SURVIVAL NOTES: Channeling Creativity as a Healing Practice
In this episode of Survival Notes, Jonathan Murphy, PMHNP explores the intersection of creativity and adversity, sharing insights on how spontaneous creative expression can serve as a powerful healing tool. Learn how consistent creative practice can help you process emotions rather than internalizing them.
Key topics covered:
Whether you're naturally creative or looking to develop this skill, this episode offers practical guidance for using creativity as a path toward healing and authenticity.
For more insights on habit formation, CPTSD, boundaries, and other topics, visit myfocuspath.blog.
In this deeply personal episode, psychiatric nurse practitioner Jonathan Murphy explores the paradox of creativity - how we turn something meant to be joyful into a painful exercise in perfectionism. Drawing from his own journey with ADHD, multiple sclerosis, and creative blocks, Jonathan shares how releasing the need for perfection transformed his relationship with creativity, leading to a surge of songwriting and renewed energy. He reflects on the childlike wonder we once brought to creative endeavors before perfectionism took hold, and invites listeners to reconnect with the simple joy of creating without judgment.
This episode offers insights on:
Whether you're battling creative blocks or looking to reconnect with your innate creative spirit, this episode reminds us that the most powerful creative act is simply beginning.
📚 Ready to transform your relationship with your brain? Discover more insights in Jonathan's book "CHEAT CODES: How I Hacked My ADHD Brain" - available now on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Learn the practical strategies that helped Jonathan overcome executive dysfunction and unlock his creative potential. Get your copy today!
★ Support this podcast ★Jon breaks down the relationship between creativity and healing, sharing his personal breakthrough with daily songwriting and how he uses AI as a tool—not a replacement—for creative work. Plus the ADHD cheat code you need to hear: the things that are good for you are probably hard for other people, and vice versa. Learn how to externalize emotions through creativity, reduce friction in your creative process, and why your lived experience is your greatest asset in the creator economy. Warning: don't let technology turn your brain off when you should be thinking.
Links & Resources: 📚 Get Jon's book "Cheat Codes: How I Hacked My ADHD Brain": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FMJLQKBW?ref_=ast_author_mpb
👤 Follow Jon's author page: https://amazon.com/author/myfocuspath
🎥 Quick ADHD tips: @adhdquickwins on TikTok
📝 Read more at Focus Path blog: myfocuspath.blog
Jon reflects on becoming a published author with his first book "Cheat Codes: How I Hacked My ADHD Brain" and the deeper realization that sparked the writing. From sitting across from ADHD patients and finally recognizing his own struggles, to understanding that medication is just the beginning—not the solution. This episode explores the shame-soaked reality of ADHD, the power of writing your survival story, and why having empathy after surviving dysfunction makes us "the lucky ones." Plus thoughts on navigating social media algorithms, choosing your community, and responding rather than reacting to the world around us.
Links & Resources: 📚 Get "Cheat Codes: How I Hacked My ADHD Brain": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FMJLQKBW?ref_=ast_author_mpb
👤 Follow Jon's author page: https://amazon.com/author/myfocuspath
🎥 Quick ADHD tips: @adhdquickwins on TikTok 📝 Read more at Focus Path blog: myfocuspath.blog
Title: "The Scapegoat's Story: Why Being the Family Outcast Saved My Life"
Description:
This is raw, unfiltered, and real. Jon Murphy shares an excerpt from his memoir and opens up about being the family scapegoat - the outcast, the "weird one," the truth-teller who couldn't fit into toxic family dynamics.
In this deeply personal episode, you'll hear about:
• What it's really like growing up as the scapegoat child • How being "different" became a survival advantage
• The journey from $10/hour psych tech to psychiatric nurse practitioner • Why no contact was necessary and what came after • Finding your "pack of weirdos" and true belonging • The creative process of writing your survivor story • Turning unworthiness into purpose
This episode is for the outcasts, the misunderstood, the ones who were told they were "too much" or "not enough." Your story matters. Your truth matters. What you feel matters.
Jon gets vulnerable about toxic family dynamics, the voice that tells you "don't think you're a good person," and how being pushed to the periphery actually gave him the clarity to see systems for what they really are.
Raw memoir excerpts, clinical insights, and real talk about healing - this is Survival Notes at its most authentic.
★ Support this podcast ★Jon emerges from months of creative hyperfocus to give a raw update on where he's been and where Survival Notes is heading. After building out the entire Focus Path/Compass Point ecosystem - practice, podcasts, frameworks, content systems - he's finally ready to get into a real production groove.
This episode is pure stream-of-consciousness processing: MS soft disclosure, the "allergy to toxic people," why he had to live in two worlds for so long, and what happens when you try to share genuine excitement with people who can't handle it.
No script, just Jon turning on the mic after a marathon creative building phase to say: I'm still here, the work is deeper now, and Survival Notes is about to get way more intimate.
"When the going's good, the going's good."
★ Support this podcast ★In this episode of Survival Notes, Jon Murphy, PMHNP, shares a raw, reflective update on his professional evolution, creative awakening, and how lived experience informs his clinical work. From the early days at a psych hospital to founding the Compass Point Institute, Jon explores themes of burnout, system navigation, incremental change, and healing from narcissistic abuse. Ideal for clinicians, creators, and anyone balancing personal growth with professional purpose. Hosted on the CPI Podcast Network at cpipodcasts.transistor.fm.
★ Support this podcast ★In this episode, I step outside the survival mode framework to focus on a simple truth that most of us still struggle to live by: all emotions are normal.
We talk about what that actually means in adult life, how emotional suppression shows up in high-functioning individuals, and why incongruence between what we feel and what we see can lead to internal conflict, confusion, or shutdown.
I also touch on the physiology of stress, the role of early group environments in emotional development, and the difference between emotional experience and emotional behavior.
Whether you were raised in a chaotic household or one that looked "fine" on paper, you might still be living out adaptations you didn’t choose.
🧠 Learn more at: www.myfocuspath.com
📬 Subscribe to the blog: focuspath.substack.com
🎧 Produced by Focus Path
Some people thrive in structure. Others feel like it exposes something. In this episode, I talk about two survival roles — the Operator and the Watcher — and how their nervous systems adapted to group dynamics where emotional expression wasn’t safe.
For the Operator, structure can feel threatening when it's tied to emotional vulnerability or responsibility. For the Watcher, structure can feel irrelevant — because survival meant staying invisible.
If routine, consistency, or closeness feel harder than they "should," this episode offers a deeper framework.
🧠 Learn more at www.myfocuspath.com
📬 Subscribe to the blog: focuspath.substack.com
🎧 Produced by Focus Path
This episode unpacks the nervous system logic behind the Survival Code—a clinical tool designed to identify adaptive roles we play under stress.
Today’s focus: when someone shifts from “The General” to “The Diplomat.”
💬 The General: fights for survival, sees others as threats.
💬 The Diplomat: seeks harmony, reads the room, keeps the peace.
➡️ And next? Maybe they become “The Operator”—functional, but detached.
This transition isn’t just behavioral—it’s neurological.
We talk about one patient’s shift and how understanding their mode moved therapy forward after years of failed attempts.
Therapy gets clearer when we stop labeling and start decoding.
📡 Brought to you by Focus Path
🌐 www.myfocuspath.com
Surviving vs. Thriving: Understanding the Difference
In this first episode of , explores the core difference between surviving and thriving—and why our early group dynamics and nervous system responses shape so much of adult life.
Topics discussed:
This episode introduces themes that will carry throughout the show, laying a foundation for future deep dives into trauma healing and identity.
Learn more at: https://www.myfocuspath.com
Produced by
