How Trauma Impacts Creativity

My first counsellor told me I didn't have trauma.

When I decided to write about how trauma impacts our creativity my first thought was to dive into researching how precisely the brain and body work when our creative process is interrupted. It’s why I’ve been obsessively studying somatic practices and bioenergetic healing for years. That’s my go-to strategy: if I can learn everything I can about a thing, I can solve that thing, and then said thing cannot control me any longer. A bit flawed, yes?

The common denominator is that trauma impacts mental health, and mental health directly impacts creativity. It struck me that the important bit isn’t to understand exactly what part of the brain or body must work properly to unleash creativity, because creativity isn’t housed in any one part of me. It’s a force that flows through my whole being and if parts of me are holding unresolved trauma of any kind, that impacts my whole self and how my creativity expresses itself.

Michaela Ivan Holts PsyD captures it beautifully:

Creativity is a vital life force energy. Creativity feeds off of other vital energies that exist inside of us, including imagination, courage, authenticity, and vulnerability. Creativity requires our passion, love, and playfulness. It requires our curiosity and our spirit of exploration. It requires us to show up and do the work of creating in order to keep it alive.

Creativity asks us to trust in our abilities and our vision. It asks us to call on our talents, skills, and unique gifts and use them to make that inspiration into reality. It asks for our determination and devotion. It asks us to invest in ourselves and to commit to our own sense of agency.”

And therein lies the problem for me.

While I don’t have what’s often labeled as Big-T Trauma, I have many, many experiences of unresolved stresses and small-t traumas that layered inside me and coalesced into complex PTSD and depression. I’ve been unwinding these layers very deliberately for years, but for most of my life I didn’t believe I had any trauma at all thanks to a counsellor I worked with in my twenties.

Back then trauma wasn’t a mainstream conversation like it is today. I was suicidally depressed and felt trapped in my life for reasons including financial difficulties and caring for two babies. The counsellor asked me to write out my life story before my first session. I wrote a point form list:

• My family fled communist Poland when I was 7.

• We applied for refugee status in Italy and lived in a hotel room in Rome for eighteen months while awaiting immigration to Canada.

• At age 9, I started school in Canada, placed in grade 4 despite only completing grade 1 in Poland. I didn’t understand English and peed my pants on my first day because I didn’t know how to ask for the toilet.

• The kids were mean to each other and made fun of each other in cruel ways. I didn’t understand it even though they didn’t bully me. I was too terrified to stand up for the kids they did bully.

• I was shocked to discover many kids lived between two homes because their parents were divorced. I had never even heard of divorce.

• My father left when I was 16 and never returned. Shortly thereafter we moved provinces and I once again had to uproot and leave friends and everything behind.

• At 17, I met the man who is my husband to this day. I was terrified that he would also abandon me and I was afraid to admit I was in love with him.

• At 24, we had our son and at 26, our daughter after being told that I had PCOS and would need fertility treatment.

After reading my list, the counsellor said, “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary here,” cementing my belief that I was somehow broken. If nothing “traumatic” had happened, why couldn’t I just be happy?

The truth was, my nervous system had overloaded years earlier and had never recovered. Yes, I was blessed, but I didn’t know how to feel blessed because I was completely emotionally shut down and frozen. My creativity lay frozen, too.

I still loved baking and painting and writing but only when someone else gave me the recipe or strict instructions on what to do. Original ideas weren’t safe because they opened me up to criticism from my father. He believed art was stupid, my stories were stupid, I should focus on useful things like math and science.

In grade 5, I wrote a silly story in English class that made my friends laugh. My teacher even cracked up. I was proud of how much English I had mastered to be able to write that story. At home my father said I shouldn’t write stupid things like that. The next time we had to write a story in school I froze. My creativity was shut away in the pit of my heart where it would remain for decades. I ended up borrowing an idea from a Polish children's book because I figured my teacher would never know. I hadn’t directly plagiarized, I’d borrowed inspiration like reworking a fairy tale, but I felt ashamed for years, believing I had committed intellectual theft.

After that, I only wrote in secret. Anything I shared publicly had to be nonfiction, backed by sources and evidence, safe from criticism. Creative writing stayed locked away, along with the part of me that dared to dream.

Accepting that I did have trauma and actively pursuing healing and growth beyond it has been rewarding and has fueled my work and my creativity in new ways. I write stories but still only publish them anonymously. Sharing my raw writing on my Substack feels like exposure therapy, and with each piece, I reclaim a little more of my creative self.

It’s still crunchy but I’m embracing those parts, too. I have a rich compost heap of experiences to draw from thanks to the challenges. I also have an endless well of compassion for those who dance with their creativity despite their past being fraught with pain and difficulty. They inspire me to stretch myself and reach for the stars.

It’s how I ended up here, creating Joyful Rebel Writer as a movement to hold space for creativity in all its phases and facets. I need this brave space, too, to keep healing, transforming and growing beyond my trauma and into my boundless creative self.

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Here are three simple ways you can begin to reconnect with your creativity while working through trauma:

1. Start Small and Gentle
   Healing takes time. Start by creating something small: a paragraph, a doodle, or even a recipe. Approach it with curiosity, not judgment. Let it be imperfect. This small act of creative rebellion sends a signal to your nervous system that it’s safe to express yourself.

2. Write to Yourself, for Yourself
   Grab a journal and write without editing or worrying about an audience. Use prompts like “What do I feel today?” or “What would I create or write if I knew no one could judge me?” Writing can help you process emotions and rediscover your voice in a safe, private way.

3. Use Your Body to Support Your Mind
   Trauma often lives in the body, so incorporating somatic practices can help release it. Try noticing the sensations of your butt in the chair or your feed on the floor, or how your breath feels as you inhale and exhale. These practices help your body feel safe, which opens the door to creativity.

Did your creativity take some hits from challenges in your life? How did you reclaim it?

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