Minds practicing creativity have changed the way we live and experience the world. Without them, it would not be possible to sit down in a warm place reading these words that a person from another part of the world wrote. For creativity, there is no limit. If we want to live in a better world, we can do it!
Remember past times as a kid. Transforming boxes, chairs, bed sheets into enormous castles, mystical caves, sports cars, modern spaceships and many other amazing things? Fear of making the fool was not there, fear of “what will others say about me” was not there. The mind was fresh, clear, full of imagination. Playing, asking, experimenting, sharing, creating… this was common every single day. But what happened now? Why is it sometimes so difficult to find creativity?
We are all born with a creative mind. It is our nature. But many of us have lost strength in our “creative muscle”. How to fix that? We just need to use it more often to make it grow nice and strong! And just as in every other activity that we restart to do after some time without practicing it. It will get hard at the beginning. So, we will need some patience!
Start Acting!
Usually, we tend to wait for the perfect time for starting an activity (writing, composing music, painting, studying, designing, brainstorming…), the time when we feel fresh, “on fire” when we feel one hundred percent motivated. But it can take so long if we just wait for this perfection. Instead… just start to act! Whatever the state you are into now. It is when we start to do something that different solutions start appearing, solutions that we would have never thought of if we did not start experimenting. Like when we want to design something, we usually start with sketches, many sketches, whatever it comes to our head we start sketching it, ten… forty… one hundred sketches. Any idea, good or bad, is welcomed. With this bunch of different drawings, new ideas start appearing in our mind, new combinations, features, and new ways of building whatever artifact we want to build. It is a matter of going with the flow, trusting ourselves, finding support in the exterior and taking out whatever idea appears in our mind. We will then be able to join ideas, polish them and come out with a bigger one. You will never feel 100% prepared, so just start doing something!
Be patient, trust the process
Again, at the beginning it will be difficult. We might start with excitement about what we can create, after some time we might start getting out of ideas. If this happens, we can easily give in to feelings of boredom, impatience, fear and confusion. We stop experimenting, observing and learning and then the whole process can get stagnant. But if we manage to overcome these arising emotions and allow time to take its course, something remarkable begins to take shape. As we continue to observe, experiment, play, share, we gain clarity seeing how ideas start working and fitting together. We begin to see connections that were invisible to us before. This is where a boost of energy will come. New ideas, this time bigger ones will come to us with easiness.
Share what’s in your mind
A very important word here is sharing. Start sharing your ideas, without fear. We are all part of the same “thing”. Like a drop of water is part of the whole ocean. All of us together form one single consciousness, a “mother mind” but this mind is divided into little “baby minds”(each and every one of us). Solutions to problems are already here, in the “mother mind”, but this information might be split in different single “baby minds”. If it is so… then it is very important to share what is happening in our inner world. It might inspire or help others; it might be a missing piece for solving a puzzle. Nobody alone is perfect; it is the joint of different parts that make perfection.
Meditation as a tool for creativity
As in many other fields, meditation can help us during this creative process. When we meditate we clear our mind. With this we are more aware of our feelings, we can clearly observe them, identify their root and stay stable when impatience, fear or confusion arises. Since there are also no distracting thoughts, we can remain focused. All this gives us more energy and determination to continue with the process of creation. Meditation is also an exercise for the mind, we prepare it to detect ideas, link them and create more.
So, do you want to boost your creativity? Then start sharing what is in your mind, start communicating with the world without fear of criticism, and trust this amazing tool (meditation) during the whole process.
“Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.” Dee Ho
