question: Why do I have a toxic relationship with dance?
   2. Thesis statement: Because I have a toxic relationship with myself.
      1. My perfectionism deformed a life-giving gift into a destructive dependency.
      2. Beneath this extreme desire for control is a broken soul, who believes that love will always be out of reach
   3. Like what I shared in my reflection, witnessing and creating art – especially dance – makes my life worth living.
      1. Sources/The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Aristotle, and Fernando Amorsolo: I believe that human creativity is one of the best ways we can experience God’s divine essence. (Just like with Amorsolo and his paintings)
      2. Cards/Gloria dei vivens homo: Art makes us come fully alive, and that is the glory of God.
      3. Cards/The First Principle and Foundation: Creativity is a gift from God. It helps us know more God easily, and in turn love more readily.
   4. Cards/Disordered attachments: However, this gift has also become quite the burden to me (Cards/Consolation and Cards/Desolation). What used to be just a fulfilling commitment is now also an unhealthy obsession…a “hook”. It was no longer freeing.
      1. Sources/Suffering - The Call of a Wounded Healer: I associated dance with physical/emotional suffering (e.g. anxiety, burnout, restlessness). These symptoms showed me that I wasn’t living in alignment with myself.
         1. Cards/Problem versus Mystery: At first, I was treating this question/relationship like a problem that could be fixed (e.g. quitting a group/hobby).
         2. But immediately trying to fix/cure the problem is the wrong approach. I would be ignoring my pain, instead of trying to understand it.
         3. The best approach is to listen to the pain. Like what Jung said, this could serve as an opportunity/invitation to learn more about myself. I needed to dig deeper, to get involved in this mystery.
      2. Cards/Perfectionism: Dance became an attachment when I started approaching it as a pursuit for perfection.
         1. Cards/Tangibles: I was pursuing an ideal self/avatar:
            1. Role: Dancer
            2. Reputation: Great at dance (verified by others)
            3. Riches: Team memberships, awards, etc. (material verification)
         2. Sources/Everything Happens for a Reason - and Other Lies I Have Loved: I believed in a prosperity gospel/meritocracy; if I work hard, I should be able to achieve my goals!
         3. ^ This is an example of absolute certitude (Cards/Absolute Certainty versus Wonder). Cards/We operate our everyday lives on unfounded certitudes
         4. Rejection fatigue: But I failed. Again and again and again. Which of course, left me distraught.
         5. Cards/Discernment: As a result, my life became like a wheel of fortune, for my happiness was dependent on my standards of success (dictated by Cards/Tangibles). It was a life of mere survival.
      3. Sources/Inner Compass: My attachment wasn’t really dance; it was the idea of perfection. I was no longer free, for my whole live revolved around pursuing this.
         1. Symptoms of being hooked:
            1. It takes up all my energy and attention.
            2. It’s exhausting – not just physically, but also emotionally.
            3. It distorts me, making me inflexible and unbalanced.
         2. Rule of thumb: It’s a disordered attachment if it causes you and others harm.
            1. Perfectionism disables us from seeing life as it truly is: I would always succumb to cognitive distortions. (e.g. polarized thinking, overgeneralization, blaming)
            2. Perfectionism makes us harm ourselves and others more: I was always focused on my faults…and I secretly resented others for lacking these
               1. Cards/False Humility & Cards/Ressentiment
2. Expound (what is it rooted in?)
   1. My attachment was leading me to live a small life, revealing my selfish nature.
      1. Cards/Pusillanimity: My world was small, for it revolved around dance.
         1. And since dance was my way of pursuing an ideal self, this world really revolved around me. This is self-love, a.k.a. Narcissism.
         2. At first, I thought this couldn’t apply to me, given my low self-esteem. But narcissism exists on a spectrum, always involving high self-involvement and a need for admiration and attention. It just so happens that mine is on the covert/vulnerable end of the spectrum:
            1. Difficulty taking criticism
            2. Feeling and expressing they are not good enough
            3. Often pretends to play the victim
            4. Shames and blames others for their mistakes
            5. Poor self-esteem
            6. Insecure and low confidence
         3. Sources/Expanding the Shrunken Soul
            1. Cards/False Humility: preoccupation with my limitations, denying my own worth. This blocks me from creatively engaging with the world…instead of sharing my talents, I bury them
            2. Cards/Ressentiment: my hatred for more talented people
               1. reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of one’s own inferiority/failure on to an external scapegoat.
   2. How did I end up this way? I am selfish not because I love myself – quite the opposite. I think I will be forever unlovable.
      1. Cards/Desire & Cards/Brokenness: my desire for love reveals how I’m uniquely broken. My life has led me to believe that love is conditional
      2. Cards/The True Self and Cards/The False Self: Important people in my life (e.g. my mother, my past dance teachers) attacked the home-grown sense of self I had, demanding that their standards be achieved. (Narcissistic injury) So I developed a self based on this approval.
         1. The Challenge to Love: These people operated in terms of power, motivated by fear. Their love for me was how they took me, and exercised their power over me. They treated me as an extension of themselves.
         2. They were narcisissts
         3. They didn’t really love me as the other
         4. Perhaps that’s why learning I have narcisstic tendencies hit hard…repeating the cycle of pain
         5. They showed me that I could never be safe, for my weaknesses could always be held against me.
         6. Sources/Images of Integrity - Across the Great Divide: Thus, it was undeniable that I would create a masked and armored self.
            1. Narcissism as a maladaptive method for self-regulation.
      3. content/Permanent Notes/The Divided Life: This duality of the True Self and False Self, this fragmented psyche, is what characterizes my narcissism. I may play my role/mask well, but it doesn’t satisfy my soul, my inner child.
         1. Black swan v.s. white swan
      4. Cards/Self-rejection: Beneath my armor is a narcissistic scar. The shame of my trauma is so significant to the point that I never feel truly good about who I am. This feeling remains, no matter how much I accomplish in life.
         1. I don’t believe that I have a True Self. I always feel like I’m performing. I don’t know who I really am.
      5. Cards/Perfectionism: l am unable to appreciate myself (and others who love) because of my constant pursuit of perfection. I crave external validation (e.g. audience adoration) instead of internal validation (e.g. joy in dance)
   3. And I could not imagine living life any other way. Perhaps…I am forever doomed to suffer.
      1. My life dominated by this need for control, reeks of despair.
         1. Sources/Finding Hope When Life Doesn’t Go As Planned: Holding on to perfection/God’s divinity. I believe that if I’m not everything, I’m nothing.If I’m not God, I don’t deserve to exist.
         2. My inability to choose between mediocrity v.s. death (exemplified by Nina’s “suicide” in pursuit of artistic perfection)
3. So how can I move on…how can I begin to heal? (Love and hope)
   1. Sources/Inner Compass: I can deattach from perfectionism through the way of the deepest desire/Strategy of Liberation. I need to remember how the process of dance gives me joy – an abiding sense of peace that my life is meaningful.
      1. What is the music in my heart that leads me into the dance…and overrides the fear that keps me clinging to the rails?
         1. Sources/Everything Happens for a Reason - and Other Lies I Have Loved: Beauty and love. These will always exist, even in the darkness. I know that I am capable of finding it.
      2. My holy mountain: living with God? embodying him? Cards/The First Principle and Foundation;
   2. Sources/Suffering - The Call of a Wounded Healer: This journey will be long and hard. But I endure, because I believe that these growing pains are necessary. For it is in suffering where callings emerge.
      1. A process of deattachment? Going from false self to true self
      2. Particularly the call to authentic personhood, which involves “…a commitment to continual growth and change, which requires to undergoing pain and discomfort…[a] necessary and inevitable part of the process…”
      3. We can only get in touch with Cards/The True Self through pain
   3. Sources/The Need for Certainty: In the process of self-discovery, we seek certainty. Two questions on our calling?
      1. Who am I (stripped of all my influences)?
         1. I am human.
            1. Sources/Suffering - The Call of a Wounded Healer: Symptoms teach humility. I am vulnerable and weak. I am reminded that I am not God. I need help. I can’t do it all alone.
            2. Sources/Expanding the Shrunken Soul: Being humbled is also being reminded of the good God has placed and achieved in me. I am guided towards Cards/Maganimity: a sense of inner fullness and appreciation of our own dignity (and how God can work through us)
         2. Thus, I am capable of love, contrary to what I inherently believe
            1. For attachment is an indicator of care.
               1. The Little Prince: “It’s the time you’ve wasted on your rose that makes your rose so important”
            2. C.S. Lewis: Love that makes us vulnerable.
            3. But it also makes us truly human and alive. (Homo amans)
         3. Dance allows me to be my true self….to experience wholeness
      2. Where do I fit into all of this (a.k.a. my value and mission)?
         1. And in turn, I believe being creative…is my unique way of loving.
         2. Sources/Suffering - The Call of a Wounded Healer: Artists can be wounded healers too. They find meaning in their suffering because it allows them to connect with others who are also in pain. By healing others, they heal themselves as well. Perhaps I can do the same.
            1. A form of antifragility
         3. Ministry to a Hopeless Man: Love not only lasts forever, it needs only a second to come about.
            1. Examples: cyphers, classes, inspiring choreos…. examples of beauty
            2. The power of dance, as an ethereal art
   4. Takeaway: I need to give up my ambitions, my goals. But I am afraid of letting go of my hook, my golden calf – control. I am afraid of journeying into the unknown.
      1. This journey is a mystery…but I’ll commit to it with wonder, and see what it has in store for me. Cards/Absolute Certainty versus Wonder
         1. Cards/Growth happens in vulnerability
         2. Cards/We grow when we let go
   5. End: Rumi’s The Dancing Cry of the Soul

Notes:

• also add rumi quotes
• Because of our egocentrism, all of us are inclined to resist the process of growth. Especially me.
• Perfectionism renders growth unnecessary and obsolete
• Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good