10 Meditation tips for tapping into your creative powers (aka problem solving powers!)
/Tapping into your creative powers helps you find solutions to problems or at least process problems your facing in a healthy way.
In a time when it feels like making long term plans, or even making plans for the next week is pretty much pointless it’s easy to feel stuck. You think of something you’d like to do or accomplish or someone you’d like to see and then your incentive gets kicked back at you like a wave crashing into a wall only to repeat the cycle the next time you feel inspired.
One of the best ways to let that wave of inspiration flow is to either move the barrier or find a way around it. One of the best ways to do that is to tap into your creativity and one of the best ways to tap into your creativity is through meditation.
In this time of the pandemic the key to success has been Pivot Power. In other words, being able to find another solution. That takes creativity.
So let’s remove any barriers to meditation right now with these ten tips!
Decide to meditate. This may seem obvious but every action is preceded by an intention to do it. This does not have to be complicated. Just place a quick picture of yourself in your mind meditating. Even better if you can see the room that you intend to meditate in. This does not have to be a long drawn out visualization. Just a quick mental flash will do.
Pick a time of the day that will work. The more routine you can be in a time when everything is uncertain, the more of an anchor your meditation practice will be.
Pick a place. If you have a designated spot in your house with everything you need to get comfortable and have some time to your self, all you have to do is get yourself to it rather than having to rearrange things or figure out which spot might work. Just make the decision once!
Get support from people in your household. If you live with others, let them know you will be taking a time out and you need everyone else to deal with everything else while you do. If you live alone, you still have yourself to negotiate with! Make this practice a priority.
Prepare your body. If your body is uncomfortable, it will be a distraction. Find a comfortable way to sit. It can be on a chair or on the floor. Just make sure your spine is long but not strained and if you are sitting in a chair, have both feet flat on the floor. If you are on the floor consider putting a pillow just under the back of your sitting bones. It makes sitting up a lot easier.
Prepare your mind for a creative trip. It’s hard to jump into meditation without some preparation. The easiest way to prepare is to do a few abdominal breaths. If you are not sure about abdominal breathing here is my short and practical online course, Breathing for Life, to get you connected to your breath and use it to shift your state of mind.
Choose something to meditate on. There are lots of things you can choose to meditate on but there are two broad techniques of focus. One is to keep your focus coming back to one specific thing. This kind of meditation which emphasizes convergent thinking can help if you are easily distracted and have a hard time focusing. The other emphasizes divergent thinking which helps us see what’s happening in the here and now with less judgement and may help in generating multiple solutions to a problem. If you are constantly worried about “what IF” this type of meditation can help you ground yourself in what IS.
If you want to focus on a convergent technique to help with focus pick something to keep coming back to for example your breath moving in and out of your body or focus on an intention or mantra. If you focus on your breath just pick a body part to “watch”. Perhaps the sensation of the breath moving in and out of your nose. Notice sensation of movement as the air passes in and out of your nostrils or the temperature difference as the air moves in and out. If you like to work with intentions or mantras, pick words that help you feel the way you want to feel. For example if you are feeling stuck, use the phrase “I am creative and can find solutions.”
If you want to explore divergent thinking and be able to concentrate on what IS rather then worry about what IF, you can try just listening to or feeling whatever you can sense in this very moment. Don’t try to figure out what you are hearing or feeling, or assign a judgement of good or bad to it, just notice and move to your next observation.
Choose an amount of time that works for you. You can reap the benefits of meditation in just five minutes a day, so decide how much time you want to spend in meditation and set a timer.
Keep directing your mind back to your meditation. Our minds are busy and even the most experienced meditators have days where their mind keeps getting drawn into a big story about anything from doing the laundry to ruminating on a current problem. In meditation you are not trying to “clear” your mind. You are trying to calm the surface thoughts so you don’t get drawn endlessly into the same path of thinking. That way when you are faced with that big wall in front of your wave of inspiration you are more likely to figure out how to get around it.
Think of Meditation as a Practice. There are no failures in meditation. That is why it is called a “practice”. Each time you practice you are exercising your creative muscles and making them stronger.
if you’d like to get these tips (and a few more) in video format here is an excerpt from my online course Take the Journey.
Enjoy your meditation!
Lori
