Welcome: The Inner Child Creates Creation Story

Dawn Wittke
May 11, 2023
8 min read

Updated: May 13, 2023

How it began: Realizing that the Inner Child holds the key to unlocking creativity. Deciding to test the theory that freeing your inner child also frees your creativity. My Journey to creating this blog.

Florence Italy, 2017. One of my favorite solo travels.

Hello, and welcome to Inner Child Creates!

I know I’m not alone when I say 2021 was a difficult year for me. I experienced loss, after loss, after loss. It had started in 2020. It started with losses that were difficult, but that I could recover from. I felt I had managed to stand back up each time, but then 2021 kept dealing blows, each one more severe than the one that proceeded it. Resilience was getting more difficult with each heartbreak.

Somewhere in the middle of this, the seed of Inner Child Creates was planted. It hadn’t taken precise form yet though. As I laid in bed bawling into my pillow one day, I searched for some relief, and my thoughts went to the joy that adventuring had brought me. I was already a solo adventurer, and those memories were some of the most amazing moments of my life. I decided then and there, I was going to live a life of adventure and curiosity. I thought I’d write a book, and chronicle my adventures that way, and I even decided on the title right then in that moment.

These decisions did offer quite a bit of relief, and gave me a renewed sense of purpose, so I picked myself back up and started seriously thinking about how to make it all work. But soon I started to realize that this endeavor was based in selfishness. It was important to pull myself out of grief and depression, but to make something part of your life, I’ve always believed that it’s better if it’s of benefit to others as well. We were still pretty deep in the pandemic, so I started to more seriously consider what others were dealing with at this time as well.

"...we all also knew the sting of imposter syndrome and block. It struck a deep cord that all of these professionals still often felt like something blocked their truest creativity."

Nearly a year before this, during a few months of 2020, a group of creatives started meeting on zoom calls to discuss The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. My director friend had initiated it, so it was a group of people who either already knew each other or had her as a mutual friend. We were scattered all over the country: actors, designers, writers, artists, musicians, all artists stunned by the impacts of the pandemic and amazed by how zoom made us feel like we were in the same room once a week. We were also professionals in our fields, arguably successful in the arts, most of us holding degrees and robust resumes…. But we all also knew the sting of imposter syndrome and block. It struck a deep cord that all of these professionals still often felt like something blocked their truest creativity.

In our meetings we shared quotes and thoughts that had profoundly inspired us, yet week by week, more of us dropped off. I realized why by the time we finished the book. We discussed continuing on to the next book, but most of us didn’t have the emotional energy to do it. Julia’s books ask for deep self-analysis and in our pandemic world it was akin to asking someone: “who hurt you so badly that you suck at creating?” I didn’t go on to the second group. My friend later told me almost no one did. It’s not that the books are bad, they're quite wonderful, it’s just that collectively, we are a different society now than the audience Julia was originally speaking to. What I walked away with was the recognition of the deep need for this type coaching and healing among professional creatives, I just didn’t have a direction to point that realization in yet, so it sat behind the scenes, so-to-speak, just simmering in my semi-subconscious.

Dubrovnik, Croatia: View of Old Town, taken from my Airbnb balcony.

I can’t precisely tell you when the two parts of the equation came together, or when I realized it was about our inner child, but I remember I was looking over something that I had written in 2019. I was remembering the circumstances under which I wrote it. I had arrived in Dubrovnik Croatia only hours earlier, and I was on the balcony of my airbnb looking out over old city. You may know it as King’s Landing from Game of Thrones. I, however, had never seen Game of Thrones, so thankfully I was not burdened by seeing it as such. A story descended upon me that I was compelled to write. I wrote non-stop until 3 or 4 a.m., fueled only by my jet lag and pure inspiration. The next day, a friend joined me to attend the Luka Šulić concert as part of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. I did the same thing that night: 1, 2, 3 a.m…I don’t know… I was either very successful at being quiet out on that balcony, blasting music into my headphones, or my friend was very gracious to say that I hadn’t disturbed her. But I had experienced a rapturous “artist-spiritual-experience.”

Photo taken at night, while I wrote.

So there I was in 2021, wondering when, or if, I might travel again, reviewing this beautiful thing I had created while traveling, while inspired by an adventure, while I had followed my heart/desire/gut/instincts whatever you want to call it to fly off to another country to watch a concert—AH! THERE IT WAS! That’s when I realized how everything was meant to come together. It was probably over the course of the next few weeks that I realized this creative intuition is really our inner child: the purest, “funest,” most vulnerable, and most creative part of us. I began a much deeper analysis of what I believe happens to that inner child, and why we find ourselves as adults wondering where our creativity went. Or, if not that, knowing we are creative, but still withholding the scariest parts of our creativity—unable to take that leap of faith that is required to act on our most risky creative impulse (that would lead to our ultimate creative freedom). I began to consider this for myself, for my friends, even for artists I look up to. Often, you will hear it between the lines and behind the words of what an artist says. We all seem to have a different degree of this at play. This realization intrigued, and moved me to probe deeper. But, to do that for others, I recognized I’d have to face it for myself.

"But what if it’s who we are? What if that is our natural state of how we're actually meant to be? When does it stop; why does it stop?"

This I know: if we watch the creativity of a child, it’s usually very abundant. We attribute it to childhood imagination. But what if it’s who we are? What if that is our natural state of how we're actually meant to be? When does it stop; why does it stop? We learn to fit into society. We transition from being a blank slate, to a curious mind, and then to a member of a given culture. It’s during that curious mind phase in which we excel at creativity. Somewhere in the next steps toward being a member of a culture, we start learning to associate feedback of what is and isn’t acceptable and laudable to our peers and protectors. Our parents and teachers start placing expectations on us, and our true selves shy away in favor of safety within the society. Everyone has a different level of this, of course, as it’s highly dependent on the care takers and peers we are exposed to. Maybe it is as simple as someone we look up to rewards practical behaviors with just a little more attention, but sometimes it’s intentional.

For me, it was intentional. My inner child was squelched by someone who would later claim that they admire my creativity; when as a child, it was perceived as a threat. No amount of them trying to rectify it now is going to do the work though. I have to do the work. I have to find a way to communicate with my inner child and to coax her out to step into her full creativity. I know she’s in there, and I want to learn to listen to her. As I mentioned before, I also don’t want to embark on fully selfish endeavors. I know the value of it for myself, why can’t I make the room to help others as well? So, in the interest of being of service to others, it was with these realizations that I set off to make Inner Child Creates a reality. I decided on the dual structure of having both a blog and a vlog, which I believed would ideally serve as companion platforms.

"We all just want to make art."

In June of 2021 I went on my first adventures with the Inner Child Creates experience in mind. I certainly wan’t a YouTuber, and didn’t really want to be one, at least according to what I thought that meant. I had no clue how to film myself, but I gave it a good go. Then in August I embarked on my most ambitious adventure, this time with a friend. We tackled the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, one of the most rugged and remote National Parks in the U.S.

…and there was no cell service

…and then my sister contracted the Delta variant of COVID.

…and we would drive for miles to get cell service for health updates….

Another devastating loss.

I shelved Inner Child Creates, and my inner child waited while I struggled to get out of bed for months. It was too much on top of everything else, I felt I just couldn’t keep getting back up. I almost abandoned it, and myself entirely. What was the point of it, or anything, anyway? It had been a good idea, a good thought exercise at best.

But something my sister had said to me once kept playing in my mind: I had said that all I wanted to do was make art. Her response: “We all just want to make art.” She was a business woman, and she had employees that depended on her to be a successful business owner. She used her creativity in business. Did she want to do things that were more purely for the sake of art? I may never know the entirety of the meaning behind her statement, but it played in my mind on repeat. “We all just want to make art.”

…Nearly a year passed before I started to work on Inner Child Creates again; it’s been almost 2 more years to get to this launch. But, somewhere along the journey I realized I still need this. The thought never left that not only do I need this, but maybe someone else needs it too. Maybe that’s what being of service is—offering your value (and vulnerability) to that ONE PERSON who is healed by it. Maybe building this community of creative souls is what we all need for healing and for filling our world with more beauty. Can we make the world a better place by honoring our creative inner children and letting them make us feel creative inspiration again? If not the “world,” maybe at least our own little community. I’d be happy with that. So maybe that someone is you. If so, I would be honored if you’d join me.

With love, - Dawn