Consciousness Archives - Page 4 of 7

Routine: the Key to Creativity

March 20, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 3 Comments

At least six days a week for the past year, I have gone for a morning walk in my neighborhood. I never deviate from the route, and 95% of the time, I take bouncy music along via my iPod. I can do this walk almost completely on autopilot. There are a couple of street crossings where I have to check for traffic, and the pavement has a few dangerous lips I’ve stubbed my toes on. But I’ve since trained myself to walk heel-toe to lessen the risk of tripping.

Because my conscious attention isn’t focused on what I’m doing, my mind is free to wander. And wander it does! I get my best ideas during my morning walk. Solutions to puzzles or problems bubble up to the surface. Patterns get detected. Connections get made. It’s rare that I don’t have at least one “Aha!” moment while I’m walking.

That’s no surprise, since the conditions are perfect for generating creative insight. I’m not trying to take credit for this, since I didn’t set this situation up intentionally. In fact, I started this particular walking routine primarily for health reasons. Initially, the usual mind chatter occupied my thoughts throughout most of my walk. But over time and with increased repetition, that began to change.

Now, even if there’s something mundane or annoying on my mind when I start out, my brain quickly lets it go and kicks into a different gear. I don’t have to do anything to make this happen. That’s the beauty and wonder of a routine like this. I don’t need to exert any effort to get my brain to come up with ideas or “be creative.” All I have to do is clip the iPod to my belt, put on my jacket, head out the door, and take the same walk I’ve been taking nearly every day for the past year.

Check out poetdonald’s comment on my previous post to get someone else’s experience of routine opening the door to creativity. (And thanks again, Don.)

Creative Thinking = Making Connections

March 17, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 3 Comments

Q: Do you have to get out of the box in order to think outside the box?*

Popular wisdom has it that in order to think creatively—think outside the box, that is—we need to trick ourselves. Or at least we need to apply some special technique or exercise to get our stodgy old brains to see things from a different perspective.

For the most part, this is a counterproductive waste of time.

If we want to be creative or think creatively, we don’t need to manipulate or play games with our brains. We just need to get out of their way and let them do what they already know how to do.

The problem is that we identify with the slow, energy-sucking conscious part of our brain and not with the quick, energy-efficient unconscious part that sees patterns and makes connections outside of our awareness. Most of the action in terms of problem-solving, insight, and creative thinking actually takes place in the unconscious, which then serves up its ideas to our consciousness. It’s an amazingly wonderful arrangement that’s already in place.

The best thing we can do to help this process along is exactly the opposite of what’s usually recommended. Don’t change routines. Don’t take a new route to work. Don’t try a change of scene. Don’t go to a different café or coffee shop. Don’t try to think about things in a different way.

In terms of freeing our minds for creativity and creative insights, the more aspects of our lives we can turn into routines, the better. The less attention we have to put on things that don’t really matter, the more attention our brains can devote to problem-solving and idea-generating.

This is from an article by painter Robert Genn:

Choreographer Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit describes her morning routine of rising early and going through the same morning rituals; same coffee, same bun. She puts on the same leotards, goes down the same elevator to the same street corner, puts her same arm up in the air and gets into the first cab that comes along.

By the time she gets to the studio she has made no significant decisions. Stepping out onto the dance floor, her dancers await. It’s eight in the morning and her first decision is yet to come. It will be a creative one.

Genn has some suggestions for streamlining routine activities, such as:

Simplify morning rituals.

Keep regular habits by day and week.
Work in a space unsullied by impedimenta.
Use a day-timer—plan your work; work your plan.
Always ask—”Is this action necessary?”
Be businesslike—discourage time-wasters and interlopers.
Be efficient and mindful of wasted motion in your space.
As far as possible, get stuff delivered and taken away.
Be modern—pay bills, bank, book flights, etc., online.

Genn and Tharp have to be creative almost every day. They aren’t trying to get out of the box. They recognize that the box helps them be creative. It keeps them out of their brain’s way.

I’ve experienced the benefits of getting out of my brain’s way over and over and over again. My unconscious has connected some dots that didn’t even seem to exist in the same domains. I don’t take credit for those insights and ideas. My conscious brain didn’t come up with them. But I take credit for maintaining routines and practices that free my brain do its thing. I take credit for loosening the reins.

*A: You can’t actually get outside the box, so there’s no point in trying to think outside it.

Exercise Your Veto Power

March 10, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

truck under lake — (Photo credit: Never Photo)

The unconscious part of the brain—also called the subliminal brain or System 1—is a much faster processor and reactor than the comparatively plodding conscious part of the brain—the only part of the brain we’re aware of. The unconscious responds quickly, automatically, and without thought. This often works to our advantage. I once found my foot slamming on my car’s brake before I was even aware that a speeding pickup truck outside my line of sight was about to run its red light.

Had my unconscious brain not reacted as quickly as it did, I would have been in the middle of the intersection at the same time as the truck. The conscious part of my brain needed a lot more time to process all the information. I didn’t fully grasp what was happening until after the pickup ran the red light, the driver recognized the near miss, and the truck came to a screeching stop at the shoulder of the road on the other side of the intersection.

In a situation like that, stopping to think through what to do could have proven fatal.

Most of us don’t find ourselves in life-threatening circumstances on a regular basis. But the unconscious brain reacts or responds just as quickly in our ordinary, everyday situations. It is notorious for jumping to conclusions. And in many cases, the unconscious response, reaction, or conclusion isn’t the most accurate or appropriate one. Those are the times when it pays to slow down, consider what the best response might be, and make a conscious choice. We can choose to go with the flow and accept the initial reaction or impulse generated by our unconscious. Or we can exercise our veto power and choose a different response.

A participant in one of the courses I teach came up with the acronym STOP. When she notices herself engaging in automatic behavior, she reminds herself to Stop, Think, Observe, and then Proceed.

We can’t prevent the unconscious from doing its thing—and we definitely wouldn’t want to. But learning when to trust it and when to STOP and exercise our veto power can help us avoid doing and saying many things we might later wish we hadn’t.

I Think; Therefore, I Pay Little Attention to What I Do*

March 6, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

We know other people based on what they do. How else could we know them? And we infer all kinds of things about them from their behavior—especially from their habitual behavior.

Say someone you know is routinely late, and his lateness affects you. He may be full of apologies each and every time. He may have reasons to offer up to explain his lateness. He may claim he really, really wanted to be on time—and that may really be true.

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do. –Carl Jung

You can’t know for sure what he’s thinking, though; you can only know for sure what he does. And it will be next to impossible for you not to draw some conclusions about him based on his behavior. Such as:

He’s disorganized.
He’s inconsiderate.
He has a poor sense of time.
He’s self-centered.

You’d likely dismiss your friend’s vigorous insistence that he intended to be on time. Actions, you might be inclined to say, speak louder than words—or well-meant intentions.

Put the shoe on the other foot, however, and the story takes an interesting turn. When it comes to our own behavior, we’re more likely to expect others to take into consideration not just what we do, but also what we intended to do (or, in some cases, what we would have intended if we’d actually put any thought into it). In fact, we expect others to accept our intentions as being even more important—and indicative of who we are—than our actions. It’s the thought that counts, right?

All of us tend to grant much more significance to what we think, intend, plan, and wish for than to what we do. So if what we do misses the mark or doesn’t live up to our or someone else’s expectations, it’s entirely too easy for us to write off the behavior, dismiss it, or excuse it. That isn’t the real me. It doesn’t reflect who I am. It’s just something I do.

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. –John Locke

What we do says quite a lot about who we are—if not to us (because we’re not paying attention)—to other people. Other people are inferring things about us based on our behavior just as we’re inferring things about them based on theirs. If we recognize that what we do tells others who we are, we don’t have to expect them to try to read our minds in order to understand us. Of course, that means we need to pay more attention to what we do—as well as to what we say we’ll do.

*Slight apologies to Rene Descartes.

4-Step Program for Reason Addicts

February 20, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Believing that reasons are responsible for what we feel, think, and do is a habit of thought that has many characteristics of an addiction. We have to have reasons. We can’t imagine living without them. Coming up with a good reason for something is one of the most satisfying experiences we can have.

Even when we recognize–conceptually–that reasons don’t actually exist and that the reason habit is self-destructive and delusional, we still can’t just quit reasons cold turkey.

So here’s a 4-step program that may help.

Step 1

Admit that you can’t do (or not do) anything without having a reason for it.

I did (or didn’t do) Y because of X.

You can’t think, feel, or do anything other than what you think, feel, or do because reasons cause you to think and feel certain things—and do (or not do) the things you do. You are at the effect, and at the mercy, of all the causes surrounding you. You are powerless. A pawn in the Game of Life. (Too melodramatic? Not really.)

Step 2

Question the assumption that reasons have both an independent existence and a direct cause-and-effect relationship with what you think, feel, and do.

X happened, and so I decided to do (or not do) Y.

Take a deep breath. Insert yourself into the equation. When you take some responsibility, you also regain some of your autonomy and power. Notice your reaction.

Step 3

Recognize that no direct cause-and-effect relationship necessarily exists between what happens (or what happened–especially in the far distant past) and what you think, feel, or do.

X happened and I did (or didn’t do) Y.

When you stop habitually turning situations, events, conditions, encounters, and incidents into reasons, you reclaim even more of your power. Notice that far more possibilities exist than you may have previously recognized.

Step 4

Free yourself from the habit of creating reasons to justify and explain every little thing. Just do it. Or don’t do it.

I did (or didn’t do) Y.

Discover and exercise your amazing ability to simply act. Experience the freedom of being a cause rather than an effect.