Your daily ticket to Narnia

“I hate when I look in my closet and find clothes instead of Narnia.” 
― H.B. Bolton

(Picture courtesy of http://www.oldvic.ac.uk/the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe.html)

Last night I saw the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s Christmas Show “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and spend a magical time with Lucy, Susan, Peter and Edmund in Narnia; a great start for getting into the Christmas spirit.

Sadly Christmas can be a very stressful time. Venturing into any town centre at this time of year, rather than being immersed in feelings of magic, wonder and anticipation you probably will experience sensations of stress, rushing and impatience all around you. Having been caught last Saturday in the crush of Bath Rugby supporters, Christmas market visitors and Christmas Shoppers I really did not see much evidence of people smiling and feeling happy or any other expression of the Christmas Spirit.

Anxiety, worry and stress not only rob us of the experience of happiness, can make us ill and our life miserable, it also is known to block the flow of our creativity. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have an easy simple technique to access the inner space of creativity, if we could find our very own wardrobe entry to this magical land?

Recently I have come across the work of Tom Stone, the creator of Human Software Engineering, a system to help debug and reprogram the human mind for more happiness and greater productivity. Without going into too much detail about the programs he designed, I found that by just experimenting with one of the exercises he created you can quickly and easily experience a great sense of inner peace. This can be can be your ticket to your very own Narnia. So Daughter of Eve, Son of Adam, get ready to enter “the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe” (in the words of the adorable Mr Tumnus in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

Let me introduce you to Tom Stone’s GAP exercise. GAP stands for “Greater Awareness Place”. Tom Stone uses the metaphor of a partially cloudy day when you can see the clouds travelling across the background of a blue sky. In this metaphor the clouds stand for our thoughts and the blue sky represents the constant background of our pure awareness. He says that pure awareness is our essential nature but through our early conditioning we habitually identify with our thoughts and our stories and forget that behind those thoughts and stories we always are and always will be pure awareness. What you will experience when you do this exercise, is a place of calm and peace, a space that can be described as unbounded, limitless, spacious and expansive. Out of this space feelings of peace, love and joy spontaneously arise. This space also gives birth to our creativity.

To do the GAP exercise just follow these simple instructions:

1)   Commit to 10 – 15 minutes to do this exercise. Sit quietly and close your eyes.

2)   Then just notice what happens. Thoughts come and go. You may notice the feeling of your body sitting in the chair. You may notice other noises or sensations. Do nothing. Simply be the witness and observe what’s happening.

3)   Allow yourself to notice a gap between your thoughts. You can asked the question “Where is my next thought coming from?”  Notice what happens.

4)    Immerse yourself in the gap between the thoughts. Notice that there is a space of emptiness. This is the experience of pure awareness. A quiet still place filled with limitless potential. Notice how you feel in this place.

5)   When you are ready slowly open your eyes and re-orientate yourself back into the room.

6)   Realize that even though you are back in the room, pure awareness is still there in the background, like the blue sky behind the clouds.

 

7)   Notice that when you were aware of pure awareness there were no sensations of stress or anxiety or any other of the negative feelings we experience on a regular basis.

Simply committing to do this exercise once or twice a day every day will bring more of the qualities of pure awareness into your daily life. You will feel calmer, happier, more productive and new ideas will come to you easily.

You can read more about Tom Stone’s Pure Awareness Breakthrough Techniques for free here.

I hope that this Christmas you will give yourself the gift of experiencing pure awareness and that in 2014 instead of clothes you will find Narnia in your closet.

And remember:

“Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Creativity on Tap

Michael Neill recently released through his website a video of a joint workshop he presented with Cathy Casey called ‘Creativity on Demand’.

In one of my earlier posts I wrote about Michael Neill and the Three Principles: thought, consciousness and mind. The three principles explain the nature of mind and how we create our daily experience through thoughts. For example, we can love or hate a person. Depending whether we experience the feelings of love or hate, we will have a very different experience. Loving thoughts might give us a good experience and hateful thoughts a bad experience. Whatever we experience is created by our thoughts, never by the person we have the thoughts about. The crazy thing is that we then start having thoughts about our thoughts, we might feel guilty or ashamed or bad that we have certain thoughts.  Whatever we experience, we have a thought first and then we feel the thought. The more we think about our thoughts or try to control or change our thoughts, the more they can become locked into place, the more ‘solid’ they become even though thoughts are completely formless. If we just allowed the thoughts to be what they are without adding further thinking, those thoughts would dissipate and fresh new thought would come through. Less thinking is certainly more living. Importantly less thinking also allows space for more creativity to come through.

Michael and Cathy explain that the normal function of the mind is infinite creativity and wisdom. We create all the time, even though we might not always like what we create. We create our experience through thought. New thought always comes in. If we let this process run freely, we will find that new creative ideas are always available to us, on tap.

Michael mentioned a wonderful quote about creativity. He didn’t say who said this quote but here it is:

“The reason that so many people stifle their creativity right at the outset is because they have really good taste but they apply it to their own endeavours too early before they put in the hours to get good enough to produce at the level that their taste demands.”

It’s ok not to get it right the first time. It’s ok to experiment and not to be perfect. It’s ok to fail and to learn. The world would be a better place if we would let ourselves and each other off the hook. It would also be better if we allowed ourselves to play more and get better through practice and experience. 

Now behind all that thinking always is an infinite source of wisdom and creativity, shining through when we allow our thinking mind to calm down. Cathy had a great expression for our busy mind: the ‘zoom zoom zoom’ mind. I’m very familiar with the zooming mind. Casey asked the audience to remember a time when they were so lost in thought that they were not present in the real world, sometimes with hilarious results. I remember that many years ago when we lived in Leicester, I left the house to drive to a supermarket to do some shopping. I came back home to find the house door wide open. I was shocked and thought that somebody had broken in. I hardly had the courage to go in. Eventually I ventured in very slowly and carefully. I found everything like I had left it. What had happened? I had left the door wide open when I drove off without realizing what I was doing. I had been lost in my own thoughts. Not a good recipe for life. Fortunately that time nothing had happened. I had been lucky. Can you remember a similar thing happen to you?

Eric Maisel, the American creativity coach, recommends a centering exercise. He says in his book ‘Coaching the Artist within’: “Creating requires your centred presence.” He adds: “If you remain scattered, confused, unfocused and uncentered, you throw away your chance to create.” He further explains that “When we come to a complete stop we give ourselves the chance to see that our fears are smoke.” We notice that our fears are smoke because our fears are created by our thoughts which are formless.

This is Maisel’s centering sequence:

1)   Come to a complete stop. Drop all thoughts. Empty your mind with your breath.

2)   Empty yourself of all expectations.

3)   Name what you want to work on.

4)   Trust that you have all the resources you need.

5)   Become present in the moment.

6)   Return to your work with strength.

7)   Do the work.

Don’t worry. Be free. Create. Your creativity is patiently waiting for you, 24/7, on tap. Your creativity is waiting for you to become present.

“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.”

Pema Chödrön

You can’t control the storm or the rain, all you can do is to wait for the weather to change. Just like the weather your thoughts are always changing and always creating.

If you like to watch the video “Creativity on Demand” you can buy and download it on Michael’s website.

Give yourself a 12" length of fishing line

Don’t try to nurture your creativity, start doing it. The word trying is to be avoided at all costs. Trying implies the possibility of failure, it implies that the action might take place sometime in the future. Trying expresses a lack of belief, commitment, confidence and passion. Although I have never watched Star Wars I love the Yoda quote:

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Instead make a decision that you want to bring more creativity into your life and just start. Make a plan and start now.

Any new project can be daunting. In her book ‘Bird by Bird’ writer Anne Lamott tells the story of an experience her older brother had many years ago. She describes how when her brother was 10 years old, he had to write a report on birds. He had been given three months to write the report but he had procrastinated and now the report was due in just one day. He was sitting at the kitchen table, close to tears, when his father approached him and said:

“Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

Time can be an issue, most of us have busy lives. We might already feel overwhelmed with all the things we have to do. This November I joined the 30 Day Challenge ‘Screw Work Let’s Play’ organized by John Williams and Selina Parker. They introduced me to the concept of Microblocking. With Microblocking you block out short periods of time every day, maybe as little as ten minutes. You decide that during those microblocks of time you are going to stay totally focused on your project, without any interruption. You might be amazed how much you can achieve in such a short amount of time as long as you commit to your microblocks and stay focused.

When you first start it is very likely that the results are not going to be perfect. Anne Lamott talks about ‘Shitty first drafts’. Perfectionism only gets in the way of following the creative path. She explains that “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start getting something – anything - down on paper.” This approach applies not only to writing but to any creative project.

In their book “Creative confidence” Tom and David Kelley say that the lesson that you need to start and accept small failures along the way was brought to life for them by a story in the book “Art & Fear”. The book tells the story of a ceramics instructor who, during the first lesson, divided the pottery class into two groups. The first group would be graded based on the quantity of work they would produce during class. The other group was graded based on the quality of one specific piece of work that would represent all they had learnt in class. The end result was quite astonishing and counterintuitive. The students in the quantity group produced the best pieces of work simply based on the fact that they threw pots nonstop during each session and therefore honed their skills much more than the students in the quality group.

Sometimes we need a little help to boost our confidence and to find the courage to really commit and to make a start. On her Facebook page Anne Lamott tells her favourite story which led her to give each of her writing students a 12" length of fishing line. She said that about 25 years ago she heard the following story about a research project done at a university on the East Coast of America:

“The people in the study had never been able (or maybe willing) to walk alone. The researchers discovered that if they attached a rope from one end of the room to the other, helped people get to their feet, and put their hand on the rope, the people with autism would hold on and walk across the room. Over time, the researchers used thinner and thinner rope, with the same results. People would hold on to the rope, walk across the room. The researchers put up laundry cord, twine, and then eventually fishing line, which is basically invisible. But people would still take hold, and walk across the room.

The truly inspired part of the study was that the researchers found that they could cut the fishing line into 12" lengths, hand people a piece, and people would STILL walk alone across the room. What a wild, victorious skill.

And that is why I always used to give each of my writing students a 12" length of fishing line.”

I would like to leave you with a quote from E. L. Doctorow (also from Anne Lamott’s book ‘Bird by Bird’):

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights but you can make a whole trip that way.”

Anne says that she finds this is also a good metaphor for life. It is also a good metaphor for nurturing your creativity. So, make a start even though you don’t quite know where the journey will take you. Take it bird by bird with your fishing line in your hand. Start, fail often and enjoy the ride.

What’s your (creative) story?

Yesterday I attended Karen William’s workshop “What to do when everyone is selling the same as you”. During the workshop Karen presented three strategies that can help you to stand out in your business. One of these strategies was to know and share your story. This made me wonder: What makes a good story?

Always happy to watch a great TED talk I discovered Andrew Stanton’s talk: The clues to a great story. Andrew Stanton is an American film director and the creator of animated movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Wall-e.

So, why are stories so important and how can they help us to stand out in the business world? I would like to start with a quote from Andrew’s talk. He described that the American Children’s television host Mr Fred Rogers always carried the following quote from a socialworker in his pocket:

 “Frankly there isn’t anybody you cannot learn to love once you heard their story.”

We are wired for stories. Stories help us to connect, to find the common human thread. Stories help us to remember and to learn. Stories give meaning to our life. We love the hero’s journey, the struggle and the resolution. Stories heal. Stories light up our brain, they help us to feel empathy.

Andrew identified the following elements which make a great story:

1)   Make the audience care, emotionally and intellectually.

2)   Give value. Make it worthwhile for your audience to invest their time.

3)   Create anticipation and curiosity. Make your audience wonder how the story might end. Make them want to stay with your story through to the end.

4)   Use the unifying theory of 2+2: humans are problem solvers, don’t give all the answers (don’t give 4, give 2+2), let your audience do some of the work.

5)   Give your story structure: beginning, middle and end.

6)   What is the underlying theme to your story? Know your ‘punchline’.

7)   Who are you? What drives you? What’s your hero/heroine’s story? What challenges have you overcome? What have you learnt on the way?

8)  Add the secret sauce: Inspire wonder.

9)   Use what you know. Truth is authentic and creates meaning.

And finally and most importantly: Enjoy telling your story. It also helps if you like the main character of your story which in this case is you.

Telling your story will not only help you to stand out in your business it will also help you to clarify the big questions for yourself: Why am I here? What am I meant to do with my life?

I like to finish with a quote by the Dalai Lama:

“To be born at all is a miracle. What are you’re going to do with your life?”

What is your creative story of wonder? Go, inspire yourself, inspire the world. 

Mind Mapping for Creativity

For many years Tony Buzan, the inventor of the Mind Map, has been a passionate ambassador for the use of mind mapping to increase creativity. I remember buying my first mind mapping book and admiring the beautiful colourful structures. Lacking confidence in my drawing skills so far I have been hesitant to use this tool. However, when I started writing this blog, I found mind maps very useful in gathering my thoughts and giving my writing structure. I have adapted the mind mapping system for my own use and even though it still lacks the creative flair it’s a move in the right direction for me. You can start wherever you are and improve your skills on the way.

I recently watched Tony Buzan’s Ted Talk “The Power of the Mind to Map” in which he explains why mind maps are a fantastic tool for creative thinking.  He asked the audience to think of a mango. He then enquired how the participants’ brain processes the word ‘mango’. Although we still don’t do know exactly what the brain does, it transpires that everybody seems to get an image, quickly followed by further associations. He explained that imagination and association are the primary language of the human brain and that languages are still important but secondary in comparison. He describes how children can play with each other even when they do not speak the same language. I can vouch for this myself as I remember very well a family holiday in Italy when I was five years old. I played very happily with a group of Italian children for a couple of days and language definitely was no barrier for us.

Tony Buzan demonstrated the effect of using a mind map on expanding our creative potential by describing an experiment involving young children. He explained that creativity can be measured by using very simple association tests. A little boy was asked to think of ideas for the use of a paperclip. In ten minutes he generated four ideas. The experimenters then explained to him how he could use a mind map. They tested his creativity again, this time asking him to think of the use for a rubber band. This time, with the use of a mind map, he generated twenty two ideas in only ten minutes. Tony Buzan reported that at the end of the exercise the little boy looked up with a big smile and said “I am a genius”. Tony Buzan maintains that we all have the capacity to be geniuses provided we use our brain in the way it actually works. Our brain is capable to make infinite connections which gives us the scope for infinite creativity.

In my last blog post I mentioned ‘creativity scars’ and that sadly many people collect these kind of scars as they grow up. Tony Buzan tells the very poignant story how he observed a little girl having her creative spirit crushed by her mother. He described how he was travelling on the tube and how the train was going faster and faster, so much so that he feared they would crash any moment. In front of him was a mother with her young daughter. He overheard the little girl saying to her mum: “Mummy, it’s going so fast we can go into tomorrow and then we can tell Daddy what’s going to happen.” He said that he was very astonished that this little girl was capable of this very creative thought. However, sadly, he then heard the mother reprimand her daughter by saying: “Don’t do that again. That’s stupid. Think properly.”

Tony Buzan concludes that we all are scientist, poets, artists and that we still have the childlike quality within us to daydream and produce infinite connections. We can all capture fresh news ideas tapping into our creative potential.

Mind Mapping is not only useful, it is fun and our creative brain likes fun.  Towards the end of his talk Tony Buzan waved a bundle of different colour felt tip pens and said that his wand was much more powerful than Harry Potter’s wand.

Make time to rediscover the magic of colour, daydreaming and your precious imagination. Do some mind mapping to ignite your creativity. 

What the Wizard of Oz can teach us about creativity

Do you remember any “creativity scars”, any specific incidents in your life where you were told that you had no talent to make art, music, sing or write? In their book “Creative Confidence” Tom and David Kelley quote the expression “creativity scars” as used by author and researcher Brené Brown. I certainly can remember more than just one of those incidents where I was made to understand by either a parent or a teacher that I had no talent for something I loved doing and those memories feel very much like scars. Those memories had a long lasting effect on how I saw myself as a non-creative person and what I thought I was able to do. So, why is it so important to heal our scars and start nurturing our creativity?

Steven Kotler begins his Forbes article “Creativity: The secret behind the secret” with a reference to a 2010 survey run by IBM’s Institute for Business Value in which over 1500 Chief Executives were asked what they thought was the most important leadership competency for this new millennium. The top answer was creativity. Creativity is going to be the most valuable quality for a successful business. Yet creativity is also the quality which has been most neglected in our education and our lives. It is time to recognize that creativity is an essential part of our humanity not just to create more business success but also to access a deeper experience of happiness.

The graffiti artist and creativity speaker Erik Wahl writes in his blog post “Rediscover your Fearless Creativity” that “the truth is that creativity is in all of us”. He also says “Creativity is everywhere and in everyone who has the courage to rediscover their fearless artistic genius”.

Now let’s bring in the Wizard of Oz story and the lessons this story has to offer us in relation to our creativity. Erik Wahl is also the author of the book “Unthink” in which he used the story of the Tin Man as a parable of what happens to us when we do not honour our own innate creativity:

A young woodcutter falls in love with a girl and they intend to marry. They’re dreaming dreams of living in a beautiful house he is going to build. Unfortunately the girl’s mother is not too happy about her daughter’s plans as she doesn’t think the young woodcutter will make a suitable husband. So she goes to the Wicked Witch of the East and pays her a handsome sum to ensure the marriage is not going to take place. The witch wickedly puts a curse on the woodcutter’s ax, the very tool the young man is going to use to build the dream house. As the young man starts his work, each time he attempts to cut down a tree, the ax switches direction and attacks him. The first time this happens his arm is seriously wounded. The only person he can find to help him is a tin smith who crafts a new arm out of tin for him. On and on the story goes, each time the young man attempts to cut down a tree he loses another part of his body until his entire body has been replaced by tin, his heart included. Without a heart, he is unable to feel love for his fiancé. He is stronger than ever and efficiently cuts down tree after tree having forgotten the original purpose of his work which was to build a future home for the girl he loved. One day a storm breaks out, it rains hard and endlessly. This is a disaster for the Tin Man, his tin joints rust and stop to function. He is left deep in the woods unable to move. Fortunately one day Dorothy comes along with Toto and the Scarecrow. They are able to rescue the tin man and he joins them in order to find a heart and rediscover who he really is. (Whitehouse Motion Picture created a short movie about the Tin Man Story called “Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man).

When we shut out our creativity, we lose touch with the very heart of our being. We are unable to fulfil our full potential and live the kind of happy and meaningful life we are meant to experience. If we have neglected our creativity we need to start a journey of rediscovery.

In the comments section to Steven Kotler’s Forbes article a reader wrote that “The most important words for any creative individual are, "what if I ...?”.

What would happen if you really believed that you have untapped creative potential? What could you do differently?

Erik Wahl reminds us that every one of us is “a one-of-a-kind artist, capable of producing a one-of-a-kind work of art, every day. Be a whole artist. Mind and heart. Logic and emotion. Strategy and soul.” 

Opening up to vulnerability and uncertainty

Brenè Brown’s Ted Talks about Shame and Vulnerability have been viewed millions of times. In addition to researching vulnerability Brenè Brown is also the author of the two books “The Gifts of Imperfection” and “Daring Greatly”. Her main message is that we need to get away from the misunderstanding that to be vulnerable means to be weak. Instead we need to understand that our vulnerability is actually the birthplace for love, connection, joy and creativity and the tool for creating meaning in our life.

She explains that we live in a culture of scarcity where nothing is ever enough. We are so involved in the search for the extraordinary that we forget to value the gift of the ordinary moments in our life. She explains that, in order to avoid the pain of vulnerability, the first thing people do in the mornings when they get up is to put on an armour of protection: an armour of seeking perfectionism, of numbing emotions, of judgement, of ‘busyness’. However, the sad truth is that when we try to numb out the potential negative emotions we might also shut out the positive emotions.

According to Brenè wholehearted living is the antidote to numbing out life. It is to show up in the world and do the work you are born to do whilst being vulnerable, trusting what emerges and being open to the possibility of failure and of being hurt. It is also helpful to surround yourself with the people who will fully support you when things go wrong and remind you that you showed courage and you tried and that that is all that matters. She stressed that in order to practise vulnerability we need to exercise gratitude, honour the ordinary in our life and allow ourselves to fully experience the emotions of joy and love.

With regard to creativity, she says that it is important to live a creative life. She summarized her thoughts about creativity in her book “The gifts of imperfection”:

1)   There is no such thing as a creative person and a non-creative person. The only distinction is that one person uses their creativity and the other doesn’t.

2)   The only unique contribution we will ever make in this world is born of our creativity.

3)   Only by being creative can we cultivate real meaning in our life.

When asked how she copes with criticism she said that she has learnt to have profound respect for herself and everybody else out there who is facing vulnerability and uncertainty being ‘in the arena’ and doing their work and that she does not respect comments from people who stand outside the arena looking in. With ‘being in the arena’ Brenè refers to a speech by Roosevelt:

 “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

It’s not easy to be vulnerable, to show up and face uncertainty. It feels safer to bury your creativity inside. However, Brenè says that in her view you can either make this world a better place or a worse place. By nurturing your creativity you most definitely will make this world a better place for all of us.

You can read Brenè’s full blog post ‘To live a creative life’ here.