Using Art to Heal from Self Harm & Deep Trauma | Maggie Parr

FOR EPISODE LINKS & MORE INFO VISIT: https://samhorton.co/blog/ep56

In this deeply moving episode of Soul-led Creative Women, Sam sits down with artist, author, and theme park designer Maggie Parr to explore the powerful intersection of creativity and healing. With a background spanning mural painting, illustration, and immersive design, Maggie brings a unique perspective to how art can serve not just as expression—but as a sacred path to self-actualization.

Maggie bravely shares her personal journey with self-harm and how art became her lifeline—first as a hidden coping mechanism and eventually as a tool for conscious healing and empowerment. Together, Sam and Maggie unpack the often-misunderstood realities of self-injury, particularly among adult women, and shed light on how creativity can open the door to transformation, spiritual connection, and emotional integration.

Key Takeaways:

• Maggie's journey from self-harm to healing through art and how she now supports others on similar paths.
• A deeper understanding of self-harm beyond common stereotypes, including its emotional, psychological, and even ritualistic aspects.
• Why creativity—especially non-verbal expression—is a powerful language for processing pain and trauma.
• How Maggie views cutting as a creative act—and how she transformed that impulse into painting and storytelling.
• The importance of intention and spiritual connection in art-making for healing and wholeness.
• How different creative rituals have helped Maggie listen to her inner child, meet resistance, and allow authentic expression.
• Why we need to give ourselves permission to create—even imperfectly—and embrace art as a birthright, not a talent contest.
• How creativity can shift from a survival tool to one of joy, empowerment, and thriving.

Whether you've experienced emotional pain yourself or are passionate about the healing potential of art, this episode is a raw, insightful, and uplifting invitation to honour the voice within and let creativity lead the way home.

FOR EPISODE LINKS & MORE INFO VISIT: https://samhorton.co/blog/ep56

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Maggie Parr
• 2:20 Why do people self harm?
• 4:27 What is self harm?
• 6:53 Is self harm a younger persons issue and how is self harm relevant to older women?
• 8:21 The private world of self harming
• 10:26 Why is creativity so important for healing?
• 12:56 How does the creative journey mirror the spiritual journey
• 14:36 Is creativity also a tools for thriving and empowerment?
• 15:28 What do you wish more people knew about the power of creativity and art?
• 15:45 How has your creative journey evolved over time?
• 18:17 Powerful question if you are wanting to use your creative practice for healing deep trauma
• 19:53 Exploring creative flow and resistance
• 21:38 Connect with Maggie Parr

Transcript

Ep 56: Soul-led Creative Women
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[00:00:00] 

So today I have Maggie Par with me. Maggie is an artist and author who has designed theme park attractions, painted murals and portraits, and written and illustrated books and comics. For over three decades, art making has also helped her recover from many forms of self-harming, and she now teaches others how to use creativity to break through blocks and achieve self-actualization.

So welcome Maggie. Thank you so much, Samantha. It's a pleasure to be here with you. So, as I kind of hinted at there, today we're gonna be talking about, self-healing, but specifically art as a powerful tool for self-healing. So first, let's start with your journey. Maggie. Tell us about your own healing journey and how art and creativity have become part of your story.

Yes. art has always been integral to my healing, even before I realized it was, uh, just escaping by drawing dragons and castles and things [00:01:00] growing up to literally painting, uh, painting what I felt inside, but also. Painting, the self-harming, like I used to cut myself, and so I would cut into the gesso and drip red paint, so it was literally a new way to channel energies that I didn't understand, that didn't make sense inside and writing and illustrating and everything I can to express what's inside me.

It's just been a natural part of what I do, and now I try to help others do the same thing. Hmm. 

So your journey, obviously self-harm is, you know, one of the big, topics, that you've experienced yourself, but also that you kind of support others with. So tell us a bit about the self-harm piece. You know, why do you believe people's self-harm and, you know, is this a byproduct of deeper trauma?

I think it's always a byproduct of deeper trauma. It used to be. Some people used to assume that it, it was always associated [00:02:00] with childhood sexual abuse, and that's not always the case. Mm-hmm. It wasn't my case, but I've known other people who didn't have that experience. So there are, there are different factors.

but it is an, a natural human thing that happens. It happens among other primates. It happens among other animals who are in lab settings. It's a feeling of, it addresses a feeling of not being able to express yourself in any other way, except through this particular release. And I thought I was the only one at the time.

I, I started it in. Well, I started at four, but I switched to razors at 12, which was 1979, and nobody knew anything about it at that point, uh, at least in the US and I. So I was growing and learning as the field of psychology was growing and learning so well-meaning therapists tried to help me, but the majority of what I had to learn came from my own studies within.

And so that's where creativity came into play. But as I was researching the, the book that I wrote, creator's Guide to [00:03:00] Stopping Self-Harm, I was amazed at how, uh, prevalent this behavior is not just among. Teenage girls, which is what most people assume. It's, it's, I would, it's statistically about 14% of the entire population in the United States alone, and very similar in in England and Australia, uh, have self-harmed at some point in their lives, 5% of adults self-harm.

uh, two or 3% of kids below teenager self-harm. So it's, and it's, it's actually almost equal between men and women. Males and females. Mm-hmm. And, uh, through all cultures. So it's not just, you know, us. 

And, and by self-harm, are you talking about cutting or are there different, I'm being potentially very naive when it comes to this topic.

Yeah. So, so tell me about what that looks like for different people. 

Yes. In the, in the US the DSM, which is a diagnostical statistical manual, they list the behavior of cutting and, and, and burning [00:04:00] oneself. As NSSI, which means non-suicidal self-injury. And it's different from people who have, say trichotillomania who pull their hair out, things like that.

There are specific forms of self-harm that have other diagnoses, but there's no real diagnosis with, with cutting. It's a considered a area further study. Right. so even among psychologists, they've had to figure things out as they go along from anecdotal and clinical experience. But there is no actual clinical, psychological understanding of why people do this.

It's just, uh, something people do. Some people have it. It's an expression of a, uh, what they call borderline personality disorder, which has some controversy. It's a little politically controversial because it's usually applied to women. but I didn't have that diagnosis. I was one of the majority of, of.

Cutters people who burned and, and cut themselves, who didn't have, haven't had borderline personality disorders. So for me, [00:05:00] it was a secret thing that I started doing more intensely at 12 in order to deal with unbearable feelings. And oddly enough, it was soothing, it was, an escape, and it made me feel powerful and it made me feel nurturing towards myself because I would.

Care for my wound afterwards, and mm, it also became highly addictive to the point where I struggled with it off and on until my mid forties when I finally found a really good therapist and Thera the field of therapy had grown enough that I was able to be recipient of. Trauma therapy modalities were, which were not available when I was younger, and so I was able to get to the root of it and really utilize, consciously utilize my creativity to go inward and find the root of why I was doing this.

Mm. And so, I'm sure we'll talk about this, later on, but, the word intention there, you know, in terms of you intentionally chose, to use your creativity to, [00:06:00] support you with that. That's, that's amazing. Yes. So when people think of, we've touched on this, just, you've already sort of mentioned it, but when people think of self-harm, I'm sure most of them would consider that it's a younger person's issue.

Does it always start, When people are younger, you know? And how is this topic relevant to older women? 

Yeah. it usually does start when, when we're younger, but it does persist. I was also bulimic. It's, it's rare that someone just cuts or burns. There's often other coexisting conditions. I was bulimic, I was addicted to drugs and alcohol, so I had to get sober and stop the food things Before I was really ready to deal with this, but when I relapsed, I had like maybe 12, 13 years without.

Cutting in my thirties into my mid forties, and then I was going through a painful divorce and a lot of personal crises and I, I relapsed into cutting and I ended up in a urgent care with second degree burns on my arm, and I was mortified and I couldn't find anything online [00:07:00] about older women. It was all geared towards younger women.

I found one. Uh, this was back in 2012, so there, there weren't a whole lot of, there was no, there wasn't the kind of social media presence we have now. So I did find a sort of chat group for people who self-harm, and on there I saw people posting who did not relate because they were older. There were some grandmothers, there were people who were married and had kids, and they were very ashamed of it.

So I knew I wasn't alone. It's just that none of the literature addresses that. 

Mm. And so what, you know on your journey, you know, when did people come become aware of the self-harming around you? Was it something that you were always able to hide or was it something that actually you could no longer hide at some points in time?

When I was young, that was part of the, the issue of the, dysfunction of my home was that nobody noticed. It was, it was like being invisible, uh, until someone in my swim team I swam. And so obviously I [00:08:00] had wounds on my arms and my. Forehead and, and nobody said a word until a fellow swimmer went to a mental hospital for his self-harming.

And then everyone noticed, and his mother pointed it out to my mother and said, you have to look. And, you know, I don't fault her for that. Now, she had her own struggles and we've come a long way in our relationship, but. The not seeing it was a big symptom of why I needed to do it. No one was seeing what pain I was in.

And then later in my forties I was in a relationship with somebody who did not understand and it upset, upset her very much and she was not very nice about it. So, it was a different kind of thing. I had to hide it in order to feel safer. So. It's only with the book that I really started talking about it fully out loud as, as a way to finally get it out, but also to, to, so that other people who read it would feel they wouldn't feel as alone and know that they're not 

the only ones.

So, [00:09:00] you know, you talked a bit about it being a form of expression, but actually really it's your, it's you trying to communicate with the people around you as well. Right. And trying to get their attention almost. But, you know, in a, in a, in a hidden, subtle way, you know, if they can notice then, and I get caught out, then, then they're listening to me and they, they're seeing me.

Exactly. So, wow. That's really at the same 

time I hid the scars under my. Yes, I sleep a lot. Yes, but I've read, uh, I've read a wonderful article called The Voice on the Skin, and that's how I see the cutting. It's a voice on the skin. It's part of us that wants to be heard, but doesn't know how else to express what's inside.

Mm. And so as your creative journey has, you know, expanded and grown, because ultimately it always will. Mm-hmm. have you been able to replace then some of that expression and communication through your art? Has that been a really Absolutely. A big part of it? Yeah. So, so why do you believe then, creativity is so important for healing the deep trauma and dealing with [00:10:00] things like this then?

Uh, do we have another three hours? No. Forever. There's lots of layers, right? Yes. Lemme see what I can come up with the simplest version. Well, there's a physiological aspect, which is that if you've ever read the book, art Your Brain On Art By Yes. have you, Ross and Susan Maximin, they go into all the studies that are being done on, on neuroplasticity and how art making and interacting with art.

Creates new avenues in our brains. So there's that aspect. So while I'm resisting the urge to cut and instead channeling it into artwork, new neural pathways are being laid in my, my brain. But the the emotional, spiritual part is, the way I explain this in the book is that. The act of cutting, I think is a creative act.

It's, it's unique. It's a way of self-regulating and expressing ourselves without committing suicide, without harming [00:11:00] anybody else. Without falling apart. In a weird way, it held me together. So it's a, it's a creative thing. I, I sort of came up with that on my own, the way that I do it and everybody. Does the, the cutting in their own way.

We often use, and I've I've read this, uh, from other cutters, is that we use special blade, you know, it's like very sacred almost. It's a, it's a ritual similar to setting up to paint or setting up to create in some way. Right. And it's a very spiritual connection. there's a like channeling and energy when I was self-harming, that was, that's in a similar to when I channel the muse to paint.

Mm. There are 

many connections there. 

Yeah. I mean, in my own work, you know, the concept that the creative journey and spiritual expansion and growth, you know, they, these two things are operating in duality, right? They mirror each other and they actually feed each other. Mm-hmm. Can you expand a bit on your own experience of that?[00:12:00] 

Yeah. It's, there's a reason why people call it the muse and think of it as the sacred. Process of connecting with a goddess of some kind because it, it feels like plugging into something bigger than ourselves. Hmm. Now I do commercial art and that's different, than my own personal art for healing, my personal art for healing, I'll put certain music on similar to how I would listen to music when I would self-harm.

I put certain music on and I let go and let this energy whoosh through me, and I usually cry for a moment and then it passes and I'm plugged into Creator, like, creator energy, the creator. And that's healing. It's innately healing. Mm-hmm. I've always followed because I had my own, I had the work for money.

I was able to protect my work for myself from having to sell it. So I just go where it leads me, and that has been part of the journey. One of my favorite phrases I uncovered from [00:13:00] writing the book is that the wound holds the answer. And so for me, going into the wound, cutting into the the gesso painting red lines for me, and then making something beautiful out of it.

That was a way to channel spirit energy to heal me through the painting. 

Mm, that's so beautiful. I love that. So good. So, I mean, we're talking a lot about, you know, healing and overcoming challenges, you know, and using creativity for that. But do you also see creativity as a tool for thriving, you know, and empowerment.

Yes, absolutely. I, and you don't have to be an artist to use creativity. It's our human birthright. Mm-hmm. Anyone can draw. It's funny when I tell people I'm an artist, most people say I can't even draw stick figures. Which I think is, you know, I wasn't asking if you could draw, but secondly, yes, you can draw stick figures.

Everybody. Yes. You know, when we can draw when we're kids and then we're taught, it's sort of like the fun is taken out of it for us. 'cause we can't imitate something, but [00:14:00] we can all draw. And paint with color. We can do a pottery class. All of that is fun. And a way to, to channel this c creative, spiritual, fun, healing energy.

Mm. if we let ourselves, you know? 

Mm. So what do you wish more people knew about the power of creativity and art? 

I wish more people would give themselves permission. Yeah. To create what they can. Mm-hmm. People seem to think if I can't. Paint a landscape and make it look like what I'm looking at, then I might as well not even try.

Yeah.So tell us a bit about your own creative practice and how that's changed over time. I like from what you're saying, I, I can see that you've kind of got different creative practices, which you're using in different ways. Mm-hmm. But tell us a bit about the journey, you know, and, and how different it's looked over time for you.

Yes, that, that's a good question. And if I had my ducks in a row, I keep waiting to have all my ducks in a row so I can sum it all up in one sentence. But my creativity and my practice is pretty much, [00:15:00] Whatever I need to do in the moment. Sometimes it's because I have a deadline for a C commission.

Mm-hmm. Or a project, you know, I used to do a lot more design projects. Sometimes it's, I feel like I have to create today on my own paintings because it's bursting out of me. So it really is a little bit more chaotic than I prefer, but I have learned to. Embrace rituals and discipline so that I have morning rituals that, that keep me going.

I discipline equals freedom. I've discovered. So I have, I stick to certain things every day as, as best I can. And, I've learned that I can do more writing in the morning and then I don't like to get into my studio until afternoon. So I let myself off the hook for that. And I, I have slowly learned to listen to what my body and my, my soul need so that I.

Uh, arrange my day accordingly. And because I'm self-employed, I can do that. 

Mm. And almost creating rituals around it, like you said. Mm-hmm. You know, when it, when it feels like the right thing to do for you. Mm-hmm. I mean, for me personally, sometimes, if I [00:16:00] get really excited about a new project or a new idea, I can kind of, get some kind of tunnel vision with it.

Yeah. And kind of. Go overboard, and then that creates some kind of burnout. So I think the B boundaries creatively are as important as, you know, kind of letting and letting the natural ebb and flow happen as well. You know, having the rest times. So 

I think it's harder for women too, because we often. Now we, we juggle so many different things when we multitask and commitments and you know, I think a lot of times throughout history, men have been able to do that linear tunnel vision.

Let's just focus on this one thing because there are women around them to take care of all the other stuff, you know. 

Yeah. Yeah. But it can take over and I think, you know, you've gotta be careful of that too. You know, just because you have the urge to create doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't also have boundaries around, you know, how much you time you spend, you know, in in that, in that realm.

Yeah. 'cause it can burn out. You burn you out too, and then you feel really blocked spiritually, you know, because you've overdone it [00:17:00] almost. Mm-hmm. You've. You know, you've, you've gone too far. 

Yeah. 

So for all the women out there who are curious about using their creative practice as a tool for healing deep trauma, you know, what powerful message or question would you like to leave them with today?

What 

is your wound trying to say? And we all have a wound. Uh, for me there was, it was literally listening to what was my, the voice on my skin was saying. And I, for me, that meant going in and meeting. The being inside that I thought was that called the cutter that I realized was my little kid, my tomboy kid, and I renamed and folded that part back into myself and did the work.

So with other people, because I do teach people different things around painting, sometimes it's techniques, sometimes it's finding your purpose in your voice, and it is always a journey of where is that? Painful part that you don't want to see and, and what are they trying to say? Because we all have that.

Something [00:18:00] that is a wound we carry with us that wants to be heard and speaking, ve uh, verbally articulating it is not always possible. Mm-hmm. And so if that part of you were to say something that really needs you to hear the artist, the woman to hear, yeah. What are they trying to say? How can you get that out?

Can you draw a little comic? Can you. Uh, put some colors on, on a canvas. Can you write it out with your left hand? You know, there's all kinds of ways to approach it, sort of from the side, not straight on. Mm. To listen to the part of us that we don't wanna hear. 

And when, when we go on that journey, you know, there's, there's gonna be a heap of resistance there.

You know, I know in my own, you know, art practice, sometimes the things that I'm called to paint are the things that I don't want to paint or I'm res, I'm resisting in some way. Tell us about your experience with resistance in allowing, you know, the art to, to mm-hmm. Flow [00:19:00] freely. 

I didn't experience a lot of resistance in the art flowing freely in that area.

Pretty, I've not had a blockages. Okay. I don't know why. Maybe because I arranged in my life so that I would always be able to do it if it, if it called. Okay. but I, I do know that feeling of, uh, I don't want to look people to see this, or I don't want, this is really intense. I've, I've done some really intense paintings.

Okay. 

And sometimes. What's an interesting exercise? This is one of my favorite exercises. I'll get a painting started and it's, it seems like it's like done, but not quite and I don't know how to break through. That cutter part of me who I've renamed Faith, I'll let faith go in and put a coat, a coat of blue over the whole thing or some color, or cover it in some way and then start pulling out that layer so things come out.

So I'm, I'm allowing a little bit of a different image to come forth and then that actually sometimes bypasses my conscious process and allows that faith voice to come through. [00:20:00] Mm. 

That's a really cool, uh, way of doing it. Is that with oil, do you do that with oil? Is that Yeah, with oil I've got with acrylic, but oil is good 'cause it stays wet 

for 

a long time.

But yeah. Acrylic would be harder on some surfaces, I think. 

Right? 

Yeah. 

Or even if it's paint, if it's drawn on paper, you could cut it into pieces and make a collage out of it. Like try something completely different. 

Yeah. Or you could scratch through, potentially scratch through the pain. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Great. Yeah. So how can people get to know you better, Maggie, and get a real feel for the work that you're doing? 

There's always Maggie par.com. PARR is my last name. Mm-hmm. If you are someone who struggles with self-harming or love or love, someone who is, I would recommend going to stopping self-harm dot com.

Okay. It's a, a website I put up and it's, you know, I'm not a therapist. I always recommend people go to therapy and get the help they need, but I can help with creative exercises that help with healing. 

Excellent. Thank you so much for coming and chatting with me today, Maggie. I loved our conversation.

Thank. [00:21:00] Yeah.