By Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
More most people, the word "creativity" is more easily applicable
to art than to business. In whatever business you find yourself,
know you are working with dynamic & creative mind tools. These tools all
have lives of their own. So to take those things, to work with them &
reorganize them in new & different ways, turns out to be a very creative process.
Whether your field be business development, bookkeeping, computer programming
or even parenting, the tools remain the same.
Creativity is within everyone. We are born with it. Sometimes
we create problems by allowing it to stay dormant by not of-
fering it the means of subconscious release. This article will
help to wake you up in this regard.
What happened to our early creativity? Where did it actually
go? These are important questions, because when we understand
the past, we can apply that knowledge to the present & future.
Sometimes we are taught to be uncreative by our parents, our
teachers, our society , our work & home environments.
Conspiracy ! We are told to stay in the lines, there is only
One right answer & that play is frivolous. We may have even
been Told that we are not creative & this is not our area. Lies!
Let's practice some awareness work & see if we can recognize a
creative person. Creative people become totally immersed in ex-
pressing their inner visions, knowing that their chief challenge
is to organize familiar materials in a fresh way. They are curious, adventurous, experimental, willing to take risks & you
will find them absorbed in meeting the challenges of their
working day.
Creativity is a way of life. It is an ongoing process, not a
series of isolated aberrations. It is a productive attitude developed by individuals throughout their lifetimes, not a random
good idea that happens to work. You can live your life as a work
of art! Creativity is not a destination. It is a journey!
Who needs to be creative? We all do. Creativity keeps stress
chemical production low & that is excellent news, since over 65%
of disease states are known to be stress-connected. Creativity
thrives at all levels in the workplace. Everyone can be creative.
Truly creative people are well balanced. It is much easier to be
creative in a company who's policies invite it, but corporate
policy is not a requirement for individual creative expression.
Rate yourself creatively. Recall a time when you had a great
Idea that solved an important problem. Make it as real as possible by using all senses. Learn to enjoy your memories. What
feeling did you have when the idea surfaced? These are all
creative experiences & are evidence of the inherent creativity
in each one of you.
Understanding Eureka....Your Inner Creative Resource
More important than striving to pin down "a process" it is important to get some experience & practice in living with your
enormous, almost unfathomable inner creative resource. So where
do ideas come from? In some sense, you can't describe your inner
creative resource in words. We will use the word "essence" to
describe it & will look at it as the "library of your mind."
Lets talk about the qualities of essence. It provides the
Quality of intuition; a direct knowing without conscious reasoning. The second quality is "will." People who are creative
have a compelling vision or mission & this exemplifies "will."
The third quality is "joy." It is best related to balance.
When you have balance within yourself & between all parts of
your life, you experience the joy of the flow of creativity. The
fourth quality is strength. We often talk of creativity in
terms of a breakthrough. The creative person often has to break
through a wall of fear & criticism that might stop him or her.
Creative people take appropriate risks. This inner strength
overcomes fear. These qualities are all in you waiting to be
tapped. They form your creative base.
The Wheel of Creativity
Why is it difficult to reach the essence? Your creativity is inhibited by fear, mental mind blocks, negative personal judgment
& the chattering of your mind. This is known as your false personality or super ego. It keeps you in conflict. So, the trick
is to eliminate this conflict. The best approach is to awaken
your essence by experiencing it strongly. Then you can intelligently overcome your own false personality as your own true
self manifests itself more & more in your life.
Now, how do you wake up? We call this releasing or learning to
let go. Pick up a pencil & hold it firmly, but not tightly between your fingers. First surrender & stop striving to hold on
to it. Plug into "effortless." Let go. Release the pencil.
Enjoy dropping the pencil. Get involved with the actual feeling
of dropping the pencil. While this may sound like strange behavior, simply go with it. One does not have to understand or
judge everything. Go with the flow here.
We learn to work simply with absorption, focus, surrendering to
the task at hand. This includes the concern for the self-image,
the need to out-do others, the wish to impress, anxiety about
living up to the expectations of everyone. Simply do the job in
front of you. Focus. Become super-involved in that job.
There are four general pathways to surrendering. Fist, stop
mental striving. Next, apply yourself to the task, maintain a
spirit of enquiry & acknowledge that you don't know how it is
going to turn out. We want to learn how to utilize guided
imagery & interactive self-hypnosis. I designed these
specialized hypnotic tools to allow my patients & clients to be
in the mind program, right in the moment & right where it
matters.
Another good exercise to stop mental striving is breathing from
center. This is called mental biofeedback, as well as body scanning and/or awareness meditative breathing. All individuals
looking to enhance creativity should learn these invaluable
tools. Awareness helps us to see negative patterns that block
creativity. One of those is the hammering away at a problem
until we find a solution. This often leads to RED ALERT or the
anxiety-panic response. It also leads to a closed mind.
If you have problems surrendering, don't worry. It will come.
Begin to notice positive experiences when you have them & keep
on experiencing & observing. So what happens if you get stuck?
So many challenges of life are involved in getting unstuck. A
job that is un-stimulating, a relationship that has ceased to
nourish you, a headache that doesn't respond to the same two aspirins, losing weight. Stuck is the state of finding a brick
wall in the maze & then retracing your steps only to take the
same path again & again. Why do we do this?
Sometimes we believe that our options are limited to what has
worked in the past, or we believe that this time it will work.
Often we feel it is safer to stay there & sometimes it is a matter of habit.
Breaking habitual ways of thinking gets us unstuck. In the book,
"A Whack on the Side of Your Head", the author describes whacks
as ideas or situations that cause you to get off your routine
path & think something different. It's a good idea to ask your
subconscious mind to present some "whacks" for you, or to wake
you up when you need to be "whacked."
Here are some self-development questions to help wake your
sleeping creative genius. I suggest you write or type the
question, relax deeply into the moment & let your pen or fingers
provide the answers. This is true subconscious mind or automatic
writing work.
1. How do I view myself in the mirror of creativity?
2. What areas of my life would benefit from enhanced creativity?
3. What part of my life is the most creative?
4. How would I describe the presence of creativity?
5. What part of my life is the most bereft of creativity?
6. How can I change this?
7. What is one thing you will do today to enhance your level of creativity?
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