Motivation & Movement
Whether you feel connected to it or not, you are a creative being. Yoga for the Creative Soul is based on the idea that you were created; thus, you are “of Creation” and therefore possess creative power. What creative power? That is unique to you. It may be painting or writing or comedy. You may have the ability to make people laugh, soothe them, or help them feel motivated. Perhaps your creative power lies in how you use numbers, juxtapose colors, or cook. This chapter investigates and amplifies your motivation to express this creative Self—dormant or thriving—that is an aspect of your essential makeup. It is also designed to support you during the times you feel uninspired. Do you want to be more creative? Do you want to stay creative? Do you wish you could be creative again?
… Why are you reading this book, anyway?
Before we go any further, let’s get that question answered. It is about to become important.
Exercise: Rapid Intention-Setting
Answer the following question in your journal without thinking much about it. Your mind may have already brewed some form of answer. We will continue to work with developing your intention; for now, just write down the first thing that comes to mind as you complete the following sentence (no one else has to know what it is!):
I am reading this book for the purpose of …
Good job! That may not be the full, clear, final answer but it is a valuable start.
You are reading this book for you. You are the only one who truly holds the insight, power, and resources to change your life and become more of the person you genuinely are! You have nothing to prove to anyone, so you are safe to record whatever thoughts and beliefs arise from deep within you. No one else has to know but it is important that you know your own mind. Self-knowledge and self-reliance are key concepts in yoga therapy.
Intention-Setting Part I: The Subtleties of Creation
In the exercise above, you identified a personal reason for reading this book. Intention is an important aspect of all yoga practice. Samkalpa, the Sanskrit word for intention, means to bring into being through focus and will. In other words, “make it happen.” Like most Sanskrit words, however, samkalpa also has more subtle meanings and lifestyle implications than the English language can convey.
The prefix sam means “with, together, wholly” and calls to mind a sense of unity and completeness, just as we are complete when united with our essential, creative Self. Kalpa is sometimes defined as “the true path” or, from klrip, “to frame, invent, imagine, or compose.” In other words, what we make up or create is tied to our own true path. We can understand samkalpa as a way of being with ourselves and unifying with a path of wholeness. The second, more subtle meaning calls upon the power of imagination: we frame a dream then invent its reality by way of our decisive action. Anything you’ve ever made or done started with an idea that you worked to complete. Intention helps us compose our lives purposefully as it focuses the power of our action. Within that creative act lives the assumption that any endeavor will be guided by our own truth. The following exercise supports you in honing a subtle intention.
Exercise: Expressing a Subtle Intention
The following questions poke at the idea of samkalpa. You may complete each sentence in a brief, written fashion or use each of them as a choreographic theme, title of a sketch, or journaling prompt. Express each of the following three queries with as much or as little detail as you wish.
This book could make me more whole by …
I know that being more creative, on my own terms,
will improve my life by …
Something I often imagine for myself is …
Now that you have connected a deeper spiritual sense to what motivates your Path of Creativity, we will explore the true-to-life energies that make you want to be more creative.
Intention-Setting Part II:
The Practicalities of Creation
When we attune to our true Selves—the needs and wants crying out from the soul—it becomes easy to create strong intentions. It is through this inception that we gain vigor and enthusiasm for the project: from the inspiration of an idea, through the courage required to begin, the care to come through the middle, the stamina to complete it, and the ease to put it to some good use (even if only for your own insight). There is a great deal of creative force in a strong intention. Truly knowing why we are doing something empowers and inspires our work.
Understand that samkalpa, as discussed in the previous section, not only gets us moving and focuses our energy on the chosen path but also helps determine outcomes. One with a creative soul may be excellent at perceiving potential outcomes. This could be why we creative types are often called “dreamers”; we see what is possible, believe in it, and take steps toward making it happen. With your intention, or samkalpa, the power of your imagination and the forces of wholeness ready themselves to support you on the journey through this book.
Exercise: Exploring Hopes & Possibility
When you chose this book, somewhere in your imagination hope sprang forth. Perhaps you imagined yourself back in the studio, painting prolific landscapes. Maybe you heard yourself singing again, even if only over a sudsy dishpan in the kitchen sink. You may have felt encouraged that you could fill in Act II of your novel or screenplay … Any number of hopes and visions may have arisen when you decided on this book for creative souls.
Step 1: Breathe deeply as you remember that moment. What magical treasures may arise from this process? What might you reclaim? Who could you become?
Step 2: Take another deep breath and amplify the sense of that initial spark. Imagine it filling your body, breath, and thought field as you connect to possibility. If you aligned with your creative Self, what wonderful things could happen in your life? Who could you be?
Step 3: Journal, draw, or dance this vision/sense of yourself. Be free and nonjudgmental. Let whatever wants to come out do so! Enjoy the flow of ideas. Trust the process and hopes that spring forth.
The Voices of Nay-Sayers
Did you notice anything fishy while you were performing the previous exercise? There may have been a suspicious commentary. A nay-sayer lives within you! We all have one … or several. I used to have a village of nay-sayers inside me. The little voices of nay-sayers—critical, mean, bullying, fearful, judgmental—have probably been with you for a long time. Nay-sayers will probably accompany you on your journey through this book; in fact, I hope they do. Those nay-sayers have a lot to learn about the creative process and there is no better time than now.
If you let nay-sayers dry up your spring of hope and you abandoned the previous exercise, please go back and give it another go. We’ll wait right here for you …
Excellent. Welcome back. We’re going to address nay-sayers more as the book continues. For now, treat those voices the way you do traffic noise or other voices in a crowded room—disregard them and focus on what is important to you. The nay-sayers’ actual words are rarely important. For now, it is enough to distinguish those mean, scared, or hopeless voices from that of your authentic, creative Self; filter out the nay-sayers!
The voices of nay-sayers arise from a lifetime of programming. Through our family’s, teachers’, coaches’, and supervisors’ directive feedback, we learned to criticize ourselves. While these voices are useful when discerning whether our actions will cause harm or bring shame, they are not useful in our creative pursuits. When you express yourself from an authentic place, whatever comes out of you is perfect. I will give you experiential evidence of this as you continue through the book; for now, take my word for it. The nay-sayers are not helping your creative soul. Rather than expressing a frame for your inner truth, they probably arise from past external programming.
The Process of Change
Past programming affects us in numerous visible and invisible ways. Our everyday routines reflect our beliefs back to us. Some of these beliefs are self-created and others were implanted long ago. When we try to change, our deeply held beliefs and programming make themselves known. There are many obstacles to change and we will address these through the rest of Part 1. As you read the following section, keep in mind a behavior or habit that interferes with your creative life. This could be spending too much time in front of the TV or computer, nursing an addiction, saying yes to things you don’t want to do, or some other activity that takes your time but does not add much value to your life. First, understand that change itself is not a single action or shift; rather, change is a process.
The Transtheoretical Model (Prochaska & DiClemente 1983; Prochaska, DiClemente & Norcross 1992) is a scientifically proven paradigm that describes the stages we go through in the process of intentional change. Change, even when we want it, is challenging. It is normal to experience resistance or waning motivation. Typically, change occurs in measurable stages. This model applies to any kind of change we may wish for; the following section relates it to living a more creative life.
Pre-Contemplation Stage happens before you even think of a change. There is either a denial of the problem or an awareness of the problem with an unwillingness to change it. For example, you may be in the Pre-Contemplation Stage of something in your creative journey that will make itself known in a later chapter or exercise. Remain curious and nonjudgmental with yourself.
Contemplation Stage has broken through denial, so you are aware of the benefit of change, but it does not mean you are ready. You may be more aware of how your habit interferes with your creative life, and you spend time thinking about the problem, but you have mixed feelings about changing things. This is the time to weigh pros and cons of quitting or modifying behavior. It is normal for there to be some doubt about the long-term benefits associated with change, especially if there are short-term costs. It helps to remember that all things are changing anyway, and you create a better life for yourself when you choose and direct changes instead of being tossed about by random happenstance. The following exercise helps you engage with this phase of change.
Exercise: Contemplation of Potential Change
Reflect on or journal out answers to the following questions. You may also choose to draw this as a comic strip or choreograph a routine that expresses the journey through this leg of the change process:
What do you hope to change as a result of reading this book?
You may check in with the intention you set earlier in this chapter and see how it relates.
What will you have to give up if you make that change?
What rewards may come from it?
Can you relate this change to your past programming? In other words, why do you have this habit in the first place? Who taught you or where did you pick up the habit?
What needs does it meet for you? Are there healthier or more inspiring ways to meet that need?
Why haven’t you changed it already?
This exercise has set the stage for the next phase of change: Preparation. In the Preparation Stage, you have decided you need to change and are thinking about what, how, and when to do it. This is a planning phase where, despite fear and resistance, you are aware of the benefits of change and are figuring out how to make adjustments so that you can live more creatively. This is an important stage, as it offers you the opportunity to envision your life without the problem behavior and foresee obstacles and solutions before they arise.
Action is essential. This is the phase most people believe is change itself. Contemplating and preparing for a more creative life will not make a creative life: this only happens through action. In the Action Stage, you believe you have the ability to change and are self-reliant in the process. Your motivation is peaking. If you can complete this phase with kindness toward yourself and nonattachment to the results (try learning about yourself through the process instead!), the transition may be easier.
Maintenance is a phase of sustained action, where healthy change is practiced and continually reinforced until it becomes automatic and lasts for an extended period of time. You get good at avoiding temptations and moments of weakness and pursue creativity. Maintenance is most readily observed when you are immersed in a practice that serves you on all levels, as we establish throughout this book and focus on in Part 3. By the time you are maintaining a changed behavior, you experience a “new normal” and likely perceive many profound benefits as a result of your efforts (even though you weren’t attached to those results happening).
Maintenance is a nice place to be because you are aware of a deeper worth and creative meaning in daily life. By this phase, you are more patient with yourself. Even though you may still have thoughts of returning to your old behaviors, or minor slips, you recognize that it takes time to integrate change. Effort is still required in the Maintenance Stage, which leads to one of two places: Relapse or Stable Behavior. We will talk about those outcomes in a moment, but first, take some time to connect to who you will be when you are maintaining a creative life.
Exercise: Relaxation with the Future Self
As a creative person, you probably have many versions of yourself all playing out in the back of your mind. Sometimes it is hard to decide who we really want to be. Remember that anything is possible for you!
Step 1: Rest in a comfortable position and let the rise and fall of your breath soothe you.
Step 2: Imagine that you have completed this book and are truly connected to your creative soul. What kinds of things do you enjoy doing? How do you spend your free time? Who are your closest friends? Notice how it feels to be happy and a truer version of yourself. Enjoy the depth of your breath and physical ease as you witness your future Self: wise, creative, and free.
Step 3: Bask in this relaxation for as long as it serves you and return to it on a regular basis. You may envision maintaining the same future Self, strengthening that internal vision and external path, or you may explore many versions of your future Self, experimenting with a future that is yours to create.
When Maintenance fails, we Relapse into the recurrence of previous unhealthy behaviors. Relapse is a common aspect of change. Simply employ your strategies from the Action Stage or return to the Preparation Stage to explore how to firm up your process. There is much to be learned from Relapse when we approach it in this way. Usually, the process of returning to Maintenance will be faster as you have experienced a better life as a result of your changed behavior and are more motivated to cultivate creativity. The sooner Relapse is addressed, the more quickly it tends to be resolved.
Stable Behavior is apparent when the Maintenance Stage becomes automatic. This is the stage of Transcendence: life is better without the old habit and its return would seem foreign or not-self.
While the amount of time you will stay in each stage is variable, the tasks required to move to the next stage are not. Remember that “change” implies something happening over time. You may move through the phases in a nonlinear fashion, repeating or regressing as part of your process. See how change itself is a creative process.
Losing Steam
Similar to change, the creative process is also, well, a process! On the path of reclaiming your creative soul you may not always feel connected to inspiration. Sometimes it is beneficial to trust this disconnection as part of the process. Here in chapter 1, though, our focus is motivation! The rest of this chapter looks at ways you can reconnect to your creative essence.
When you are feeling dry, uninspired, or empty, it might relate to the Relapse Stage listed above. If we could tap into enthusiasm whenever we wanted, none of us would need this book, but that’s not reality. Creativity, and changing ourselves back into the more creative people we are, involves a process. After all, it took us years to become the Internet-addicted, wine-swilling complainers that our happy, imaginative selves turned into. Sometimes we humans lose steam during this process. It can be difficult to keep the engine chugging and we don’t always want to put in the effort. Even when we really want it, it is natural to fatigue on the way to our goal.
Two of the main reasons we lose steam, or relapse out of creativity, are (1) We are not clear about why we want the change in the first place, and (2) We don’t want it enough. We will deal with number two in Chapter 5, Fear. The following exercise addresses number one by helping you amplify your motivation by vitalizing your subtle energy and connecting your mind and body to your creative soul.
Exercise: Inspiring Breath: The Prolonged Inhale (Puraka)
Yoga therapy gives us many tools to adapt our state of mind and physiology. Pranayama, or breath/energy practices, are powerful because they link the mind and body and have an impact on our subtle energy. The following practice in known for increasing vitality, clarity, and enthusiasm. It is literally inspiring.
Note: Some people feel fatigued by this exercise. This is a sign that you are forcing the breath, rather than allowing the inhale to expand in its own way. If you feel tired or light-headed, stop the exercise immediately and breathe normally, lying down if necessary. You may choose not to attempt this if you are pregnant or have a vascular condition.
Step 1: Focus on the inspiration—by this I mean inhale. Every time your lungs fill, notice their movement and the associated movements throughout your body. Let the exhale take care of itself and continue noticing how your body breathes in. What happens in your abdomen, ribs, and chest? Can you feel something in your back? How about your pelvic floor or the base of your skull? As you continue to focus on the in-breath, what else do you notice in your body?
Step 2: Allow the inhale to elaborate. Feel it spread further and further through your body, carrying a sense of vitality and openness through your abdomen, chest, and back, right up to your head and out the extremities to the fingers and toes. Allow several breaths to distribute the inspiration through your body.
Step 3: Notice the thoughts and emotions that accompany this expansion. Trust the exhale to do its own thing and bring your mind back to the breath each time you inhale. You may choose to count the number of seconds of each inhale, adding a second each time the breath becomes comfortable at its current count. Do not force the breath or compete with yourself to make the inhales longer; relax into the process.
Step 4: On a fresh page, draw your inspiration as if it were an amusement park ride. What colors arose with this prolonged inhale? How did it move? What feelings did it give you? It’s okay if your drawing is clumsy or doesn’t come out on paper the way it looks in your mind (no thank you on the commentary, nay-sayers!). Enjoy the process of representing your influx of oxygen through color, form, and imagination!
Enthusiasm
We create not only through inspiration but through a pleasant sense of engagement and happiness. “Enthusiasm” is one of my favorite words because, for as much as it indicates a sense of joy and purpose, it literally means “the God within.” Even in your darkest moments as an artist (whether your medium is acrylic paint, butter, or a vacuum: remember, you are an artist of life), there is a pleasure in the creative process. A sense of enthusiasm holds us connected to our creative soul through joy and purpose.
Joy is a theme you will see throughout this book. A person creating a true Self is inevitably going to connect with joy. The yogis remind us that the essence of each person is bliss (ananda). Creator—however you define that divine spark that put geometry in trees and made possible the platypus—also made us. We are of Creation and therefore creative by our nature. Yoga is a path of discovering your true nature. Creative expression is a path to the same discovery. By combining the modalities of yoga and creativity, this book gives you many opportunities for lightheartedness, art (expressive, not necessarily technique-based or skillful), and genuine connection to meaning. These features bring enthusiasm!
Parts of this book may challenge you or quell your enthusiasm as you clear out past pain and programming. Any time you feel disconnected from joy or your sense of purpose, remember the following exercise to reconnect and uplift yourself.
Exercise: Buoyancy: What to Do When You Get Weighed Down
I spent a lot of my childhood on different kinds of boats. We took enough trips around the Great Lakes that I was highly familiar with the idea of buoys. These flotation devices bobbed upon the blue-green water noting boat moorings, big rocks just below the surface, or, in the case of larger ones, where to locate the channel through the water and on which side to pass. Even our life jackets had “buoy” in the brand name. These bouncing markers helped keep us safe and above water.
We can all feel like we are being dragged under sometimes. In these times of overwhelm, despair, or apathy, it’s beneficial to know which way is up. Any good seafarer who goes under knows to watch the bubbles. Those little capsules of buoyancy take a direct route to the top. By following the bubbles, we find our way to the surface and prevent ourselves from drowning. The following exercise helps you connect with a sense of buoyancy so you can keep yourself afloat in deep waters.
Step 1: Skip! If you don’t know how to skip, try walking with an extra hop on each foot as your lifted leg swings gently forward. Keep your knees soft and land lightly on the balls of your feet. If skipping is not appropriate for your body, you can receive the same effects by standing in one place and lightly bouncing on the balls of your feet (quickly, lightly lifting and lowering the heels). In this option, the feet need never leave the ground.
If you are apprehensive about skipping through the supermarket or while accompanying the children to school, do it after the sun has gone down and no one’s around or from living room to kitchen and back or along the shoreline of a rolling ocean.
Step 2: As you skip (or bounce), notice the sensation in your breath and where you feel it most in your body. Acknowledge the rhythm of your heartbeat, steps, inhales, and exhales. Perceive the movement of energy within and around you, together with your thoughts and feelings.
Step 3: Find three words that describe what follows your skipping/bouncing practice. What colors are there? If it were the weather, what kind of day would it be? Hum the main “hook” or theme to the soundtrack of skipping.
Step 4: Skip s’more!
You have laid out a brief intention for the book, called upon an image of your future Self, explored the process of change, and experienced a practice to incite connection and enthusiasm. May your motivation be secure. Chapter 2 continues with the theme of connecting—or not—to the creative Self. Read on to explore what happens when we forget to tap into our own creative spirit and explore practical techniques to plug back in.