Trauma Informed Care & Creativity
Martha: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to Creative Botica, the podcast where we'll be exploring the connection between healing from trauma and the role are innate creativity plays in this journey. And today to kick it off, we have Cassandra Hope, a dear sister and friend, but also Cassandra Hope is a trauma informed, registered holistic nutritionist who specializes in supporting women in repairing their metabolic connection.
Post trauma and periods of intense stress. She brings her knowledge from 15 years as a fitness professional and a competitor, holistic nutritionist and mindset coaching to each session, and always incorporates objective data into her programs like. H R v, tracking functional labs, blot work, genetics, and symptomatology to create custom programming for her clients.
[00:01:00] Cassandra is available to work online or in person at Longevity Clinic in Corktown, Toronto. So welcome, Cassandra. Thank you for coming here. Thank you.
Cassandra: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Martha: Yes., and for those of you who don't know us, we met two years ago after I went through, my breast e ex explant.
And she helped me basically recover my health and regulate my nervous system and come back to a baseline I didn't know I could achieve. So, Cassandra, I picked you as a first guest for this podcast is because I think there is a lot of misinformation out there and many of us who have survived trauma, any type of trauma, keep hitting a wall.
Right, because unfortunately, not all health practitioners are trauma informed. So, would you [00:02:00] be able to tell us, what does it mean to be trauma informed, and what impact can it have on clients and survivors?
Cassandra: Great question. I think the term trauma informed, first off, people might think of first responders, like nurses, paramedics, doctors that might be dealing with head trauma or some type of car accident.
People that are coming through, maybe they've had a stroke. These kind of medical allopathic type approaches to addressing trauma, which is. One kind of container or one area of being trauma informed. But what we're realizing now in the complimentary medicine world, so holistic health coaches, naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, all of these other types of practitioners who are supporting people in their healing journey outside of the emergency room or outside of these allopathic, diagnosed diseases and presentations that there is a whole other [00:03:00] way that we can approach helping somebody recover from either Big T trauma or little Ty trauma.
Both can be. Very well supported. When we look at all of the different moving parts in the nervous system that are affected and depending on the practitioner, not all chiropractors or NDS or nutritionists or life coaches are trauma informed, because I think what ends up happening is when you start to see, or at least this happened for me in my practice and my own health journey.
When you start to see these presentations that are relentless, that don't let go with simple, approaches, right? When people are like, okay, if you can shift more into a Whole Foods diet, maybe take some baseline supplements, maybe move your body more and practice meditation. For many people that those types of approaches in the complimentary medicine world will help them to recover.
But there is a [00:04:00] huge population who don't recover from these, simple kind of baseline approaches to regulating. Our health, and that is when I think the chiropractors, nutritionists, health coaches, et cetera, start to go, okay, what else does at play here? And what we've learned because of these incredible researchers like Dr.
Steven Porges and Dr. Peter Levine, they've spearheaded the research on how trauma affects the nervous system. There's all this data now that's available for health coaches and complimentary practitioners to research and start to understand when trauma happens, how does that reorganized nervous system from the brain down into the enteric nervous system, and how is that impacting my patient or my client?
Visceral organ function, cellular metabolism, immune function, all of these things are branches. Of the nervous system, they are all connected. So, when people aren't resolving, we're kind of like, [00:05:00] oh, it's because the brain reorganizes itself gets stuck in an inflammatory or pro-inflammatory state.
Your fight or flight state, which shuts down digestion, detoxification, and repair, and is why my patient or client is not resolving. So, to be trauma informed as a complimentary practitioner. Or holistic practitioner means we've been educated on the, the etiology of persistent and chronic presentations related to how the nervous system becomes dysregulated after complex ptsd, or simply PTSD, one event or several events that leads to dysregulation regulation.
Martha: Thank you for walking us through that because I think one of the biggest, Impacts of making that connection , of what happens to the body when you have gone through trauma and it's not processed right, is that sometimes you can do the regular things, you know, [00:06:00] you can do the diets, you can take the supplements, you can do the meditation, but nothing sticks or it gets worse.
And then, and then you have people, especially nowadays with social media, you know, recommending all these like, holistic solutions and whatnot, but they're completely ignoring the trauma part, uh, because they might not know and, and they might not be informed as you explain. And people like, like me that are trying to heal from, from complex trauma is like, why am I not getting anywhere or why do I get a relief for like a short period of time?
And then, back to square one. Right., and that alone can be traumatizing on itself because then you keep looking inwards like, there's definitely something wrong with me. So that's why that has been one of the biggest, Eye openers in this journey and why? , I'm set to spread the word because, [00:07:00] even when I started working with you, two years ago I started looking back in my history of working with other health practitioners, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and I'm a very curious person.
So, I started doing my own digging and I realized that even medical professionals are not, Trauma informed. They see trauma, almost like an elective in their formation, as health professionals. Same with psychologists and psychiatrists. And that's why it made me understand why I had such a hard time finding the right therapist because they just kept prescribing medication, which can be really important to stabilize you at, some point.
I'm not. Shitting on medication at all. By the way, we can cuss in this conversation, so don't worry. Oh, great. Yeah.
Cassandra: Love it!
Martha: But it was not until seven years ago I found a psychologist that is trauma informed that she was able to [00:08:00] walk me through what I was going through. I was misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety when what I really had was P T S D.
And this was. 20 years of being misdiagnosed. Right., and the first thing my therapist told me when I got into that room with her and I was like, nervous breakdown going through the thick of it, she was, you know, this is an entirely normal response that you're having.
There's nothing wrong with you. In the decades of doing therapy, nobody had told me that and it was life changing. That's why to me, this is such an important subject and why I wanted to bring you here. So, let's switch gears a little bit. How in your own journey, what you've experienced, what different connections have you made, after realizing the importance of being trauma informed?
[00:09:00] Are there any special connections you've made that, oh my god, from the stuff that you do is that professional, but also within your own healing journey.
Cassandra: Yes, I love this question and it's layered, obviously it's very layered and complex. It's interesting, I started researching the nervous system.
over 23 years ago, I started working with, homeopath who was teaching me about how being stuck in the fight or flight state ends up down regulating digestive function. I've suffered terribly with GI dysregulation my whole life. I think probably since I was six years old, I've had chronic constipation, food intolerances, chronic fatigue, autoimmune presentations and 23 years ago, learning about that, that really was the beginning of my research and understanding. It's like a ball of yarn that just kept getting kind of pulled apart. But it was at the beginning of the pandemic when all of a sudden [00:10:00] all of this information about trauma started really coming forward.
And I was like, oh, oh. Oh, oh my God. Oh my God. What? Yes. That's me. That's me, that's me. That's me. And I was like, there's neuroscience, there are explanations, there are real physiological explanations for this dysregulation. Right? I had been, diagnosed with bipolar two. That diagnosis has since been reversed.
I'm no longer considered bipolar. And this, is I think a perfect example of how imperfect the medical system is, it's difficult because there isn't a blood test, right? They're really doing it based on their training, their clinical observations, and your presentations. So again, just like you, I fell through the cracks.
I'd been to so many different practitioners, both complimentary and allopathic, where nobody had really sat down and said, you are in a mobilized [00:11:00] state or dorsal be response based on your trauma responses. So, when I started understanding like, oh, I'm becoming upregulated or downregulated based on the amount of pressure that I'm under, whether that's relationships, dysregulation, health trauma money, trauma.
Growing up in poverty with an alcoholic mother, there were so many different things throughout my days that were pulling me either up out of my window of tolerance or smacking me down and making me apathetic and depressed. So, it was me doing the research and understanding these presentations from these sound bites that I was getting online.
I did this deep dive into it, and then the biggest thing that lifted for me was the shame and guilt because as a trauma survivor presenting in all of these dysregulated ways and relationships and work, et cetera, I definitely, like most, of the clients that I [00:12:00] work with and people that I read about, we do what children do, right?
We often get stuck in a childlike mind of it's me, I am, the problem I'm crazy. I used to think who would ever wanna be with me? I'm crazy. And when I started to actually understand what was happening in my nervous system and why I was presenting in these ways, and also like intergenerational trauma, the responsibility I had to clear space for.
All of my lineage, I forgave myself. I was like, girl, you have a narrative to the problem where you can advocate for yourself. You can create boundaries with people who may have been projecting shit on you, family that didn't understand things. And since that awakening in 2019, early 2020, I have cut ties with all of my family because they could not validate and honor my process.
And my discoveries about myself, it, that could be probably a whole other podcast, but it [00:13:00] was too much for them. To step outta denial and witness me in this process of self-healing. Self-advocacy and, and self-validation really. I was no longer, oh, Cassandra, the crazy sister I was. Cassandra's gone through her lot, and she deserves respect and needs space, and she has boundaries now.
. And very clear asks and. That , opened up a whole other layer of, digging out and clearing my trauma because I then had to as you know, the first year that we knew each other, I was still very much in my power as a trauma specialized health coach, but I hit my own next layer and next wave of clearing trauma, which created another year of, I don't wanna say.
Illness. It definitely did present this illness, but it was the dark night of the soul. It was the crash that needed to [00:14:00] happen. For me to make this kind of trauma-informed approach really comes full circle, where in all honesty, I felt like I was lecturing on borrowed time. I knew that I hadn't yet done the somatic piece.
. I knew all of the neuroscience. I knew how to address it with nutrition and nutraceuticals and movements. I knew how to. Like quantify nervous systems dysregulation, but I didn't yet know how to self and step in as parents for the inner child that was dysregulated, and that has been my work for the last year, which I think is, I'm not done yet, but it's really helped me to kind of create this incredibly fiercely protective, grounded, clear version of myself that I've never had.
. You know?
Martha: Wow. Thank you for sharing that. It's been an honor to witness from the distance, you know, keep you, in my thoughts and in the space because you explain it really well. And here's where, we're gonna do, the connection to [00:15:00] creativity.
I think, and it has happened to me too, and I'm going through, a similar process right now as well, where for years there was the intellectual part of understanding and quantifying and naming and learning the vocabulary and getting the tools and that. In a way, at some point I personally felt a little bit ashamed because I was like, I know all these things.
Why do I keep hitting a wall? And then this year, and maybe it's the forties, I don't know. Right. Maybe, forties are, for the reckoning. Yeah. but it's like, Okay, now you know all these things. You have the mental bandwidth. Now it's time to drop in and allow your body to feel the things that you've been understanding for the last decade or so.
But now it's Business time like now we're gonna feel it. And even being in the midst of it, I don't think [00:16:00] for a person, with our type of personality, we're very cerebral too. We like to understand things. Without knowledge, I don't think this would be, Possible.
Like I think that in itself created a boundary and a safe space for us to process this and walk through this. And I wanted to connect to something that you said that you were maybe like practicing and borrow time, but I think, and this is something I've learned with my therapist, like healing is not linear.
It's not, you start here, and then the end goal is fully healed and wholesome, and enlightened in all the things, right? It's more of a spiral, where it's an ascending spiral where you hit a wall, learn something, go through a dark night of the soul, come on the other side, and then the other layer comes and then, you know,
but to that point, I feel like it's exponential. Like the more you go through this process, the [00:17:00] faster or the deeper the insights are and the more you're able to move forward. Which is why I wanted to make the connection to creativity because creativity has a very weird, rap in the world because people think they're not creative.
Like, would you consider yourself creative? Like at some point? Ye yeah.
Cassandra: Yeah. Okay. Good, good.
Martha: Definitely. that's a good start because people, even I, as an architect, I did not consider myself creative for, many years. I just thought I was just, going through the motions and doing what I was taught to do until I, I hit this, quote that I was reading in a book.
It's by William Plumer. And he defines creativity as the power to connect the seemingly unconnected. And to me, it opened my mind, because creativity, I've always related to art and the [00:18:00] traditional performing arts or creative arts or, design and all that stuff, but not to the overarching power of connecting things that you wouldn't.
Innately see that they're connected, and that's why when I reach out to you for this conversation, I told you were so incredibly creative because you've been connecting dots. Through your own journey in ways that maybe others haven't been able to that it's not like really straightforward, oh, you have GI issues, then you should change your diet.
No, no. There's another layer to that and another layer to that. So that's why I want to create this awareness because if people don't think they have this capacity they think there's something wrong with them, they fall into the stories that we typically tell ourselves when we are healing from trauma.
So, I wanted to ask you, what are [00:19:00] your perspective, or what do you know about creativity? Have you dwelled in this subject at all?
Cassandra: Yes, I have. And it's been, a very non-linear, very complex kind of problem for me over the years because I came out of the womb coloring. Like my earliest memories were entering coloring contests and just always having a crayon in hands.
I, you could not get me away from a piece of paper and some type of thing to color with. And as I grew up, my passion for drawing, it really was, my constant, it was the thing that I did. Anytime I had free time, I was gravitated toward art. And as I grew up, you know, around 10 years old is when the abuse and neglect really started to get intense.
And when I lost my mother, she's still alive. I say I [00:20:00] lost. I haven't seen her since I was 12 years old when she left. She's very mentally ill, very sick with addiction. I stopped drawing and I thought that it was. Because of her leaving. What I'm starting to understand, and it's been different conversations over the years with either a spiritual medium, like some type of, spiritual guide, a meditation coach, some type of healer, somebody who's tapped into my essence, there's been different conversations around, you're an artist.
Why aren't you creating art? And I just was like, I don't know. I don't know. I can't tell you. But as I've done research, I've understood two things. One, just as you said, I'm creative in many other ways. So, you've exposed just recently another level of creativity that I didn't think I was tapped into, and I, I'd love to unpack [00:21:00] that more.
. Like what you just said is just connecting these dots, right? Like that creative process. But I also was like, well, I'm a writer and I've been writing and I'm a cook and I love to create recipes. You know, I love fashion, so I love interior design and home decorating. So, I was like, per, but I engaged with these other forms of art.
But what you just brought to the awareness of, oh, wow. Okay. Even as a businesswoman, as a researcher, as a neuroscience focused researcher, I'm still pulling creativity in because it's like monkey bars, right? Like I'm holding onto this one bar. There's space in between, and then I latch onto the next one.
I'm creating these connections and I just keep moving forward. I can see how that's a creative process. Now, outside of just picking up, A pencil or a paint brush, the other side of it that has been deeply. [00:22:00]
I don't know the word. It's like bewildering, I guess... I'm just scratching the surface on it, but my best friend, who I've been dear friends with since we were 12 years old, she's in her third-year psych, she's about to become a psychotherapist. And we have all of these really stimulating conversations every day around psych.
And during my nervous system breakdown in Costa Rica last year, I all of a sudden started picking up pastels and pencil crayons and notebooks and started just, at first it was sick people and I just, this creativity just started building and growing, and I came to this point. Where I started doing realism, portraits.
. And the level of, artistic, refinement that was coming out of me was incredibly shocking cuz I had never had any formal training. And I'm looking at these portraits that I'm doing and I'm going, holy fuck girl. You're good. [00:23:00]
Martha: Yeah. What is this, what incredible skill? Like
Cassandra: what is happening and what she, what my girlfriend brought to my attention is, During, I'm calling it, it could be a nervous system breakdown.
I'm coining it, a metabolic breakdown in 2021 in Costa Rica. During the pandemic post mold exposure, my family was not validating or even believing me in what was happening. It was really strange. It was a very out of body experience. I didn't understand how I could be saying to my father, I'm on death's.
I'm suicidal, I'm scared. I have no way out. I can't come back to Canada right now. I'm fucked. And he said, I can't help you. And I can't help you and I don't wanna help you. Wow. And he was not that father to me before. I didn't understand what, to this day, I don't even understand what's happening.
But what my girlfriend brought to my attention is in [00:24:00] neuroscience, there's this left-brain right brain connection to creativity in terms of your relationship to your mother and the relationship to your father. And although my father had quote unquote raised me since my mother left when I was 12, he was an incredibly emotionally unavailable and.
Very detached parent. Like I had a roof over my head. I have basic clothing. I have basic food, but there was no nurturing, there was no connection. There was no parenting or guiding. So, when he refused to help me during this metabolic breakdown, it was at that time that my creativity, my right brain opened up.
I was tapping into something subconsciously... Very deeply connected to my childhood, my creativity, right. Brain fatherhood that I can only now even understand because I'm not creating portraits anymore. Now that I've kind of. Worked through a lot of the deep pain associated with my father abandoned me at 39 years [00:25:00] old.
. That creativity has kinda subsided again, and I'm like, what was that? It was kinda like this bubble, this blip that was coming out of a tumor... And it presented with this deep need to be creative again. And as the tumor healed and things started to subside, that creativity subside as well.
It's still in me, but it was activated through this. Presentation of right Brain connection to Dad... I dunno how else to explain it. It's been a wild experience and
Martha: it's, and again, I'm so grateful for you sharing this because, in a similar way, there was, I think it was 2019, time Magazine issued a full, Issue spread.
Yeah, on spread. Thank you. On creativity and connections between creativity and mental illness. And why there is a higher manifestation of [00:26:00] artistic, abilities and skills in people that struggle with mental health and whether or not is a right brain, left brain, whatever. So, I bought it obviously, and I was fascinated by it.
And my own conclusion was, based on, the research that they show there, creativity itself, it's. Yes. It's a right brain issue, but it's also engaged both sides of the brain, like. When you are in a creative process, what happens is both sides of your brain light up like different regions, but on both sides.
Why? Because it's an intellectual process, but it's also an emotional process. It is the emotion that insights in you. What propels you to create. Like you can have a wonderful idea, but if it doesn't bring that excitement or that pull to manifest it, to create it nothing happens. So, it becomes this, process where [00:27:00] similar to meditation, you are present.
You are in the moment. You're not thinking forward. You're not thinking backwards. And that's why engaging in like painting or writing or dancing, it's all something that brings you back to the present and helps you regulate because you are creating a safe space within yourself.
. And, and for me what is coming up is. I've had a very restrictive pattern over the years that, again, talk about misdiagnosed. I had an eating disorder that never got properly tend to that went underground and became into this like restrictive controlling pattern, and part of it has been, Making it really hard for me to connect with that creativity to allow me to do the things that are nurturing to me, because in my case, [00:28:00] creativity to me, because it's nurturing, it's connected to mother.
And I think this is in a more spiritual, philosophical level. Maybe that's why it's both left and right brain, you know, like. In your way. It's manifesting father's side in my way. It's manifesting mother's side. I've always had a very complicated relationship with my mother, which, it's better now, but there was so much to unpack.
And intergenerational trauma, poverty, abuse, it just goes back into the lineage, right? So, by the time our parents have us they don't have the bandwidth. They don't have the tools, they don't know. Things have not been modeled for them. To me, reconnecting with my creativity, what it's coming up right now, it's.
Nurturing myself, it's reparenting myself also from the mother's side. So, I find it fascinating that from two different [00:29:00] people can, make that connection, but from a slightly different energy and I wonder if that is why, it transforms and it shape shifts.
Like sometimes it's painting, sometimes it's writing, sometimes is decorating, sometimes is researching and creating new things in a different way. and that is why I find it so important, because this is one thing that we have. Accessible within us if we know it's there.
. Because the other thing that, I've learned along this journey and this came out with a conversation, with another, artist that I love, creativity when it's not used, it makes you sick.
It's this power to create that you're not using, and it metastasizes how would that manifest, for example? Anxiety. Yeah. Anxiety to me is like the shadow. Of [00:30:00] creativity because what you're doing, when you are in an anxiety episode and you're feeling anxiety is going through multiple scenarios of things that could be, that don't exist, but you're making connections and creating stories that are not there.
So, it’s still creativity. What happens. When we don't use something that is innate in us, it can turn against us. Mm. And I think that's why it's so important to create this awareness because on the other side, and I'm remembering some of the conversations that we had when you were moving back from Costa Rica is I think at some point , I brought up the fact that I was so happy to see you paint and you know, the blank page Can be a safe space.
But then I realized talking to you that sometimes the blank page is not a safe space because we have not reached that point. And I think there is also a lot of fear around creativity [00:31:00] because we don't know how to approach it. We're scared. Has that come up for you at some point? What did that point between, not painting and painting? Was there a point where you were scared of the blank page?
Cassandra: Oh, girl, it would trigger a major episode of perfectionism and anxiety and self-doubt. You know, I applied for art school in grade eight to enter an art focused high school and I was denied and.
That broke my heart. I remember running into my father's arms and just, it was all I wanted. I didn't want anything else but to go to art school and for them to say not only denied for the art program, but the dance program and the drama program, I applied for three just to try and get in.
And I was not accepted. My grades weren't great. My mom had just left. My brain was very dysregulated. So [00:32:00] being able to create the kind of art that required presence, which required a level of confidence and self-actualization that I didn't have at that time. I knew I loved art, but I wasn't fully connected to my art.
So, I'm not surprised. I got denied, I developed a story that I suck why would anybody wanna see my art? I didn't. I didn't make it into school. So that was part of me starting to really judge my art. And anytime any of those spiritual healers that would say, why aren't you doing your art?
As I was going through my nutrition training or different programs with Physiology and like the science of movement. I was very science focused. And they're like, what about art? And I go, Hmm. Let me go get a box of crayon, like pencil crayons and a notebook and let's just see what happens.
And I would start drawing and it would make me physically sick. I hated looking at it. It would make me hate myself. And that was a presentation of the [00:33:00] trauma. That was a presentation of the perfectionism. And now I'm at a place where, the somatic work that I've been doing all year and understanding the different parts when my inner child and my inner teenagers in the driver's seat, why they're presenting with certain behaviors or thought patterns physical, presentations like racing heart, or a tight tummy, or a muscle pain or twitches.
I drop in and I get curious, and I start to ask who's in the driver's seat, who's not being heard? What do they need? And I've learned in this process that I am incredibly maternal and incredibly loving toward myself and to other people. I have the capacity for both, and I drop into those moments of dysregulation, especially when I'm looking at.
Some sketches that I've done or a piece of art that I'm not thinking is like going in the right direction or I'm not really flowing. The narrative has completely changed now [00:34:00] because I can step in with that maternal voice outside of the voice that my mother and father had. I'm creating this new parental energy that I'm discovering that I'm creating, that I'm tapping into, and I'm saying baby girl.
Enjoy yourself. Have fun. Make a mess. Doesn't have to be perfect colors. It doesn't have to make sense. Girls get in there. And if you don't like it at the end of it, close your book and go smoke a joint, close your book and go have a cup of tea. Go and do something else. Come back to, there's so much softness and gentleness now as opposed to looking at it is going.
Oh, I won't even repeat the thoughts I had when I was still stuck in my trauma loops. They were violent towards me. Yeah, they were painful. Right. So yeah, definitely the more I've worked on. Tapping into my inner child and inner teenager. And really listening to them and understanding why they might be so angry at my art and what's on the page and nurture them the way my parents never [00:35:00] get in those moments of dysregulation with my creativity.
Martha: Yeah.
I think this is where people get so scared about art. It's because we live in a culture that validates perfectionism. That also validates doing the right thing the right way. But what is art? If it's not just the zeitgeist of what it's going on in the collective and perfectionism, it actually works against it.
It was not until I read the book by Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic, which is on creativity. And when I read it, it had been almost 10 or 12 years that I had not drawn again. I had stopped completely, and then through this book, I understood that. Painting was not to create something beautiful for the world to judge and tell me it was beautiful painting was to [00:36:00] process the world around me.
Because the opposite of creativity is productivity. Right? And that's another insight that I've gotten. It's because this doesn't have any other purpose than. Nurturing me, helping me. And because it brings me joy, no one else is making money out of it.
No one else is benefiting from it directly. But getting to that place of giving me the space to do that, it has been such a battle because. The perfectionism will go in, like if I'm not gonna do the sixteenth chapel right. If I'm not gonna be like the Renaissance artist which by the way, all men that we know of, then it's not worth it.
And changing that messaging it's also teaching me how nurturing I can be, even though I've had such a complicated relationship with the mother energy in itself. It's like, no girl, this makes you [00:37:00] happy. And yeah, maybe it doesn't look like those portraits, but look at the colors and you like the shape and look what you've learned and what it has allowed to you.
So, When I started having that conversation with you and you were going through that process, it made me realize that before we get there, we have to make it a safe space again for us there, there needs to be a reclaiming of what it means to us to create, so we can allow ourselves that, because otherwise is the outside stories that we've been told or the trauma speaking of you should not be doing
this.
Yeah. Yeah. And when you're talking about the, like the men that have created these incredible paintings and kinda this bar that we might set. Against ourselves, as you're talking, I'm just thinking the patriarchy.
oh yeah. It's drenched in patriarchy.
Cassandra: Right, right. [00:38:00] And perfectionism is a presentation of the patriarchy, so the word reclamation, it's so fitting because I think the resistance against toxic patriarchy, right? Is to drop into the imperfect, is to drop into the presence and the process, whatever that presents as, whatever it looks like. As long as we are dropping into ourselves, being true to ourselves, being true to our own process.
I really do feel like that is the resistance against that toxic patriarchy, perfectionism type presentation that we are indoctrinated by and it really is a process , I don't think unless people really understand the complexities and the meaning of the patriarchy, I think people just hear like, it's not about hating men, it's not about hating men.
No. At all. Right. You know, I'm [00:39:00] not studying at University of Toronto right now. I'm in a sociology course and we're really studying, identity in the body and gender studies and the patriarchy and these three waves of feminism , , I'm incredibly privileged to be able to access this level of academic learning, to validate and solidify this conversation where I wish everybody had access to this training because it really would help.
It's been a process of freedom for me, like I've really helped, it's liberation, liberation and validation and going everything, I've been feeling. Is true. It's true. These books, these academic books, they are not, these are not based on philosophies. These are based on peer reviewed studies of the way society has shown up with different governments and different systems, and how has that affected our individuals desire and [00:40:00] ability to think and act and create freely.
As whom we are, not based on what we do when we have to go to work, what, bureaucratic shit we have to do in the day. All of that pulls us outta, our ability to think and act freely and possibly be creative I think it's all connected, definitely.
Martha: a hundred percent.
And if the macro is not a metaphor for the micro in the sense of that's why we need to do this work because it's about rebalancing. Like for so long our world has been operating under this super toxic, strict structured masculine energy. The entire world is traumatized. Like everybody has been traumatized by this.
. And what we are trying to do now, and what's happening now is we're trying to regulate, we're trying to self-regulate and creating space for that, softening that it's not like being vulnerable and being soft is not weakness. It's what's bringing [00:41:00] us back into that place of play. Because that's what happens with creativity If you are dysregulated, if you are in a fight flight fawn response, there is no space for you to create because you are in survival mode, which is basically.
Our day-to-day in this like extremely capitalistic world we live in and the culture that we live in, that it's so focused on productivity that there is no space to be, to ponder, to breathe but that's when creativity happens. It's when you go to that state of play that your brain activates, that you get the bandwidth to start processing what's around you.
I am hundred percent believe in making the connections to creativity is important because that's also how we get to heal ourselves and start projecting that forward. Because we are dysregulated and just like we are trying to heal [00:42:00] the world is also traumatized.
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah. Deeply, deeply.
Martha: To close this conversation, what are you taking from today? have you gotten any insight from today's conversation on creativity.
Cassandra: Definitely, I mean, every time we talk, you teach me something.
Martha: Likewise, every time we talk.
Likewise, thankfully, thankfully.
Cassandra: it's a truly symbiotic relationship with you. And today specifically I will carry with me the awareness that my ability to go through the monkey bar of life. Without a clear path in front of me, me figuring it out, even if it's not with a pastel crayon in hand, if it's my computer in hand, if it's my cell phone, making plans, doing research, establishing a safe connection with a practitioner that's helping me find safe grounding again.
That all of that is actually creativity. I would've [00:43:00] never thought about it like that, I would've thought, oh, it's cuz I'm a Capricorn. You know, like, um, I'm just a fighter. I'm a total, what are we, are we goats, Capricorns, I can't remember. With Yeah. You know, I'm like good for it.
Yeah. And I'm sure that plays a part, but what you brought to my attention in conversation is something that will carry with me throughout the years as like, yeah. Yeah, girl, you really are a well-rounded, creative person, you know? Absolutely. Yeah.
Martha: Thank you for that. Oh, I love it. Because, part of the creative process, and this is what I would like to close the conversation, part of the creative process is iteration.
Every time you try something, you learn something. Even if you think you're starting from scratch, you really aren't because you're bringing with you what you already learn. Ultimately, one of the gifts of actively and consciously engaging with creativity is [00:44:00] resilience. Hmm. Because is that iteration that helps you build that confidence and that courage to keep pushing, even when the world may tell you otherwise.
Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. I really appreciate this conversation.
Cassandra: I'm so honored to be your first interviewee, and I'm so excited for your podcast. Congratulations on launching this. It's amazing. Thank you.
Martha: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to Creative Botica, the podcast where we'll be exploring the connection between healing from trauma and the role are innate creativity plays in this journey. And today to kick it off, we have Cassandra Hope, a dear sister and friend, but also Cassandra Hope is a trauma informed, registered holistic nutritionist who specializes in supporting women in repairing their metabolic connection.
Post trauma and periods of intense stress. She brings her knowledge from 15 years as a fitness professional and a competitor, holistic nutritionist and mindset coaching to each session, and always incorporates objective data into her programs like. H R v, tracking functional labs, blot work, genetics, and symptomatology to create custom programming for her clients.
[00:01:00] Cassandra is available to work online or in person at Longevity Clinic in Corktown, Toronto. So welcome, Cassandra. Thank you for coming here. Thank you.
Cassandra: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Martha: Yes., and for those of you who don't know us, we met two years ago after I went through, my breast e ex explant.
And she helped me basically recover my health and regulate my nervous system and come back to a baseline I didn't know I could achieve. So, Cassandra, I picked you as a first guest for this podcast is because I think there is a lot of misinformation out there and many of us who have survived trauma, any type of trauma, keep hitting a wall.
Right, because unfortunately, not all health practitioners are trauma informed. So, would you [00:02:00] be able to tell us, what does it mean to be trauma informed, and what impact can it have on clients and survivors?
Cassandra: Great question. I think the term trauma informed, first off, people might think of first responders, like nurses, paramedics, doctors that might be dealing with head trauma or some type of car accident.
People that are coming through, maybe they've had a stroke. These kind of medical allopathic type approaches to addressing trauma, which is. One kind of container or one area of being trauma informed. But what we're realizing now in the complimentary medicine world, so holistic health coaches, naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, all of these other types of practitioners who are supporting people in their healing journey outside of the emergency room or outside of these allopathic, diagnosed diseases and presentations that there is a whole other [00:03:00] way that we can approach helping somebody recover from either Big T trauma or little Ty trauma.
Both can be. Very well supported. When we look at all of the different moving parts in the nervous system that are affected and depending on the practitioner, not all chiropractors or NDS or nutritionists or life coaches are trauma informed, because I think what ends up happening is when you start to see, or at least this happened for me in my practice and my own health journey.
When you start to see these presentations that are relentless, that don't let go with simple, approaches, right? When people are like, okay, if you can shift more into a Whole Foods diet, maybe take some baseline supplements, maybe move your body more and practice meditation. For many people that those types of approaches in the complimentary medicine world will help them to recover.
But there is a [00:04:00] huge population who don't recover from these, simple kind of baseline approaches to regulating. Our health, and that is when I think the chiropractors, nutritionists, health coaches, et cetera, start to go, okay, what else does at play here? And what we've learned because of these incredible researchers like Dr.
Steven Porges and Dr. Peter Levine, they've spearheaded the research on how trauma affects the nervous system. There's all this data now that's available for health coaches and complimentary practitioners to research and start to understand when trauma happens, how does that reorganized nervous system from the brain down into the enteric nervous system, and how is that impacting my patient or my client?
Visceral organ function, cellular metabolism, immune function, all of these things are branches. Of the nervous system, they are all connected. So, when people aren't resolving, we're kind of like, [00:05:00] oh, it's because the brain reorganizes itself gets stuck in an inflammatory or pro-inflammatory state.
Your fight or flight state, which shuts down digestion, detoxification, and repair, and is why my patient or client is not resolving. So, to be trauma informed as a complimentary practitioner. Or holistic practitioner means we've been educated on the, the etiology of persistent and chronic presentations related to how the nervous system becomes dysregulated after complex ptsd, or simply PTSD, one event or several events that leads to dysregulation regulation.
Martha: Thank you for walking us through that because I think one of the biggest, Impacts of making that connection , of what happens to the body when you have gone through trauma and it's not processed right, is that sometimes you can do the regular things, you know, [00:06:00] you can do the diets, you can take the supplements, you can do the meditation, but nothing sticks or it gets worse.
And then, and then you have people, especially nowadays with social media, you know, recommending all these like, holistic solutions and whatnot, but they're completely ignoring the trauma part, uh, because they might not know and, and they might not be informed as you explain. And people like, like me that are trying to heal from, from complex trauma is like, why am I not getting anywhere or why do I get a relief for like a short period of time?
And then, back to square one. Right., and that alone can be traumatizing on itself because then you keep looking inwards like, there's definitely something wrong with me. So that's why that has been one of the biggest, Eye openers in this journey and why? , I'm set to spread the word because, [00:07:00] even when I started working with you, two years ago I started looking back in my history of working with other health practitioners, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and I'm a very curious person.
So, I started doing my own digging and I realized that even medical professionals are not, Trauma informed. They see trauma, almost like an elective in their formation, as health professionals. Same with psychologists and psychiatrists. And that's why it made me understand why I had such a hard time finding the right therapist because they just kept prescribing medication, which can be really important to stabilize you at, some point.
I'm not. Shitting on medication at all. By the way, we can cuss in this conversation, so don't worry. Oh, great. Yeah.
Cassandra: Love it!
Martha: But it was not until seven years ago I found a psychologist that is trauma informed that she was able to [00:08:00] walk me through what I was going through. I was misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety when what I really had was P T S D.
And this was. 20 years of being misdiagnosed. Right., and the first thing my therapist told me when I got into that room with her and I was like, nervous breakdown going through the thick of it, she was, you know, this is an entirely normal response that you're having.
There's nothing wrong with you. In the decades of doing therapy, nobody had told me that and it was life changing. That's why to me, this is such an important subject and why I wanted to bring you here. So, let's switch gears a little bit. How in your own journey, what you've experienced, what different connections have you made, after realizing the importance of being trauma informed?
[00:09:00] Are there any special connections you've made that, oh my god, from the stuff that you do is that professional, but also within your own healing journey.
Cassandra: Yes, I love this question and it's layered, obviously it's very layered and complex. It's interesting, I started researching the nervous system.
over 23 years ago, I started working with, homeopath who was teaching me about how being stuck in the fight or flight state ends up down regulating digestive function. I've suffered terribly with GI dysregulation my whole life. I think probably since I was six years old, I've had chronic constipation, food intolerances, chronic fatigue, autoimmune presentations and 23 years ago, learning about that, that really was the beginning of my research and understanding. It's like a ball of yarn that just kept getting kind of pulled apart. But it was at the beginning of the pandemic when all of a sudden [00:10:00] all of this information about trauma started really coming forward.
And I was like, oh, oh. Oh, oh my God. Oh my God. What? Yes. That's me. That's me, that's me. That's me. And I was like, there's neuroscience, there are explanations, there are real physiological explanations for this dysregulation. Right? I had been, diagnosed with bipolar two. That diagnosis has since been reversed.
I'm no longer considered bipolar. And this, is I think a perfect example of how imperfect the medical system is, it's difficult because there isn't a blood test, right? They're really doing it based on their training, their clinical observations, and your presentations. So again, just like you, I fell through the cracks.
I'd been to so many different practitioners, both complimentary and allopathic, where nobody had really sat down and said, you are in a mobilized [00:11:00] state or dorsal be response based on your trauma responses. So, when I started understanding like, oh, I'm becoming upregulated or downregulated based on the amount of pressure that I'm under, whether that's relationships, dysregulation, health trauma money, trauma.
Growing up in poverty with an alcoholic mother, there were so many different things throughout my days that were pulling me either up out of my window of tolerance or smacking me down and making me apathetic and depressed. So, it was me doing the research and understanding these presentations from these sound bites that I was getting online.
I did this deep dive into it, and then the biggest thing that lifted for me was the shame and guilt because as a trauma survivor presenting in all of these dysregulated ways and relationships and work, et cetera, I definitely, like most, of the clients that I [00:12:00] work with and people that I read about, we do what children do, right?
We often get stuck in a childlike mind of it's me, I am, the problem I'm crazy. I used to think who would ever wanna be with me? I'm crazy. And when I started to actually understand what was happening in my nervous system and why I was presenting in these ways, and also like intergenerational trauma, the responsibility I had to clear space for.
All of my lineage, I forgave myself. I was like, girl, you have a narrative to the problem where you can advocate for yourself. You can create boundaries with people who may have been projecting shit on you, family that didn't understand things. And since that awakening in 2019, early 2020, I have cut ties with all of my family because they could not validate and honor my process.
And my discoveries about myself, it, that could be probably a whole other podcast, but it [00:13:00] was too much for them. To step outta denial and witness me in this process of self-healing. Self-advocacy and, and self-validation really. I was no longer, oh, Cassandra, the crazy sister I was. Cassandra's gone through her lot, and she deserves respect and needs space, and she has boundaries now.
. And very clear asks and. That , opened up a whole other layer of, digging out and clearing my trauma because I then had to as you know, the first year that we knew each other, I was still very much in my power as a trauma specialized health coach, but I hit my own next layer and next wave of clearing trauma, which created another year of, I don't wanna say.
Illness. It definitely did present this illness, but it was the dark night of the soul. It was the crash that needed to [00:14:00] happen. For me to make this kind of trauma-informed approach really comes full circle, where in all honesty, I felt like I was lecturing on borrowed time. I knew that I hadn't yet done the somatic piece.
. I knew all of the neuroscience. I knew how to address it with nutrition and nutraceuticals and movements. I knew how to. Like quantify nervous systems dysregulation, but I didn't yet know how to self and step in as parents for the inner child that was dysregulated, and that has been my work for the last year, which I think is, I'm not done yet, but it's really helped me to kind of create this incredibly fiercely protective, grounded, clear version of myself that I've never had.
. You know?
Martha: Wow. Thank you for sharing that. It's been an honor to witness from the distance, you know, keep you, in my thoughts and in the space because you explain it really well. And here's where, we're gonna do, the connection to [00:15:00] creativity.
I think, and it has happened to me too, and I'm going through, a similar process right now as well, where for years there was the intellectual part of understanding and quantifying and naming and learning the vocabulary and getting the tools and that. In a way, at some point I personally felt a little bit ashamed because I was like, I know all these things.
Why do I keep hitting a wall? And then this year, and maybe it's the forties, I don't know. Right. Maybe, forties are, for the reckoning. Yeah. but it's like, Okay, now you know all these things. You have the mental bandwidth. Now it's time to drop in and allow your body to feel the things that you've been understanding for the last decade or so.
But now it's Business time like now we're gonna feel it. And even being in the midst of it, I don't think [00:16:00] for a person, with our type of personality, we're very cerebral too. We like to understand things. Without knowledge, I don't think this would be, Possible.
Like I think that in itself created a boundary and a safe space for us to process this and walk through this. And I wanted to connect to something that you said that you were maybe like practicing and borrow time, but I think, and this is something I've learned with my therapist, like healing is not linear.
It's not, you start here, and then the end goal is fully healed and wholesome, and enlightened in all the things, right? It's more of a spiral, where it's an ascending spiral where you hit a wall, learn something, go through a dark night of the soul, come on the other side, and then the other layer comes and then, you know,
but to that point, I feel like it's exponential. Like the more you go through this process, the [00:17:00] faster or the deeper the insights are and the more you're able to move forward. Which is why I wanted to make the connection to creativity because creativity has a very weird, rap in the world because people think they're not creative.
Like, would you consider yourself creative? Like at some point? Ye yeah.
Cassandra: Yeah. Okay. Good, good.
Martha: Definitely. that's a good start because people, even I, as an architect, I did not consider myself creative for, many years. I just thought I was just, going through the motions and doing what I was taught to do until I, I hit this, quote that I was reading in a book.
It's by William Plumer. And he defines creativity as the power to connect the seemingly unconnected. And to me, it opened my mind, because creativity, I've always related to art and the [00:18:00] traditional performing arts or creative arts or, design and all that stuff, but not to the overarching power of connecting things that you wouldn't.
Innately see that they're connected, and that's why when I reach out to you for this conversation, I told you were so incredibly creative because you've been connecting dots. Through your own journey in ways that maybe others haven't been able to that it's not like really straightforward, oh, you have GI issues, then you should change your diet.
No, no. There's another layer to that and another layer to that. So that's why I want to create this awareness because if people don't think they have this capacity they think there's something wrong with them, they fall into the stories that we typically tell ourselves when we are healing from trauma.
So, I wanted to ask you, what are [00:19:00] your perspective, or what do you know about creativity? Have you dwelled in this subject at all?
Cassandra: Yes, I have. And it's been, a very non-linear, very complex kind of problem for me over the years because I came out of the womb coloring. Like my earliest memories were entering coloring contests and just always having a crayon in hands.
I, you could not get me away from a piece of paper and some type of thing to color with. And as I grew up, my passion for drawing, it really was, my constant, it was the thing that I did. Anytime I had free time, I was gravitated toward art. And as I grew up, you know, around 10 years old is when the abuse and neglect really started to get intense.
And when I lost my mother, she's still alive. I say I [00:20:00] lost. I haven't seen her since I was 12 years old when she left. She's very mentally ill, very sick with addiction. I stopped drawing and I thought that it was. Because of her leaving. What I'm starting to understand, and it's been different conversations over the years with either a spiritual medium, like some type of, spiritual guide, a meditation coach, some type of healer, somebody who's tapped into my essence, there's been different conversations around, you're an artist.
Why aren't you creating art? And I just was like, I don't know. I don't know. I can't tell you. But as I've done research, I've understood two things. One, just as you said, I'm creative in many other ways. So, you've exposed just recently another level of creativity that I didn't think I was tapped into, and I, I'd love to unpack [00:21:00] that more.
. Like what you just said is just connecting these dots, right? Like that creative process. But I also was like, well, I'm a writer and I've been writing and I'm a cook and I love to create recipes. You know, I love fashion, so I love interior design and home decorating. So, I was like, per, but I engaged with these other forms of art.
But what you just brought to the awareness of, oh, wow. Okay. Even as a businesswoman, as a researcher, as a neuroscience focused researcher, I'm still pulling creativity in because it's like monkey bars, right? Like I'm holding onto this one bar. There's space in between, and then I latch onto the next one.
I'm creating these connections and I just keep moving forward. I can see how that's a creative process. Now, outside of just picking up, A pencil or a paint brush, the other side of it that has been deeply. [00:22:00]
I don't know the word. It's like bewildering, I guess... I'm just scratching the surface on it, but my best friend, who I've been dear friends with since we were 12 years old, she's in her third-year psych, she's about to become a psychotherapist. And we have all of these really stimulating conversations every day around psych.
And during my nervous system breakdown in Costa Rica last year, I all of a sudden started picking up pastels and pencil crayons and notebooks and started just, at first it was sick people and I just, this creativity just started building and growing, and I came to this point. Where I started doing realism, portraits.
. And the level of, artistic, refinement that was coming out of me was incredibly shocking cuz I had never had any formal training. And I'm looking at these portraits that I'm doing and I'm going, holy fuck girl. You're good. [00:23:00]
Martha: Yeah. What is this, what incredible skill? Like
Cassandra: what is happening and what she, what my girlfriend brought to my attention is, During, I'm calling it, it could be a nervous system breakdown.
I'm coining it, a metabolic breakdown in 2021 in Costa Rica. During the pandemic post mold exposure, my family was not validating or even believing me in what was happening. It was really strange. It was a very out of body experience. I didn't understand how I could be saying to my father, I'm on death's.
I'm suicidal, I'm scared. I have no way out. I can't come back to Canada right now. I'm fucked. And he said, I can't help you. And I can't help you and I don't wanna help you. Wow. And he was not that father to me before. I didn't understand what, to this day, I don't even understand what's happening.
But what my girlfriend brought to my attention is in [00:24:00] neuroscience, there's this left-brain right brain connection to creativity in terms of your relationship to your mother and the relationship to your father. And although my father had quote unquote raised me since my mother left when I was 12, he was an incredibly emotionally unavailable and.
Very detached parent. Like I had a roof over my head. I have basic clothing. I have basic food, but there was no nurturing, there was no connection. There was no parenting or guiding. So, when he refused to help me during this metabolic breakdown, it was at that time that my creativity, my right brain opened up.
I was tapping into something subconsciously... Very deeply connected to my childhood, my creativity, right. Brain fatherhood that I can only now even understand because I'm not creating portraits anymore. Now that I've kind of. Worked through a lot of the deep pain associated with my father abandoned me at 39 years [00:25:00] old.
. That creativity has kinda subsided again, and I'm like, what was that? It was kinda like this bubble, this blip that was coming out of a tumor... And it presented with this deep need to be creative again. And as the tumor healed and things started to subside, that creativity subside as well.
It's still in me, but it was activated through this. Presentation of right Brain connection to Dad... I dunno how else to explain it. It's been a wild experience and
Martha: it's, and again, I'm so grateful for you sharing this because, in a similar way, there was, I think it was 2019, time Magazine issued a full, Issue spread.
Yeah, on spread. Thank you. On creativity and connections between creativity and mental illness. And why there is a higher manifestation of [00:26:00] artistic, abilities and skills in people that struggle with mental health and whether or not is a right brain, left brain, whatever. So, I bought it obviously, and I was fascinated by it.
And my own conclusion was, based on, the research that they show there, creativity itself, it's. Yes. It's a right brain issue, but it's also engaged both sides of the brain, like. When you are in a creative process, what happens is both sides of your brain light up like different regions, but on both sides.
Why? Because it's an intellectual process, but it's also an emotional process. It is the emotion that insights in you. What propels you to create. Like you can have a wonderful idea, but if it doesn't bring that excitement or that pull to manifest it, to create it nothing happens. So, it becomes this, process where [00:27:00] similar to meditation, you are present.
You are in the moment. You're not thinking forward. You're not thinking backwards. And that's why engaging in like painting or writing or dancing, it's all something that brings you back to the present and helps you regulate because you are creating a safe space within yourself.
. And, and for me what is coming up is. I've had a very restrictive pattern over the years that, again, talk about misdiagnosed. I had an eating disorder that never got properly tend to that went underground and became into this like restrictive controlling pattern, and part of it has been, Making it really hard for me to connect with that creativity to allow me to do the things that are nurturing to me, because in my case, [00:28:00] creativity to me, because it's nurturing, it's connected to mother.
And I think this is in a more spiritual, philosophical level. Maybe that's why it's both left and right brain, you know, like. In your way. It's manifesting father's side in my way. It's manifesting mother's side. I've always had a very complicated relationship with my mother, which, it's better now, but there was so much to unpack.
And intergenerational trauma, poverty, abuse, it just goes back into the lineage, right? So, by the time our parents have us they don't have the bandwidth. They don't have the tools, they don't know. Things have not been modeled for them. To me, reconnecting with my creativity, what it's coming up right now, it's.
Nurturing myself, it's reparenting myself also from the mother's side. So, I find it fascinating that from two different [00:29:00] people can, make that connection, but from a slightly different energy and I wonder if that is why, it transforms and it shape shifts.
Like sometimes it's painting, sometimes it's writing, sometimes is decorating, sometimes is researching and creating new things in a different way. and that is why I find it so important, because this is one thing that we have. Accessible within us if we know it's there.
. Because the other thing that, I've learned along this journey and this came out with a conversation, with another, artist that I love, creativity when it's not used, it makes you sick.
It's this power to create that you're not using, and it metastasizes how would that manifest, for example? Anxiety. Yeah. Anxiety to me is like the shadow. Of [00:30:00] creativity because what you're doing, when you are in an anxiety episode and you're feeling anxiety is going through multiple scenarios of things that could be, that don't exist, but you're making connections and creating stories that are not there.
So, it’s still creativity. What happens. When we don't use something that is innate in us, it can turn against us. Mm. And I think that's why it's so important to create this awareness because on the other side, and I'm remembering some of the conversations that we had when you were moving back from Costa Rica is I think at some point , I brought up the fact that I was so happy to see you paint and you know, the blank page Can be a safe space.
But then I realized talking to you that sometimes the blank page is not a safe space because we have not reached that point. And I think there is also a lot of fear around creativity [00:31:00] because we don't know how to approach it. We're scared. Has that come up for you at some point? What did that point between, not painting and painting? Was there a point where you were scared of the blank page?
Cassandra: Oh, girl, it would trigger a major episode of perfectionism and anxiety and self-doubt. You know, I applied for art school in grade eight to enter an art focused high school and I was denied and.
That broke my heart. I remember running into my father's arms and just, it was all I wanted. I didn't want anything else but to go to art school and for them to say not only denied for the art program, but the dance program and the drama program, I applied for three just to try and get in.
And I was not accepted. My grades weren't great. My mom had just left. My brain was very dysregulated. So [00:32:00] being able to create the kind of art that required presence, which required a level of confidence and self-actualization that I didn't have at that time. I knew I loved art, but I wasn't fully connected to my art.
So, I'm not surprised. I got denied, I developed a story that I suck why would anybody wanna see my art? I didn't. I didn't make it into school. So that was part of me starting to really judge my art. And anytime any of those spiritual healers that would say, why aren't you doing your art?
As I was going through my nutrition training or different programs with Physiology and like the science of movement. I was very science focused. And they're like, what about art? And I go, Hmm. Let me go get a box of crayon, like pencil crayons and a notebook and let's just see what happens.
And I would start drawing and it would make me physically sick. I hated looking at it. It would make me hate myself. And that was a presentation of the [00:33:00] trauma. That was a presentation of the perfectionism. And now I'm at a place where, the somatic work that I've been doing all year and understanding the different parts when my inner child and my inner teenagers in the driver's seat, why they're presenting with certain behaviors or thought patterns physical, presentations like racing heart, or a tight tummy, or a muscle pain or twitches.
I drop in and I get curious, and I start to ask who's in the driver's seat, who's not being heard? What do they need? And I've learned in this process that I am incredibly maternal and incredibly loving toward myself and to other people. I have the capacity for both, and I drop into those moments of dysregulation, especially when I'm looking at.
Some sketches that I've done or a piece of art that I'm not thinking is like going in the right direction or I'm not really flowing. The narrative has completely changed now [00:34:00] because I can step in with that maternal voice outside of the voice that my mother and father had. I'm creating this new parental energy that I'm discovering that I'm creating, that I'm tapping into, and I'm saying baby girl.
Enjoy yourself. Have fun. Make a mess. Doesn't have to be perfect colors. It doesn't have to make sense. Girls get in there. And if you don't like it at the end of it, close your book and go smoke a joint, close your book and go have a cup of tea. Go and do something else. Come back to, there's so much softness and gentleness now as opposed to looking at it is going.
Oh, I won't even repeat the thoughts I had when I was still stuck in my trauma loops. They were violent towards me. Yeah, they were painful. Right. So yeah, definitely the more I've worked on. Tapping into my inner child and inner teenager. And really listening to them and understanding why they might be so angry at my art and what's on the page and nurture them the way my parents never [00:35:00] get in those moments of dysregulation with my creativity.
Martha: Yeah.
I think this is where people get so scared about art. It's because we live in a culture that validates perfectionism. That also validates doing the right thing the right way. But what is art? If it's not just the zeitgeist of what it's going on in the collective and perfectionism, it actually works against it.
It was not until I read the book by Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic, which is on creativity. And when I read it, it had been almost 10 or 12 years that I had not drawn again. I had stopped completely, and then through this book, I understood that. Painting was not to create something beautiful for the world to judge and tell me it was beautiful painting was to [00:36:00] process the world around me.
Because the opposite of creativity is productivity. Right? And that's another insight that I've gotten. It's because this doesn't have any other purpose than. Nurturing me, helping me. And because it brings me joy, no one else is making money out of it.
No one else is benefiting from it directly. But getting to that place of giving me the space to do that, it has been such a battle because. The perfectionism will go in, like if I'm not gonna do the sixteenth chapel right. If I'm not gonna be like the Renaissance artist which by the way, all men that we know of, then it's not worth it.
And changing that messaging it's also teaching me how nurturing I can be, even though I've had such a complicated relationship with the mother energy in itself. It's like, no girl, this makes you [00:37:00] happy. And yeah, maybe it doesn't look like those portraits, but look at the colors and you like the shape and look what you've learned and what it has allowed to you.
So, When I started having that conversation with you and you were going through that process, it made me realize that before we get there, we have to make it a safe space again for us there, there needs to be a reclaiming of what it means to us to create, so we can allow ourselves that, because otherwise is the outside stories that we've been told or the trauma speaking of you should not be doing
this.
Yeah. Yeah. And when you're talking about the, like the men that have created these incredible paintings and kinda this bar that we might set. Against ourselves, as you're talking, I'm just thinking the patriarchy.
oh yeah. It's drenched in patriarchy.
Cassandra: Right, right. [00:38:00] And perfectionism is a presentation of the patriarchy, so the word reclamation, it's so fitting because I think the resistance against toxic patriarchy, right? Is to drop into the imperfect, is to drop into the presence and the process, whatever that presents as, whatever it looks like. As long as we are dropping into ourselves, being true to ourselves, being true to our own process.
I really do feel like that is the resistance against that toxic patriarchy, perfectionism type presentation that we are indoctrinated by and it really is a process , I don't think unless people really understand the complexities and the meaning of the patriarchy, I think people just hear like, it's not about hating men, it's not about hating men.
No. At all. Right. You know, I'm [00:39:00] not studying at University of Toronto right now. I'm in a sociology course and we're really studying, identity in the body and gender studies and the patriarchy and these three waves of feminism , , I'm incredibly privileged to be able to access this level of academic learning, to validate and solidify this conversation where I wish everybody had access to this training because it really would help.
It's been a process of freedom for me, like I've really helped, it's liberation, liberation and validation and going everything, I've been feeling. Is true. It's true. These books, these academic books, they are not, these are not based on philosophies. These are based on peer reviewed studies of the way society has shown up with different governments and different systems, and how has that affected our individuals desire and [00:40:00] ability to think and act and create freely.
As whom we are, not based on what we do when we have to go to work, what, bureaucratic shit we have to do in the day. All of that pulls us outta, our ability to think and act freely and possibly be creative I think it's all connected, definitely.
Martha: a hundred percent.
And if the macro is not a metaphor for the micro in the sense of that's why we need to do this work because it's about rebalancing. Like for so long our world has been operating under this super toxic, strict structured masculine energy. The entire world is traumatized. Like everybody has been traumatized by this.
. And what we are trying to do now, and what's happening now is we're trying to regulate, we're trying to self-regulate and creating space for that, softening that it's not like being vulnerable and being soft is not weakness. It's what's bringing [00:41:00] us back into that place of play. Because that's what happens with creativity If you are dysregulated, if you are in a fight flight fawn response, there is no space for you to create because you are in survival mode, which is basically.
Our day-to-day in this like extremely capitalistic world we live in and the culture that we live in, that it's so focused on productivity that there is no space to be, to ponder, to breathe but that's when creativity happens. It's when you go to that state of play that your brain activates, that you get the bandwidth to start processing what's around you.
I am hundred percent believe in making the connections to creativity is important because that's also how we get to heal ourselves and start projecting that forward. Because we are dysregulated and just like we are trying to heal [00:42:00] the world is also traumatized.
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah. Deeply, deeply.
Martha: To close this conversation, what are you taking from today? have you gotten any insight from today's conversation on creativity.
Cassandra: Definitely, I mean, every time we talk, you teach me something.
Martha: Likewise, every time we talk.
Likewise, thankfully, thankfully.
Cassandra: it's a truly symbiotic relationship with you. And today specifically I will carry with me the awareness that my ability to go through the monkey bar of life. Without a clear path in front of me, me figuring it out, even if it's not with a pastel crayon in hand, if it's my computer in hand, if it's my cell phone, making plans, doing research, establishing a safe connection with a practitioner that's helping me find safe grounding again.
That all of that is actually creativity. I would've [00:43:00] never thought about it like that, I would've thought, oh, it's cuz I'm a Capricorn. You know, like, um, I'm just a fighter. I'm a total, what are we, are we goats, Capricorns, I can't remember. With Yeah. You know, I'm like good for it.
Yeah. And I'm sure that plays a part, but what you brought to my attention in conversation is something that will carry with me throughout the years as like, yeah. Yeah, girl, you really are a well-rounded, creative person, you know? Absolutely. Yeah.
Martha: Thank you for that. Oh, I love it. Because, part of the creative process, and this is what I would like to close the conversation, part of the creative process is iteration.
Every time you try something, you learn something. Even if you think you're starting from scratch, you really aren't because you're bringing with you what you already learn. Ultimately, one of the gifts of actively and consciously engaging with creativity is [00:44:00] resilience. Hmm. Because is that iteration that helps you build that confidence and that courage to keep pushing, even when the world may tell you otherwise.
Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. I really appreciate this conversation.
Cassandra: I'm so honored to be your first interviewee, and I'm so excited for your podcast. Congratulations on launching this. It's amazing. Thank you.
