Finding Creativity After Trauma: An Essay + Journal Prompts

When you feel like giving up your writing, art, or other creative expression after a life-shattering event, come back to your creative essence one step--one tiny joy--at a time. In this essay, I share how my husband's death from cancer nearly stole my ability to read and write. It wasn't until I discovered the tiny joys in each day that took me back toward creative wholeness that I felt myself again.

Following the essay, 5 intentional journaling prompts will help guide you in reconnecting with your creative self through these magical, shimmering moments.

Transcript

Follow this string of tiny joys, How to return to your creative soul when reality shatters your life. Since losing my husband to terminal cancer in 2016, As well as my cognitive ability to read and write at about the same time, I have written extensively about the process of slowly coming back to my creativity, Finding words again, How it's affected me, And how I often contemplate in giving up. In this piece, I get granular about how I found my way back to words when I truly thought writing and reading were done for me. As a practicing writer, When you're in a place of self-doubt, Self-criticism, And uncertainty about the way words work, Being able to bring yourself back to the page is a struggle in itself. But when life dumps so much trauma in your energetic field that you lose sight of your creative essence, And it severs your connection to the channel of your writer self, It's often much easier, Simpler, And less painful to give up writing altogether. My creative mind had never imagined such an idea, Yet there I was. The energy required to find, Feel, And wrangle words onto paper to create meaning had become too much for me. There was no reason to lament. I'd had bylines and a good run in the publishing world. I envisioned a future me admitting, Yes, I was a writer once, But now I'm a insert whatever label society needed to hear for me to be considered functional and useful to furthering capitalistic dreams. It was a good time, But now I've got to do other things. On my way to investigating exactly what I meant by other things, However, The universe had secret plans. The shutdown world of March 2020 sent human autopilot navigation systems spiraling into crash and burn scenarios, And me into a second dark night of the soul in less than four years. Prompted by disease-induced panic at the idea of possibly dying alone and in massive pain, My fears subsided a few days later when I reigned in the mindlessness of societally constructed hysteria and focused on what existed in front of me, Me. Despite the raging pandemic, I intentionally created a crystalline space against the insanity of the external world, The alchemy of long, Slow walks alone on empty streets and crumbling highway shoulders, And an experimental self-imposed six minutes of meditation each morning created profound peace in my creative, Mental, And spiritual bodies where, To my amazement, Words began to have meaning again. I could understand what I read beyond a paragraph and even retain it for a few hours. Thoughts that popped up on my walks merged themselves into almost sentences in my journal. The nuance, Mystery, Reality, And expression that writing had once held for me seemed to shimmer that I might be able to recapture like fireflies in a dark late July sky if only I could get closer without scaring them off. I tiptoed around words. The years since P's death had taught me that if I charged and grasped at meeting, They'd flee as soon as I'd filled my fountain pen. No, No, There was to be no rushing. Instead, I chose to get curious when words came into my awareness like dust motes dancing in a sunbeam. I didn't write them down. I took notes. Where was I? What was I doing when I felt the sparkle of a sentence form itself in my mind? Those fleeting moments of connection to what I thought had been lost forever made me feel in my heart, My mind, And my energy that it might just be possible for my writer self to come back to life. This time, Though, I'd be more fully present, More aware, More appreciative, And grateful of the moments of life that I'd glossed over before. I just wasn't sure how to bridge that gap from where I was struggling with words to where I longed to be creatively alive. I started simple with a daily habit of going to the places that moved me, The places where words came without effort. On those morning walks, My brain reminded me that the things we saw—trees, Flowers, A mama and baby deer munching on cool grass in the copse behind my porch—were alive like me. Quietly, I followed these random moments that brought me closer to full thoughts. Sometimes, I could capture a handful of these gems, Take them home, Dump them on my desk, And rearrange them into a sentence or two. Sometimes, They'd form a poem about a mailbox or a highway overpass. Sometimes, A thought about life, Death, Writing, Or the absurdity of it all. There was no knowing what words would arise as I moved through these fresh and fragile habits, But they became my lifeline, What I came to call a string of tiny joys. Moments that twinkled like Christmas lights strung throughout my days. Their jewel-like sparkles reflected the tiniest glimmer of my former self, The creative person that I had been before the cancer, The trauma, The loss of life and soul. I allowed intuition and trust to guide me forward one breath at a time. Words became pages, Became stories. Work without meaning fell away. Personal relationships bound by expectation dissolved. Who I had been and what I had been through became a timeline of my past. Each loss paradoxically inspired deeper connection to the truth of what I had always known a human to be, An infinitely creative soul existing in a temporary body. By following that string of tiny joys, The essence of my writer self fully reemerged. With infinite patience, She had awaited my rediscovery of the truth that a life lived in reaction and devoid of connection to the creative heart was no way to live at all. For the journaling session for this essay, I invite you to get a notebook, Perhaps a cup of coffee or a mug of tea, Your favorite pen, And curl up somewhere where you can spend time considering what affects your creative process and how to follow your own string of tiny joys. I have five prompts for you, And each prompt will be followed by two minutes of silence, At which time you can pause so that you can continue your thoughts. Prompt number one, Write about a life experience that left you struggling to show up for your creative self. Prompt number two, In retrospect, What lessons were in that moment for you to learn about yourself, To learn about your creativity, Or to learn about your life? Prompt number three, What tiny joys did you find after the trauma of that experience that helped you move forward from that moment? Prompt number four, Are those tiny joys from question three the same ones that connect you to your life and your creativity today? And prompt number five, Write about the five most important tiny joys that you experience every day, And how can you invite them to take up more space in your day? Thank you for sharing time with me in this journaling and essay space. This recording is an expanded audio version of an essay posted on my website titled Follow the String of Tiny Joys. You can find it by clicking blog on my website. Thank you for listening. Wishing you continued creative healing.