Reclaiming Our Creativity and Expression: A Path to Healing
Our creativity and heart felt expression are at the core of our true inner self. Unfortunately those are not always supported and nourished by our parents, teachers or society. So we learn to turn our back to our own truest voice, we learn to betray our creative and expressive impulses and become what others need and want us to be. But our longing to return to our creative self and to our freedom of expression keeps haunting us. Our disconnection from our true nature creates sadness and a sense of emptiness within us. That empty disconnected state of being drives us to adapt addictive behaviors, we become dependant on substances, activities or people in effort to ‘feel better’ and get ‘a sense of self’.
We need to find the courage to reclaim our true expression and creativity and thus reclaim our wholeness and authenticity. Reclaiming our true expression takes a strong commitment and at times a long and painful process but the journey back is worth it all. The paradox is that even though the deepest desire of the soul is to be creative and expressive our defensive self fears that most. Our unhealthy patterns were created to ‘help’ us survive within our families and our environment. We adapted ways of being that feel protective even though in truth these defensive protective ways of being are repressing our true self and negating it.
For example a child learns to please and appease a very demanding parent. She or he learns to be a ‘good child’ so that she-he can be loved and accepted. That child learns to betray all impulses that are contrary to the parent desires. Slowly but surely, much of the child authentic expression and creativity gets repressed. A false self is adapted and with it comes a sense of disconnection from the core and alienation from the self. This state creates inner conflict, self-doubts, shame, self-rejection, inner pain and an inability to pursue natural talents and enjoy a truly fulfilling life.
So we might ask why are we holding on to this false self once we become adults? The reason is that we don’t trust that we can be ourselves and be loved and accepted. Our defensive addictive ways feel known and secure to us and they give us the illusion of being connected to our parents, thus to love. One needs a tremendous courage to let go of these known, well rehearsed patterns of survival. We need to risk a possibility of not being approved off and continually learn to identify, choose and stand by what feels true and healthy to us. The process of learning to commit and reconnect to finding who we truly are and what we truly need is essential to becoming healthy and fulfilled. There is a battle between the unhealthy tendency to stay comfortable and safe within our known and existing patterns and the soul’s need to expand and liberate itself.
What we choose will create our destiny.
Nomi Bachar
Nomi Bachar – a psychotherapist and a self-realization coach; workshop leader, educator, designer and facilitator of many effective programs, working with individuals and groups for the last eighteen years; also performance artist, writer and choreographer. For more information go to www.hashalem.com or call 212 877 0346212 877 0346.
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