Creativity & our ties to the world, eachother.

Creativity & Social Justice: Two Paths, One Healing

For most of my life, I never saw creativity and social justice as interconnected — as two parts of the same path toward healing our world.

Creativity.
Social Justice.

They felt like separate things.
Creativity was leisure — a hobby, not a calling.
Social justice was ideology — something to believe in, not something to live.

It wasn’t until I was fighting for survival that creativity entered my awareness as more than just expression. It became medicine. Even now, creative work remains one of the most vital parts of my healing process.

Painting was my main outlet, and I worked as an art assistant for a time. I loved it — helping people bring their visions to life, supporting their small businesses, learning how to make something of my own. But what I discovered through those experiences was not what I expected.

I worked for a few older business owners and began learning what it takes to run a small business — how to show up, how to communicate, how to grow. I built deep relationships with some of these people: watched their dogs, stood as a “best man” in a wedding, even drove across the country to work for them. I gave my time, my care, my energy — often for free.

And in the end, I was fired. Unpaid. Some of my belongings were stolen.
The worst part wasn’t even the loss — it was the entitlement.
They acted as though they were owed my time, my labor, my life.
To them, I wasn’t a person. I was a tool.

That realization broke something open in me. I had to stop and ask myself: How did I feel?

The answer was simple — I felt broken.
I had cared so deeply about my work — about bringing creativity to life, about making something real, about proving to myself that I could do it. And for what? To be dismissed without acknowledgment. To watch the people I gave so much to treat my devotion like a disposable thing.

I even brought them gifts — tokens of gratitude for the very jobs that left me empty.

That betrayal left me sitting with myself, staring at the question of why. I felt foolish for trusting so easily, for giving so much of myself away. That pain pulled me deep into depression for months — but it also became the catalyst for rebuilding.

In that stillness, I started creating again — slowly, deliberately. I began building this website, piecing together a vision that was entirely mine.

And somewhere in that process, courage began to show up — quietly, unexpectedly — in the most unbelievable moments.

So, why does this connect to Social Justice and Creativity?

As I was rebuilding, trying to understand what it means to run a business, I noticed something deeper — especially in people who had built theirs decades ago.

The importance of building relationships.
And not just saying you care, but following through.

In other words: walk the talk.
Stop saying what you’re about — be it.

That realization brought me back to my two core passions: Art and Support.
Those became the foundation for my dream-building and my personal model of business.

It didn’t fully click until I began dedicating real time to creating. I turned off my phone, spent more time alone, and made space for silence. I was also entering a new relationship — we just hit our one-year mark — and I could feel that my old ways of living and relating had to shift.

I was finally walking a path that felt true to me — even if few people understood it.

Creativity became my way of understanding my place in the world.
The value wasn’t in what I created — it was in the honesty behind it. It was learning to follow that spark instead of getting caught in the noise. To tune in, be present, and honor what I was feeling.

The creative process itself is healing. When we take the time to separate ourselves from the situation — to step back and simply see what’s happening — we begin to recognize patterns that once felt invisible. We start to understand what’s truly ours to carry, and what isn’t. In that space of observation, creativity becomes a mirror. It reflects back to us the places we’ve been holding tension, pain, or confusion — and gives us a safe way to transform it.

Every brushstroke, every word, every piece of movement becomes a dialogue between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming. Through creation, we learn to reimagine our own story — to shape our lives into something that feels aligned with the world we want to live in, not just the one we’ve been reacting to.

And something else happens when we engage in creativity from that place of awareness: we begin to see the people around us more clearly. We start to gravitate toward those who genuinely respect and care for us — not for what we produce, but for who we are. Healing through creativity reattunes our inner compass; it helps us recognize authentic connection. It reminds us that relationships, like art, require patience, presence, and care.

This is the alchemy of the creative process — it turns our pain into insight, our isolation into understanding, and our expression into connection. By choosing to create rather than collapse, we begin to live from a place of truth. We start to craft a life, and a community, that reflects the love and integrity we’ve been seeking all along.

A Political Awakening

When I began paying attention to what was happening globally — first with the ongoing crisis in Palestine, and a few years prior with the ongoing crisis in the Congo — I started to notice how little conversation actually exists around these realities. These are not new issues; the suffering has been unfolding for decades. But the collective silence, especially in “spiritual” or “socially aware” circles, felt deafening.

What struck me most wasn’t just the absence of dialogue — it was the discomfort around even acknowledging that these things are happening. The avoidance itself became its own social dynamic, one that rewarded detachment and punished curiosity. People who dared to speak about genocide, colonial violence, or resource exploitation were seen as “too intense,” “too political,” or “too angry.” Meanwhile, those who stayed quiet — or worse, spoke in vague “love and light” platitudes — were upheld as more “evolved,” more “balanced.”

It’s a strange form of righteousness — the belief that neutrality equals enlightenment. But it isn’t neutrality. It’s privilege.
It’s a hierarchy built on avoidance.

The unspoken rule seems to be: the less visibly disturbed you are by human suffering, the more spiritually mature you appear. You gain a kind of social capital by keeping your distance, by presenting yourself as “above” the chaos — as though concern for justice somehow contaminates your peace.

But the truth is, that’s not peace — it’s denial.
And denial isn’t healing — it’s disconnection.

When I started speaking up about Palestine, some people turned away. When I brought up the Congo, they changed the subject. The silence around these places became a mirror for a broader cultural sickness — a discomfort with facing the systems we benefit from. It’s easier to critique someone’s tone than to face the truth that our comfort is built on someone else’s exploitation.

This avoidance masquerades as compassion but functions as control. It tells people when and how they are allowed to care — and shames them when their concern becomes inconvenient. It turns genuine empathy into performance, activism into branding, and human rights into “opinions.”

But caring is not a flaw. Awareness is not negativity.
What’s truly negative is pretending that suffering doesn’t exist because it disrupts your sense of harmony.

Real social justice — real creativity — requires looking directly at what hurts and still choosing to imagine something better. The work of the heart is not avoidance; it’s engagement. It’s asking, how can I create while I am awake to the world?

Because silence is not neutrality — it’s participation.
And avoidance is not balance — it’s compliance.

Integration: The Bridge Between Creativity & Justice

I’m not perfect — far from it.
I’m crunchy, passionate, lazy, driven, independent, collaborative, and deeply human.
No single action defines me — or anyone else.

But when people repeat the same harmful dynamics they claim to oppose, it’s dishonest.
And when you speak truth about it, many will turn on you.

Still — I don’t share this from hopelessness, but from honesty.
People will show you who they are. It’s not your job to fix or shame them.

Healing comes from naming behaviors, not attacking people.
Saying the hard thing isn’t easy — but it’s necessary.
We will hurt each other sometimes.
The question is: How do we heal?

How do we get creative with healing — both individually and collectively?

It dawned on me: creativity isn’t just about art.
It’s about expression.
And what drives social justice?
Expression.

Social justice is the full expression of the human experience — our shared attempt to reshape the world through action and empathy. Real change comes from sustained engagement, built on empathy — and that takes creativity.

Because creativity helps us integrate what we learn.
And integration is the key to accountability.

Integration lets us feel all parts of ourselves — beyond survival, beyond ego — and connect to something larger. It’s how we begin to build the world we keep talking about.

Living the Practice

Creativity became my way of understanding my place in the world.
The value wasn’t in what I created — it was in the honesty behind it.
It was learning to follow that spark instead of getting caught in the drama.
To tune in, be present, and honor what I was feeling.

I realized creativity shows up in everything — from making art, to building this website, to creating Felt Sound Movement, a space for expression and decompression.
It grew from a desire to bring people together — to journal, reflect, and share.
It’s about helping people discover where they truly stand, before echoing anyone else’s ideology.

Because our collective future depends on how we communicate, resolve conflict, and create new ways forward.

When I think about the intersection of Social Justice and Creativity, I see a world screaming for honesty, for authenticity — for a little crunchiness, a little curiosity, and a whole lot of free-form expression.