I have never done writing for a living yet. My writing has always been mostly for study or passion.

Yet even though I haven’t been under the pressure of having my monthly income depending on the flow and quality of my writing as any paid writer would, my own experiences still brought to my conscious awareness two important and closely linked notions: Inspiration and its dreaded enemy writer’s block.

Writer’s Block

This concept notoriously gained an iconic status having been so widely referred to in the media and arts. We all have collective unconscious images from the movie classics of some writer at a desk in front of an old-style typewriter, an ashtray full of half-snuffed cigarette butts and a paper bin overflowing with balled up papers of unfinished sentences.

Conventionally, writer’s block is understood as that part in a writer’s career where her creative process comes to a halt and her inspiration runs dry due to some psychological blockage or emotional distress. Less dramatically, it is when we are doing a writing job and words and ideas stop coming to our heads. We stop for hours trying to get the thing started again sometimes with no success.

There are two main views on writer’s block. Both views see it as some block in the overall creative process but while one view sees creativity as predominantly or even exclusively a generative process the other sees it as a receptive process.

The difference between the two notions of creativity is stark but very often overlooked. In the former, creativity is thought to be something that is internal to the individual, resulting from a thinking process and involves effort to produce.

In the latter creativity is seen as passively receiving, tuning-in or listening to a ‘stream of ideas’ that are external to us. These streaming ‘Universal ideas’ are always present but we either connect to them and get inspired or just block them out and stop listening to them, hence the writer’s block according to this view.

I tend to subscribe to the point of view that creativity is both a generative and a receptive process, kind of a yin and yang thing, but the receptive part plays a big role in writer’s block which is very often overlooked. I’ll come to this later.

The universal & un-copyrighted source

Lately I have written an article on evolving beings about how we don’t always come up with ideas but rather tune in to a universal web of ideas.

This belief came to me when I started doing my dissertation for a Masters in Philosophy back in summer 03. Although it took me 3 and a half years to complete the course, all the raw ideas for the dissertation came to me in the first 2 months of that summer, most of the time in intuition or in dreams (I very often used to wake up at night jotting down ideas). These ideas were very novel to me at the time although I thought ‘I’ was the one coming up with the ideas.

When I started the research process and started reading piles of books and papers, I started encountering a lot of material not only with similar ideas and concepts to my own but even using the same analogies and metaphors. To my true disbelief I once came across an exact copy of a diagram with the same details I had used to sketch one of my ideas! Now I hadn’t seen it before and the other author could certainly not have copied it from me since my work was unpublished.

It was from that day that I remember starting to believe that people who claim possession of original ideas are unaware of the fact that we do not ‘possess’ ideas but we attract ideas and get inspired if we are listening and tuned-in to them. It was also a lesson in humility for me to come to see ideas as coming from a universal and un-copyrighted source (or shall I say open source?) that we tap into and get inspired. This points at an even deeper philosophical truth that everything in the universe is interconnected and the separateness of self is only an illusion of mind.

Having a creative genius vs. being a genius

Anyway, recently I also came across a very interesting TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the massively successful book ‘Eat, Pray, Love”, in which to my utmost bewilderment and astonishment she talked about her coming to understand the uplifting and ultimately liberating notion that creativity and inspiration come from outside of us rather than within us. (That came as a relief to me knowing my idea wasn’t completely crazy)

In her talk she explained how she traced back the concept of creativity down to the ancient world where the ancient Romans or Greeks used to belief that creative people had their own genius or daemon, a sort of divine ethereal entity or spirit, which inspired them.

This all changed through the onset of the rational Humanist movement where Man was placed at the centre of the Universe. The perspective shifted from people ‘having a genius’ to people ‘being a genius’. This is how it still is. We say “that person is a genius” but not “that person has a genius”. According to Elizabeth Gilbert this was an immensely huge mistake and I cannot agree more.

What happened with this shift in perspective is that people got under the false impression that ideas have to be given birth rather than received and as any mother knows birth is an exercise of force, hard labor and a good deal painful.

Very often, writers who become blocked feel that they have to push themselves more and force the ideas out of themselves. This has often proved to be damaging to a writer’s career, emotionally stressful and in some unhappy cases even tragic.

Creativity is less not more

Creativity is not about doing something more or forcing something out. It is actually about doing something less.  It is about letting go of certain preconceived ideas and notions and not allowing our conditioned and limited patterns of thought to interfere with the process. This is why lateral thinking is about leaping over normal routines of thought or why meditation is highly recommended in expanding creativity since it encourages us to suspend judgment, cultivate authenticity and keep a beginner’s mind.

Anyone who is engaged in creative work knows that creativity is not a rational process. It doesn’t come out of our more rational and linear left-hemisphere of our brain. When I am actually writing I very seldom think. If I think I stop writing because I stop the flow. I think and analyze only after I finish my writing in order to check, correct and edit.

Every person involved in some creative work knows that at the moment when we are in the flow, the ideas or the visions come from a source we can’t really identify. One thing is certain – it doesn’t come from our rational and conscious thinking.

The part of the creative process in which we are consciously and actively engaged in is the part where we brainstorm and play around with concepts, make unconditional leaps of thought and question the obvious like little children. The rest is pure receptive inspiration which combines beautifully together with the generative aspect of creativity in a yin and yang kind of way.

Accepting our role as creative agents

Here is where Elizabeth’s advice shines through beautifully. In a few words she realized that when writers shift their perspective from thinking of inspiration as coming exclusively from their heads to accepting that part of it comes from an unknowable source and the other comes from their efforts and background knowledge, they recognize their true authentic identity and roles as writers and creative people.

This reduces the pressure of expectation and self-blaming. It makes us more open and in line with our true roles as creative agents of universal ideas. This perspective keeps us on the leading edge of the creative process effectively making us less prone to writer’s block and more in tune with the ever-flowing stream of ideas out there.

No related posts.

photo by h.koppdelaney

Awareness is fundamental to all human activity. It is the basis of all our mental states and processes, creativity, perception, knowledge and culture. Everything starts from awareness. It is the portal between consciousness and the world around us.

Recently I have become more and more intrigued by the idea. The more I learn about it, the more I realize how it pervades everything we do and that by learning to focus it, expand it or redirect it consciously, we can transform ourselves by gigantic positive leaps. It’s the key to greater inner peace, happiness and self-mastery.  In fact there is no possible way one can walk on the path of self-mastery without learning to direct his awareness.

The different faces of awareness:

At a very basic level, you are aware of everything you do. When you walk around, prepare coffee, look for your keys, drive home, read, etc, there is always awareness going on otherwise you do not operate. However, many of these tasks happen on a subconscious level rather than on a conscious one.

When you start learning to ride a bike or drive a car, you are conscious about all your steps and movements. Once you learn the task, it starts becoming more automatic and subconscious. You are no longer conscious of every thing you do while you are driving but you are still aware at some level (obviously so, otherwise the roads would be a catastrophe everyday). This type of awareness however is not very thick and focused.

There is another level where your awareness is more focused.  For example, when you are interested in something, you start paying attention to it which means that you slightly focus your awareness on the object or event.

When you concentrate on something or you are totally absorbed in the task at hand (what psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called being ‘in the flow’), your awareness is focused like a laser beam on the subject, closing off all signals from the rest of the environment that might distract you.  Your awareness intensifies and deepens on the subject in the present moment. There is a strong sense of aliveness in it because your heightened awareness enriches the perception of the world around you and your relationship to it.

This type of awareness, as observed from studies carried out on seasoned meditators such as Buddhist monks, is linked with a certain coherence in brain wave patterns. In our day to day mental tasks, our mind is somehow ‘fragmented’ and our thoughts point out at different directions. Our brain wave patterns are incoherent.

The diagram above shows the 2 basic levels of awareness

Individuals who have trained their mind through practices such as meditation, have the ability to consciously redirect their awareness to higher levels of consciousness and ‘defragment’ their mind to a more coherent unity. This why meditation promotes calmness, focus, improved memory and heightened awareness, amongst a long list of benefits.

The good news is that this ‘higher-level’ awareness, so to speak, can be trained and developed.

Being aware of your awareness:

The first step to developing higher awareness is being conscious of it. You need to start training yourself to be aware of your awareness. By getting in the habit of observing how it behaves you start learning to redirect your focus from subconscious awareness to conscious and more coherent forms of awareness.

In short, this means being more conscious and pro-active of your usually passive and subconscious actions, beliefs, emotions and reactions to life. This is why awareness is directly linked to self-mastery.

I invite you to try out these short but insightful mental observations. They only take a couple of minutes.  They are simple and can be carried out as many times as you like, anytime, anywhere. The more you do the more you grasp the feel and movements of your awareness (don’t do these steps in one go – try them out each at a time at your leisure).

Here we go:

1. Take time to notice what it feels like to be aware. Stop for a moment to be aware of your awareness. Don’t classify it or judge it, just notice it. How does it feel?

2. Now find any object (could be your own body or feelings) and be aware of it for more than 30 seconds without distraction. Is it any different from being aware for just a fleeting moment? Does your awareness solidify with time?

3. Are you at all aware of your internal sensations? Try to be aware of your current state of mind – is it relaxation, boredom, curiosity, impatience? What about your feelings? Your energy levels? Is your awareness more inclined towards internal or external stimuli?

4. How about your awareness of the present moment? The awareness of external and internal sensations that unfold moment by moment in the present. Can your awareness hold on to your present ongoing sensations without drifting off in thought or imagination in the past or future?

5. When you observe your environment, does your awareness shift from one object to the next hastily and erratically? Or is it more gentle and observant of each item? Try to move your awareness from one thing to the next and speed it up then slow it down. How does the difference feel?

6. Try also noticing the difference between expanding and narrowing your awareness of your environment. I find it easy to do this on my body before meditation. I focus my awareness on just my breathing first. Then after some time I expand it outwards to include the other bodily sensations such as my hand, feet, head, etc. I also expand it towards my internal feelings and states of mind then narrow it down step by step to my breathing again.

7. Another thing I do when doing mindfulness meditation is shifting my awareness across sensory modalities. From seeing to hearing to touching to tasting (not always), to smelling, and ultimately internal sensations. This and the previous exercise are the most useful steps in developing and expanding your awareness.

When you start getting closer in touch with how your awareness behaves and affects your everyday tasks, you also start to understand how to give it more space to grow. You start finding it easier to consciously direct it, focus it or expand it. This can have big positive effects that you start slowly observing in yourself day after day.

You become more focused when you do something or you start becoming more aware of things you don’t usually do. Your mind becomes more open to ideas and feelings. You become more in tune with yourself and your environment.

You also communicate better because you become more sensitive to the subtle messages in other people’s behavior.

And ultimately you also start feeling expanding as a spiritual being because your consciousness is expanding. Awareness is the food of consciousness. So the more you enrich and open up your awareness, the bigger the natural growth of your consciousness.

In part 2 I’ll be writing about the relationship between awareness and emotional balance and also about how to develop awareness through meditation.

Related posts:

1. Developing Awareness – Part 2
2. The Strength of Non-Resistance
3. Overcoming Fear and Breaking Free from its Tyranny

Photo by Down Town Pictures

What if you know that 8 minutes a day or even less can change your life drastically for the better?  What if you know that in less time that you buy and drink a latte you can practice yourself into a life of better mental performance, more serenity & happiness and more control over your life?

I know it sounds like a cheesy sales page of some ‘get empowered and conquer the universe in 7 days’ self-help program. I myself am totally unimpressed and disapproving of certain ‘quick simple techniques’ to master this or achieve that.  However it’s not ‘techniques’ I am talking about here but practices or ‘good habits’ as simple and short as brushing your teeth or clipping your toe nails. The difference is that they are not that brain-numbingly mundane and of course they are ‘life-changing practices’ as against mere ‘grooming practices’.

Can 2 minute long practices change a person’s life drastically? Well the short answer to that is definitely “Yes”.  The longer answer is that these practices are accessible and user-friendly tools that routinely program the mind to develop new positive habits which then become engrained over a time period and before you know it a big inner change has happened!

The real fantastic thing about these practices is that you effectively invest little resources but yield high returns on that investment. Moreover:

1. They can be practiced everywhere at anytime
2. They don’t need to be done at the same time
3. They can be integrated in any busy schedule
4. They don’t need a learning curve
5. They are free and abundant

Energy Breathing:

Breathing is one of the most fundamental, yet taken for granted, functions in the Human body.  We have heard the advice a thousand times “When you feel stressed breathe deeply and relax” yet we still overlook the importance of breathing.

In yogic traditions, breathing exercises (Pranayama) are central. The following is a simple breathing exercise which kick-starts me every time. It instantly feels me with energy like fire running through my body.

1^st minute: Sit down straight on a chair or whichever position you prefer (must have erect spine). Inhale deeply and slowly expanding  & contracting the belly and not the chest. Exhale. Just that!

2^nd minute: This is an alternate nostril breathing exercise. Still sitting down, close your right nostril with your thumb (or second and middle finger) and inhale from your left nostril. Now close your left nostril and exhale out of your right nostril then continue to inhale from the right nostril again and close to exhale from the left. The alternate pattern should then follow an exhale/inhale from each nostril.

Selectively Positive:

Positive thinking is another widely mentioned phrase that we see appearing so many times in books and articles (quite rightly so…it’s a very good thing!). The problem with positive thinking is that it’s a bit intimidating just imagining making such a big shift in perspective from normal to positive thinking. We can’t really imagine ourselves being truly positive all the time can we? This makes it a little inaccessible.

By practicing to be positive on selected items only little by little instead of expecting your mind to be positive about everything can be a less overwhelming task while at the same time you can start seeing results immediately.

To do this in your 2 minute practice think about one thing which has some meaning to you. It may be a person, an object or an event. It may also be your job. Start focusing on its positive attributes. They could be hard to find or they could seem insignificant at first but it’s good just the same. Start filtering out the negative thoughts that arise and stop only on the positive ones no matter how silly they seem. Keep on putting focus on them. If you can’t find any positive attributes in that object, create and visualize those positive elements that you wish it had. Keep on doing this for the whole 2 minutes.

Hint: Emotions are a key. Use them as a guide and tracking system. Keep on focusing on the positive until you start feeling good about it. That’s how you know you are on the right track

Awareness of the present:

Awareness is fundamental. We live most of our daily lives unaware of our surroundings, our own inner states and the needs and feelings of those around us. We almost live on autopilot. Thoughts and feelings rush through our heads on their own. In a way this is so inefficient because most of the thoughts we think during a day or a lifetime are, I’m sorry to say, useless (apart from wasting time and energy). Our intentions are too much diluted and the times we have conscious awareness and control over our thoughts and reasoning is much less than we like to think.

Imagine if you could have a quieter, more focused mind where less useless thoughts come up and where you have more conscious awareness of those thoughts that are more effective, fruitful, life-changing and conducive to happiness.  In short this is called Mindfulness.

As Eckhart Tolle put it: Past and future are an illusion. Everything happens in the now. This alludes at the fact that we spend a lot of time clinging to the past or anxious about the future. This makes us oblivious to the present. Conscious awareness is awaking to the present which is where all things take shape

The exercise involves doing something that puts your attention in the present moment. I like to use breathing, which is great because it can be combined with the breathing exercises. Two minutes saved!

While you are doing your breathing exercises put your awareness into it. That means that instead of wandering somewhere else with your thoughts, immerse yourself in the present experience. Pay attention to how the air feels in your lungs, how your belly expands and contracts and how the air flows through your nostrils.

When you get the gist of it, try expanding your awareness to your entire body like for example by taking note of how your hand feels, how your back feels on the chair or how you feel yourself to be extending in space.

Another good mindfulness exercise is eating. While snacking on some food don’t rush into just for filling your stomach and killing off your hunger pangs. Slow down and notice how the tastes and textures feel on your tongue and mouth. Discern between the different tastes and textures, smells and colours as much as possible. This will train the mind to be more aware of your senses and immediate present.

Gratitude: Open up yourself to the power:

Gratitude is such a powerful thought and emotion. It is a generator of good vibes and positive feelings which in return brings back more positive thoughts, feelings and life situations by a tenfold. When we are grateful for something in our lives, we set so many good things in motion.

On one level we are sending a positive and affirmative message to our brain that our lives are turning just the way we want them.

The brain always acts in the present. This means that even though our current life setting may be a little bit less than perfect, when we are grateful for something or someone we are saying to our brains “right now I feel happy, blessed and thankful for this or that”. The brain will act on it as though it is a confirmation of the present which in many ways it is.

This will turn into positive feedback because as we subconsciously become more positively responsive to our surroundings we start to unknowingly interpret life situations more positively which in turn starts making things easier, brighter and lighter and so on in a feedback loop.

On another more spiritual level, we are opening our hearts to ourselves, Life and the Universe.

When we are feeling bitter, depressed, angry or resentful we are like a blocked node in the network of life. When our heart is closed our vision is shortened and life can’t flow through us.

On the other hand when we feel grateful, life starts flowing through us again in gushes. We become a healthy node in the network of life. This is an immense power, do not overlook it.

Try to think of it in terms of connections and flow. Everything is interconnected in the Universe. Our Consciousness is specially connected to the Universe (actually it is an extension of it – it is a way the Universe can be conscious of itself!).

Now the more connections we create in the network, such as meaningful relationships with others through love and compassion, being grateful to life and feeling good, making others feel good and passing on the good vibes to others, the more we are strengthening the network and we become powerful nodes through which the Universe can flow its energies. Life will flow through us and we start seeing our own destiny manifesting before our own eyes. So-called ‘miracles’ start to happen.

This may be a bit hard to understand but it’s a powerful truth to realize. It’s a game of connections. The more open and connected you are to the ‘network’ the more you are contributing to the expansion of life and the Universe and the more power and energy will flow through you.

If you are blocked and not linked then very little energy can flow through you.

The Exercise:

Everyday spend 2 minutes to be grateful about the things happening around you. Everyone has things to be grateful about. We are just blind to them sometimes. If you look around you or just look a bit deeper, you will start finding hundreds of things to be grateful about.  It doesn’t need to be something big.

It might be the beautiful morning,  or that you didn’t go late for work despite the awful weather, or that some problem was solved during the day or that some friend phoned to tell you that his health has turned for the better.

These are all very pertinent things to be grateful for. Sometimes we overlook them because of our hectic lifestyle. Instead of letting them pass by, stop and be grateful for them in your heart.

Open up your possibilities

When these 4 simple 2 minute exercises are practiced everyday and they start turning into a habit, a lot of things start taking new shape in your life. Positivity, conscious awareness, happiness and appreciation will start flowering more and more as you practice everyday.

Your life will open up to new possibilities. It’s hard to conceive it from now that all this is possible through such simple and short practises.  Just give it a try and you’ll see!

Related posts:

1. The Power of Gratitude (and why it always works wonders)
2. Developing Awareness – Part 1
3. A simple visualization technique to keep calm under pressure