In a conversation with a friend about learning languages, I remembered my own struggle learning a language. I was going to visit Israel for a month or two, and needed to learn Hebrew.
There are Ulpan classes designed for quick learning, and I signed up a few months before the trip. But it wasn't until I was in Israel, living with people who pretty much didn't speak English, that my brain had to open up and learn.
I remember having a dream where I was trying to move out of an apartment, and the movers wouldn't lift a thing until I said the Hebrew word for "furniture" (not a word I normally used), and as soon as I said "r'hitim" they grabbed everything up and moved me. Since dreaming is in the right brain, but language learning is left brain---it's interesting that the dream was the breakthrough. After that, I was able to speak and understand much more Hebrew.
Come to think of it---when I was learning how to drive a stick shift car the same thing happened. I couldn't get it. Struggled and failed and failed and stripped gears. Then, one night, I dreamed about driving it. The next day I got in the car and drove like I'd been doing it for a decade.
So maybe there's a point where learning, which we try to do in the left brain, needs right-brain connection.
They do say that people test higher if they first imagine themselves taking the test in the room where it's given. And even higher if when they study (left brain again), they do that same imagining first---of being in the test room. Again, adding the right brain into the picture (so to speak).
I think it's true for anything: a whole brain approach gives improved results. It's all about exercising that corpus collosum, the bridge between the hemispheres, that gives us the extra step-up toward success, and happiness in our lives.
Showing posts with label Creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creativity. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Reasons for Creativity
The second quotation in The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People (available at www.UPositive.com) is from the author Steve Gillete:
“There are so many good reasons for creating more beauty and music in the world.”
I love this quote. It gets me thinking about those reasons, coming up with specifics for why more beauty and music is so important. Thinking about this concept, I remember a story I heard about the traditional Balinese people, and their beliefs.
The people of Bali wear black-and-white check belts to symbolize the balance between “positive and negative” in the world. As I understand the story, it is necessary to have both for the world to continue: if there is too much negativity, the world will be destroyed; if the world becomes completely positive, there is no longer a reason for the world to exist.
Beauty and music---and anything created---is on the side of the “positive,” and helps to keep the world balanced and in existence. Simple.
Other traditions proclaim that creativity continues the use of the Original Energy of the beginning of the cosmos, and, therefore, is essential to its continuance as well.
It’s not a very far stretch to proclaim that creativity is, indeed, a Green activity, of which we always need more.
Do you agree? Do you see other “reasons” why beauty, music, and creativity are essential?
--Batya
“There are so many good reasons for creating more beauty and music in the world.”
I love this quote. It gets me thinking about those reasons, coming up with specifics for why more beauty and music is so important. Thinking about this concept, I remember a story I heard about the traditional Balinese people, and their beliefs.
The people of Bali wear black-and-white check belts to symbolize the balance between “positive and negative” in the world. As I understand the story, it is necessary to have both for the world to continue: if there is too much negativity, the world will be destroyed; if the world becomes completely positive, there is no longer a reason for the world to exist.
Beauty and music---and anything created---is on the side of the “positive,” and helps to keep the world balanced and in existence. Simple.
Other traditions proclaim that creativity continues the use of the Original Energy of the beginning of the cosmos, and, therefore, is essential to its continuance as well.
It’s not a very far stretch to proclaim that creativity is, indeed, a Green activity, of which we always need more.
Do you agree? Do you see other “reasons” why beauty, music, and creativity are essential?
--Batya
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Art vs. Form as Function
Creativity and the Everyday
An article in last April’s New York Times by Glenn Collins reminded me that art used to be the everyday. In traditional earth-based societies everywhere around the world, everyday objects---from spoons to moccasins, camel knee-pads to bowls---were decorated and used. There was no distinction between “fine” or “high” art and functional art, no difference between an elite corps of artists and the regular person.
I think we’ve lost something in moving from art as function to form as function. While we still admire the lines of an expensive sink faucet or the new wood paneled refrigerator, are we missing opportunities to express our own vision of the world in our daily lives?
We’re closer to imbuing our lives with creative energy when we hang our children’s finger-painted masterpieces on the refrigerator door, or tack their first drawing of a tree---even though it might be purple---to the board by our desks. We allow this expression to our children, but what about to ourselves?
In the article, “All the Colors of the Rugs the Nomads Walked On,” Collins remarks about camel knee covers: “…the curiosity is that they are so intricately woven, so richly patterned and so extraordinarily colorful.” The pieces are “…so much more glorious than they need to be…” The curator of the show being referenced, Jon Thompson is quoted as saying, “Everything here was made for some purpose. And someone put effort and energy---and love---into making it.”
I remember studying Native cultures from various parts of the world. My second major in undergraduate school was cultural anthropology; I returned for my first Masters degree in the same subject. Part of what’s always drawn me to the Original Peoples of the world is their creativity. The way the nomads of the Middle East wove with “a riot of color in a landscape that is beige,” as the rug show’s assistant curator said. The way even the most crooked pottery from the early Anasazi culture of the American Southwest carries lines and dots and geometric patterns to embellish it. How tiny the patterns of the woven baskets of Africa are; or the intricacies of porcupine quill weaving in Northeast America.
And all these items were used. They weren’t sequestered away on museum shelves protected from touch. The purpose was to use all these products. Expressing creativity was an everyday, accepted, even expected part of daily life.
Wouldn’t it be lovely to get back to that quality of life? Everyone as an artist…every object a work of art.
An article in last April’s New York Times by Glenn Collins reminded me that art used to be the everyday. In traditional earth-based societies everywhere around the world, everyday objects---from spoons to moccasins, camel knee-pads to bowls---were decorated and used. There was no distinction between “fine” or “high” art and functional art, no difference between an elite corps of artists and the regular person.
I think we’ve lost something in moving from art as function to form as function. While we still admire the lines of an expensive sink faucet or the new wood paneled refrigerator, are we missing opportunities to express our own vision of the world in our daily lives?
We’re closer to imbuing our lives with creative energy when we hang our children’s finger-painted masterpieces on the refrigerator door, or tack their first drawing of a tree---even though it might be purple---to the board by our desks. We allow this expression to our children, but what about to ourselves?
In the article, “All the Colors of the Rugs the Nomads Walked On,” Collins remarks about camel knee covers: “…the curiosity is that they are so intricately woven, so richly patterned and so extraordinarily colorful.” The pieces are “…so much more glorious than they need to be…” The curator of the show being referenced, Jon Thompson is quoted as saying, “Everything here was made for some purpose. And someone put effort and energy---and love---into making it.”
I remember studying Native cultures from various parts of the world. My second major in undergraduate school was cultural anthropology; I returned for my first Masters degree in the same subject. Part of what’s always drawn me to the Original Peoples of the world is their creativity. The way the nomads of the Middle East wove with “a riot of color in a landscape that is beige,” as the rug show’s assistant curator said. The way even the most crooked pottery from the early Anasazi culture of the American Southwest carries lines and dots and geometric patterns to embellish it. How tiny the patterns of the woven baskets of Africa are; or the intricacies of porcupine quill weaving in Northeast America.
And all these items were used. They weren’t sequestered away on museum shelves protected from touch. The purpose was to use all these products. Expressing creativity was an everyday, accepted, even expected part of daily life.
Wouldn’t it be lovely to get back to that quality of life? Everyone as an artist…every object a work of art.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Creativity & Alchemy
Creativity---always interesting new definitions of it popping up here and there. In reading through an old pile of New York Times articles, saved for a rainy day (does snow count?), I came across a NYT magazine piece about Tom Binnes, artist extraordinaire of found objects. Jewelry and masks are among the prominent pieces in his collections from the past 20 years. That’s along and illustrious career!
What caught my eye was what Binns said about his own art: “I am always trying to reassess the value of something.”
Isn’t that what all creativity is about?
I have my saying, “There is always something new under the sun” on products through www.cafepress.com/UPositve. What I mean by that is, I think, what Binns alludes to. That whether or not there are new factual objects in our universe, there is always a new way of seeing what’s already there. A new interpretation, a redefinition, a turning something on its side or upside down, whether it’s an object that can be held, a way of moving, a turn of phrase, a meaning or an insight.
Art, in all its forms, is in that way, alchemy. Turning something into something else.
We are all magicians!
---Batya
What caught my eye was what Binns said about his own art: “I am always trying to reassess the value of something.”
Isn’t that what all creativity is about?
I have my saying, “There is always something new under the sun” on products through www.cafepress.com/UPositve. What I mean by that is, I think, what Binns alludes to. That whether or not there are new factual objects in our universe, there is always a new way of seeing what’s already there. A new interpretation, a redefinition, a turning something on its side or upside down, whether it’s an object that can be held, a way of moving, a turn of phrase, a meaning or an insight.
Art, in all its forms, is in that way, alchemy. Turning something into something else.
We are all magicians!
---Batya
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Imagination vs. Knowledge
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”--Albert Einstein (Quoted in Chapter Three of The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People)
I love this quote. It makes me think every time I read it. I was raised, like many of us, to believe that knowledge was the key to the world. The more information we retained, the smarter we were…the more successful we would become. We were rewarded for As in school, punished for low grades. And obtaining those grades often meant letting go of our imaginations that might argue with the “facts” or focusing our left brains to memorize and store the information that we were taught. If we questioned too much, or asked the “wrong” questions, we were admonished. Repeating the data perfectly, which is defined as obtaining knowledge, became the goal for success.
And here comes Einstein, of all people, the epitome of shifting our knowledge of the universe and how it works, saying that knowledge isn’t the most important goal. Imagination, of all things---a right-brain activity---is more important. How can that be?
Bottom line for me in answering this is that without imagination our knowledge would never grow. We would pass the exact same information from generation to generation, never learning anything new, never expanding our experience, never achieving breakthroughs in science or mathematics or even chemistry---all arenas we usually think of as Left Brain.
Kekule, who discovered the benzene ring which brought major breakthroughs in chemistry and therefore medicine, first saw the structure in that half-dream state of the imagination. Einstein himself, after working his Left Brain into exhaustion trying to figure out his theory, finally reached his Theory of Relativity lying on his back staring at the sky in a trance state. These are all right-brain, or imagination, states of being.
It is, indeed, the imagination that allows us to increase our knowledge. That makes complete sense in rereading Einstein’s quote.
Are there any other ways you see to read the quote? Please post your replies here. I’m looking forward to reading them.
--Batya
I love this quote. It makes me think every time I read it. I was raised, like many of us, to believe that knowledge was the key to the world. The more information we retained, the smarter we were…the more successful we would become. We were rewarded for As in school, punished for low grades. And obtaining those grades often meant letting go of our imaginations that might argue with the “facts” or focusing our left brains to memorize and store the information that we were taught. If we questioned too much, or asked the “wrong” questions, we were admonished. Repeating the data perfectly, which is defined as obtaining knowledge, became the goal for success.
And here comes Einstein, of all people, the epitome of shifting our knowledge of the universe and how it works, saying that knowledge isn’t the most important goal. Imagination, of all things---a right-brain activity---is more important. How can that be?
Bottom line for me in answering this is that without imagination our knowledge would never grow. We would pass the exact same information from generation to generation, never learning anything new, never expanding our experience, never achieving breakthroughs in science or mathematics or even chemistry---all arenas we usually think of as Left Brain.
Kekule, who discovered the benzene ring which brought major breakthroughs in chemistry and therefore medicine, first saw the structure in that half-dream state of the imagination. Einstein himself, after working his Left Brain into exhaustion trying to figure out his theory, finally reached his Theory of Relativity lying on his back staring at the sky in a trance state. These are all right-brain, or imagination, states of being.
It is, indeed, the imagination that allows us to increase our knowledge. That makes complete sense in rereading Einstein’s quote.
Are there any other ways you see to read the quote? Please post your replies here. I’m looking forward to reading them.
--Batya
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Dreams, Beliefs, Plans, Actions
“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”--Anatole France (as quoted in Chapter Five of The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People)
I often read about goal setting or achievement as taking action. If only you do the steps, you’ll reach your goal.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Or does it? Does it begin with the act of taking a step? Or does it begin with the dream of walking a thousand miles? Of having the intention to go somewhere other than where you are at the moment? To accomplish your goal, you need not only the dream or vision of it, but then the plan of how to get from here to there, of which direction to head in, and the belief that you are able to take the steps, and that with your plan, the steps will lead you to your goal, to your “great thing.” Taking a step, if you have no dream or direction, no plan or belief, can just as easily start you walking in a very small circle as it can start you heading on a journey. A thousand steps without direction can get you into a very close, very deep rut.
The “down” time is so essential to success. If you only work toward your goals, only act, you’ll exhaust yourself. Dreaming and believing, internal rather than external activities---done best during periods of “rest”---empower the actions you take toward your accomplishments.
Revisiting your dream, your vision, your visualization of your goals reinvigorates your passion, which then guides your reticular activating system and fuels your actions. When you dream and believe, and add plans and action, you pave the way for miracles to happen: you-made as well as Universe-made.
So, dream away! Believe in yourself! And then make your plans and take the actions you need to get you there.
I often read about goal setting or achievement as taking action. If only you do the steps, you’ll reach your goal.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Or does it? Does it begin with the act of taking a step? Or does it begin with the dream of walking a thousand miles? Of having the intention to go somewhere other than where you are at the moment? To accomplish your goal, you need not only the dream or vision of it, but then the plan of how to get from here to there, of which direction to head in, and the belief that you are able to take the steps, and that with your plan, the steps will lead you to your goal, to your “great thing.” Taking a step, if you have no dream or direction, no plan or belief, can just as easily start you walking in a very small circle as it can start you heading on a journey. A thousand steps without direction can get you into a very close, very deep rut.
The “down” time is so essential to success. If you only work toward your goals, only act, you’ll exhaust yourself. Dreaming and believing, internal rather than external activities---done best during periods of “rest”---empower the actions you take toward your accomplishments.
Revisiting your dream, your vision, your visualization of your goals reinvigorates your passion, which then guides your reticular activating system and fuels your actions. When you dream and believe, and add plans and action, you pave the way for miracles to happen: you-made as well as Universe-made.
So, dream away! Believe in yourself! And then make your plans and take the actions you need to get you there.
--Batya
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Making it Easy for the Muse
One of my friends who has a problem, as most of us do at some point or other, actually sitting down to write her book, put it, she’s waiting for the inspiration to hit. We’d been through long conversations about writing, about the creative process, about the creative act and the doing of it.
When she said she was waiting for the Muse to come knock down her door and then she’d get creative, I saw the problem in a new way. Here’s some of my response to her:
“That’s your problem! Aha! Got it! You think that writing is about award-wining ideas hitting you. Nope. Writing is about putting words on paper (or typing them onto a computer screen). Simple. That's it.
“And that goes for painting or choreographing, or designing, or any creative act at all. It’s never about the brilliant Aha! moment that’s supposed to come in a vacuum. Vacuums are overrated.
“More often, the Aha! award-winning stuff comes in the middle of some really awful, disgusting totally garbage-bound stuff. You have to prepare the stage: you have to do the garbage to get to the awards.
“You don't write (or paint or dance, etc.) just when inspiration hits. You write so inspiration can hit. You give it the opportunity, make it easy, prepare the target.
“Inspiration looks for the easy way---like we all do and like all natural phenomena do. If it's floating by and there's someone already writing (garbage or whatever) it doesn't stop to judge, it just sees that there are fingers flying and putting words down (or feet already dancing, or a paintbrush already poised above canvas…) and it's much easier to drop the inspiration in those laps than to find someone else, get them to stop whatever else they're doing, find pad and pencil or plug in the laptop or tie their ballet slippers, or mix the perfect green pigment, and finally, after all that, give them the inspiration. I mean, really...if you were a Muse, which way would you go?”
So let’s all make a resolution for 2009: Let’s make it the year of Making it Easy for the Muse. Let's get the garbage out of the way by starting without the Muse, so when the Muse is ready, she/he/it can inspire us easily.
Happy Creative 2009!
--Batya
When she said she was waiting for the Muse to come knock down her door and then she’d get creative, I saw the problem in a new way. Here’s some of my response to her:
“That’s your problem! Aha! Got it! You think that writing is about award-wining ideas hitting you. Nope. Writing is about putting words on paper (or typing them onto a computer screen). Simple. That's it.
“And that goes for painting or choreographing, or designing, or any creative act at all. It’s never about the brilliant Aha! moment that’s supposed to come in a vacuum. Vacuums are overrated.
“More often, the Aha! award-winning stuff comes in the middle of some really awful, disgusting totally garbage-bound stuff. You have to prepare the stage: you have to do the garbage to get to the awards.
“You don't write (or paint or dance, etc.) just when inspiration hits. You write so inspiration can hit. You give it the opportunity, make it easy, prepare the target.
“Inspiration looks for the easy way---like we all do and like all natural phenomena do. If it's floating by and there's someone already writing (garbage or whatever) it doesn't stop to judge, it just sees that there are fingers flying and putting words down (or feet already dancing, or a paintbrush already poised above canvas…) and it's much easier to drop the inspiration in those laps than to find someone else, get them to stop whatever else they're doing, find pad and pencil or plug in the laptop or tie their ballet slippers, or mix the perfect green pigment, and finally, after all that, give them the inspiration. I mean, really...if you were a Muse, which way would you go?”
So let’s all make a resolution for 2009: Let’s make it the year of Making it Easy for the Muse. Let's get the garbage out of the way by starting without the Muse, so when the Muse is ready, she/he/it can inspire us easily.
Happy Creative 2009!
--Batya
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Worthy Goals
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” --Victor Frankl
This is the first quote in The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People (available from www.UPositive.com). It's an important thought: not only that people need goals, but need goals that are larger and more meaningful than the everyday. What goal is actually worthy of your true self? Of your ‘largest’ self? What goal is big enough and encompassing enough to be worthy of your soul?
Notice, too, that Frankl doesn’t speak about the attainment of the goal, but of the “striving and struggling” for it. He isn’t referring to the success or failure of reaching the goal, but of the process of living toward that goal.
We often make our goals too small. We envision only that which we are willing to think we CAN reach. What would happen if we made our goals large enough that reaching them stops being the issue, but striving and struggling for them becomes the purpose of our days and nights?
I’m impressed by a number of the movies Robert Redford has chosen to act in. Putting aside my attraction to the man for a moment (not his looks, but him)… I have thought often about what common thread runs through many of these films: Brubaker; Havana; Milagro Beanfield Wars; and Quiz Show (in reverse), among others. What I see in these is a main character who becomes bigger than himself (in Quiz Show, smaller) by acting from a private passion or commitment. By engaging in the process, they become more human, more effective; their actions extend farther past themselves into the world; they make more of an impact than they could imagine even in their own minds.
If we commit to a larger vision, something we might not even believe we can reach, and commit to the process, how much farther along the path we might get! I have a little sign framed in my house that reads: “Reach for the moon: even if you fail you land among the stars.” It reminds me of just this: the farther I reach, the farther I’ll get. If I aim for a large, distant goal, even if I don’t get there, I’ll get farther than if I reach for a small goal that is a sure thing.
I remember in the ‘60s and ‘70s when we had the audacity to try to end world hunger. We haven’t done it yet. Knowing we wouldn’t accomplish it in 40 years…we might have given it up. But look how much closer we are than if we hadn’t taken it on as a goal then. There are food banks all across America. There are hunger relief programs all across the world. Even the US Postal Service conducts a food drive: we started that ‘way back when. So many more people eat now; so many fewer starve. Do we still have a very long way to go to alleviate world hunger? You bet we do. Might we achieve that in the next 40 years? Who knows? But if we continue to aim for it, we’ll end up with a lot fewer hungry people than would exist if we decided it was an “impossible” goal and gave it up.
And, what are you willing to attain, even by miracle? If you don’t engage in the process, even a miracle can’t get you there. How would you feel if you find a goal worthy of that stress and strain, worthy of your soul---and by your daily efforts (and miracle, if necessary)---you do reach it?
So what goals are worthy of your striving and struggling in 2009? What are you willing to stress yourself for? What are you willing to maybe fail at reaching just to get that much closer?
This is the first quote in The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People (available from www.UPositive.com). It's an important thought: not only that people need goals, but need goals that are larger and more meaningful than the everyday. What goal is actually worthy of your true self? Of your ‘largest’ self? What goal is big enough and encompassing enough to be worthy of your soul?
Notice, too, that Frankl doesn’t speak about the attainment of the goal, but of the “striving and struggling” for it. He isn’t referring to the success or failure of reaching the goal, but of the process of living toward that goal.
We often make our goals too small. We envision only that which we are willing to think we CAN reach. What would happen if we made our goals large enough that reaching them stops being the issue, but striving and struggling for them becomes the purpose of our days and nights?
I’m impressed by a number of the movies Robert Redford has chosen to act in. Putting aside my attraction to the man for a moment (not his looks, but him)… I have thought often about what common thread runs through many of these films: Brubaker; Havana; Milagro Beanfield Wars; and Quiz Show (in reverse), among others. What I see in these is a main character who becomes bigger than himself (in Quiz Show, smaller) by acting from a private passion or commitment. By engaging in the process, they become more human, more effective; their actions extend farther past themselves into the world; they make more of an impact than they could imagine even in their own minds.
If we commit to a larger vision, something we might not even believe we can reach, and commit to the process, how much farther along the path we might get! I have a little sign framed in my house that reads: “Reach for the moon: even if you fail you land among the stars.” It reminds me of just this: the farther I reach, the farther I’ll get. If I aim for a large, distant goal, even if I don’t get there, I’ll get farther than if I reach for a small goal that is a sure thing.
I remember in the ‘60s and ‘70s when we had the audacity to try to end world hunger. We haven’t done it yet. Knowing we wouldn’t accomplish it in 40 years…we might have given it up. But look how much closer we are than if we hadn’t taken it on as a goal then. There are food banks all across America. There are hunger relief programs all across the world. Even the US Postal Service conducts a food drive: we started that ‘way back when. So many more people eat now; so many fewer starve. Do we still have a very long way to go to alleviate world hunger? You bet we do. Might we achieve that in the next 40 years? Who knows? But if we continue to aim for it, we’ll end up with a lot fewer hungry people than would exist if we decided it was an “impossible” goal and gave it up.
And, what are you willing to attain, even by miracle? If you don’t engage in the process, even a miracle can’t get you there. How would you feel if you find a goal worthy of that stress and strain, worthy of your soul---and by your daily efforts (and miracle, if necessary)---you do reach it?
So what goals are worthy of your striving and struggling in 2009? What are you willing to stress yourself for? What are you willing to maybe fail at reaching just to get that much closer?
--Batya
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Something New Under the Sun?
Has it all been done before?
In the past week I spoke to two people, one a friend and one a coaching client, who were struggling with their creativity in similar ways. Both questioned: Why Bother? Hasn’t it all been done before? Haven’t all the stories for songs been written a million times? Haven’t all the books been written? There’s nothing new to write, or paint, or express.
Those who know me know one of my favorite sayings: “There’s always something new under the sun!” (which, yes, you’ll find on products at www.cafepress.com/UPositive).
So, it got me thinking again, about the “why bother?” And, yet again, it seems that the answer lies in my favorite place: the distinction between the right and left hemispheres of the brain; the logical vs the creative/emotional.
It’s true, things have been done before: The facts of things, the statements, the specific expression of emotions. So, sure, the Left Brain convinces us that there’s nothing new to express so the Right Brain might as well go back to sleep.
But that’s not the whole truth. What makes creativity so powerful aren’t the facts that are expressed, but the particular way of expressing the facts.
For instance, I can read a book about right vs wrong written by a theologian. My reaction would most likely be, hmmmm, interesting. I’d put the book down and be on my way. Or, I could read a book about vampires, where the choice of right vs wrong is extremely complicated in a fictional way, and I’ll be fascinated, and I’ll finish the book and put it down and wander around for days mulling over the choices of right vs wrong.
My left-brain friend (unnamed here), can read the same two books, throw the vampire one in the recycle bin and wander for days reviewing the theologian’s version.
We’re so individual that different approaches to the same topic reach into us each in different ways. To get to our hearts and souls, to create even the potential for change and growth in each person, there must be choices in reaching us. What works for me won’t work for my brother, or my friend, or you. Or maybe it will.
It’s the way you express your creativity, your individual voice (or motion, or color combination, or brush stroke) that is of utmost importance, not the plot line, or the brand of your toe shoes, or being able to draw a straight line.
That’s a long way around to saying that it’s essential that every person with an urge to create does so, in their own style. Because your creation has not been done before, ever, and never will be done again because it’s you that makes it new and fresh and unique.
(For those who are religious, another argument: If you believe that God created the world, then you believe that everything that exists was created in those first seven days. The only new thing to do is to recombine the elements God put on the Earth for us to “play” with.)
So, to everyone, create away!!
--Batya
In the past week I spoke to two people, one a friend and one a coaching client, who were struggling with their creativity in similar ways. Both questioned: Why Bother? Hasn’t it all been done before? Haven’t all the stories for songs been written a million times? Haven’t all the books been written? There’s nothing new to write, or paint, or express.
Those who know me know one of my favorite sayings: “There’s always something new under the sun!” (which, yes, you’ll find on products at www.cafepress.com/UPositive).
So, it got me thinking again, about the “why bother?” And, yet again, it seems that the answer lies in my favorite place: the distinction between the right and left hemispheres of the brain; the logical vs the creative/emotional.
It’s true, things have been done before: The facts of things, the statements, the specific expression of emotions. So, sure, the Left Brain convinces us that there’s nothing new to express so the Right Brain might as well go back to sleep.
But that’s not the whole truth. What makes creativity so powerful aren’t the facts that are expressed, but the particular way of expressing the facts.
For instance, I can read a book about right vs wrong written by a theologian. My reaction would most likely be, hmmmm, interesting. I’d put the book down and be on my way. Or, I could read a book about vampires, where the choice of right vs wrong is extremely complicated in a fictional way, and I’ll be fascinated, and I’ll finish the book and put it down and wander around for days mulling over the choices of right vs wrong.
My left-brain friend (unnamed here), can read the same two books, throw the vampire one in the recycle bin and wander for days reviewing the theologian’s version.
We’re so individual that different approaches to the same topic reach into us each in different ways. To get to our hearts and souls, to create even the potential for change and growth in each person, there must be choices in reaching us. What works for me won’t work for my brother, or my friend, or you. Or maybe it will.
It’s the way you express your creativity, your individual voice (or motion, or color combination, or brush stroke) that is of utmost importance, not the plot line, or the brand of your toe shoes, or being able to draw a straight line.
That’s a long way around to saying that it’s essential that every person with an urge to create does so, in their own style. Because your creation has not been done before, ever, and never will be done again because it’s you that makes it new and fresh and unique.
(For those who are religious, another argument: If you believe that God created the world, then you believe that everything that exists was created in those first seven days. The only new thing to do is to recombine the elements God put on the Earth for us to “play” with.)
So, to everyone, create away!!
--Batya
Saturday, December 13, 2008
The Care and Feeding of Self: Depression Type
A few weeks ago I went through what I thought was a depression, and by the second day of it, it scared me a lot. I’m not usually a depressed person, but now and then and in February, I get a day or two, like most people do. It’s my depression, it’s very familiar, and I know just what I need to get out of it within 24-48 hours.
It made me think about the different kinds of depressions. We have an overall term, but the style of depression is just as important as the overall diagnosis. And I think they need to be treated differently.
Of course, there’s the bio-chemically caused depression, which really requires medication to get everything in balance. This tends to be hereditary, and long-term.
There’s the hereditary weakness toward depression, also, which is set off by external circumstances, but becomes depression as opposed to anything else, because there’s a bio-chemical weakness in that direction.
There’s also what I call the nurture-heredity depression, which is that we learn patterns of response to external stimuli from our parents. If one of our parents tended to respond to stress by becoming depressed, we are more likely to do so, also. You might need medication to help break through this so that you can make different choices with your responses to stressors. If it becomes a long-term and continuous response to your circumstances, then medication helps even more.
Situational depression is unavoidable at times. It’s a temporary depression, brought on by sad things in your life, or a string of sad things, so that you’re overwhelmed. It’s more than one load of brown stuff hitting the fan fairly continuously. There’s often a sense of frustration and anxiety that accompanies this depression. While medication can be helpful, most of the climb out of this type requires stepping back, taking some deep breaths (away from the fan), and determining the best action strategy to change your response to your situation, and/or the situation you’re in. Cognitive/behavioral therapy and/or life coaching and goal setting are extremely helpful.
Let’s not forget the good ol’ SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Like all living things, humans need sunshine, and deprivation of that sunlight affects most of us to some degree by February, and some of us to a greater extent throughout the winter. Full-spectrum lights can help, as can therapy and medication to deal with the issues dredged up during the longer hours of darkness in the winter.
Of course, the depression that comes from the low swings of bipolar disorder has its own attributes, and can be quite debilitating for those who suffer from it. Medication is essential to help balance your biochemistry, and therapy, again, helps you deal with the issues raised as well as manage the ups and downs of the disorder on a behavioral level.
And then there’s the Out of Balance, or Brain Vacation Depression, which is what I had.
My depression scared me this time because it had a different quality than my usual depressions, and because I didn’t recognize it. For the first time ever, I experienced anhedonia: lack of hope, emotion, intention, desire, pleasure of any sort. There was a great nothingness that I faced: it couldn’t be argued with, cajoled, threatened, or bribed. I would start off with the thought, “time to wash a dish or two” and find myself on the couch with a vampire novel or a nap instead, not quite realizing how I’d gotten there. I read about a book or more a day (a pleasure I give myself for a day or two now and then) until I’d gone through both of Laurell K. Hamilton series (Anita Blake, vampire slayer; Merry Gentry, Fairy Princess), both of which are brilliant and I highly recommend (in order because character development is outstanding).
This wasn’t “Batya’s Depression.” I really was scared.
The first thing I did on Day 2 of it was call my doctor and go in for a blood test, just to be sure it wasn’t caused by a physical problem. The second thing I did was call my sometimes-therapist and schedule appointments (it took about 3 weeks, 2x a week, and I am very thankful to her for seeing me that way). The third thing I did was take antidepressants (the first time in my life, since I don’t usually have long-term depression), but I stopped taking them after two weeks when I felt myself pulling out of the worst of it.
What happened, it turns out, is that my brain (both right and left hemispheres) needed a vacation, and since it didn’t see me packing a suitcase for the Bahamas, it decided to go on one by itself. Which explains the disconnect between thinking and not-doing. Between the last two years at the clinic and the house problems, which were continuous stress and burnout, and the year of positive stress of building my business and learning new things for it, my brain was just tired. September was the celebration of the business and all that I’d accomplished to date, some celebrations with my family of origin (with our own dance and ways of showing love), and the economy of America going haywire…my brain decided to quit for a while.
Reading, for me, is a taking-in. It’s like meditation, and it feeds some deep part of me. In a way, yes, it’s escape, and as such, a vacation from the everyday. I suppose for some people, looking at art or watching movies might provide the same relief.
In my job, and in developing my business, giving is the key. And I love it! It’s who I am, how I can most deeply express myself. I love both psychotherapy and coaching as what I do. So my depression wasn’t at all about wanting to do something else or changing a large part of my life. It was simply about restoring of the giving out/taking in cycle.
What a relief! I’m very thankful to the people who supported me as I went through this, and who had patience with me during this time. Luckily, it only lasted three weeks, and I’m learning to be a little more tender to myself, to keep my activities more balanced: lessons I’ve always told my clients. Hmm. Maybe I should record my sessions and listen to myself!
I’m back now, refreshed, eager, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed, with lots of energy to jump back into all the blogging, newsletter writing, seminar leading, promotion, client contact, and everything else it takes to keep my business and my life up and running. I’m writing fiction again, eating healthy, and back to being Batya. Feels good!
Have you experienced any of these depressions? How have you conquered it? I’d love to hear from you!
--Batya
It made me think about the different kinds of depressions. We have an overall term, but the style of depression is just as important as the overall diagnosis. And I think they need to be treated differently.
Of course, there’s the bio-chemically caused depression, which really requires medication to get everything in balance. This tends to be hereditary, and long-term.
There’s the hereditary weakness toward depression, also, which is set off by external circumstances, but becomes depression as opposed to anything else, because there’s a bio-chemical weakness in that direction.
There’s also what I call the nurture-heredity depression, which is that we learn patterns of response to external stimuli from our parents. If one of our parents tended to respond to stress by becoming depressed, we are more likely to do so, also. You might need medication to help break through this so that you can make different choices with your responses to stressors. If it becomes a long-term and continuous response to your circumstances, then medication helps even more.
Situational depression is unavoidable at times. It’s a temporary depression, brought on by sad things in your life, or a string of sad things, so that you’re overwhelmed. It’s more than one load of brown stuff hitting the fan fairly continuously. There’s often a sense of frustration and anxiety that accompanies this depression. While medication can be helpful, most of the climb out of this type requires stepping back, taking some deep breaths (away from the fan), and determining the best action strategy to change your response to your situation, and/or the situation you’re in. Cognitive/behavioral therapy and/or life coaching and goal setting are extremely helpful.
Let’s not forget the good ol’ SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Like all living things, humans need sunshine, and deprivation of that sunlight affects most of us to some degree by February, and some of us to a greater extent throughout the winter. Full-spectrum lights can help, as can therapy and medication to deal with the issues dredged up during the longer hours of darkness in the winter.
Of course, the depression that comes from the low swings of bipolar disorder has its own attributes, and can be quite debilitating for those who suffer from it. Medication is essential to help balance your biochemistry, and therapy, again, helps you deal with the issues raised as well as manage the ups and downs of the disorder on a behavioral level.
And then there’s the Out of Balance, or Brain Vacation Depression, which is what I had.
My depression scared me this time because it had a different quality than my usual depressions, and because I didn’t recognize it. For the first time ever, I experienced anhedonia: lack of hope, emotion, intention, desire, pleasure of any sort. There was a great nothingness that I faced: it couldn’t be argued with, cajoled, threatened, or bribed. I would start off with the thought, “time to wash a dish or two” and find myself on the couch with a vampire novel or a nap instead, not quite realizing how I’d gotten there. I read about a book or more a day (a pleasure I give myself for a day or two now and then) until I’d gone through both of Laurell K. Hamilton series (Anita Blake, vampire slayer; Merry Gentry, Fairy Princess), both of which are brilliant and I highly recommend (in order because character development is outstanding).
This wasn’t “Batya’s Depression.” I really was scared.
The first thing I did on Day 2 of it was call my doctor and go in for a blood test, just to be sure it wasn’t caused by a physical problem. The second thing I did was call my sometimes-therapist and schedule appointments (it took about 3 weeks, 2x a week, and I am very thankful to her for seeing me that way). The third thing I did was take antidepressants (the first time in my life, since I don’t usually have long-term depression), but I stopped taking them after two weeks when I felt myself pulling out of the worst of it.
What happened, it turns out, is that my brain (both right and left hemispheres) needed a vacation, and since it didn’t see me packing a suitcase for the Bahamas, it decided to go on one by itself. Which explains the disconnect between thinking and not-doing. Between the last two years at the clinic and the house problems, which were continuous stress and burnout, and the year of positive stress of building my business and learning new things for it, my brain was just tired. September was the celebration of the business and all that I’d accomplished to date, some celebrations with my family of origin (with our own dance and ways of showing love), and the economy of America going haywire…my brain decided to quit for a while.
Reading, for me, is a taking-in. It’s like meditation, and it feeds some deep part of me. In a way, yes, it’s escape, and as such, a vacation from the everyday. I suppose for some people, looking at art or watching movies might provide the same relief.
In my job, and in developing my business, giving is the key. And I love it! It’s who I am, how I can most deeply express myself. I love both psychotherapy and coaching as what I do. So my depression wasn’t at all about wanting to do something else or changing a large part of my life. It was simply about restoring of the giving out/taking in cycle.
What a relief! I’m very thankful to the people who supported me as I went through this, and who had patience with me during this time. Luckily, it only lasted three weeks, and I’m learning to be a little more tender to myself, to keep my activities more balanced: lessons I’ve always told my clients. Hmm. Maybe I should record my sessions and listen to myself!
I’m back now, refreshed, eager, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed, with lots of energy to jump back into all the blogging, newsletter writing, seminar leading, promotion, client contact, and everything else it takes to keep my business and my life up and running. I’m writing fiction again, eating healthy, and back to being Batya. Feels good!
Have you experienced any of these depressions? How have you conquered it? I’d love to hear from you!
--Batya
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Definition of "Goal"
While reading Dan Miller's excellent book, 48 Days, I once again came across the accepted definition of "goal," which is, simply put, A goal is a dream with a timeline attached. Recently, a coaching client asked me a similar question: Don't all my goals need time determinations?
I've been thinking about that. For a while, I'd accepted that definition, but something just didn't feel right. Today, sitting on the sand in Long Beach, NY, I realized what my problem with it was.
Attaching a time determination to a goal is left-brained, and only half the story.
Sure, having a time for your goals in mind: 5 years, 6 months, etc. and then adding the smaller steps to your weekly and daily list of do-ables is essential. Especially for charting, and for the left brain.
There's a danger, though, in defining a goal as attached to a time limit. What happens when life intervenes and you miss your deadlines? Have you failed at your goals? Obviously, the answer is a resounding "no." If you renegotiate your timeline, does that mean you're redefining your goals? Again, I'd say "no."
So I don't think a timeline is the definition of a goal.
I think the definition of goal is:
Once you have the commitment, the timeline, the do-ables, the actions within the reality of your days, weeks, and months are all tools to use to get there. And commitment is as much a right-brained activity as it is left-brained. Commitment is a whole-brained approach to defining "goal."
I'd love to read your thoughts and responses to this redefinition of "goal."
--Batya
I've been thinking about that. For a while, I'd accepted that definition, but something just didn't feel right. Today, sitting on the sand in Long Beach, NY, I realized what my problem with it was.
Attaching a time determination to a goal is left-brained, and only half the story.
Sure, having a time for your goals in mind: 5 years, 6 months, etc. and then adding the smaller steps to your weekly and daily list of do-ables is essential. Especially for charting, and for the left brain.
There's a danger, though, in defining a goal as attached to a time limit. What happens when life intervenes and you miss your deadlines? Have you failed at your goals? Obviously, the answer is a resounding "no." If you renegotiate your timeline, does that mean you're redefining your goals? Again, I'd say "no."
So I don't think a timeline is the definition of a goal.
I think the definition of goal is:
A goal is a dream with commitment attached.
Once you have the commitment, the timeline, the do-ables, the actions within the reality of your days, weeks, and months are all tools to use to get there. And commitment is as much a right-brained activity as it is left-brained. Commitment is a whole-brained approach to defining "goal."
I'd love to read your thoughts and responses to this redefinition of "goal."
--Batya
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Improved Memory
NEWS
The Creativity Empowerment Celebration for the launch of UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching on Friday was great fun! In spite of the Nashville gas crisis, which did keep a few people away. The rest of us shared good conversation, and funny and inspiring right brain/left brain skit, delicious food and drink (and scrumptious quadruple-chocolate brownies!), and won lots of door prizes!
I'm working on a membership program for UPositive. I'll post the details here as soon as I have them, so my blog-readers can have the first chance to participate. There's going to be a lot of value in membership, I can promise you that!
Improving Memory
Back in April, Gary Marcus wrote a short article for the New York Times Magazine entitled “Total Recall.” He described the difference between how a computer accesses its memory and how humans (and other animals) access memory. The computer, of course, is better at it. By the end of the article, he suggested that there might eventually be a “neural prosthetic” (implant) that would stimulate our memory pathways.
No thanks.
I’d like to stick with the human brain remaining human; I’m not interested in becoming even part cyborg, thank you.
But there was some interesting information in the article. For instance, there are studies showing that environment, body posture, secondary senses, all increase memory. If you learn a word while stooping, you will better remember it while stooping. It’s been known for a while that visiting the room where a test will be given beforehand, and keeping the image of that room in your mind while you study increases your score on the test.
I’d like to propose a different solution to improving memory than adding a computer chip to our gray matter. I’m going to try this myself, do an informal study. Here’s my theory:
Choose a different posture for different kinds of information input.
Keep a written list (so you don’t have to remember it on your own).
Practice, practice, practice. (repetition increases synaptic firing: think of a deer creating a path to the stream---it gets easier with each trip)
Reward any success. (behavioral modification technique).
Here are some suggestions (I want to make these so they’re not too obvious or distracting to others):
1. Rub the top of my ear as I learn someone’s name.
2. Put thumb to middle finger as hear people talk about computers.
3. Lace right and left fingers together for writing suggestions.
Do you have any experience with improving your memory in a similar manner? Did it work?
If you decide to try it, let me know what happens, please!
--Batya
The Creativity Empowerment Celebration for the launch of UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching on Friday was great fun! In spite of the Nashville gas crisis, which did keep a few people away. The rest of us shared good conversation, and funny and inspiring right brain/left brain skit, delicious food and drink (and scrumptious quadruple-chocolate brownies!), and won lots of door prizes!
I'm working on a membership program for UPositive. I'll post the details here as soon as I have them, so my blog-readers can have the first chance to participate. There's going to be a lot of value in membership, I can promise you that!
Improving Memory
Back in April, Gary Marcus wrote a short article for the New York Times Magazine entitled “Total Recall.” He described the difference between how a computer accesses its memory and how humans (and other animals) access memory. The computer, of course, is better at it. By the end of the article, he suggested that there might eventually be a “neural prosthetic” (implant) that would stimulate our memory pathways.
No thanks.
I’d like to stick with the human brain remaining human; I’m not interested in becoming even part cyborg, thank you.
But there was some interesting information in the article. For instance, there are studies showing that environment, body posture, secondary senses, all increase memory. If you learn a word while stooping, you will better remember it while stooping. It’s been known for a while that visiting the room where a test will be given beforehand, and keeping the image of that room in your mind while you study increases your score on the test.
I’d like to propose a different solution to improving memory than adding a computer chip to our gray matter. I’m going to try this myself, do an informal study. Here’s my theory:
Choose a different posture for different kinds of information input.
Keep a written list (so you don’t have to remember it on your own).
Practice, practice, practice. (repetition increases synaptic firing: think of a deer creating a path to the stream---it gets easier with each trip)
Reward any success. (behavioral modification technique).
Here are some suggestions (I want to make these so they’re not too obvious or distracting to others):
1. Rub the top of my ear as I learn someone’s name.
2. Put thumb to middle finger as hear people talk about computers.
3. Lace right and left fingers together for writing suggestions.
Do you have any experience with improving your memory in a similar manner? Did it work?
If you decide to try it, let me know what happens, please!
--Batya
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
More Creativity and Goal Attainment Blogs
Hi everyone!
Yvonne Perry, of www.writersinthesky.com, a brilliantly helpful website for writers of all kinds, spoke at our nonfiction meetup group last night. She mentioned that the more often a person blogs, the more the keywords will be picked up by the search engines and the happier those of us using blogs for our friends, families, clients, and potential clients, will be.
Well, I like being happy. My right brain loves being happy! And, as we all know, when the right brain is happy....everybody is happy!
So, I'm going to try to add a post or two a week. These will be short, and on helpful topics...bliphelps or something.
They will be about Creativity and the Creative Process. They'll also be about Goal Setting and especially Goal Attainment. Breaking through Creative Blocks. Time Management. Right Brain/Left Brain compatibility. And just plain ol' making-it-through-the-day thoughts.
Please feel free to participate in the discussion, in agreeing or disagreeing with my posts, in adding thoughts, info, ideas...whatever!
And, Elysabeth---special thanks to you for your continued support and posts to these blogs!
--Batya
Yvonne Perry, of www.writersinthesky.com, a brilliantly helpful website for writers of all kinds, spoke at our nonfiction meetup group last night. She mentioned that the more often a person blogs, the more the keywords will be picked up by the search engines and the happier those of us using blogs for our friends, families, clients, and potential clients, will be.
Well, I like being happy. My right brain loves being happy! And, as we all know, when the right brain is happy....everybody is happy!
So, I'm going to try to add a post or two a week. These will be short, and on helpful topics...bliphelps or something.
They will be about Creativity and the Creative Process. They'll also be about Goal Setting and especially Goal Attainment. Breaking through Creative Blocks. Time Management. Right Brain/Left Brain compatibility. And just plain ol' making-it-through-the-day thoughts.
Please feel free to participate in the discussion, in agreeing or disagreeing with my posts, in adding thoughts, info, ideas...whatever!
And, Elysabeth---special thanks to you for your continued support and posts to these blogs!
--Batya
Monday, September 8, 2008
Is It Really Time Off?
NEWS
We’re getting closer and closer to the celebration launching UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching. It’s Friday evening, September 19, from 6-9 pm at HA Gallery in Nashville. There’s going to be hors d’ouevres, of course, a skit about right and left brain conversations, motivational art, music, a Q&A period, and lots of interesting people with whom to mingle!
I tried last week, so I’ll just try again this week, to get the e-newsletter out. So far, I have the design of it (major cyber-accomplishment for me) and I’ll be adding copy, hopefully, tomorrow. Look for it by the end of the week. If you’re not already on my mailing list, please let me know, or visit the Website, www.UPositive.com for the newsletter link.
The second book in the series, The UPositive Guide to Time Management for Creative People, should be out by the end of the month. I’m waiting until after the party to finish it up and do the styling. So far, Shirley Geier has done two gotta-see illustrations for it!
Is it Really Time Off?
This was my birthday weekend. I decided I wanted to redo my back patio, as it had accumulated a lot of leaves and displaced dirt patches, and some potting soil bags from the front yard. The patio chairs needed some cleaning, and it was looking a bit neglected. I never spend a lot of time back there myself, but it’s the entrance to my finished basement where the nonfiction and other groups meet. I’d always had plans to plant some shade-loving greenery, like luscious ferns and columbine and all sorts of things, but never gotten around to it.
The patio’s an odd shape. Two triangular corners of soil, two short rectangular strips along the sides, and one long rectangular strip along the foundation of the house. Mostly boring pebble cement and very, very little planting area. There’s one Rose of Sharon tree beside the gate, which provides nectar for hummingbirds just outside the window here by my computer. Love that part!
I spent two entire days doing the physical labor of moving things around, buying and lifting and dragging a half dozen bags of marble stone chips and red lava chips. Another half dozen bags of topsoil. Eight decent-size plants (all on sale this time of year!), garden tools from front to back of house, up and down the hill. Swept the patio about three times. Laid brick as edging along about a third of the area, and put brick down along one of the short sides. Potted three of the plants for the brick area. Spray painted to my heart’s delight. (I love spray paint, but it doesn’t go very far, and always takes twice as many cans as I figure.) Since I decided on white rock with red lava rock as accent, I sprayed two of the plastic chairs a matching maroonish red, sprayed the containers for the plants; sprayed the wheelbarrow and two of the shepherd’s crooks a rust-reducer undercoat; sprayed the ugly blue trunklike storage bin, two ashtrays, and a garbage pail the matching red. Almost sprayed the visiting cat, but he moved too fast! Set white and red rock in two of the triangular corners, and put in one of the two spreading junipers. Tried that landscaper’s cloth, but I’d rather pull weeds.
All this to say: two days of doing purely physical (and enjoyable), non-brain-taxing (and enjoyable) work. Basically, a break for my left brain, which has been working overtime on UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching.
I love working on the business. I totally love seeing my clients. But working mostly from home on the Internet-based products and newsletter and invites and website and eBooks, and having an unending To-Do list (which is true for every entrepreneur), with my office in my home and no “going home” at 5 or 6 or even 7 pm, has been exhausting.
I slept really well the last two nights. And I woke up feeling remarkably refreshed, clear-headed, re-inspired without effort, and ready to go! Doing the opposite, using opposite energy not only lets your usual energy replenish, but gives it the space to readjust to itself, and to re-center from all the activity that part of the brain has been doing.
Take some time to do the opposite. Put it on your To-Do list. You accomplish much more afterward!
It reminded me that sometimes getting away from it all is the best thing you can to do accomplish it all. Gee. I kind of remember that from….oh, wait….yes, my own video!! And my own eBook.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of checking in with your own wisdom and actually listening to it!
As always, thoughts, comments, additional ideas are welcome.
--Batya
We’re getting closer and closer to the celebration launching UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching. It’s Friday evening, September 19, from 6-9 pm at HA Gallery in Nashville. There’s going to be hors d’ouevres, of course, a skit about right and left brain conversations, motivational art, music, a Q&A period, and lots of interesting people with whom to mingle!
I tried last week, so I’ll just try again this week, to get the e-newsletter out. So far, I have the design of it (major cyber-accomplishment for me) and I’ll be adding copy, hopefully, tomorrow. Look for it by the end of the week. If you’re not already on my mailing list, please let me know, or visit the Website, www.UPositive.com for the newsletter link.
The second book in the series, The UPositive Guide to Time Management for Creative People, should be out by the end of the month. I’m waiting until after the party to finish it up and do the styling. So far, Shirley Geier has done two gotta-see illustrations for it!
Is it Really Time Off?
This was my birthday weekend. I decided I wanted to redo my back patio, as it had accumulated a lot of leaves and displaced dirt patches, and some potting soil bags from the front yard. The patio chairs needed some cleaning, and it was looking a bit neglected. I never spend a lot of time back there myself, but it’s the entrance to my finished basement where the nonfiction and other groups meet. I’d always had plans to plant some shade-loving greenery, like luscious ferns and columbine and all sorts of things, but never gotten around to it.
The patio’s an odd shape. Two triangular corners of soil, two short rectangular strips along the sides, and one long rectangular strip along the foundation of the house. Mostly boring pebble cement and very, very little planting area. There’s one Rose of Sharon tree beside the gate, which provides nectar for hummingbirds just outside the window here by my computer. Love that part!
I spent two entire days doing the physical labor of moving things around, buying and lifting and dragging a half dozen bags of marble stone chips and red lava chips. Another half dozen bags of topsoil. Eight decent-size plants (all on sale this time of year!), garden tools from front to back of house, up and down the hill. Swept the patio about three times. Laid brick as edging along about a third of the area, and put brick down along one of the short sides. Potted three of the plants for the brick area. Spray painted to my heart’s delight. (I love spray paint, but it doesn’t go very far, and always takes twice as many cans as I figure.) Since I decided on white rock with red lava rock as accent, I sprayed two of the plastic chairs a matching maroonish red, sprayed the containers for the plants; sprayed the wheelbarrow and two of the shepherd’s crooks a rust-reducer undercoat; sprayed the ugly blue trunklike storage bin, two ashtrays, and a garbage pail the matching red. Almost sprayed the visiting cat, but he moved too fast! Set white and red rock in two of the triangular corners, and put in one of the two spreading junipers. Tried that landscaper’s cloth, but I’d rather pull weeds.
All this to say: two days of doing purely physical (and enjoyable), non-brain-taxing (and enjoyable) work. Basically, a break for my left brain, which has been working overtime on UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching.
I love working on the business. I totally love seeing my clients. But working mostly from home on the Internet-based products and newsletter and invites and website and eBooks, and having an unending To-Do list (which is true for every entrepreneur), with my office in my home and no “going home” at 5 or 6 or even 7 pm, has been exhausting.
I slept really well the last two nights. And I woke up feeling remarkably refreshed, clear-headed, re-inspired without effort, and ready to go! Doing the opposite, using opposite energy not only lets your usual energy replenish, but gives it the space to readjust to itself, and to re-center from all the activity that part of the brain has been doing.
Take some time to do the opposite. Put it on your To-Do list. You accomplish much more afterward!
It reminded me that sometimes getting away from it all is the best thing you can to do accomplish it all. Gee. I kind of remember that from….oh, wait….yes, my own video!! And my own eBook.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of checking in with your own wisdom and actually listening to it!
As always, thoughts, comments, additional ideas are welcome.
--Batya
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Productive Sleep
News
The celebration launching UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching is happening September 19. If you’re interested in attending and haven’t yet received an invitation, please email Batya@UPositive.com
The website, www.UPositive.com, is running---except for the “subscribe” button. Again, if you’d like to be on the free newsletter list, email Batya@UPositive.com and I’ll be happy to add you. If you’ve already subscribed on the website, please send me an email; I haven’t been able to collect those names. The problem will be solved one way or another in the next few days (I hope).
Speaking of newsletters. The first issue should be out by Friday, although I’m fighting a computer glitch. Here’s hoping!
Productive Sleep
A number of articles have crossed my path recently about sleep. Sure, there were the gazillion about how to get a better night’s sleep (I run a two-hour seminar about that), but these caught my eye because they brought up a subject that had caught my eye decades ago: how to use sleep productively.
Back in the mid-1970s, Patricia Garfield wrote Creative Dreaming. Later on, Robert Moss, Stephen LaBerge and others expanded on the topic, exploring aware and awake dreaming in the spiritual realm and in the psychological realm.
Now, the topic seems to have awakened again.
One of the many marketing e-newsletters I receive focused on using the hours of sleep to add time to the day. He suggests assigning problem-solving tasks to the brain, extending the work day through the night. Does it work? Usually.
The Scientific American Mind, which I’ve mentioned before and which is one of my favorite magazines, included an article in its recent issue entitled: “Quiet! Sleeping Brain at Work.”
All these discuss the ways we can program the brain to solve problems while we’re sleeping. It takes time and persistence, but it works. I’ve done it myself!
My question is this: should we be doing it regularly?
Yes, it takes some consistency to train the sleeping brain to respond to direction. But after the training period, do we really want to keep our brain on-task 24 hours a day? It seems like we’ll be making robots out of ourselves.
Sure, if there is a pressing problem and we can’t seem to find the solution after a few days of concentrating on it (awake time), hand it over to the sleeping brain for help. Makes sense to me. After all, I am a proponent of whole-brain thinking.
But the sleeping brain already has its own agenda: processing daily activities, stressors, joys, experiences, thoughts, input in its own, subconscious way. It takes our awake time and sorts it out, works it through, and puts it aside with a finesse we couldn’t create if we tried. It’s already at work while we sleep.
My concern is that if we take the sleeping brain away from its subconscious, free-and-do-it-the-way-it-knows-best processes regularly, what will happen to the things that are usually processed at night?
Like everything, I think moderation is important---yes, let’s use our subconscious mind to help solve pressing problems. But let’s pick and choose carefully what we direct our sleeping mind to do…and leave it to its own brilliant work, in its own way, most of the (night)time.
Any thoughts?
---Batya
The celebration launching UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching is happening September 19. If you’re interested in attending and haven’t yet received an invitation, please email Batya@UPositive.com
The website, www.UPositive.com, is running---except for the “subscribe” button. Again, if you’d like to be on the free newsletter list, email Batya@UPositive.com and I’ll be happy to add you. If you’ve already subscribed on the website, please send me an email; I haven’t been able to collect those names. The problem will be solved one way or another in the next few days (I hope).
Speaking of newsletters. The first issue should be out by Friday, although I’m fighting a computer glitch. Here’s hoping!
Productive Sleep
A number of articles have crossed my path recently about sleep. Sure, there were the gazillion about how to get a better night’s sleep (I run a two-hour seminar about that), but these caught my eye because they brought up a subject that had caught my eye decades ago: how to use sleep productively.
Back in the mid-1970s, Patricia Garfield wrote Creative Dreaming. Later on, Robert Moss, Stephen LaBerge and others expanded on the topic, exploring aware and awake dreaming in the spiritual realm and in the psychological realm.
Now, the topic seems to have awakened again.
One of the many marketing e-newsletters I receive focused on using the hours of sleep to add time to the day. He suggests assigning problem-solving tasks to the brain, extending the work day through the night. Does it work? Usually.
The Scientific American Mind, which I’ve mentioned before and which is one of my favorite magazines, included an article in its recent issue entitled: “Quiet! Sleeping Brain at Work.”
All these discuss the ways we can program the brain to solve problems while we’re sleeping. It takes time and persistence, but it works. I’ve done it myself!
My question is this: should we be doing it regularly?
Yes, it takes some consistency to train the sleeping brain to respond to direction. But after the training period, do we really want to keep our brain on-task 24 hours a day? It seems like we’ll be making robots out of ourselves.
Sure, if there is a pressing problem and we can’t seem to find the solution after a few days of concentrating on it (awake time), hand it over to the sleeping brain for help. Makes sense to me. After all, I am a proponent of whole-brain thinking.
But the sleeping brain already has its own agenda: processing daily activities, stressors, joys, experiences, thoughts, input in its own, subconscious way. It takes our awake time and sorts it out, works it through, and puts it aside with a finesse we couldn’t create if we tried. It’s already at work while we sleep.
My concern is that if we take the sleeping brain away from its subconscious, free-and-do-it-the-way-it-knows-best processes regularly, what will happen to the things that are usually processed at night?
Like everything, I think moderation is important---yes, let’s use our subconscious mind to help solve pressing problems. But let’s pick and choose carefully what we direct our sleeping mind to do…and leave it to its own brilliant work, in its own way, most of the (night)time.
Any thoughts?
---Batya
Monday, August 25, 2008
QBQ Rant
NEWS:
www.UPositive.com is up and running! YAY! Come on by and visit---you can connect to the goal attainment and creativity challenge videos, the eBook (see below), the relaxation CD, merchandise in the shop, and all sorts of information from UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching as well as Passion-for-Life Psychotherapy (and the difference). Thanks for your patience!
The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People is now up and available in eBook format!!! It’s fully copyrighted, with an ISBN number all its own and registered at the Library of Congress! Even better, it’s illustrated by Shirley Geier, and some of the merchandise matches up with some of the information in the eBook!
The second eBook in the series, The UPositive Guide to Time Management for Creative People is due out in September.
The UPositive Relaxation and Visualization Technique audio CD is available from the website at http://www.upositive.com/. Great background music by Tom Roady helps you follow the gentle instructions to relax and see your dreams!
Mark Friday evening, September 19, from 6 to 9 pm in your calendars for the official opening celebration of UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching! More information is coming here and through the first newsletter, which should be going out sometime next week. (If you’d like an evite and the info, or to be on the mailing list in general, please email me at Batya@UPositive.com or UPositive55@aol.com).
The first 9 sayings from UPositive’s Batya Sez… shop are now available for purchase through http://www.cafepress.com/UPositive. The next nine are in the works---I’ll let you know through this blog and the newsletter when they’re ready! It’s never too early to shop for Christmas and Hanukah and Kwanzaa, and it’s never the wrong day to buy yourself a gift!
The Passion-for-Life Psychotherapy practice has a few openings for new clients in Nashville; please email UPositive55@aol.com for more information. We can talk about depression, anxiety, mood swings, ADD, and family and relationship issues.
UPositive’s Creativity and Life Coaching practice is available locally, but also through telephone and Internet-based services. Please visit the website http://www.upositive.com/ or contact me Batya@UPositive.com for more information.
QBQ Rant
My friend and one of my business mentors, Tim Cummings, mentioned the best-selling book, QBQ, The question behind the question to me last week. Like a good mentoree, I rushed out to get it. And read it in one sitting. It’s a great book.
But I wonder---why do we even need this book? It’s all about the “right” and “wrong” questions people ask in business and other life situations. The “wrong” questions are those that place blame on others, that look outside the self for cause and excuses.
The “right” questions are those that take personal responsibility for problems and mishaps in our lives. The questions that lead us to personal accountability, especially in businesses, organizations, and families.
Here’s my rant: This is about as much “news” as “The Secret” is a secret.
Hasn’t life and personal growth always been about personal responsibility? Of course, we don’t create the world around us. We’re not responsible for every starving child or raped elder on the planet. But if these things bother us, we are responsible to do something about it---even if that’s as simple as donating a few dollars to a related cause.
We’re here to participate in life. To learn and grow. And to reach the best potential of our own selves.
We can’t do that if we’re constantly looking to others for the “whys” and the “how comes” and the “who did thats”: we can only grow and fulfill our personal potential by participating in the world around us with “how can I help” and “how can I change things for the better” and “what can I do?”
This is a wonderful little book for a reminder of this more positive attitude.
And at UPositive, we’re all about positive attitude! And about people reaching their own potential! And about participating to the best extent we can in the present moment. And helping others to do the same, without judgment, without blame; with love and care and concern and inspiration.
Read the book! It’ll fill your heart with determination and energy! QBQ: The Question Behind the Question, by John G. Miller.
As always, I invite your comments, questions, thoughts on this or other topics!
--Batya
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Expect the Unexpected
NEWS:
The website, www.UPositive.com, is up and running, except for the newsletter signup and refer to a friend links. If you’d like either of these, please email me directly at Batya@UPositive.com from outside the website. Thanks for your patience.
The second set of Creativity Challenge and Goal Attainment Tip videos are up on www.YouTube.com/UPositive, or through www.UPositive.com. Take a look! Let me know what you think!
The first eBook in the series, The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People, should be available by the end of this weekend…August 17. The second eBook, The UPositive Guide to Time Management for Creative People is due out in September.
The UPositive Relaxation and Visualization audio CD is available from the website at www.UPositive.com.
Mark Friday evening, September 19, from 6 to 9 pm in your calendars for the official opening celebration of UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching! More information is coming here and through the first newsletter, which should be going out sometime next week. (If you’d like an evite and the info, or to be on the mailing list in general, please email me at Batya@UPositive.com or UPositive55@aol.com).
The first 9 sayings from UPositive’s Batya Sez… shop are now available for purchase through http://www.cafepress.com/UPositive. The next nine are in the works---I’ll let you know through this blog and the newsletter when they’re ready! It’s never to early to shop for Christmas and Hanukah and Kwanzaa, and it’s never the wrong day to buy yourself a gift!
The Passion-for-Life Psychotherapy practice has a few openings for new clients in Nashville; please email UPositive55@aol.com for more information. We can talk about depression, anxiety, mood swings, ADD, and family and relationship issues.
UPositive’s Creativity and Life Coaching practice is available locally, but also through telephone and Internet-based services. Please visit the website www.UPositive.com or contact me Batya@UPositive.com for more information.
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Sorry this blog is late again this week, but I didn’t expect the unexpected and have been preoccupied with positive but time-consuming emergencies. So I thought I’d address the issue head-on.
In goal setting, establishing to-do lists, setting today-ables into planners, managing time, business planning, and pretty much everything else, we tend to work with linear, clock time. It should take 20 minutes to go to and from the corner grocery for a gallon of milk and some eggs, so we schedule 20 minutes. I can write for 15 minutes every morning---no problem! Creating a CD should require about two week’s worth of work, then about two hours in a studio.
And then life happens.
Life happening is not a problem: we want life to happen. If everything we did came in fifteen- and twenty-minute, or even two-hour, tick-tocking segments, we’d bore ourselves to death. So life happening---meeting an old colleague at the grocery store and stopping for a cup of coffee to catch up; finally getting into the secondary character’s head and heart and typing a pivotal scene for an hour and a half without taking a breath; getting to the studio and being treated to a half-hour tour and demonstration of fascinating drums of the world---these are the joys of life. But we hadn’t scheduled them.
Life doesn’t happen in linear time. It scoffs at linear time. Thunder isn’t the Norse gods bowling---it’s the deep belly laughs of the Universe at all the linear-time planning we do. There’s that old adage: If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.
For creative people, getting in the zone is the goal to get to the goal of doing our creative work. The Zone is clockless.
So do we make a big bonfire and through all the DayTimers, DayRunners, calendars, pdas, and Palm Pilots in it? No. Not at all.
We expect the unexpected (sorry for the cliché, Heather, but it’s a cliché because it holds truth). We plan for the unplannable.
The best way to sew a button on something is to stick a pin under where your thread loops go, then take the pin out when you’re done. Why? Because it provides just enough give so that your taut stitches won’t rip at the first tug on the button. The tree that bends in the wind lives through the storm. (ok, old, used, but gets my point across)
When you do schedule your to-doables from your goals list, when you apply time management to your activities, add in some extra time---an hour or two a day.
I can feel the panic. Yours. Mine. But…but…I have so much to do. I already can’t get to it all. Take an hour or two a day to do nothing?
Not at all. Take an hour or two a day to participate in life. To have some breathing space. To take the tension out of things. To talk to a friend you meet on the street. To let a character have her way on the page. To explore a new combination of dance movements inspired by the piece you must get choreographed. To flip through a magazine that catches your eye as you rush to get your research on green insulation for new structures finished.
And if, at the end of the day, you haven’t used up your extra time, take a bubble bath, read a book, put your feet up and just breathe…that’s right…get the air into your body and feed yourself some extra oxygen! Catch up on sleep (the way to do that properly is to get to bed earlier, not to sleep late in the morning), if nothing else. You’ll have more energy and clarity the next day, so you’ll be more productive in the time you do schedule your work and creative endeavors.
--Batya
The website, www.UPositive.com, is up and running, except for the newsletter signup and refer to a friend links. If you’d like either of these, please email me directly at Batya@UPositive.com from outside the website. Thanks for your patience.
The second set of Creativity Challenge and Goal Attainment Tip videos are up on www.YouTube.com/UPositive, or through www.UPositive.com. Take a look! Let me know what you think!
The first eBook in the series, The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People, should be available by the end of this weekend…August 17. The second eBook, The UPositive Guide to Time Management for Creative People is due out in September.
The UPositive Relaxation and Visualization audio CD is available from the website at www.UPositive.com.
Mark Friday evening, September 19, from 6 to 9 pm in your calendars for the official opening celebration of UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching! More information is coming here and through the first newsletter, which should be going out sometime next week. (If you’d like an evite and the info, or to be on the mailing list in general, please email me at Batya@UPositive.com or UPositive55@aol.com).
The first 9 sayings from UPositive’s Batya Sez… shop are now available for purchase through http://www.cafepress.com/UPositive. The next nine are in the works---I’ll let you know through this blog and the newsletter when they’re ready! It’s never to early to shop for Christmas and Hanukah and Kwanzaa, and it’s never the wrong day to buy yourself a gift!
The Passion-for-Life Psychotherapy practice has a few openings for new clients in Nashville; please email UPositive55@aol.com for more information. We can talk about depression, anxiety, mood swings, ADD, and family and relationship issues.
UPositive’s Creativity and Life Coaching practice is available locally, but also through telephone and Internet-based services. Please visit the website www.UPositive.com or contact me Batya@UPositive.com for more information.
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Sorry this blog is late again this week, but I didn’t expect the unexpected and have been preoccupied with positive but time-consuming emergencies. So I thought I’d address the issue head-on.
In goal setting, establishing to-do lists, setting today-ables into planners, managing time, business planning, and pretty much everything else, we tend to work with linear, clock time. It should take 20 minutes to go to and from the corner grocery for a gallon of milk and some eggs, so we schedule 20 minutes. I can write for 15 minutes every morning---no problem! Creating a CD should require about two week’s worth of work, then about two hours in a studio.
And then life happens.
Life happening is not a problem: we want life to happen. If everything we did came in fifteen- and twenty-minute, or even two-hour, tick-tocking segments, we’d bore ourselves to death. So life happening---meeting an old colleague at the grocery store and stopping for a cup of coffee to catch up; finally getting into the secondary character’s head and heart and typing a pivotal scene for an hour and a half without taking a breath; getting to the studio and being treated to a half-hour tour and demonstration of fascinating drums of the world---these are the joys of life. But we hadn’t scheduled them.
Life doesn’t happen in linear time. It scoffs at linear time. Thunder isn’t the Norse gods bowling---it’s the deep belly laughs of the Universe at all the linear-time planning we do. There’s that old adage: If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.
For creative people, getting in the zone is the goal to get to the goal of doing our creative work. The Zone is clockless.
So do we make a big bonfire and through all the DayTimers, DayRunners, calendars, pdas, and Palm Pilots in it? No. Not at all.
We expect the unexpected (sorry for the cliché, Heather, but it’s a cliché because it holds truth). We plan for the unplannable.
The best way to sew a button on something is to stick a pin under where your thread loops go, then take the pin out when you’re done. Why? Because it provides just enough give so that your taut stitches won’t rip at the first tug on the button. The tree that bends in the wind lives through the storm. (ok, old, used, but gets my point across)
When you do schedule your to-doables from your goals list, when you apply time management to your activities, add in some extra time---an hour or two a day.
I can feel the panic. Yours. Mine. But…but…I have so much to do. I already can’t get to it all. Take an hour or two a day to do nothing?
Not at all. Take an hour or two a day to participate in life. To have some breathing space. To take the tension out of things. To talk to a friend you meet on the street. To let a character have her way on the page. To explore a new combination of dance movements inspired by the piece you must get choreographed. To flip through a magazine that catches your eye as you rush to get your research on green insulation for new structures finished.
And if, at the end of the day, you haven’t used up your extra time, take a bubble bath, read a book, put your feet up and just breathe…that’s right…get the air into your body and feed yourself some extra oxygen! Catch up on sleep (the way to do that properly is to get to bed earlier, not to sleep late in the morning), if nothing else. You’ll have more energy and clarity the next day, so you’ll be more productive in the time you do schedule your work and creative endeavors.
--Batya
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Aha! vs Just Do It! Creativity Controversy
News!
The www.UPositive.com website is up and crawling…there are some editorial changes and some additions still in process, so it won’t quite be up and running for a few more days (next week?). Please visit! Please give me feedback at Batya@UPositive.com.
The Batya Sez… shop (you can reach it through the Shop page on the website, or directly through www.cafepress.com/UPositive is working! It needs a lot of editing, and so far has only T-shirts and mousepads for half the motivational/inspirational/slightly cynical/and just plain funny sayings that will soon be there. At some point in the near future, there will be caps and mugs, magnets and coasters, bumper stickers, and more…and nine more sayings! Check it out---get yourself or someone you know a gift…and come back often! (I don’t think the Thank-You page is connected yet, so let me say Thank You now!
The first eBook….The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People…is waiting for its isbn number and for me to figure out which server(?) to attach it to. So…foreseeable future!
The Aha! or Just Do It! Creativity Controversy
I’ve been joining a lot of social/business networks lately, and visiting some interesting forums. This week, one of them focused on the question of creativity and moods, or style of creativity. The musician/songwriter wondered if people thought it better to create from those moments of inspiration or from sitting down and forcing the creative act. Here’s my response, with a bit more detail than I fit in the post:
I think it's (d) all of the above.
The more you use your right brain, the more open it is to receiving input, and the more available it is to you. Although that's not quite right.
The right brain is always receiving input: sensory, emotive, whole-picture (forest-type), metaphorical. The trick is opening the path from right to left brain---bringing it into awareness and available thought (left brain). It's cleaning up, calling in the road crews, and widening the corpus callosum, which is the connector between right and left brains. The more you use it, the easier its use becomes. You want to introduce your right brain to your left brain and get them talking to each other.
Personally, I sometimes write with that sudden "Aha!" inspiration. Other times, sit me down in a nice comfy chair, with pen(cil) and paper or laptop, tell me "write!" and it happens. When I was working on Barbie fashions, I could grab a piece of material and a doll, without any preconceived idea, and just start draping. Sometimes, though, I’d walk through my workday with an image of a dress floating just behind my eyes, rush home, and execute the piece---with or without a sketch.
I realize not everyone works this way, and I'm not saying it's the best or worst way to do it---the creative process and judgment don't go well together, until you get to the Edit stage.
First---figure out your own style, and encourage it. Organize your time as best as possible around those activities or triggers that already invite your Muse in. If you write best in the morning, wake up early with your inspiration open. If you design best late at night, clear a space in your home where you won’t bother others as they sleep. Maximize what already works for you.
Then, encourage your brains to talk to each other any time, everywhere. Beckon up your Muse: invent a chant, light a candle, find a talisman---create a small ritual to call him/her present. With some repetition, this works remarkably well. The Muse, after all, comes through the right---symbolic---brain.
Practice, practice, practice. Sweep and stretch the corpus callosum, let your right and left brains sit down to coffee together regularly. Train them to pay respectful attention to each other, to inform each other of their needs.
Any other thoughts on the Aha! vs Just Do It creativity controversy?
--Batya
The www.UPositive.com website is up and crawling…there are some editorial changes and some additions still in process, so it won’t quite be up and running for a few more days (next week?). Please visit! Please give me feedback at Batya@UPositive.com.
The Batya Sez… shop (you can reach it through the Shop page on the website, or directly through www.cafepress.com/UPositive is working! It needs a lot of editing, and so far has only T-shirts and mousepads for half the motivational/inspirational/slightly cynical/and just plain funny sayings that will soon be there. At some point in the near future, there will be caps and mugs, magnets and coasters, bumper stickers, and more…and nine more sayings! Check it out---get yourself or someone you know a gift…and come back often! (I don’t think the Thank-You page is connected yet, so let me say Thank You now!
The first eBook….The UPositive Guide to Goal Attainment for Creative People…is waiting for its isbn number and for me to figure out which server(?) to attach it to. So…foreseeable future!
The Aha! or Just Do It! Creativity Controversy
I’ve been joining a lot of social/business networks lately, and visiting some interesting forums. This week, one of them focused on the question of creativity and moods, or style of creativity. The musician/songwriter wondered if people thought it better to create from those moments of inspiration or from sitting down and forcing the creative act. Here’s my response, with a bit more detail than I fit in the post:
I think it's (d) all of the above.
The more you use your right brain, the more open it is to receiving input, and the more available it is to you. Although that's not quite right.
The right brain is always receiving input: sensory, emotive, whole-picture (forest-type), metaphorical. The trick is opening the path from right to left brain---bringing it into awareness and available thought (left brain). It's cleaning up, calling in the road crews, and widening the corpus callosum, which is the connector between right and left brains. The more you use it, the easier its use becomes. You want to introduce your right brain to your left brain and get them talking to each other.
Personally, I sometimes write with that sudden "Aha!" inspiration. Other times, sit me down in a nice comfy chair, with pen(cil) and paper or laptop, tell me "write!" and it happens. When I was working on Barbie fashions, I could grab a piece of material and a doll, without any preconceived idea, and just start draping. Sometimes, though, I’d walk through my workday with an image of a dress floating just behind my eyes, rush home, and execute the piece---with or without a sketch.
I realize not everyone works this way, and I'm not saying it's the best or worst way to do it---the creative process and judgment don't go well together, until you get to the Edit stage.
First---figure out your own style, and encourage it. Organize your time as best as possible around those activities or triggers that already invite your Muse in. If you write best in the morning, wake up early with your inspiration open. If you design best late at night, clear a space in your home where you won’t bother others as they sleep. Maximize what already works for you.
Then, encourage your brains to talk to each other any time, everywhere. Beckon up your Muse: invent a chant, light a candle, find a talisman---create a small ritual to call him/her present. With some repetition, this works remarkably well. The Muse, after all, comes through the right---symbolic---brain.
Practice, practice, practice. Sweep and stretch the corpus callosum, let your right and left brains sit down to coffee together regularly. Train them to pay respectful attention to each other, to inform each other of their needs.
Any other thoughts on the Aha! vs Just Do It creativity controversy?
--Batya
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Fear of Success/Fear of Failure
News!
The new August-September 2008 videos will be up by the end of the week. The new UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching Goal Attainment Tip is about making decisions, and the Creativity Challenge focuses on synesthesia (“joined perception”). Take a look/listen at www.YouTube.com/UPositive. Thank you Lance!
The first items from Batya Sez… UPositive’s product line of motivational, inspirational, slightly cynical, and just plain fun sayings on caps and T-shirts, mousepads and mugs, magnets and more should also be available by the end of this week. You can find them through the Shop link at www.UPositive.com or through www.CafePress.com/UPositive (I haven’t tested this link yet…if it changes I’ll post the new one here next Monday). The second batch of items should be available in another week or so.
The Website, www.UPositive.com, is semi-functional!!!! There are some important changes that will be posted in a few days; the eBook is ready but not yet connected to the site, and the Links page is not up-to-date but will be soon. Feel free to wander around the site and let me know what you think!
Look for a big grand opening party in mid-September! Details will be available by the end of this month!
Fear of Failure/Fear of Success
In the past two weeks, the topic of fear in relation to creative activity and/or goal attainment has come up a number of times. I’m not going to address the difference between the fear of failure vs the fear of success here, because the results are the same: we become stuck, inactive, unable to accomplish our desires, and often depressed.
Fear is an interesting emotion. Most of our emotions reside in the right brain. Fear, on the other hand, seems to originate in the left brain, jump the dividing line of the corpus callosum, and take up residence in the right brain. There, it masquerades as an intense emotion rather than the belief(s) that it is.
“I might fail,” is a thought, not an emotion, and the resulting beliefs, such as “I’m not good enough,” or “Then I am worthless,” or “Then no one will love me,” or many other possible thoughts jump up with it. Sometimes they’re just under the surface of awareness, but with a bit of scratching through, we’ll find them.
When we allow fear of failure/success to run our lives, to make choices regarding actions on the to-do list of attaining our goals, we often fall into a depression, which further shackles our forward motion. Often, breaking through depression requires taking action no matter what: whether we feel like we want to or not. (Biochemical depression might need a biochemical response as well as taking action). Even very small activities can engender increased energy.
I think the most powerful tool to fight the fear of failure/success is courage. Courage is often a doing-it-anyway attitude. I’m going to try whether I fail or succeed. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “the only true failure is in not trying” or some such wording. Courage is something we all have because it can be made up. Courage can come from “living as if” as often as it comes from some personality strength. It can be derived from stubbornness (“I won’t let that stop me!”) and from rebelliousness (“So, left brain, you think you have the last word? I don’t think so!”). In breaking through fear of failure/success, it doesn’t really matter where your courage comes from. Gather it together and use it.
Take a look through the Shop page at UPositive.com (well, in a week or two). If you need a reminder, the “Do it Anyway” products, with their inner-goblin faces, will remind you that you’re not alone in this battle against your fears.
The other recommendation I have for addressing and conquering the fear of failure/success is to let go of your desire for perfection. We’re human: perfection belongs to God/gods/the Universe (whatever your belief, please translate to your own understanding). Accept that you’re going to fail at being perfect.
The Dine People (Navajo) added a dream thread to their weavings, which wandered through the rugs at a meandering diagonal while all the other threads were at right-angles. The Japanese build a flaw into their pottery. Both do these for the same reason: what they create should not be perfect, cannot be perfect, isn’t meant to be perfect. They’re human. Even their most successful creations are imperfect. And they see a beauty in that.
The August-September UPositive Goal Attainment video about decision-making addresses the fear of making choices, and offers a process to break through and make the best-possible choice of the moment. Take a look: it might be helpful to you.
There’s a lot more conversation possible about fear of failure/success. I’d like to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and experiences about it. Please post your comments and stories here.
Note: Primal fear---of such things as loud noises, falling, possibly the dark, large animals with sharp teeth growling at us, and, in Romania especially, Dracula, arises from our Reptilian brain, but is not the topic of this conversation.
---Batya
The new August-September 2008 videos will be up by the end of the week. The new UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching Goal Attainment Tip is about making decisions, and the Creativity Challenge focuses on synesthesia (“joined perception”). Take a look/listen at www.YouTube.com/UPositive. Thank you Lance!
The first items from Batya Sez… UPositive’s product line of motivational, inspirational, slightly cynical, and just plain fun sayings on caps and T-shirts, mousepads and mugs, magnets and more should also be available by the end of this week. You can find them through the Shop link at www.UPositive.com or through www.CafePress.com/UPositive (I haven’t tested this link yet…if it changes I’ll post the new one here next Monday). The second batch of items should be available in another week or so.
The Website, www.UPositive.com, is semi-functional!!!! There are some important changes that will be posted in a few days; the eBook is ready but not yet connected to the site, and the Links page is not up-to-date but will be soon. Feel free to wander around the site and let me know what you think!
Look for a big grand opening party in mid-September! Details will be available by the end of this month!
Fear of Failure/Fear of Success
In the past two weeks, the topic of fear in relation to creative activity and/or goal attainment has come up a number of times. I’m not going to address the difference between the fear of failure vs the fear of success here, because the results are the same: we become stuck, inactive, unable to accomplish our desires, and often depressed.
Fear is an interesting emotion. Most of our emotions reside in the right brain. Fear, on the other hand, seems to originate in the left brain, jump the dividing line of the corpus callosum, and take up residence in the right brain. There, it masquerades as an intense emotion rather than the belief(s) that it is.
“I might fail,” is a thought, not an emotion, and the resulting beliefs, such as “I’m not good enough,” or “Then I am worthless,” or “Then no one will love me,” or many other possible thoughts jump up with it. Sometimes they’re just under the surface of awareness, but with a bit of scratching through, we’ll find them.
When we allow fear of failure/success to run our lives, to make choices regarding actions on the to-do list of attaining our goals, we often fall into a depression, which further shackles our forward motion. Often, breaking through depression requires taking action no matter what: whether we feel like we want to or not. (Biochemical depression might need a biochemical response as well as taking action). Even very small activities can engender increased energy.
I think the most powerful tool to fight the fear of failure/success is courage. Courage is often a doing-it-anyway attitude. I’m going to try whether I fail or succeed. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “the only true failure is in not trying” or some such wording. Courage is something we all have because it can be made up. Courage can come from “living as if” as often as it comes from some personality strength. It can be derived from stubbornness (“I won’t let that stop me!”) and from rebelliousness (“So, left brain, you think you have the last word? I don’t think so!”). In breaking through fear of failure/success, it doesn’t really matter where your courage comes from. Gather it together and use it.
Take a look through the Shop page at UPositive.com (well, in a week or two). If you need a reminder, the “Do it Anyway” products, with their inner-goblin faces, will remind you that you’re not alone in this battle against your fears.
The other recommendation I have for addressing and conquering the fear of failure/success is to let go of your desire for perfection. We’re human: perfection belongs to God/gods/the Universe (whatever your belief, please translate to your own understanding). Accept that you’re going to fail at being perfect.
The Dine People (Navajo) added a dream thread to their weavings, which wandered through the rugs at a meandering diagonal while all the other threads were at right-angles. The Japanese build a flaw into their pottery. Both do these for the same reason: what they create should not be perfect, cannot be perfect, isn’t meant to be perfect. They’re human. Even their most successful creations are imperfect. And they see a beauty in that.
The August-September UPositive Goal Attainment video about decision-making addresses the fear of making choices, and offers a process to break through and make the best-possible choice of the moment. Take a look: it might be helpful to you.
There’s a lot more conversation possible about fear of failure/success. I’d like to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and experiences about it. Please post your comments and stories here.
Note: Primal fear---of such things as loud noises, falling, possibly the dark, large animals with sharp teeth growling at us, and, in Romania especially, Dracula, arises from our Reptilian brain, but is not the topic of this conversation.
---Batya
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Welcome to the Age of the Right Brain
As I sifted through a pile of months-old New York Times papers, I came across an interesting article in the Business Section of April 6th. It caught my eye with the title: “Let Computers Compute. It’s the Age of the Right Brain.” Yes!
The article, in a nutshell, emphasizes not only the importance but also the need for creativity in the business setting. This certainly isn’t a new thought, but it has taken a number of decades for it to gain some weight in the business community.
As the NYT article states, we have entered a “Creative Economy” and the “Conceptual Age.” It points out the somewhat obvious: that computers and cheap labor in Asia are now doing much of the left-brain work of the previous American workforce. The left-brain work of creating and using computers, which can now handle many of the sequential skills of that hemisphere, has made much of its own work obsolete.
The left brain is outsourcing and automating itself. For instance, can you remember the last time a live person answered a business phone? Or when customer service for a product didn’t start out (and for the most part complete) your problems by computer?
Business Coaches may well be at the forefront of encouraging creative thinking in corporate America. They use brainstorming (a right-brain activity), drawing, journaling, and other right-brain activities to teach problem-solving from new angles. Thinking outside the box is now encouraged in many major corporations, at least on the management level.
That’s great news!
I think, however, that it’s going to take a while for it to trickle down to the mid-size company, and certainly longer to trickle down to below management level, if it ever does. Is that a hint of cynicism? Yes. I’d love to hear experiences that prove me wrong about it, though.
It’s a good sign, anyway. Certainly, the fact that creativity in the business setting is addressed by the New York Times Business Section, means that the topic is up for conversation. Entering the awareness of the general populace, creativity just might have a positive effect in places we can only imagine (yup, with our right brains!).
It’s my firm belief that the more we use our right brain in all areas of our lives, as individuals, as groups, as communities, as businesses, as a country…the better off we’ll be. The right brain sees the whole picture---it sees humanity as one thing, for instance---rather than categorizing. Certainly, there are more than enough prejudiced artists, writers, singers, et cetera in the creative community, but taking an educated guess I imagine the percentage is lower than in the general population. The right brain tends to be inclusive and sees similarities; it puts things together in patterns the left brain is too busy categorizing to notice.
And anything that encourages creative productivity in any form is on the plus side of my ledger-of-life.
So I’m on board to welcome the “Conceptual Age”---bring it on! My right brain is ready: is yours?
--Batya
The article, in a nutshell, emphasizes not only the importance but also the need for creativity in the business setting. This certainly isn’t a new thought, but it has taken a number of decades for it to gain some weight in the business community.
As the NYT article states, we have entered a “Creative Economy” and the “Conceptual Age.” It points out the somewhat obvious: that computers and cheap labor in Asia are now doing much of the left-brain work of the previous American workforce. The left-brain work of creating and using computers, which can now handle many of the sequential skills of that hemisphere, has made much of its own work obsolete.
The left brain is outsourcing and automating itself. For instance, can you remember the last time a live person answered a business phone? Or when customer service for a product didn’t start out (and for the most part complete) your problems by computer?
Business Coaches may well be at the forefront of encouraging creative thinking in corporate America. They use brainstorming (a right-brain activity), drawing, journaling, and other right-brain activities to teach problem-solving from new angles. Thinking outside the box is now encouraged in many major corporations, at least on the management level.
That’s great news!
I think, however, that it’s going to take a while for it to trickle down to the mid-size company, and certainly longer to trickle down to below management level, if it ever does. Is that a hint of cynicism? Yes. I’d love to hear experiences that prove me wrong about it, though.
It’s a good sign, anyway. Certainly, the fact that creativity in the business setting is addressed by the New York Times Business Section, means that the topic is up for conversation. Entering the awareness of the general populace, creativity just might have a positive effect in places we can only imagine (yup, with our right brains!).
It’s my firm belief that the more we use our right brain in all areas of our lives, as individuals, as groups, as communities, as businesses, as a country…the better off we’ll be. The right brain sees the whole picture---it sees humanity as one thing, for instance---rather than categorizing. Certainly, there are more than enough prejudiced artists, writers, singers, et cetera in the creative community, but taking an educated guess I imagine the percentage is lower than in the general population. The right brain tends to be inclusive and sees similarities; it puts things together in patterns the left brain is too busy categorizing to notice.
And anything that encourages creative productivity in any form is on the plus side of my ledger-of-life.
So I’m on board to welcome the “Conceptual Age”---bring it on! My right brain is ready: is yours?
--Batya
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