Finding the Rewards of Being Creative

There is a growing awareness that creativity is a capacity that everyone has, though they may not understand what is involved in accessing it. One of the main things that gets in the way of people embracing their creative gifts is a belief that creativity should be easy; that it should just flow out. They think they should be good at it immediately. If they are not and it's not easy, there is a tendency to think there is something wrong with them and it's never going to work.

Yet creativity in whatever form you choose to pursue is a complex process that actually asks a lot of us. This is why is feels so good to engage since it helps us discover that we are capable of more that we thought possible including working from expanded abilities. It is a muscle that we need to work with to develop, just like if we decided to run a marathon we would understand we needed to run daily for shorter periods to build up to the full distance.

Creativity is a practice that you have to stay with even when doubts arise. It tends to progress in a stair step fashion. We spend time showing up to the work each day for weeks, maybe months and we don't seem to be getting any better. Then one day we have crossed a threshold to a new level where we can do things we have been unable to. We will need to work on that plateau for a while before being boosted to the next level.

Being creative also involves studying our chosen form of expression. Long before I wrote my first personal essay, the writing form that almost seemed to choose me, every time I went into a bookstore I was drawn to the essay section. Those were the only books I read. I was learning to write in that form by reading it. So when I started to write, my creative mind already had a sense of what to do. Sort of.

I then had to practice, writing pages and pages that never went anywhere but taught me a lot. I learned to trust that things were cooking on the level of my subconscious and super conscious minds. The more I showed up to practice, the more I had a sense of what to do and how to work with the material on a conscious level. The more I stayed with it, the more the wonderful, magical state of flow would occur where I was definitely operating in an expanded state.

Being creative feels like a beautiful dance. Engaging in the process feels good, so I never really thought about all the time and work I had to put in to become an accomplished writer. For me the act of creativity has always been it's own reward. That has allowed me to stay with it through the doubts and slow going.

Now more than ever we need to resist the distractions like social media and the internet that give us a sense of instant gratification, making it more difficult to go the distance with our creativity. Keep in mind that you can make great progress with small steps taken day after day.

Try it: Pick a creative project. Then show up ten minutes a day to play with it. I did this recently in a form new to me, nature collage. I asked a painter friend about the best materials to use. Then with acrylic paint, glue and objects from nature, I let myself be intuitively guided in what to do. It took a bit before any of them turned out in a way pleasing to me. Yet each one taught me something.

As you play with your project resist the urge to judge. Put it away and look at a few days later when the critic has quieted down. Keep showing up, ten minutes day after day and see if you don't feel the deep satisfaction that comes with opening to your creativity.

Working with an Imaginary Mentor

Imagination is everything. It is the preview to life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein

I've been asking myself, how can I best help empower others at this time of great global change. The first answer that came in the flash of inspiration was the word imagination. Einstein regularly insisted that imagination is more important than knowledge. But the thing is, it's not just for geniuses. It's for everyone. We have just be taught to favor the rational mind at the expenses of capacities that actually can help us in amazing ways. It's easy to reclaim.

Years ago I learned an exercise from Jean Houston, noted author, visionary and one of the founders of the human consciousness movement. It involves working with an imaginary mentor to get advice on any question that we have for any area of our life. Using our imagination and intuitive mind give us access to a deeper wisdom and way of knowing beyond the capabilities of our linear mind.

I have used this exercise for years in teaching writing and with creativity coaching. I have been amazed and delighted that my students get much better advice than I could have ever given with all my years of experience. Everyone in class could hear the wisdom coming through as we shared our answers. Most remarkable is that the answers actually sounded like they were coming from the individual asked. If someone asked Mark Twain, the response would sound like something Mark Twain would write. Tapping your imagination and writing in flow can give you access to expanded awareness and better answers you could think up.

TRY THIS: Pick someone you think would give good advice. It could be Einstein, Plato or your grandmother. Imagine you have written him or her a letter asking a question you have about anything in your life. It helps to be specific. Then using the technique of free writing (writing as fast you can without censoring) you write the response to you as if it is coming from your imaginary mentor. Really let go on this one. Don't think. Just let the answer flow out of the pen or the keyboard for at least ten minutes. Then read the answer with an open curiosity as if you really have just received this letter in the mail. Be open, be objective. The more you play with this, the stronger the muscle of your imagination grows.

OR TRY THIS: You can also go for a walk with your imaginary mentor and have a conversation with them in your imagination. The key is to play and be open. Let go of thinking that you have to figure out everything with your mind.

Engaging the Arts Helps Us to Thrive

by Suzanne Murray

I’ve long known that being creative has increased my sense of well being and satisfaction with my life dramatically. I have also seen this in the people I’ve worked with in my writing classes and creativity coaching over the years. Now I am reading fascinating book titled Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross that documents research showing how much this can be true for everyone.

Out this year, the book draws on cutting edge neuroscience and medical research to provide a wealth of information and insights on how engaging with the arts offers tremendous benefits to our physical, mental and emotional well being. This includes our appreciation of the arts, like visiting a museum or attending a concert, as well as our personal creation of art.

This relationship to the arts doesn’t have to be complicated or take a lot of time for us to feel the affects. You don’t have to be “good” at it. The authors site that “just twenty minutes of doodling or humming” reduces stress and improves our physical and mental state. Using a very broad definition of the arts there are countless ways for us to reap the rewards including music, singing, dance, movement, theater, poetry, writing, pottery, gardening, cooking, mask making, painting, collage and drawing.

Neuroscience shows that we are actually wired for the arts. We now know that our brains have the capacity to physically rewire and create new pathways in response to environmental stimulation throughout the whole of our lives. Being creative, as well as appreciating the arts, provide new experiences and an enriched environment that are good for the brain.

I’m only a third of the way through the book but wanted to share just how much evidence they show for the importance of engaging the arts in our lives. Creativity offers tools that can help us in these challenging times. A few examples of the research results include: In working with the arts our physical health improves including increased longevity; there are successes in dealing with pain; teens who read, even comic books, are less likely to get involved with drugs; the arts help mental health professionals get to the core of trauma to facilitate healing. It appears the arts are every bit as important to our well being as a good diet and exercise.

I think one of the reason engaging with the arts is so effective is that it brings us into the moment and satisfies some deeper part of our self. Like meditation, this relieves stress in the body and helps quiet the mind allowing us to feel connected to something larger than our everyday self. In this relaxation we can find a place to thrive.

Now Is the Time to Get Really Creative

by Suzanne Murray

The only truly happy people are children and the creative minority. -- Jean Caldwell

For the past couple of months the words "the time is now" have been running through my mind. I think a lot of people are feeling this. The momentum of change in the world nudging us all forward in new ways, asking us how do we want to create our lives moment by moment.

If our lives are the blank page, the white canvas and creativity is an energy that connects us to something beyond our everyday self allowing more of who we really are on the level of our heart and soul, then what do we want to create. This involves bringing creativity into our day to day life.

To start consider all the ways you are already creative in your life including cooking, gardening, decorating, parenting, teaching, work, business and every other area of your life. Often unless we are actively involved in some form of creative or artist expression we tend to dismiss our innate creative tendencies and gifts.

We just automatically think, "oh, I'm not creative". On top of this we have learned to see creative endeavors as frivolous. I work with a lot of creativity coaching clients who, at first, have a hard time showing up to the work of exploring and supporting their creative self because they have been taught from an early age that creativity isn't valuable. If you can't make money at it, it's a waste of time.

Yet our creativity is our greatest strength and gift in times of change. It gives us an ability to see what is possible and discover new ways of getting there. Daydreaming where we allow our minds to wander becomes a valuable tool when we understand that creativity involves a willingness to receive and be open to new ideas. As the French philosopher Joseph Joubert said, "the thoughts that come to you are more valuable than the ones you seek."

What would it take for you to develop a new relationship with your creativity. Consider giving your creativity a personality. Talk to your creativity. Ask her what she needs. If you have neglected your creativity for a long time you may need to do some coaxing to get her to talk to you.

I often suggest to people who are looking to reclaim their connection to creativity to get a box of crayons and start doodling and drawing the way you did as a child. You can ask questions like "what do I need to know right now?" and doodle the answer. And look at the doodles the way you ponder your dreams or messages that are wanting to arise from a deeper part of yourself. Most important. Play. Joy lies at the heart of our creative practice.

Think You Have to Be Original to Be Creative?

by Suzanne Murray

You don't have to reinvent the wheel. . .just steal the hubcaps. - Michael P. Naughton

One of the misunderstanding around creativity is that you have to be utterly original to do it. Yet the truth is all creative people stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Writers learn to write by reading, painting students are sent to museums to copy the masters, while great chefs learn the already tested basics of cooking in order to create some new dish.

Pulitzer prize winning poet Mary Oliver in her poem titled Stanley Kunitz, honoring one of her mentors, has a great line that describes this, "like the human child I am/I rush to imitate." We play with the work of others as we develop the sense of how it works and then how we can make the form our own. Ultimately our own unique creative expression is a remix of all our influences. Most of this is going on at the level of the subconscious and comes out when we get to work.

Innovation stands on a platform that already exists. Yes inspiration is involved, those flashes of insight, the ah...ha moments. Yet you start with something that already exists and take it to another level. So relax. Let go of thinking you have to do something original. Take the pressure off. Celebrate that there is all this help available.

One the best exercises I use as a writing and creativity coach, is having people ask advice of an imaginary mentor. I teach this as a stream of consciousness writing exercise, where you ask a question of someone you admire, like Einstein or Emily Bronte. Then writing faster than you can think, you write the answer as if it is coming from them. Ten minutes is usually enough time to get good advice.

Try this now. See if you don't feel the support of those you have come before you in what creative form that calls to you.

Are You Ready to Create Your Life?

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

It's hard to describe the creative process with words and rational thought. It's really a dance, a song, music in the blood, rising on the breath of inspiration. It's a flow of energy that connects you to the heart of the universe. When you enter that river it feels really good. You are alive in the moment, expressing the uniqueness of you.

You can create anything from this place: a poem, a song, a garden, a solution to a problem or a new story for your life. Take a dash of inspiration, a flood of ideas, woven into a images in the mind's eye by your imagination. Your heart and intuition play a key role, too.

What if you really knew that you could create anything from this place? What if you understood that you could rearrange the creation of your life by what you imagine, what you pay attention to, and what you choose to focus on.

Begin by relaxing your hold on whatever you think of as your story now. Suspend disbelief and imagine that you can change the story of your life more easily than you think. Consider that you have an opportunity for rebirth. What would that look like if you had a magic wand that allowed you to access infinite possibilities?

TRY THIS: Take a moment and consider the life you desire for yourself. What do you feel called to create? What areas aren't working the way you would like? Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths. and drop your attention down into your heart. Then imagine yourself journeying to a place where anything and everything is possible. As you leave your old story behind feel the creative excitement and energy of the new life that wants to be born. Invite your soul to participate and ask the universe to help.

Imagine the elements of your new life coming toward you. What do you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. Using your senses makes the experience feel much more real. Know that whatever you can imagine is possible. In your mind's eye try on whatever comes to you. How does it feel? Do you feel expanded? Does it feel light? If so, this helps you discern what is for your highest good. The more you play with this exercise on a daily basis the more you are energizing the potential for what you want to create.

To help your creativity along begin to break out of habitual patterns. Find new ways to creatively engage even the most ordinary aspects of your daily life. Put your clothes on in new order. Eat new foods. Find meaningful and inspiring challenges. Explore new possibilities for interacting with your inner and outer worlds. This generates new opportunities that will lead you to the future you feel called to create.

You can use this exercise for anything you want to create whether it's engaging with a new art form or creating a whole new life. In the changing world we live in using our expanded capacities of imagination and intuition can open you up to things happening in magical and unexpected ways, that our mind would never have considered. Living from this place allows you to tap the creative flow in every area of our lives. It leads to our greatest happiness and fulfillment.

Creativity: Co-Creating with Creation

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance .. I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process. - Henry James

There is nothing more satisfying to the human spirit, the human soul than being creative. You don't have to write the great American novel to qualify. A woman in one of my creativity coaching classes decided that she wanted to tile her bathroom. She took great delight in the entire process of researching the method, planning the tile pattern and executing the project. Now every time she uses her bathroom she feels a real sense of satisfaction.

That the spirit of creativity, whether we are writing a poem, painting a watercolor, planning and planting a flower garden or developing a new recipe in the kitchen. Our willingness to engage in making something new brings a quality of joy to the process regardless of where it flows easily or not.

Theologian Matthew Fox, in his brilliant book, Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet insists that when we are creativity we become co-creators with creation. I agree. I think that why when we are being creative it feels divine.

I want to stress that everyone is creative - it's our birthright. So many of us had it thwarted at an early age. Our creative self is a tender and vulnerable aspect, so she needs to be encouraged. It doesn't take much to send her into hiding.The good news is that you can bring her back out by a willingness to play in whatever way calls to you. A willingness to be messy, to draw outside the lines, to think outside the box.

Take a moment. Take a breath. What does your creativity look like? What would bring you joy and satisfaction? Suspend the critic and be willing to play with the idea. What contribution can your unique expression of creativity make to the world? It is through our creative imagination and abilities that we have the capacity to make the changes the world need at this important time in human history.

How to Invite Creative Inspiration

I often invite inspiration by asking my creative spirit or muse for help. Whenever I teach a class or get ready to write my monthly newsletter I always ask in advance, What's the theme for this one? or What do I need to know for this?. I say it silently to myself, directing the question to the part of me that knows what would be of highest value or support to my students or readers. Then I let it go. I don't think about it or try to figure it out. The answer always comes to me. It can be hours or days later, but I always get the answer in time. It comes as an idea that flashes into my mind or something someone says to me in conversation or the title of a book I see in the library. I'll have an ah ha moment, where I just know, that's it.

This works a lot better than trying to figure it out. When it comes to creativity and inspiration the mind really doesn't know. It's not capable of knowing in expanded ways. In fact you mind will usually start to tell you all the reason what you are wanting to create won't work. Trying to figure anything out generally leaves you feeling like a hamster on a wheel, exhausted and not really getting anywhere.

To be inspired the answer has to come from our Being or expanded Self. You can call it your subconscious mind or imagination. We all have access to this capacity. Yet since we have learned to glorify the mind and rational. linear thinking we are in the habit of looking there for answers. This limits what is possible. Our mind is like a computer, it can only draw from existing data banks. It isn't capable to coming up with something new. That comes from our imagination.

When we invite inspiration our subconscious or expanded Self goes to work on the question or problem. It will silently work on it 24/7 until the solution rises to the surface. It can come as an ah..ha or a whisper. We have to practice asking and trusting that it will come. We also need to pay attention to the world as the solution can also come as a synchronicity that speaks to our knowing.

This works when you stuck in your writing or other creative acts. It works if you are having a problem at work or in your relationships and more. You could also ask what contribution can I be to the world or the earth at this critical time. Play with this and see how your answers arrive.

Creativity and Consciousness

Consider consciousness providing a connection or a doorway to the field of infinite possibilities, and creativity as one way of accessing that place. Anytime you begin to play with the creative process, whether through art or gardening or cooking or tinkering in your garage or problem solving at work, you open up to your expanded capacities and more of who you truly are. You tap into the field of Oneness, the domain of the infinite. It feels good. You have a heightened sense of awareness. Time seems to stop and you lose track of the world around you. You are very much in the Now.

You don't have to be doing anything big or dramatic. It can start as simply as writing the draft of a poem or preparing a new dish without a recipe. Creativity happens when intuition, inspiration and attention intersect. We invite this mysterious process in when we start playing with a poem, a painting, an idea and allow it to be born from a deeper knowing. Our cognitive mind moves out of the way as if it grasps that it doesn’t have the answers. It feels nervous at no longer being in control. At this point if you really let go, suddenly you find yourself in the creative dance where time stops and inspiration and an awareness of what step to take next is obvious.

We were meant to live this way. Sailing the seas of imagination. Asking what else is possible. Creativity is literally a gift we are all born with. It's about more than arts and crafts. It expresses itself in a myriad of ways, in the unique form calls to us. It is also a capacity we use for everyday problem solving and creating our lives. It's about being connected to Spirit and the invisible realms that are eager to support us. It is a doorway into higher consciousness. It is the place we will find the solutions needed to create positive change in our lives and the world.

Living and Creating with the Unknown

The scope of challenges we face in the world today is staggering. Everything seems uncertain. We can feel overwhelmed and very uncomfortable in the face of so much unknown. Yet the unknown is really the only place for any new creation. How do we work with it without feeling paralyzed by our fear of the uncertainty?

Trusting that something larger than our everyday selves is available to support and guide us is essential. Creativity, our ability to come us with new ideas and solutions in every area, is impossible without a willingness to be open and surrender to the inspiration that wants to come through us.

Creativity is all about working with the unknown. Whenever I start a piece of writing I rarely have more than a vague idea of where to even begin. Yet as I show up inspiration arrives to guide me as I go. I may ask a creative question, like what is this newsletter about, then let it go. This month I got living and creating with the unknown as the topic. As I sat down to write it came to me in pieces that I could weave together from my intuitive knowing. That’s how we can create anything, even our lives and our world.

Visionary creative Jan Phillips suggests “once we begin to see ourselves as creators of our lives, we can start to see ourselves as makers of the culture. And from there, we can weave our personal hopes and commitments into the social fabric around us . . . No political leader has the power to override or diminish the public imagination.”

We often resist playing with our imagination and opening to create new possibilities because some part of us considers the unknown to be unsafe. We can experience a physical sense of discomfort in our body that can keep us from even trying something new.

Try this: Close your eyes and take a few slow deep breaths relaxing your body on the exhale. Relaxing your body can make it easier to access your imagination. See your mind a blank slate as you continue to breathe. Focusing internally in a meditative way actually slows our brain waves down from everyday beta waves of the analytical mind to alpha waves of the intuitive mind. This doesn't need to take a lot of time. In ten minutes we can feel more peaceful, centered and open to our creative imagination and the flow of new ideas and new stories for our lives and our world.

When we get a new idea that feels inspired we can act on it. Step by step, we can create new ways of being in the world and navigate these uncertain times with grace and empowerment seeing all the changes and challenges as a tremendous opportunity.

How Being Creative Makes Us Happy

Years ago I heard Nobel Prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney give a lecture at the University of Washington. In the middle of this very academic speech, he paused, threw up both his hands and said, "oh, just write for the joy of it" and then dipped back into the lecture. I don't remember anything else from the talk, but Heaney's sudden burst of inspiration stayed with me because it really captured an essential element to being creative.

Whether you are cooking a great meal, growing a beautiful garden, writing a poem or singing in the community choir, you likely feel a deep sense of satisfaction and a joyfulness that comes with being creative. Creativity draws on the best of human nature: perception, imagination, intellect, inspiration, courage, intuition, and empathy. The urge to create asks us to bask in the experience of the world, to see, feel, taste, hear, and smell the magnificence around us. It allows us to celebrate, with a spirit of gratefulness, every aspect of our lives and the beauty and complexity the world offers. It can help us make meaning from our sufferings.

Being creative also breaks us free from our ruts and habits allowing us to look at the world anew. We are able to tell a story that touches others, envision a unique way of solving a problem or offer counsel with fresh clarity, even if we have struggled with the same material or ideas a hundred times before. Embracing our creativity allows us to tap a deeper more insightful way of knowing beyond our conscious mind and thoughts.

I think being creative feels so good because it connects us to divine imagination and when we actively participate in developing and fulfilling our gifts it feels like a mystical experience. We intuit that we are connected to something larger than ourselves which is perhaps the greatest gift that comes from following our creative urges.

Early in my work as a writer when I became aware that I was writing from an inspired sense of flow, I would get this urge to look around the room to see where is was coming from because I sensed it was exactly coming from me. Now I am just always deeply grateful when I tap fully into that vein and welcome it with a sense of grace.

In looking for your own ways of being creative you can start by celebrating your uniqueness. There never was, nor ever will be, anyone exactly like you. In exploring your uniqueness there is often a central preoccupation, an interest or passion that runs through your life? There can also be more than one.

If you can't name it right now, think of something that you are fascinated by again and again. The possibilities are infinite; from needlework to rock climbing, from bird watching to playing the piano, from English country dancing to writing haiku, from gardening to giving foot massages. Look for what brings you joy and then begin taking actions to embrace your creativity and enjoy the process. One small step a day will set you down the creative path to increased happiness and fulfillment.

How Do You Take Inspired Action

I taught the Heart of Writing classes for more than twenty years. When people ask me about the main focus, I will sometimes laughingly respond, "I teach people to loose their minds." If we are going to really engage our creativity and expand our possibilities, we need to let go of the rational mind's need to figure things out, and allow inspiration, imagination and intuition to inform our decisions and guide our actions.

Much of the time, we try to figure things out with our minds, hoping we will be able to find a way to make the changes we desire. We make up a daily to-do-list based on what we think we should do to make things happen. Yet things often don't work as well as we would like. Our rational, linear thinking minds can only draw on past experience, so it leads us to repeat variations of the same pattern. We feel frustrated because we "think" we should be able to figure out how to change our situation.

Yet, the linear mind really can't create anything new. It's not designed to comprehend spiritual or creative matters. That's the domain of our imagination and intuition which connects us to expanded ways of knowing and being. Our being is connected to the field of Oneness or all possibilities, so it can guide us to situations we would never have considered from the limits of our thinking mind. This is the place creativity comes from. This is the domain of inspiration. If you want create newness in your life you need to access this deeper way of knowing.

Intuition and inspiration usually come as a soft whisper or a felt sense of lightness in our bodies. If our mind is busy chattering, we can't pick up these signals. When we do pick up on the guidance, we often feel fear because we are being asked to step out of our comfort zone. Our mind tells us that fear is protecting us, keeping us safe. Our mind wants us to believe that worrying is productive. Yet, have we ever solved a problem with worry or have we just dug ourselves in deeper?

If we really want to live a life of peace, happiness, freedom and creativity we have to learn to quiet our minds. Meditation can help. So can yoga or a walk in Nature. Using our breath to be more present in our bodies can bring us into the moment and the awareness that wants to be revealed. We have to learn a new language. One that involves a felt sense of knowing, an openness to being pleasantly surprised, and an awareness of synchronicities, the way the universe supports us and reassures us we are on the right track.

If I need to make a decision and find myself stuck running a mental loop, I use the technique of free-writing or stream-of-consciousness writing to gain clarity. I will often start with the question, "What do I need to know right now?" Then I'll write the answer as fast as I can. If you write fast, your rational mind can't keep up and you tap a deeper knowing. I always get much better advice this way than if I tried to "figure it out".

From this place of knowing rather than thinking we are able to take inspired action that supports our deeper desires and goals and we can experience miracles as we open to the help of the universe.

Using the Power of Your Imagination

Everything you can imagine is real. - Pablo Picasso

Imagination is at the heart of creativity. It offers us offers us a doorway to expanded possibilities and ways of knowing. Imagination is a powerful capacity for creating not only stories or pictures or music but our very lives. With it we can find solutions to problems, for ourselves and the world, that our rational minds couldn’t solve.

In my own creativity as a writer and photographer as well as my work as a creativity coach, I’ve always insisted that our imagination is smarter than our mind. It allows us to access expanded states of consciousness where fresh ideas spark and we find the flow of infinite possibilities and intuition. If we can imagine something, see it in our mind’s eye or get feeling sense of it, we can create it, often in ways that seem miraculous.

Most of us have been discouraged from engaging our imagination with comments like "stop daydreaming” or “why are you wasting time staring out the window.” or “oh you’re just making that up.” These activities all allow our creative mind to run free to make new connections and give birth to new ideas. Rather than being encouraged to dream big, to ask questions or expand our awareness beyond our linear rational mind, we have been consistently schooled in restricting our imaginative potential.

As adults we often define ourselves as not being creative and imaginative. Yet it is a gift we were all born with and something we can easily reclaim by our willingness to play with it. One way to start is with “just pretend”. Just pretend what you want your creativity or life to look like if you had no limits and all was possible. Imagination is the faculty that can take you there.

Our imaginations are like muscles. If they haven't been used they atrophy and we to strengthen them to allow for optimum access. As we start to exercise our imaginations we actually form new neural connections in our brain.

Try this. Take three deep breaths all the way down into your belly and with each exhalation let everything go and let the peace of simply being present in the moment enter you. Then imagine being in a favorite place. What do you see. If you are not visual, don't worry about it. Instead focus on what it feels like to be there. What sounds, scents, tastes are involved. Use all your senses. The body can't distinguish between a real experience and something that is imagined so this is a great way to give yourself a mini vacation without leaving home.

Then try this. Try using your imagination to talk to a tree, a squirrel or a stone. See what they have to say to you. Just pretend and play with it. Have fun.

The Gift of Creativity For Chaotic Times

Creativity is bound up in our ability to find new ways around old problems. - Martin Seligman

As our world seems to be getting more and more chaotic, I am reminded of the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. After spining a protective cocoon, the caterpillar dissolves into a dark goo. Then specialized imaginal cells begin to move toward each other and band together to guide the restructuring of the goo into the butterfly.

It’s a great metaphor for what is possible when people work together from a common, inspired vision. I like to think that when we embrace our creative gifts we become imaginal cells for our culture or society. When we connect with like minded souls who want to make the world a better place, what problems can we solve? I just read about people who are harvesting and recycling the plastic clogging our oceans. That’s an inspired idea creating positive change.

What if the chaos we are experiencing in the world today and in our lives is actually an invitation to let go of the old ways and create something new. What if in letting go, even as we fear the unknown, we actually make room for the new to enter. Often when we give up trying, unexpected opportunities, beyond what we thought possible, show up in miraculous ways.

Chaos is at the heart of being creative. Creativity begins from a place of swirling possibilities. It can be messy. On the creative journey we often feel like we don’t know what we’re doing or where exactly we’re going. Yet as we take it step by step following the threads of intuition and inspiration, as we show up for the work we find ourselves guided along the way. We discover the process itself is deeply rewarding and has the capacity to change our world.

By bringing creativity into every area of our lives, it can help us transcend the chaos by reordering the world and our lives in new and inspired ways. Take a minute consider a place in your life that feels chaotic and ask “what newness wants to be born in my life?” Don’t think about it, just allow an idea to pop in, and follow your heart and knowing. Then see what one small act that you can take to start creating from this inspiration. Taking it one small step at a time helps to keep us from feeling overwhelmed. What if this is how we create a world that works for everyone?

How Creative Can We Be

It’s the end of the month and I am just getting to the January blog. Every time I considered the topic I came up blank. What finally came to me is the sense that we need to create from a more expanded place than we have ever considered before. As we move into the third year of the pandemic, most of us have had our lives shaken up and are probably wondering where can we go from here.

Consider asking the question, how creative can we get in response to all the changes in our lives and the world. How can we create, create, create. What wants to be born anew from old ways that have unraveled. I get the image of confetti being thrown into the air in celebration of the creative potential in all of us. It's time to leave behind the beliefs that limit us and embrace the creative beings we truly are in whatever form that calls to us.

So I asked my muse for specifics. What should I create? The answers didn't come all at once. Generally they came as flashes of insight while I was out on my daily walk that puts me in a meditative state where an idea arrives that excites and energizes me. Then I know I'm on to something.

Beyond that I got that we all need to be willing to be surprised. That we need to open up in new ways. We tend to limit our creations, whether in the realm of creative expression or in creating our lives, to what we already know or to a variation on what we have already done. We also limit ourselves by thinking we need to figure out "the how" of whatever we are inspired to create rather than trusting and allowing the universe to support and guide up step by step.

At this pivotal time in human history opening up to truly new ideas and possibilities is essential. To paraphrase Einstein, "We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." So here are some questions to ask. Can we allow ourselves new thoughts? Can we start to see ourselves differently? Can we see ourselves as capable of more than we have imagined up until this point?

I am asking myself these same questions aware that there is a seed within me and all of us wanting to emerge. We don't have to go looking for our creations, they live inside us in the dark womb of our soul and imagination. We can open up to let them grow, leaf out and blossom. We can do this one little step at a time.

Falling in Love with the Creative Process

A lot of people think that when it comes to creativity, inspiration is the key. Yet those moments of insight or revelation never occur without the willingness to commit to the work and continue to show up. This perseverance is just as important. You get a creative flash. You show up to the work and what wants to be born becomes more clear.

Nobel prize winning Canadian short story writer Alice Munro once said, "I threw away all my early writings and it wasn't because I was the mother of three small children. It was because I was learning my craft and it took a long time."

It was the same with David Guterson who wrote the award winning novel Snow Falling on Cedars. When critics acclaimed that a brilliant new writer had just come out of the Pacific Northwest as if he and his book had arrived by magic, he responded "excuse me but I've written in the early morning hours for 25 years before going to my job." It took him ten years to write the novel.

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning poet, Mary Oliver wrote for twenty five years before putting her work out into the world. She refused to take an interesting job because she didn't want to be distracted from her work. It was only a few years after she started publishing her work that she won the Pulitzer. Her perseverance clearly paid off.

One of the favorite essays I've ever written is 13 pages and it took five years to write. I started from a clear place of inspiration but then I had to do the work. I needed to do research. I needed to continue my writing practice. I had to put the draft away for a couple of years while I developed my skill as a writer because this essay was very complex and when I started it I didn't have the level of ability to finish it.

This is why as a writing teacher and creativity coach I teach people to fall in love with the process. It is true for any form of creativity. You show up, you start playing around and you find yourself in the flow where time stops and you taste of the joy of being creative. This allows you to persevere. Even when things aren't going well, you can find pleasure in showing up and being willing to play with what wants to be born out of your effort. This provides its own sense of satisfaction.

Keep Your Curiosity Alive - Journaling Can Help

For any writer who wants to keep a journal, be alive to everything, not just to what you're feeling, but also to your pets, to flowers, to what you're reading. - May Sarton

Keeping a journal or notebook to record not only your inner landscape but you observations of the world around you can make your life much more vibrant and alive. There is a long list of famous people who kept journals or notebooks. Anthropologist Margaret Mead, Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Winston Churchill, Franz Kafka and Virginia Wolfe are just a few. The great geniuses and innovators kept their child-like sense of wonder and curiosity alive. Keeping a journal can help.

It's easy to start. Get a bound blank book, or you can start with a cheap spiral notebook. Date your entries. Begin by describing your surroundings, the current state of your life as well as your hopes, dreams, desires or questions. Put down anything you are curious about or whatever wants to spill out on to the page. If you are a writer, this is a good way to loosen up.

Leonardo Da Vinci actually carried a notebook attached to his belt and recorded anything he was curious about, any image he saw that drew him, any ideas that popped into his head or any questions that came to him. He insisted that passionate curiosity about all of life was one of the keys to his genius and remarkable accomplishments.

Short-term memory only retains information for three minutes. Unless committed to paper, an inspired idea forever can be lost forever. You can use your journal to record all the ideas and inspirations that flash into your mind. Plus paying close attention to the world and asking questions actually invites the subconscious mind into play increasing your creative and mental capacities.

So try what Leonardo did. Keep a notebook with you at all times. It could simply be a small spiral bound one that fits in your back pocket. Do it for a week and see if it doesn't awaken your sense of amazement for the beauty and complexity of the world.

I've started doing this, making note of the reflection of trees on the surface of a pond, the hawks crying out as they circle overhead, the newborn baby asleep in a stroller rocking back and forth with the motion, and the power of horses racing across a field.

I've kept a journal for over 40 years. It's added so much to my life and my writing. Carrying one with me everywhere has me opening to appreciating the world around me on a whole new level and making connections I would have missed otherwise.

The Power of Creating in the Moment

Be Here Now - Ram Dass

Boredom is a sign that you are not being present. - Eckhart Tolle

I find myself, more and more, really called on a deep level to live in the moment; letting go of all worry about the future or regret about the past and to trust. Mystics have long encouraged us to be present to each moment, each breath. And now quantum physics tells us that in the moment exists all of time: past, present and future. This explains why the moment or the Now is the only place we are able to create anything, a book, a painting, a solar panel, our life. This is where are are able to create a new world for ourselves on both a personal and global level.

The more you practice being in the moment the easier it is to create. Our breath is a greatest tool since it calms our mind and relaxes our body which makes it easier to be present to what is. If we are worried about the future we can take a deep breath and ask is everything okay in the Now. The answer almost always is yes. When we calm our mind we have greater access to the guidance and wisdom of our own deeper knowing and inspiration can flow in.

My two greatest teacher for living in the moment have been creativity and Nature. What I have always loved about being creative is that it automatically makes you present to the moment and something greater than your everyday self. Whether I am dancing, doing photography, singing or writing there is a joy and satisfaction that arises out of showing up and being present to what wants to happen. When you hit the zone or the flow it feels so good. It feels Divine. I have a similar feeling in Nature where everything, rock, plant and animal is clearly in the Now being the essence of what they are meant to be. This helps me to just be.

Like many of you I've have done a lot of personal growth and healing work seeking to transform old patterns into new more satisfying and abundant ways of being with myself and the world. Recently I've felt a real shift in this and have come to the realization that there is nothing to fix. That nothing is wrong. If I embrace and accept everything in the moment free of judgment then things naturally shift and I am more open to new possibilities. Experiences that I deemed challenging are from the vantage point of the moment the experiences my soul needed in order to reach this point of understanding. When we live in the moment we have access to the wisdom and intuition that comes from our hearts.

A few days ago when my mind started to run away with me and the tools I usually use to calm the flame of worry didn't seem to be working I was guided to simply stop, take a few deep breathes, drop into my heart, and claim being in the moment. Peace immediately washed over me and clear sense of the next right action to take came to me.

We think we have to think through problems, that we have to figure everything out with our minds. Instead if we connect to our own inspiration and guidance in the moment we allow solutions to come intuitively and we experience synchronicities and miracles, little and big. In truth, the moment is the only place we can connect to higher wisdom and knowing. This is true for our creative projects as well as the course of our lives where we find ourselves living in the flow. This can help us be more actively creative on a daily basis.

How Surrender is Critical to Being Creative

We can’t force creativity. We know this intuitively. If we told a painter that we wanted a masterpiece by five o’clock tomorrow, they would look at us like we were crazy, that we clearly didn’t understand what being creative was all about.

An important part of being creative is learning to surrender to the flow of the universe, allowing something greater than our everyday self to move through us. It’s not something we can figure out with our linear mind.

Of course, if we want to paint we need to learn how to work with our chosen medium and studying the work of the masters can help. If we want to write it’s really valuable to read widely and deeply, to show up daily to put pen to paper and perhaps take a workshop on the form we want to work with.

Yet at the heart of being creative is letting go and allowing the ideas, the inspiration to move through us. This is where practice comes in. As Flannery O’Connor said of her writing experience, “I show up at my office everyday between 8 am and noon. I’m not sure that anything is going to happen but I want to be there if it does.”

I recently sat next to a young man in the park who had a set of watercolors laid out on a table and quickly produced a couple of small paintings that were quite lovely. We spoke of creativity and how so many people think you either have it or you don’t. “Yeah,” he said, “really it’s a muscle, you’ve got to use.” He went on to say “No mater how lousy I feel, if I do even a couple of little paintings I instantly feel better."

I feel the same way about writing, even if it’s just a page of free writing where I let the words flow out of the pen. Being creative feels good and lightens our mood because we become more present to the moment, quiet our chattering minds, and allow for the awareness of our heart and knowing to do the work. In the surrender we find ourselves in an expanded state of consciousness were we can do things we didn’t think we could.

In whatever way creativity calls to you, make a habit of showing up up to play with it. Let you self be guidance by what excites you. Surrender to what brings you alive.

The Art of Creating with Flow

Well, you're right in the work, you lose your sense of time, you're completely enraptured, you're completely caught up in what you're doing, and you're sort of swayed by the possibilities you see in this work. . . . - Mark Strand, poet

I've been reading Steven Kotler's The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Performance. The book focuses on the state of flow where the miraculous and seemingly impossible can happen. Kotler defines flow as "an optimal state of consciousness, a peak state where we both feel our best and perform our best." It is a state that anyone can access under the right conditions.

Creatives and innovators are quite familiar with this capacity. As a writing teacher and creativity coach, I have long worked with ways to help my clients access flow states and help them grasp that flow is at the heart of being creative. When working on a creative project, I will often feel like I don't have any idea what I am doing or how I am going to accomplish the task. Yet if I just start and keep going, I move into a state of flow where I suddenly know what to do and I am excitedly dancing with the work. This is a common experience in finding and working with flow.

While creatives have long had an awareness of flow, the group of individuals who have pushed the boundaries of human potential most dramatically in the past decade have been action and adventure sports athletes. People, like Laird Hamilton, surfing one hundred foot waves, snowboarders and skateboarders making impossible jumps and rock climbers constantly expanding what they believed to be possible. The only reason extreme athletes are surviving pushing the boundaries is because they are in flow so they provide incredibly valuable insights into how flow works.

At the same time there have been extraordinary advancements in neuroscience including the development of small, portable instrumentation for studying what is going on in the brain in states of flow, for both creativity and these extreme athletes. We now know what part of the brains are being activated and the brain chemistry involved.

I felt incredibly energized as I read Kotler's book, the way one does when your higher self is nudging you, saying yes pay attention to this, it's important. In the middle of reading, I went for a walk and encountered a red-tailed hawk sitting atop a twenty foot pine just to the side of the path. I stood in wonder and asked the hawk what it wanted me to know. I have a long history of visitations from hawks, so I suspected she had a message for me.

She then launched into the air glided down to the grass next to a small creek with water trickling through, then walked down into the creek bed. I had never seen a hawk do anything like that. As I stood awestruck she leapt into the air, flashing her rufous red tail, as she sailed across the meadow and out of sight.

As I turned to continue up the path, an awareness flooded my mind that the hawk had been affirming my interest in flow. The hawk and the running water, metaphors for aligning with cosmic forces, with the flow. This encounter felt as the universe itself was conspiring to affirm the importance of my interest in flow.

These kinds of synchronicities are common occurrences in flow. One of the things that all the adventure athletes talked about was their experience of a connection to the Oneness with all things or something greater than themselves when they are in the flow.

We can learn to access this power of flow in any area of our lives including business and problem solving. From this expanded way of knowing we can bring the constructive changes so needed in our lives and the world at this time.