George Herrick

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.

Originally published in Inner Tapestry. Go to:  www.innertapestry.org

There are three paths to achieve the life you want: Attract it, Create it, or Transform the life you have. Notice that combining the first letter of those paths spells ACT – no matter which path (or combination of paths) you choose, some kind of ACTion is necessary. Here are a few thoughts on each path:

ATTRACTION

So much has been said and written over the past few years about the Law of Attraction that it can now sometimes seem trite. But in the process of having the life you deeply desire, the LoA is valuable to understand and to apply.

In essence, what the LoA states is that we attract to us what we are in vibrational resonance with. In our universe, matching electrical frequencies seek each other. It is a dangerous oversimplification to say, “like attracts like,” because that isn’t true. Magnetic frequencies have a vibrational dissonance and so “like repels like,” and attracts its polar opposite. Because our thoughts are electrical impulses and not magnetic impulses, our thoughts have to resonate at the frequency of what we want to attract.

There’s a fly in that ointment, however. 95% of our thoughts are unconscious. While our conscious mind (the 5%) is saying “I want X,” our unconscious mind (the 95%) may be saying “I want Y,” and we get frustrated with all the Y that comes flowing our way. We frequently resonate unconsciously with the wrong stuff. Darn!

The good news is that we don’t have to get the whole 95% on board in order to attract what we want. In fact we can’t – our brains aren’t wired for 100% consciousness. We’d blow all the circuits! It actually only takes a percent or two difference to change the frequency of our vibration and get in alignment with our desire. Whew!

How to Change Your Vibrational Resonance:

There are a number of ways to change your frequency, but here are four that I chose because they are simple (though not always easy) and powerful:

1. Use Your Passion: Feel joy and excitement of the process of attracting your dream. That means resonate with the inspired action you are taking to manifest what you want. Embrace each step with the anticipation of a child opening a gift at Christmas!

2. Use Your Imagination: This method is about feeling the visceral experience of your intention rather than an emotional experience. See yourself living the desired result actively, the way a runner runs the course in his or her mind before the race begins. Bring all your senses and physical reactions into play.

3. Use Your Emotions: Feel the outcome as already accomplished. This method is similar to the passion method, but is focused on the desired result rather than the process of getting there. How would the achievement of a new job feel? Feel that now in the present moment. Accept the feeling as real and embody it as you would with the imagination method.

4. Release Your Beliefs: Of the many release techniques – such as Theta Healing, EFT, Sedona Method, Toltec Recapitulation, PSTech, to name a few – one of the most powerful and familiar is meditation. When you meditate on love, joy, peace, and so on, you are raising your vibrational frequency and becoming more receptive to positive results.

 

Any of these methods can work to attract what you desire. Using all four methods together can synergize and empower each other toward more effective manifestation.

The time in which we live is a time of great change. We can see all around us –socially, culturally, politically, financially – that many old ways of thinking, doing and being are dying. Some are quickly passing peacefully, and others are going painfully through long, drawn-out struggle and conflict. But because it is a time of great change, it is a time of great opportunity to make a difference.

Perhaps the greatest, most important change we can make is, as Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” How do we do that? What change should we want for the world? To answer that, I have a slight twist on Gandhi’s quote: “Be the change you want to see in YOU, and your world will change.”

I don’t think anyone aspires to irrelevance. There is a strong human drive to make a positive difference in the world, or at least our immediate piece of the world. We want to matter, to leave things just a little better than we found them, to leave a legacy that says, “We cared, tried to help, did our best.” I believe this drive is divine in its nature.

Whether the difference any of us chooses to make is modest and limited to our immediate family and friends, or broader – even global – every effort to leave a positive imprint is worthwhile and noble.

Who do you want to be known as? What do you want to be known for? When your children or loved ones look into your eyes and see your soul, what do you want them to see? If each of us lived by our deepest, most inspired answers to those questions, what a different world we would make!

Satyena Ananda has lived these questions throughout her life. In 1986 she cofounded Starseed Sanctuary, a 130-acre retreat and healing center in the Berkshires devoted to inner peace, self-acceptance, self-sovereignty and empowerment. Her calling has been to guide people to find and embrace these qualities for themselves and to bring them out into the world for the benefit of all humanity. She has dedicated her life to making a difference.

When we first met in the mid-1990s, I knew I was facing a formidable woman whose courage and compassion would become the bond of a long friendship. We have worked together many times, and when she called and asked if I wanted to co-create a retreat on transformation, I jumped at the opportunity.

So we designed “Creating Yourself, Transforming the World,” which will be held at Starseed on September 22. There is more about the retreat in the “Upcoming Events” section at the right, and on her website http://www.starseedsanctuary.org/ . I hope everyone who can come will come, because this will be an amazing experience!

But whether you attend or not, here are some differences you can make in yourself, your life, your world every day. Many of these you may be doing already; others may be new opportunities for you.

1. Practice kindness to yourself and others.
2. Lighten up and loosen up – play, laugh, sing, dance… bring more joy into your life.
3. Listen deeply to others, without interruption or thinking about your response.
4. Be curious about everything.
5. Keep things as simple as possible.
6. Be creative – experiment, explore, invent a new way to do something.
7. Volunteer – be of service to someone or a group in need.
8. Take very good care of yourself, your physical, mental and spiritual well-being.
9. Learn something new and then teach it to someone else who wants to learn it.
10. Take responsibility for your life and give up blame, complaint and negative thinking.
11. Be grateful for what you have and take nothing for granted.
12. Share generously (but don’t deplete your resources).

And perhaps most the important one of all:

13. What difference do you want to make personally? Whatever it is, begin it now and persist in it in some way every day.

“Happiness runs in a circular motion…”

– Donovan

 

Happiness is not a permanent state. Everybody knows it comes and goes, ebbs and flows.

 

But although we may not be able to maintain happiness constantly, neither do we have to let it be an accidental occurrence. We can’t necessarily create happiness, but we do have more control over creating opportunities for happiness than we may realize.

 

“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be,” expressed Abraham Lincoln. Happiness depends largely on attitude. Positive people are generally happier than negative people, and tend to make decisions that increase the opportunity for happiness. But in a world that sometimes seems addicted to stress, worry, pressure, frustration and uncertainty, how do we make up our minds to be happy?

 

Well, the first thing is to be aware of what is in our minds! In my new program, Living the Soul of Recovery, the first step is “How to Be Fully Conscious in the Present Moment.” Being consciously aware in real time is essential to happiness because we can only be happy in the present.

 

Of course, we can have happy memories of the past or anticipate happy experiences in the future, but we can only actually feel happy NOW. If we are unaware of now, happiness eludes us. (Did you know that countless university and clinical studies over the past two decades have found consistently that we are usually conscious of our thoughts and surroundings less than 6% of the time? That gives us less than 6% chance of being happy except by fortunate accident!)

 

So how can we be more consciously present and improve our opportunities for happiness?

 

The answer is so simple that most of us miss it and many of us don’t believe it (that’s why we devote a whole section to it in the program). The answer is: PAY ATTENTION! This is what makes a good leader, a successful entrepreneur, an inspiring teacher, a great artist, a more consistently happy person – they all pay attention to what is within and around them. (See the Attention Exercises at the end of this article.)

 

But there’s another key ingredient: acceptance. By acceptance, I don’t mean passive resignation, but rather the recognition that it is what it is. Be objective, an observer of the event, circumstance or relationship, while reducing judgment of it. It’s not that it is good or bad/right or wrong so much as it just works for you or it doesn’t. (This doesn’t mean suspend all judgment – some things, like murder and rape, really are bad and wrong, and you won’t be happy by pretending to accept the unacceptable.)

 

Finally, take positive action in the direction of what is likely to bring you happiness. Do the things that increase your opportunities for happiness, and stop doing – or at least cut down – the things that make you unhappy.

 

There you have it – the five As that increase your chances for happiness: Attitude, Awareness, Attention, Acceptance and Action.

 

None of us can do all this 24/7. Remember, we’re usually operating on 6% awareness or less! The good news is we don’t have to change drastically. If, for example, I am usually present and neutral 4% of the time and I increase that to just 5%, I become 25% more present than I was! That can make a world of difference in creating opportunities for more happiness!

 

Here are 12 things you can do to create greater opportunity for happiness:

1. Take care of yourself – eat healthy, get enough exercise and sleep.

2. Notice opportunities to laugh, sing, dance, play – and take them!

3. Say “yes” to what you feel yes about and “no” to what you feel no about.

4. Prioritize your closest relationships.

5. Avoid the news, especially at meals and before bed.

6. Mono-task – multi-tasking usually takes us out of being aware in the moment.

7. Spend some time in nature.

8. Practice your personal faith, in a way that feels uplifting to you.

9. Be of service – help others, be kind, volunteer.

10. Keep a gratitude list, refer to it often, and add to it frequently.

11. Keep your personal space, to-do list, environment and mind clutter-free.

12. Try something new that you’ve wanted to learn or enjoy a hobby.

 

Here are 5 things you can stop doing that limit your opportunities for happiness:

1. Criticizing, blaming and making excuses.

2. Negative self-talk and limiting beliefs.

3. Trying to control the people and circumstances around you.

4. Needing to be right.

5. Trying to live up to other people’s expectations, or needing to impress others.

 

And finally, here are 6 ATTENTION EXERCISES you can try so you can be more aware of the present moment:

1. Pay attention to your breathing. Notice the natural inflow and outflow of air as you breathe normally. Notice the expansion and contraction of your lungs, chest and belly.

2. Pay attention to how your body feels as you sit, stand, move or lie down. Notice any body sensations, tics, itches. Notice how your muscles feel tense or relaxed.

3. Pay attention to your current stream of thought. Is your mind racing, or daydreaming, or planning something, or remembering something?

4. Pay attention to what you are feeling emotionally and how your body responds to that feeling. If you are angry, for example, do you feel a knot in your stomach, or tightness, or what? If you are fearful of something, how does your body react to that? And so on, whatever you feel.

5. Pay attention to your environment. Notice the objects around you. Notice any sounds or aromas that may be present.

6. Pay attention to conversations. Are you speaking your truth or what others want to hear? Are you really listening or are you distracted? Are your tone and body language congruent with your words? Are the other person’s tone, body language and words congruent?

Whichever exercise you choose, just spend about 30 seconds of undivided attention as you practice it. The object here is not to try to change anything, but to simply pay attention and observe what is actually happening in real, present time. You can decide later whether or not making changes at another time could improve your opportunities for happiness.

Here is where you get to be an alchemist, changing the lead of a part of your life you don’t like into the gold of your desired life.

Ask yourself these questions: What is not working the way you’d like it to in your life? What can you do to change it? What is the cost to your happiness and well-being if it doesn’t change? Your answers to these give you a clear picture of what and why a part of your life needs transforming.

Of course, to change, you have to change. But we humans tend not to change until the fear of commitment is less than the pain of the status quo. Commitment is critical, because changes won’t last unless we make them non-negotiable. The ego mind is solely intent on the survival and protection of the familiar, of what it thinks is safe and comfortable. Thus it will resist any change toward growth or development.

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