According to research, the systems of the brain that communicate with each other effectively, sharing neural networks for exchanging information, have been identified as the “default mode network,” the “executive control network,” and the “salience network.”

Default mode network – We’re using our default mode network when we’re engaged in imagination or simply letting our mind wander — and this network is active when we’re retrieving memories.

Executive mode network – When we use our executive network, we’re making decisions and problem solving.

Salience network – The salience network is our inner editor. We use it when we decide what we’ll take note of and what we’ll ignore.

We need these three networks to function well and communicate with each other so that we can shift among daydreaming, analyzing our ideas, and discerning what is and isn’t important to explore further.

People who have weaker interconnectivity among these regions would get stuck overthinking things or imagining but not being able to build on the ideas.

Research also shows that the key brain difference between very creative people and others is having more neural connections among different systems within the brain. Highly creative people are able to activate and use these systems simultaneously, which contributes to their innovative abilities.

You can increase the brain function that will help you tap into your core creativity. Here are five strategies from my book Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self to help you:

1. Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness develops the area of the brain associated with self-awareness and reduces the density of the right amygdala — the part of the brain associated with immediate response to stimulation. As little as half an hour of mindfulness practice a day for eight weeks was found to measurably reduce amygdala density. Training your brain to quiet the chatter of the analytical brain and become less emotionally reactive allows a clear-headedness and an ability to steer the energy of strong emotions in a direction you choose. Anger, excitement, or despair can be transformed into a creative force.

2. Embrace a beginner’s mindset. Many highly creative artists recognize that, despite their expertise and mastery, they still have much to learn. They embrace what Buddhists call “beginner’s mind” — a willingness to approach what’s familiar with a fresh perspective, as if they knew nothing. That level of curiosity and willingness can inspire great success.

3. Promote the flow of ideas by doing nothing. Highly creative people often earn a reputation for being lazy. This can come from the times when they appear to be doing nothing. But on the contrary, they are actually doing something very important: working with the brain and their open mind state to prime themselves to experience creativity. In open mind, you enter into a space of not knowing and not doing. You experience an abiding appreciation of silence as you wait patiently for your inner wisdom and awareness to speak to you. James Taylor said in a 2015 Hemispheres magazine interview, “Given enough empty time, the songs show up… you have to be in a place where you can receive the song, more than generate it.”

4. Pay attention to dreams. Consider paying more attention to your nighttime dreams, and even priming yourself to have helpful ones. Dreams are portals into open mind and can offer ideas and insights once you’ve interpreted them. They can even lead you to achieve breakthroughs. The melody for the Beetles’ song “Yesterday” came to Paul McCartney in a dream.

5. Form a Creative Support Pod. With the rapid pace of change in the world, you are going to have to be a lifelong learner. You’ll be called on to build new skills and expand your knowledge base. If you find yourself with a problem to solve that needs a creative solution, form a Creative Support Pod. This is a group of people who want to support each other in developing new ideas, sharing resources, and overcoming challenges. Invite people with different strengths and perspectives who can help you consider ideas from other points of view as you work together to creatively solve a problem.

As you enhance your brain’s sharing of neural networks that exchange information and tap into creativity, you become better able to fire up your creative flow. With practice, you’ll continue to improve your ability to break through to your deepest state of core creativity.

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Why is creativity important for you (and the world) right now?

Billions of people around the world were jolted out of the belief that life would go on as always when the Covid-19 pandemic began. Many became anxious or depressed, not knowing how to adjust to the new reality. Now many of us are looking for a much-desired personal transformation or have experience a loss that’s forcing change. Some of us are looking to build our careers in a time of tremendous change due to pandemics, globalization, climate change, and technological advances. Research has shown that employers and businesses are embracing innovation and creativity as key employee skills.

Ideas can help us navigate this time of transition and create new visions.

When you’re transforming personally, it’s natural to feel some resistance to change as you wonder who you are becoming and whether the “new you” is a self you’ll feel comfortable with. Even when transformation seems positive, you can experience fear, loss, or discomfort with a significant change in your personal identity. Creativity involves reassembling what already exists: putting together ideas that haven’t been combined before. It also involves perceiving differently instead of from a default perspective.

In my book Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self I guide readers utilizing powerful guided visualizations, insights and interviews with highly creative artists, and stories of ordinary people to help them access what I call their “Core Creativity.” This is the creativity that comes from the very center of your being: your unconscious mind. The process of achieving core creativity involves three mind states: absorbing mind, open mind, and generating mind.

Absorbing Mind

The activity zone of absorbing mind is when we draw in information and stimulation, without analyzing it, free of filters and judgments. In absorbing mind, we can move from that activity to an intuitive understanding that we are taking in information that was hidden from us when we were in an ordinary “I have to find some answers and ideas” state.

In absorbing mind your intuition is at full power so you remain open to stimulation and ideas rather than rejecting them out of hand. Too often, people try to “brainstorm” and their instant reaction to an idea is to say, “No, that’s not it” and reject it. In absorbing mind, you still might say, “No, I don’t think that’s it,” but you are willing to play with the concept some more, exploring what other ideas come from its essence or form. You recognize that wrong as the idea is, playing with it may suggest to you an even better one.

Open Mind

In open mind, you bypass the limited thinking and the biases of the rational mind, leading to breakthroughs and intuitive insights. You experience a sense of spaciousness as your anxieties about time and your perceptions of limited options fall away, and you feel yourself open up to receive knowledge and ideas that were previously hidden from your awareness.

The most efficient way to bring yourself into a state of open mind is through mindfulness practice. Research shows that mindfulness practice increases creativity, which is why it’s a vital part of the core creativity process. I tell my therapy and coaching clients that they can choose not to begin a mindfulness meditation practice, but it’s rocket fuel for transformation. You can also access open mind through the activity zones of absorbing mind and generating mind, as many creative artists know very well.

Generating Mind

In generating mind, you play with ideas that have come to you, and go over into the absorbing zone again and again as if drawing water from a well or pulling photos from a backup drive. Generating mind is the activity zone that people typically associate with creativity and in fact, creative activities—playing a musical instrument, free writing, doodling—can all result in new insights and ideas arriving in your consciousness.

Through play, you can open the portal to generating mind and then walk down the corridor to the room of open mind. Creativity as most people think of it can simply be defined as play, and engaging in it preps your mind to experience open mind awareness and the big idea you seek.

Absorbing mind, open mind, generating mind: Each are ones for accessing core creativity, and moving among them naturally will happen with practice. You will know when to meditate, when to dabble, when to sit in a state of quiet receptivity, when to listen to your instincts, and when to play.

Excerpt from Dr. Ronald Alexander’s book Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self

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In ancient traditions, open-mind consciousness was considered to be a spiritual awakening, the great enlightenment that dissolves the darkness of confusion and fear, and ushers in peace, happiness, clarity, and contentment. Today the notion that there’s one formulaic way to achieve this spiritual awakening and creative vibrancy has been blown apart. You don’t have to run off to a monastery or practice meditation for thirty years before attaining a breakthrough. A few years ago, I had a client, named Sarah who’d completely given up on psychotherapy until a failed suicide attempt convinced her to try it one more time. I urged her to begin a mindfulness practice, and she agreed. After several months—not years, but months—she had an extremely powerful experience while meditating. As she described it, she felt a rush of light and energy infuse her body, and experienced an ineffable sense of the presence of the divine, the cosmos, and a collective consciousness. After this transcendent experience, Sarah who’d been overweight to an unhealthy degree, lost several pounds, became more engaged by her work and closer to her friends, and was no longer suicidal. It was a major turning point for her.

What Sarah described has been called not only “open-mind awareness” but also, in the West, a “peak experience,” “being in the flow,” or “being in the zone.” I call it accessing your “core creativity,” because I believe that deep inside every person lies this potential for connecting to a universal flow of knowledge and creativity that’s boundless and expansive. Our individual thoughts and memories are a part of this greater, larger resource.

Just as an athlete who’s in condition has the muscle tone to be able to spring into action instantly, someone who regularly accesses their core creativity becomes creatively toned. For this person, the faucet to this remarkable flow of inspiration opens up easily, naturally, and often, allowing spontaneous and dramatic breakthroughs. When you’re creatively toned, instead of merely dipping your toe in the water and playing it safe, you’re willing to be utterly daring. Knowing this, you can navigate through a sea of self-limiting thoughts and transform such unwholesome beliefs as “I had my chance and blew it,” “It’s too late; my time is over,” “I’ll never be happy again,” and “I can’t.”

Here are 6 ways you can stimulate and tone your creativity from my book, Wise Mind, Open Mind.

Mindfulness Meditation Practice

One of the most effective ways to become creatively toned and start accessing core creativity is through a mindfulness meditation practice. Mindfulness allows us to listen and pay attention to what we might otherwise overlook—whether it’s a fresh idea or a new way of perceiving a situation—enhancing our creativity and letting go of our obstacles to innovation. Many people are intimidated with the idea of meditating with excuses of not having the time or ability to quiet the mind. Really all you need is 5 to 20 minutes a day and there are many mediation CDs that can help guide you through the process. In fact my CD Mindful Meditations for Creative Transformation was created to specifically help one access their inner resources.

Dabbling in the Arts

Our culture’s overemphasis on fame and great success often turns people away from their creative inclinations, because they feel that if they can’t reach a professional goal with their writing, singing, or painting endeavors, they shouldn’t bother. What they don’t realize is that simply dabbling in the fine arts, with no specific goals or intentions, awakens our ability to approach life with greater openness and curiosity. In the same way that mindfulness practice jogs the areas of the brain associated with well-being, optimism, and compassion for yourself and others, so too does immersing yourself in any artistic exploration or enjoyment jog your creativity.

Immersing Yourself in Nature

Experiencing nature can awaken in you a sense of vitality and infinity, which becomes a path to your core creativity. Without conscious thought, you can look up at the astonishing number of stars in the sky or leaves on a single tree in a forest, and feel a sense of vastness and spaciousness. As you gaze at the heavens the ancients observed, knowing that humanity throughout history and across continents has pondered these very stars, you experience being a part of something larger than yourself that feels as if it has always existed and always will.

Entering Sacred Space

In ancient times, sacred spaces, such as churches, temples, and sites for group rituals, were built on land whose features evoked a sense of spirituality. Treks to places like Machu Picchu, the temples of India, and Stonehenge have become more popular for Westerners who yearn for a sense of connection to their divine nature. Yet sacred spaces can exist wherever you feel a sense of spaciousness and connection to the creative, life-supporting forces of the universe. Arranging the space in your home or office to bring in light and nature will help you feel expansive and access your core creativity as you open up to your important role in all of creation.

Seeking Out Creative Stimulation

When the Irish band U2 wanted to reinvent their music, they traveled to Berlin, a bustling, gritty city unfamiliar to them, and soaked in the atmosphere, allowing its energy to infuse their songwriting and sound. Similarly, a famous actor I once spotted in an art museum stood before a painting for a good ten minutes before throwing his arms out and his head back, and standing for many more minutes, as if opening his heart to a beam of creative energy emanating from that painting. We all have this capacity to open to the vital forces around us and allow ourselves to take them in, mingling them with our own passions.

Mindful Movement

Many forms of physical movement can be an entrée into open-mind consciousness. Somatic therapy or somatic disciplines such as martial arts, tai chi, and yoga are the most well-known ways of quieting the rational mind and opening up to the intuitive mind and its connection to the numinous creative force. Any physical activity that involves discipline and a slowing down of thoughts, from skiing to dance, actually creates new neural pathways in your brain that become roads to innovation.

Becoming creatively toned can lead to a breakthrough in parenting or relating to others, or it can make you feel vitalized and fully engaged in the mundane chores of the day. The Buddha said that to find enlightenment, one must chop wood and carry water, meaning that the deepest, more purposeful life may not be one dedicated to an extraordinary cause or endeavor, but one that’s simply lived with a deep sense of awareness and openness to both the known and the unknown. A passion for discovery, for embracing the new and the unfamiliar can help you transform your life in ways you never dreamed possible, as you find the strength to move out of fear and resistance and into something new.

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Traditionally, we’ve been told that to achieve happiness, we should use our minds to figure out what would make us happy and then work hard to achieve our goal. The problem is that even the sharpest, most clever mind is limited in its ability to create opportunities and see possibilities. Without guidance from the heart, we’re merely playing notes on a piano, not composing a melody. To move out of suffering and back into contentment and joy, we must listen to the music that calls to us from our hearts and go where it takes us.

Some people are able to embrace the process of transformation so easily that they evolve seemingly without effort, while others get stuck, afraid to make a move, hoping in vain that the change they desire will come about magically and painlessly. For those that get stuck their ego, or false self, often presents them with a long list of arguments for fighting the changes they long for or avoiding the changes that requires them to break out of their comfort zone—even if the cost is their own happiness.

Most people desire change, and even radical change, because their lives are out of sync with their most heartfelt longings. Yet, when they’re faced with overwhelming evidence that it’s time to move on, to let go of what was and enter into their deepest, or core, creativity, where all sorts of overlooked possibilities will begin to reveal themselves to them, they freeze in fear. Resistance takes over. To access their power to transform, they must start by exploring and dissolving their deeply rooted resistance to change.

I don’t believe that we can ever get rid of certain resistances or emotions so instead of trying to overcoming a hindrance I write about the importance working with mulching them. There is an ancient Buddhist story that illustrates what I mean by mulching. In the parable two farmers are living next to each other. One farmer takes all of his horse manure and keeps throwing it over the fence into the other farmer’s yard. About six months later, he notices the other farmer’s tomatoes are gigantic, his pumpkins are huge, his corn is green and his front yard is filled with tall grass.

The first step in embracing your resistance is to identify it and also check if you have any hidden hindrances. Then it is important to understand the payoffs of resistance as these are what is holding you back from moving forward. There are five basic payoffs that I call the demons of the ego or egoic mind. First by resisting change, we can avoid the unknown. What’s familiar may not be terribly comfortable, but sometimes it seems that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. We fear that venturing into the unknown will cause us to discover painful secrets about the world and ourselves that have been hidden from us. Secondly we can avoid being judged as “strange.” When parents are frightened by their child’s differentness, labeling them as “strange,” they’ll usually try to stifle his creativity. The child, sensing their disapproval and fearing abandonment, can shut down his creative flow and then either tries to conform to his parents’ expectations or acts out, claiming not to care what anyone thinks of him.

Another payoff is that we can avoid failure. When we fear failure, we tend to overestimate the risk we’re taking and imagine the worst possible scenario—the emotional equivalent of our parents deserting us as children. Conversely, we can also want to avoid success. Strange though it may seem, a fear of success can cause as much resistance to change as a fear of failure can. While you may consciously long for a promotion or hope that your romantic relationship will result in marriage, unconsciously you may be afraid of what will happen if these changes occur. The last payoff is that we can avoid feeling guilty. If we take a risk and make a change, we may feel guilty because we’re contradicting what others think we should or shouldn’t be doing with our lives.

If your resistance is stronger than your desire for a better situation, you must find your courage and delve deeply into your psyche. There, you can discover this hindrance, break it apart, and access the fuel of your passion. This passion will pull you out of your routine and resistance, and into the creative process, opening your eyes to infinite possibilities. Freed from the burden of creating avoidance behaviors and repressing your anxiety and fears about change, you’ll be invigorated.

There is an old Zen proverb that says, “Happiness and Suffering are both getting what you want and not getting what you want!” Both bring happiness and suffering something to ponder as you dream!

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change”

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When we’re in a state of wanting mind, we’re never satisfied, no matter what we have. If we attain the object of our longing, we simply replace the old desire with a new one. If we achieve revenge; we feel worse than we did before. The problem is that wanting mind is rooted in the incorrect belief that something outside of ourselves is the key to lasting happiness so we look there for the solution. The reality is that no emotion or state of being, however strong, is permanent and that happiness can’t be found outside of ourselves only within. Buddhists call this phenomenon of endless wanting and dissatisfaction the “hungry ghost.”

Now I realize that one can never completely avoid the wanting mind or any other hindrance. Desire is part of being human. It causes us to strive toward bettering our lives and our world, and has led to many of the discoveries and inventions that have provided us with a higher quality of life. But there’s a danger in thinking that by ridding yourself of this quality of wanting, you’ll lose the motivation to better your life. The unhealthy side of the wanting mind is despite all that we can achieve and possess, we become convinced that we won’t be happy or contented unless we acquire even more. This unwholesome belief can lead to competitiveness and feeling resentful toward, or envious of, those who seem to have an easier life.

This leads to the unwholesome habit of comparison. Some people look at others’ successes and feel deeply envious. They may be angry that they haven’t achieved what they feel entitled to, start to diminish all that’s working for them in their lives, and obsess over what seems to be lacking.

Often, I’ve found that younger people put tremendous pressure on themselves to succeed in their careers at a very early age, not allowing themselves to venture out and explore, take risks, make mistakes, discover their talents and passions, and slowly begin formulating a plan for their personal mandala. Others often have unrealistic expectations rooted in the narratives spun by popular culture. In movies and television shows for example the difficulties of maintaining and nurturing relationships are often minimized in favor of a more engaging and unlikely story of couples who meet, fall in love immediately, have great sex as well as an unwavering long-term commitment, and rarely disagree—and if they do, they quickly resolve all their issues. The amount of effort and time that must be invested to foster a healthy relationship is often surprising to people with little experience of such relationships.

One remedy to addressing these underlying, and distorted beliefs of the wanting mind that contribute to the complexities of depression is through a mindfulness meditation practice. I had one client, in particular, who dreamed of being a successful novelist, and became deeply envious of a talented writer who’d written several best-selling novels that had defined a genre and made her famous. This client, who was only a year or two out of college, had already managed to procure a scholarship to a prestigious writing program but felt disappointed in her inability to find a publisher for her novel.

Through meditation, the conflicted young woman was able to explore her belief that she should have as much skill and success as someone who had spent many years honing her craft and building her profile among booksellers and readers. By becoming mindful she recognized that she’d been repressing unwholesome feelings of low self-worth. I helped her see that the passion she was devoting to envying this best-selling author’s success could be redirected to more productive activity if she would apply a positive antidote of satisfaction to her wanting mind, which had created a grandiose expectation completely out of proportion to a reasonable level of achievement for a writer just starting out. Only through self-love and being in the moment can one open themselves up to the type of creativity they need to improve their circumstances.

By dropping out of wanting mind and negative comparison, you can then drop into an acceptance of what’s ordinary as well as what’s extraordinary within yourself. Each of us has the potential to do something no one else has ever done before, and you open yourself to discovering just what that is when you replace wanting mind and its negative feelings and thoughts with a mind-set of satisfaction.

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Procrastinators are more in love with the act of wanting and live in the tide pools alongside the stream of life. They are very good at creating excuses or stories for putting off an activity. Without realizing it they become great artists at writing, producing and staring in these stories in order to avoid life. But crafting these excuses takes an extraordinary amount of energy that can be very disempowering. Imagine for a moment that you are able to become mindfully aware in your mind’s eye and in that magical moment see how this destructive type of energy could be shifted from resistance to self-empowerment.

In my book, Wise Mind, Open Mind I relate how one of my clients was able to have this type of ‘aha’ experience. Jared, a web designer truly wanted to create a plan for attracting more lucrative jobs and clients who offered steady work, but he could never find the time to do it. During one of our sessions I asked Jared to tell me everything he had done that morning, from the moment he woke up to the moment he came into my office. After he outlined all his activities I said, “Alright now let’s spend a moment and simply breathe.” This is an easy mindfulness awareness method where one focuses on the “in breath” and then on the “out breath,” allowing us to calm the churning waters of our thoughts and emotions. After we meditated together for several minutes Jared was able to bring to the forefront of is consciousness that a lot of what he was doing wasn’t a priority and only busy making “chores.”

Upon further exploration Jared came to understand that behind his procrastination was a fear of success. He wasn’t sure if he could command top-dollar clients or manage a lot of them. He hated the idea of calling people cold or sending blind emails soliciting work. As well he was afraid he would become like his father, a successful but challenging entrepreneur and distant parent, preoccupied with his work. Through the process of mindful awareness Jared was able to make a new space in his mind’s eye to clear away the clutter and develop what I call, “mindstrength,” the ability to build mastery over your thoughts and feelings, opening your eyes to whether the products of your mind are useful tools for self-discovery or merely distractions. Over time, Jared discovered that he was quite capable of handling several clients and negotiating good deals for himself, without feeling that he had turned into a cold workaholic.

Top 7 Excuses to Procrastinate
So what are the pretexts you’re using to avoid life? Do any of them sound familiar to you?

Many times in my capacity as a psychotherapist trained in mindfulness I’ve been invited to participate in the sacred end of life experience of my friends and clients. So many of them when they realize that the hour glass of life has run out regret that they hadn’t taken a certain trip, reconciled a relationship with a loved one or taken action on pursuing a life’s passion.

To remedy procrastination you have to experience the vital life force that sharpens and focuses the mind. One way to do this is with the traditional Buddhist walking meditation in which you focus on the slow process of putting one foot in front of the other and being mindful of the shifting sensations as you propel yourself forward. Once you’re in a mindful state you can recognize if you’ve slipped into an avoidance behavior. If so, you can immediately shift out of this emotion with the simple thought, “I want to go forward into my future life as a [website designer, entrepreneur, student, or whatever it is that you want to do].”

You can look at your subconscious thoughts and fears that are holding you back, stop identifying with them, and let them float out of your awareness. Thoughts in the mindful space of awareness simply become like clouds in the sky drifting by. If they return, you can decide not to become attached to them and follow them wherever they take you. Instead, you can simply become curious and ponder their origin. Exploring your thoughts and fears can give you the insight to help you move forward with greater self-awareness, and away from the limitations you set for yourself that box you in.

It all comes down to a mindful choice and the ability to creatively source from a place of immediate passionate action. Mindful action takers live in the vibrant stream of a somatic flow state. Don’t wait until your time has run out and it’s too late for you to live your life to the fullest. Start now by writing down your actions steps for a life of passionate creative possibilities. It may seem simplistic to say that all you need to do is start your bucket list in order to stop procrastinating but this is the first step in moving through your resistance. So what are you waiting for – write away!

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One of the most effective ways to become creatively toned and start accessing your core creativity is through a mindfulness practice. Mindfulness allows us to listen and pay attention to what we might otherwise overlook – whether it’s a fresh idea or a new way of perceiving a situation — enhancing our creativity and letting go of our obstacles to innovation.

Here are four techniques from my book, Wise Mind, Open Mind on how you can start today to ignite your everyday creativity.

Working Mindfully with Dreams

If you feel that you simply have no creative abilities, consider your dreams. Most nights, your mind generates at least a few fantastical images that you can recall upon waking if you slowly bring yourself back into consciousness with the intent of remembering your dreams. I often ask my clients to work with the images of their dreams by meditating on them, writing about them, and exploring them to see what ideas and insights they have to offer.

To do this, keep a notebook, or tape recorder by the bed, and when you first become aware of your dream, record as much detail as possible of the entire dream or whatever fragments, images, feelings, or emotions you can recall. Enter a state of quiet, mindful reflection and let the dream replay itself in your consciousness. Note that each symbol in the dream represents some aspect of yourself, so after recalling the dream, think about how each one represents some part of you.

Mood Management

Depression is a loop of unwholesome thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and sensations that feed upon themselves, spiraling the sufferer downward and away from an experience of hope, joy, enthusiasm, or curiosity. It chokes off the pipeline to the creative core. If you want to open up to a sense that tomorrow will bring new situations, new people, and new ideas, eliminating unwholesome moods is very important.

Mindfulness meditation, yoga practice, and regular exercise are all excellent for mood regulation, because they lower the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your bloodstream, increase your interleukin levels (enhancing your immune system and providing you with greater energy), and streamline your body’s ability to cleanse itself of chemical toxins, such as lactic acid in your muscles and bloodstream, which can affect neurotransmitter receptors and alter your mood.

Becoming Quiet and Doing Nothing

You don’t have to “try” to be creative when you access core creativity. You don’t have to “think through” what to do next, because a sense of possibility and wonder will simply come to you, followed by ideas that flow into you. By becoming quiet, you begin to tone yourself creatively as you allow your unconscious mind to open up. Ideas will start bubbling to the surface of your awareness, often in the form of images or a sense of deep, inner knowing.

A world-class drummer once took me inside his music room, slowly moved his hand across the drum kit, and said, “Sometimes I sit here for hours in the silence and quietly wait for the drums to tell me what to write and play.” As he spoke, I realized his ability to patiently wait and remain in an open, listening state was a key element in his ability to create amazing music.

Persevering and Trusting in the Creative Process

Although artists are often seen as flighty or undisciplined, the most successful ones are extremely disciplined. They may spend a workday seemingly doing nothing, but in fact, they’re consciously choosing to remain in a state of openness. They’ll often pick up a guitar and start playing anything, or sit at a computer and start typing whatever comes to mind, in order to start their creative flow. When nothing comes, they aren’t afraid to shift gears, to take a walk, or break the formula of how they’ve always chosen to connect to their creativity by trying something entirely different.

The reason they’re able to persevere isn’t because they have a particular temperament, but because they’ve experienced breakthroughs again and again. They know that they can rely on two distinct channels to glide into that space where we can all access our core creativity: honing our craft, a left-brain activity that tones us creatively over time, opening one of these channels; and persevering and trusting in this art of creative transformation, which opens the other.

When you’re creatively toned, instead of merely dipping your toe in the water and playing it safe, you’re willing to be utterly daring. Knowing this, you can navigate through a sea of self-limiting thoughts and transform such unwholesome beliefs as “I had my chance and blew it,” “It’s too late; my time is over,” “I’ll never be happy again,” and “I can’t.” The clouds of negativity part and the light of possibility beams down upon you.

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When those who’ve mastered the art of creative transformation feel an internal resistance, they’re able to acknowledge it, and work through it with trust. They’ve learned that openness and awareness are at the heart of the process and the mind’s role is to identify and let go of the emotions that stop them from following their heart’s directives.

If your resistance to change is stronger than your desire for a better situation, you must find your courage and delve deeply into your psyche. There, you can discover your resistance to change, break it apart, to the fuel of your passion. By exploring and dissolving these deeply rooted resistances you can start to release the grip of fear.

Here are five typical payoffs to change from my book, Wise Mind Open Mind. Which ones do you relate to?

Payoff 1: By resisting change, we can avoid the unknown. What’s familiar may not be terribly comfortable, but sometimes it seems that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. We fear that venturing into the unknown will cause us to discover painful secrets about the world and ourselves that have been hidden from us. We don’t think about the change that will allow us to feel more fulfilled.
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Mindfulness can help us move forward through the dark jungle and thick fog of the unknown despite our fear, empowering us to take productive action. Mindfulness creates a container for the mind and its relentlessly anxious thoughts. Rather than whipping themselves up into a storm of fear that paralyzes us, we can observe them in a detached way and make a conscious decision to redirect the mind where we want it to go.

Payoff 2: We can avoid being judged as “strange.” Some parents can instill in a child the belief that being different, using the imagination, and taking risks is something to be valued, admired, and rewarded. When parents are frightened by their child’s differentness and too controlling they’ll try to stifle his creativity. The child, sensing their disapproval and fearing abandonment, shuts down their ability to express his creativity and then either tries to conform to his parents’ expectations or acts out.

As adults, we’ll cling to the desire to fit in with everyone else, at the expense of our own imagination. If we can recognize that our resistance is rooted in the false belief that being different will automatically result in loneliness and suffering, we can start to accept who we are and create relationships with people who aren’t unsettled by or envious of us.

Payoff 3: We can avoid failure. The fear of failure is intimately connected to our childhood fear that if we risk behaving in a new way, our parents will be angry and withdraw from and abandon us. When we fear failure, we tend to overestimate the risk we’re taking and imagine the worst possible scenario. What we picture is so dreadful that we convince ourselves that we shouldn’t even try to change.

Many artists have stories of crippling fear of failure that they could not completely erase but were able to overcome through being consciously aware of it and letting themselves experience it yet determinedly moving forward despite it. Overcoming the fear of failure requires us to consciously examine our long-forgotten experiences of feeling embarrassed or ashamed after taking a risk, and put them into perspective.

Payoff 4: We can avoid success. Strange though it may seem, a fear of success can cause as much resistance to change as a fear of failure can. While you may consciously long for a promotion or hope that your romantic relationship will result in marriage, unconsciously you may be afraid of what will happen if these changes occur. You may fear that your friends and loved ones will envy your success and withhold their love and approval or even abandon you because they can’t tolerate their feelings of jealousy and self-hatred.

If you can muster the courage to face your insecurities, you can heal yourself of the shame that prevents you from soaring to your destiny. Becoming aware of your insecurities also helps you see when others are acting out of envy, fear, or anger, and that makes it easier for you to consciously reject their distorted and hostile criticism.

Payoff 5: We can avoid feeling guilty. If we take a risk and make a change, we may feel guilty because we’re contradicting what others think we should or shouldn’t be doing with our lives. It takes great courage to stay true to the soul’s calling when it’s in conflict with what others believe we should want for ourselves.

To embrace the art of creative transformation, you must work through any feelings of guilt stemming from the belief that if you attempt to express your unique individuality and agenda, you’re being bad or selfish. Attending to yourself differs from being selfish. You’re only selfish if you take advantage of others for your own gain or knowingly cause them to suffer while giving no thought to whether you could prevent their being hurt.

When you give in to hidden fears it’s hard to believe that the discomfort and pain of accepting or making changes is worth experiencing. Your suffering may be so great that it feels as if it’ll never dissipate. However, after a loss, something new will come into your life, and it may well be something of equal or greater value.

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Even the relatively new science of quantum physics has discovered that our thoughts and words have energy and motion so that everything we think and speak emanates from us in waves. This is one reason why wise speech is so important as our negative words can literally attack and drain someone on an energetic level. This also applies to our consciousness. It too has the ability to expand or contract on a personal and spiritual level. Many believe one of the reasons we are here upon this planet is to learn certain life lessons thereby expanding our consciousness.

An individual is not a body. An individual has a body. An individual just IS. There have been many names to describe this phenomena – the human soul, the spirit, consciousness, and the variety of other names attributed throughout the ages.

There are several pathways that help us enhance our awareness but one very effective way is through Mindfulness Meditation, which may seem paradoxical as it emphasizes sitting in stillness. But when you look at the effect that meditation has on the brain it too is subtlety in motion. Our brains have been referred to as a system of neuronal pathways exchanging information and energy flow. Mindfulness meditation creates new neuronal tracks in both the prefrontal cortex as well as the mid-insular regions of the brain. This means that as we learn to sit quietly and to meditate we engage billions of brain cells to fire, and when Neurons fire (learn new activities) they wire together. So you can if you meditate and desire change in effect teach an old dog new tricks. Thus the axiom Change Your Mind Change Your Brain gives new meaning to the activity called Mindfulness.

Through mindfulness meditation you can tune in and listen to the wisdom of your soul or unconscious, the state in which core creativity takes place, beyond the limitations of the mind’s thought processes. Whenever you reconnect to this core, authentic self through open mind, the temporary circumstances of life stop distracting you. You’re able to trust that the creative process will produce opportunities and possibilities in due time. Meditation is essentially the action of becoming what you already are. It is the action of remembering the total stillness, silence, and the energetic state that all beings truly are.

Mindful leadership at home and work incorporates meditation as daily practices to not only improve one’s spiritual capabilities but also to become more aware of the world in which we live. The more one meditates, the more one has access to the innate wisdom within. That wisdom, which springs from the silence of meditation, allows you to connect with the entity that is most definitely you.

As one goes through life and begins to identify with the world they perceive on a daily basis, it is incredibly easy to forget one’s essence. The world is fast, hard, and often times rough. But you are not the world. You are you. You are the perceiver of the world. So, believing that you are just too busy to take time to sit still, go inside and receive from within is also just a perception or an excuse.
Meditation and mindfulness are so essential at this critical time in the evolution of our species. The educators, parents, managers, captains of industry, and future leaders of the world not only need to meditate~ they must. Or where will the next great idea, vision, image or discovery emerge?

So right now, take five minutes from your busy schedule to close your eyes, focus on your breath by breathing in for a count of 3, hold your breath for 3 and breathe out for 3 letting all stress and distractions dissolve around you and enjoy this moment of relaxation and stillness. To be free means to risk the known and venture into the unknown domain of quiet and stillness the fertile void. As we expand our consciousness, we are open to dreaming big, we are aware of the dream we are weaving the tapestry for creative enfoldment.

In the words of Bob Dylan, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change” (New Harbinger Publications, 2009) plus a contribution from Brian Culkin B.A.

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When people are in a reactive state while arguing they often shift into unwholesome emotions such as blaming, criticizing, judging, attacking or finding fault in order to justify their position. Once a person falls into these negative reactions they can become frozen or stuck in one of the three corner stones of a power struggle – dominating, manipulating and/or controlling. When this happens it leads to a breakdown in communications. So how can you stay centered and nonreactive when you’re in a heated conversation? Well the process begins by becoming a Mindful Listener.

The object in resolving a conflict is ideally for both individuals to start practicing mindful (meaning being in the present) listening and speaking. The first step is to recognize that you are in an unwholesome or unproductive pattern. After you acknowledge this aspect it is then important to categorize what the power struggle is about and to give it a title. For example, most couples argue about money, sex, time, responsibilities, and attention, so you could be fighting about one of these issues.

After you have established the cause of the communications breakdown the next step is key, as this is where you cut through the knot of the power struggle to address all aspects of the conflict that are tied up in it. To achieve this I recommend to my patients a simple mindful listening exercise. Mindful listening means being totally in the present and aware of not only the words but also the body language and actions of the other person. First, person A is the speaker who starts by talking about what is on his/her mind. Person B is the listener who listens in a mindful way and only after Person A is finished sincerely responds with, “I heard everything that you said and I will be aware of all your thoughts, feelings and perceptions from this moment forward.0 Then reverse the roles with Person A being the listener. By learning to deeply and sincerely listen to the other person you can discover where you are stuck in the conflict.

Once you and your partner understand the root of the conflict it is much easier to shift out of a reactive mode. Now the two of you can work on creating a new or different perspective to what isn’t working in the relationship. This unique approach involves a different way of speaking in order to shift your involvement. For example after you have been able to unravel the strands of the conflict you and your partner can take turns saying to each other, “I recognize that what you’re saying is ¬¬¬______ and the action that I will take to create a shift is ________. What I promise to do differently is _______ and the request that I have for you in return is _______.”

As you both develop wise listening and speaking skills you’ll start to notice when you’re tempted to respond to each other with cruelty and sarcasm, and you’ll instantly remember that you want to let go of that old behavior pattern. You’ll begin to enhance the new neural network in your brain that fosters an awareness of your forthrightness and strength, and open up to your compassion and kindness. You’ll stop feeling guilty and denying your tendency to be sarcastic, because your compassion toward yourself and others will dissolve your desire to issue a cutting remark. Then, when your spouse or coworker makes a comment that you disagree with or that makes you uncomfortable, you’ll be able to consciously choose a new, more wholesome and productive way of responding, changing the tenor of your relationship with them and fostering better relationships.

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change”

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