Creativity is within everyone. We are born with it. Those who choose to wake up & utilize it through balance, will climb to the top of the ladder & without burning out. This article is about locating the ladder & beginning the upward climb.
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 cur- ious, 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 de- veloped 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 pos- sible 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 im- portant 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 reason- ing. 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 in- hibited by fear, mental mind blocks, negative personal judgment & the chattering of your mind. This is known as your false per- sonality 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 intel- ligently 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 be- tween 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 be- havior, 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 scan- ning 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 mat- ter 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?
Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, SRN, CPH is a Workplace Health Educator,
President & Program Designer, Sarasota Medical & Sports Hypnosis
Institute located in Sarasota, FL & online at
www.hypnosis-audio.com & www.sugar-addiction.com. She
specializes in stress management, high level health & achieve-
ment for adults,children, executives & athletes. Her sites are
inter-active & offer more that 350 CD programs to enhance self-
development.
