Human beings are inherently creative. Whether that creativity is expressed through painting, singing, gardening, dancing in the kitchen, improvising bedtime stories for your kids, or the clothes you wear – we all have artistic drive and an energy to create something new.
But often, it gets so sidelined by daily life we forget we are truly creative beings at our core.
It usually happens gradually.
We become productive instead of playful.
Responsible instead of curious.
Efficient instead of expressive.
Years might go by! One day we hear ourselves saying things like:
I used to paint.
I used to write.
I used to sing.
I don’t know where that version of me went.
But what if creativity isn’t something we’ve lost… What if it’s something we’ve simply stopped giving ourselves permission to access? In a world where productivity is king, and where productivity is measured via capitalist values, it can be very hard to justify to ourselves the need for creative and artistic expression in our lives: creating just purely for the love of it feels almost self-indulgent, luxurious, or frivolous.
Creativity isn’t a luxury. It’s part of being human.
One of the greatest myths of modern life is that creativity belongs only to professional artists.
It doesn’t. For most of human history, creativity wasn’t only either a hobby or a career, it was woven into everyday existence. As Barbara Ehrenreich has shown, communal festivities of various kinds (carnivals, performances, rituals) were pretty much universal to early societies, and gave an arena for the expression of “collective joy” – a human need that is deeply embedded yet has been very effectively suppressed in modern Western society.
We danced, sang, told stories around fires. We made things with our hands. We performed rituals. We shared and embodied myths.
Creativity wasn’t separate from healing, or living. It was healing. It was living.
What happens when creativity disappears?
How can we rediscover collective joy and our intrinsic in-build creativity? Purposeful community spaces like our retreats is one path. Many women who come on retreat don’t describe themselves as burnt out. They say something different.
“I feel numb.”
“I feel like I’m surviving.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“I feel like there is another version of me that I’ve lost touch with.”
Creativity is often the first casualty of chronic stress. When the nervous system spends months or years in survival mode, it naturally prioritises certainty, productivity and protection.
Exploration… play… imagination… and self-expression become much harder to access.
Not because we’ve become less creative. Because the body no longer feels safe enough to play.
Storytelling has always been medicine.
Long before psychology existed, humans understood that stories changed us.
Myths helped us understand grief. Ritual helped us navigate transition. Theatre helped communities process fear, conflict and hope together.
For my PhD, I spent years researching the ritual roots of theatre and storytelling, exploring how ancient performance traditions weren’t created purely for entertainment – they were technologies of transformation.
That research eventually became my book Historically Responsive Storytelling, exploring how modern theatre (and culture in general) still carries echoes of ritual, symbolism, liminality, collective experience and embodied transformation.
Those ideas have stayed with me ever since. Because I realised they extend far beyond theatre; they offer a different way of understanding healing itself.
Creativity changes the body.
Today we’re beginning to understand something our ancestors seemed to know intuitively: creative practices don’t only change the mind, they change the body.
Music..movement… visual art… writing…ritual…voice… all influence our physiology.
They help us regulate emotion, process experience, integrate memory and create meaning. Creativity isn’t simply self-expression,it’s nervous system expression.
Why I created Somatic Mythwork™
Over the last decade my work has gradually woven together everything I’ve studied.
- Mythology.
- Jungian psychology.
- Ritual studies.
- Performance.
- Storytelling.
- Expressive arts.
- Trauma-informed somatic practice.
The result became Somatic Mythwork™.
Rather than separating creativity from wellbeing, Somatic Mythwork™ brings them back together. It asks questions like:
- What stories are living inside your body?
- Which archetypes are shaping your life?
- What happens when we don’t just analyse those stories….but embody new ones?
The Mystic’s Path
This October we’re gathering in Umbria, Italy, for The Mystic’s Path.
Together we’ll explore the lives of remarkable women who found ways to express themselves creatively and spiritually in a world that often tried to silence them. Mystics. Leaders. Visionaries.
Women who discovered relationship with nature, the divine and themselves through creative approaches to their spirituality.
Over five immersive days – and six months of continued integration – we’ll explore mythology, expressive arts, ritual, somatic practice and archetypal psychology through the Somatic Mythwork™ approach.
Because creativity isn’t simply something we do. It’s also how we remember who we’ve always been, reconnect with our true selves, with each other, and a sense of something greater.
Scholarships Available
I never want finances to be the reason someone can’t access this work. That’s why I’ve created scholarships of up to £1,500 for women on lower incomes, students, single parents, retired women, carers and others who may need financial support.
If you’ve been quietly thinking…
I miss my creativity.
I want to feel alive again.
I think there is another version of me waiting…
…I’d love to hear from you.