How do I push my creativity into new places?
First, I ignore the title—I don’t push.
Creativity happens in the lightness of being. It shows up when I show-up with benevolent mischievousness, a deep love for what I’m doing, and the decision to be curious about where the process will take me rather than being worried about the results. If I love the process the results take care of themselves.
Pressure is not a requirement, in fact pushing often leads to procrastination, avoidance, and social media marathons. An occasional deadline to make adrenaline work for me helps, but I give myself permission to be a beginner and twist associations into ideas that feel authentic to me.
Then I take my idea for a walk and expect inspiration about my idea to be everywhere.
And if I pay attention, it is.
Training the subconscious to find ideas is a lot more fun than having it fire off its old pattern of berating me constantly and directing me toward behaviors, thoughts and feelings that don't serve me.
When doing something mindless or while being mindless, inspiration has a chance to pick-up unexpected thought waves sent from rejuvenated muses attending yoga retreats in Hawaii. But I must put my mind on mental pause from the noise of technology, worry, and idiosyncratic ruminations. This is required even if it’s for five minutes.
I was on technology overload the other day and my motivation to do anything was jammed. I was stuck, cranky, and spewing dark clouds of grumbles. I didn't want to do anything but spread paint on paper even if it didn't look like anything. Many pages later, I painted the above picture and it transformed me into a kinder, more focused person. Spreading paint on paper is like medicine to me.
What's your creative medicine?
Being original means protecting inner receivers from the myriad channels of ever-present noise and listening to the ingenuity of relaxed brilliance. It means refusing to reject yourself by comparing yourself to others. We have a rich resource of creative instinct, intuition, and imagination in our subconscious, but the conscious mind needs to listen to it frequently in the quiet for us to benefit from it.
Everyone has creativity in different shapes, flavors and colors, that’s what makes the world of art, writing, improv, music, dance, and photography so filled with colossal variety.
Just for fun:
Practice saying “A-ha!”
Go ahead and say it out loud, feeling and sounding as if you just had the spiritual electricity of an irresistible idea run through you. Sometimes saying it first can rewire your systems to find an idea you might not have found otherwise. Then ask, what might I be saying that about? If no answer comes, just stay open and trust that answers will come. Gently invite your creativity into new places.
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If You're Interested in Training Your Subconscious to Fill Your World With More Creative Thought:
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