Mindfulness and Creativity. How does mindfulness create and sustain the creative process? The essence of the creative process is freedom. The opposite of freedom is fear (although many say the opposite of fear is love). That being said, perhaps there is a close relationship between freedom and love.

Throughout the ages people have described the feeling that comes with the creative process and it is generally one of being in the moment/flow of whatever activity you are involved in. There is a timeless and effortless sense that usually is experienced as well as a sense of positive energy and a feeling of satisfaction. This is of course the specific quality of present moment awareness and is the result of either a sustained training in mindfulness or having stumbled upon an activity/subject that allows you to enter the present moment as a particular doorway for you. We all have activities/subjects that put us into this experience but all too few of us can access this experience 24×7 which is the real effect of mindfulness practice.

For many, creativity comes as either a physical, mental, emotional or “spiritual” experience or a combination of some of these. For the mindfulness practitioner they are trained in engaging all 4 areas in the exercise of creativity so that it becomes a truly holistic experience. There is a sense of balance driving the creativity and is sustained by that balanced “chi” energy rather than the artificial, temporary adrenaline energy so many people become reliant upon and sustain with negative behaviors, eventually succumbing to it’s pressure over the long term.

There is limitless creativity available to everyone when you step into the present moment.

I find that most people come to meditation, whether it be mindfulness or some other form, to address concerns they have in life. That was certainly the case with me as I was struggling to overcome fears, depression and a whole litany of dysfunction while at the same time wanting to figure out how the universe worked. Regardless of the issues being addressed, whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual a lot of attention and energy goes towards resolving the issues. Life becomes all consuming in the pursuit of figuring these things out and making peace with them. It seems for many of us that while we are pursuing these things there is a heaviness about our lives and the lightness of spirit and playfulness of heart takes a back seat. This can last a long time, even a lifetime, as this search wears on. Things become very serious….

One of the things I like about mindfulness versus other forms of inner practice is that in bringing us to the present moment it takes us away from the intense focus of our own inner world to something larger. It takes us outside our own bubble and allows us to merge our life with the life outside the bubble. In many cases it may seem like a tearing away of the obsession with the “little self” and an opening up of a much larger self which includes everything/body. It’s when that happens that we wake up to a much larger reality, one that is interesting, engaging and fun. I noticed with my own experience that when my practice started bringing me into the present moment and away from my inner struggles that I began to have a new perspective on life. I actually started to have fun again, something that had been missing for a long time. As I embraced the return of fun in my life it continued to deepen and expand. It was then that I realized that having fun was a big part of of my mindfulness practice and that I wanted to share that with others. It seemed to me that the more people in the sandbox, the more fun would be had. I also found that as the sense of fun returned, the other issues I was dealing with were resolving. So there is some connection between allowing fun back into life and resolving the many issues we all bring to our inner practice. For me, the engagement with the present moment was the key that opened the lock. There is an alchemical reaction that takes place in the present moment that transforms the nature of our issues and allows us to have fun again. It ends up influencing the way we see things and not taking ourselves so seriously. We can still continue to address our original reasons for entering into this process but now with a lightness of being and playfulness in our hearts.

I’ve been reading a lot of studies and articles lately that talk about the negative health effects of technology. Cell phones seem to be the recipient of most of the wrath being doled out in these reports primarily because of the dangers of texting and driving but also because of the tendency to become addicted to the behaviors that drive us to using technology in this way. Other devices such as computers and tablets also fall into the category of technology that is creating unhealthy behaviors. There are a lot of reasons why technology is ripe for blame in creating unhealthy behavior. It has opened the door to a myriad of possibilities and has created an avenue of excitement for everyone who uses it. The excitement factor is usually the element that creates the health problems associated with our use of technology.

There has been discussion over the last few years about our attraction and subsequent addiction to adrenaline and excitement. It can be argued that the media and companies recognize this addiction and gear products to creating and then satisfying this adrenaline/excitement addiction. This is a problem that is tied closely together with stress and the fight or flight response. There is a tendency in people around the world to be susceptible to actually getting stuck in the fight or flight mode for extended periods of time…sometimes even years. One of the many results of this phenomenon is the overproduction and subsequent attachment to adrenaline. Since adrenaline produces excitement, we end up looking for other ways to sustain the excitement when our supply of adrenaline wanes. Technology is ripe for stimulating and sustaining the adrenaline effect.

The important thing to remember is that stress and fight or flight is dependent solely on our relationship to events in our lives, not the events. That being understood brings us to the realization that technology has nothing to do with creating stress. We need to develop a new healthy relationship with technology that will allow us to use it constructively. I know of no better approach to accomplish this than the practice of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Mindfulness practice allows us to create healthy new behaviors and relationships. This has been documented in over 3000 studies and continues to be the gold standard in reducing stress and creating new healthy perspectives in our lives.

We have come to recognize that the ancients had an excellent understanding of energy far before modern science was able to measure it. It has become an enormous field of study and generally can be divided into two forms, physical and non physical. Within these two categories are multiple sub categories and descriptions about how physical and non physical energy relate to each other. As this is a blog and by definition should be kept brief I will not go into all the academic areas of energy but will keep it simple and relevant as to how we can access more energy for our lives. I think it is evident to everyone that we need energy in our bodies to function and accomplish everything. Our bodies have an energy of their own which interacts with the energy that exists all around us and throughout the universe. All the ancient traditions have a name for it and it had been known for a long time. In India it is called Prana and in Asia it is called Chi or Qi. It is somewhat akin to the electromagnetic energy of modern science but not quite, as modern science hasn’t fully grasped the true nature of it. If they did we would have far more “clean” energy at our disposal.

Since the “Universal energy” is constant and always accessible I’ll discuss how and why we can’t always seem to access it ourselves. Why can’t our bodies continuously replenish themselves with the energy that is everywhere? I think we need to look at our nervous systems as the meeting point for the physical and non physical energy. If our nervous systems are in balance then there is a natural flow between the physical and non physical energies. Eastern medicine goes into great detail about the energetic system of the body and how to keep it in alignment so that the energy continues to flow. Western medicine is only beginning to recognize this but if we look at the nervous system we can find a meeting point for the two systems. We are well aware through our studies of stress that the autonomic nervous system is getting battered about by modern stress. We know that many of us end up getting stuck in the fight or flight response for years and that the ramifications of dealing with the resulting havoc on the nervous system are related to a host of health problems. When our health suffers, our ability to access the physical and non physical energy suffers. We end up disconnecting from ourselves in order to cope with the stress and in so doing perpetuate the situation. I’ve spoken many times about how mindfulness reverses this disconnection and sets the nervous system back on it’s course to balance. When that happens the body is able to regain it’s own energy and reestablish the connection with the “non physical” energy. When that happens, we can utilize both forms of energy to reestablish the vitality and energy that is so necessary in order to truly participate in life.

In order to figure out why Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programs are so effective we need to look at what it is and how that relates to the core of stress related issues. We have come to learn that stress plays a role in so many negative ways and finding an approach that diffuses the core cause of these issues is very important.

The biggest problem with stress is when it becomes chronic and we become stuck in the fight or flight response. At that point, we begin to deal with all the physical, mental, and emotional changes that are designed to help us in the short run but become problematic in the long run if the system doesn’t normalize and return to balance. In many ways, we can think of mindfulness-based stress reduction as the antidote to being stuck in fight or flight. In that way, it addresses the core of the problem.

The primary coping mechanism in fight or flight is our ability to disconnect from what is happening in the present moment. Considering the original purpose of fight or flight is to assure our survival in a situation of danger, possible death, or injury, the ability to disconnect from those unwanted experiences can be a welcomed strategy. Of course, with chronic stress, this disconnection stays with us over a long period of time. We disconnect from our bodies, emotions, and mind which causes many problems. The definition of mindfulness is paying attention moment by moment in a nonjudgmental way. As an antidote, it brings you back to the present moment…into your body, mind, and emotions. In so doing it breaks the stress cycle and provides the impetus to return the system to normal. MBSR Scottsdale Institute for Health and Medicine serves the entire MBSR Phoenix area needs and everywhere online.

For the Love of Money. It talks about a Wall Street broker who through a series of epiphanies came to the conclusion that he was addicted to money. It got me thinking about whether there is a common denominator for all addictions.

Over my life I have felt the pull of various things that could fall into the category of addictions if left to their devices and in the many classes I have taught in mindfulness I have had plenty of people who have talked of their various addictions and the benefits that mindfulness practice has had in relation to their addictions. It seems to me that if you have an addictive personality then that addictive personality will choose from the many opportunities to express itself. Probably the most common addictions that we hear of through the media are the many kinds of drugs whether they be stimulative or depressive. Many times the two go hand in hand as a way of balancing the extremes. Drugs come in many forms and don’t have to be limited to prescribed and non prescribed substances. We all know of food addictions, behavioral addictions such as sex, extreme sports/risk taking etc. The list goes on and on.

Where does the addiction begin? It has become common knowledge that there is an epidemic of people getting stuck in fight or flight for extended periods of time if not years. The autonomic nervous system gets stuck in the sympathetic mode or high gear. One of the many ramifications of this phenomena is a steady flow of adrenaline and the other stress hormones. Another common acknowledgment is that people begin to crave the adrenaline high after awhile. I think we need to look seriously at this being a root cause of addictions. From here the domino effect kicks in and that adrenaline craving begins to express itself in many ways. I recently read that this can be passed on genetically. The well known disconnection that takes place as a result of chronic fight or flight perpetuates this condition. The well known effect of mindfulness practice being able to reverse this disconnect is also acknowledged. Perhaps we have found an important key for reversing addictions. There is much to discuss here and many dots to connect.

In the late 1990’s I developed and delivered a way to use mindfulness as an integral part of the educational/academic system. The name of the program was: Mindfulness Training for Elementary School Students: The Attention Academy. It was published by The Journal of Applied School Psychology, Vol. 21(1) 2005. Since my study was published there has been a world wide movement to bring mindfulness into the schools and this movement is expanding exponentially. My work with www.innerexplorer.org continues this movement.

My personal experience with learning and mindfulness brought me to the conclusion that thinking and learning had far more to do with just cognitive skills. I discovered that cognition is interconnected with emotion and tactile experience. The term “emotional intelligence” has now become an accepted part of the learning continuum and will continue to play an even larger role as it discovers the depth of it’s possibilities. As it relates to education, mindfulness has the convenient twofold application of increasing attention skills and reducing stress thereby creating new opportunities for excellence. As the over 3000 studies in mindfulness over a vast array of applications conclude, increased attentions skills, increased awareness and connection with emotions and the body result in greater aptitude for learning and communication. We are no longer tied to thinking “inside the box” and are discovering new exciting ways to learn resulting in an unprecedented explosion of creativity.

It had long been a theory of mine that the practice of mindfulness could be helpful in teaching people how to think and learn in new enhanced ways. This idea came to me because of my personal experience of the limits of my own educational training all the way through college and beyond. I felt like a fish out of water and had a hard time just thinking “inside the box”.

When beginning to practice mindfulness there is an issue that comes up repeatedly. When I teach the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program I immediately introduce the formal practice(meditation) and the informal practice(mindfulness in everyday life). The formal/meditation practice involves periods of silence and stillness that are used as the backdrop for developing present moment attention. The informal practice of mindfulness in everyday activity involves by definition…movement and usually a good deal of sound although not necessarily sound. There are four categories of response to these two approaches. Firstly there are those who can’t tolerate stillness and silence, secondly there are those that prefer stillness and silence, thirdly there are those who can tolerate both and lastly there are those who can’t tolerate either. Obviously when looking down the road it is considered preferable to be comfortable with both. However, it is my observation that although I teach both, if someone is having great difficulty with one, I will emphasize focusing on the other until gradually both can be embraced. To insist on one over the other is rigid and self defeating in a situation that calls for flexibility and compassion. Mindfulness can be difficult enough for a beginner and it seems to me that taking the course of least resistance at first is the better part of valor. It is very important to feel as though progress is being made in order to sustain the level of commitment and enthusiasm necessary to continue.

The greatest resistance is usually found with the stillness and silence. A hint as to why can be found with the Wikipedia definition of restless leg syndrome:

“Restless legs syndrome (RLS) also known as Willis-Ekbom disease (WED)[1] or Wittmaack-Ekbom syndrome, is a neurological disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to move one’s body to stop uncomfortable or odd sensations.[2] It most commonly affects the legs, but can affect the arms, torso, head, and even phantom limbs.[3] Moving the affected body part modulates the sensations, providing temporary relief.

RLS sensations range from pain or an aching in the muscles, to “an itch you can’t scratch”, an unpleasant “tickle that won’t stop”, or even a “crawling” feeling. The sensations typically begin or intensify during quiet wakefulness, such as when relaxing, reading, studying, or trying to sleep.[4] Additionally, most individuals with RLS suffer from periodic limb movement disorder (limbs jerking during sleep), which is an objective physiologic marker of the disorder and is associated with sleep disruption.[5] It can be caused by low iron levels.[6]”

The giveaway is “The sensations typically begin or intensify during quiet wakefulness, such as when relaxing, reading, studying, or trying to sleep.[4]” This is essentially describing a condition similar to the stillness and quiet of meditation. Although there can be a neurological disorder I think it is much more common that in stillness and silence we confront our adrenaline addiction. For anyone who has been stuck in stress for a period of time you are very familiar with how it feels to be addicted/sensitive to your own adrenaline. When embarking on reversing that situation it becomes even more obvious when being still and silent. In time, as the nervous system normalizes and the adrenaline factor goes away it is much easier to tolerate the still, quiet times. That’s why movement and activity is the better emphasis in the beginning for those who are most sensitive to the adrenaline factor. So it is important to be flexible and compassionate with yourself as you are discovering the best doorway to learning mindfulness, all the while keeping in mind that eventually we want to be present in all situations.