Creativity and Being in My Element

In my research over the past couple of months, I keep running into Sir Ken Robinson, who is known as an internationally renowned expert in the field of creativity and innovation in business and education.

According to Robinson, we have a very limited view of intelligence, and that we confuse it with academic ability. We have a tendency to place creativity and intelligence in two separate categories when, in fact, creativity is fundamentally linked to intelligence. “Education as it is structured today is geared towards the industrial era,” and in light of current economics, “imagination and creativity is what we will need more than anything else in today’s world.”

At every moment, we create. In order to create harmony in this world, we want to create harmony within our world. In order to create harmony within ourselves, we want to be in line with our true nature. Robinson calls this ‘being in our Element’.

To find my element, I pay attention to what inspires me, what makes me want to get up in the morning, what causes me to forget about time and what nourishes me. I also pay attention to my fears, hungers and justifications. More often, my fear has nothing to do with a lion running after me, and more to do with going out of my comfort zone because I am afraid of the unknown, afraid of not being accepted, afraid to fail, or perhaps to succeed. This is important to note, because it means my fear is something to harness rather than to run away from and hold me back.

To live in my element and create what I desire, I make intentions, and I keep my focus on my intentions as my guiding force, then I surrender to the creative process, holding on to my discipline, and at the same time, I ask myself, “am I having fun?” Because if the answer is “no,” I know to realign. The more I stay in my element, the smarter I become. Because when I am in my element, that is, in my own space, I love what I take in and what I share, and I retain everything and see different sides in everything. And it’s fun. In contrast, when I am out of it, my IQ, my EQ, and all of my other cues feel completely downshifted.  

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Creativity and Being in My Element

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 In my research over the past couple of months, I keep running into Sir Ken Robinson, who is known as an internationally renowned expert in the field of creativity and innovation in business and education.

 

According to Robinson, we have a very limited view of intelligence, and that we confuse it with academic ability. We have a tendency to place creativity and intelligence in two separate categories when, in fact, creativity is fundamentally linked to intelligence. “Education as it is structured today is geared towards the industrial era,” and in light of current economics, “imagination and creativity is what we will need more than anything else in today’s world.”

 

At every moment, we create. In order to create harmony in this world, we want to create harmony within our world. In order to create harmony within ourselves, we want to be in line with our true nature. Robinson calls this ‘being in our Element’.

 

To find my element, I pay attention to what inspires me, what makes me want to get up in the morning, what causes me to forget about time and what nourishes me. I also pay attention to my fears, hungers and justifications. More often, my fear has nothing to do with a lion running after me, and more to do with going out of my comfort zone because I am afraid of the unknown, afraid of not being accepted, afraid to fail, or perhaps to succeed. This is important to note, because it means my fear is something to harness rather than to run away from and hold me back.

 

To live in my element and create what I desire, I make intentions, and I keep my focus on my intentions as my guiding force, then I surrender to the creative process, holding on to my discipline, and at the same time, I ask myself, “am I having fun?” Because if the answer is “no,” I know to realign. The more I stay in my element, the smarter I become. Because when I am in my element, that is, in my own space, I love what I take in and what I share, and I retain everything and see different sides in everything. And it’s fun. In contrast, when I am out of it, my IQ, my EQ, and all of my other cues feel completely downshifted.  

 

Posted via web from PurePresence

Being in the Process

I had recently completed 1000 days of two 31-minute meditations. What was really cool about embarking on this sort of commitment is that I couldn't focus on the finish line; it's just too far away. I took it one day at a time. There is so much joy and freedom in letting go of the need to get from point A to point B in such a hurry. I knew about the benefits of doing the two particular meditations, but what I did not know is that I would also receive this incredible gift of cultivating the ability to enjoy the process. The present moment. Yesterday afternoon, I slipped into a funk. I intentionally curled up into a ball under the covers and allowed myself to feel what I felt for exactly 10 minutes. I reminded myself to breathe in, breathe out, exhaling out the funk. When my timer beeped, I looked around at all of my blessings and smiled a smile of gratitude. Then I said, "what's next?" and I moved on.

Posted via web from savitree's posterous