What happens when a creative person spends years completely shut down — unable to work, unable to feel, unable to create? For Justin Donaldson, a landscape artist who now travels the United States in a camper with his family, the answer was a long and honest journey through trauma, therapy, and transformation. Justin grew up in a cult, experienced serious abuse, and spent years pushing through life without ever being taught to process what happened to him. When he finally found financial safety, his body sent him a message he couldn’t ignore: it was time to deal with everything.
Justin’s story isn’t a traditional sobriety story. He never drank because alcohol made his body feel terrible. Instead, his path to clarity moved through cannabis to manage PTSD, and then guided therapeutic psilocybin work alongside serious therapy to confront what years of trauma had buried inside him. His relationship with substances was always intentional — a tool used out of necessity — and when he no longer needed them, he simply let them go. Today, two years substance-free, he doesn’t frame it as a moral choice. He just doesn’t need them anymore.
What makes Justin’s perspective so powerful is the way his inner healing reshaped his creative work. He shifted from spending 40 hours on a single digital commission to painting vibrant gouache landscapes in 90 minutes from life. He went from being trapped in his head to painting from his gut.
In this conversation, he shares the creative philosophy he’s built along the way — one rooted in deep listening, letting go of outcomes, and discovering what it truly means to be both the artist and the audience of your own work.
[00:02] Growing Up in a Cult — The Roots of Shutdown
Justin grew up in a highly religious cult with an abusive home life. He was raised to avoid all substances — not from wisdom, but from control.
For most of his life, he was “very shut down” — suppressing emotions and surviving rather than truly living.
When he finally achieved financial stability through his art career, his body sent a clear signal: it was time to confront everything he had been carrying.
He was diagnosed with PTSD and found himself unable to work — his body forcing him to stop and process what his mind had been avoiding for decades.
Key Insight: “My body was like, all right, you’re safe now. Now you got to deal with all your stuff.” — Justin Donaldson
[00:05] Therapeutic Psilocybin and Intentional Healing
After therapy alone proved too slow — he was too shut down to access what needed healing — Justin researched cannabis for PTSD and psilocybin-assisted therapy.
Psilocybin works by expanding your capacity to hold and process difficult emotions. It allows you to feel fear or anger without shutting down completely.
He used cannabis to manage day-to-day overwhelm and psilocybin in structured sessions alongside therapy to confront deep trauma.
He views his nuanced relationship with substances through one key lens: intentionality, not morality. “What are we using them for?” is the only question that matters.
Key Insight: “Magic mushrooms increase your capacity for emotional processing. So if you were to sort of get scared and you get too scared and you shut down, if you’re on magic mushrooms, you get scared and you can hold it.” — Justin Donaldson
[09:00] The Point of No Return — When You No Longer Need Anything
Over about 18 months of serious work, Justin stopped shutting down, stopped having rage outbursts, and began truly listening to his wife and children without defensiveness.
He reached a place where he could process emotions entirely on his own — without needing a substance to expand his capacity to hold them.
He describes psychedelics as having an inherent “violence” — you’re not in control, and once taken, you must surrender to whatever comes up.
Substance-free for two years, he frames it simply: the situations that were once overwhelming no longer are. The need dissolved with the wound.
Key Insight: “It got to a point where I just didn’t need those anymore and I can just do the emotional work myself now and have big change and big effects.” — Justin Donaldson
[16:00] Becoming an Artist — From YouTube to 40,000 Followers
Justin taught himself to paint during a year-long visa wait in America — sitting down with YouTube and oil paints, going outside to find and paint beautiful places.
After years of freelance gigs and a brief stint coding for a game startup, he committed fully to painting — doing Upwork jobs, bridal portraits, and everything in between.
Mentors told him to cut everything that wasn’t nature-based — the work he truly loved. He listened, and within a month went from 400 to 40,000 Instagram followers.
Nature was his escape from the oppressive environment he grew up in. Painting it wasn’t career strategy — it was connection to the peace he had always needed.
Key Insight: “As somebody who grew up in a very oppressive environment, going out into nature and finding things that are just like inherently very beautiful is what was kind of like my escape, the be all end all.” — Justin Donaldson
[21:00] From 40 Hours to 90 Minutes — Surrendering to the Gut
As his inner healing progressed, Justin’s painting transformed — from 40-hour digital commissions to 90-minute gouache landscapes painted from life.
Painting from life forces a merciless surrender. Your brain turns off, and something will come out the end — great or terrible. Either way, you finish.
Counterintuitively, working from the gut made his analytical mind more powerful. Finishing more paintings faster means more learning and more refinement.
The same healing that allowed him to stop reacting and start listening in his relationships is what freed his creative process entirely.
Key Insight: “Being in my gut has made my head more powerful.” — Justin Donaldson
[23:00] Detaching from Right and Wrong — The Process Philosophy
Letting go of outcomes is the core of Justin’s practice. Latching onto the end result is exactly what stops you from moving forward.
When you frame creative work through right and wrong, you stop being able to learn. You either dismiss the good or reject the bad — neither teaches you anything.
True learning comes from curiosity: “Oh, that’s interesting that it happened that way. I could probably use this over here.” That’s the space where real skill grows.
Because he paints so many — including many terrible ones — he also regularly reaches the end of a painting and thinks: “How did I do that? That’s awesome.” That feeling is only possible when judgment is removed.
Key Insight: “Detaching from right and wrong is process. And then detaching it from right or wrong as outcome, you actually end up being able to make a lot better decisions and really refine your process.” — Justin Donaldson
[29:00] The Art of Deep Listening — Being Both Artist and Audience
What lights Justin up most is the convergence — when what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling, and what he’s painting all align at once. “That’s when it kind of starts to feel a bit like magic.”
Art doesn’t exist without the viewer. “The art doesn’t exist without me and my perception of it doesn’t exist without it.” Every creative act is also an act of psychology.
The goal is to hold both roles at once — the artist with deep intention, and the viewer with completely fresh eyes, receiving the work honestly and openly.
This is the same capacity he built in therapy — to stop being reactive, to listen deeply, to receive what’s actually happening without defense.
Key Insight: “Getting everything to line up so that what I’m seeing and what I’m feeling and then what I’m painting kind of all have this convergence. And when you can get them all to sit in that spot where they converge, that’s when it kind of starts to feel a bit like magic.” — Justin Donaldson
Key Quotes
“My body was like, all right, you’re safe now. Now you got to deal with all your stuff.” — Justin Donaldson
“It got to a point where I just didn’t need those anymore and I can just do the emotional work myself now and have big change and big effects.” — Justin Donaldson
“Detaching from right and wrong is process. And then detaching it from right or wrong as outcome, you actually end up being able to make a lot better decisions and really refine your process.” — Justin Donaldson
“Being in my gut has made my head more powerful.” — Justin Donaldson
“Getting everything to line up so that what I’m seeing and what I’m feeling and then what I’m painting kind of all have this convergence. And when you can get them all to sit in that spot where they converge, that’s when it kind of starts to feel a bit like magic.” — Justin Donaldson
Resources Mentioned
Psilocybin-assisted therapy for PTSD — Justin references peer-reviewed studies on psilocybin’s effectiveness in expanding emotional processing capacity during trauma therapy
Cannabis and PTSD research — Studies on cannabis use for PTSD symptom management
Gouache painting — Justin’s primary medium for landscape work, which he also teaches online
Plein air painting (painting from life outdoors) — The practice that transformed Justin’s relationship with time, process, and creative surrender
City of Rocks, New Mexico — Justin’s current painting location at time of recording; a dramatic natural formation he describes as canyon-like and endlessly fascinating
Where to Find Justin Donaldson
Justin is actively building his presence and shares his work and teaching across multiple platforms. Search for Justin Donaldson artist on any of the following:
Instagram — Landscape painting and process work
YouTube — Building a video repertoire (his current focus)
Twitter/X — Active presence
Online Courses — Landscape painting and gouache instruction via Zoom, with weekly feedback sessions open to all students regardless of when they enrolled
Thank You
A heartfelt thank you to Florence Acosta, Noelle Richards, Paul k, and many others who joined us live for this conversation, and to Justin Donaldson for his extraordinary honesty and openness. Sharing a journey this personal — from growing up in a cult to finding joy, presence, and creative freedom — takes real courage. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible and meaningful.
Ready to Remove What’s Blocking Your Best Work?
Justin’s story is a powerful reminder that the path to your greatest creative work isn’t about doing more — it’s about releasing what’s in the way.
He found his freedom through years of honest inner work. And when he finally cleared the noise — the trauma, the reactivity, the need to control outcomes — what was waiting on the other side was clarity. Presence. And work that actually felt like magic.
For many of us, alcohol plays the same role that Justin’s shutdown did. It keeps us from feeling. It keeps us from listening. It keeps us from that place where what we’re seeing, what we’re feeling, and what we’re creating finally converge.
That convergence is what The Sober Creative Method™ is built for.
It’s a 90-day journey designed to remove alcohol as the barrier between you and your greatest work. Not because drinking is wrong — but because you deserve to find out what’s possible when nothing is in the way.
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