My creativity, my lifeline

How creative intelligence promotes resilience after trauma

I have this space inside of me, and when I pay attention to it, magical things happen. Sometimes, it feels like jumping in a river, getting carried downstream through rapids– exciting, flowing, easy.

Sometimes it feels like dropping into a well of stillness, touching moments from the past or future that somehow exist here and now, in the present.

This space is where I turned as a kid, holed up in my closet, blanket wrapped around me, reading and writing. The way words could bring me somewhere new, different, fantastical. Words on a page could transport me. And somehow, the words that came from my pen, appearing on the paper, transported me too. They came from me, but it didn’t quite feel that way.

It’s that space inside of me that is connected to everyone and everything. Do I dare I say it? That God-like space. What a safe haven. How I love it so much. If I’m there, and the alarm goes off, or my husband asks a question about dinner, and I have to transition into the monotony of the day, my feathers ruffle. Sometimes I just want to live there and enjoy that flow, uninterrupted and blissful.

When I ignore it, I feel flat. Lost. Like the core of me is missing.

When I’m busy, when work plus momming has taken every last ounce of energy, I wonder if it’s gone. Maybe it closed up? Will I ever be there again? But as soon as I have a little space, it cracks opens again. 

Creative intelligence is magical, and I believe we’re meant to create. But it’s a hard thing to inhabit because it requires vulnerability. Following a worn path means stepping along where your foot is supposed to land. You see the prints, and you simply follow. Making your own path means wide open decision making, uncertainty, newness. It means creating something from nothing.

Trauma, Creative Intelligence, & The Self

Undergoing trauma can thwart one’s ability to activate creative intelligence. Creativity requires vulnerability, and vulnerability requires safety. Generating something privately requires trusting yourself enough to let go of control, channel uncertainty, and explore the innermost spaces of yourself. It’s a tall ask.

Now, think about producing something for others to see. Not only does this require tapping into this innermost space, but it also calls for opening it up for others to witness. Yikes! No wonder it’s hard. 

It took me a long time to admit that I wanted a creative life, that I was a creative person. (In fact, I may still be in process, lol.) 

Several years ago, it dawned on me in the funniest and most obvious way. I was undergoing an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy session for PTSD, and it came to me as a booming thought:

I AM A CREATIVE PERSON.

It was so simple. Almost stupidly so. 

Yet it was a revelation.

So much of trauma work is undoing, after all. It’s getting back to who you are at your core self before all the junk messaging, pain, and reactionary behavior was layered on top of you. I imagined pulling off the layers of my self that had piled up, one by one, like a tall stack of blankets. Ripping away the erroneous beliefs about who I was and what it meant to live in the world. Without even knowing it, I was searching for who I was in the beginning, who I had always been and who I could be again now. My true, core self.

I AM A CREATIVE PERSON.

It was so true of me as a little person­–singing, writing, acting­–but I tried to stamp it out, little by little. There wasn’t room to be emotional in my family, and from a young age, I learned that my poems and artistic ways were unacceptable. It wasn’t safe.

There was so much chaos around me, I needed structure, safety, stability. If I could be like my parents, working around the clock, always grinding, maybe that was right. Perhaps it would make me good. If I was rigid and held structure tight, perhaps it would make me anchored. I tried to be something, anything, other than creative and emotional. 

But even though I hid it, it was always there, just underneath the surface. It was in the heaps of journals I filled over the years. It was in the scratch marks on the CDs I listened to on repeat. It was in the notes pinging from the worn down, out of tune, brown piano in the basement. It was in mindfully learning a ski line for a competition, one that was fluid, unique, and creative. It was in the constant flow of one book to the next, the love of storytelling imprinted on my heart. It was curled up in that little closet, with a pillow, blanket, a book, a pen, and a journal. It was right there.  Those spaces were my safe havens. They were my lifelines.  And I supposed, they still are.

How Creative Intelligence Helps Us Heal

Creativity requires engaging with uncertainty and letting go of control. Because trauma thwarts this free, experience-driven, creative part of ourselves, it is an important aspect to cultivate to build resilience. 

If you are in the midst of recovery, this can be difficult. And if it’s scary, start small. Spend a moment scribbling a picture or singing out loud in the car. Dance in the bathroom when you’re all by yourself. You don’t have to be Lin Manuel-Miranda to be creative.

Creativity and Resilience

Research on PTSD has indicated that creativity promotes healing and resilience. Engaging in creative processes increases our ability to be vulnerable and to tolerate uncertainty, which is extremely useful in building resilience. Additionally, it increases exploratory problem-solving skills, which can be constricted after trauma.

Meaning, it allows us to mess around, to try different ways of doing things and let go of perfection. Because the repercussions of trauma are so messy, so chaotic, it makes sense that we react by clinging to rigidity and control. Engaging with our creative intelligence allows us to safely explore the process of letting go of control.  

By allowing yourself to tap into your creative intelligence, you engage the parts of yourself that may be cut off and can help heal you–vulnerability, uncertainty, and problem-solving.

Creativity and Coping

Self-Efficacy

One helpful thing about creativity and creative play is the ability to increase self-efficacy, meaning your confidence or belief in yourself to get a result.

It reminds me of a yoga class when the instructor said something like, enduring what’s difficult on your mat helps you endure what is difficult in your life.

When we build something creatively–maybe a yoga flow, a ski line, a painting, a poem, a business plan, you name it– it helps us feel confident that we can show up in the bigger picture of our lives in a flexible, and fluid way, overcoming whatever challenges may arise. We endured the process of uncertainty or hardship to create something, which builds our belief that we can do this in other, bigger life domains.  

Self-Management

Tapping into creative intelligence helps regulate emotions and physical responses that are often haywire after trauma. Being innovative channels some of the emotional or physical chaos into intentionally building something beautiful. By allowing ourselves to tap into a fluid and purposefully unpredictable space, we can find more groundedness.  

It’s kinda paradoxical, but doesn’t it make so much sense? 

Creativity & Spirituality: That God-Like Space

Doesn’t something feel connected between creativity and spirituality? That space where you connect to something bigger?

Imagine you’re seeing your favorite artist in concert and you’re belting out the words to your favorite song. What do you feel connected to? The music, the lyrics, the other people in the crowd? But isn’t it more than that? Isn’t there something in that creative expression that reaches beyond our straightforward human experience?

It’s that place where mindful action and meditation live. It’s the place where music and poetry live. That place that lives inside us that is connected to everything and everyone. That God-like space.

All the creative things I do make me feel connected to something bigger–skiing a fresh line, writing, hearing live music, singing. Perhaps engaging with creativity connects to a deep, spiritual well within ourselves that is tied to everyone and everything.  

The other night, I was rocking Felix before bed. We were listening to bedtime tunes, Brandi and Billie, while I sang and cradled him in my arms. He was sleepy and peaceful, reaching his hand toward my mouth, encouraging me to play our little baby game, where I smooch his teeny fingers and pretend to gobble them up. He giggled and squealed in delight. And I swear I can feel my heart bursting, like that scene in The Grinch where it grows three sizes.  

Something weirdly magical came over me. I felt that space inside me, that God-like space connecting to that same space inside of him. That place where time isn’t linear, where there’s no beginning or end. Suddenly I felt like we’d lived a thousand lifetimes side by side. That maybe some time ago, he took such good care of me that now it’s my turn to take good care of him for a while. 

 Maybe creativity is spirituality in a way, the process of tapping into that big, deep, inexplicable well—that God-like thing. I can’t wait to see what Felix creates when he spends time there.

Resources:

Here‘s a blog post from Penguin about cultivating creativity when you are not naturally inclined to do so. 

If you are really wanting to curl up and think about your creative process, check out Elizabeth Gilbert’s book on creativity, Big Magic, or Anne Lamont’s amazing writing instruction book, Bird By Bird. 

References:

Metzl, E. S., & Morrell, M. A. (2008). The role of creativity in models of resilience: Theoretical exploration and practical applications. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 3(3), 303-318.

Thomson, P., & Jaque, S. V. (2019). Creativity, trauma, and resilience. Lexington Books.

Thomson, P., & Jaque, S. (2016). Visiting the Muses: Creativity, Coping, and PTSD in Talented Dancer and Athletes. American Journal of Play, 8(3), 363-378.