Creative Thinking... How does it all start?

Creativity is not a recipe, it's a way of being, a way of breathing life into our consciousness. Creativity is a great journey within one-self into self-discovery and self-acceptance. Everyone can make its way there but there are no two identical roads, as we are all different human beings. We each need to find our own particular path, which has nothing to do with good or bad, talented or not, succesful or not, but all to do with what we truly wish to learn, who we are, and what our full potential calls us to be. Creativity is a calling from a distant voice within, the one that is calling us back home, to our center, where we all truly belong.

When we first think about what being creative means, we usually naturally think about some Art form: writing, music, dancing drawing... Maybe we have a day job that has nothing to do with the Arts and we are looking for something to complement our lives and we start thinking "maybe I should do something creative" in an attempt to fill in this empty feeling that we have inside telling us that we are "missing out on something". But in reality, creativity starts with the way you process your thoughts and how you perceive and experience the world around you. It's a way of twisting our perceptions, thoughts and experiences to see everything in a new light, a new angle or having a different approach to situations. This is why the term "creative thinking" is so important because, really, that's what it is. In order to get something "out" of yourself, you first need to perceive the world and your life in a way that it feeds your heart and mind so that you can take things "in". This is the whole idea behind finding inspiration, which is a topic that I will adress in later posts. 

There are very simple tools that anyone can apply to unlock this switch in the brain. In this blog, I will be exploring many of these tools in later postings. Creative thinking is not a "learning" process, rather, it's something that is available to all of us which we just need to tap into. And it's something that once open will influence all aspects of your life: how you deal with issues, how you interact with others and how you perceive Life and everything that it implies. So... that's all great but what does it mean in real life? How does someone go from rational to creative thinking? 

The key to creative thinking is to understand the process of stimulating your imagination. Everyone is different so we all have different things that inspire us more than others. Anything that you will do that is out of your ordinary routine is a good place to start. It can be as easy as taking a different road to work in the morning, or discovering a new place to go out, or taking the time to watch a movie that is a bit different then what you would normally go for. The main idea behind this is that routine and reflexes are usually imagination killers. Do you know this feeling of having to go from the same point A to the same point B everyday and always taking the same road? After some time, you don't even notice the road anymore. Sometimes you might even daydream and when you get to your destination you wake up and realize that actually you are so used to this routine that you didn't notice anything at all on your way there, barely noticed if it's sunny or not outside. Why? Because after some time, and this is the whole imagination killer concept, you stop paying attention because you take for granted that everything is the same as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. After some time of being in a routine, you stop asking yourself questions, you loose your curiosity and interest, the mind goes numb and all the little everyday miracles that could brighten up your day go unnoticed, lost in habits and lack of interest.

Most importantly, imagination is a muscle. The more you use it, the more it flows. Of course, we all have our ups and downs and even the most creative artists are sometimes faced with what we call the artist's block. But overall, you can't loose. The hardest thing in this process is usually to open the "imagination tap" in the brain again. Once it's open, the only thing left to do is to explore it and, of course, to HAVE FUN WITH IT ! Yes, fun!! This should be the whole point of our desire to explore our own creativity: because it's fun and beautiful and it gives life a completely new palette of colours to play with. 

I know that for many of you out there, even for established artists, creative thinking is sometimes more of a source of pressure then pleasure. Society teaches us that we need to be "good" at what we do or not do it. We need to "perform" and we have the fear of judgments, of what other people will think of us and how they will perceive our work.  These are very important and common problems that I will adress in later posts. But to start with I will just say this: when it comes to developing our creativity, we are our own major obstacle and our own worst enemy. This is why I've decided to start this blog: because I really believe that everyone needs a bit of magic in their lives, and anyone can access it. One of the things that fills me the most with sadness is when I hear someone say: "Oh! You're an artist! How wonderful! I wish I had some kind of artistic talent as well but really, I have none..." or worse "oh, I love music (or dancing or drawing, whatever it is) but I'm to afraid to really get out there and do it..." . It makes me wish I could help this person realize that really, it doesn't take much more other than just a willingness to grow as a human being and to be curious enough to discover, try new things and explore... everything. All situations and experiences have something to teach us, however boring and ordinary they seem, as long as we are ready to see everything with the eye of our imagination.

If you enjoyed reading this post, or if you have any questions about specific issues related to the creative process, please leave me a comment below!