Blocked Creatively? Here’s a Get Out of Jail Free Card

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Linda Matthews

Write

An article by Valery Satterwhite

The most damaging restrictions on a creative person’s freedom are self-imposed. What may have started out as a new idea, a new methodology, becomes routine, a habit, after awhile. Habits are the comfort zone. Once snuggled into a comfort zone there is a tendency to stay. However, this is not what a creator is here to do. Staying in a comfort zone habitually creating the same kind of thing over and over again does not feed the artist’s soul. Comfort zones are safe. Comfort zones bore creative people literally to tears. Stagnation goes flies in the face of an artist’s passionate desire to expand and express their full creative potential.

Habits are not limited to craft. The greatest crippler of the creative spirit is habitual thinking. Habitual thinking turns the innovator into the academician; passion into melancholy; fulfillment into despair.

“A ship in the harbor is safe. But that’s not what ships are built for.”
Anon

It is said that an artist of any kind brings a lot of himself into the work. The artist isn’t as interested in the subject of his creation as in his own reaction to that subject. When you change your habitual thought patterns you also change your habitual reactions. You literally have new eyes with which to see and observe the experiences in your life and your world. Newer expanded vision births newer expanded creation.

“Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there.”
Susanne K. Langer

When an artist is stuck, dug-in, in the mire of rigid or habitual ways of creating he literally puts a cap on the availability of his own intuition, his inner muse. Those magical “in the zone” moments of full creative energy and accomplishment are fleeting because very little inspiration is allowed. Inspiration is limited to what fits into a self-limiting set of possibilities. The artist has unknowingly handcuffed his soul.

If an artist isn’t personally evolving; stretching, growing, moving beyond comfort zones, then her art isn’t evolving. Stagnation suffocates the potential creative expression that is the artist’s birthright. Treading water in life, not moving in any direction, is exhausting! Swimming against the stream, holding back your full creative potential, is exhausting. Let go of tired old ways of being, thinking and doing. Rediscover the playful child in you. Approach your art with the wide-eyed wonder and awe of a child at an amusement park where everything is new, exciting, waiting to be experienced. Fear and judgment is left behind. Play is what turns the utilitarian into the discoverer of new interpretation, new invention. Play is the vital heartbeat of the creative spirit.

If you think you might be treading water in life or your artistic endeavors, give yourself permission to play. Play with your craft, indulge your passions, do a silly dance. Shake up your stagnated energy. Fully alive and present, be open and available for whatever comes next. That glorious state of being is the ultimate freedom.

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Who Is This Inner Critic . . .

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Linda Matthews

. . . And What The Heck Is It Doing Living Inside My Head?

Inner Critic

By Chris Zydel

I came across a startling statistic recently, which is that more than 90% of all children consider themselves to be creative yet only 10% of adults see themselves as having any creative capacity.

So what happened? How do so many of us lose our connection with the basic truth that we are all born creative and that it’s not meant to just go away once we get our adult badge?

Have you ever noticed that there is a voice inside of you, constantly on patrol, which is advising you to not trust or believe in yourself? Telling you, over and over, that you are not good enough, talented enough, smart enough, CREATIVE enough? The voice of criticism, judgment, invalidation and shame that makes you feel like you are somehow intrinsically defective and just basically not OK?

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Four simple tips for learning to work with your intuition

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Linda Matthews

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
What you’ll discover will be wonderful.
What you’ll discover is yourself.
Alan Alda

Intuition! It’s your personal inner guide. It’s the small voice that speaks to the highest part of yourself. It’s that inexplicable inner knowing of what to do in any situation, and when you trust and follow your intuition you feel that you are living in the flow, without struggle or force.

But do you always listen to and follow your intuition? Do you even know what it sounds like?

Most of us were never taught to develop our intuition. As children growing up, we’re inundated with rules and regulations from a very early age. For the most part rules are there to keep us safe and out of harm’s way, but living constantly by rules can also instill a sense of distrust in our own personal judgment.

Following your intuition can lead to a very fulfilling and soulful life. When you allow intuition to be your guide, you’ll discover new things and new ways of doing things. It leads you on an exciting path of exploration.

But what if you don’t know how to pay attention to it, or if you don’t really trust the process?

A great way to begin learning to listen and trust in your intuition is learning to use it as a tool when you’re working with cloth and thread; when you’re creating your art.

Working intuitively in this way helps you develop a personal style resulting in artwork that is unique and individual, something that can’t be replicated by others. It’s also a very safe way to begin “listening and allowing” because the worst that can happen is that you have to unsew!

We all have intuition, but if you haven’t trained yourself to listen to it, it can feel awkward at first. Here are some of my favorite tips to get your started.

Get quiet
Before you begin to to work, take a break and get quiet. Learn to quiet the chatter in your mind so you have some space to can hear the wisdom of your intuition. Getting quiet for ten or fifteen minutes a day in mediation, or just sitting quietly and being present is a good starting point. Do this right before you begin working.

Ask questions
As you’re working, ask questions. You don’t need to do this out loud, but in your mind. Should I cut the fabric this way? Should I stitch it that way? You’ll recognize your answer, your intuition, because when it comes to you the answer feels true and right. This may not happen immediately but with practice it becomes easier and more accessible.

Let go
You can also tap into your intuition by “letting go”. Letting go of the need to do things in a certain way, or letting go of the need to be perfect or right about something, or letting go of the belief that you can’t do something. These are the ways of the ego. Give your ego some time off. Finding balance between the ego and intuition will also bring harmony into your life. You’re stitching doesn’t have to be quite perfect. It’s ok if your seams are a little crooked. Let go of the need to fix every little thing.

Learn to have faith and trust
Learning to trust your intuition isn’t always easy, it requires faith and belief in yourself, but if you start using it in small ways, you can easily build that trust. For a few minutes, allow your stitch to go this way or that way, allow this piece of fabric to be red instead of blue. Does it feel right? Listen to your gut, that’s where your intuition lives, and follow the “feeling”.

Listen and allow and see what happens. It can be magical.

Main photo by bosela

Taking time to enjoy … life and business

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Linda Matthews

We’re so busy watching out
for what’s just ahead of us
that we don’t take time
to enjoy where we are.
Calvin & Hobbes

It’s been just over a month now since I abandoned my business Facebook fan page and I can’t say I’ve missed it all that much. In the beginning there were times when I was almost talked into reviving it, but then I reminded myself of all the things I got done when I wasn’t caught up in that huge interruption to my day. Things I truly enjoy.

I’ve been challenged on this a number of times though, about how I can ignore my business marketing in favor of doing other things. But the thing is I’m not ignoring my business marketing, I’m just making wiser choices about how I do it.

It’s easy to get caught up in the latest fad, the latest craze, the latest “bit thing”. It’s easy to think that if you don’t join in you’re missing out on something, and that if you don’t keep up with the crowd you’ll get left behind. It’s easy to get caught up in that wild fast ride.

But slowing down has many benefits and one of those is the gift of insight.

Slowing down gives you time to check in with yourself, to look deep within to the place where all things really matter, and sometimes you can be surprised and delighted by what you find there.

You can find that calm, peaceful self; the one you remember from years ago when life wasn’t quite so frantic.

You can find that a strong single focus brings amazing results.

You can find that by doing less you are in fact achieving more and doing it better.

You can find that sometimes as you work with your cloth and thread, a story unfolds and secrets are whispered.

You can find that your breath is a truly grounding force.

I stop by Facebook from time to time but it doesn’t seem to hold the same appeal for me anymore. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I changed my focus from “something I thought I had to do for my business” (all the Facebook marketing stuff), to “something I really enjoy doing in my business” (my truly great creative stuff), and this has made all the difference to my attitude and viewpoint.

If you’re caught up in a wild fast ride, step aside for a moment and see how it feels. You might find you even enjoy it.

Main photo by giuss95

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The benefits of choosing mindfulness over multitasking

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Linda Matthews

When walking, walk.
When eating, eat.
Zen Proverb

Then …

When I was working in the corporate world during my 20s and 30s, multitasking was a requirement. It was taken for granted that if you didn’t multitask and do it well, then from a business perspective you were considered a less than desirable employee. You just wouldn’t be able to get through your work and meet your commitments.

Looking back at those years now I can see the flaw in that logic. Sure I got through my day and I met the requirements of my job and I even excelled and went over and above those requirements. But at what cost?

I recall that many times certain tasks had to be repeated because I forgot some small detail along the way. My mind was in so many places at once that things got overlooked. I remember waking up in the morning with the strong desire to just stay in bed; the dread of facing another day was overwhelming. I was stressed and tired and my health suffered.

I was totally burnt out by my late 30s and I don’t even like to imagine what got overlooked in my mad scramble to get things done, nor what harm I caused to the people that I thoughtlessly elbowed out of the way to get there.

Now …

Now, twenty years later it’s a much different story, and with the gift of hindsight I more fully appreciate the conscious decision I made along the way to stop multitasking altogether. Now the closest I come to multitasking is sipping a cup of tea while watching the hummingbirds out the window.

It’s hard to avoid …

Even if you’ve never experienced the madness that is the corporate world, it’s easy to fall into the multitasking trap and to give in to all the many demands that are made on our time during the course of a normal day. Juggling phone calls, texting and email, facebook and online distractions, family demands and personal needs, it’s no wonder we’re tired, stressed and ill.

Benefits …

But there’s a lot to be gained from being mindful and living in the present moment. Having conscious awareness of what you’re doing right now, you’re not thinking about what happened yesterday or the day before and you’re not worrying about tomorrow or next week, you’re fully aware in the present moment. Right here. Paying attention to the one thing you are doing right now. And when you slow down, focus and pay full attention to one thing you’re doing right now -

You become more efficient
Your task gets done quicker, with less errors and with better results.

Your creativity increases
Because your mind isn’t distracted by other things, it has time to notice the details of what you’re doing and this can lead to making new connections resulting in “aha” moments of sheer creative brilliance.

Tasks get finished
With less interruptions, things get finished and not laid aside and forgotten.

You feel a sense of completion
It’s a wonderful feeling to know that you’ve completed a task from beginning to end and done your best work.

Your stress level drops
Because you’re only focusing on right now, you’re not worrying about a dozen different things a once. Being mindful is like a meditation.

Learning to be mindful …

I mentioned in a previous article my one best recommendation for slowing down and learning to be present. It’s not difficult and you do it thousands of times every day. Just breathe.

Additional Resources