the start of healing wounds (in womanhood) through creating.
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver 🕊🌙🍂🕯
I’ve been learning how true it is to our nature as women to create.
In our truest, deepest femininity we create. We sing. We play. We mold. We dance. We write. We paint. We bring life through our hands, mouth, and body. I’m feeling that special grace more than ever over women. To leave what feels practical but is actually a cage.
Somewhere along the lines in your life, I’m positive, you were told to become smaller (in one way or another). While culture celebrates a modern kind of woman, there is an underlining threat to not become more than what we have in mind for you. Don’t overspeak. Don’t think differently. Don’t live this kind of way.
And this cutthroat, yet silent threat has made us more comfortable to live in the boxes laid before us than the freedom we’ve been given since birth.
But there’s a way out. A perspective switch. A deep whispering from within our soul that says, “follow me this way…”
I don’t want to pay bills, climb a ladder, and call it living. I don’t want to come to the end of my life - or even halfway through my life - and feel a deep fear that I’ve lived less than what I was created for.
I want to run full steam ahead at dreams I would once call impractical. Now, I just call it what it was - fear.
I want to live a life I’m proud of, one that touches more than just my life. One that leaves a legacy. One that invites others to see the face of God through beauty + healing.
And I want to create.
So for anyone reading this, who is dreaming up ideas but hiding them away.
Thinking them away.
Speaking them away.
I need you to stop. I need you to breathe. I need you to risk. I need you to start, baby steps even, doing the thing that secretly puts your heart on fire. The thing you daydream about at your desk job.
Maybe there is some groundwork to get done, first. Some internal healing. Maybe art can be a medium in that.
During my darkest season, I had an idea to write little bits of poetry in a sketchbook of how I was feeling, instead of spiraling into a panic attack. These little poems and proses are now coming to life more than ever, in a different season. In new soil. Ready soil.
And while this blog only scratches the surface of what it means to be a woman and how to heal through creating, I’m learning that first steps are better than no steps.
So, here’s to stepping friend. Out of the cages of fear and into the fulfillment of promise.
🍂 Favorite resources to kickstart creativity and healing:
+ The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
+ After The Rain by Alex Elle or her restorative writing courses (I bought the inner child writing one!)
+ Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés Ph.D.
+ EMDR Therapy (going to write an entire blog post about my EMDR coming soon!)
More about these resources below:
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron - I was invited into a “creative small group” back in 2017 and it made me feel all kinds of squirmy. Not because of the group itself but because I genuinely thought I had no creative bone in my body. It was a mixture of artists, actors, photographers, and well.. me. A self-imposed wanna be ;) This. book. changed. that. Truly. Julia is cheeky and romantic and doesn’t fluff. All of my favorite things, tbh. The book is well known for its famous morning pages routine but the exercises and teaching helped me break poor mindsets that held me back. This isn’t a one-and-done book, I go through it often!
After The Rain by Alex Elle AND her restorative writing courses - I found Alex through her IG (@alex_elle) and her iconic clear post-it note writings. They were not only beautiful but they made me stop on an app that is designed to have you consume. There’s something about her stature that makes you slow down, breathe deeper, and pay attention. Her monthly emails are a treasure (sign up!) and she has writing courses for healing. I bought the Inner Child one that I have yet to accomplish… but I would recommend her to anyone!
Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés Ph.D. - honestly… this should be first on my list. BUY THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU READ ANOTHER WORD. I found it at a thrift store in Dublin which feels like a God wink, but was recommended by someone I dearly trust and admire, and who’s done and is doing the work to heal body, soul, and mind and learn about femininity in new ways. This book is half poetry/folk stories and psychology. Do I even need to go on? I do. Dr. Estés had studied the female and wolf psyche for the past 20+ years and draws comparisons, conclusions, and healing for our wild true selves. This is not your typical feminist book that bashes on men - this is about women and women only. I appreciate that deeply. From Amazon:
Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. For though the gifts of wildish nature belong to us at birth, society’s attempt to “civilize” us into rigid roles has muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls.
In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, many from her own traditions, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman, and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine.
EMDR Therapy - I’m planning on writing an entire blog post on this topic alone BUT let me say, EMDR therapy is the only therapy that I truly feel worked for me to rid myself of the effect of certain traumas in my life. I’ve been going to see a certified EMDR therapist for almost 2 years now and I don’t say it lightly (ever) when I say EMDR changed my life. Send me a little email if you want to get set up with an EMDR therapist (whether local to the NorCal area or zoom).
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. - The EMDR Institue