Is That True?: Dabbling in the Realm of Infinite Possibility

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know.”

― Albert Einstein

 What do Trauma and Imagination have to do with each other?  How does writing a silly, fun story about, say, a sloth riding a unicorn address issues of trauma?

 It might not seem obvious at first, but they are inexorably linked. 

 Trauma is anything that happens to interrupt your creative process.  Any kind of creative process—whether it’s writing a story, painting a picture, or waking up in the morning and visualizing the possibilities inherent in the coming day.  And your creative process is fueled by your imagination.  

 Trauma puts the creative process and the imagination into a kind of cryostasis.  The good news is that this state is reversible, but it often doesn’t feel like it.  Because without your imagination flowing free, the realm of possibilities shrinks down to a very narrow purview.  Your reality becomes about surviving, not about thriving.  You wear trauma-colored glasses, so that everything around you, everything you see or interact with somehow refers back to the trauma—whether it’s reliving the past event, or trying to prevent similar future events.

 So, how can creativity help with this frozen state?  

 Creativity is like a muscle. We all have it, and we are all capable of making it strong.  How each of us expresses it is different.  And some expressions of creativity might not be what we usually think of as creativity—it’s not all about the arts.  Creativity includes figuring out what to cook for dinner, how to approach a problem at work, or how to get around a traffic jam when you’re trying to arrive on time…It’s our ability to step outside the box and, as Einstein says, reach for “all there ever will be to know and understand.”

 Imagination determines how far outside the box we can step, and how much access we have to all there is to know and understand. 

 There are many ways of exercising the creativity and imagination muscles.  My favorite way is writing stories, but it’s only one of many options: making up songs, finger-painting, composing outfits, devising recipes, planting gardens, building a fort, reading books…

 Creativity and imagination can’t do all the heavy lifting in healing trauma, but once the cryostasis begins to thaw--with help from the right treatment, therapist, and community—my experience has been that creativity and the imagination can jump in and start challenging the trauma-focused reality.  They can say, “Hey!  Is what you’re trying to tell me about the world actually true?  Maybe not.  And if not, what else might be possible?” And that’s when things get really awesome. When all the exercise you’ve done to strengthen your creativity is applied directly to your life and your reality, and the scope of your imagination is the only limiting factor. 

 I can’t guarantee that working with trauma and exercising your creativity will turn you into a sloth riding a unicorn, but it will unfreeze your imagination and therefore all the possibilities that trauma doesn’t allow.  Like joy, connection, trust, freedom…You can start to visualize what you want and what is really important to you, rather than only seeing what the trauma shows you.  

 There are other ways that creativity can help.  For example, writing a story and then sharing it with others not only flexes the imagination muscle, but strengthens the connection muscle.  And connection is another key component of healing.  More on that another time.   

 For now, think of creativity and imagination as a direct connection to everything that trauma disallows. They are a connection to infinite possibility, inner wisdom, and to healing.  

This week’s creativity exercise:  Draw the blueprints for your dream treehouse.  Or, if you’re not into heights, the blueprints for a life-size ginger bread house.