The Gift of Creativity

The Gifts Healing Brings to Ourselves and the World

Photo by Patrick Pahlke on Unsplash

The Gift of Creativity

See the note at the end for an explanation of this series!

The use of the imagination to produce original ideas.
The ability to enter the "flow state” in which expression spontaneously
flows out of us and we are immersed in the pleasure of the activity.
The ability to create generative learning and solutions to problems alone or with others.
—IFS Source—

There is no doubt that the train holding the gifts of creativity unloaded an extra portion onto me the day I was born. It shows up as an adult in my writing, my home decor, the crafts I enjoy, my problem-solving skills, teaching ideas and course design, my ability to network, and my sense of humor—to name a few.

For most of my life, my creativity also showed up in my trauma-based coping strategies. This is best understood by reading my second book, Jeannie’s Brave Childhood. It was my most creative writing effort until Hotel Candelabra: A Novelette. Both of these books delve into the inner world created by a very imaginative child.

I can see glimmers of creativity in my childhood but no one would have identified me as highly creative. Surviving requires too much energy for traumatized children to fully display the gift of creativity that is their birthright. I addressed this in Jeannie’s Brave Childhood:

“The secrets I kept silenced me. I devoted my creative energies to survival. My writing as a child was seldom imaginative and most school work I saved seems bland and task driven. No one could have imagined the creativity I hid inside with my secrets.”

The therapeutic work of inner-child healing allows adults to connect with their wounded child selves and gives them the safety they need to express their creativity in ways that were not possible as children. I wrote three chapters in Jeannie’s Brave Childhood to explain how my child-selves healed. This included live storytelling, literature, and play.

Healthy play is always creative. My healing play included joining my granddaughter in play. She was early elementary age at the time and thrilled that her grandma wanted to play with her! It also included coloring, Play-Doh, art projects, jigsaw puzzles, picture walks, and collages. Anything that involved putting pieces together in a new form felt healing!

Releasing trauma and using the energy it drained for creativity returns us to our birthright. Creativity inherently feels like a child at play and those who are willing to access this aspect of healing will facilitate their healing. It isn’t always easy to set down our adult ideas of what healing should look like. I explain this in Jeannie’s Brave Childhood:

Before my healing journey began, a friend who was in therapy working through her own difficult childhood, was encouraged to plan play experiences for her inner child. My pre-therapy avoidance of all things “inner child” caused me to be skeptical. Thankfully I set this skepticism aside during my own healing process. It is absolutely necessary to go back and heal the developmental gaps caused by trauma. This is true for both adults and children. Play [and creativity are] a path to healing.

In Trauma in the Pews I include the following paraphrased list of Richard Foster’s descriptions of celebration in Celebration of Disciplines: The Path to Spiritual Growth, and stated, “If faith communities play together, it will give everyone an opportunity to be a village that supports healing through play.”

• Saves us from taking ourselves too seriously.

• Adds notes of gaiety, festivity, and hilarity to our lives.

• Helps us relax and enjoy the good things of the earth.

• Is an effective antidote for sadness.

• Has the ability to give us perspective.

• Enables everyone to join as equals.

What if becoming like children meant that spirituality and worshipping God should include play and creativity? It would make sense for us to return to the gift of creativity which is our birthright!

Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash

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As I healed, I was surprised to find that deep inside of me was a remarkable human being. Shame and religion had taught me something entirely different. It taught me that I was unworthy, flawed, and some would say, wicked. When introduced to the “8 Cs of Self Leadership”—a core concept of Internal Family Systems (IFS)—I recognized a me that had always been there but often got buried underneath layers of pain and trauma-based coping strategies. Un-layering this me was a gift I gave to myself and it has enabled me to give hope to others. For the eight days leading up to and including Christmas, I will be writing about each of these gifts that I treasure every day: Calmness, Clarity, Curiosity, Compassion, Confidence, Courage, Creativity, and Connectedness. These gifts, handed to us at birth, were intended to be opened in safe, nurturing childhoods but it is never too late to open the gift.