Psychoanalysis Unleashed my Creative Wild Side

Psychoanalysis – Yeah I know what you’re thinking. Psycho-what-now? If unfamiliar, it may sound outdated or stuffy. However, I’m incredibly grateful to have come across this special form of healing. I discarded my inhibitions and just went for it. Let me share with you a little bit of its magic powers.

After some life changes and a trauma, I’d really lost touch with myself. What did I want out of life? I didn’t know what was wrong with me or how-to find what would fix it. Looking back on my journals from before starting analysis I reflected: 

“I feel fat, broken, disheveled, and chaotic. I’m lost in the dark, I dreamt I was calling out ‘I’m home’ but no one could find me”,

“I am busted and brokenhearted like a smashed guitar that will never again sing beautiful tunes,” and 

“It’s like I live trapped under a heavy, wet blanket, oppressed and unable to move.”

I was totally blocked creatively and had lost my direction, until stumbling on Psychoanalysis via an acupuncturist I knew. That’s when everything changed.

Luckily we had already had rapport. He encouraged me to try this modality because language can move energy and be incredibly healing in a way similar to acupuncture and energy work. So, together we embarked on this journey of my psychoanalysis, not knowing what it was going to bloom into or who I would become as a result.

Each person’s experience of treatment is different from another’s. I love how we are each celebrated for being unique. Frankly, I was tired of trying psychotherapies (analysis is a very different thing). I was not interested in paying someone who thinks they know better than me about how to live MY life. I did not want to sit on a couch and have someone tell me (again) that it was my parent’s fault for raising me wrong and that’s why I am the way I am now. Because, uh – what’s the point of that? I don’t want to do something unless it provides actual tangible results.

I knew that my Analyst wasn’t going to put me into some type of pathology or diagnosis. Instead, our sessions provided a safe container for me to speak freely, without censorship. That’s the one rule of psychoanalysis; the use of free association.  It seems so simple, but that’s what allows the magic to happen.

Each week I began to blossom organically, in my own individual way. We discovered who I really was. That I was so dynamic, but much of me had been hidden underneath layers of the unconscious. I found myself to be daring instead of shy. I discovered, surprisingly, that I’m more brilliant and capable than I could have imagined.

Within the container that each session provided, I found freedom to be myself. It was like my Analyst had opened a door and called out into the dark unknown: “Hey pssst… it’s safe to be you – you can come out now!” 

I let go, I trusted it, and I kept coming out. I kept becoming more me! With encouragement, I finally felt brave enough to recognize and overcome things I’d been carrying; like the fear of being seen and the fear of standing out from the herd.

Today, I feel like I’ve grown a decade within months and without too many growing pains. I still have areas of my lifestyle that I need to develop. The process has been initiated and i’ll continue to grow into this new way of being. Similar to when I was a young girl and I’d get a new haircut or outfit. Strangeness would accompany it at first, but mom would console me, “don’t worry you’ll grow into it.”

My best friend reports how lovely our relationship has become along with this process. She says now that I know myself better, we relate in a way that is deeper and more satisfying for her. I also relate to the world with intention and confidence now. The remarkable thing is, after trying on many healing modalities, this one provided clearly positive results. I’m now creating and publishing art everyday, and building a business. That contrast is proof that a significant change has taken place, since I hadn’t published anything or shared any part of my creative life for several years before this. I had been immobile for a long time. Frankly, I hardly wanted to engage in conversation at all. Psychoanalysis has now unleashed my creative side.

My creative wild side is out of its cage now -watch out World!

It also allowed me to meet myself with clarity in a way that I’d never experienced before. Psychoanalysis initiated a journey of having deeper relationships and the freedom to create a life that is correct for who I truly am.