MEDITATION FOR CREATIVITY
Inspiration from beyond
Creativity is a wonderful human ability, but it can easily become suffocated by a busy mind or patterns of thinking that are overly rational or literal. Meditation helps declutter your thoughts and inspire you, no matter how you want to use creativity in your life.
Have you ever struggled to be creative or to find a solution to a problem, only to think of the answer once you had forgotten all about it? We often need this “letting go” for our creativity to flourish, which is exactly where meditation can help.
To develop this state, practice techniques that emphasize awareness or open monitoring practices, such as Mindfulness or Vipassana. By inviting us to pay nonjudgmental attention to whatever arises and develop awareness of everything around us, open monitoring practices promote divergent thinking, improve our ability to notice new things, and foster openness to experience in general, all of which are essential to creativity.
Choose visualization meditations if you want to be visually creative or sound-based practices if you are a musician or composer. For general creative thinking, select techniques that stimulate intuition, such as Third Eye and Zazen, or deep relaxation.
FOCUS ON GETTING YOUR JUICES FLOWING
Try this meditation to get in the zone creatively. Before you start, contemplate an inspiring piece of work from an artist in your field, such as a painting, song, or poem.
01 Sit in a comfortable posture and close your eyes. Take three deep breaths through your nose. With every exhale, allow your body to become more relaxed and still. Close your mouth and relax into the present moment.
02 Try to reproduce the piece of work you have chosen in your mind; make it as vivid as you can. Let that masterpiece permeate your whole awareness. Let your mind become one with it. Study its beauty and uncover its mysteries. Try to imagine and feel the state of mind the creator was in while they created it.
03 Bring your focus back to yourself and remember a moment in your life when inspiration was flowing. How were you feeling at that moment? What state were your body, mind, and heart in? Try to relive that experience.
04 Bring your next creative challenge to mind. Contemplate it like an empty canvas waiting to be filled. Channel the inspiration you’ve fostered and let that flow into this empty canvas.
05 When you feel it flowing, open your eyes and make your art a reality.
“Meditation helps create the optimal mental state for creativity to flourish.”
