How Creativity Can Be a Path Towards Healing
Throughout history, people have used creativity - whether it’s stories, dancing, drawings, music, or chants - as part of healing rituals. It has always been a fundamental part of the human experience, used by people of all cultures, for a very simple reason: creativity improves your mental health. Research has shown, time and time again, that the presence of live music and visual arts in hospitals, for example, can considerably reduce the levels of anxiety and depression in patients.
However, you don’t need to be physically unwell to benefit from creativity. Anyone can! Most of us lead stressful, busy lives, usually in front of a screen for at least eight hours a day, and generally we don’t leave any space for creativity in our lives. Many people go years without drawing something, or writing down their thoughts, or playing music. Over time, that right-hand side of the brain, the area responsible for creativity, goes unused, which means we are not using a valuable part of ourselves.
Instead, what people tend to do is listen heavily to the left-hand side of their brain, the area of logical and analytical thinking. Of course, we need to be logical at times, but only acting from this part of the brain can cause a person to become bogged down and fatigued over time. They lose motivation, a sense of purpose, and end up feeling hopeless. Life becomes uninteresting.
But then comes creativity. If you are stuck in the same unrewarding cycle, embarking on a creative pursuit of any kind provides a reinvigorating sense of purpose. Suddenly you have that sense of freedom, as well as the confidence to be creative and communicate whatever you want onto the canvas.
And people often find, once they start, that they have so much more to communicate than they think. We all hold so much stress, tension, and pain inside ourselves, which ends up breeding its own kind of poison, leading to a variety of mental health issues, like anxiety or depression. With creativity, however, we have the opportunity to bring these feelings out into the open. Something goes from the internal realm (an idea in your head) to the external world (whatever it is that you produce), and this is a cathartic process - one that leaves you feeling more present, lighter on your feet, and more like yourself.
That is why many people, like my clients, pursue a line of work that allows them to be creative every day. They can exercise that part of their brains and experience the wonderful benefits of letting creativity breathe.
Of course, sometimes we might struggle to be creative, which is why I provide Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) and hypnotherapy for creativity in the Cotswolds or online. If you’d like to know more, feel free to give me a call whenever you like, or fill out the contact form and I’ll get back to you.
