Creating New Realities

There have been many writers who have talked about a particular set of conditions where creativity seems to flourish. Some are related to the creative environment but almost all focus on the state of mind an individual is in. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it “flow”; Betty Edwards desribes it in the context of observation in her book “Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain”; Timothy Gallwey highlights that creative state in sport in his book “The Inner Game of Tennis”; Chad LeJeune describes the concept of Mindfulness to help deal with worry and anxiety; and David Bohm talks about attention, perception and sensitivity.

But I believe that all are talking about the same thing really – to be aware of the present moment, whether that be listening, observing, smelling, tasting, touching. If you are giving attention to the present moment you are not thinking or analysing. If you are thinking or analysing you are inenvitably reflecting on past content stored in your brain.

In my main area of work, which is product innovation, the role of ethnography for gaining insight into new product ideas is seen as very important. But again, the art of ethnography is observation, listening, perception, attention – i.e. being aware of the present moment.

This state of mind is also what is talked about in meditation. There are many forms of meditation, whether through focusing on the breath, doing yoga etc., but a common theme in all the methods is stilling the mind – in other words stopping the thinking. So meditation, in my opinion, is just another label given to the same phenomenon.

What is really interesting though is the power of such a state of mind, this creative, inspirational state described by all the different authors. If this state is the most creative state for new ideas and inspiration, why do we not talk about its power more. Why does our education system focus so much on analytical thinking all the time, often at the expense of spending time on harnessing creativity. In fact we often talk about “creative thinking”, but isn’t that an oxymoron.

Just watched a lovely talk by David Levy called “No Time to Think“. It captures quite a lot of what we covered in our sessions, but does in a much more scholarly way than I did. He highlights how intellect has two aspects – one that is about searching, abstracting, refining and concluding (the stuff we are generally taught to be good at) – the other is about thinking, reflection, assimilation and contemplation – and that both are important, and that the second scholarly aspect is not given equal weighting. It is worth checking out the video if you have time ;>

There is an interesting centre that has been set up at the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University called the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. Their work is “to realise the potential of mindfulness-based approaches in mental and physical health”. The techniques taught are similar to some of the ones we covered in our sessions. Check out www.oxfordmindfulness.org if you are interested.

I added a new video link to a Google Talk by Dan Siegel on the Minds, Brain and Mindfulness training and how mindfulness training has a direct affect on the front, middle area of the brain – and the implications on mental health and behaviour. I also added another video link to a Google Talk by Mattieu Ricard on how meditation affects the mind and brain,

ive always thought of meditation as my secret weapon, a tool that i would break out in case of an emergency. I learnt it when i was 16 but the time i failed to see the need to do it twice a day as i was taught. instead i used it infrequently, maybe once a week and when i was stressed or couldnt solve a problem.

in my experience it gets rid of all the white noise thats going on in your head, allowing you to free up more brain power for your work. for the past few weeks ive been designing a mechanism and its an area of design i have little experience of. i spent most of a day staring at the piece of paper in front of me, hoping that a flash of inspiration would enable me to sketch out the answer. but it didnt happen. i was too busy thinking about other things and wasnt actively trying to solve the problem at hand. So i meditated and then went back to the same piece of paper, ripped it up and turned it into the exact mechanism i required using split pins to act as the pivot points. its difficult to describe the feeling you get from doing it and im now using it twice a day as recommended and finding that the duration of clarity that you get from doing it is increasing day by day. a huge regret i have is that when i was younger i was too irrational and immature to see the potential in it.

id urge everybody to try it, it will have a massive impact on your life.