10 Healing Hobbies That Helped Me Survive Trauma

Because healing isn’t always found in therapy rooms, sometimes, it blooms in backyards, sketchbooks, and silence.

Trauma changed me in a fundamental way that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t survived something life-altering. Now it wasn’t overnight and all at once, but slowly, like fog creeping into a familiar room until you can only make out the outline of what your life used to be.

It rearranged the furniture in my brain, dulled the light in my chest, and left me wondering if I’d ever feel at home in my body again. Yet…here I am.

Not because I “got over it,” but because I found ways to live beside it and stop fighting the inevitable as my brain did its best to help me cope with everything. I stitched peace back into my days using threads made of crazy colors, soil under my fingernails, routines that felt right in my soul, and patience. I didn’t know these were hobbies when I began, I only knew they helped.

This is a list of practices that held me when I couldn’t hold myself. Maybe they’ll meet you where you are, too.

1. Watercolor Painting

Because healing, like water, absolutely does its best to resist control.

Watercolor taught me what therapy sometimes couldn’t: how to release. Unlike acrylics or oils, it doesn’t obey where you want it to go nicely. It flows where it wants, bleeds across paper like emotion bubbling up a little too close to the surface at the most inconvenient time. There were some days I just mixed the paint and didn’t even use it, brush completely untouched in my hand. That was enough oddly.

I painted when I didn’t have words to use to explain the swirling in my mind. I painted skies I wished I could live under or places I wished I could visit. I painted pain when I couldn’t think of anywhere I wanted to be, blue and jagged, then soft and transparent. Somehow, in the smudges and spills, I started seeing myself. I wasn’t good at it, but that wasn’t really the point for me (that image below is what I wish I could paint, but my own weren’t good enough to show you).

Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolor Set – Beginner-friendly, compact, and forgiving…like all good healing tools.

2. Gardening

Because I needed to remember that life still grows from dark places.

My hands first touched soil when I could barely get out of bed. I wasn’t thinking about healing, I was just trying to keep a basil plant alive that I had planted too close to my tomatoes and it was being crowded. Day after day, I checked on it and watered it. I would whisper apologies when I forgot to take care of it, and still, it grew.

Soon, I had mint and tomatoes in a hydroponic system, strawberries in my front yard. My kitchen filled with the scent of living things for the first time in my life. I watched leaves unfurl like trust coming back to life and flowers opening like lungs breathing for the first time in too long. My grief didn’t go away…but it had company.

Start here: Indoor Herb Garden Starter Kit

Related Read: Hydroponic Tomatoes

3. Hiking

I needed to move forward, even when I didn’t know where I was going. The physical act of walking made me feel more grounded, even thought I wasn’t doing anything more than walking short trails.

Nature doesn’t care what you’ve survived not even a little, in fact, all the things you find in nature survived something hard. The trees don’t ask questions and the trail doesn’t judge you. In the forest, I could cry without apologizing or feeling like I made someone uncomfortable. I could rage without consequence, and in between the dirt and the sky, I began to feel human again.

Some days I walked fast, while other days, I just sat on a rock and breathed. I learned the names of birds and watched mushrooms appear after rain. My mind slowed to match the pace of moss.

4. Journaling

The page listens without flinching, and words are the best paint I’ve ever encountered. I’m not good at painting even though I loved to watercolor, I’ve never really been artistically inclined even though I desperately wanted to be my whole life. Words though…those are something I can bring to life.

There were things I couldn’t tell anyone after my trauma, not even myself, at first. But a blank journal doesn’t look away, and I filled mine with rage, gratitude, with poems that didn’t rhyme. I wrote to the version of me that hadn’t yet been hurt…and she wrote back. I wrote all the things that I needed to say, but were inappropriate to say to another person.

Journaling didn’t “fix” me, but it helped me witness myself. Sometimes, being seen (even by ink) is enough.

Trusty tool: Leuchtturm1917 A5 Dotted Journal

Related Read: Trauma Surviving

5. Cooking

Nourishing myself became an act of rebellion when everyone around me told me to just eat whatever I craved. Before my trauma I was a firm salad-twice-a-day-gal. I enjoyed vegetables and counting my calories.

For a while, I forgot how to eat. Food lost its color, its comfort was gone. My doctors were desperate to see me eat anything, so they encouraged me to eat junk food as I craved it. I couldn’t not recommend this enough in hindsight, by the way. When your body and mind are both going through something terrible, it desperately needs ingredients that are actually good for it, not cheese fries twice a day. Eventually though, dish by dish, I came back to my senses. I started with soup and moved my way to roasted carrots and artichokes. Tea became my anchor every day, with the variety of flavors being what I looked forward to as I stopped consuming alcohol.

Cooking became meditative to me again. The rhythm of chopping, the perfume of garlic…each step returned me to the present moment. I wasn’t eating for survival anymore, I was eating to care for myself.

Make it lovely: Our Place Always Pan

6. Playing Sounds

Some emotions are louder than language, and some healing happens in tones without words.

For a long time, I couldn’t listen to music, and honestly, four years later, I really don’t anymore. The lyrics cut too close sometimes, other times they said too much. Gunshot noises are in so many songs, or even worse…they said exactly what I couldn’t.

So I turned to sound, not song.

Whale calls and wind chimes became my grounding tools. Tibetan singing bowls humming low against the bones of my body. These were the frequencies that didn’t ask questions or shout out violence, they just were. Vibrations that moved through me when nothing else could made me feel at ease in a way nothing else could.

I would lay on the floor with headphones on, letting the resonance of gongs and bowls wash over my chest like waves. The ache didn’t vanish, but it softened, some days it stopped screaming. In that hush, I could feel myself existing again.

Try this Tibetan Singing Bowl Set – A healing tone that bypasses logic and speaks straight to the nervous system.

7. Reading

Stories became a sanctuary, and I grabbed onto words again as a life raft, even ones written by someone else.

There were days I couldn’t connect to my own life, so I borrowed someone else’s. Fiction offered escape from this world entirely and memoirs offered understanding. Poetry offered grace and elegance that showed me the true depth of beauty words could call upon.

I curled up with books the way you’d curl up in someone’s lap. I re-read favorite lines until they became mantras. I learned how to hope again, one chapter at a time.

Night reader’s friend: Rechargeable Book Light

8. Archery

I needed something to aim at, even if it wasn’t a target.

There’s something actually magical about pulling back a bowstring. The inhale, the tension, then the release. I started archery to find stillness in the draw, not to become the world’s best archer.

Every shot asked for my presence, my focus, and my breath. There was no room for spiraling thoughts when my hands were steadying a bow. I didn’t need to be strong. I just needed to align my posture, my energy, and my intention.

Some days I missed completely and never hit the target once. Other days, the arrow landed true and I felt like one of those heroines in the fantasy romance books I adore. Either way, I walked away a little taller.

Recommended: Takedown Recurve Bow Set – Smooth, quiet, and beginner-friendly with just enough weight to remind you you’re alive.

Related Read: Why I Took Up Archery

9. HIIT Classes at F45

I had to sweat out the static and keep my body moving on days I really didn’t want to.

Trauma left my body charged, like I was always bracing for impact. I needed a place to move with purpose, somewhere I could burn off adrenaline and remind myself what strength felt like. I was devastated when LA Fitness stopped their HIIT program, because honestly, it was the best workout I had ever had. I had to find somewhere else though, so F45 was an okay enough alternative.

F45 became that place in short bursts with loud music and timed stations. I didn’t need to think much, just move, which was good especially because it was early in the morning. In that movement, I found release as rage turned into reps and grief dripped into sweat. I left each class breathless, yes, but also lighter.

I didn’t go to compete, I went to reclaim, to feel powerful again, even for just 45 minutes.

10. Stargazing

The truth about life a lot of people don’t like is that sometimes you need to feel small to feel safe.

Looking up saved me. It reminded me that my problems, while absolutely and 100% valid, weren’t the whole universe. That stars explode and still shine, and that the same atoms in galaxies swirl in me. My now husband and I went to visit some dark parks in PA and other states so I could get my fill of chasing the stars.

I started learning constellations and tracking moon phases. I would make wishes, even when I didn’t believe in them.

See further: Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ Telescope

You Don’t Need to Master These.

You just need to try.

You don’t need to be good at painting. Or take perfect photos. You don’t need to write beautifully. Or hike far.

You just need something that brings breath into your body. Something that makes the morning a little more bearable. A little more yours.

Healing isn’t a straight line. It’s a mosaic. Some pieces are colorful. Some are sharp. But each one has its place.

These ten hobbies helped me find mine.

They reminded me that trauma didn’t end me. It broke me open…and from that opening, new things grew.

Disclaimer: This post shares personal experiences and coping strategies. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. If you are struggling, please seek support from a licensed therapist, counselor, or crisis line.