The Role of Play and Creativity in Healing

How Tapping into Joy Can Improve Wellness

When I decided to focus on JOY during my CANcer healing journey (spelled with CAN on purpose, because we indeed can always do something…), it literally saved my life.

This is a short story of a CANcer THRIVER and survivor—from stage 4—about the drastic effects (or, shall we say, the sparkling and healing effects!) joy can have on your wellness and life.

Here’s what happened, how I applied this principle, and how you too CAN optimize healing and wellness by focusing on joy in your life.

My journey began in one of the hardest, darkest, and most stressful times in my life. It wasn’t just the cancer diagnosis itself—though that was daunting enough. Life had thrown multiple challenges at me: I was on a business sabbatical with no regular income, no savings, and was uprooted from my community, family, dogs, and friends, forced to relocate for treatments. Imagine all this happening during COVID-19 and a really dark Alaska winter.

Physically, emotionally, and mentally, I felt worlds away from joy.

I put a lot of pressure on myself: I wanted to solve all these challenges at once!

One evening, while weighed down by everything, I noticed how heavy all this stress felt—even on my body. It felt like I had a sack of potatoes on my chest! Suddenly, I realized, with a very clear and intense voice in my head:

If I wanted to GET well, I had to create wellness feelings!

That realization was so powerful that it felt like a life-or-death decision.

Of course, I wanted life!

Right then, I decided to choose joy—radically.

As soon as I made that choice, I instantly felt the weight lift off me.

It felt like such a relief! Giving myself permission to say yes to joy was the ultimate test of what I write about in my book, Permission to Sparkle, which is all about giving ourselves permission to listen to our hearts and choose joy—especially when it seems impossible!

From that moment, I began to actively choose joy as a focus in every little way I could. I asked myself things like, “What’s a joyful thing I can do for myself right now?” or “What can I do to lead to more joy eventually?”

I enrolled in a creativity workshop—just for the joy of it. And from there, I used joy as inspiration for everything: in how I dressed, the activities I chose, and even in how I approached treatment days. Once I had a nurse tell me to buy “chemo clothes.” Why would I do that? Yes, they might be comfortable, but they wouldn’t feel “sparkling!” They would make me feel like a patient. I wanted to boost my happiness! And feel healthy and strong!

With curiosity as my superpower, I often found creative ideas when things seemed impossible at first, or when people (or my mind!) first said no.

My focus on joy also helped me practice listening to my body and intuition. Pausing and listening, I always sensed what I needed for my wellness in every moment. That makes you wonder… how often do we just do things, running on auto pilot? Or thinking we have to do something? When pausing to listen inside would give us the true answers we need?

So how did all that affect my healing?

For starters, I became my best wellness advocate!

Also, joy became my health’s best ally: My focus on joy helped lower my stress, which directly benefited my immune system. My doctors were stunned by my progress: I experienced few side effects from treatments, and by the end of my regimen, my blood work resembled that of a healthy person! Choosing joy was literally a choice for life!

My quest for joy also unlocked another pathway to healing: playfulness and creativity. I discovered that both of these things are wellness supertools because they not only reduce stress, they can also be powerful tools to unlock hidden difficult emotions and promote emotional and mental wellbeing! And to help get clarity for best wellness steps and what we truly need!

Creativity and playfulness helped me tap into a powerful intelligence beyond logic—the intelligence of heart and intuition. Creativity and playfulness use the right side of our brain. If we just listen to our logical left-sided brain, we are not using our full intelligence. Of course, I wanted to use my FULL intelligence for wellness. Joy helped me access it.

My focus on joy ended up affecting not just my body, but also my mind, emotions, spirit, and soul happiness – all of which are inter-connected. All of which impact health.

So, in one way, I impacted all my wellness systems positively through my focus on joy, and taking action inspired by it! My focus on joy actually helped me optimize my wellness!

It blows my mind to think of it that way. Isn’t that amazing?

Later, I discovered that my joy approach was backed by research, like in Radical Remission by Kelly A. Turner, PhD. The author studied cases of cancer patients who survived against all odds and found they shared nine common factors—among them were nurturing positive emotions and reducing difficult ones. They also took charge of their health.

I did all of these things by radically choosing joy!

And I fully got well!

Today, I lead Cancer THRIVER workshops for others on their healing journey. My mission is to help others choose joy as I did and boost their own unique wellness superpowers from within. I show cancer patients how to let joy, curiosity, and their intuition guide them to resilience, strength, more happiness, and health! My goal is to empower others to give themselves the same Permission to Sparkle that changed my life.

I believe that joy is the elixir of life. I’m here to help you find it, feel it, and live it! If you want to not just survive but THRIVE, and create a more and more joyful life, come explore my story, my resources, and my joy coaching for CANcer patients at CAN-Sparkle