What if chronic back pain isn’t just muscular but a message from a nervous system stuck on high alert? We take you from the hard edges of trauma science to the warm heart of creative recovery, mapping how the body learns safety and how purpose turns healing into momentum.We start with a clear distinction every clinician needs: acute stress that ends versus chronic psychosocial stress that never lets up. Using polyvagal theory, we chart the three autonomic states—ventral engagement, sympathetic mobilisation, and dorsal shutdown—and show how they shape attention, memory, and agency. You’ll hear how neurosception and interoception become scrambled under constant threat, why talk alone rarely resolves traumatic stress, and how a simple vagal technique behind the earlobe can cue rest-and-digest physiology. We unpack the link between sympathetic overdrive and somalgia, reframing stubborn back pain as a nervous system problem that requires safety signals, not just stronger stretches.Then we shift from map to meaning with Tony Gee’s remarkable path. Early loss set the stage, radical education stoked his drive, and sustained hostility forced a pivot that changed everything. Guided by the James Hillman idea of the inner daimón, Tony found in puppetry not a destination but a vehicle: a way to connect, to mobilise communities, and to turn private wounds into public art. Twice setting Guinness World Records for community spectacle, he shows how creation restores agency and why the workshop itself can be the cure. Along the way we link Erikson’s generativity to modern practice, arguing that the arc of healing reaches its peak when recovered energy is given to others through mentorship, craft, and care.If you work with trauma, you’ll leave with a practical framework to read autonomic states, a concrete vagal regulation tool you can use today, and a renewed sense of why meaning matters as much as technique. If you’re healing, you’ll hear a path that honours your body’s alarms and your gifts in equal measure. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who needs fresh clinical insight, and leave a review telling us: what creative practice helps your nervous system feel safe?

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