Originally published in Inner Tapestry. Go to: www.innertapestry.org
CREATIVITY
To create means to cause to come into existence, to make or design, or to bring into being. (Its original meaning was to cause to grow!) There are a lot of people who don’t think they are creative, but there is no one who actually isn’t creative. Creativity is an integral part of who we are, whether we view ourselves as children of God or children of nature and the universe. Of course, we are actually co-creators. While we must not underestimate our creative power, we cannot ignore that we can create nothing without the cooperation of the power or source that created us.
Every decision is a creative act. But most of our decisions are on autopilot. According to recent brain research, if the average person is awake 16 hours a day, over 15½ of those hours are spent thinking about the same things in the same way with the same conclusions as the day before. We anesthetize ourselves with routine, habit, unconsciousness, media, and a host of distractions. Then we wonder where our dreams went and why we feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled. We have gone to sleep. Creativity is about being awake. It is about experiencing the world vividly and being fully alive in our experience. Author John Mason wrote a book entitled, “You Were Born an Original, Don’t Die a Copy.” Those words are great advice for living an awakened life.
HOW TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT:
It is not about how busy you are but how you are busy.
– Do more of what you love.
– Do less of what you only tolerate.
– Do none of what you hate.
Now I know that’s not 100% realistic and doable all the time. We all have to sometimes put off what we love and do what we hate. But the point of this is that if you really want something, do what it takes to achieve it, don’t just do what is convenient or what is expected of you.
Here are a few simple tips to rev up your creativity:
• Doodle – your chicken scratches, designs, rambling words all trigger the creative side of your brain;
• Meditate – this cuts some of the “monkey mind” chatter that stifles creative thinking;
• Break mindless routines – do familiar things in unfamiliar ways, like putting “the wrong shoe” on first; breaking routine makes you think creatively;
• Read something upside down or backwards – this stimulates awareness, which stimulates creativity;
• Daydream constructively – imagine doing something you don’t know how to do, or mentally exploring somewhere you’ve never been; let your imagination make up the scenarios and how you would act, feel and respond in those situations;
• Let go of “rules” and “shoulds” for a bit – remember, Orville Wright didn’t have a pilot’s license, but that didn’t stop him from flying.
• Let go of your fears about being silly, wrong, not ___ enough, or whatever – you are bigger than your fears;
• Play – make up your own game, or watch children as they create new ways to play old games;
• Tell your story – not as a bunch of facts, but with scenery, emotion and sensing words (for example, rather than “I went to work,” say something like “I felt a slight tug to play hookey as I drove the familiar oak-lined streets toward eight hours of challenge.”
The main thing is to see things and do things differently in order to become at ease with the creative process. When creativity is a way of life, it becomes natural to create a way of life that is meaningful and satisfying to us.