Let Your Dark Horse Run. Writing The Shadow With Joanna Penn

How can you let your creative dark horse run? What is the Shadow — and why explore your Shadow side?

This episode features excerpted chapters from the audiobook of Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words, written and narrated by Joanna Penn, available on Kickstarter until 25 October 2023: www.TheCreativePenn.com/shadowbook (link will redirect if you're reading/listening in the future.)

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

* Let your dark horse run

* Introduction: What is the Shadow?

* Why explore your Shadow side?

Let your dark horse run

Although much has changed over the last two thousand years, human nature remains the same. Around 370 BC, the Greek philosopher Plato composed The Phaedrus, which includes an allegory of a chariot that has helped me frame the Shadow. Perhaps it will help you, too.

Imagine a Roman chariot drawn by two horses — a white horse and a dark horse. I am the Charioteer, and I am in the race of my life.

The white horse represents my rational self, the one society sees.

My good behaviour, my industry, my hard work, my productivity, my scrubbed-clean, well-mannered good girl self. 

She helps others. She’s a peacemaker. She doesn’t like conflict. She says the right things, reads the right books. She needs to be liked.

My white horse trots delicately along paved roads, aware of the fences and boundaries, never needing to cross them, remaining within the lines drawn by others.

My dark horse is a wild animal, wreathed in smoke and ash and flame. 

She gallops across wide open spaces, leaps obstacles, smashes through fences, and avoids the paved and cornered world. 

She runs free and will destroy herself, rather than be caged.

If both horses run together in the same direction, I can fly along, whooping in delight at the speed and power. But if they become unbalanced, the chariot begins to wobble. 

When my dark horse stumbles, my white horse drives us hard along the highway, never stopping for rest. 

But if she dominates for too long, my dark horse rears up and runs out of control, driving us towards the cliff edge.

My white horse has often been stronger. 

I’ve always worked hard, got good grades, behaved well, earned enough money to support myself, paid my taxes early. 

But the more I let my white horse dominate, the more my dark one rears up unexpectedly and takes over until she exhausts herself with all the things that nice girls shouldn’t do. 

When I became a writer, these two horses drove me once more. 

My white horse writes non-fiction, helps others, wants to be useful, and responsibly manages a professional business. I’m grateful to have her!

My dark horse writes stories that tap into untamed darkness.