I’ve been creating art my whole life, and even for me it’s been painful to create sometimes. 

Why is it that even (dare I say especially) the most creative people have huge creative blocks?

Creating from desire, pleasure & passion is wonderful indeed. However, for both myself and my clients, creativity does not always come easily like a flowing river. It starts with a dam. A tall, wide, thick, strong damn that blocks the flow of water. 

A way I like to think about where this wall was created is a term I coined called Bliss Trauma™. What is that? In layman’s terms- It’s  our fear of feeling good! Our fear of success. It is a giant body of pain created in childhood waiting to be healed so that water (creation, life, pleasure) can flow freely, in and out of ourselves and the universe.

What’s another way of defining bliss trauma? 

It is a name for the places inside of us that want to protect us from feeling pain that is related to being in our full expression. 

This trauma was created in times when the experience of bliss, creativity, and pleasure was abruptly replaced by stress, feeling of terror, anxiety, physical pain, loss or a severing in the consciousness or the body or any combination, usually followed by feelings of loneliness, isolation, grief, and depression. 

In my own healing journey of Bliss Trauma, I created self-portraits using photography as a therapeutic expression tool for me and the collective. You can enjoy (or own it and really enjoy!) some of these works here. 

When & How does it happen?

Let’s take a simple, non-triggering (I hope) example, imagine you are a sweet six-year-old child. 

It’s a sunny day of mid-spring, flowers are in full bloom, the birds are chirping and you are in the backyard of your home just enjoying the reflection of your inner life through nature. You are one with nature, the birds seem to speak to you directly and the red, pink and blue colors of the flowers are divine. A beautiful white butterfly comes flapping its wings and your heart soars with elation and joy! You start chasing the butterfly feeling so free and abundant (even though you probably don’t know this word yet, you are six years old ha ha). 

So you are in heaven, so excited about this dancing butterfly that is playing with you. Then you feel a strange sensation around your head, your name is yelled, a painful feeling in your arm which also moves you quickly and your father (or another caretaker) looks at you with fury while screaming at you and pulling you at the same time from the garden. I’ve been calling you a million times! We’re late! What are you doing! Put your shoes on we have to go! You’re impossible! He yells. You were so startled, you start crying, or you may just be so shocked you just numb out and say nothing, you surrender while being pulled away by something way bigger and stronger than you from the most amazing experience. 

That moment, when you were in full creative expression, blissed out, safe, surrendering to the marvel of life itself, only to be shut down abruptly and judged by the person who is meant to love and protect you, can be a shattering experience for a tender heart & soul. 

That shattering, the switch from bliss/elation to fear or pain is what I call Bliss Trauma and it does something to your being. When we are children, the feeling of “losing the love” of your caretaker on an emotional level can put a child into survival mode. It can cause the child to internalize the parent’s judgmental response and direct it inwards towards themselves. That happens because a small child for the most part will not (cannot) blame their parents because it’s too painful for them. 

This judgment or feeling of shame around bliss and creativity can be either directed by the child/person internally or externally (hence the Blaming The Butterfly title). It refers to the actual butterfly as a symbol of creativity, elation, pleasure, and grace in the external world, and in the internal. Meaning, you are the butterfly ;) so don’t blame you, or creativity and bliss. 

That specific example of a bliss trauma experience may not scar the child emotionally, but it does leave an imprint, even if only unconsciously, which teaches him or her that bliss, creativity, freedom, is dangerous or unsafe. This is the trauma, and it builds up with every experience of the same nature that we have around expressing ourselves freely with an open heart. 

Sad to say but it’s true- most of us humans experience many many “small T” traumas of this nature in life like the example I shared, and most of us experience big T traumas as well in addition to those, and these all accumulate to building that big, strong dam of protection around our hearts, making it hard for us to open up to our own unique creative gifts, bodily pleasure and joy. 

Alright, all of this is so depressing, so what can you do to heal and fix this? 

1. You might want to see if any stories or associations come to you when you read this article and do some forgiveness work and inner child healing work around that. If you want my Inner Child Healing Meditation for free just send the work Healing here. 

It’s possible to alchemize those traumas from fear, sadness, or anger back into joy, flow, and creativity. I use my Soul Key Technology™ method to do this with clients. Read more about my method here.

2. Share- sharing our experience of Bliss Trauma is healing in itself. Feel free to share whatever experience you’ve had around creativity blocks here. I promise to read and hold a loving space for your share.

3. The other thing you can do is start a creativity journal, where you can write 5 creative things you want to do and 5 things that scare you or stop you from doing them. Do that every day for 21 days and something (big or small!) will shift. 

If you want personal mentorship & healing around your creative life or business, get on the waitlist for Loved AF - Private 1-1 coaching & healing VIP container 

Hope this helps!

With so much love,

Ella

P.S - If you want support around healing your relational trauma to success, joy, sacred money or healthy lasting love, Join the Healing Vibes Newsletter here or check out Loved AF for the VIP experience.