Your Creative Process is a Healing Journey
On accepting and alchemizing all of you for creative reclamation
“There are writers who write for fame. And there are writers who write because we need to make sense of the world we live in; writing is a way to clarify, to interpret, to reinvent. We may want our work to be recognized, but that is not the reason we write. We do not write because we must; we always have a choice. We write because language is the way we keep a hold on life. With words we experience our deepest understandings of what it means to be intimate. We communicate to connect, to know community.”
-Bell Hooks, Remembered Rapture: The Writer At Work
I woke up this morning to an email from Substack congratulating me on my first 1,000 followers on this platform and I’m happy.
Happy in a simple pleasure, first-cup-of-coffee-in-the-morning, it’s-an-unexpected-sunny-day-in-winter kind of way. Connecting with you here feels natural and free from the oppression of the algorithm overlords that haunt me over at Instagram. I’m happy to write intuitively and be read sincerely rather than consumed in the digital landscape of clickbait content. Instagram feels like the Wild West as of late, and Substack feels like a homecoming. I want to keep sharing reflections, maintain dialogues on the subscriber chat, and read your personal stories when you can relate to a post. I’m inspired and I’m glad you’re here!
Maintaining this Substack post marries the best thinking of two of my favorite selves, my inner healer and inner writer. Both parts care about connection, creativity, and expression. Their values overlap in an archetypal Venn Diagram with shared territories of resonance.
Creativity flows from healing and healing flows from creativity.
In IFS, creativity is one of the qualities of Self, or the state of loving awareness that holds all parts. Jay Early calls Self the “agent of psychological healing.” This inner healing force unlocks creative possibilities when it makes contact with our parts, prompting states of spontaneity, play, and flow.
In my career, I’ve learned that I will never be fully satisfied with one role. I know therapists who see clients in back-to-back sessions every day of the week and I know that will never be me. I need space to integrate the work of holding space and writing provides that kind of ground. I also know that I get lonely when I write exclusively, as I have been during my maternity leave, and walking with people on their healing journeys grants me meaning, purpose, and peace. As a therapist and writer, I sink into relationship: with others and their parts, and myself and my inner world. This sinking into relationship restores and inspires me.
I believe that every time we show up to create, a part of us shows up to be healed.
We may not know what needs healing until we clarify it with regular contact. Creative practice initiates this kind of contact with our inner world. When we show up to the page, the canvas, or whatever our craft may be, we nurture a symbolic relationship with our parts. Through artistry, our parts reveal to us their wounds, gifts, and stories. Tending our creativity in this manner promotes catharsis and introspection. We become richer and more tender with awakened creative practice, flowing back and forth between inner experience and outer expression.
Our creative process deepens when we wed it to the healing journey, trusting that what we create will show us what we need to integrate. I call this internal psychological process creative reclamation. Creative reclamation is the idea that we can retrieve the forgotten, misunderstood creative gifts that our parts hold and baptize them anew, integrating them into the full story of who we are today.
One way that I’m participating in creative reclamation is by embracing the messy multi-dimensionality of my writer self.
I have many different interests and my interests have sub-interests. Here on Whole Self, I want to write about reparenting, addiction, neurodivergence, creativity and more. This part of me has often been misunderstood for not being able to “just pick one path” because it wants many paths!
Creative reclamation for misunderstood creative parts looks like spending time with them and the parts around them, acknowledging their fears and concerns.
In my case, one part of me is worried that other professionals will respect me less for niching out rather than down, and that readers will get annoyed with my mental ping-ponging.
Creative reclamation looks like alchemizing our misunderstood creative parts and trusting that their wound is their gift.
For me, Whole Self is a space for all of me — all of my interests, all of my areas of expertise, and all of my experiences (that’s why I called it “Whole Self” 😉). This part that might be too scattered for other people is a part that balances depth with breadth, sees patterns between concepts and enjoys linking them, and at the end of the day, is endlessly curious and dedicated to learning.
When we can embrace our misunderstood creative parts as parts that hold value for our internal system, all of us benefits and our creative process flows.
Your misunderstood creative parts belong. They have a place for you in your internal system. And if you have the courage to trust them, they can bear wisdom and medicines for the adult you that you are today.
Always believing in the magic and genius of your parts,
~Sarah
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Other Offerings of Interest:
Embody Lab is hosting a 60-hour certificate program that begins 05/09, The Breathwork and Movement Therapy For Trauma Healing. I have completed 2 trainings with the Embody Lab and I can’t tell you how integral these programs were for my understanding of trauma, embodiment, and holding space. The programs are educational and communal; they gather knowledge from a wide variety of experts and maintain a strong community component for experiential learning. I will be attending as well. Use code SARAH for 10% off and I hope to see you there!
I am accepting applications for ongoing IFS coaching. I work with people in long-term trauma and addiction recovery, fellow helping professionals, neurodivergent folks, parents, and couples who are interested in deepening their understanding of their internal experience and the model. I respond to applications every Friday and I have a few spots open for spring and summer!
Embody Lab is hosting a two-day master class series with Dr. Gabor Mate on Healing Trauma and Addiction on 04/12 and 04/13. I will be attending as well and you can use code SARAH for 10% off!