by Paula Bishop
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Huddled, shivering with fear
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Explanation: The Little White Bear symbolizes things associated with the inner child--childhood feelings, playfulness, joy of discovery, etc. The dark hole was hidden parts of myself that I was ignoring/running away from. The outside landscape symbolizes my mind--it used to be dark and stormy, and now it is much much nicer. I call it the "mental landscape." I wrote the Little White Bear (and illustrated it) after a trip to the therapist's office, in which she asked, "How are you today?" and I replied, "Angry!" She seized on that immediately, saying, "Where do you feel that anger?" and confused for a moment, I focused in, and found it as sort of a "knot" in between my throat and heart. "Look at that anger," she continued, "what do you see?" To my surprise, I saw a tiny huddled white bear, shivering like crazy--with fear. And the fear came from childhood--this was childhood stuff, feelings, free self expression, playfulness, joy of discovery, etc., that had not been "acceptable" in me as a child, so was therefore pushed back down my throat (the place of expression). My mother had been quite verbally abusive, screaming, throwing things, etc, and we were all quite terrified of her, and the sense I got was it was first HER displeasure that chased "the little white bear" away down into that dark place of hiding. But then, growing into adulthood, the inner critic (who sounded for years just like my mother) took over in critical abuse of free expression, and continued to drive it down. The very act of looking at the white bear and not screaming at it, I think, was bringing consciousness into play. It saw that it was being observed, and not driven away, so tacitly accepted. It stopped shivering and looked alert. My therapist then asked me, "What does he want to do?" "He wants to come back out, into the light." "Well, urge him on," she urged me. I sent thoughts of acceptance and protection towards the bear, and told him to "come out into the light" so as in the poem, he crept up the little hill, not really sure of what he'd find. He was very surprised to find a cheerful, sunny landscape! He didn't just bolt out into it, for he didn't really trust it, at first, but when it held true, after a few minutes, then he relaxed into it. That's when my therapist prompted me to bring up what caused my anger with the little white bear, to see his reaction. To my surprise, I had a new advocate, who spoke in a very childlike way, being from childhood. He followed me all day and into the next, in my imagination, growing bigger all the time. I was having a good bit of "shamanic experiences" at that time, and had many visitors to my imagination, so later, when the inner child came out too, she and the bear played delightfully, being from the same era, as it were (and disproving the notion that the little white bear WAS the inner child). |