I’ve been creative in my life. Yes I have. I have known creativity in its various forms. There’s the uncommon use of words, whether in writing or in prose. There’s finding a solution to a problem, where you arrive at the solution through inspiration, where it just hits you. Creativity can also be found when you’re in the flow, really engaged in something, where it has all of your attention. Creativity can be found in following your intuition or subtle body sense which in turn changes your perception, your behaviour or the structure that you’re in at the moment.
Creativity is not found when you’re doing anything by the numbers, whether that be painting, finding a solution to a problem or enjoying yourself.
There are several key factors that make creativity possible: having and exercising a choice, freedom of thought and of expression, being an idea machine, positive inhibition, being connected to the emotional and visceral parts of the body, being in the flow, and having a mental disorder.
Having and exercising a choice.
As we grow and develop, we need rules to live by, we need to have boundaries drawn for us so that we know that there are some things we can and can’t do. It’s important for the development of our lower minds. It gives us structure to our thoughts and energy flow. At some point, we are able to grow beyond those initial rules and boundaries and explore who we are, what we are made of, and we form a personality. It’s interesting to note that we continue to limit our thinking by thinking or saying “I have to go do this” or “I need to blah,blah, blah”. What if we were to change “I have to, I need to or I must” to “I want to, I choose to, I get to”? By never changing our thought patterns, we place an energy burden on ourselves only to find that it brings us to a place of exhaustion and indifference, maybe even depression.
Realizing that we have a choice AND exercising that choice is one way to open ourselves up to being more energy rich and creative.
Freedom of thought and of expression
Are you aware of how you constantly censor yourself? With every thought and expression of thought and emotion, we can censor ourselves with questions like: What’s the right answer? What should I do? Will I be accepted if I think or express this? What will happen if I allow myself to think or do or say this? Sometimes we just default to feeling ashamed, leading us to experience an energy poor state. Are you aware of all the second-guessing that you do?
Often times creativity will show up when we choose, not the first thought to enter our minds, but the second or third. Positive inhibition – our ability to choose another thought, has been linked not only to creativity but also self-awareness and knowing ourselves, knowing the ins and outs of how our minds work, seeing into the subconscious and becoming aware of blind spots.
Being connected to the Emotional and Visceral Parts of our Body.
Self awareness takes many forms: being able to feel emotion and to identify emotion can be a life-long learning. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I became conscious of what fear feels like in my body. What a freeing moment that was for me! Can you imagine feeling something quite strongly, but not recognizing what your body is trying to tell you? Being connected to your body also means that you have more sources of information and inspiration to be creative with. If all you know that it’s sunny outside, how will you decide how to dress?
Being in the Flow
There’s something magical that happens when we’re in the flow. Time and space seem to shift, the logical mind disappears and we become part of something greater, some would say the flow of life. When we’re in that flow, what seemed impossible before, now is possible. What seemed very concrete, now seems like air. So too with our beliefs and how we see ourselves. We can box ourselves in over a lifetime, creating the walls out of thoughts, self-perceptions and beliefs about who we are, how we are to live our lives and how the world is supposed to be around us. Being in the flow allows the natural flow of ideas from the mind and allows creative possibilities to arise.
Having a Mental Disorder
“The truly creative changes and the big shifts occur right at the edge of chaos. In the school environment, creativity can be considered pathological behaviour as opposed to the compliant traits of being reliable, sincere, good-natured, responsible, tolerant and peaceable – the qualities associated with the lowest levels of creativity.” Cevin Soling
On the Edge of Chaos
The Neuro-Structural Care that you receive at the Happy Spine is leading you towards more creativity and flow.
The first phase of care is designed to help you, your body and mind, to recover from Neuro-Structural Shift, caused by years of stress. Sometimes people will choose to stop their care after they’ve reached a point of more comfort. Either they’re feeling better, or they feel less concerned about their symptoms or both.
At the Happy Spine, there is the option, after the initial phase of care, to optimize. Optimized care is designed to take you from a place of comfort, to the edge of chaos, and beyond. Why would we want to do that you ask? Comfort and Growth never occur together. And if you want to grow, if you want to change adaptive patterns that have protected you and also held you in place, in order to experience more depth and fullness in your life, then choose Optimized care. There are many, many benefits to having a more flexible nervous system, body and mind.
In the next newsletter, I will expand on this and describe how Neuro-Structural Care helps you to experience more energy, more vitality, more creativity and passion for life!