Creative Mind Audio

"Wild animals go through traumatic events all the time but they don't [usually] develop PTSD.

Elizabeth Stanley, PhD adds, "Each time through this cycle [trauma and recovery] they add to their toolbox of survival skills and they widen their window.

"In humans however, we have a thinking brain that can override this automatic process controlled by the survival brain and nervous system, and we often impede this recovery process."

Those comments are from her online program Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training.

» Free video Learning Session by Sounds True "Why You Can’t Jus...

“I was in a situation where I loved and trusted this person more than I trusted myself.” Anna Kendrick

"Was I raised so that I was always trying to win their love?" Judith Orloff

"HSPs tend to be over-givers and toxic people tend to be over-takers.” Julie Bjelland

"That dysfunction can give us the message that I am not okay." Donna Jackson Nakazawa

....

This audio is an excerpt from the longer episode: How Narcissistic Parenting and Toxic Relationships Impact Us, and Recove...

As various researchers and therapists note, being a highly sensitive person or another form of neurodivergent, with different "neurological wiring," we can experience many positive qualities, such a greater appreciation of beauty and art, a heightened awareness of subtleties, emotional depth, stronger empathy, and more.

All of which can enhance creative expression and performance, as shown by many actors, musicians, writers and other artists.

But we can also be more vulnerable to stress and overwhelm.

Therapist Julie Bjelland, LMFT talks about sensory overload in multiple posts, videos, podcasts, and the image...

Therapists provide insights and strategies

Psychologist Melanie Joy notes "this is an incredibly dysregulating time for everyone, especially those of us who are highly sensitive."

Therapist Emma McAdam: "If emotions are getting in the way of you living your life, you can learn how to slow down, think clearly..."

Dr Cathleen King: "A dysregulated nervous system can turn routine experiences into sources of stress.”

Therapist Julie Bjelland: "The brain has a negativity bias..."

See much more, including related articles and videos, at the original Creative Mind Audio podcast episode pa...

Psychologist Melanie Joy notes this is an incredibly dysregulating time for everyone, especially those of us who are highly sensitive.

This is an excerpt from her conversation with Andrea Weber for the Sensitive Empowerment Community.

Dr Joy comments: "We're especially affected by violence, chaos, and unpredictability. And right now, it's just an incredibly dysregulating time, as you pointed out, for everyone.

"So the question really is, how do we find the balance, right? So how do we take in enough information?

"I think this is one of the things that does...

Fairy Tales & Jungian Shadow Work

"Many of us are gifted with the ability to hold the darkness of others but we don't always know how to uncover it within ourselves."

This Creative Mind Audio is an excerpt from the free Shift Network video interview with Melissa Kim Corter: The Alchemy of Fairy Tales & Jungian Shadow Work.

Jungian depth psychologist Melissa Kim Corter comments, "Denzel Washington once said that some people will never like you because your spirit will irritate their demons.

"It took me years to understand that this...

"Then I created a roadmap to guide me out of the dense fog of my illness and fear. I learned how to self-regulate my nervous system."

Dr Cathleen King, DPT, is a "doctor of physical therapy who teaches neuroscience principles, and is a mind-body practitioner."

This audio is an excerpt from her conversation at the 2025 Trauma Super Conference, titled "Trauma, Emotional Processing, and Physical Health."

A summary of topics:
*Why we should understand the science behind nervous system regulation
*How to separate trauma story from identity
*Self-regulation techniques to help...

Empaths and highly sensitive people "aren't just open to trauma. They're open to everything, and it can feel traumatic when you're young and don't have any guidance." - Dr. Judith Orloff

"Our nervous system is picking up more information, receiving information that others don't, feeling things that others don't, which means sometimes having an uncontrollable body response to imperceptible changes in the environment." - Dr Aimie Apigian

In this excerpt from her biology of trauma podcast (episode #102 Strategies for Empaths: How to Navigate Sensory Overload, Shame & Trauma), trauma recovery physician Aimie...

Meg Haworth, PhD recalls, "I grew up with a narcissistic parent in a toxic family system, and I also had all kinds of abuse growing up and spent a lot of time in my childhood being very sick."

This audio is an excerpt from a longer interview, talking about her adverse childhood experiences that led to her own healing and developing a mind body process that has helped many people gain clarity, health, and recovery.

Register free to view the full interview at The Shift Network (and learn about her related course): How to Heal...

Most of us have a wide variety of emotional experiences as a child and teen, and as as adults, of course.

These may include relatively minor and temporary hurts, but also abuse, even trauma.

And these experiences can endure, especially when not addressed or healed, deeply impacting our lives and access to our creativity.

This audio is an AI-generated "podcast" with the "speakers" doing a great job of covering main topics and quotes in my article How Adverse Childhood Experiences and trauma affect our lives and creativity.

From article:

“Du...

This audio is a "podcast conversation" generated by AI program Notebook, based on text in my article How Working With Our Emotions Helps Us Be More Creative.

Excerpts of longer comments in the article:

"I am the kind of person that feels so much that if I didn’t have acting (and music), I would burst from all of the emotion inside!” Gloria Reuben

Psychologist Cheryl Arutt notes “Creating art has always been a way to channel emotional intensity.”

Dr Holtz of Creative Minds Psychotherapy finds “It’s not always easy...

How to Thrive in a Chaotic World as a Highly Sensitive Person
From a free class by Therapist Julie Bjelland

"The modern world is often overwhelming and stressful for those of us with sensitive nervous systems."

High Sensitivity therapist Julie Bjelland, LMFT adds, "Many of us have suffered from the challenges of high stress, anxiety, sensory overload, and mental health and physical health issues. 

"Fortunately, after years of working with and researching Highly Sensitive People (HSPs), I have developed many tools that have not only helped me but thousands of HSPs all o...

Excerpt from the longer Creative Mind Audio episode How we can resist despair and keep creating even in turbulent times - “This is precisely the time when artists go to work."

In the full length episode:

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.“ - Toni Morrison

Actor and writer Amber Tamblyn reads comments by journalist Rebecca Solnit, followed by Solnit talkin...

Being a highly sensitive person, or neurodivergent in other ways, we may have grown up feeling misunderstood, and even like we were flawed.

The first section of this audio is an excerpt from a related podcast episode with Julie Bjelland and Willow McIntosh, followed by comments by Dr. Aimie Apigian on how trauma relates to these feelings.

Hear the full podcast episode "The Pain of Being Misunderstood and the Joy of Belonging with Julie Bjelland, LMFT and Willow McIntosh" - See the HSP and Neurodivergent Podcast page.

In this excerpt, therapist...

"I received six diagnoses and my first one came when I was was 12 and a lot of [my memoir] Pathological is about that."

Author Sarah Fay adds, "I think this is is something we're seeing now with young people on TikTok and Instagram - self-diagnosing but also receiving diagnoses.

"My experience taught me to associate emotions like anxiety with pathologies and diagnoses like Generalized Anxiety Disorder."

She adds, "And no one explained to me that even with a diagnosis it doesn't go away. And so much of my life was spent hoping that...

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES): "That dysfunction can give us the message that I am not okay."

Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science journalist and speaker. This audio is from her video interview for the Anxiety Super Conference.

She comments about some early experiences:

"Because of that household dysfunction, our brains do a couple of really significant things: they begin to give us the message that we're not okay.

"Our little brains are so active and so busy trying to help us, but instead of saying 'My situation is...

Dr. Cheryl Arutt is a trauma-informed Clinical & Forensic Psychologist, Certified EMDR therapist, and specializes in trauma recovery and creative artist issues.

“Many people in my practice are actors and performers and people who have a platform.”

She finds, “A lot of times people will think that when they achieve a certain level of success, they’ll feel like, Now I’ll feel whole, I’ll feel okay, I can relax. And what ends up happening instead is, Why am I still me? …

“And what I found in my practice with all these years is t...

"Sensitive people are more prone to stress because we are picking up so much more information from the internal and external environment."

Dr. Natasha Fallahi, a mind-body health expert, functional medicine practitioner, known as “The Sensitive Doctor,” says trauma arises from overwhelm in situations when we can’t fully process and integrate our experiences.

Publisher The Shift Network writes:

"Dr. Natasha explains that trauma is essentially an experience of overwhelm that occurs anytime you’re unable to process and integrate something — then, in a maddening twist, this same trauma opens you...

Transpersonal Coach and Trainer Jules De Vitto, MAEd, MSc, comments "Although there may be some similarities between the sensory processing challenges experienced by highly sensitive individuals [HSPs] and those with autism, there are some key differences between the two conditions.

She finds, "despite the overlap, ASD and HSP can be distinguished from each other based on the research that highlights their distinct differences.

"These differences have been largely supported by a study, led by Dr. Bianca Acevedo of the Neuroscience Research Institute of the University of California which analyzed 27 papers comparing high sensitivity, autism, and...

“I always felt awkward and shy.” Steven Spielberg

“I wouldn’t say I have much of an outgoing personality." Idris Elba

“I’m very sensitive in real life.” Jessica Chastain

Listen to comments by artists, psychologists and others about high sensitivity, as well as introversion and shyness.

These are separate experiences that share some qualities, and can overlap and interact for many of us.

This is a preview of the longer audio podcast:

Artists and creative people are likely to be highly sensitive, or introverted, or both
https://th...