It’s All Connected – Part 1

Content Warning: This blog post discusses domestic violence and mental, verbal, and physical abuse.  

Have you ever tried to untangle a knot; and the more you worked on it, the more entangled it seemed to become?  And it probably also became more difficult to see where the knot was because your fingers are tired, your eyes are tired and after a while you just want to throw it out. The more that you worked on it, the more work it seemed was still needed.

The same goes for the connection between our intrinsic person and our creativity. It goes without saying that we as humans are complex creatures. In Christianity, we believe that each of us has a soul, a body, and a mind and that each of these is interconnected. When one part of us is suffering or hurting, the other areas are affected as well. Often, we don’t realize the intensity of our suffering or its effects until we are healed.

 This was true for me.

In my 20s, I survived an abusive marriage. He was a preacher, and we met in Bible college. We had big plans to change the world together. I wanted a large family and an expansive ministry, and I was excited to get started building both. It was within the first couple of years of our marriage, though, that I realized I didn’t know who my husband really was. He was dealing with demons that were far beyond anything I’d ever experienced. I was way out of my league and didn’t know what to do, so I prayed. I prayed more fervently than I had ever prayed up to that point.

Sadly, it wasn’t enough. After six years, our marriage ended. During that time, there had been abuse of every kind. It would take me more than twenty years to heal completely.

When our marriage first ended, I had no idea how damaged I was. I had three small children who needed me; so, of course, they were my priority. I put all my needs, my desires, my entire world on hold for them without even thinking twice about it. In fact, if I had not had them to think of, I probably would have stayed in that abusive marriage and would have completely lost myself.

I quickly faced the harsh realization that my childhood dreams would not be coming true, and that I needed to find whatever work I could to pay my bills and provide for my babies. I worked a myriad of jobs (something I will cover in next week’s blog), while doing my best to continue playing piano and teaching when I could.

I did not realize the extent to which my creativity was blocked until I was working through my DMA. As I was preparing for a recital, I encountered a major creative block that I couldn’t seem to get past. The piece I was working on was definitely not the most challenging piece I had ever played, so I didn’t understand what was keeping me from interpreting it the way I wanted. I had spent hours working on this beautiful work, but it sounded awful. It was so bad that my teacher had me postpone my recital until I could play it better. Talk about devastating!

Then during a really intense lesson (in which I’m sure I was crying), my teacher looked at me and said, “Christina, I don’t mean to pry, but have you considered therapy? I wonder if your block could be from unresolved trauma.” Now, he knew some of what I had been through and that I had started my journey of healing, but I had not started therapy up to that point. I looked at him and said, “Actually, yes. I have an appointment tomorrow.”

This was the beginning of about two years of intense therapy with a very patient, very knowledgeable therapist who refused to put up with my deflecting and made me face my trauma head on. From her, I learned that feelings are just that – feelings. It is okay to feel them, and it is then okay to release them; but you can’t heal what you don’t feel. From her, I learned to release guilt over the failure of my marriage, and from her I learned to see that in what I had always viewed as failure, God meant as salvation. In my marriage ending, I was being freed so that I could become who I was meant to be.

During this time, I also learned how my body was storing trauma. In the two decades since escaping my abusive marriage, I had suffered a variety of ongoing physical and hormonal issues.  My instincts were telling me that they were all connected, but I didn't have proof of that until I read the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

 "We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past. It's also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present."

In the present, I was in constant pain. My hormones were so imbalanced that I was barely functioning. My brain was foggy. Van der Kolk states that trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think. How can we think creatively when we are struggling just to exist? When our minds and our bodies don't feel safe anywhere? When we are constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop? We can’t. We are living in survival mode, and existing takes all our energy and creativity. Until we heal, we will always feel as though we are fighting away at this block, fighting up against it and not winning.

We will always be unraveling that annoying knot. And when you first begin unraveling the knot of trauma that has kept you bound for so long, be prepared to feel exhausted and overwhelmed; but keep going. You willheal. You will move beyond existing in survival mode into really living. One mentor I had used to say, “When we heal ourselves, we heal the world.” As creatives, when we allow ourselves to feel our trauma and to release it, it becomes this beautiful creativity that can heal our little corner of the world. It's like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. We have to go through the machine messy cocoon stage to become the butterfly.

 Friend, if you have felt creatively blocked lately and don’t know why, please ask yourself if that block could be from unresolved trauma. And if it is, please get help. There are resources available for every need and every budget, and you deserve to be healed and thriving.

 Much love, my friends.