21/07/2025
YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO EXSIST! SO YOU BUILT A CREATIVE BUSINESS INSTEAD.
There’s something paradoxically hopeful about the psychological injunction known in Transactional Analysis as “Don’t Exist.”
It sounds bleak at first glance, and it is experienced that way for many.
But when we bring this unconscious message into the light, especially in the lives of highly creative people and entrepreneurs, something quietly powerful begins to happen.
Much like Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, awareness of our deepest psychological fractures opens the way for transformation. In Kintsugi, the break is not hidden. It’s not shameful. It becomes a feature, a form of beauty, a history to be honoured.
The “Don’t Exist” Wound
Injunctive messages like “Don’t Exist” are not spoken aloud in words.
They are absorbed by a child in moments when their presence feels like “too much”, too noisy, too needy, too different, too inconvenient. It’s a message that says, “The world would be easier if you weren’t here.” In therapist training, we are brought to the understanding that a “don’t exist” can look like self-destructive behaviour through extreme acts of risk-taking or the subtle act of smoking.
I would propose that a hidden consequence is the desire to create.
This message can be devastating for highly creative individuals, especially those who feel deeply and perceive the world in layered, nuanced ways. Yet, these individuals often grow into visionary founders, artists, and builders of worlds. The drive to create becomes more than passion; it becomes survival.
Creativity as a Survival Response.
I’ve repeatedly seen this in therapy and coaching: that unmistakable urgency in creatives and entrepreneurs to generate meaning, change, and value.
This isn’t just about ego or ambition. It’s about staying alive and rebelling against this predetermined life sentence.
When someone has internalised a “Don’t Exist” injunction, creation becomes an act of defiance. If I build something beautiful, maybe I’ll have a place here.
If I contribute something meaningful, perhaps I’ll earn my right to exist. It can drive innovation. It can build movements. It can also burn someone out from the inside.
But when we slow down enough to see the source and feel the roots of that injunction rather than act on it, something profound begins to shift.
From Destruction to Creation.
Witnessing someone’s “Don’t Exist” existential wound is to walk through discomfort together. It’s not clean. It’s not easy. There’s grief. There’s rage. There’s often a long history of being misunderstood, unseen, or praised only for productivity rather than presence.
But the process begins to reverse when that pain is seen, held, and metabolised.
Creation is no longer an escape from the wound. It becomes a continuation of healing and a way to make gold of the cracks.
Kintsugi doesn’t erase the break. It honours it. And so does this deeper creative process.
The Gold in the Fracture
If you feel like your need to create is more than desire, if it feels essential, almost existential, you’re not alone.
There is optimism in naming that. There is healing in acknowledging that this drive may have started in a place of fracture, but it doesn’t have to stay there.
As therapists, coaches, founders, and fellow creatives, we can start to recognise the artistry in our scars, not just for ourselves but also for the people we serve and lead.
We can stop trying to prove our existence and start creating from a place that says: I exist. I matter. And what I create does, too.
Existing is a human right, every breath, every mistake and every idea.
If you’re exploring the intersection of personal development and creativity or navigating the tension between survival and expression, I’d love to hear your reflections below.
