On Friday, I had the honor of doing a professional exchange with one of my mentors. She and I did back to back sessions – first, me as the client, then her. It was an amazingly powerful three hours!
During my turn as client, she recommended that I commit to being creative just for the sake of being creative and have it be something non-intellectual. Rather than resorting to ten minutes of creative writing, for instance, she suggested that I do ten minutes of silly dancing or spend that time making new sounds and face gestures.
I tried it this morning and, by the end of the ten minutes, I felt more energized than I have in a very long time. The idea behind this creativity for creativity’s sake is to get the flood gates open to the universal flow of creative energy. I have learned about myself that, at very early age, my inborn, natural sense of creative curiosity was shamed. I have spent the rest of my life unable to truly play, be creative and be exploratory because my cells have carried the memory of “curiosity is B-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-D!”
I will be honest. As I began the play this morning, I heard my head thinking This is stupid! This is a waste of time! You look like an idiot! You could be getting STUFF DONE right now instead of this pointless process. I listened to the voice and the words before contorting my body into an exaggeration of the words I was speaking to myself. I scrunched up my face in a foul grimace and stiffened my hands into horrendous claws. I slumped over and began grumbling and stomping around the living room in the largest expression of “ugly stupid” I could muster up.
Within moments, I was laughing hysterically. I felt so much better.
I realized that my brain is my own worst enemy. More often than not, it will tear me apart before it even stops to think that it could support me. The human brain is an amazing tool. I would like to reprogram mine to work for me, rather than against me. And they say that awareness is the first step toward change.