Mindful Creativity

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to the course module creativity. This course will be an intersection between inciting or encouraging creativity, as well as with the process of attaining mindfulness. Because I think there's a strong connection between the two. When we sit down, when we still mind when he focused on the present moment, thoughts, emotions, moods, memories are also triggered off. Remember meditating. Our goal is to just acknowledge them and return it to the present moment. But that silence that place a focus, that sort of detached perspective is also fertile ground for creativity. I think there's a strong reason why to combine these two techniques come on the idea of mindfulness meditation with creativity to sort of boost both. Because in the other side of things, when you are creative, when you're expressing your enabled to block out all the other stuff, sort of acknowledge it, and then return to focus, returning to the creative aspects that you were doing. Now, I'm going to be using poetry, an example because that's the main form creativity that I employ. But if you're not a poet, if you've never looked at words, that's fine. You'll be able to use the lessons learned from this course and apply them to dance, to drawing two expression to design, whatever your creative outlet is. But with that said, I'm going to be drawing from a couple of my books. The first book is mindfulness, a guidebook to the present moment. This is an introduction to mindfulness. It will get you meditate and get you going and go in-depth and all that sort of stuff. As well as my lives book, poetry book bound to the wings of a butterfly. This book were saved a number one for a new release in Australian Oceana poetry as well as LGBTQ poetry. So I'm gonna be drawing heavily from this. And on top of this, I'll also suggest that if you liked this course, if you want more from this course, you could check out my other Skillshare courses on creativity, on mindfulness meditation. Because the bond shop with that said, if you want to boost your mindfulness practice, if you want to boost your creativity, this is the course for you. Let's get into it. For those of you that are wondering why the backgrounds different competitor by normal, it is because I am on a crutch at the moment and it hurts to stand, so yeah, enjoy the different views. 2. Defining Terms: Okay, So let's talk terms here. Let's just define what we're going for. Mindfulness meditation is the awareness that arises from purposely paying nonjudgmental attention to the present moment. Sounds complicated, but basically it's viewing reality as it is, what it is. It's learning how to focus on the present moment. It's returning our focus back. I'm on wonders, we bring it back. What we're going to do in the next video is just to a little brief guided meditation. I'll take you through it. But the principles or the method is simple. You take a saint, close your eyes and draw your attention to the breath at the nose. Now, that's the mindfulness anchor. You can choose whatever Anki you lock. You could choose something that you're seeing, the vision on the screen. You can choose sounds in the environment that hearing, you could choose feelings coming from the fame. You can choose anything, whatever it is. That's your focus for one minute that we're gonna meditate for when your mind wanders, when you notice it wondering you bring it back. Your goal isn't to empty your mind. It's not declare your mind. It's not too removal thoughts. It's just to notice what your mind is doing. We've got further ado, let's do it. 3. One Minute Meditation: Okay, So this is our first mindfulness session. What we're going to do is I've got a kitchen towel just one minute. And when I press dot, when we begin, you just go into close your eyes and draw your attention to the breath. Now, like I said in the previous video, if you'd prefer a different object of focus, that's okay. But just pleasure us. Draw your attention to the breath or your object. And when your mind wanders, acknowledge it, and gently bring it back. Let's give it a try. Welcome back. 4. Embracing Silence: All right. So in the previous session, we just did a brief one minute of silence. Given the way the modern world works, we have constant access to inputs, podcasts, videos, blogs, stimulus of all kinds. Social media. The problem is, is the creative space I think comes from solids, comes from, well, it comes from viewing all of those things. So we get sort of the idea of what we want to sort of replicate of you or we get inspired. But when you want to actually create ourselves, it pays to be able to switch off and refocus on the present moment. But unfortunately, unless we have developed a habit of doing so, it can be quite challenging. It's almost like we're compelled to always have something new. Now e is always listening, always learning, always growing, always viewing, makes sense. But at least for me I find that the more I sit in silence, the more I meditate, the more my creativity blooms incomes. I tried to meditate every day, 20 minutes morning and night. And that's literally not a guarded session. It's just a solid sit I sit in the same spot because my eyes set a timer for 20 minutes and focus on the present moment. My mind wonders that bring it back my mind when I bring it back, That's the process I employ. But I also make sure to have a pen and paper beside me or something to write on. Because I know that in those moments of silence, typically in the last maybe five minutes, poems just seemed to come. It's like these compulsions. It's like just happens. Creativity is spawned. Like I said in the introduction, poetry is my main vessel of creativity. But when I'm thinking about other forms of creativity, that comes as well, I think it's born from solids. What I would suggest is, and this is what's important to you. It's important to start playing with sounds, playing with meditation, playing with just switching off from stuff to allow yourself the mental space to be able to create. If you're not, if you're not able to create, it's sort of separate itself from the world and just sort of look at the blank page or whatever, you'll blank pages. It's going to be a challenge to get creative. Now this isn't to say you shouldn't have music when you creating or anything like that because you'll creative process will be different. But you will certainly have to switch off from communicating with people. You will have to switch off from watching videos. You have to switch off from all of these things other than what works for you. So with that said, it is a good idea to practice mindfulness both to the benefits that it gives you, which we'll talk about. But also because it just allows you to get used to just silence, emptiness, spice, and in that space you can fill with your art. 5. Benefits Of Mindfulness: All right, so let's just have a little quick discussion of the benefits of mindfulness meditation, just the pure mindfulness before we sort of talk about the artistic aspects of it. But basically what you're doing is every time your mind wanders and you're bringing it back, you're training them on to focus on the present moment. You might want us into the future. You're planning among these into the positive thinking about what happened. What does the interior sort of remembering those times you spoke to somebody who had a bit of anger, jealousy is sort of something happened, right? Something going on at work, something going on with the family. You don't hear, you Don't focused, you're thinking about other stuff. If you look behind me, all these books, right? The different universities, like I'm thinking about Louis sort of stuff. My mom wanted to bring it back. What you're doing is site basically saying like, Hey, be here now, be present now. Just like any other skill, like any skill development, playing an instrument, exercise, sport, any sort of learning in a school based on Skillshare based process. It's all skill development. But if you want to, if you put in the effort now is endless, say you meditate. Today. There'll be a lag between your, your actions and your rewards. It will take a while for you to get that skill if we're talking about supplying an instrument. If you practice once now, you're not gonna see much benefit if any, for ages. But if you practice every day, multiple certainly see some benefit. He's a basic example and it's quite silly. I practiced now you can do this with your heads. And this. All I'm like, Okay, how long will it take me to do this? Opposites. Now, silly example. But this learning to do this took maybe seven days of focused practice. And at the stock like it was hot, it sort of felt like it was hurting. But now I can just do it. Useless skill. But it took seven days, seven days of practice after that first day, I couldn't do it. It just it just wasn't working. I had to really sit there and force it. But seven days later, I could do it without thinking. Now I can do it whilst on talking with you. Point is there was a lag between my actions and my reward. Only playing off, I can show you on Skillshare and fifth skill. What I'm getting at is when you meditate daily, those benefits that you see, that detachment, that focus will come in time like every other skill. But you're starting to expected straightaway. What I encourage people to do is meditate daily, start with one-minute, start with just one minute a day. Every day, instill that positive habit. And then, and then eventually it will. You'll be able to lock in that practice. And over time you'll see the benefits. Does that makes sense? 6. Advice From The Successful: In terms of applying this to your creativity, I know that some of the best advice that I've ever read, not even read, but like sort of accumulated summarized from best-selling authors. One of my goals is to be a best-selling author. What my old site, all of them, I said in different language. But when you look up interviews, podcasts, discussions from these people, from the best in the field by old site. If you want to be the best author, read every day, right, every day. That's what I said. If you apply that to the world-class performance in every field, they all saying, do it every day and watch people doing it every day. And it makes sense. You need to practice and you need to look at what the best people are doing. That's how you get good. Let's apply this to ask hello. We want to be able to create daily if possible. Now there's a couple of mindsets here that you need to consider. Because I'm not suggesting you have to sit down and force yourself to write because for a lot of people that can be startling. But what I'm suggesting is give yourself the space to allow the creativity to flow. Shouldn't fly. It shouldn't want to fly. Like I said, every morning I wake up, I do my meditation. Then poems come. I'm writing at least one or two or three a day at this stage. Much sorry that I can't get it out there to the public quick enough because more keep coming. Now that's a good thing. But I think it's a or I can definitely see correlation between me giving myself a space to be able to ride with the poems coming. And I know that when I fill my, fill my mind up with a whole bunch of stuff, particularly in the morning and the knot times. It doesn't come. Just what I'm suggesting is give yourself the opportunity to write, to create daily, and give yourself the opportunity to meditate death, like I said in the previous video, one-minute per day of meditation start out. But also just sit with your app for awhile, whatever it is that they've rotted, just sit with plight page in front of you, sit with a canvas in front of you, or go to a dance studio wherever you practice your dancing, whatever it is, just give yourself that space to let the creativity flow. Maybe something will happen, maybe it won't. But if you've got a morning or an October obtain or some space or time where you do get creative. Go there, even if you're not feeling creative and just play, just process to prime the pump. This, this idea that you have to get at some of the, some of the not so great writing before the good stuff comes. How can you do that? You just got to go through that motion. It's going through the process. 7. Get The Family On Board: There's something to be said about getting your family on board with both your meditation practice and with your creativity. There's a couple of processes here. One, Give them the reason why, given what you're gonna do and why. Hey, every morning, every night I'm gonna be practicing some meditation. This is what it will do for me. It helped me to focus, helped me to be less out of my head. It will help me to just stay in control, stay calm. This is why it will also help me with my creative work, during my creative work and make me feel more accomplished, make me feel happier. And if you're making a living off your creativity, it will help you to make the money. Why do you need to talk about that? Well, this is how we keep a roof over his head would pay the bills, etc. You're telling them why. Then you can also, if it's appropriate and bottom, I when I'm meditating joining, when we're doing up joining because I can get them on board. And then also let them know what you need. Sort of, hey, when I'm meditating what I'm doing, there will be a sign on the door. I'll be in a specific room or whatever it is. Figure wherever your processes and I'm just starting to me, unless it's an emergency, then define what an emergency is in your family and what they should do. Does that sort of makes sense? If ME my family knows every day I do a certain set of things. I wake up, I meditate, I exercise, and I right now, if they need me, they can come and get me if I want to join in with the processes by Canon. But unless it's an emergency, they shouldn't disturb me. Does that sort of makes sense? We've got a process and I've talked it out. Now. I'm able to be more consistently productive and effective in my day because they know what's expected. And I'm also able to get them on board doing it with me. And those two things together really do work and do help out. 8. Turn Off The Internal Editor: Okay. So let's just assume you've established a habit. You've been meditating for a while. How can we use this to boost their creativity more? So there's a couple of things. I liked the idea of setting an intention. Let's say you go down to sit and meditate and you say, Okay, I want to work on this project. It might be a book, it might be a picture, whatever the creative process or product is for you, whatever you're trying to call you out. But just cite the intention to yourself. I'm embracing the silence. Bruce, my creativity. I'm going to write, I'm going to dance, I'm going to draw, I'm going to sculpt. Just set the intention, the intention and say, Hey, this is what I wanted to achieve with this session. What you'll find is that over the next sit, when you're silently sitting, you will find that you're primed, the creativity will be Boosting. You will find that. You'll find that your mind is working in the background as you're sitting in silence, as you're observing it. And then all of a sudden, it'll come. When it comes. Be ready. Have yourself prepared being in the right space, have the book in front of you, have something to write down whatever it is, have dependent paper, have the paintbrush or whatever it is that you know, what I'm getting at ease is have it ready to go. Because all of a sudden you'll find that it's there and it's coming when it does just let it float. Let's talk about letting it flood. Letting what I mean by let it flow is there's this sort of desire to self-edit. We can get into this, the process of creating and editing at the same stage, but they're not the same thing. And I don't draw from the same sort of energy, the same sort of feel when I'm creating, when I'm writing my poetry. I just ride. I didn't think about spelling, grandma format anything. I just get it out on the page, no adjustments, whatever comes. And then I add the lightest edge, go back and edit it. And that's when the sort of critical thinking comes in is that the best word choice could I make it a little bit succinct? Two are really gonna be saying these sort of stuff like I'm critiquing it. But they had different jobs. And a lot of times I see people doing both at once. And they start writing there in this flow and then they slam the brakes on and stop. And then they scattering, doubting. Do it in a separate occasion. In this, you've instilled this sort of initiated it. You've primed yourself, you've gotten yourself ready, you set your intent and just let it fly. Knowing full well that later on you're going to edit it. Knowing full well that later on you're going to tweak. It. Just makes sense. 9. Are You Doing It Right?: Let's talk a little bit more about meditation practice. He, when we're sitting in salts, when we were drawing our attention back to the breath, we might find that some days were a bit distracted, some days were a bit out of focus. Somebody's not really able to just be present or spice. It's a couple of things to be said. You can only have the meditation. You are having. The way that you know if you're doing it right is the fact that you're doing it. Remember, we're not aiming to empty the mind. We're aiming to return our focus back to the breath or whatever I meditational Yankees. Don't beat yourself up if you're not doing it correctly. If you're doing it, That's perfect. You get into benefits. You'll only have to focus all that good stuff. That said. You will want to be able to return your focus. You don't want to be sort of Scottie because that doesn't really help us with our creativity. There's a couple of tools within the US. One is labeling. Your mind wanders into the future. You think. Planning or you're labeled less planning. You or future whatever you choose. The limb pain, mine was into the past. Do you think past? Your mind wanders into preparation. You label the preparation. Your mind wanders into emotion or mood, labeled an emotional mood might want us into play. You don't quite understand or is a bit blurry or be confusing. You labeled like clouds in a cloud of emotions. Whatever. The point is is if you can label whatever you notice arising, that label that allows you to notice what's going on and return back to focus. And that therefore helps you to have a less Scotty practice in that moment. The second strategy can use these counting. In breath. You breathe in 12, all the way up to ten. And then you start with count again. You could do that as you practice just the breathing, or you could choose to count to ten and then just return back to Focus, return back to the normal mode for this session. Obviously, depending on how long you practicing for. With Facebook approaches of acknowledging that you can only have the meditation you're heading. Remembering that the goal is to acknowledge when your mind is wanted and return it back. Use the labeling, use the counting. You'll find that you'll sessions are far more focused and on point. And that will enable you to have a more focused practice. And that's where the benefits, but remember, it doesn't matter what you're doing as long as you do it. The same thing with your sitting sessions, the same thing with your creative sessions. If you're being creative and nothing good comes, that's fine. You'll you're using that other product, the pump. If I sit down to write and nothing comes, it's like okay, well I just had to get through that meditation and our sitting and just being open to the creativity is that process. 10. A Worked Example: Okay, So I'm going to read you just one poem that came about when I was meditating and then sort of allowing that space to open. And it just sort of came and you'll notice the influences in the poem. But just wanted to give you this one example to sort of say like what can count. It didn't come exactly like this. Like I said, you'll let the creativity flow, then you edit after the fact. It's sort of came out, maybe IT percent and I had to tweak and twist it with my sort of more editing mind. What I want you to be aware of is notice the influences. It's called in the pre-dawn lot. Now, I was meditating in the morning in the pre-dawn line. You notice some of the things that are popping up as our rake throne. And I also just want you to be aware of it didn't come out exactly like this. It came up mostly formed, but I had to sort of tweak and edited it. I added some extra stuff, I've got some down. I worked with the rhyme structure a little bit. But in terms of actual creativity, I let it flow. And then later on, like I said, then I did it in the pre-dawn light. The pre-dawn light, the birds take flight, taking with them The Silence of the night. The loan dogs bark, heralds the end of dark as he's fellows took up the lock. Then comes humanity, a dean of outer profanity attempting to avoid sounds induced insanity into shines the moon, bringing its silent Boone, causing man's return to sleeps, bless it lagoon. Then the nightmares come, uh, kilometers thrum, highlighting the pain of yesterday, some nights, confidence shaken, a peaceful sleep, mistaken sounds on the exists at night when we awaken in the pre-dawn light, the birds take flight, taking with them The Silence of the knot. We're talking about. Songs were talking about the stuff that I'm seeing happen. The juxtaposition between the solids of the world with the world waking up with my mind in terms of what I'm observing it, doing it bouncing around in the meditation sessions. So that poem in the genome was sort of a product of the songs, the product of the meditation. Once again, I encourage you see it with sounds. Let things come. And who knows, maybe something will come, maybe something won't come. But it's all part of the process. 11. Class Project: Let's talk a little bit about the class project. For the class project, I want you to sit with silence for seven days. Seven days of just one minute of mindfulness meditation itself, a clock, a kitchen timer. I found whatever you need to just sit one minute of silence when you might want as you bring it back to the TF focus point the breath. But then after that, allow yourself maybe five more minutes just to, just to let whatever comes conflict, creativity flood. Now, depending on what your creative outlet is, I want you to be prepared if it's made like writing, I'll have a pen and Python on my phone. They're ready to run. If it was painting, I would have paint stuff, then it was dancing. I'll be in a place that would be able to make a sort of practice by movements. Be ready, be available, they opened, be open to the creativity to flood. Now, all I want you to do is at least one minute of mindfulness meditation. I'm doing 20 and I think that's a great amount in terms of what works for me. If you can do more than one minute, fine. But if you just start with that one-minute way possible, the more of a benefit, but at least one minute, one minute of silence, and then just be there for creativity to flood. What I want you to report back to me is a couple of things. One, that you did it die, one success. And then tell me what came. You don't have to give me the picture of the art or you don't have to share the poetry. Just say day one meditated. Then I poem came or I had this idea for a website or a design element or whatever it is, just let me know what came and do that for seven days in a row. So every day you'll jump back on and protect your progress, update your project, or updated all at once. But I think as you go with a better ID, just so you know, you get it done. And this does a couple of things. One, it gets that positive habit growing. If you can do it for seven days, keep going. But also to, it gives you some social proof. Social pressure. Ia, I'll be like, Hey, did you do the thing? And you'd be like, Yeah, I did the thing. And three, it also gives you the opportunity to ask me some questions if you have them, do the meditation and then just be there and open to the space to practice. 12. Quick Recap & Resources: Okay, So just a quick recap and summary of some resources that might be of value to you. Like I said, for this course, I drew from these two books, mindfulness itself with the present moment and band to the wings of a butterfly. This one is doing extremely well at the moment. I'm getting incredible amounts of positive feedback for it. And it is a product of the method of this course if you want to see it in process it up. And also the introduction is a discussion of artistic purity and it will be motivating to get you to just get out of your head into the present moment and just to create because it is worthwhile, what you create may move, someone might change, someone might help someone to grow and experience and prosper. And it's worth doing if, even if it is just for your unifying the UC, the creative process, each transformation. So check those out. I also encourage you to check out the other courses that I've got on Skillshare, the ones where I'm standing because the crushed the moment. On meditation, on creativity, on finishing the books on poetry, I've got a whole bunch of sites checkout the profile. But in general, brief summary here, mindfulness meditation is the act of basically just returning a focus to the present moment. Seeing reality as it is for what it is right now. It's remained misconceptions or preconceptions it seeing what we're seeing without sort of overlaying judgments. Let's fairly fancy words for just noticing what your mind is doing right now. How do we practice? We sit down, close your eyes and draw our attention to the breath I'm on once we bring it back, I'm on what has been bringing it back. You have a couple of little tools your disposal. Remember you only have the meditation you are having. So however you feel during these fine too, you can use the power of labeling or counting to help sort of re-focus you. And you also benefit from establishing a routine every morning, every night. Family on bullet, both with the creativity in with your meditation, let them know while it might have benefits, let them know what they expected. I wanted easier to, to help you out new web-based frustrated by the lack of understanding because they'll be on board. For creativity. Allow yourself that spice prime yourself Did I am going to create, I'm going to work on, I'm going to have this sort of creativity come to me and give yourself that space to sort of be there for it because I'll tell you what. If you open yourself up, if you prime yourself, if you cited the world at the University of whatever height. I want to work on this, I'm gonna give you, let me give me, give it a spice to create. It would come just got to trust that process, but also help it out by giving itself the spice, turning off the podcast, the music, the videos, all that sort of stuff, sitting with sounds and also being prepared for having the easel and the paint set up, having the paper and the pen set up, having the space to dance around wherever it is figured. Matter of the cost project. Remember the meditating for seven days and holding the spice for the creativity of us have index, let me know how you got up there or down there or some way it'll ask you to write, review this course. Please do. Let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy, what you want, more overlap stuff. And it's a place that you can ask a question if you'd like as well. If you are after any more of my extra stuff, my books, my blog, my podcasts, anything that I'm doing, you can hit over to my website and Zachary having Phillips.com or you can check me out on social media at SAC be filled. So I've got a bunch going on everywhere. If you like this course. Whole bunch more coming in, the whole bunch up. So follow me on Skillshare and stay tuned. And like I said, let me know if there's a topic you want me to drill down into more. Anything that I've been going on, just let me know and I'll make a course just for you.