Creative Rituals - Featuring Dr. Janina Scarlet

Happy Saturday! Welcome to my weekly Substack feature on creatives and their rituals. This is an opportunity for creatives to talk about how they start their creative day, as well as give you more insight into their work. It’s a perfect opportunity to demystify the creative experience, and maybe even inspire!

Dr. Janina Scarlet - Author and Clinical Psychologist

Today’s guest creative is author and clinical psychologist, Dr. Janina Scarlet! I happen to know Janina personally and she is a wonderful person and has so much love and knowledge to give. You’ll be amazed by her incredible life history and perseverance too.

What Do You Do to Start Your Creative Day?

I start with a nice cup of coffee and a few minutes of silent intention setting, either on my patio or on the couch next to my cats, who insist on being petted and included in my morning rituals. Then, I usually write my morning pages and then write a few pages of my draft, usually on my Remarkable tablet, because it allows me to write by hand and the transcribes what I wrote into a document I can edit later.

Creator Bio

Dr. Janina Scarlet is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, author, and a TEDx speaker. A Ukrainian-born refugee, she survived Chernobyl radiation and persecution. She immigrated to the United States at the age of 12 with her family and later, inspired by the X-Men, developed Superhero Therapy to help patients with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Dr. Scarlet is the recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award by the United Nations Association for her work on Superhero Therapy.  Her work has been featured on Yahoo, BBC, NPR, Sunday Times, The New York Times, Forbes, and many other outlets. She regularly consults on books and television shows, including HBO’s The Young Justice. She was also interviewed for Marvel’s MPower series and was portrayed as a comic book character in Gail Simone’s Seven Days graphic novel. Dr. Scarlet is the Lead Trauma Specialist at the Trauma and PTSD Healing Center.

She authored twelve books and has written chapters for seventeen others. Her books include Superhero Therapy, Harry Potter Therapy, Dark Agents, Super-Women, It Shouldn’t Be This Way, Unseen, Unheard, Undervalued, and many others.

Social media links: Threads, Facebook, Instagram, and website.

More from Janina Scarlet

Have you ever felt like you're shouting into the void for someone to just see you and to acknowledge that you exist, that you have value, that you are loved?

That feeling-like no one can really see who you are, like no one really gets it, that's loneliness. The truth is everyone feels lonely. It is a universal emotion, one we all experience at one point or another, but we have also been made to feel ashamed, oppressed and stigmatised about experiencing it.

Being seen means that someone notices you and includes you. Being heard means to be listened to without interruption, gaslighting or invalidation, but rather with compassion and understanding. Being valued means being respected and treated with compassion and kindness. When all three of these needs are met, we experience a sense of belonging. Human beings need more than access to food, sleep and water to survive. We also need to feel that sense of belonging, understanding and support.

This book will help you reduce your shame around loneliness, to help you manage it, and to foster a sense of belonging. It will help you identify how loneliness may show up in your own life, understand how it impacts you, and help you discover some actionable steps you can take in order to feel seen, heard and valued. You deserve nothing less.

Thank you, Janina, for being a guest!

Write on!
Jendia