A Diet for Your Soul – Creativity

Creativity.
Welcome to the fourth menu item on The Joy Diet.

This is the point where I almost stopped reading the first time through.  This was two years ago when I was a self proclaimed left brained person, in a left brained job with the creativity of dry wall.

Then I realized that this didn’t HAVE to mean artistic creation with paint or throwing clay.  This meant creating our lives, like trying a new hobby or trial-by-error problem solving.  This meant developing a practice of bending our minds like some yoginis bend their bodies.

The basic instruction is to

• Identify and write down your heart’s desire (for kicks and giggles, go ahead and do that now.)
• Conceptualize and write down as many unique and crazy ideas to move you toward your heart’s desire until you come up with at least one that’s feasible.

Some of the ideas won’t work.  Change to reach your heart’s desire can be riddled with near misses.  And messes.

Sometimes coming up with new ideas is challenging.   This is where the mental yoga comes to play.

“As Einstein said, no problem was ever solved from within the frame of thought that created the problem in the first place. Creation always involves moving beyond the limitations of your current worldview.”
– Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

One of the exercises Martha Beck taught us in her “Inner Genius Workshop” was all about opening up our right brains to creating the lives we desire.

Here’s how it goes:

1. Write down a couple of your very favorite things to do.
2. Go back to that heart’s desire that you wrote down a minute ago.
3. How can you use your very favorite things to do to reach your heart’s desire?

As an example, the favorite thing I wrote at the workshop was to snow ski.  My heart’s desire was to gain some peace and clarity around an issue that had clouded my summer.   Not being sure how cruising in the snow could help, I was willing to play along.

I began to really think about why I love to ski.  There is a thrill in doing what is counter-intuitive to maintain control and speed.  You throw yourself over your skis and down the hill.  If you play it safe and lean back into the mountain, you’ll wear out your leg muscles, lose control and fall.  By staying in the moment with every turn, gravity and the fall line become your partners.

Fascinating.

It really didn’t matter what my heart’s desire was at this point.  What if I trusted my instincts and leaned down the mountain, into fear, and rode my intuition in regards to any obstacle or desire?  Issues might still temporarily cloud up a day, but as when skiing in low visibility conditions, I can feel my way down the mountain with focus and instinct.  Even on days like this, there’s a warm fire and good book waiting at the bottom.

I love that I’m now more creative than dry wall!

Why do you love your favorite thing?

How can it help you reach your heart’s desire?