Creativity is A Psychological Vitamin

Why creative practice is vital for your emotional health—and how your inner artist might be the guide back to the real you.

Photo by Robert Keane

Before you write me off and insist you don’t have a creative bone in your body, let me lovingly interrupt—this post is for you.

Especially you.

If the word "creativity" or “artist” makes you want to disappear into your couch cushions, you're not alone.

There are a lot of negative messages from our childhood, that develop into unconscious beliefs about what is good or bad, what we should or should not be.

Thankfully, many of us are starting to question, wake up to, and start getting curious about how these kind of beliefs my be limiting healthy human development and potential.

If this is you, if the word "artist" or "creativity" feels cringeworthy and downright useless, I want to challenge you to get curious about that. And simply ask yourself if it's helping or hurting you. And ask yourself, if there's even a tiny possibility there's value you could be missing?

Here's why:

Creativity Isn’t Cute—It’s a Lifeline

Creativity isn’t just about making something pretty. It’s about making something real—out of what you feel, what you’ve lived, and what you long for. It’s where you give yourself permission to say:

“This hurts.” 

“This matters.” 

“This is what I’ve been holding.” 

“This is what I believe.”

"I matter."

"I am worthy of feeling safe, seen, heard and valued unconditionally."

Creative practice is how we rewire the story, not by erasing pain, but by transforming it into meaning.

The artist in each of us calls us to a process of understanding ourselves better. Creativity is an act of re-spect (to look twice or see again). It connects us to imagination (inner vision) so we might be able to face our own unresolved pain and traumatic stress in a gentler, tender, more compassionate way.

And as we do, creativity is what helps us face unresolved pain and understand how and why we might be stuck emotionally.

If we let our artist be free to work, to make the invisible visible and make new meaning—we allow transformation of shame into truth, numbness into joy, and pain into purpose.

Creativity can Help You Heal (But Please, Still Go to Therapy)

• It brings you back to your body, the way movement does.

• It helps you regulate your nervous system and gently interrupt survival mode.

• It gives you a playground for emotional growth.

• It helps you access truth without needing to explain it perfectly.

• It reconnects you to vision, value, and the possibility of joy.

  
  

And most of all: it reminds you who you are.

This Is the Life You Don’t Want to Miss

“I don’t want to live the wrong life and then die.” — Station Eleven

Your inner artist is the part of you that wants to make sure you don't miss your life. 

They’re raw, poetic, messy, hilarious, full of heart. They want to play, to scream, to paint the walls, to write the thing, to dance it out, to say, “I matter.” 

They know you are not what has happened to you. You are not your pain. You are not your trauma. They know there’s a deeper story.

And they are dying to help you tell it.

So What Now?

You don’t need a canvas or a class. You need some space, some compassion, and a little willingness to get curious.

Start small:

• Write your feelings down—even the weird ones.

• Draw. Badly.

• Sing. Loudly.

• Take a walk and imagine animals are talking to you.

• Bang on that drum

• Paint that mural

  
  

Let it be messy. Let it be fun. Let it be imperfect. Let it not make sense. But let it happen.

Because you’re not just surviving anymore.

You’re remembering. 

You’re rebuilding. 

You’re reclaiming.

You're creating.

You are—believe it or not—an artist.

You're painting love on a world that needs you.

Let’s make sure you don’t miss it.

With love and great care,

Your Cor Coach