Are you having a challenging time in tapping into your creative potential? Are you unsure on how to get in touch with your creative potential? To help understand common reasons that prevent people from tapping into their creative potential and what someone can do to tap into their creative potential, I have interviewed therapist KD Farris.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
“For 25 years I have successfully led individuals and groups into a deeper exploration of themselves, life and relationships. I am the author of MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT: What My Grandmother Taught Me About The Universe and I write Being Present, a column for an award winning online magazine, SoulfulLiving.com. I am currently completing my doctoral dissertation at Pacifica Graduate Institute.”
What are common reasons that prevent people from tapping into their creative potential?
“There are so many factors in the hindrance of creativity: stress, lack of relaxation, time, emotional conditions, ego, an over-sense of responsibility, a misunderstanding of who or what is the source of creativity in the first place. But I’ll share with you one factor that I feel strongly, at least ties for the forerunner of hindrances'”and that is our lack of belief in ourselves and in what we are creating.
In my early years, I discovered quite clearly how not believing in myself dampened my creativity. What grew out of this discovery is a process I call Dollar Therapy'”a one-week program in which you have to pay one dollar into a collection jar (a jar you give away at the end of the week) for every time you have a negative thought about yourself. When I first came up with this notion, within the first hour I reduced my pay out from one dollar to twenty-five cents because I was already busting my bank.
At inception, the idea of curtailing my negative thoughts had nothing to do with creativity and everything to do with my overall mental health and well-being. But what I discovered was of great consequence to my creative life.
At that time, I had been working on a screenplay for almost a year with no progress. The week I was no longer allowed to doubt or think negatively about myself I was able to not only finish the screenplay, but also begin a new one.”
What type of impact does tapping into your creative potential have on your overall well-being?
“There is no doubt that happiness evokes healthy brain chemical production. And if you access your creativity through believing in yourself, it becomes a twofer. Not only are you increased in spirit and enthusiasm by the absence of self-critical thinking, but the process of creativity itself also enlivens you.
I have a saying, creativity is what we do in the world, and expression is what we reveal of ourselves in the doing. Most people when they endeavor to tap their creativity want to put something of themselves into form. This is the transformative, transpersonal result of creativity that ensures the engagement of our personal depth while at the same time releasing our extemporaneous mind chattering nonsense'”by that I mean the gratuitous thinking that goes on in our minds that blocks our creative potential as well as any positive experience of ourselves and life.”
What are some tips you can give that can help readers tap into their creative potential?
“There are many days when I rise with no vim or vigor. Be it physical, emotional or mental, the result is the same'”an absence of creativity. I just don’t feel like doing anything. I am uninspired. I am suffering from a lack of breath or spirit; a lack of interest or engagement. The invitation to create is absent because I am disconnected from the movement of life.
What I have realized about these states, driven by stress, fatigue, sloth or torpor, is that they are temporary conditions far more easily transitioned out of than one might think.
Usually in a state like this I have simply forgotten the better parts of myself and of life. Remembering them is where the rituals and activities come in. My box of tools are these: write down my dreams, take a morning walk, sit for ten minutes in meditation, write ten minutes in a morning journal; clean my desk, review my goals lists (both short term and long term), call a friend with whom I have not connected in a long while (a great way to find yourself reflecting positively on your life); take a long hot shower, get in the hot tub (if you are so lucky to have access to one), do five full sun salutations, sit in the sun; walk my pups, brush my pups hair; read, write, sing'”any one of which is likely to move me from the sedentary condition of my mind and energies to one of motion and activity. And on the activity front, it only need be my creative mind that begins to activate for the whole day to turn around, and the corner of my lips to turn upward.
I think everybody has his or her own list. The powerful action in all of this is to write down your list and know enough to refer to it when you need to get yourself going.
In summation, the simplest thing to understand about creativity is that creativity is movement'”of thought, action, feelings, and sensations. It is the movement of impulses turning into other impulses, and what is required to do this is A.) Getting out the way, and B.) Starting the engine.”
What type of professional help is available for someone who is having a difficult time tapping into their creative potential?
“Milton Erickson created a kind of hypnotherapy that Ernie Rossi developed into what he calls the four stage creative process. The work centers on ultradian rhythms, which are naturally occurring brain cycles of rest and excitation running concurrent and lasting 90 to 120 minutes within every 24-hour day. That’s 12 to 18 creative cycles per day. The importance of the rest portion of these cycles throughout one’s workday (and their relationship to health and creativity) should not be underestimated and is based on this knowledge.
There is a great little book on the subject entitled “The 20 Minute Break” by Ernest Rossi. Though out of print it is easily attained on Amazon.com. I recommend it to most all of my clients.
You can also learn about this work and these potent cycles by visiting Rossi’s website http://www.ernestrossi.com/. He and his wife Kathryn continue to teach workshops, and practitioners of the technique (called Mind-Body Therapy) are spread throughout the country. I use his work in my private practice for creativity as well as deep levels of inner healing and repair.
Best of luck to you all in your pursuit of this powerful birthright we call creativity.”
Thank you KD for doing the interview on tapping into your creative potential. For more information on KD Farris or her work you can check out her website on http://www.meshe.com, http://www.facebook.com/yourmyth, and http://www.soulfulliving.com/beingpresent.htm
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