Creativity Monday: Meditation for Creativity

Lately I’ve adopted a new element into my creative practice: Meditation.

I will say: I am absolute rubbish at meditating by myself—the idea of just sitting quietly and focusing on my breath makes this Type A really tetchy. But recently I’ve done two workshops with guided visualization, both of which have redefined meditation for me…and got me into a new habit that’s much more effective for me.

Last month I did Andrea Schroeder’s Give Your Dream Wings meditation series. The purpose of the class is to  visualize a certain dream or wish coming true. My wish was to design my washi tape book without stress or overwhelm—to create without working frantically every night and weekend, or skipping the gym or yoga in favor of scurrying out projects.

And so I did Andrea‘s free 10-day workshop and something strange happened. My dream worked out. If I was a Disney Princess, I would be trilling about dreams come true. Well, at the risk of sounding ludicrous, they did.

More or less, which is good enough for me.

I wouldn’t say that I wasn’t working up to strict deadlines or working hard—or even working weekends or evenings. I was. But it didn’t have that frantic pace I was so hoping to avoid. That usual element of pressure was just…gone. I felt relaxed, even in the midst of deadlines and schedule changes and other projects that sort of popped into the scene.

Was it the meditation? Well, here’s something interesting: Every night for 10 nights we did guided visualization, each time for about 10 minutes. And every single night while we meditated, a washi tape technique or color combination or card layout popped into my head, like a cartoon idea balloon. The first time it happened, I thought it was amazing and coincidental. The second time, I thought it was freakish but also coincidental. The third day, I was sold. I didn’t care if it was freakish or coincidental because something about getting my busy brain to slow down somehow allowed the ideas I had in my head to catch up with me. It was like a dam bursting, with ideas flooding in.

(Even if the ideas were as fragmented as “use navy and green, with a bicycle stamp”, or “add pen to the stenciled circles”.)

So this month I’m taking Susannah Conway’s The Sacred Alone e-course. The purpose of that class is to spend 20 minutes alone meditating and journaling every day for 14 days. A few interesting things are happening with this course: I do the meditation and journaling at night and I’m sleeping better, fuller and deeper. We have journaling prompts, so my writing is getting richer and fuller. While journaling, I’m coming to some conclusions that are taking me, frankly, by surprise. The 10 minutes is totally do-able and it’s an easy habit to get into.

I think the trick is this: With guided meditation, I don’t have to sit passively and “turn off”; instead, the dreaming and visioning feels so really proactive. If it’s one thing I can do, it’s imagine.

Am I the last one to finally discover how much meditation helps with creativity? What about you? If you’re intrigued and looking for a great place to start, I really recommend Andrea’s Give Your Dream Wings series. It’s free so it’s a great opportunity to try out meditation. I like Andrea’s style and plan to check into some of her other (paid) courses as well. I’m also a huge Susannah fan, and I believe The Sacred Alone e-course is well worth every penny and would totally recommend any of her classes to you.

Hope your week is off to a great start!