The Psychology of Creative Practice and Belonging
For the Worldbuilders Ep. 055
"The only cure will be a transformation of the whole society, and an entirely new knowledge order altogether—otherwise we will remain trapped in this. It is through language that you and I are able to now sit and talk with each other, develop a mechanism to understand one another, do you see the immense potential there?! Language is entirely the point!"
— Sylvia Wynter in “What Will Be the Cure?: A Conversation with Sylvia Wynter” by Bedour Alagraa for Off Shoot Journal
If you’ve consented to receiving emails over at seedaschool.com (and aren’t currently enrolled inside The Treehouse) then you’ve been receiving my “Psych Series” emails on the psychology of creative practice and belonging over the past 3 days. I had so much fun writing these that I wanted to bring the case studies to the podcast.
For a long time I have been wanting to think alongside psychologists and scientists as it relates to creativity and community. Whenever I give my curiosity permission to wander down the corridors of scientific papers I often find the research simply confirms what we intuitively know to be true. Like Suzanne Simard “discovering” how trees talk to eachother. While I’m grateful for these scientific studies, the violence of colonization undergirding these projects is not lost on me. Trees as interdependent and hyperlinked under the forest floor is wisdom indigenous folks already knew before we stole their land, only to regurgitate the same information years later. Same findings, in a different language. I find a similar pattern happening inside the psychology of creativity and belonging — science catching up with intuition and ancestral wisdom.
In this Psych Series we explore 3 case studies in order to learn how we might apply their insights in our creative practices and communities.
The Body Keeps the Score: This first case study comes from The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Together, we’ll cover this case study in today’s newsletter.
Change Your Story, Change Your World: This one is my favorite! It’s on the compelling (but not so surprising) bio-cultural implications of Narrative Psychology, Weekly Dispatches and Storytelling. Inside this case study we look at the stories we tell and the long-term impact they have on our biology and mental health. We also re-visit the work of Sylvia Wynter who reminds us we are magical, both “bios and logos”.
When Spell Meets Strategy: This one features a study on the impact of commitment, accountability and written goals on goal achievement. This study found writing down your goals, action commitments and sharing weekly progress reports with a supportive friend increased the likelihood of achieving the shared goal vs. simply thinking about the goal by 78%. Through exploring this case study we ask, “What are our goals inside making revolution irresistible?” How might writing them down, backing them up with action commitments and sharing progress reports in the form of Weekly Dispatches help us imagine beyond the current political options on offer? What if language is the point?
“Human beings are magical. Bios and Logos. Words made flesh, muscle and bone animated by hope and desire, belief materialized in deeds, deeds which crystallize our actualities…And the maps of spring always have to be redrawn again, in undared forms.”
— Sylvia Wynter, “The Pope Must Have Been Drunk, The King of Castile A Mad Man” cited by Katherine McKittrick in Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis
Psych Series #1: The Body Keeps the Score
Let’s start with an excerpt from The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk. There’s a passage from Chapter 2 titled “Revolutions in Understanding Mind and Brain” that I can’t stop thinking about:
“The brain-disease model overlooks four fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning; (3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching; and (4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive.
When we ignore these quintessential dimensions of humanity, we deprive people of ways to heal from trauma and restore their autonomy. Being a patient, rather than a participant in one’s healing process, separates suffering people from their community and alienates them from an inner sense of self.”
What I find so compelling about this passage is it confirms everything I experienced inside the University of Dawn, VA from 2021-2023. If you were in Thursday’s workshop you know what I’m talking about. The grief lessons learned on morning jogs to your grandmother’s grave site, the kitchen filled with aunties that becomes a lecture hall of a different kind and the forest as a classroom full of peers that are also teachers.
Let’s dive deeper into these 4 fundamental truths listed above and reflect on how we might explore them in our Weekly Dispatches toward collective liberation and healing:
1. Our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being.
In Thursday’s workshop I showed a visual of our interdisciplinary practices forming a web of creative belonging (pictured above). Perhaps it’s our Weekly Dispatches that makes this web possible? Public practice has a way of allowing us to find eachother. By showing up and reaching out we give eachother permission to do the same. Self-isolation becomes less attractive and we remember “community is central to restoring well-being”.
2. Language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning.
Your Weekly Dispatch is a creative container allowing you to share updates, lessons or invitations from inside your world. The 5 categories could range from creative writing, audio, video, a livestream or a wildcard blending all the above. Regardless of the category, inside The Treehouse you’ll learn how to compose a newsletter that will act as a vessel for sharing your Dispatch and building your email list. By leveraging language we can inspire change, within ourselves and others. We can provide alternatives to the lies rooted in a colonial imaginary through “finding a common sense of meaning” inside our liberatory imaginations.
3. We have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching.
Inside The Treehouse, each month is supported by a guided meditation for practicing black feminist breath work. How do we breathe through Mariame Kaba’s reminder that safety is relation, Toni Morrison’s recollection of memory as a site of sacred return and bell hooks’ invitation to practice freedom? Weekly Dispatches facilitate an expansion of our collective imagination and the practice of learning in public — a practice that opens us up to the necessary possibility of being held accountable by our audiences or communities. With the help of breath work “we have the ability to regulate our own physiology” to refuse defensiveness in favor of transformation.
4. We can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive.
New worlds aren’t built overnight. In Art on My Mind: Visual Politics, bell hooks reminds us, “as we struggle against forces of domination and move toward the invention of the decolonized self, we must set our imaginations free”. Our Weekly Dispatches can serve as a playground and laboratory for setting our imaginations free, finding co-conspirators and iteratively co-creating the cultural conditions “in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive” — brick by brick, week by week.
🔊 Tune into today’s episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you’re curious about the other 2 case studies!
Enrollment Into the Treehouse Closes Today!
I'd love for you to join us in practicing and actualizing these 4 fundamental truths inside The Treehouse; a monthly membership holding you accountable to weekly returns to your Zone of Desire through live workshops, open studios, guided meditations and black feminist worldbuilding tools. Enrollment closes today, Monday, July 29th. It’s $67 bucks to join and there’s no minimum monthly commitment! We only want to practice with you as long as it feel accessible and aligned with your capacity.
Our first workshop inside The Treehouse is on August 6th and it’s all about collaborating with our ancestors, desires and intentions inside our Weekly Dispatches!
Download the Summer Syllabus to learn more and please don’t hesitate to respond to this email with any clarifying questions that arise. I’d love to hear from you. 💌
Until next week,
Ayana