Cultivating Creative Aliveness

In Today's Email:

• Cultivating Creative Aliveness…

• Our Gift To You: Emotions Wheel poster…

• Yogapedia: Arrow Lunge…

IMAGE OF THE DAY

TODAY'S LEARNING
Cultivating Creative Aliveness

Are you trying to find a way to feel more alive and creatively vital? These exercises will assist you in developing your creative side.

1. Clearing

Allow yourself time, distance, and focus. Consciously set aside some non-distracted time and attention. To flourish, much like any other positive relationship or artistic endeavor, your Creative Self requires meaningful time. Even if it means scheduling specific times on your calendar for "creative self-time," make your creative self your most valuable client. Give your creative self the same concentrated attention that you (ideally) wouldn't give to an email or tweet when with a client; in order for it to be more active and show its richness, it has to be seen, heard, and recognized.

2. Centering

Take a deep breath. During your designated emergence time, getting centered allows you to be more present to what is calling to emerge within you. To be able to start hearing and connecting with deeper aspects of your creative nature, you need to have an intentionality, clarity of focus, and presence. Use whichever method is most comfortable for you to accomplish this: visualization, meditation, affirmation, embodiment, or any other method that helps you become focused.

3. Asking

"Ask what makes you alive and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman

What is most alive for you right now, ask yourself? It’s not about the entirety of your vision and all that you can imagine – just what feels most alive within you now. It's like choosing the ripest, lowest-hanging fruit off your future tree; what's living right now has to be the whole picture. I frequently question myself, "What is calling out to me right now?" It facilitates moving it from the domain of potential future (all that is possible) to the domain of instantly actionable present (what is now and next).

4. Holding

Release the need for an immediate answer…or a familiar one. Hold the question before rushing to an answer or “the” answer. Try using your entire brain before putting down a list of the same ideas that are always on your mind when you use your left brain. The right brain is not constrained by habitual thought patterns and processes information far more quickly than the left brain. Give your left brain a brief vacation.

5. Listening

Listen with all of your mind and body. not only the language of the left brain. Pay attention to images, feelings, thoughts, ideas, surprises, seeming disconnects that come out of nowhere, impulses that emerge. Observe the sensation in your body. What gives you the greatest sense of life? What gives you energy? Don't wait for it to make perfect sense before giving it credibility; many passions go unfulfilled because they are dismissed as ludicrous before they have an opportunity to develop.

6. Cultivating

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

Use whole-brain creative processes – draw it, paint it, move with it, embody it, act it out, etc – to break habitual thinking patterns, open up the creative aliveness wellspring, and draw forth its insights and wisdom. It's about what is calling to come out of you right now, not about your whole vision and everything you can conceive. You may learn far more about it and gain deeper insights by cultivating it artistically than you can by merely thinking about it. Employ whole-brain storytelling as well as left-brain linear techniques combined with right-brain techniques. Every emergence is a complex narrative that conveys what's happening and fits into your identity.

7. Tending

Outside of your "sacred" time, be mindful of any images, feelings, thoughts, ideas, or impulses that come to you while you go about your daily activities. Take note of them. Don't simply ask your creative source once; ask them several times. Give it time to marinate. Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Live the question.” Over time, go deeper into it. Take note of the recurring themes and patterns. As we engage the process of cultivating what’s most alive for us now and in the near future, then the next level of the vision will emerge – like a rose which unfolds in layers, revealing one layer at a time. That is the nature of an emergence. Many dreams end in silence because there is too much space between what may be in that vision and what is actually happening right now. As a result, we may get overwhelmed or self-critical if our dreams aren't "on track," which leads to our shutting down. Working with the next day as it arises helps the larger goal become more and more accessible over time. Creative aliveness is not so much a goal to be hit as it is a garden to be tended to and molded into something concrete.

8. Creating

Once you have more clarity – you have diverged out and expanded the creative “playing field” of new, emergent gifts – then look at how to structure that aliveness into you work and life. The key, though, is to not skip over the cultivating and go right to the creating-it part as so many strategic plans have us do. With that approach you can get an action plan, strategy, or goal that is attainable…but may not give you the passion-infused life energy to see it through. The conventional way to stay motivated is through will and perseverance. This is still valuable for those times you do not feel like doing it. To YES-AND that…I believe, and have seen this consistently over the past 14 years of coaching passion-centered entrepreneurs, that once you have connected to your purposeful aliveness, it is the greatest motivator there is. Motivation is then embedded in the goal itself, and not just something we need to use to achieve it. It’s there within us to carry us forth even when we do not feel the energy of it.

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ZEN STORY
MOVING TO A NEW TOWN

Two men visit a Zen master. The first man says: “I’m thinking of moving to this town. What’s it like?” The Zen master asks: “What was your old town like?” The first man responds: “It was dreadful. Everyone was hateful. I hated it.”

The Zen master says: “This town is very much the same. I don’t think you should move here.”

The first man leaves and the second man comes in. The second man says: “I’m thinking of moving to this town. What’s it like?” The Zen master asks: “What was your old town like?” The second man responds: “It was wonderful. Everyone was friendly and I was happy. Just interested in a change now.”

The Zen master says: “This town is very much the same. I think you will like it here.”

OUR GIFT TO YOU

Every now and then we will be giving away free digital goods to our community. In order for you to see our digital gifts, make sure that you place our emails into your primary folder. Our goal is to give away something awesome at least once a week!

Today you get our Emotions Wheel Poster: Identify what you're feeling - Easily unlock the power of emotional intelligence with this beautiful Emotions Wheel digital download. Identifying how you feel has never been so simple, making it easier to express yourself and provide yourself the healing that you need.

To download please click on the button below called “Download”.

CRYSTAL OF THE DAY

YOGAPEDIA
Arrow Lunge (Anjaneyasana)

What is Arrow Lunge?

Arrow lunge is a variation of anjaneyasana, or low lunge. It's particular to the Forrest Yoga tradition. Rather than balancing on the ball of the back foot, it's the back of the back foot that presses toward the floor. The pose gives a deep hip stretch and develops balance.

Instructions

• Begin in a low lunge with the left leg forward. Keep the fingertips on the floor.

• Slide the right knee back so that it's behind the right hip. Make sure that the right foot points straight back.

• Press into both feet and lift the right knee from the floor. Engage the legs to keep a lift in the lower body.

• Slowly lift the hands from the floor and reach them overhead.

• Breathe while holding the pose.

• Exhale and release. Change sides.

DAILY MEME