109: Embracing Creativity as a Trauma Survivor: Let the Pressure Go & Begin Creating
In this episode, I dive into the complexities of creativity for trauma survivors. In this episode, I answer a question from a listener who is a religious cult trauma survivor and wants to be a film writer / director, but is struggling with putting too much pressure on themselves to tell their story the “right” way.I share personal insights and advice on embracing the messy, emotional journey of creativity. I talk about the importance of releasing pressure and perfectionism, embracing the anger, processing difficult feelings such as shame and guilt, and leveraging creativity as a healing tool.
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Book Recommendations 📚
The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Recommended Episodes 🎙️
Helpful Resources ✨
Timestamps ⏱️
Introduction: 0:15
Listener Question: 2:06
Outro: 28:58
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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Castmagic. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:01]:
Welcome to New View Advice. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher, and I invite you to join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever problem or trauma is holding you back from living life to the fullest. Let's get started. Hey, beautiful soul. My name is Amanda Durocher, and welcome to Nuvia Advice. If you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for the healing journey. I don't believe I have all the answers you seek. I believe you just may need a new view and a little help along the way.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:28]:
Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. Today, we are talking about creativity as a trauma survivor. So in this episode, I answer a question from a listener who is a religious cult trauma survivor and wants to be a film writer slash director, but is struggling with putting too much pressure on themselves to tell their story the quote, unquote right way. I love this question because I think many people who experience trauma wanna tell their stories in artistic form but find this challenging for many reasons, including putting too much pressure on ourselves and also finding that they are processing really difficult feelings such as shame and guilt and this can impact creativity. And I'll be talking a lot about my own experience with creativity as a trauma survivor and what I've learned throughout my journey of creating, especially creating about my trauma because I just find that not all the advice on the Internet such as just sit down for 15 minutes a day works for me as a trauma survivor. So my intention for this episode is to help you to take the pressure off yourself, lean into the messiness of creativity, begin creating, and to know that the story in your heart is the story you are meant to tell in whatever format and in whatever way that ends up being. But if your heart is asking you to tell a story, then I believe you are meant to tell that story. So I'm excited to dive into today's episode.
Amanda Durocher [00:01:38]:
Before we jump in, I just wanted to mention that if you haven't checked out my website, I invite you to check it out after this episode for more free resources. I have different healing hubs. I have poems. I have more podcast episodes and journal prompts and more. So I invite you to check that out at newviewadvice.com. And today's episode show notes will be at newviewadvice.com/109. So with that, let's jump on into talking about creativity. Dear Amanda, I'm writing in because I have a long standing struggle as an artist and a human, which I'm hoping you'll relate to and about which you'll be able to advise.
Amanda Durocher [00:02:15]:
I'm a survivor of religious trauma and narcissistic abuse due to being born into a religious cult and brought up by narcissistic parents. I'm estranged from 1 and distant from the other. Over the decades, I've been on a self help journey which has given me the tools to understand what I experienced, why it's affecting me now as a 40 year old despite having left both the cult and the toxic family home as a teenager of 17. I work in a profession that pays the bills, but I have long desired to pursue filmmaking as a writer director. I know that I want to write the things that resonate most with my experience but feel completely stuck as a result. I feel steeped in shame about what I went through, guilt that I didn't leave sooner, that I was in some way complicit in my own entrapment within these toxic systems. I'm still working my way through the grief process, so I'm aware that I'm probably not ready to write directly about my experience in a way that is healthy and collaborative for the viewer slash reader. Yet I don't feel compelled to do storytelling about frivolous things just to be in the business.
Amanda Durocher [00:03:13]:
I feel like I'm still so angry about what happened and still feel a certain lack of agency in my life, an inability to give myself permission to live and create meaning. I was so strongly conditioned to give my agency over to a higher authority that it feels terrifying to attempt to claim that right in a meaningful and intentional way. I guess I assume that expressing it through art is one way of doing it, but sense that I'm perhaps making the wrong assumptions. I sense that I'm putting so much pressure on myself to heal and immediately become a successful filmmaker, probably because of my perfectionist tendencies. Yet I haven't been able to find someone who quite gets what it's like living in this weird place of contradiction between self denial and an unquenchable desire to connect with that self authentically? How can I find a way to reconcile my need to express myself artistically in a way that's authentic and collaborative rather than about getting all preachy and angry towards my audience? Thank you so much for this question. This is a great question. And I want to say this was a really well written question, so I just want to call out here that you definitely are a good writer. I love this question.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:14]:
I can completely relate to your question. And the more I read your question, the more I was like, I think I'm actually going through this right now. And I had to be like, wow. I'm gonna give myself some advice here too. So thank you so much for writing this question. First, I just wanna say I am so sorry for what you've experienced in your past, and I wanna honor where you're at in your journey. You've clearly done a lot of inner work, and I hope you are continuing to be kind and compassionate with yourself as you continue to heal. Sounds like you've been through a lot, and I just wanna honor that.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:44]:
It takes time and patience to heal from childhood wounds and it sounds like you grew up in a toxic childhood environment. And that's gonna take time and I'm just grateful that you're taking the time. And I wanted to call out here that you were in no way complicit in your own entrapment and the abusive situations you found yourself in. I was struck by the guilt you felt for not leaving sooner and feeling complicit. I think it's so interesting how hard it is for us to let go of things that happened in our childhood because I know you know this, and I know that me saying this isn't going to erase your pain. But 17 is a child. You were a child when you left. I think it's incredibly brave that you left.
Amanda Durocher [00:05:26]:
I think it shows your strength that you were able to leave at 17. I experienced a lot of abuse in my youth and a lot of trauma, and I did not begin looking at it until my twenties. I did not leave a lot of these situations. I actually got involved in more toxic and abusive situations. And I don't know where your path has led you, but I just really want to assure you that it's not your fault. I am so sorry that you believe it's your fault. I know that's part of narcissism and that's part of that cult like structure is the mind games and the brainwashing is what I call it. I also experienced narcissistic abuse and I spent the summer healing from a lot of the beliefs I took on from living in a household with someone with narcissistic traits.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:07]:
And what I'm struck by is how much it's like being brainwashed and how coming out of that brainwashing takes time, energy, compassion, a lot of tears and it's hard work. So I just put that here because I just want you to know that none of this was your fault. And it's so interesting because I read your question and I'm so clearly like oh my god none of this was your fault. Please be kind to yourself. Please be kind to your 17 year old self who still resides in you. Please be kind to all the younger yous. But it's so much harder to be kind to ourselves than it is to others. And I just wanted to take a moment to really say that none of this is your fault, and I'm so sorry you grew up in such a abusive environment.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:46]:
And I also wanted to say that I think you're so brave. I think it's incredible that you were able to leave that environment at 17. And I've been thinking a lot about the word bravery, and I just wanted to talk a bit about it here because people listening are trauma survivors. And I think trauma survivors are called brave all the time, and I think we are brave. But what I've really been thinking about bravery recently because I've been working with a trauma specialist who will call me brave all the time. And I'm always like, yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:14]:
It's so hard. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm brave, but, like, really, like, I'm a coward. And she's like, no. You're brave. And I'm like, no.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:20]:
No. No. I'm a coward. Let's move on. But, you know, she calls me brave every week, so it's made me think about being brave. And what I've realized about bravery is that we don't feel brave in the moment. We often feel a lot of fear, a lot of terror. And so you are brave, and I think it's beautiful that you've created a beautiful life for yourself and continue to give yourself the love and attention you deserve despite what you've been through.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:44]:
You know? That to me is brave. It is brave when trauma survivors take their power back. It is brave even though it can feel really terrifying. And I wanted to begin this episode by talking about bravery because I think it's really brave that you want to create and write about your experience. I think it's really brave that you wanna pursue writing and directing. I think it's really brave that you wanna write a story that's connected to your heart and to your authentic expression. And so I say this because throughout your question, it sounds like there's a lot of fear coming up, which is leaving you stuck. But I wanna remind you here at the beginning that you are brave and that it's brave that you wanna do this and you are courageous and that you will write the story that's in your heart.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:28]:
It just may take a little bit longer than your mind wants it to take. So the first thing I wanna talk about, which I think is the most important thing, is that you need to take the pressure off yourself. I think you've put a lot of expectations on what this story means, and it is blocking you from just writing the story that wants to be written. So I really feel like you need to give yourself permission to write for you and to just write this first draft as it needs to be written. It's okay if it comes out angry. It's okay if it comes out sad. It's okay if it comes out preachy. It's a first draft.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:04]:
It's okay no matter what it comes out as. But I think you really need to give yourself permission to just write from where you are. Because what I find is that writing changes. It evolves. Story evolves as we write it. It's why I like it. It's why I find it so enjoyable. And in your question, you mentioned that you struggle to give yourself permission to live and to create.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:25]:
And I think this is an example of that. By having so much pressure and expectations on this story, you're stopping yourself from creating. So I think you need to take a deep breath and give yourself permission to write whatever you want. And I think perfectionism is a way we keep ourselves from creating. Creating is a messy process. It's never perfect. Every single thing I create, I think, could be better or could have more information or could have been done differently. There has never been an episode of newbie advice that I have recorded that I haven't listened back and said, shoot.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:59]:
I should have said x as well. But I continue to just show up and hope that the episodes resonate and that what I say on the episodes is what I needed to say. But the truth is I never feel like any of these episodes are perfect. I never feel like any of my writing is perfect. I have a bunch of poems on my website. I go back and I fiddle with them all the time. I don't think anything's ever perfect, and I think that's part of creativity. And maybe that's part of my own perfectionism as well that nothing's ever perfect.
Amanda Durocher [00:10:27]:
But part of creativity is finding ways to move past your own perfectionism, you know, and allowing yourself to show up. And I think part of perfectionism is a fear of being vulnerable and creativity is very vulnerable. It comes from you. And we live in a world where people love to criticize creativity, and that's okay. It's part of the world we live in. But it can be really hard, especially as a trauma survivor who grew up with a lot of criticism in their youth. I know for me, being a survivor of trauma, but also growing up in a critical household, growing up with teachers that were critical, I still really struggle with criticism. And it's been a practice for me to learn how to not allow that criticism to stop me from creating.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:06]:
But honestly, it's more the fear of criticism stops me from creating than actual criticism. Sometimes people will leave mean comments on my podcast. That's fine. Sometimes they knock me down. Usually though, what knocks me down first is my fear of what people will say, not actually what people say. And that has been a kind of like an inner monster that I've had to learn how to dance with. Vulnerability can be scary especially when we grew up in abusive environments because oftentimes that vulnerability is what was punished. So I just ask you to be kind to yourself throughout this process and patient and notice what your triggers are.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:41]:
Like, where are you stuck? Why are you stuck? I know you mentioned the pressure and the perfectionism, but what are the thoughts arising? Is it that this needs to be perfect? Is it that this is your ticket out of your life? Is it that you fear repercussions from the people who you grew up with in your youth? I know I've struggled with that. I talk a lot about what happened to me in my teen years. I used to really be afraid that the people who raped me would, like, come after me. And now I'm like, they'd have to admit they raped me to come after me. They're not gonna say anything. And if they do, we'll figure that out. But, you know, a lot of fears can arise. So when you feel stuck, I find writer's block for me is really about looking at the fears that are arising, the self doubt and this negative self talk more so than just pushing myself to sit down and be disciplined.
Amanda Durocher [00:12:28]:
I think that is part of it. Part of being a creative is being disciplined with your talent. Half the battle is putting time aside. But I also think as a trauma survivor that that negative self talk and those criticisms from your youth and the pain and the trauma can be debilitating. And so sometimes for that 15 minutes you were gonna write, it's looking at why you're not writing and it's looking at the fear that's arising and it's doing the inner child work and it's being with yourself and allowing it to be okay that you're not productive that day. And that's what I found personally. Last week, I uploaded an episode that I had recorded a while ago. I had planned on recording a new episode, but I was knocked down last Monday.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:06]:
I record on Mondays. And I was knocked down by a few things that happened, and I just really was in a place of, like, life is unfair. I was just processing the fact that I experienced trauma, and I was just grieving the life I could have had, which I know that's not how it works. I'm a believer that we're life's a journey. It's not about the destination. But I still had a lot of feelings about how unfair life felt, how it felt like at 32, I'm beginning a bunch of new things. I'm beginning piano and singing and a few different artistic hobbies. And I just had this moment where it was like, if I hadn't been gang raped, where would I be? I just had to allow myself that.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:47]:
But then I had to pick myself back up. And I had to be like, okay, you had all your feelings but this is where you are, Amanda. You have to accept where you are and what do you want with your life from here? You get to choose moving forward. Right? So that's that agency you're talking about. And I love that you brought up agency because you do get to choose from here on out what you get your life to be and what your life looks like and you get to be intentional with it. And you are brave because a bunch of fears are gonna be triggered. I view it as those negative beliefs are programmed into our brain. Our brain is like a computer and if we took on negative beliefs as a child we have to unprogram them.
Amanda Durocher [00:14:25]:
We have to go into that supercomputer in our brain and we have to find the belief and we have to take it out and put in a new one And that takes a lot of time, energy, and feelings. As I mentioned, stories evolve as you write them, so allow yourself to just write what wants to be written right now. And as a writer, you have to tell the story your heart wants to tell because it's gonna lead you either to the next story or to a healing, but our hearts have the story it wants us to tell. I once had a writing teacher say that we write because we're looking for the answer to a question. And I love that because that's been true for me in my life is that oftentimes the stories I write, I haven't always even been conscious of the question I'm asking, but it's like, oh, my mind was trying to figure something out. It can be about people's indifference or about emotions and grief or trying to figure out something about your childhood and seeing that something really wasn't your fault or seeing maybe where someone else was coming from. But what I love about creativity is that creativity is often a gift. Right? And it's a gift that you get to have first and then you get the choice if you wanna share that gift with the world.
Amanda Durocher [00:15:27]:
Most stories I have written live in my desk drawer, so they have just been gifts for me. But each story has given me a gift. And though those stories live in a drawer, each of them gave me a gift and helped me come to the next story. And it's one of the frustrating things about being a creative is I feel like the outside world would tell you, you have to produce things that sell. And this creative, me, and a lot of creatives I know, they write more than ever is sold. You know what I mean? It's really that you write or you podcast or you draw, and maybe some of that gets put out in the world. But it's really this inner process, if that makes sense, and it's a gift for you first. Another thing I wanted to mention is that creativity is an amazing tool for healing.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:09]:
I talk about it all the time. And so when you write that angry draft for whatever is authentic to you, but when you just start allowing yourself to write, you will begin moving energy and moving feelings. And you might find that you write the first act of this movie and it's super angry, and you get out so much of that anger that you're already ready to go back and write a new draft. Or you just write an angry outline, and then you're ready to reevaluate that outline. You have to just start moving this energy. You know, that's what it sounds like you have. The pressure you're putting on yourself and this stuckness is like this big weight you're carrying, and you just have to start chipping away at that weight. And then it'll be like a river is the visual I'm getting.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:49]:
Right? So there's this big boulder, and this river is gonna come at that boulder. And eventually, it's just gonna push the boulder off, and the creativity is just gonna start flowing. But you have to stop judging it ahead of time. You're like, how do I not write this angry, preachy draft? It's like write that angry, preachy draft first and see if it's that angry and preachy. An example from my life is that I've been working on a memoir. It feels like the bane of my existence. I try to put this memoir on the shelf over and over again because part of me does not want to write this story and then my heart's like we are writing this story. But I wrote a draft of it in the spring called my Villain Origin Story.
Amanda Durocher [00:17:25]:
So I tell this because that was my angry draft. It was me embodying the villain because many trauma survivors, when they try to talk about their trauma, end up feeling like a villain. They end up feeling like the bad guy because they're calling people on bad behavior. They're saying things people don't wanna hear. And a lot of times, people will victim blame and things like that. And so I wrote this draft of my memoir. It wasn't even a complete draft, to be completely honest. It was just a bunch of chapters.
Amanda Durocher [00:17:51]:
And I wrote them from this angry, villainous perspective. And then I froze. And I didn't do anything with it and I kept judging myself like this is what you wanted, why aren't you doing anything with this? And what I realized was those drafts needed to be written. I needed to move that anger. But once I moved that anger, I was able to see some relationships clearer, situations clearer, and I had some more healing to do. But after I came to terms with some things and some people in my life, I realized I didn't want to be the villain. I don't want to be the villain. I don't see myself as a villain.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:23]:
I'm just a human. I'm a trauma survivor. I actually think I'm a good person on most days. I can still judge myself. But I needed to write that angry draft. I needed to embody the villain. Because one, not everything I wrote needs to be thrown in the trash. I'm actually gonna share on Friday.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:41]:
I'm gonna start doing, like, story time Fridays or Friday shares. You will find out Friday what I'm calling it, where I share short stories that I've written. And one of them is from this villain memoir. I'm going to share it Friday as an example of angry writing that I don't think is preachy. I was angry when I wrote it and it's about anger, but it's a realistic look at my life as a trauma survivor. When I was reading your question, I was also reminded of the movie Promising Young Women. I don't know if you've seen it. It was written and directed by Emerald Fennel.
Amanda Durocher [00:19:14]:
And, I share this with you because, to me, that movie's an angry movie. It's a revenge movie. It's not a happy go lucky movie. I wouldn't call it frivolous. She probably wrote it from an angry place. And that's what makes it powerful, impactful, and memorable. So I invite you to give yourself permission to write your angry draft. My guess is that you probably judge your anger.
Amanda Durocher [00:19:38]:
I'm not sure this is true, but I know for a long time I used to judge my anger. Anger moves energy and anger shows us where our boundaries have been lacking and shows us where we are not loving ourselves. Anger is a communicator and it's so uncomfortable and then we can't ignore it. So I invite you to lean into your anger. Like I said, write that angry draft. It's okay to be angry about what you experienced. You know, I find a lot of times anger is trying to show us, like, look here. Look at this situation.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:10]:
This is a situation where you created a belief about yourself that is not true. And so I just invite you to lean into the anger and to take the pressure off and to release all expectations around what you think this story needs to be. I find creativity has a life of its own. I view creative projects like children in a way. They come from us and they're going to have their own life. And we want to control it. Like so many people wanna control their children. But the truth is, these creations come to us.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:41]:
I believe from a higher power. You can believe from your heart, from yourself, from your brain, whatever you believe in. I believe it comes from the divine. And the divine gives us this gift. And it's got a life of its own and we get to go along for the ride with it. And we create the boundaries for it. Right? The disciplined space for that gift to come into the world. But we're birthing that gift.
Amanda Durocher [00:21:03]:
It's not about controlling that gift. Okay, so now that we've talked about taking the pressure off and allowing yourself to write that angry draft, allowing yourself to write whatever your heart wants, right? You might sit down and it might end up being a sad draft, too. So just allow yourself to begin working on this project. I really think you just need to give yourself permission from what it sounds like and permission to not be perfect. As I've mentioned, creativity is a messy process. It's never perfect on the first draft. We just have to start getting words on the page and then the flow will start. You know what I mean? Some things you might not ever have to edit in your final draft and other things will be rewritten 7 times.
Amanda Durocher [00:21:37]:
It's just part of the process. It's a messy process. You know you have to allow yourself to get your hands dirty and that's okay. Okay so now that we've talked about why you should take the pressure off yourself I wanna talk about how it still may be hard to create and I think this does with all the hard feelings you've talked about. You mentioned feeling shame, guilt, anger and grief. You know, that's a lot of difficult feelings. And I think creativity can really help us process our hard feelings, but these hard feelings can also cause us to freeze or to go into different stress responses, right, like fight or flight, especially the shame and guilt, And that can keep us from doing the things we wanna do. You know, you mentioned self denial.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:15]:
And that is something I have struggled with throughout my life as well is that I really have had to work on not denying myself the things I want to do most, if that makes sense. You know, I find that when I don't allow myself to be creative, sometimes it's because the universe is asking me to wait. But many times it's a form of self punishment or it's because creativity can be triggering so I ignore it. Right? Like writing my memoir. It feels so hard because it can trigger me so I often avoid it because I don't wanna be triggered. But the truth is when I sit down and write it, I feel empowered and it helps me in so many ways and it's a story I really want to tell. It's a story only I can tell. Right? And this movie you wanna write is only a story you can tell.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:02]:
And with all that, it's also understanding that it's okay if there are days where these hard feelings you expressed keep you from creating. I have found that creativity is much harder when we are hard on ourselves, and I find my creativity flourishes when I'm kind to myself. And it's blocked when I beat myself up. And shame and guilt can really create negative self talk. So I want you to begin noticing this. You know? What stories are you telling yourself about writing, directing, about telling your story? What beliefs are coming up? What thoughts are playing on repeat? You know? Really become aware. And I find when it comes to telling stories about our past, especially as trauma survivors, guilt so often comes up because we feel guilty portraying people a certain way. It sounds like you might be writing a fictionalized story, but I've taken memoir writing classes and everybody experiences the guilt of talking about people in their life.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:55]:
Part of the writing is processing the guilt and letting go of the guilt and knowing that you deserve to tell your story. You deserve to have your point of view and you do not have to be afraid. For me in my life, by doing this podcast and writing my memoir and writing short stories about my life, I am humbled time and time again about how much I fear telling my story, how much I fear what other people think, what other people say. So many fears come up, but it's also been so healing because creativity triggers us, but it also triggers us to heal. Right? So many things that I have healed and looked at and processed, I never would have looked at if I never started this podcast. I never would have looked at it if I didn't write my memoir. It is almost like creativity is bringing us towards our greatest expansion, you know, the fullest version of ourselves, the version of ourselves we dream of being. And so I find with healing, sometimes we're triggered along the way because we have to look at certain things that are keeping us from being the version of ourselves we dream of or the version of ourselves that feels really alive.
Amanda Durocher [00:24:52]:
So, again, it's just allowing the balance of writing, taking the pressure off, and allowing days where you may just have to process some feelings because you have been through a lot and that is okay. I've always dreamed of being a creative who hadn't been through anything because then I could just create all the time. But the truth is I wouldn't have anything to say. All my creativity comes from my trauma. That's just who I am. That's where my voice comes from. That's where the messages I wanna share come from. They come from what I've survived.
Amanda Durocher [00:25:19]:
They've come from my healing. And the last thing I want to touch on before I wrap up this question is how you that it feels terrifying to claim agency over your own life. 1, I wanna say that you're doing this every single day. Every day you choose to heal, you choose to show up intentionally, you choose to align with your heart, you are taking agency over your own life. You know, you deserve to live an intentional life which you already are. And I wanna shift your perspective a bit and point out that no matter what you do or don't do, your life already has meaning. Every second your life has meaning. It matters.
Amanda Durocher [00:25:50]:
The fact that you breathe every day is a miracle. So I invite you to spend time acknowledging the present and being grateful for what you have today even if it's just the shirt on your back and the breath in your lungs because I am a fellow trauma survivor. And the more I heal, the more I'm like, holy shit. It's such a miracle that I'm still here. It's such a miracle that I'm not a horrible person. I'm a good person. It's such a miracle where I have ended up. And, again, last week, I had feelings about how unfair it is about where I ended up.
Amanda Durocher [00:26:15]:
So this is a endless cycle I feel like I'm in where I'm just evolving over time. So please be kind to me. I might contradict myself sometimes on the podcast and that's just part of the healing journey. So thank you for being here. But I just wanted to point out the miracle thing because I think you're putting so much pressure on this story and that's because you're putting a lot of pressure on the future. And the more present you become and the more you appreciate the present moment, I know it sounds hippie dippie, but the more you appreciate the present moment, the more you don't need to be anywhere else. The more that you are just grateful to be right here, right now. The more that you allow the mysteries of life to work through you.
Amanda Durocher [00:26:52]:
And that's what creativity is. It's a mystery. That's how I view it. Maybe somebody out there has cracked it, the code of creativity, but I think it's a mystery because it always brings me a gift, it always heals me in some way, it always evolves me, and it's always so much freaking fun when I just let go. So with the agency over your life, I mentioned that letting go piece because I think that with perfectionism there's a piece of control. We're trying to control the outcome. And as I think I've mentioned a few times throughout this episode is that with creativity it's really a process of letting go. It's a process of surrendering.
Amanda Durocher [00:27:27]:
It's a process of not being in control. You can write an outline for your story, but so often it's still going to take on a life of its own. So I mentioned that letting go because I think that can be one of the fears we have around creativity is letting go, is sitting down for that 15 minutes. Because as I mentioned I avoid it because sometimes it triggers me. But in order for me to be honest with my creativity and allow creativity to come through me, I have to let go. And sometimes it does trigger me. Sometimes it brings up hard feelings. Sometimes it feels fantastic.
Amanda Durocher [00:27:58]:
Not every day. And a lot of days, it's just the act of sitting down even when I don't want to. I think this fear of taking agency over your life is also a fear of letting go, allowing yourself to let go of some of this control you might be clinging onto. You know, as trauma survivors, it is very hard to let go of control. I have to do that over and over again in my life. I think that that's an endless process, letting go of control, understanding life is outside of our control, understanding that things are not what we expect. So many times expectations are the thief of joy. Expectations lead to disappointment.
Amanda Durocher [00:28:31]:
Expectations lead to depression. And so how do we let go of expectations? We come back to the present moment. How do we let go of pressure? We come back to the present moment. We let go. It's learning to ride the wave of life, and that happens one step at a time and I wonder if your first step is allowing yourself to get a little messy and start writing your story, any story. So I hope something in this answer was helpful. Thank you so much for this question. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Nuvia Advice.
Amanda Durocher [00:29:03]:
As always, I love having these conversations each week. I hope this episode was helpful for someone out there or at least somebody can resonate and be like, yeah, me too. If you haven't already, I invite you to subscribe to the podcast. I was inspired by this question and I have been avoiding a project I have had in the back of my mind for a really long time and it is minisodes on Fridays where I share short stories from my life on the podcast. So I'll be starting that this Friday in order to hold myself accountable. I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna throw it out there. And I hope that inspires somebody out there too to just take that step because this is something I have been talking about but haven't done.
Amanda Durocher [00:29:38]:
And I've decided, you know what? YOLO. Anybody else out there, a millennial YOLO. You only live once. So, anyways, I'm gonna start short episodes on Friday. So if you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a thing. And I hope I was able to offer you a new view. Thank you so much for joining me, and I hope to see you again.
