I mentioned, too, that if you feel jealousy and if you feel so inclined, you can use your feelings as a catalyst to deepen your healing work – both through active grieving and also cultivating creative moments of healing for yourself as an adult. 

(And I want to mention that intentionally using your jealousy – regardless of whether you come from a relational trauma background or regardless of whether or not you have kids – is a healing intervention that nearly all of us could benefit from.)

But what does cultivating creative moments of healing even mean? And why is this important and why should you even bother?

Today’s essay explores all of these questions plus I share some concrete examples from my own life that have helped me cultivate creative moments of healing in my own relational trauma recovery journey.

What does cultivating creative moments of healing mean?

I first learned about the concept of deliberately creating healing moments from the late, incredible Gestalt psychotherapist Mariah Fenton Gladis.

I was privileged to attend one of her workshops at Esalen where she crafted “moments of exact healing” for workshop participants (myself included) who were wrestling with pains and deep griefs. 

It was beautiful to witness her work: to see how she would physically arrange group participants in ways that mirrored family of origin dynamics for the person in the “hot seat” and to have them say out loud the very thing that a person most longed to hear and what would happen emotionally after this occurred. 

These exact moments of healing took place in a controlled setting under the guidance of a licensed, skilled professional. And they were profound.

But these exact moments of healing don’t have to just happen in group therapy or one-on-one therapy settings.

As I’ve come to understand and define them, cultivating creative moments of healing can also look like noticing, seeking out, and intentionally making happen the literal actions, tasks, opportunities, and experiences that provide some of what we may not have received in childhood.

These experiences of creative moments of healing can be big or small. 

They can happen when you’re alone or with others.

Shift and change or remain the same for years.

Take effort, time, and money, or nearly none at all.

And there are as many ideas and possibilities for creative moments of healing as there are people on the planet. 

But to help catalyze your thinking about what cultivating creative moments of healing could look like for you, some ideas might include the following:

• Maybe you were never provided a calming, regular, and reliable bedtime routine and evening tuck-in as a child. A reparative experience for you now as an adult in your healing journey coming from a relational trauma background could look like: Giving this to yourself! Create a calming, regular bedtime routine (maybe with a lovie and mug of hot milk) and literally tucking yourself into bed (or having your partner do this for you if you feel comfortable with them doing this).