What's the single biggest issue you struggle with in being more creative?

[Dan Goodwin]

What's the single biggest issue you struggle with in being more creative?

Is it procrastination?

Trying to make everything perfect, constantly wrestling with your inner critic?

Coming up with new ideas or developing existing ones?

Focusing on one creative project, and actually finishing something?

Finding enough (or any!) time to create?

Something else?

Let us know what's blocking your creativity most right now, that if you could overcome it would mean your creativity would soar to new levels...

[Dan Goodwin]

Lisa,

Please visit us as often as you can, we'll support you however we can.

Dan

[Susan Hosken]

Lisa, Wishing you all the best and that things improve.
lots of love from susan in australia

[Franis Engel]

I guess I'd call it people management issues.

*Getting snubbed by the envious. Especially, getting silenced in a group situation (mostly by men) who want to compete for the floor. Some guys know enough to repeat my contribution and take the credit for it. After the 1960s, we're supposed to be past the gender problem by now, but I speculated in the past that perhaps was a linguistic problem of talking style. So, I went to the trouble of changing my talking style to be more similar to men's, and now women shun me.

Related to that is figuring out how to present my creative ideas to people who imagine they can't think creatively. They assume I'm showing off or that it's some sort of magic act. Then when I shine up the teaching skills, making something easy that I know to be difficult for most people - they aren't impressed. They don't regard their ability as anything special because they have no idea how hard it used to be to accomplish or how special it is. Women are taught that humility is golden, and then we wonder why we're not getting recognition. I'm not sure what to do about this because most of the things I want to contribute relate to fostering effortlessness and insight.

*If they do recognize it, they ask how it feels to be training my replacement. They isolate me as an authority and want to compete or worship me instead of of celebrating. Guess people have to tend their own garden, but all my relationships are becoming virtual.

*Dealing with people who are fixated on self-preservation and work actively to BLOCK contributions that I know are better, more fun and more efficient improvements - even proven & logical solutions! They act like it's a contest of wills and an affront to their authority, no matter how I act to reassure them or involve them in the process.

For instance, I left a brilliant contribution on this website and it got eliminated. Since I copy some of contributions, I left it again and it was again cut out of the discussion. Perhaps I was too creative for this website? Maybe you only want members who have problems with being creative, and not those who can create? OK, I'll copy this post and put it up again in case something goes wrong. We'll see if this contribution makes it in.

I've heard that the self-preservation part of the brain cuts off any ability to be creative. The negative "editor" part precludes any ability to generate ideas because of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If that is the case, how come I can manage to generate useful, creative ideas while angry, tired or in pain?

*Getting misunderstood by those who think everyone who is sane MUST agree with them. For instance, why do people assume that because you have a smile on your face, you must be an imbecile with special needs? What's the other course for who you can't seem to communicate with to writing them off your list ?

[Frank]

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences here, Franis.

I hope you check around this website. There are lots of different discussions.
I am sure you will find one you like.

Love your name,
Frank

[Dan Goodwin]

Hi Franis,

I'm sorry to hear about your experiences of having a contribution "eliminated" here. I'm not sure what happened, or where or when, as looking at your profile it seems you only just recently joined? Generally we are all very supportive and try to be understanding so obviously I'm really concerned you've had this experience.

Let me know if there's anything I can do.

Dan

[Frank]

Dan,
Without a doubt the biggest issue I face in creating something is
my own negativity. I do not try to be perfect and I do not procrastinate (much).
But there is always a voice inside that says do you really think that is good ?
or Do you really think that people will get what you are trying to say ?

Lately, I have been paying attention to that voice and thus the creativity stops.
When I go mindless (and thus have no inner critical voice) I am able to write, draw,
whatever. But all too often I think and then the voice comes. Not even chocolate or
coffee quiets that voice. So now I am trying inner child therapy.

Got my fingers crossed on that one. Therapist is really good though.

Well that's all folks,
Frank

P.S. I find that focusing in on what is wrong just keeps the bad stuff around. Well, I am off to eat chocolate and drink coffee and forget about this critical voice.

[Dan Goodwin]

Hey Frank,

So when you "go mindless", how do you get to that point, what happens to allow you that freedom from your inner critic?

You're certainly right about what you focus on grows. Last night I listened to a talk by David Lynch on creativity and transcendental meditation, and he said the more you meditate, the more the positive stuff grows, and naturally, the negative thoughts recede. He likened it to turning on a light. You go in to a dark room and turn on the light, the darkness almost magically disappears... A very simple analogy, but an effective one you can't argue with!

Dan

[Frank]

Dan
Meditation is a good way to focus on what you desire such as positive creative things. It works for me (sometimes).

Another simple technique (which does not always work) for going mindless is:

to flood the senses with stimuli - rather than trying to eliminate stimuli, ie dark room, no noise. ...
I let my mind try to deal with everything all at once - every sight, smell, sound and sensation I am aware of - This does not make me mindless but it does keep my mind so busy that I do not hear the critical voice telling me that I am stupid and unworthy. And I am able to focus on what I what to create and let it take shape.

Lately I am learning not to listen to that critical voice but like everything else sometimes it does not work.

I guess the trick is to keep trying.

Frank

[Christopher Stewart]

I agree with Frank about meditation.

Buddhist psychology uses the eight consciousnesses model to illustrate the inner workings of beings. I have found this model to be extremely useful for me. Briefly put, it goes something like this :

- five consciousnesses for the senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body)
- the 6th is the mind which manages what comes from the other consciousnesses
- the 7th bridges the 6th and the 8th and is where the ego resides
- the 8th is the storehouse consciousness where all human experience is accumulated

One way to meditate is avoid focusing on a particular consciousness, and to always bring the attention back to that "center" whenever you notice that it has got immersed in one. An analogy would probably be the director of an orchestra who listens to everything at once without becoming entranced by one particular part. It's a good exercise to detach from habitual patterns of thinking for instance.

Or one can choose to focus on a particular consciousness. For instance, one can access a past bad experience which has created a block. Although the exercise can be painful the results are definitely worth it.

As mentioned earlier, as far as silencing the inner critic, when I go off path and my mind becomes engrossed in negative thinking, bringing my attention to my sonic environment works very well for me.

For creative work, using meditation to "silence" the first seven and thus improve one's connection with the 8th really gives excellent results in my experience. Intuitions become much clearer and frequent. It's also possible to store "good vibes" in relation with a particular person or thing or desire in the 8th so as to improve our actual experience of it. Or create better experiences if you will.

To the best of my understanding, the aim of meditation is to reach the point where you can turn the 6th and 7th around so they work for you. We are used to think that the fives and the 8th are the causes and the 6th and 7th are the effects (or at least I was used to think that), yet the opposite is not only possible but desirable. Using meditation it is possible to free oneself from automatic responses to sense stimuli, habitual urges, hurtful memories, or the likes, and thus improve overall experience and well-being.

Progress definitely comes with practice, so yes by all means keep trying... ;o)

[Hannah]

This is an awesome discussion, finally! I always thought this was a site to discuss what prevents us from creating -- isn't that what fostering creativity is all about? It turned out to be more of a site to celebrate accomplished creativity, and that's good too, of course. No point in having one without the other. It makes me realize how I do put too little stock in "having created". Maybe that's because I quit and all the reasons I quit. Having created didn't seem like it made any difference. I was different, sure, that much was clear. But nobody else was, and I had to live with them. Not only that but when I was young I was eager to grow up and meet others like me. And it was devastating to realize that even other artists are disappointing in their personal lives. That was the main reason I quit. It's very complicated, because it veers off into issues I had with my parents, which veer off into a lot of other things. But the main reason is that the illusion that I was connecting emotionally with people through my art was zapped. Now I am toying with the idea that there is nothing to life but illusion. It's swell of course to have shared illusions, beliefs and emotions in common with others. Nothing as good as that, still. Makes it seem more real is the reason I suppose. But even if I fall short of accomplishing that, that is no reason to cop out of creating my own. It's not the most inspiring belief, though, so I'm still struggling.

[Dan Goodwin]

Hey Hannah, yes I'd say CCS is about helping people be more creative, then celebrating when they are.

I know you've talked before about the performance and the connecting with an audience being very important to you. How important is, say, writing a new song?

Thanks for your input,

Dan

[Hannah]

Well, I never did write a song, so I'll take that as a suggestion and an opportunity to look into this. I wrote a short instrumental piece once when I was eight, it was a weird experience. It was just a simple little thing that just came to me. I couldn't tell if it was good or bad because having an audience wasn't part of it. But even though that's what I came away with, this very ambivalent state, I'm not sure why. The thing about having an audience for me when I was young and creative is that they confirmed and validated what I felt, and served as an object for me as well. A sculptor's object is clay, but a performer's is an audience. That's the way I see it. However in both instances the subject and the impetus is your own feelings, isn't it? I don't know. For me the desire to communicate was paramount, and yet it was the force with which I did so, and the strength of my desire to break through that made it work. In short I was pretty sure it would work before I got the validation and my message was received. Still it was dependent on this final step, and when I grew up I questioned my message, my ability to convey it, and this final step as well..as well as the validity of the whole enterprise because I couldn't be sure who I was singing for anymore.