“Trauma results not only from bad things that happened but also from good things that did NOT happen.” Gabor Maté
The word trauma comes from a Greek word meaning injury. As with physical injuries, the injuries of the soul leave scars. Sometimes also permanent handicap. Trauma cuts us off – from each other, nature, the source (universe, god…). Trauma focuses our energy to pure survival. Our creativity is often used to make sure we find new ways to defend ourselves. Unfortunately, what once served us and helped us – the very coping mechanisms employed to keep us alive – later becomes the very thing to hold us back. We build walls to protect ourselves only to realize we are held captive by them.
Realizing this, bringing it to consciousness, means we are ready to reconstruct ourselves. We are the phoenix, rising from the ashes. It is possible to reclaim our energy, joy, will to live, to be, to express ourselves, to become, to change – to create ourselves and our life according to the soft whispers of our hearts. There are three key ingredients necessary for this journey about which I have written recently. Besides these, honouring our unique pace is another crucial part of being patient and kind to ourselves. Healing is a life-long process with many ups and even more downs.
Taking the pressure off - I am a cycle, not a line
Baby steps are the key. We tend to overestimate what we can do over a short period of time and underestimate what we can do in a long term. As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), I hate working under pressure. Setting goals feels like pressure. I never did new year’s resolutions but I made plans of all sorts for a long time. Becoming stressed when things did NOT go according to plan (and that was almost always). Becoming discouraged by my failure to adhere to my schedule. Feeling lost and like a loser. Feeling like I am unable to achieve anything.
Being drawn to nature and her cycles, I stumbled upon the notion that we, who live in female bodies, are deeply connected to these cycles with our monthly bleeding. Menstruation became – rather than late in life, mind you – my teacher. I loved the waxing and waning of my energy and physical alignment with the moon. I experienced the four faces of myself in the four-fold menstrual cycle: my active side, my social side, my creative side, my quiet-meditative side. I discovered that when I do not push the water up the hill – it finds its own way.
Doing and being came and went. When I was in tune with what wanted to be done or experienced through me, it just happened almost as if by itself. With little or no help on my side. I was like a dula or a midwife being there for the birthing mother which was also me. Later, giving birth to my physical daughter, this notion that creativity – living itself – might be understood as a process of conceiving, gestating and birthing, was cemented into my very being. Is not a creative idea first just a tiny spark of a potential new life? Doesn´t it need to be nurtured in the womb of our being before it´s presented to others? Doesn´t it need to be further nourished once out in the wild of the world?
Don´t push the water, it knows how to flow
Eventually, I realized that ceasing to plan is a way to go for me. To have a vision instead and allow space for things to happen suits me the best. Old habits die hard though. Taking notice of my dreams helps very much. I have worked with dreams (those that come to us while we sleep) for almost 25 years now. There is great knowledge and inner leadership in them. My dreams taught me most about myself, about my true self, my abandoned parts, my wounds and also ways to healing. It was a dream about losing my then two-year-old daughter to drowning in the sea that literally forced me to create my first web and start offering guided dream-work to the public. Thanks to this dream, I realized it´s the creative part of me that is drowning and if do not do anything there and then, I might lose it irrevocably.
Where are dreams from? Where is the homeland of visions? I do not know. The only thing I know is that without them, my life would be dull and incomplete. By paying close attention to my dreams, by making room for many hours spent alone in contemplation while walking in the woods, I have been flooded by creative ideas. The flow was (and still is) so strong, I sometimes fear I will drown in it (drowning seems to be a thing in my life 😉). It wants to flow through me into the world. It is not me who conceives these ideas and visions, but it must be me who makes sure I embody them. Or else.
Obscurial
When one does not live one´s talents, they might turn against her. In the film series Fantastic Beasts (a Harry Potter prequel), Dumbledore´s nephew Aurelius is by bad luck adopted by a magic-fearing lady who forces him to supress his powers. They turn against him and transform him into an Obscurial – somebody out of control of own strengths who, when excited or threatened, is a danger to himself and others. What an excellent symbolic representation of what can happen to us when we repress our talents. One of the most common psychological maladies of our times is depression. The name says it all: something that is supposed to be expressed is suppressed instead. The result is a devastation of the soul. In art therapy, depressed people draw barren lands, burnt to the ground, huge volcanoes with hot lava not being able to get out.
One of HSP´s biggest talents is empathy, in-depth insight and propensity to dwell in darkness of the soul – and ability to creatively bring forth whatever they find there. That cannot be further from the extroverted ideal of lively, social, optimistic go-getter so much promoted in our society. For many reasons, HSPs can feel unacceptable the way they are and learn to supress their deep feelings, fascination with all things mysterious, ability to live within their own inner world. We can develop a pleasing, communicative and cooperative persona and wear it as a mask. It might not take long before we become very unhappy and eventually, we might even get depressed. Our creativity longs to be free. It rattles the cage we put it in and threatens to destroy us from within.
Baby steps
I needed a long time to learn that all I need to do is to show up at my notebook´s screen or my desk with my notebook at the ready. That I need to nurture my creativity, not invent it. That I am not the one creating, it´s life itself – I only have to get out of its way. I need to listen closely to the gentle voice inside me that whispers what wants to be born. I need to make my mind´s screen blank, in order to see the visions painted on it by my soul clearly. Then I need to find the right tools (words mostly) to express these visions. Carve my soul out of my life. Recognize who I really am. Who I have always been. Find ways where there seem not to be any. Fail. Get up. Try again. Forget grand results. Focus on baby steps. Forget what can be done in a day, focus on what can be done in a year.
I am a woodland creature stuck in a city. I try to feed my soul by any means available and I try to escape my city cage. I am letting go of my dream and try to fulfil it at the same time. I try not to cling to my dream. I try to be open to what presents itself in the here and now. Writing and making videos about it makes my efforts more conscious. I have never plan it this way, yet here I am, listening my intuition which tells me: go!
Creating a whole new web, YouTube channel and a Facebook page in a world swarming with other bloggers and youtubers is very frightening. The truth is, I have no idea what I am doing. I have learnt though, not knowing does not matter. I will understand, in due time. Meanwhile, what matters is to show up at my computer, notebook and camera every day. Focus on the here and now. Walk the road. Step by step. As Bilbo sings in The Lord Of The Rings:
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Does anyone know, where is life leading them? I don´t think so. Not really. Let´s be kind to ourselves. Patient. Forgiving. Let´s listen to the voice deep inside.
A video, where I marvel at spring colors, take you to a place high above a river with beautiful views of a city, wander through a lovely park and share some thoughts on personal development, is waiting for you here:
