The Creative Notebook

Let’s try out a new look for our notebook.   Here goes……

I’m switching the whole site over to a new format.  Some things may not be available for a while, but when it’s done, it will be much easier for me to update, so you should see new things more often!  Change is good!

How Can I Find Time For Myself During My Busy Day?
By Melissa B. Rayn

Life is hectic. Face it. It seems like, if we’re not actively doing something, then we’re on our way to the next thing. There is laundry to do, dinner to prepare, work piling up on your desk and you’re already late for your son’s soccer practice. How in the world are you supposed to find time for yourself? Yet at the same time you know that you will be a much better spouse, mother, friend and employee if your life is in balance and you take time to relax and rejuvenate.

Delegate
We are all limited to 24 hours in any given day. Since you can’t get extra time, you need to free up a few hours a day by delegating some of your tasks. Get the kids and your spouse to help out around the house, ask someone else to work out all the details for the church fundraiser this year, and delegate some of your simpler tasks at work to your assistant or if you own your own business, consider outsourcing.

Tackle One Thing At A Time
Multitasking is great, but sometimes you waste a lot of time trying to get 5 things done at the same time. Try focusing on one project at a time, putting your head down and getting it done before moving on to the next one. You’ll find yourself getting things done much faster without all the distractions multi-tasking can bring.

Schedule “Me” Time First
Make yourself a priority. There are always going to be at least 25 other things that you could be doing. Just ignore them for a moment and schedule time for yourself first. Get out your day planner and block out a few hours each week that are just for you. Unless there is a dire emergency, don’t reschedule.

Now that you have carved out some time for yourself, put it to good use. Take a hot bath, read a good book, or give yourself a facial. Relax before diving back into your hectic everyday life.

Melissa B. Rayn loves to experiment with different homemade bath and body recipes. Her passion for creating beauty and spa recipes inspired her to share them with others at her website http://www.mybeautyrecipes.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Melissa_B._Rayn

Journaling on Vacation
DailyIndia.com - Niskayuna,NY,USA
… Keeping a journal can also be a learning experience. The longer … way. Keeping a journal in a pocket or purse is always a good idea. Once …

13 Ways To Become a Good Person
Reform Judaism - New York,NY,USA
… future (see point 9). Keeping a journal will help us to lead the kind of life we want, instead of allowing ourselves to be controlled by emotions and impulses. …

Share your grief
DailyIndia.com - Niskayuna,NY,USA
… dog! Keeping a journal or grief diary also helps. Parents can write down their feelings and the memories of the loved one. They …

10 Ways to Thrive as a Creative Artist
By Linda Dessau

1. Connect with your DREAM – Indulge yourself in a vision of the bigger picture and get out of the mire of self-doubt, details and challenges of today. What’s the purpose of it all? What are you working towards? What is your unique mission to carry out?

Daily Practice: Spend a few quiet moments reflecting on your BIG CREATIVE DREAM. Then, capture your thoughts through words, images and/or music and look back on these every day as a way to reconnect.

2. Connect with your “INNER ARTIST” - That part of you that’s naturally exuberant, joyful, free in its pure expression of creative thought; undamaged, unhindered, unencumbered.

Daily Practice: Approach your art as child’s play. Start your creative work time by playing your instrument “wrong”, switching hands or in two different keys at the same time. Write a song using only words that start with the letter “d”. Make mistakes. Laugh.

3. Connect with your MUSE – Nurture your relationship with this special inner voice. Listen for its wisdom and carry out its wishes.

Daily Practice: Your muse is unique to you, and so are the ways you can best tune in to it. Experiment with other forms of art that inspire you, nature walks, meditation, cooking and people who glow.

4. Connect with your BODY – When unhealthy habits sap your body of its vitality and strength your creativity and productivity will be sapped as well.

Daily Practice: One of the best practices for a healthy body, mind and spirit is to get enough sleep and rest. Tonight, end your evening activities a half hour early and spend that time winding down. Release the worries of the day by writing or speaking about them. Calm yourself with a bath, tea, massage, music or a good read that doesn’t remind you of your work.

5. Connect with SPIRIT – Redefining your vision of a Higher Power to one that supports your creative life can unleash a powerful source for your creativity.

Daily Practice: Write a letter, humbly thanking your Higher Power for your creative gifts and describing all of the ways you’re making use of them. Include things you wish are true that aren’t quite there yet, & read this letter daily as a way of expressing gratitude for another day lived as a creative artist.

6. Connect with your THOUGHTS – You can learn what your inner critic wants and how to peacefully coexist with it. You have the power to change your perception, and to out-think your fears and your inner critic.

Daily Practice: This is from “Taming your Gremlin” by Richard Carson. Simply notice when you have a self-criticizing or negative thought. You don’t have to act on it, dwell on it, believe it, argue with it or rationalize it. Simply notice it.

7. Connect with your FEARS - There can be fears just under the surface of every choice we make in a day’s time. Fear of being rejected keeps us from asking someone to join us for coffee. Fear of financial insecurity keeps us from buying something wonderful that would inspire us creatively. Fear of failure keeps us from starting or finishing a new project.

Daily Practice: Name one fear that’s guiding your actions today. Write it down, and then talk about it to someone you trust, or explore it in song, musical improvisation or art. Now, identify one small step towards the action you’ve been afraid to do and commit to when you’ll do it. If the action is small enough to be done in two minutes or less – do it today!

8. Connect with your FELLOW TRAVELERS – whether it’s your band mates, conductor, audience, mother, spouse, artistic community members or children, our relationships can enhance AND challenge our lives in many ways.

Daily Practice: Ask someone else about their dream (creative or otherwise) and listen intently to their answer. Ask questions and let them know you’ve heard what they’ve said by repeating little bits back to them. In this one brief conversation, practice NOT sharing your own personal experiences, simply be there to listen intently and witness their dream.

9. Connect with your STRENGTHS - Learn how to acknowledge your own gifts, accept compliments graciously and to present yourself confidently as the extraordinarily unique artist that you are.

Daily Practice: Create a list of everything that’s wonderful about you – the different roles you hold in life, your accomplishments, the failures you’ve learned from and survived, the losses you’ve endured, the gifts you were born with, the skills you’ve developed and the knowledge you’ve gained. Read this list every day and connect with your strengths.

10. Connect with your SURROUNDINGS - A cluttered environment can create chaos and makes it that much more difficult to get things done (“Where’s my pen?”).

Daily Practice: A major clutter-clearing can take weeks and is best done a little bit at a time so it doesn’t get too overwhelming. For today, simply put away your things after you’re done with them.

© Copyright 2005, Genuine Coaching Services. All rights reserved.

Linda Dessau, the Self-Care Coach, helps artists enhance their creativity by addressing their unique self-care issues. To receive her free monthly newsletter, “Everyday Artist”, subscribe at http://www.genuinecoaching.com/artist-newsletter.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_Dessau

7 Things Sapping Your Creativity Right Now
By Linda Dessau

This was a very easy article to write. I was late in getting started this month, and as my publication deadline got closer and I could no longer wait until I “felt” like writing an article, I was forced to sit down and do it. In doing it, I thought about the last month (when I meant to be getting started on this as well as other creative projects), and I identified seven things that have gotten in the way of my creativity. Maybe you’ll see yourself in some of these.

1. Not getting enough sleep – I noticed this one the most when I DID finally get a good, long sleep (the night before writing this, actually). All of a sudden my muse was speaking to me again (see below for more on that), the day looked positive and full of promise and I was open to the ideas that are always flowing around me. And I just plain felt good! Sleep is something I write and speak a lot about, and it’s still a practice I need to consciously keep up so I don’t slip back into bad habits.

2. Trying to do it alone – Bouncing ideas off someone else is invaluable to me. When I stop before I start (see below), and I don’t consult or collaborate with others, I miss out on the collective voices that are available to me. Just hearing my own telling of an idea – reading it aloud or describing it – can be enough. Any feedback or new ideas is a bonus. If the idea is really fresh and precious, I may ask the listener not to give feedback, and let them know I just need a sounding board at this point.

3. Stopping before I start – Not carrying out my creative projects because of self-doubt, real or imagined obstacles, perfectionism or generalized fear. When it came to writing today’s article, I had to “Just Start”.

4. Poverty mentality –It’s very constricting to be worried about money all the time. I’m doing a lot of reading and learning about this topic right now – I’m sure I’ll be able to share more in future issues.

5. A cluttered work/living space – It’s been over two years since I finished my first major de-cluttering and it’s time for another one! Exciting! While my living space has stayed tidy, some clutter (things I don’t need, use or love) has crept back in and is starting to gnaw at me.

6. Disconnection from my inner wisdom – When I’m rested and feeling well, I can much more easily tap into the ideas that are flowing around me. Whether it’s being open to something useful in an article I’m reading, or just listening for the solution of that problem I’ve been struggling with for a few days (and really, it just “came to me”), the answers are there.

7. Disconnection from my body – If I’d been paying closer attention to my body’s needs, I think I would have arranged sooner for some nights of extra sleep. I need to listen to the messages my body is sending me – do I feel nourished by the food I’m eating (or am I getting hungry too often), am I hydrated (or do I feel thirsty or light-headed, or is my skin extra-dry)? Am I showing physical signs of stress – muscle tightness, shallow breathing or headaches? My body will reward me if I listen to it, use common sense and give it what it wants.

If you saw yourself in some of these examples, take heart. Awareness is the most important step for change to take place. To look in more detail at your self-care habits, take the free quiz on the “Resources” page of my website.

(c) Copyright 2005, Genuine Coaching Services.

Linda Dessau, the Self-Care Coach, helps artists enhance their creativity by addressing their unique self-care issues. If you want to read more about what might be getting in the way of your creativity, sign-up for the Roadblocks to Creativity e-course – it’s free! And it includes a subscription to Everyday Artist, Linda’s monthly email newsletter. Grab it now by visiting http://www.genuinecoaching.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_Dessau

Creativity and Flow
By Douglas Eby

The experience of optimal functioning called flow enhances creativity, and can be nurtured in our own lives, says the psychologist who developed the concept.

Author of “Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience” and a number of related books, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced me-high chick-sent-me-high) says we can facilitate the conditions for this experience, and that it may be found in a wide range of careers and activities.

For his doctoral thesis on “how visual artists create art” he studied photos taken every three minutes as artists created a painting. He said in a newspaper interview that he was “struck by how deeply they were involved in work, forgetting everything else.”

He went on to study chess players, rock climbers, dancers, musicians and others. “I expected to find substantial differences in all their activities,” he notes, “but people reported very similar accounts of how they felt. Then, I started looking at professions like surgery and found the same elements there – a challenge which provides clear, high goals and immediate feedback. They forget themselves, the time, their problems.”

He cautions that many people misunderstand flow as a kind of passive “spacing out” and seek it in ordinary leisure activities. “Most people look so much forward to being home, relaxing. Then they get home and don’t know what to do. They aren’t challenged, so they sit in front of the TV, depressed.”

Instead of “spacing out,” flow is rather the experience resulting from a person’s body or mind being “stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

Athletes refer to being in the “zone” - an optimal psychological and physiological climate for peak performance.

The legendary Ted Williams has said that sometimes he could see the seams on a pitched baseball. Gymnast Carol Johnson found that on some days she experienced the balance beam as wider, so “any worry of falling off disappeared.”

Sports psychologists and trainers use a range of techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation, concentration exercises and meditation to help people access this “zone.” One of the consistent themes of these approaches is the need to “get around” the conscious mind.

But Csikszentmihalyi has warned “You can’t make flow happen. All you can do is learn to remove obstacles in its way.” He says the effort to recapture the high of a perfect run down a ski slope, for example, will rarely succeed because “you’re splitting your attention from what’s happening now.”

Using PET scan technology (Positron Emission Tomography), researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have found that people learning to master a video game show a reduction in the overall metabolism of the brain - less brain activity along with greater skill. This indicates that increasing ability results in better efficiency, and the brain can “relax into” the task. This may be the physiological result, or perhaps a central cause, of decreasing the “static” of non-flow consciousness.

Csikszentmihalyi points out that “Some flow experiences involve low danger, like reading a good book. But certain people are disposed to respond to risk, and their flow will depend on it more than somebody else’s. Danger is the hook. But their descriptions are not that different from, say, a Thai woman’s description of weaving a rug. The quality of concentration, forgetfulness, involvement, control are similar.”

Csikszentmihalyi’s suggestions for experiencing flow include picking an enjoyable activity that is at or slightly above your skill level; continually raising the level of challenge as performance improves; screening out distraction as much as possible; focusing attention on all the emotional and sensory qualities of the activity, and looking for regular feedback, or concrete goals to monitor progress, even if it is a large or long-term project with delayed outcome.

Writing a short story, or raising a child, can be contexts for flow experience: you can see them as a series of short-term steps or events, each having value in engaging one’s talents.

Other examples of “flow activities” are games, artistic performances and religious rituals, but Csikszentmihalyi notes that “people seem to get more flow from what they do on their jobs than from leisure activities” - perhaps especially those kinds of jobs which demand full attention, like surgery or computer programming.

Writer Susan K. Perry, Ph.D. affirms that flow is not a state of ‘no mind’ or meditativeness as such. “I don’t believe that when you get into a creative place, you’re giving up thinking,” she said in our interview. “You’re super-thinking — better and with more parts of your mind than you do normally.”

But having a ‘busy mind’ can also mean being fragmented, unfocused, distracted. “You want to get to a place which is both loose, relaxed, and focused,” she notes. “What I found in my studies of flow are that two things you need to do to get to this place where time stops and you can be most creative, are to loosen up, and focus in.”

“It’s a paradox, obviously, to be loose and focused at the same time,” she admits. “And they overlap, and one may come before the other.” She also thinks we “choose not to get into flow, which means we aren’t able to access our deepest creativity. We choose not to because, perhaps, it’s more stimulating to be surrounded by overflowing inboxes.”

Achieving flow may present a greater challenge for gifted and talented people, who often experience high levels of excitability and intensity, but it is worth the effort to remove the obstacles in the way of feeling flow. That state of awareness is where we are most creatively alive.

Douglas Eby writes about psychological and social aspects of creative expression and achievement. His site has a wide range of articles, interviews, quotes and other material to inform and inspire: Talent Development Resources http://talentdevelop.com/

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