Black Swan

I’ve always enjoyed Natalie Portman and her creative choices as an artist. I trust her judgement, so I allow her to take me along the journeys she chooses to share. While her most recent film exploits increasingly disturbing behaviorial disorders, what’s universal about Black Swan is the story of stepping into adult maturity and self-responsibility. On an intimate level, the film beautifully depicts the very real struggle between creative lightness and the darkness that can accompany creative suppression.

Natalie’s character Nina’s drive and commitment to what she has devoted her life to [Prima Ballerina] forces  her into maturity, and into getting in touch with her own womanly pleasures and needs instead of taking care of everyone else. This is a familiar portrait of the drive toward perfection as dedicated, obsessed and hardworking modern day women, who’s careers can too often cost feminine freedom and sensuality.

” Trying too hard to be perfect comes at the cost of beauty. ” _ Natalie Portman

Nina’s transformation into maturity and her full creative expression is cinematically sensational – yet for the rest of us, this process is a pretty standard part of life [and can be one of the hardest] that we must go through in becoming self-responsible adults. Learning to prioritize our relationship to ourselves and to making clear choices in our lives grants us the power to attain our deepest desires fully and authentically.

In Black Swan we witness the destructive power of suppression alongside the deep need to control. The idea of ‘perfection’ can lead us to deny or suppress anything that we deem ‘imperfect’ or uncontrollable, which often relates to feelings and impulses that arise from our ‘dark side’, shadow or un-expressed self. The problem with resisting or suppressing our dark side is that in doing so the exact opposite of our intention occurs and we actually fuel its energies [ primarily it's destructive energies ], becoming victim to them. The mind can not tell the difference between something that is real or vividly imagined. Nina’s fear and suppression of her inner black swan causes her to conjure up her absolute worst fears and to see and experience those fears more clearly than her own reality.

The thing is…

There is innate value in our own darkness, as we see in Black Swan, so we can not fully live in or express ourselves in our grandest magnificence unless we completely embrace and commit to integrating all of our self into one being. Our light and our dark.

” Human creation always has to do with imperfection, the beauty is in the imperfection- what makes each one of us unique. ” _ Natalie Portman

Finally, surrendering to her pleasures, needs and creative power at the deepest level, Nina becomes a woman and an artist, fully expressed in divine power. The light – the genius – the art of life in and around us can not live through us until we surrender our ‘drive to control’ over to divine power, grace and beauty exactly as it is. Accepting every molecule of your life exactly as it is is the absolute most powerful thing you can consciously do to evolve.

Art imitates life…

Victimhood mentality causes us to perceive lack, limitation, separateness and low self worth. When we recognize and take responsibility for this mentality we are able to realize that our thoughts are our only real obstacles.

• What are you striving for in your life from a suppressed place? From a fearful place?

• What kind of relationship do you have to your own dark side|Black Swan?

• Do you freely accept your dark side, allowing it to arise and share it’s gifts with you then with the world, or are you choosing to suppress this side for it’s seeming imperfection?

• Is the idea that you even have a ‘dark side’ a bit uncomfortable for you to accept?

• If you are choosing to suppress this side of yourself, can you see an area or two in your life that may be adversely affected? Perhaps in unfulfilled romantic relationships, miss-aligned career choice, scarcity mentality, feelings of separateness and feeling ‘not enough’?

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Please share your thoughts on the movie if you’ve seen it, or your reaction to the post if you can relate or have anything to add to what I’ve said. I’d love to hear from you below!