Creativity and self-care
You probably know this paradox:
The best self-care comes from creating something, playing with your creativity.
But when you are stressed and you need self-care the most, creativity is the last thing on your list.
You end up doing everything you need to do to make life work. Grocery shopping, work, emails, responsibilities. You end up feeling even emptier, ungrounded, pressured. That canvas behind the door you would like to finish painting or the musical instrument you finally bought, They’re collecting dust.
This is because of how our nervous system has developed through evolution. When we feel unsafe and anxious about too many demands, too much blue light from the screen, too little time in nature, or conflicts with others, our powerful, delicate, and complex survival system gets going.
We go into fight, flight, freeze, or fold…
Once we’re there, the cooperation between the right and left hemispheres of the brain weakens and the language center shuts down. Just to name a few of the cascading changes. We become less curious, playful, empathetic, and yes, creative.
Creativity, which is so good for us, is based on an advanced interplay between many functions in the nervous system, and can not work well when we are stressed.
The good news is that it also works the other way around.
If we can grab some paper, or start a wild dance, or put our hands in a pot and create some wonderful food, we come back into the safety of now, back into the senses. The nervous system seems to say: “Aha, she/he is safe enough to be playing like this. I’ll turn off the survival system again.”
Enjoyment, contemplation, and calm usually take over.
Or we find relief and meaning by expressing something painful we have been carrying.
Do you want to be supported and gently reminded to nourish yourself every day with your creative power?
Then the HEAL-Keys might be for you.
You can do them with others, or at home in your own living room or garden in a neighborhood at a time.
Start with a free trial here and see if you’d like to become part of the group of creative self-healers.
Click on the button below and select the English language version when you get to my website.
Warmly,
Karin