How Moving to New Zealand Healed Me and Made Me More Creative

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It’s about time I wrote this eulogy reciting how moving to New Zealand healed my soul and made me a more creative person.

New Zealand called me when I was seven years old and I finally heeded that call in 2017. My heart expands every day I live in this wondrous corner of the world, and I’ll have you know that I cried writing this piece.

It’s fair to say I was disenchanted by the world soon after I graduated university. A bundle of unresolved trauma and a fast-paced corporate life left my soul dehydrated, and I could sense I didn’t belong.

Though unidentified at the time, I was headed down a dark path of nihilism. My mind was an endless fountain of existential questions and for every one I couldn’t answer, anxiety spiked at the core of me. I knew I was careening toward some drastic decision. And that scared me.

Sure enough, one day, in the throes of a depression spiral… I bought a one-way ticket to New Zealand.

And below is a list of New Zealand peculiarities I thrashed and fought against, then eased into as my perception of the world changed.

How Moving to New Zealand Healed Me and Made Me More Creative

1. Slow Living

Kiwi culture functions on a value system of slow, leisurely living.

And I had just come from the US, where everyone and everything around me was in some headlong arbitrary competition. That suited me fine of course, as I had a lot to run away from. It’s no surprise to me now why I struggled with mental health. My soul was screaming and somewhere along the way I pressed the mute button.

This didn’t work in New Zealand. People weren’t willing to work as hard or as fast as me. They valued work-life balance and enjoyed their time off.

I learned quickly that rigid structure doesn’t work here. Neurotic planning and highly anxious energy doesn’t work here.

Particularly when I fell in love with a Kiwi boy, my lifestyle had to change. When I had a day planned with chores and obligations, he opted to go to the beach. And it was maddening.

I felt I was living inside a languid bubble and no matter how I strained and pushed, it refused to pick up the pace.

And you know what happens when people like me are forced to slow down? Their demons catch up with them.

I did not accept my new lifestyle with grace. It cracked me open and all my contents fell out and I screamed at the gods and at the mess of my soul.

And although it was horrid and ugly and terrifying, it was exactly what I needed. When we’re in pain, we seek what brings us comfort, old forgotten passions that often take us down creative pathways. For me, it was writing.

Days of nothing gave me great anxiety and I rekindled my writer’s craft, gushing all my angst onto paper. It was profoundly healing and I haven’t stopped since. Reuniting with my vocation gave me great joy and I shudder at the years spent without it.

Busyness kills creativity and mutes the soul. And I live in a place that forbids it.

2. Nature

Of course nature is on here. New Zealand is a stunner, from north to south.

After moving here, I was in a constant state of annoyance at the lack of big, bustling cities. In the US, my list of locations was desk, pub, and bed. And my idea of a good time was shopping, fancy hotels, and stumbling around in a drunken stupor at 3am.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love those things. But for a long time, I didn’t really “get” nature. I never noticed the sun. I didn’t care if it rained nor understood why it mattered which direction the wind blew.

My partner took me everywhere and I knew it was beautiful but I had no emotions about it.

Overtime, and coupled with slow living, my mind started to stretch. I was curious about that flickering sense of peace when I found myself dwarfed by trees or mountains.

Nature’s expansiveness made me realize that there’s a world outside this cage I built of stress and aimless ambition. I lived with chronic despair that nothing ever felt enough. But in the natural world, that plane doesn’t exist. In the natural world, we’re reminded that we’re small and all the things we’re trying to “climb” are an illusion.

No matter how I tortured myself with fabricated problems, the mountain still stood, the trees swayed, and water carved pathways into the earth. This was huge for me. I learned to carry nature with me and called on its stillness when life disguised itself as complicated.

Most importantly, I found answers to my existential questions.

We’re alive to grow, enjoy the weather, and maintain balance within our ecosystem.

Clearing the mind did wonders for my creativity and I ache for nature constantly now.

I want my feet in rivers and my skin tasting of salt. I want to feel inconsequential at the base of a mountain. And I still want to stumble drunk… but on empty beaches with milky moonlight shimmering on the sea.

3. Humanity in Government and National Initiatives 

This may seem like an odd one, but bear with me. I say this all the time: I have a lot of angst about the world. I work in Government, follow politics closely, and know what I stand for.

And doing that in the States was… exhausting. Disclaimer that I love the US very much. My family still live there and it will always be my second home. But the polarizing nature of its politics is a plague. It seems to me “the best country in the world” doesn’t realize its progress has been halted by broken systems.

Corruption goes unchecked and I lived there in a cloud of cynicism, aching for racial, gender, and climate justice.

When I moved to New Zealand, I realized how the US has lagged behind.

National initiatives for conservation impressed me, and this is now one of my biggest values as deduced from the section above. And the mere acceptance that there is systemic bias against the Māori, New Zealand’s indigineous people, has put the country on a path toward national healing. That’s something the USA still hasn’t managed to do.

Of great import to me, mental health has been prioritised by the New Zealand Government. And during the COVID-19 crisis, I watched our leader say “We’re a team of 5 million”, and yes that healed me. It eased the cynicism in my soul, sparked a candle of hope.

When people find common ground, they’re invigorated to participate in their communities toward positive change.

I experienced this in my professional life, when my work saw communities united after the Christchurch mosque shootings and White Island volcanic eruption.

True happiness is found when we contribute to society’s betterment. New Zealand is small enough that it’s not hard make a difference, and finding creative solutions which led to healed communities was more moving than I ever could’ve imagined.

4. Entrepreneurship

The entrepreneurship culture in New Zealand is rampant. A simple stroll down the street will showcase adoration for small family-run businesses. For someone who loves supporting her local community, the lack of big corporations is a breath of fresh air.

And it changed everything. 

As the saying goes, “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. I went from having zero access to entrepreneurs to being engulfed by creatives running their own business.

This change was a slow-burn and I resisted it for a long time. Having been raised under a corporate lifestyle, I had a head full of lies and they made all my decisions. Work, because it’s what you’re alive for. Climb the corporate ladder. Make more money. It’s the only thing that matters.

I considered entrepreneurship in the past but waved it off as a fairy tale. My spirit wilted, dismissing my dream of becoming a writer, of traveling the world.

But meeting other entrepreneurs was surreal. These weren’t privileged socialites with a specific set of skills, as I previously thought this was the type of character who started a business. They were ordinary folk who called expertly on their creativity and discipline.

My partner, an entrepreneur himself, told me that all the resources we need are at our fingertips and the key to achieving our dreams is simple: persistence.

He was patient with me, bless his soul. And the more my longing grew, the closer I circled to yet another drastic decision. Until one day, I jumped.

And here I am, writing into a blog.

Through writing, I get to be creative every day. I write as a way to cope with the light and dark of my soul, and to make others feel less alone. I write because it’s the only thing I can control in a universe of vitriol.

Through writing, I’m learning what it is to be happy because it’s not something I’ve been taught. And because of my new little business, I seek life so I have something to write about. 

I run naked into ocean waves, sleep under canopies, and rage about the world with beautiful friends. Finally safe and dreaming out loud in New Zealand, I re-acquaint myself with my unmuted soul.

Today’s Tunes: Saturn by Sleeping At Last

How Moving to New Zealand Healed Me and Made Me More Creative