Use Creativity to Transform Your Pain into Spiritual Elegance: Healing Through Art, Intuition & Soul Expression | Chris Nielsen

FOR EPISODE LINKS & MORE INFO VISIT: https://samhorton.co/blog/ep111 

What if the pain you’ve carried isn’t something to fix… but something your creativity is asking you to transform into power, beauty, and truth? 

3 Powerful Benefits of Listening 

• Learn how creativity can become a bridge between emotional pain and spiritual growth 
• Understand how your intuition and inner world shape your most authentic creative expression 
• Discover how to reconnect with your creative identity and use it as a tool for healing and transformation 

Episode Summary

In this deeply expansive conversation, I’m joined by Chris Nielsen — bestselling author, former classical ballet dancer, and spiritual practitioner — as we explore the profound relationship between creativity, healing, and spiritual evolution.

Chris shares her journey from the structured world of ballet and arts communication into a deeply intuitive and spiritual path, revealing how disconnection from creativity can manifest as emotional and even physical discomfort — and how reconnecting can open an entirely new way of being.

Together, we explore how creativity allows us to access deeper layers of the subconscious, transform past experiences, and express truths that words alone cannot reach. This episode is a powerful reminder that your creative practice is not just something you do — it is a pathway to healing, self-discovery, and soulful transformation.


Key Takeaways
 

• Creativity is a powerful tool for transforming pain into spiritual elegance and personal growth 
• Emotional blocks and physical symptoms can be signals of creative and spiritual misalignment 
• Your intuition is your greatest creative guide — it connects you to your inner truth and deeper wisdom 
• Creativity acts as a bridge between your current reality and your spiritual evolution 
• Authentic creative expression comes from within, not from external validation or audience expectations 
• Healing through art and creativity allows you to process emotions beyond logic or language Your creative desires are not random — they are deeply connected to your soul’s direction 
• True empowerment comes from expressing your truth, even when it feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable 
• You don’t need to create perfectly — you need to create honestly 
• Your creative practice can become a sacred space for self-connection, healing, and transformation

 FOR EPISODE LINKS & MORE INFO VISIT: https://samhorton.co/blog/ep111 

Transcript

Ep 111: Chris Nielsen - Use creativity to transform your pain into spiritual elegance

[00:00:00]

So today I have Chris Nielsen with me. Chris is a bestselling author, former classical ballet dancer and cultural communication specialist. Chris is also a trained past life regression practitioner whose unexpected and transformative spiritual experience became the basis for her bestelling book - Being Pyotr Ilyich In it, she shares a remarkable inner journey, exploring identity, intuition, emotional healing, and the deeper forces that shape who we are. So welcome Chris. Thank you so much for your invitation. It's such an honor. I have read so much about you and I find your way and your life story and, your podcast so fascinating

bonds with my own story and my own life, and implicitly with my book, so that I was so eager to do this interview together. Oh, that's beautiful. Thanks Chris. Well, let's just start with your journey. Tell us a bit about, your journey and how creativity specifically has featured in your [00:01:00] life. Yes. So, between, six and 16 years old, so for 10 years, I, practiced and I studied classical ballet.

In, the school, which was besides of, the main opera house in my native country, which is Romania in central Europe. Then, at 16 years old, I felt that it was not, a long, run, let's say relationship, with dance, although I adored ballet from all my heart. But I felt that it was not suitable in this life for my mm-hmm.

For my career. And I, switched, towards, theater directing. And I, studied for three years, theater directing. But, unfortunately, let's say that Karma intervened, but this is something that I understood much later, years later. And because of the context of, my teachers the atmosphere that was in the university, the theater university and so on, I decided to, turn towards [00:02:00] communication because I had this, natural gift, natural talents, since I was a child towards communication.

And I, desperately tried, to, find, a link between communication, which was, a gift, a natural, talent and between art, because I always felt, at home, on stage. And I'm still am very fond of performing arts no matter if we speak about dance, music, theater, and so on.

So, I tried to find, the link between communication and arts and, in France I specialize myself, as you mentioned, in a cultural communication in arts, marketing and, public relations. And I, lived in France, both, during, my bachelor studies and during my master studies.

I, worked for the Khan Film Festival. In order to improve my, practical skills and in order to get in touch with this international, artistic [00:03:00] market. Then I, turned back towards performing arts in a very long and complex story.

Started to work, back in the lyrical theater promoting Opera and Ballet, then, I went in the United States, 

And while I was in America, I had this.

Great revelation. This is why I told you that I feel so bond to your own personal life story because I felt that, my, arts, marketing, career up to that moment was, quite rich. And, people appreciated me and everything. Seemed on the surface to be awesome, but I felt, not fulfilled at all, and I had this very strange feeling.

Of being in the right place because as I have already mentioned, I adored and I still adore performing arts and I feel on stage being at home. But, in a very strange way, I always felt that I was [00:04:00] not in the right position in the field. And especially what bothered me a lot was, the lack of creativity.

Because I wanted to do something creative, but I couldn't because, this was the way my professional life unfolded up to that moment. 

 And I felt this,huge,emotional and professional blockage. of course that it was very hard because all the people around me 

Especially my family didn't agree me 

It was quite a hard time and, I also developed, some, physical issues Which were, not something very serious, for God's sake, but, quite disturbing.

I had a lot of problems with my gallbladder. I had some headaches and I had developed a lot of small problems Which were very disturbing on the daily basis. And, this was the trigger. As a matter of fact, my physical problems were the trigger because in this way I arrived to the point [00:05:00] of,

try for the first time, what we call alternative therapies or complementary medicine and so on. And listening to the recommendation of a good friend, I tried Reiki and bioenergy therapist. who, really changed my life. 

 both to feel better and to understand a lot of connections, which I, of course, I wasn't seeing for the time.

Between my,emotions. My, feelings and my energy and my physical body. And he also invited me to join some of his classes because he was also teaching. I, for the first time, I went out of curiosity, but then slowly, step by step, I was fascinated. By everything I was discovering. It was like a whole world was opening in front of myself and I started to find, answers and this was very important for me.

And then,two years later I did the next step,[00:06:00] because, I learned out about, the past Life Regression Academy in London. 

 And all this experience completely changed my life. And my way of approaching and understanding life here on earth. during all these, 13 years, I think, I explored, about 35 past lives and,let's say some of these, five or six proved to be, a well-known or famous 

Past lives. either because I was. Someone known from a public point of view or my life partner was someone known. Mm-hmm. And I was his or her husband or wife. Because we might be either men Or woman in our lives. And, At a,particular moment, six years ago, I discovered this past identity, being the great classical composer Tchaikovsky.

So being Pyotr Ilyich, my book comes from,his, name because his name was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. And at that moment, [00:07:00] my life completely changed because, while going, through my own therapy sessions. I felt,that everything was so intense and so, interesting that there are so many revelations that I had that,I felt to some extent, an almost sacred duty to pass this book on.

Why? Because, When you are under regression,during the healing moment, because I must,tell for our audience that when you do a regression therapy in the first part of it, you are seeing the story itself. You are navigating through the most important moments. You are exploring what happened in that lifetime, who are the main important characters, let's say.

The persons around you, the most important things that happened to you, the traumas, and so on. But exploring the story itself is only one part of a [00:08:00] regression session, and I would say that it's not the most important one from my own point of view. What's even more fascinating from my own point of view is.

And the healing part. Thank you. Where under the guidance of the therapist, you start. To see and to understand not only what happened, but why it happened. Mm-hmm. And I think that this why is the most important thing, because you want to understand why you had to pass through this or that experience.

Mm-hmm. Why you had. to pass through that terrible trauma. Who are the persons around you, and especially what are the important connections with this current lifetime? 

it's fascinating what you find out about these connections between lives, about,the script behind a life, the life mission and so on. And I thought that I was receiving, Such great answers, which were almost all of them revelations, [00:09:00] And so great truths and Tchaikovsky's story is very intense, and a very rich one.

Because,you implicitly going through his life story, I would say that you touch the most important or some of the most important topics that, Are, in all of our lives, I would say that characterize all our lives. and I will give you some examples. So, you touch the inner child problem, which is very much debated nowadays.

the fear of abandonment, the way, a person creates emotional and behavior patterns, which we repeat,times and times on end. Up to the moment when we become conscious about it and we start working On these behavior patterns in order to change them. the depression, the relationship with the divine, the relationship with your higher self.

the problem of finding your, or understanding your life mission. the problem of finding your love and your, partner [00:10:00] in life impossible loves, karma or destiny, what we inherit from our members of the family, whether we are conscious or not about it.

there were a lot of topics and I felt this inner urge, to write this book. of course also thinking to the persons who, love and Appreciate my music, Tchaikovsky's music, and who would like to discover a very personal and intimate,story of his life from the soul level, 

But, mostly because no matter if someone loves or not music and Tchaikovsky, in particular, I thought that, All these topics are about any human being and any of us. So this is why I think it's, more than being, a unique kind of autobiography. it's about a spiritual book because, I'm approaching all these, topics 

might seem on the surface quite different. I think that we are much crossed [00:11:00] by the same important questions regarding the meaning of our lives and why we are here on Earth and What our life really is. So this is why I decided to publish this book. Although it was not easy at all for me to uncover my, 

Personal life so much. And, it was very difficult, but I thought that it might be of help for the others. And it's all you reconnecting with your creativity as well, right? So yes, that's part of your story, isn't it? I saw that,part of your story is about, rebuilding or redefining your creative identity after feeling like you had abandoned it.

from the early years of ballet, I am assuming. So I understood very well that, when I was, for example, in the.

State and I felt that I was in the right professional field, but not in the right position. it was Tchaikovsky who remembered me that,I was in the world, where he felt at home and at ease, in, the performing arts. this is why I, studied ballet and I also promoted ballet, [00:12:00] and I wrote a book about promoting ballet.

I worked so many years and I'm still working, with artists and musicians promoting classical music. So I was always attracted by this field, but I didn't feel I. Had, that creative input that he had. And I felt this need to express myself in a completely different way 

Than I was doing it. And this is how I, arrived to, writing, books about this topic. So do you think that maybe the creative,start that you had to life wasn't, The right fit, and that's why you abandoned it, in your words. So, why do you think that we do abandon creativity?

And then often realized later on that it's actually a big part of kind of the missing piece. in my case it was because. each of us has,the greatest fear which defines [00:13:00] I think the mankind, which is the fear of the unknown.

we are always afraid of changing. Anything in our lives. and we would prefer to continue anything which is even dysfunctional, but we know it already. So, this also applies, not only to the current life, but to all our lives. So if you practice a particular. Art and you had a particular,professional path in one lifetime, your soul will tend to continue it because it's easier because he already knows that feeling and he feels like being at home in that particular professional field.

And that was exactly what I was doing. I was attracted by the same,kind of professional path. And the, same kind of, let's. Say at working atmosphere like in my previous life. But. Sometimes you,it's really good for your spirit to keep on, [00:14:00] going on the same path. And sometimes, your higher self, your spirit,prefers to,evolve and to change be the things.

And this is when. Feel that you love something, but there is something else that you must also do. Do you feel some kind of inner calling? And it's not easy because for your spirit it's easier to remain in what you already know. And so I felt that in ballet I was,at home, but I was not,evolving as much as I wanted.

Because for you as an artist, it's very easy to understand that ballet, especially classical ballet, which I was practicing, is something wonderful and, very elegant and etheric and so on. But it's a very mimetic art. So, for a hundred of years on Earth ballet keeps repeating itself, classical [00:15:00] ballet.

All the dancers, learn exactly what the others, did in previous stagings of the same ballet. Of course, there are choreographers who, try to imagine new, versions of the same ballet, but all in all, it's a mimatic art and I. Felt, although at the time I was a teenager and I couldn't analyze myself as I'm doing today.

Yeah. But there was an intuition. There was a feeling in myself that I was not the kind of person to imitate someone all my life. and I was right because I'm not that kind of person at all. And I think that it was better because otherwise, if I had discovered this at 25 years old, it would have been more difficult to change, direction.

And, so sometimes there are people who must continue on their professional, artistic path. sometimes there are people who, must change that direction Towards other art or completely other field. In my case, what [00:16:00] I discovered about myself as a spirit, because nowadays I'm not perceiving my past lives as, something completely different, but rather I'm perceiving my whole history, 

And, that's how I understood that as a spirit.

during this 35 past lives, I discovered only two kind of professional paths. Either I am an artist and I also tried, painting, sculpture, Anything that was connected with art. or I have a spiritual life. I had a lot of lives when I was. A monk or a priest.

I was a Buddhist in the Himalayas. I was a Catholic, monk. I was an Orthodox monk. I was Muslim, I was Jew. I had so many lives connected with religion and with spirituality. And I think that to some extent my current life, intertwines arts and spirituality. Yes. that's pretty cool.

Yeah. but speaking about your own,path and your podcast and your question, I think that. [00:17:00] No matter a person life story, what's important is to speak your truth. it really doesn't matter if you are painting, dancing, or creating music or writing books and so on. 

 I think that it's important to, to live in truth and to, let your inner calling express yourself if you feel in your intuition that you want to say something in a particular field, 

If you feel something, let yourself go. Yeah, that's it. How important do you see that following your intuition and following your truth?

as part of a healthy creative practice? Because we can still be creative without it being healthy as well. Like, how do you see that as part of a healthy, creative practice? I think that, accessing your intuition, 

Soul, your spirit, no matter how you choose to perceive this idea is crucial. It's the most important [00:18:00] thing in my opinion. because,everything that. Is in our subconscious mind,is what, conducts us in our life to some extent. because all our history, no matter if we speak about the period, between incarnations, so the afterlife life between lives or the past lives, or anything that is connected with your current life, from your childhood, 

The teams and so on is stored there in your subconscious mind, and when you use your intuition, you access it. And I think that, this is your richest,treasure. all your experience, all your history, everything that you have ever felt and lived is your inner treasure. So you using it in order to express yourself as an artist is the most important thing in my own opinion.

but for this, you must let yourself free to express [00:19:00] yourself. I was thinking this morning, interesting idea, when approaching, this interview that we are doing that. You know, life on Earth unfortunately is characterized so frequently by suffering in so many ways.

there are so many sorrows, Which we feel each lifetime. And, I think that you reach a certain point in your human evolution And I really felt it on myself. So I'm speaking about my experience, wanting to make. all the women listening to us, really struggle for the same, objective.

That one day you really reach a point when you might transform,all these sorrows into, your, elegance into your way of defining your presence into the world. Because to some extent,that. Sorrow can one day turn you into a very noble spirit if you [00:20:00] know how to elegantly surpass it and, to raise beyond the statue of being a victim.

and integrating everything that you lived with so much elegance and dignity, that especially as a woman, this might give you an astonishing. Spiritual elegance. And when I read about yourself and I saw your paintings, this exactly what I felt that you transmitted it's like a chemistry.

A reaction that you catalyze and transmitted anything,on an upper vibration. Into art. and I think this is something very important, and these are not mere words, it's something that I really lived as a practical experience to some extent. I felt at a particular moment in my. Current life that all the traumas that I had behind,in the end enriched me.

Although at the moment, of [00:21:00] course, when I was leaving my traumas as Tchaikovsky or of course, that it wasn't pleasant at all to leave that traumas. But nowadays I reached the conclusion that one day you. Might transform all your suffering into spiritual experience and, a very nice way of becoming mature and an evolved spirit.

So, you know, on that note then, what do you think it really means to allow your creative practice, your spiritual practice to really meet you in your current life season? Rather than what you think it should look like, you know, or what everyone else wants it to look like.

I think that,you must. First of all, to make peace with yourself. and if you don't struggle anymore to see somebody, not to really be yourself. and if one day you,arrive at the point of. letting [00:22:00] go all the things which are superficial in your life and which really don't represent yourself.

Then implicitly you connect to your own authentic voice. and then the ideas. Will start to come towards you. You will either feel a calling for doing a particular course, on painting, on, writing, creative writing, and so on. Or you will meet all of a sudden a person in your life.

I really noticed that when you open within yourself The things in the real life around yourself start to move. And, all of a sudden. There are pieces of information, a newsletter, a friend, a call, or a poster that you are seeing in the street about a course which happens around you that you have never seen before, but that really start to change slowly your life.

So things are coming towards you if you are [00:23:00] really opening yourself from within. Beautiful. I also, when I was preparing for the interview, I saw something about that. You talked about creativity being a bridge between, where we are now and spiritual growth, ultimately spiritual awakening.

Can you tell us a bit about how you see that bridge supporting us as we lean into our spirituality more? Yes, of course. So when I was,Tchaikovsky, I felt a very fascinating thing, which I didn't perceive before, of course, that when he was composing. It was, the process itself of composing was a mixture between what was in, let's say, his conscious mind.

And in his soul and what came from the world beyond. sometimes I felt that,I was [00:24:00] simply. Hearing music coming out of myself, I didn't know very well out of where it came. but I simply was perceiving, let's say, while walking into nature or, while, because I was an extensive traveler for the 19th century.

And I, I, walked, a lot. Either,in nature or in, important cities of Europe. And I was,frequently alone strolling and while being alone and watching nature buildings and so on, I felt that each. Place and each being, emanated a kind of sound. like I would say today that anything had a specific energy or vibration.

at the time I didn't have this,concepts of energy or vibration, but I felt that everything had. Like you would say in your own terms, anything had a color on, once a [00:25:00] specific nuance and everything, I was perceiving, emitted this nuance and my feelings. My inner state also made me to perceive my feelings,in, let's say with their own specific seniority.

As let's say sorrow would be,a specific kind of sound. the state of happiness, another kind of sound. Okay. And so I was perceiving the whole world as being a mixture of harmonies. And so composing, I thought was part coming of myself and part coming from the universe. From the divine, from outside myself.

And I, this is why I always thought that it was a mixture of. Composing myself from my own hand and, and a kind of divine inspiration. I don't know if this came rather from you, what you would nowadays [00:26:00] call my higher self. Or from the divine itself, but it, what's really important is that it came from a higher consciousness beyond this,terrestrial level.

I felt that, Letting myself perceive all this and letting myself free to express,through my music. Everything that I was perceiving made me, I don't know how to put it in words, made me to some extent the kind of spiritual gate I felt myself a being through which this.

divine or spiritual energy poured. And I let all my heart express everything that I was feeling inside myself and perceiving from outside. And I know that this might sound very abstract and a bit complicated, but. I understood that when we are in this process of creation, we [00:27:00] might open our heart and our mind 

Levels of understanding and towards,other dimensions that we usually don't perceive as human beings if we don't have special, natural gifts. So in this way, I think that creativity may open for any of us a gate. Towards the spiritual world. towards a world which is higher.

And, I think that implicitly this brings to any artist,a gate to spiritual evolution. And yeah, so Our creative evolution is linked to our spiritual evolution. Would you agree with that? Yes, yes. I strongly agree with that. So, is a creative practice also a spiritual practice?

Yes, of course. And I would say that it's even a healing practice. because, while creating, you really let [00:28:00] yourself express anything that you might not have expressed other ways. so I think that it's a way sometimes to unburden yourself.

This is why sometimes,art doesn't look beautifully from an aesthetic point of view, because we are also releasing our fears, our frustrations, yes. And so on. But,To be honest, I think a lot of artists will hate me, when I will uncover this truth.

 I think that artists are never creating for their audiences. I think that the artists. creation comes from an inner urge of the artist to express something.

And then if there are audiences interested in perceiving and in interacting with this or that. form of art, it might bring them a lot of, joy or a lot of intense experience. Interesting. For their own evolution. Mm-hmm. But I don't think that, the starting point, let's say, of an artistic creation, you have this idea of I want to [00:29:00] create something for my audiences.

No. Because it won't be authentic. But I think you can also have success with it and continue to. Keep making the same thing over and over, over and over again. it was originally this beautiful divine kind of inspired thing, and then all of a sudden you're burning out creatively or you don't like doing it anymore because, it's part of that following the divine guidance that you could sort of explain so beautifully before.

so for all the women who are curious about using their creative practice to step into a more empowered and fulfilling future, what powerful message or question would you like to leave them with today? I think that I would like all the people who are listening to us to ask themselves what I was telling earlier.

Are you really living in truth? So are you really authentic? Because,what I'm also [00:30:00] approaching in my podcast time traveling where I, debate on all the topics discussed in the book is the fact that, We are born in specific families, and even if our parents or our siblings or our grandparents and so on,don't tell us, listen, you should do this or that in this particular way.

when we are little, we learn a lot. Simply through imitation. So if we see people around us doing some things and,performing some things in a particular way, or behaving and or speaking in a particular way we tend implicitly, imitating them without being conscious about it.

Sure. And, we do the same with society because, when we, go to school and later when, we start working and so on, we don't realize that the society tends to tell us that things should be done in this way and only in this way and so on. [00:31:00] And,so slowly if you are not a very, let's. Say strong character.

Mm-hmm. You start to do and to think and to act in a lot of ways, which really don't represent yourself. So, I think it's very important,to take some small, breaks. And I'm suggesting to people to choose one day of the week and, each half an hour to stop and to analyze their actions and, their behavior and also the way they speak and to ask themselves, is this really what.

I'm thinking what I would like to do. Or it's something that I have seen to my mother or it's something that, I heard from my brother and, thus he will start noticing that. quite frequently,we really took for granted some things. And, you should slowly try to, decide,on a conscious level what you really want to keep and what you really want to change.

Because I [00:32:00] don't want to say that anything that influenced us is not good. There are a lot of things which really help us, but there are a lot of things which really don't represent us. So you should always try to be, yourself as authentic as possible. And this starts with a short inner analysis.

And I think that's the most important thing for a human being and for an artist too. So how can people get to know you better, Chris, and get a real feel for the work that you're doing? So it's my author website, chris nielsen books.com. where they can learn about my book, about my podcast, and they can also join me on social media.

And of course, that, people might also search me on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcast for my time traveling podcast, where we debate on all these topics, that we discuss, uh, today. Mm-hmm. Excellent. Thank you so much for coming and chatting with me today, Chris. Beautiful talking to you. Thank you so much.

It was an honor, and I wish you all the best [00:33:00] and we are looking forward to seeing your new paintings all the time. They're so nice. Thank you, Chris. Thank you.