Tidbits to Threads

CREATIVITY

(kree-ey-tiv-i-tee) noun

ability to transcend ideas, rules, patters and relationships to create meaningful new ideas; originality or imagination

(definition adapted from dictionary sources)

Let’s begin our next thread by sharing some insight on how I my creativity took the form of writing as an adult.

Why?

Because I didn’t grow up loving words, nor was I the child that was filling diaries or writing poetry for hours at a time. That wasn’t how I first began to write. But what I did have, and what I truly believe every human has—is creativity. Creativity showed up in my life from my hairstyle choices (people then and now still ask me about my hairstyle - who knew!) to the way I shaped my surroundings through the things I chose and collected, I expressed my creativity in everyday ways. Back then, I just called it ‘my style.’

As a child, I spent most of the time in movement. Through activity I tapped into a natural ability to excel at sports. Which became a gift, both to my younger and older selves. Even though I resisted at the time, I do give my mum credit for signing me up for swim club at age eight, because that decision would build resilience in me long before I ever understood why I needed it.

Writing came much later.

I first began writing through journaling in adulthood. This was a stage in my life’s journey when I believed I was hearing God prophetically. I would write down what I believed I was hearing through both scripture and prophetic words I received so that I could begin to track what I believed God was saying to me personally, and then for other people. I became skilled at it, or so I thought. This form of meaning-making became my template. It became the lens through which I saw my life, which is also known as a worldview.

During that season, I also began a ministry in our church that was expressed through prophetic dance which was done through blending movement, symbolic drama, and flags. I’ll share more about that in another Tidbit to Thread. For now, I want to stay with creativity in the form of writing.

Because my writing grew.

Journal after journal, stack after stack, for years.

Until I burned most of them. Lesson learned: don’t burn anything!

Deconstruction loves evidence. Hindsight is real.

When I began unraveling indoctrination, undue influence, and cultic dynamics, I returned to writing, but it felt different this time. I was different. I was in a new season of life, both in age and in who I was becoming. I began weaving my writing with the creativity I had first tapped into through my ministry, bringing together storytelling, symbolism, psychoeducation, and metaphors to tell a story.

In my writing I noticed how I was naturally drawn to the feel of taking you, the reader, on a journey into my story through layering the themes of my life, especially as I began to slowly unweave my trauma bond to prophecy. A story that began in childhood, stayed undetected for years through my early twenties in the personal development world, and then carried on through more than twenty-five years in intense churches I attended.

When I wrote Velcro Kisses, I didn’t write as a teacher or expert speaking at you. I wrote as the person moving through each stage of the journey. Writing became a way of witnessing, of resourcing, of integrating who I am today with what I so desperately needed at those major junctions then.

Writing became a creative process that was also deeply healing. When I wrote my story, I didn’t do it alone. I had support for the first time in a long time. And with support came the ability to focus for as long as I wanted, when I wanted, and how I wanted. Life, as it can, also threw a few things in there that caused me to stop and take breaks, both literally and figuratively.

As I wrote, I brought my work into therapy. I wanted to tell the truth to myself before telling it to the world. My therapist and I paused at trigger points and used different modalities to process trauma, including EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) which is designed to alleviate distress from traumatic memories by using bilateral stimulation. Doing this work with a trained and qualified therapist gave my brain and body what they needed to finally bring resolution to intrusive and looping thoughts.

I first wrote my story by hand, knowing that handwriting engages a different part of the brain than typing did. Next, I gave voices to parts of my story I had never shared before, out loud, with my therapist. Yes, I felt both safe and supported. These touchpoints helped me process what I needed so that when I published, I could do so from an integrated place.

Since launching my book just over a month ago in March 2026, readers have shared that it feels like I’m sitting beside them while they read. That is such a meaningful compliment. Because when I self-published, I wanted the entire book — from cover to final page — to feel like me.

Hopefully, you can begin to see how creativity lives in each of us, and how it “comes out to play” is something each of us gets to discover. Creativity can also take on new forms as we change, and as our environments or as the different stages of life unfold.

Like me, your creativity may have begun in structures you are no longer part of, or, as in my own experience, within systems you were once deeply enmeshed in.

Creativity is in you, and it travels with you. It is not something that can be left at the door, wherever “the door” may be for you. My creativity took the form of writing as it weaved together, storytelling, dance, drama, symbolism, and healing. Line by line. Page by page. Yellow pad after yellow pad.

Writing became the way I reclaimed my voice and took back the narrative of my life. I did that from the inside out. The only permission I needed was my own.

By allowing myself to follow my curiosity, following each thought as if it was leading me to something more, by tapping into my own inborn intuition, I allowed my creativity to flow as if I was literally painting a picture, except I was weaving tidbits into threads and letting my creativity flow.

No experience necessary. Just curiosity.

Will you join me?

Thank you for reading Tidbits to Threads: where small moments, insights, and deep threads become a return to self-trust, reflection, and healing.

Small moments. Deep threads. A return to self-trust.