The relationship between creativity and mental health and physical health is complex.
So how do we express the inexpressible?
"Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it."
- William James
"I used to write more," my patient
says to me. "Before I got sick."
"I used to draw anime."
"I used to make music."
The elegy continues. I used to engage with the universe, I used to be able to give more of myself to the world. I used to actively participate in it. And now, it feels like my creativity has abandoned me.
The relationship between creativity and mental health and physical health
The relationship between creativity and health is complex. When difficult, compound stressors land in our lives, and our mind becomes wrapped up in the sticky chrysalis of problem after problem, it may seem as though our muses are gone from us. We grieve.
As we metabolize pain and loss, it feels like joy goes deep underground, and our creative forces go with it. We become deeply focused on the work of survival.
In any hero's myth, there comes a point where the battle is not just external - it's internal. We battle with ourselves, working to distill down what matters to us at our core. What we stand for. How we want to move through pain and illness. And during this time ... what is truly occurring is not that our joy has left us, or our creative force has abandoned the field. Rather, our muses have transformed into something that may initially be unrecognizable. Our creativity has turned inward. It demands creativity to do the work of rearranging our interior as we confront a new reality, or as we work to cope with problems in our lives.
Creativity and mental health and physical health are important topics
As authors Heather Stuckey and Jeremy Nobel write, "Chronic diseases are a nationwide burden, with cardiovascular disease being the leading cause of death during the past century and the incidence of diabetes continuing to increase, now affecting more than 20 million Americans. These diseases are associated with psychosocial difficulties such as depression and chronic stress, contributing to negative cardiovascular outcomes. Engagement with creative activities has the potential to contribute toward reducing stress and depression and can serve as a vehicle for alleviating the burden of chronic disease."
Engaging with our creativity has been part of healing rituals for humans throughout history, whether through stories, songs, or paintings on the walls of caves. While creative rituals hold incredible potential for helping us move through difficult times, health problems such as chronic illness, stroke, or cancer diagnosis can leave us speechless, both literally and figuratively. My patients are often working with body changes that make it more difficult to hold a paintbrush, dance, speak or write. It is harder for them to focus and concentrate, or to find words.
Re-recognizing creativity in its new form becomes part of the work. How can we creatively decipher, untangle and resolve the thoughts and emotions that are present for us? Could it be helpful to read or examine the artworks of others who have experienced similar problems or situations? What, if any, new activities would help reconnect us to a sense of vitality ... to re-engage in creative conversation with the universe that created us?
Creativity and mental health: What happens when we start to feel safe again
"I bought a plant," my writer says. "I am starting a garden."
"I found a new manga I really like," says the anime artist.
"I let myself be angry," says the musician, "and then I could play."
It is vulnerable and brave to allow yourself to become curious about where creativity continues to exist in your life after stress and trauma. It can take time to rebuild your relationship with your muses, however you define them. What does it mean to honor your own creative and connective force in this moment? If you do not have speech, you may still have song. If you do not have words, others might offer theirs to share.
Writer Traci Brimhall teaches classes including Literature of the Body and Art of Healthcare to future medical providers, to help them become more familiar with illness literature and the relationship between art and the body. With her permission, I would like to offer the following poem, both as an example of creative coping, and in case it helps to put words to an experience that may be present for you.
What Gold Gives Us
Cufflinks & crowns. Raisins & cinnamon
schnapps. A fish whose scales glint quick
as memory. Kintsugi - damaged pottery
repaired with gold, its brokenness the better
part of its beauty, like my crooked body
in a Roman mirror. Goose eggs. Apples in myth.
Girls in fables who steal from bears. The Ring
of Gyges, which grants invisibility. I confess -
if I could get away with it, I'd steal a meal
from a Michelin star restaurant. I could forgive
myself for that. Or I'd cut the line to see
the specialist, judge my own pain more urgent
than others. Plates & frames. Lamborghinis
made for charity. Candlesticks holding dead
wicks with still-warm wax. Old-school cavity
fillings & a million records sold. Aurotherapy
followed by weeks of waiting to see if my body
returns to its old idea of itself. Though doctors
say the medicine they're injecting into me is
gold salts & not flakes I might pan from a river,
I still picture a metallic fountain in my blood.
Oh, the wealth an intrepid miner could make
of me! Lockets & medals. The projector's
circuit board illuminating student questions
about "The Pain Scale." They want to know if
pain can be good. If people ever deserve it.
Wedding rings & chains. Tablets etched
with curses. Which of my sufferings was
the good one? Which of my sins deserved it?
My body glitters with what it's been given.
Transformation takes time, and after we emerge from strife in our new form, we have to learn what it means to have wings. Give yourself grace, go at your pace, and remember: you do not have to do this work alone.
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