S2 E32 - The Wounds and the Gifts: Reclaiming Your Creativity and Power

LightSong School of 21st-Century Shamanism and Energy Medicine Talking Stick Podcast

The Wounds and the Gifts: Reclaiming Your Creativity and Power

What if the parts of yourself you learned to doubt were never missing at all?

In this episode of LightSong Talking Stick, Jan Engels-Smith and Micah Schwader explore creativity, imagination, self-worth, and the beliefs that can separate us from our natural sense of who we are.

We enter life as creative beings, filled with curiosity, imagination, and possibility. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us receive messages that tell us we aren't talented enough, worthy enough, creative enough, or important enough. We learn to question our instincts, compare ourselves to others, and look outside ourselves for validation.

Jan shares teachings from decades of shamanic work about the innate value of the human spirit and why imagination is one of our greatest creative powers. She describes how experiences such as bullying, rejection, and childhood wounds can shape an identity based on unworthiness—but also how those very wounds can point us toward gifts we developed because of them.

As Jan puts it, the wounds and the gifts aren't on opposite sides of the coin. They're on the same side.

Micah connects this idea to creativity and writing, exploring how beliefs about who we are can shut down creative expression. Whether through writing, painting, designing a home, inventing something new, imagining a different future, or simply creating the life we want to live, creativity is not reserved for people who call themselves artists.

We are all creators.

The conversation also explores the idea of writing your own creation story: not simply describing the beliefs you've inherited but consciously imagining what you choose to believe about yourself, Spirit, Source, and the life you are creating.

Jan and Micah discuss how childhood dreams and visions can reveal something deeper about our nature, why children often arrive with distinct personalities and gifts already visible, and what might change if we learned to recognize those gifts rather than shaping everyone according to the same expectations.

Along the way, they share stories about soul retrieval, art and inspiration, childhood dreams, twins with remarkably different personalities, an unexpected message from a newborn baby, and the mysterious ways our identities sometimes reveal themselves.