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Healing the Trauma that You Don’t Know You Have

Most people living today are more traumatized than they know. But how could that be? 

When we experience very distressing events, our nervous system goes into a state of overwhelm (or what neuroscientists call dysregulation). You may end up feeling less like yourself, unable to have a healthy range of experiences, but can’t easily connect the dots mentally or heal emotionally. It’s not your fault that this happens—it’s your nervous system’s built-in way of protecting you, and it happens outside your conscious awareness. 

However, you can learn to recognize the effects of trauma. You can follow those threads through the maze of your past, to find ways of healing in the present that will improve your health mentally and emotionally.

Types of Trauma

While individuals differ in their responses, there are broad categories of trauma that we should all know exist: childhood trauma, racial trauma, sexual trauma, religious trauma, narcissistic abuse, war, pandemics and other natural disasters, and intergenerational trauma. Three of these types are briefly covered below.

Childhood Trauma

No family is perfect, but some do active harm. Too often, children suffer neglect and physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, often with no outside resources to protect them. Childhood trauma can also happen if the mother is treated violently, someone in the family has substance abuse problems or a mental illness, the parents are going through a divorce or separation, or one of the parents or a sibling dies. 

In all of these situations, because a child’s nervous system is not yet fully developed, the childhood trauma often goes unidentified until something triggers a memory or compounds it, years or decades later.  

Narcissistic Abuse

Many of us know someone who exhibits signs of narcissism, focusing exclusively on themselves and unable to empathize with or “make room for” others. If you’ve suffered abuse by a narcissist, whether they were a parent, partner, or boss, you may no longer trust your instincts in relationships or feel guilty about things that aren’t actually your fault or responsibility. You may feel you have to be “special” to gain recognition, and you may have developed a case of perfectionism to keep away the shame that your abuser made you feel for not living up to their impossible standard.

Global Events: Pandemic Trauma and War Trauma

The pandemic put virtually all of us into a “sustained survival mode” that evoked or caused trauma. The pandemic saw a 25 percent increase in anxiety and depression, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As a shared trauma, it also led to widespread Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and burnout among health-care workers. It affected parents who had to juggle supervising their children and working from home while schools were closed. And it deeply impacted those who experienced the loss of a loved one unexpectedly to COVID, who were often not able to say goodbye in person, weaving trauma into the fabric of their grief.

The first formally identified cases of PTSD (known as “shell-shock”) were in soldiers who served during World War I. Tragically, wars have been embedded into the human experience since recorded history. No matter whether it be the recent conflict in the Ukraine, the uprising in Iran, or ongoing conflicts elsewhere, the impact on the psyche of those living in those areas is severe. As widespread violence and threats of violence go on, month after month, traumatic stress compounds for both soldiers and civilians living in warzones. Even in areas where conflict is not directly taking place, there can be trauma impressed into those living in ongoing fear of nuclear war or attack.

How Trauma Works in the Nervous System

To understand your trauma, you’ll need to get to know your nervous system and how it responds to signals of danger, real or perceived.

Over the course of human evolution, our nervous system developed three kinds of responses to threats to help us get through dangerous experiences intact. These subsystems are known as: social engagement, sympathetic mobilization, and parasympathetic immobilization systems. They usually operate below our conscious awareness, but when someone experiences ongoing distress or a trauma that doesn’t resolve, the neurological connections behind these responses get strengthened and we become “stuck” in maladaptive patterns—through no fault of our own.

When the social engagement system responds, we look for help or someone to rescue us from the situation. If this response is encouraged, we may habitually “fawn” around others, hoping to appease anyone causing us distress. We can develop too much compassion for others, leading us to forget to care for ourselves, which over time creates more stress and trauma in our nervous system.

When the sympathetic nervous system responds, we engage in “fight, flight, or freeze,” to try to figure out what to do with the threat (freeze), then to subdue it (fight), or else escape it (flight). When this system is “stuck” in overdrive, we may have problems like depression, anxiety, or phobias.

If all other tactics fail, the parasympathetic nervous system can still put us into a collapsed, shut-down state (“faint”), as a way to survive with the least possible amount of damage when fighting or fleeing aren’t possible. This state is linked to depression and dissociation.

Symptoms of Trauma and PTSD

If you’ve sustained any form of trauma in the past, you may experience various difficulties, depending on the way the trauma got stuck in your system:

  • Anxiety or Panic Attacks
  • Denial
  • Feeling emotionally numb or hopeless
  • Hypervigilance
  • Difficulty connecting with others
  • Overwhelming shame or guilt
  • Aggressive behavior
  • Self-destructive behavior
  • Addictions
  • Insomnia and dysregulated sleep
  • Flashbacks

Another way to determine whether you’ve dealt with trauma is to think about how you show up in a relationship. Do you enjoy some of your interactions with others, or do you often feel inner pressure around everyone you meet? Do you feel nurtured by one or more people in your life, or do you feel responsible to everyone, all the time? Do you feel uncertain around your loved ones, like you’re not really sure you can rely on them? 

When we’ve experienced trauma in a past relationship, be it with a neglectful parent, an erratic partner, or an abusive boss, our nervous system tracks the impact, and it affects our present relationships—until we shed light on what’s happened and learn how to work through its effects on us.

Treatments for Trauma

In the last few decades, neurobiology has blossomed and cross-pollinated with psychology. New discoveries have been made, new theories have been tested, and thankfully, a range of therapies and treatments for trauma have been developed to help us cultivate deep self-regulation. Among them are somatic therapies such as Somatic Experiencing and sensorimotor psychotherapy, trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and “brainspotting,” and trauma-informed psychodynamic therapy.

Therapy is a wonderful option, but if you’ve been through individual therapy or want additional support, there are other ways to learn skills to work through trauma. 

By committing to your own healing, you’ll not only create greater balance in your life, you will stop trauma from being passed on to the next generation—and you’ll bring a healing presence into the world.

If you’d like support in your commitment to healing trauma, you can check out The Healing Trauma Program, hosted by Jeffrey Rutstein, PsyD, CHT.

Authenticity is a Unique Superpower That We All Have

People often think that “personal branding” is a dirty word. That it revolves around ego and vanity and self-promotion. After building and running my personal branding agency, SimplyBe. and reflecting on our unique approach to this space, I realized that there was something much deeper to this work.

Each of us is here for a specific reason. Each of us has a light that we need to shine. And most people don’t know how to technically, practically tell their own story. Most of all, they don’t feel they have the permission, the confidence, the support, to take the leap. My book, Be: A No-Bullsh*t Guide to Increasing Your Self Worth and Net Worth by Simply Being Yourself, is that permission slip—for you to get out of your own way, to dive deep and take the journey within. Although often perceived as a practice in exterior image, personal brand is really about how you see yourself, how you know yourself, how you come to cherish yourself. That is the journey that awaits you in Be.

There are a lot of people who don’t want to be on social media or don’t want to be “famous” and therefore feel like the work of personal branding isn’t for them. But frankly, it doesn’t matter if you use social media every day or if you never touch it for the rest of your life—you have a personal brand.

Your personal brand is your value. It’s your worth. It’s the impression you leave behind in any room or crowd. It’s how you make people feel. It’s how you interface with people wherever you go—the way you treat your barista, the way you talk to your children’s teachers, the way you communicate with your team at work, how you create relationships in our community. It’s your legacy. All of these daily interactions are opportunities to hone and master your brand on your terms. That is personal branding.

My background is in marketing and branding. I’ve cut my teeth in the world of social media working with Fortune 500 brands over the last 15+ years. That said, in this book you will find frameworks and easy DIY tools to build your brand from the ground up and to take it online and leverage it to build your business, your career, your reputation, your followership. You’ll learn how to craft a message and a strategy, build PR awareness, create original content, identify your competitive landscape, and much more. It is a very tactical book in that sense. But my biggest inspiration and passion is bringing more humanity to business. Be. is a personal empowerment book at its core. Simply put, Be. is a study in the power of authenticity. 

Authenticity is a unique superpower that we all have. It’s a practice in you simply being you, inclusive of all of your shadows, sh*t, failures, weaknesses, AND all of your successes, triumphs, talents, and unique gifts. That’s what Be. will really challenge you to own—your fully unapologetic YOU.

My book is far more than what meets the eye. I hope you pick it up and learn that you, indeed, have a brand and that this simply means that you have something worthy and meaningful to share with the world. Personal branding, at its core, is an act of service. It is about what we are here to give versus what we are here to get. And when we architect a personal brand from that place, we come alive.

The world needs your light.

The world needs you to shine.

Every one of us has not just the privilege but the responsibility to step forward and simply be.

Don’t let us down.

With love and light,

Jessica Zweig
Bestselling author of Be.
Founder & CEO, SimplyBe.

 

Jessica Zweig is the CEO and founder of the SimplyBe. agency, a personal branding company that helps millions of people worldwide. She's been named a “personal branding expert” by Forbes, a Top Digital Marketer to Watch by Inc., one of 2020’s Most Notable Entrepreneurs by Crain’s Chicago Business, and the 2018 and 2019 recipient of the international Stevie® Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year. She's been featured on FOX, ABC, NBC, Thrive Global, Business Insider, and more as an expert on how an authentic personal brand is the key to a more successful career. For more, visit jessicazweig.com.

Jessica Zweig is the CEO and founder of the SimplyBe. agency, a personal branding company that helps millions of people worldwide. She’s been named a “personal branding expert” by Forbes, a Top Digital Marketer to Watch by Inc., one of 2020’s Most Notable Entrepreneurs by Crain’s Chicago Business, and the 2018 and 2019 recipient of the international Stevie® Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year. She’s been featured on FOX, ABC, NBC, Thrive Global, Business Insider, and more as an expert on how an authentic personal brand is the key to a more successful career. For more, visit jessicazweig.com.

Author photo © Lindsey Smith

 

 

 

 

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Be What You Want to Receive: Three Ways to Experiment with Microdosing Bravery

At a time when we’re marinating in trauma and dealing with the test of a lifetime, we all wish things were different. When what we want from life is a million mile march from what it actually is, it can seem like we need a massive intervention to keep facing what’s at hand. 

But research shows that small things can make a big difference. Just like stress is cumulative, so are the daily steps we take to grow and give.

Microdoses of bravery add up. To start, consider moving from asking what will the world offer me, to what will I offer the world? Tiny bits of strategic courage are sources of nourishment that can help you become what you want to receive. 

Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable is a tall order, but worth doing. Microdosing bravery can help us build the strength and stamina that helps us heal, create, and liberate from fear, despair, and isolation. 

Here are three ways you can experiment with microdosing bravery including journal prompts for reflection.

Worth the Risk - Be What You Want to Receive

 

BE LOVE. 

Loneliness is being called “the new smoking,” a modern health risk. For some, the global pandemic has strengthened relationships, allowing for bonding and teamwork like never before. For others, it’s wreaked havoc: leading to feeling smothered and stuck. For those living alone, distancing has been brutal, making love feel far from reach. Loss, whether through death, divorce, breakups, or other factors, singes our hearts. We can become avoidant and skeptical of our future potential to love and be loved. 

When we strive to embody love, it’s essential to keep an open mind and heart. Loving connections are protective factors to our well-being. Consider these microdoses of bravery to strengthen your relationships, your sense of belonging, and the co-creation of new love paradigms in your life:

  • Get real. Go through your friends on social media and make a list of all the real people in your life with whom you can be yourself. Make a conscious effort to spend time outside of social media. Thank them for being so real to you and vow you’ll do the same.
  • Spark connection. Initiate a conversation with a partner or friend to see if you can build greater intimacy or camaraderie. To improve your connection, ask them what would mean a lot to them, and offer your own thoughts too.
  • Seek affinity relationships. Write a short poem or essay about yourself to clarify your various identities and then seek an affinity connection. Invite that person for coffee. Don’t shy away from sharing yourself and nudging them to do the same.
  • Be innovative. Create your own bravery microdose to help you be love.

Take note:

Write down what you chose to do and reflect on how it cultivated love in your life. Consider sharing this with someone you trust to help you maximize your efforts.

BE HEALING. 

The level of trauma at hand has ravaged our lives, making healing feel elusive on a good day, impossible on a bad. Given the magnitude of suffering at hand, healing should not be trivialized as a three-step process. Healing requires enormous courage. Microdosing bravery can help us reach out and tap in to the many forms of restoration available to us.  

Understanding how resilience works is a helpful way to begin healing. Gone are the days when it was viewed as a character trait—something you’re born with or not. There’s a lot of hype about being gritty and never letting anyone see you sweat that gets in the way of us finding the right support. Here are some ways to microdose bravery to foster healing and build resilience:

  • Recognize you’re not alone. The biggest lie our difficulties tell us is that we’re the only ones dealing with such intense suffering. All of us are living in a global mental health crisis, with exorbitant pressures and crushing circumstances. Suffering is part of our shared humanity. Finding solidarity and safe community can serve as a catalyst to healing. As we get traction in our own healing process, our acts of courage can be nourishing and healing to those around us.
  • Self-advocate. Healing requires intentional change in our communication. Many of us are comfortable and willing to give help, but few are asking for it. Identify one trusted person in your life that you know has the emotional maturity and skills to listen and support you. Tell them what you’re going through and work with them to identify potential roads toward healing, such as therapy, strategic behavioral change, and targeted self-care.
  • Set boundaries. Untreated trauma and unresolved issues can haunt us and impair the quality of our lives. By paying attention to what we say yes and no to, we can ensure we are leaving space for growth after we’ve gone through significant stressors. Find language to courageously share what you can commit to, and what you cannot. Enlist support to help you firmly protect your time so that you can devote attention to healing and restoration.
  • Identify resources. Take some time to scan your direct environment for things that nurture and sustain you. Select one or two things that can be microdosed to build your bravery.

Take note:

Write down things that help you experience healing. How can you continue to build off this?

BE A LIBERATOR. 

Society can project a lot onto us, caging us into patterns of conformity that can become harmful. Freedom to live as our truest selves isn’t something that comes with safety or ease. The work of unhooking from social prescriptions and ills can be fraught and exhausting. Still, when we find the courage to call out injustice and fight for a more humane world, we can experience exuberance and help change paradigms.

When we strive to liberate, we realize that we must dismantle oppression. That we must advocate for inclusivity and human reverence, particularly for social identities that are marginalized and harmed. Constrained living hinders human progress, individually and collectively. Consider these microdoses of bravery to liberate from social constructs that are harmful:

  • Let go. Take inventory of so-called social “norms” and become less apt to cower in the face of social impositions that are dismissive and destructive toward “difference.” Embrace your own multidimensionality, and that of humanity.
  • Speak up. We all have opportunities to be active contributors rather than passive bystanders in the world. Practicing accountability means that we call out injustice and work to eradicate forms of human suffering and imprisonment—whether based on race, gender, orientation, age, place of origin, or other social identity categories.
  • Practice human reverence. Move from me to we. See the glory and wonder across the human spectrum. Honor varied identities and perspectives. Work to find and engage in diverse relationships, rather than staying insular or spending time with those that look like, love like, and think like you. Become a liberator by standing fervently with those who’ve been marginalized, oppressed, or discriminated against. Seek ways to forge change, bit by bit.
  • Break Free. Create your own bravery microdose to help you liberate.

Take note:

What do you need to be liberated from? Do you know someone who is struggling in a similar way? How might you join forces and work together to become freer?

Author Kristen LeeKristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, is an award-winning Behavioral Science and Leadership professor, clinician, researcher, activist, comedian, author of Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World, and host of Crackin’ Up. She has over two decades of clinical experience in mental health, and twelve years of teaching and leadership roles in higher education, focusing on underserved populations. She leads the Behavior Science program at Northeastern University. For more, visit kristenlee.com.

 

 

 

 

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How to Bloom in the Dark: Self-Compassion, Compost, and Nature

Compassion is the magic ingredient that turns our personal “compost” into personal evolution.

 Some time ago, I found a strange bloom in the kitchen. It was elegantly twisted, like a dragon at a Chinese New Year celebration. It was frilled, purple, and pungent. This exquisite thing grew out of a chunk of purple cabbage that I’d put under the sink to go out for compost. Instead of fading quietly however, it burst into new life in the dark grotto of my cabinetry. It blossomed into something unexpected, unusual, and fiercely beautiful.

Reflecting on the discovery of this “flower” in the shadows, I’m reminded of, and heartened by, the fertility of dark times. Many people are feeling a collective spiritual darkness now, exhausted and frustrated, maybe also angry and scared. Having compassion for ourselves and others is especially important in times of literal and metaphorical darkness. How can we do this if we already feel overloaded?

Nature is our ultimate model and guide—in the light, in the dark, and in the most surprising and gorgeous ways. Cue the weird, glorious cabbage flower which came to life in the dark. What was being shown there?

There is the clear compost metaphor. Compost is the stuff we reject, the moldy, wilted, too hard, too soft, nasty bits that don’t make it to the table. It’s also the leftovers from delicious things we appreciate and enjoy, silky mango skins, green tea leaves, dark coffee grounds.

It all transforms into a rich sloop that eventually nourishes future plants. Our personal work includes processing our own “dark” sides, the parts we’d like to hide or discard. Self-compassion (and compassion for others) holds both the rejected and respected parts of who we are. Like composting, it isn’t always pretty, but it’s potent. Research shows self-compassion helps us stay present and kindhearted without sinking into absorptive empathy, which can lead to overload and burnout. This meditation is part of the toolkit in the audio course Shining Bright Without Burning Out.

The cycles of the natural world, into which we are interwoven, take time. It’s hard to be patient, to let everything, both scorned and enjoyed, stew in our symbolic personal compost piles. The speed with which that brew changes from nasty to nourishing varies widely with the internal and external conditions. Sometimes all those different elements take a long time to dissolve and break down. Sometimes it turns around faster than we think possible, like time-lapse photography of a log rotting on the forest floor with new green shoots springing to life overnight. Compassion is the magic ingredient that turns our personal “compost” into personal evolution.

The dark supports transformation. Times of literal darkness are needed for regeneration. Roots, seeds, and bulbs prepare. People and animals sleep. Times of symbolic darkness are also helpful. In darkness, transformative processes happen without spectators, often below the level of our conscious awareness. These are periods of catharsis, healing after trauma, cocooning in preparation for the next version of ourselves and our world.

We sometimes feel hopeless and helpless in the dark. Our society avoids sinking into it. Instead, we gravitate towards purveyors of easy “love and light!” spirituality, shying away from the deep, gooey work that happens to the larval versions of ourselves (and those around us) when we’re in the darkness of the cocoon. Self-compassion is most needed when we’re a mess.

The dark is a vital part of the wheel of our days, our years, our lifetimes. We need it to survive and be healthy in the long term. So, let’s embrace it, explore it, and be gentle with ourselves as we confront our fear of it. From this darkness we are nourished to bloom into the light.

@ 2021 Mara Bishop MA

Order Shining Bright Without Burning Out now! 

Mara Bishop has
over 25 years of experience helping people find spiritual health and
well-being. Her Personal Evolution Counseling™ method blends shamanism,
psychology, intuition, energy healing, and nature-based practices. She
lives in Durham, NC with a beloved family of people, animals, and
plants.

More information about Mara is at www.WholeSpirit.com

How Do You Shine Bright? Managing Your Energy Ecosystem™

When you hear the phrase “shining bright,” what does it evoke for you? Does it mean being yourself? Is it radiance, openness, or casting your energy outward toward others? Is it being the center of attention?

For me, shining bright is about sustainable personal energy, understanding your unique spiritual makeup or energetic personality archetype. It’s about managing your energy ecosystem. It’s also about keeping the balance of what’s “coming in” and what’s “going out,” as all healthy systems do.

One of the ways I feel my “brightest” is when I’m in nature, especially in the little jungle of my backyard. As I write this, a rabbit is relentlessly distracting me by flashing its ears in my line of sight, stretching up to grab some leaves, ducking down into the ivy. Observing and immersing myself in nature keeps my energy ecosystem healthy. It helps me see the bigger picture of the earth’s systems and appreciate the extraordinary beauty that exists in our seemingly ordinary spaces. I breathe differently and feel lighter when I’m watching the creatures and plants outside.

Rabbits don’t do it for you? You may need the bright lights of the stage, deep long meaningful conversations, sweaty workouts, or something else. It’s a combination of things that blend to create ideal self-care habits, big and small routines that honor who we naturally are and help us be our most radiant.

It’s hard to shine bright when you’re burned out. Many of us are overwhelmed, facing disasters of all kinds. Even if we’re not experiencing direct trauma, the world feels chaotic. That can make it easier for us to spin out of control a little too and neglect healthy habits. Maybe, like me, you love and are rejuvenated by time in nature, but feel you must travel to far-off places to find the wild and that’s not possible right now. Maybe you’ve struggled to find a practice that suits who you are and fits into your life. Maybe you feel the experiences of those around you so keenly in your body that it’s hard to distinguish your own emotions and needs.

We’re vulnerable to burnout when we get overwhelmed and depleted when we become cynical and feel negative and ineffective about our work. We start to distance ourselves from others and detach from ourselves, our needs, and what it takes to be healthy and happy.

I have two resources to help, one is available now, and one will be available soon.

Even if you only have a few moments, making time to meditate or journey regularly can help avoid burnout. Shamanism for Every Day: 365 Journeys is a daily guide for reconnection. No pressure, not another to-do list item, but a gentle way to engage your inner wisdom and the support of the spirits around you to stay healthy. Shining Bright Without Burning Out: Spiritual Tools for Creating Healthy Energetic Boundaries in an Overconnected World is an audio course that will help you step by step to manage what comes into your energy ecosystem and what goes out. We’ll reframe how you engage the world in order to stay compassionate and present, without losing your spark or burning out, so that you can shine bright and enjoy your time here on this beautiful earth.

Preorder Shining Bright Without Burning Out now! 

Mara Bishop has over 25 years of experience helping people find spiritual health and well-being. Her Personal Evolution Counseling™ method blends shamanism, psychology, intuition, energy healing, and nature-based practices. She lives in Durham, NC with a beloved family of people, animals, and plants.

More information about Mara is at www.WholeSpirit.com

Express Your Creativity to Jump-Start Vitality

Have you ever felt like you lost a part of yourself? 

Sometimes it happens. Life changes, and we change with it. It could be a move, job change, marriage, kids, taking care of elders, or any sort of transition. Sometimes it’s not even a difficult transition that makes us lose a part of ourselves but a decision we make to keep on with some things and release the rest. And yet, we might regret leaving that part of us behind. Often, the part of ourselves we leave behind is a creative part of ourselves that we might think, in today’s world, is less important or less valued. 

This certainly happened to me—for about fifteen years. Basically, I lost my voice. As much as I loved singing, for reasons I could not fully understand, I knew part of my path was to continue in my study of healing. Unfortunately, when I chose graduate school, I also decided there was no point in singing anymore if I was not “serious.” Not only did I relinquish my opportunity to prepare for a professional career in classical western opera singing—I simply stopped singing altogether. And by making that black-and-white decision, based more in perfectionism than in feeding my heart and soul, I lost a huge part of myself for more than fifteen years. Singing was a gift I was given to bring me back to my own creative bliss—but I had been blind to its purpose for most of my life. And a part of me literally felt like I had died.

I’ll bet many of you can relate. External circumstances seem to shift the tides of our lives so that sometimes we lose parts of ourselves society doesn’t necessarily directly reward. If we enjoyed art, dance, music, or other areas of creative expression when we were young, unless we pursued these passions as professional artists, we might have lost sight of them over the years. We often think we have to leave creative pursuits behind in our process of “adulting”—making money, providing for a family, and pursuing a career. However, losing that creative juice comes with real costs—we can end up losing our ability to innovate, our fluidity, and a great deal of our joy.

Thankfully, our creativity is never really lost. In my case, I found the joy of singing again spontaneously while singing to my kids when they were young. When they got a bit older, I decided to reclaim the fun of singing for myself. Out of the blue, I created a Guns N’ Roses cover band called Nuns N Moses. I searched for musicians and convinced them (all straight males) to dress as nuns while I dressed as Moses for part of the show, changing lyrics and singing songs from Moses’s perspective. It was hilarious fun while paying homage to one of my favorite childhood rock ‘n’ roll bands with excellent musicians. Soon after, I was asked to front an Iron Maiden tribute band called Up the Irons. The music was amazing, and the band was a hit, with thousands of fans and a busy gig schedule at the best venues in Southern California. I found myself blissfully singing my heart out—and I had more energy than I ever had in my life.

I share this personal story with you for two reasons. One is to remind you that the parts of you that you think are forgotten actually live on inside of you—particularly the creative parts of you. These are the parts that long for authentic expression, in whatever ways they are able to manifest. They do not die, and when we give them voice, we actually provide healing for ourselves—an ability to bring us to a greater sense of self-awareness, self expression, connection, and ultimately transcendence. The second reason is to challenge you to consider ways you can step out into a more authentic expression of yourself—even if it feels risky to you. The best thing you can do is to break the false idol of yourself. Creative expression gives you the tools to connect with yourself beyond your cultural and social conditioning and to connect with others in true heart and soul expression. Nothing can be more freeing and more healing.

PUTTING CREATIVITY INTO PRACTICE

Fostering Our Flow

How do we begin to jump-start our experience of creativity and its links to flow, improved mood, and vitality to augment our own deeper, more authentic expression of ourselves and our healing? Following is an easy guide:

First, recognize that you are a creative being. The more you identify yourself as a creator, the easier it will be for you to create in different settings, even at work. Even the scientific data suggest this. 

Start simple. Remember that no one defines what is creative except you. Is there a particular creative activity that draws you to it? It does not matter whether you have prior experience with 

  1. It does not need to be a specific art form, either (putting creative outfits together or improvising a meal without a recipe are examples). Pick something easy for you to engage in at least once a week for six weeks, and do something that you can easily fit into your day or week. (Singing in the car or dancing around the house for fifteen minutes a day counts!)

Go beyond judgment. Suspend your and others’ judgment, and move beyond your discomfort. Believe me, I know what it’s like when the kids beg you to stop singing in the car! You will encounter a whole slew of judgmental statements, most of them likely from yourself. As Nike loves to say, “Just Do It.” (In my case, when encountering my children’s complaints, I keep singing, but I do it more softly so as not to irritate their eardrums beyond belief.) When feeling uncomfortable, do it anyway and tap into the bodily, energetic feeling that you have when you are being creative. That will help you break through those negative self-judgments and clear those vrittis, or mind disturbances!

Observe, persist, and enjoy. Notice how you feel after engaging in your creative act. Be your own scientist. Explore how you feel after the first time, and then the second time, and so on. How did the rest of your day go after you allowed yourself some time for creativity? Keep at it, and even try your hand at something new. You might feel more comfortable working with an art form you have learned in the past. However, remember that your goal is not perfection—it is connecting with the energy of creativity. There is something to be said for examining an art form with “beginner’s mind.” Keep honing your creativity by focusing on both things you know and things you don’t know, and see what insights come to you as a result.

author photo

Shamini Jain, PhD, is the founder and CEO of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI), a nonprofit collaborative that leads humanity to heal ourselves. Dr. Jain is an Ivy League-trained clinical psychologist and an award-winning research scientist in psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) and integrative medicine. She is a sought-after speaker and teacher in mind-body-spirit healing. Dr. Jain is also adjunct faculty at UC San Diego. For more, visit shaminijain.com.

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