The Creative Habit - Week 2 - Your Creative DNA

The chapter this week is on your creative DNA. Twyla says:

"I believe that we all have strands of creative code hard-wired into our imaginations. These strands are as solidly imprinted in us as the genetic code that determines our height and eye color, except they govern our creative impulses. They determine the forms we work in, the stories we tell, and how we tell them. I can't prove this. But perhaps you also suspect it when you try to understand why you're a photographer, not a writer, or why you always insert a happy ending into your story, or why all your canvases gather the most interesting material at the edges, not the center."

“If you understand the strands of your creative DNA you begin to see how they mutate into common threads in your work. You begin to see the “story” that you’re trying to tell; why you do the things you do (both positive and self-destructive); where you are strong and where you are weak (which prevents a lot of false starts) and how you see the world and function in it.”

She talks about different aspects that determine an artist’s creative identity. One of the aspects mentioned was focal length and how each of us finds comfort in the way we see the world either from a great distance, at arm’s length or close up. But once you see it you will start to notice how it defines the artists that you admire.

I grabbed a pen and my notebook and began writing down the artists I admire and why. I wanted to see what common threads would emerge. I didn’t spend a lot of time on this. I only wrote down the people that immediately came to my mind. Here’s my list:

Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Claude DeBussy
Maurice Ravel

Now of course there are many, many more artists that I admire than just the four I have listed. But these four are the biggest creative influences. Just about every room in my house has a Monet or Van Gogh print hanging on the wall. And the music that is playing throughout my house is mostly Claude DeBussy, Maurice Ravel, Charles Griffes and Frederick Delius. It’s also the music I listen to at work.

I love Impressionist paintings and have ever since I can remember. And I was very pleased and surprised to find out that the composers I love so much are considered Impressionist composers, how about that! I didn’t know there was such a thing as Impressionist music but there is and all my favorite composers are included in it. Ok, so there is one common thread for sure – Impressionism.

What I understand about Impressionist painters is that they didn’t seek to show a picture perfect image of their subject but instead to give an overall “impression, so I get their focal length. Impressionism in music seeks to create a mood or atmosphere.

I started thinking about why I love their work so much and another common thread arose – feeling. When I think about what I love about the work of these artists it all comes down to how their paintings and music make me feel. I can see a picture in my mind when I listen to their music. I love the happy, contented feelings the paintings and the music bring me. I have loved these artists and composers for as long as I can remember, even before I knew what Impressionism was. I just remember looking at the paintings and being affected by how the picture made me feel.

When I think about what motivates me to create it has to do with feeling. I love creating atmosphere. For example, I looked back through some of my household decorating notebooks and what I noticed was that the first thing I did was determine how I wanted my home to feel. What atmosphere did I want each room to have? How did I want people to feel while they were in my home? How did I want to feel in my home? I even thought about how I wanted my home to smell and the kind of food that would be cooking? What kind of activities would be going on in my house? I envisioned poetry gatherings, movie nights, book club meetings, intimate dinner parties, cook outs, etc. Before I took action on anything I got clear about the feeling I wanted to evoke. Then once I knew the feeling I could go about finding items to decorate with that would support the atmosphere I wanted to create.

I’m starting to create mental atmospheres as well. Thinking about the kind of mental atmosphere I want to have in my mind and also how I want people to feel when they are with me. I want them to feel loved, appreciated, empowered, motivated, happy, etc. Once I know the feeling I want to extend then it’s easier to act from that place.

There are more common threads emerging but I’m not going to list them all because this blog post will be too long! But I will say this book is giving me so much clarity and inspiration about my creative habit. It’s really helping me focus on what my creative process is. I feel like I just got a creative battery charge.

At the end of the chapter on Your Creative DNA Twyla lists a questionnaire that will help you determine your creative autobiography. Please click this link http://believeitspossible.blogspot.com/2009/10/your-creative-autobiography.html to take you to the questionnaire which is posted on my other blog.

Twyla said that “even if one answer tells you something new about yourself, you’re one step closer to understanding your creative DNA.” I encourage you all to take the questionnaire. Be sure to answer it quickly, instinctively and honestly.

“We want our artist’s to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise us.” – Twyla Tharp

P.S. Interesting thing happened at work today. I was writing about how much I love the paintings of Claude Monet and all of a sudden there was a knock on my office door. Two of my co-workers came in looking to possibly change office pictures, each office has one picture. I was indifferent to the picture that was hanging in my office and told the guy he could have it if he wanted it. Then he mentioned that the picture that was in his office was too girly for him but he thought I might be interested. You guessed it; it is a Claude Monet print. I love the Law of Attraction!

The Creative Habit - Week 1

It's exciting starting a book like this because I know I will be challenged and changed from the experience. I know I will gain a new insight and/or process that will help me live my life at a deeper level. I realize that good intentions are not enough for me to make real change in my life and that's what I'm intending here - real change that will allow me to live my life at a deeper level, to be more than I am currently expressing in my life.

I never know what issues are going to come up for me or how it's all going to play out, I just know something wonderful will occur if I open myself to the experience and remain authentic while going through the process. Having stated my intention for this creative journey I decided the best way for me to get into it was to start reading and stop when I felt an emotional reaction to something I had just read.

The first thing that came up for me was the importance of routine in learning and using the creative habit. I felt some resistance when I read the following statements:

"Being creative is a full-time job with it's own daily patterns."

"The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more."

I thought about my daily routine and what it was helping me create and as soon as I did I realized why I was feeling resistant. My daily routine on workdays goes something like this: I snooze the alarm clock for an hour which makes it around 8:00 - 8:15 a.m. before I actually get out of bed. Now I have to be at work by 9 a.m. so that leaves me about 45 minutes before I have to be at work. During that 45 minutes I've got to find something to wear, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, grab something for lunch and drive to work. Not exactly the routine of a deliberate creator now is it? I didn't realize until I purposefully looked at my routine against the backdrop of what I was wanting to create that I saw the difference between what I was intending and what I was actually thinking and doing.

When I write about my ideal life, what it looks like and how I start my day it looks nothing like what I described to you with my current morning routine and truth be told, my weekend routine isn't much better. In my ideal life I wake up without an alarm clock, full of energy and excitement for the day. I get up, make my morning coffee and then go outside and watch the sun come up. I spend some time writing and doing yoga and then I go to work. There is such a gap between what I'm currently living and what I wish to be living.

I'm currently working to incorporate some of the elements from my ideal life into my current routine. I tried to change everything all at once and it was just too much of a difference for me to maintain. I took a step back and realize everything didn't have to change all at once. I could start slowly by incorporating some of my ideal intentions into what I'm currently living and so far, that seems to be working out much better. I'm enjoying my time in the morning, sitting outside with a cup of coffee watching the sun come up. I find myself looking forward to doing this as soon as I wake up and at least for the past few days have not felt the need to snooze the alarm clock even once.

Here are the first three creative exercises listed in the book.

1. Where is your "pencil"?
"What is the one tool that feeds your creativity and is so essential that without it you feel naked and unprepared."

For me, it's a pen and notepad. I'm always jotting down some idea that comes to me, an action step, a quote, etc. I never know when I'll receive an idea for something and I always want to be prepared. It's rare when I don't have a pen and notepad with me but in the few times when it's happened I really did feel unprepared. I don't know about feeling naked but definitely unprepared.

2. Build up your tolerance to solitude
"It's not the solitude that slays a creative person. It's all that solitude without a purpose. Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity, self-reliance is a happy by-product."

I didn't have any real trouble with this exercise because I love solitude; it's my connection time. It's my time to focus on the higher vision I have for myself and I make time for it every day.

3. Face your fears
"There is nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks."

This assignment really got to me. As I was reading the exercise this part stood out to me.

"When you sat in the brainstorming session at work, why didn't you speak up? When that idea for a story flitted through your mind, why didn't you seize it and pursue it? After you started drawing in that sketch book, why did you stop?"

I asked myself why I always seem to stop myself before I really let myself take off with an idea. Twyla says to put our fears down on paper because it helps cut them down to size, so here goes...

My five big fears right now are:
1. Fear of getting criticized
2. Fear that if I step out on faith the money/resources won't come through
3. Fear of attention/being laughed at
4. Fear of not measuring up
5. Fear my dream is too big for me to realize right now

I knew this book would challenge me I just didn't realize how much.

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

I stumbled across this book about a year ago at the library. I liked the title, The Creative Habit – Learn It and Use It for Life. I decided to check it out because I’m so interested in the creative process and am always looking for creative ways I can enhance my life experience. When I got the book home I looked through it, jotted down some notes and did one of the book’s exercises and that was about it. Then back to the library it went.

A few months ago I was at a bookstore and saw the book again and decided to buy it. I knew there was something for me in the book, something I needed to look at that would help me not only live more deeply and creatively but would also help me creatively move through some of the blocks I’ve put up in my life. But for some reason I wasn’t quite ready to begin it so I bought the book and put it on my bookshelf knowing there would be a time for me to pick it back up again and that time is now.

From Chapter 1:

“It takes skill to bring something you’ve imagined into the world; to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that’s both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. Even Mozart, with all his innate gifts, his passion for music, and his father’s devoted tutelage, needed to get twenty-four youthful symphonies under his belt before he composed something enduring with number twenty-five. If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.”

I’m ready to build that bridge.

My intention in reading and applying the concepts in this book is to learn the creative habit and to use it to improve my life. And I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences and insights with all of you; I will be blogging about it every Friday until I finish the book.

Regarding Work

I've been reading "Poise and Power" by Christian D. Larson and I thought I would share some excellent suggestions he has for approaching our work. I hope you find them as inspirational as I do.

1. Go to work with the idea that you are to spend a whole day directing energy into constructive channels and that you are to pass through a series of exercises that will develop your entire personality.
2. Work because you desire to exercise muscles and brains in such a way that you may daily grow and develop into a stronger person, a more competent person, a greater person.
3. Look upon all work as a constructive process in yourself and use all work for building up mind and body. You will make a good living now, and you will make yourself a better and better living every year. At the same time you will be making for yourself a better life.
4. Think of growth while you work; feel the expansive process of development all through your system whenever you move a muscle or think a thought.
5. Work in the spirit of joy, and know that every action is a stepping-stone to greater advancement.
6. Work in the realization of the great fact that the more you produce in the world, the more power, life, ability and capacity you produce in yourself and that the greater things that you construct, the greater you, yourself become.

Wreck This Journal - Week 4

Well, I must confess I haven't done a lot of wrecking this week but what wrecking I did do involved a lot of spitting and smearing. I'm finding that my resistance, at least for now, has subsided and I'm enjoying the process. Who would have thought that I would be posting a picture of smeared pizza in one of my books but there it is. I don't particularly like the picture because it looks gross but that's exactly why I posted it.

I thought about posting a picture that would be more visually appealing and acceptable to my readers but then I thought, this was my "wreckiest" entry for the week so why not put it out there for all to see? I had a momentary fear of what people might think but then realized that this isn't about them it's about me and my own journey with the wrecking process.

As I mentioned in my post last week I intend to act on the creative nudges I get which I'm now doing. I got the creative nudge to post the pizza picture and I did. My nephews and I had fun documenting our dinner on the page (there are still crushed red peppers falling out of the journal).

I've gotten past my fear of wrecking the journal and what is coming up for me now is fear about what others will think about my creations. This whole process is so interesting and enlightening.

A Few Short Movies to Help Explain the Law of Attraction

I was going back through some of my old blog posts and found three short movies that I posted back in 2007. Now anyone who is a regular reader of this blog knows that Abraham-Hicks is my favorite teacher of all things Law of Attraction but these movies also do a great job explaining the Law of Attraction - what it is and how it works. I am linking them here.

The first movie is called The Focus Movie. It's just a few minutes long. It is one of the best videos I've seen that perfectly illustrates the importance of focusing on what you want in your life The Focus Movie .

The next movie is called The Unity of Spirit and Matter and is 29 minutes long. It deals with questions such as:

• How did the physical world come into existence

• How did the first something get created

• What is consciousness

• How did the creative process begin

• Incarnation and the Law of Attraction

• Spiritual awakening

The last movie is called The Law of Attraction Explained and is 17 minutes long. I think the title is pretty self explanatory.

Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Wreck This Journal - Week 3

To create is to destroy - Part 2

In my update last week I mentioned that I wanted to know what the statement "to create is to destroy" meant. As I entered Week 3 of this process, that statement was still very much on my mind. I was getting frustrated because I couldn't seem to get it. Many of the other participants in this process seemed to be having a great time wrecking their journals and I wanted to be one of them but the truth was I wasn't having a great time. This process of wrecking the journal was bugging me and I didn't know why.

Over the weekend one of my favorite quotes from "Letters to a Young Poet" by Ranier Maria Rilke came to mind. It's from Letter Four and it says:

"Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

This was exactly what I needed to hear. I put the journal aside and didn't open it for several days. I had put my questions out there 1). What does "to create is to destroy" mean? and 2). Why is this process of wrecking the journal bugging me so much? Then I just let go of the entire process and decided that I was going to live my way into the answers as Rilke suggested. I would give up the frustration I was feeling and would just focus on living my life. The very next day something very innocent but very enlightening happened for me.

I got a call from the library that two books I had requested had arrived and were being held for me. I was anxiously awaiting these books and now they were here. I wanted to pick them up after work, go to my Mastermind group and then spend the rest of the evening reading. But as the day progressed I remembered that part of the road in front of the library was under construction and decided I would wait and pick the books up during my lunch hour the next day when there would be less traffic. I remembered that my gas tank was almost on empty and reminded myself that I should stop at the gas station right down the street from work to fill up before driving home. But I decided to wait until the next day to fill up because I had enough gas to make it home and I could fill up in the morning. As I was leaving my office I thought it would probably be a good idea to make a bathroom stop before driving home but I decided to wait because I didn't have to go that bad. After all, it was only a 15 minute drive and I could wait.

Well, guess what happened. As soon as I entered the highway all traffic came to a stop. There was a very bad accident; someone had driven off the overpass and the highway was shut down. I had a lot of time to think about my recent decisions while I was waiting for the highway to reopen.

I knew I had a choice. I could complain about the fact that I was stuck in traffic and get myself all worked up or I could make the best of the situation. I reminded myself that it was my choice to "wait" and I got exactly what I asked for.

I took the time in the car to appreciate the fact that I was safe and healthy. I sent thoughts of comfort and well-being to the person involved in the accident and to his family. I appreciated the air conditioning and having good music to listen to. I had my vision book with me so I got that out and spent time looking at a visual representation of what my life was in the process of becoming. Soon the highway opened back up and I was on my way home. I made a decision right then that if I felt a nudge to do something I would do it instead of waiting.

The next evening I was sitting at my computer reading some of the WTJ blog posts when I got the nudge to do the shower thing again. This time I decided to follow that nudge and see where it would lead me. I wasn't ready for my shower yet but I didn't let that stop me. I grabbed the journal, walked into the shower fully clothed, put the book in the shower caddy, turned the water on and totally soaked it. It was great. I loved it. Now I was having some fun! Of course once I got started I couldn't stop myself. I grabbed the soap and got the book all soapy. Then I opened some of the pages to make sure they were getting wet too. I wondered why I had made such a big deal about getting it wet. I put it on the bathroom counter to dry out and forgot about it.

I sat down this afternoon to write this blog post and as I was looking over my notes for the week, a couple of things stuck out at me. Something sounded very familiar.

I wanted to pick up the books from the library but I didn't do it; I decided to wait

I was going to fill up my gas tank but I didn't do it: I decided to wait

I was going to make a bathroom stop before driving home but I didn't do it; I decided to wait.

Notice a pattern here? There's my "I'll wait" excuse from Week 1 and my "I wanted to yet I didn't" excuse from Week 2.

These are excuses I use frequently but didn't realize I was doing it until this wrecking the journal process started pointing them out to me. Maybe that's why the wrecking process was bugging me so much. I'm seeing a direct correlation between the limitations I feel about wrecking the journal and the blocks I've put up in my own life that keep me from creating the life I desire.

Now I know my little traffic story may not seem like much but it illustrates a pattern that I've had throughout my life. For instance a few years ago I wanted the experience of living in Manhattan for a year. I didn't know anyone who lived there and I didn't make a lot of money at the time. I couldn't afford it on my own but I was completely in love with the city and wanted the experience of living there. Long story short, as usually happens in my life, I ended up meeting someone that loved my enthusiasm for the city and offered me a place to stay on the Upper West Side, rent free. I had just been given what I asked for but then I started thinking about all the potential problems - what was I going to do with my house and my car, etc. and I started putting up blocks to the experience. I wasn't doing this intentionally but I was doing it. I decided it wasn't the right time for me to move and I would wait a few months to take care of some things related to my house and car and then I would go. But I never did. I decided to wait.

So, what am I waiting for? I guess that's another question I get to live on my way to the answer. In the meantime maybe I can start changing my pattern from "I'll wait" and "I wanted to yet I didn't" to:

"I wanted to and I did"!
Yes, I like the sound of that much better!