Busting Creative Blocks with Meditative Ideation

In this episode, I discuss meditative ideation, a mindfulness practice that I've honed over the years to combat creative block. It has transformed my creative process, and I think it can unlock new realms of inspiration for you too.

 

Links mentioned in this episode

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas, a TED talk by Manoush Zomorodi

The Wisdom of Not Knowing by Estelle Frankel

The Artist's Way by Julie Cameron

Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission.

 

Transcript

Thomas: Welcome to the Creative Shoofly. I'm Thomas Beutel. This podcast is about exploring the creative journey as an artist, and in this episode, I'll be discussing a mindfulness practice that I've honed over the years to combat creative block. It has transformed my creative process, and I think it can unlock new realms of inspiration for you too.

Today I'd like to tell you about a dream-like technique that I call meditative ideation. The essence of the technique is to calm the mind, get the voice in your head to stop talking, and to be quiet enough to invite inspiration in, and to invite ideas in. I've been using this technique for a number of years now, and as a result, I rarely experience the blank page syndrome or the creative block that I used to have.

I think everyone struggles somewhat with creative block. For many people, and this might include you, creative block is not often a lack of creativity. It's usually due to too much focus.

Now that might seem strange, but being overly focused on a problem will prevent the flow of new ideas. Focus form of creative block. Focus blocks to allow those ideas to emerge.

I used to struggle with creative block quite a lot. I'd sit down and say, okay, I need an idea, and then I'd wait, and I'd wait, and I wouldn't think of anything, and then I would go off and start criticizing myself. My monkey mind would just keep on talking and putting myself down. It would say, “You're a creative person, what's going on with you? Why can't you come up with a single creative idea?”

I'm sure many of you listening have experienced this type of self-criticism, and it sure isn't conducive to creative thinking or being inspired.

Things started to change for me when I read a book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She has a wonderful concept of how inspirations work. In her telling, inspirations are living things that go around the world looking for creative people to make them manifest, to put them into action.

The idea of inspiration shopping around for creators really resonated with me. I just imagined a great idea looking at a sea of humanity and saying, “I pick you, Thomas, because I know you're a creative person.” It feels kind of flattering, actually.

So I began wondering, how do I actually invite inspiration in? What would the process look like?

At about the same time, I listened to a TED talk by Manoush Zomorodi. Her talk was about the default mode network of the mind. This is a part of the brain that jumps into action when you're not focusing, and not paying attention to something in particular.

A lot of people say that they get their best ideas when they're taking a shower, or they're going on a walk. The way it works is when you're in a very relaxed state, and the mind isn't focused on anything, the default mode network starts making connections between all kinds of different places in the brain.

The point that Manoush makes is that so many of us don't allow our minds to idle to the point where the default mode network can come in. And the connections that are made are where inspiration comes from.

Or, as Elizabeth Gilbert might put it, this is when inspiration finds you because it knows that you can make it manifest.

So after seeing the TED Talk, the question I asked myself, could I simply close my eyes and empty my mind enough to engage my default mode network?

This was an intriguing idea. I had already been doing a daily meditation for a number of years, and I was very familiar with the meditative style where you breathe, and if any thought comes by, you let it drift by, and you just let your mind think about nothing else other than your breathing.

I can't say that I'm really good at it, but at least I became aware of when my mind is busy with thought and when my mind is calm and relaxed.

I thought that that might be a way to try to activate my default mode network. And I started doing it, and yes, I can report that it indeed does.

So I formalized it into a practice where I intentionally quiet the mind and let wonderful ideas come along. I call it meditative ideation. The key difference between breathing meditation and this practice is that I'm allowing interesting ideas to stay and evolve rather than letting the thoughts go as I would in a breathing meditation.

I still watch for non-creative ideas and dismiss them as soon as I can. And this happens a lot at the beginning of a session, and I still have unproductive and self-critical thoughts show up. As soon as I recognize that I'm having one of those thoughts, I let go of them.

Eventually, my mind relaxes enough that truly interesting and creative thoughts appear. It's a joy when it happens, and it confirms for me that this is a practice worth doing.

Embracing the quietude necessary for meditative ideation might seem daunting to you. The concept of sitting in silence, clearing your mind of its endless thoughts and distractions, can feel like an unfamiliar or even monumental task.

Despite its simplicity on the surface, reaching a state of mental stillness is anything but easy. You might find, as many do, that your thoughts persistently wander toward daily concerns and lingering questions. This illustrates the persistent nature of our inner dialogue.

You might also question the productivity of this practice, wondering if dedicating time to quieting the mind could ever be worthwhile. Initial forays into meditation rarely bring instant insights, which can feel frustrating. In our fast-paced world, carving out twenty to twenty-five minutes a day for quiet reflection might seem like an unaffordable luxury.

And then there is a more intimate obstacle, the fear of facing your own thoughts. In the silence of meditation, your mind may venture into realms that you'd rather avoid, making the practice seem all the more challenging.

Despite these hurdles, I encourage you to give meditative ideation a try. The journey towards stillness and the inspirations it can unlock might require patience and perseverance. But the rewards are profound. Learning to quiet your mind can open the door to boundless creativity. It's an investment for your creative practice that truly pays off.

So I invite you to embrace the practice, to step beyond that initial discomfort and skepticism. You might just discover a wellspring of ideas and inspiration waiting for you.

The practice of quieting your mind and starting to receive inspiration is a very interesting experience. You'll have your eyes closed and you won't see anything, but occasionally you'll see some forms taking shape. But more than that, your mind will just be drifting and quieting down. You'll experience serenity and calm, and then all of a sudden your mind catches a theme.

And the theme might be something like animation, or it might be watercolor painting. Sometimes it depends on what you did during the day. A memory will show up in your thoughts, and as long as you're thinking about something creative, run with it. Let the thought just go where it wants to go.

And then all of a sudden, an idea will coalesce. To me it's like a sparkle and then all of a sudden, boom there's an idea. What I do at that point is I open my eyes and I start writing in my journal, where I keep all of my ideas.

Allowing the mind to wander allows the default mode network to activate and that leads to the connecting of disparate ideas. How is watercolor painting related to animation? I don't know.

But when you're in a state of meditative ideation, what may come forward is a series of watercolors forming the basis of the animation. That's how ideas form. It's like the mind just wants to find solutions to these little conundrums that appear when you're ideating.

When I sit down, I always give myself about 25 minutes or so for the practice. Within that time, I usually come up with maybe two or three good ideas. But there will be some days where it's just one idea.

And occasionally I'll spend the whole 25 minutes and not have a single inspiration come up at all. But that's rare now. Usually, I'll have multiple ideas pop up.

But when you're starting out, you might not get immediate results. The key here is to let go of focus. If you're too focused on something, the default mode network doesn't engage.

As I do this practice and I feel or sense that my thoughts are getting too focused, I'll dismiss the thought. Empty my mind again, and then just let my visual field see the nothingness of closed eyes. I find that during a session I'll be letting go many times because my thoughts become too focused.

The challenge is clearing the mind just enough to keep the mind relaxed and the default mode network engaged. It's a mental dance that gets easier the more you do it.

Another challenge is carving out the time to do a meditative ideation session. If you're like me, you're busy during the day. And if you don't actually set aside some time, you'll find you've gone a couple weeks having done the practice.

In my practice, I usually set aside the time between 5 and 6 o'clock, after I'm done with my client work. This way, there's a regular time slot for my meditative ideation practice. my daily meditation during the same time. That helps to get the mind in a meditative state. But you don't have to do a meditation before this practice for it to be effective.

Another thing that can get in the way of doing the practice is being stressed and having a lot of interruptions. It's really hard to empty the mind and clear the mind if you're stressed, and if you're thinking about some problem that's going on in your life.

Another thing that might trip you up is trying too hard. The whole purpose of this practice is to let go of all thoughts. That struggle to empty the mind is a necessary part of this. But if you try too hard, you'll fall into the trap of being overly focused.

Remember to relax into it, and gently let go of non-creative thoughts as they appear. Don't criticize yourself for having a busy mind, because we all experience that same busyness.

One of the reasons that I continue to do this practice is just the joy of emptying the mind and inviting new inspirations in. I'm just continually amazed by it.

I've been doing this practice for four years now, and I already have two journals full of ideas. I have so many creative ideas that it would take me five lifetimes to finish them all.

When I was starting out, it actually bothered me a little bit that I was coming up with more ideas than I could ever hope to complete.

But what I found over time is that the truly good ideas are the ones that are going to hang around, and you're going to get a desire to actually do them. These ideas are so good that you can't help not to do them.

One of the breakthroughs for me was recognizing how many really good ideas come forth from this process. Every so often, maybe every couple of months, I actually go back to my journals and I take a highlighter and I highlight the ones that still seem amazing and exciting and new.

Even though our understanding of the default mode network of the brain is fairly recent, people seem to have had an innate understanding of it for millennia.

Buddhist practice includes accessing states of consciousness beyond the ordinary. Sufi mystics often describe states of ecstatic union with the divine. Christian mystics speak of turning inward to access a deep well of spiritual wisdom. Hindu philosophy has an emphasis on the mind to access deeper levels of insight and creativity.

One of my favorite guides to using silence for connecting with creativity is Estelle Frankel. She wrote a book called The Wisdom of Not Knowing. And in it she describes the idea of embracing ambiguity and the unknown. She writes about Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah.

One of the things that she explains is the concept of white fire and black fire. Black fire represents the written words that are the tangible and explicit knowledge set forth in the words of the Torah. The white fire, in contrast, is the intangible white space between the words. And that represents the implicit and the unknown.

The point of the concept is that wisdom doesn't come alone from one or the other. It comes from both.

And I just like the way this sort of ties in with the idea of inspirations and ideas coming from nothing. It aligns well with the practice of meditative ideation. I like to think that when I'm doing this practice, I'm closing my eyes, I'm allowing the white fire to be present. I'm allowing myself to be connected with the unknown and unknowable source.

In Jewish mysticism, to something called the ayin. This is a profound idea. In the Kabbalah it represents the nothingness or the void. It's closely associated with the ultimate state of union, with the divine or with God. Some people refer to this as the source. Ayin in the Kabbalah tradition is a state that's way beyond human comprehension. And they believe that everything emanates from this nothingness. Accessing ayin through meditation can be viewed as a way to tap into the boundless source of divine inspiration and creativity.

Estelle Frankel has an entire chapter on creativity and really touches upon these ideas.

In her book The Artist's Way, Julie Cameron encourages artists to write morning pages. The practice of writing morning pages can be seen as a way to empty the mind.

If your mind is preoccupied, then you won't have the space for new ideas to form. So morning pages can be a way of releasing concerns and worries that are floating around in the mind so that you can then have the space to invite new inspirations

In wrapping up this exploration of meditative ideation, I want to leave you with a few pivotal steps that could transform your creative journey.

First and foremost, if meditation isn't already a part of your routine, I encourage you to embrace it. Find a form of meditation that resonates with you, one that guides you toward silence and tranquility within your mind. This foundational step is crucial because it teaches you the art of calming your mind, setting the stage for creativity to flow.

Next, make a commitment to yourself. Carve out a regular time slot each week dedicated solely to the practice of meditative ideation. It doesn't have to be long. just a thirty-minute window where you can sit undisturbed. Allowing your mind the freedom to make connections between all of the experiences already within you. This regularity builds a sanctuary for your ideas to flourish.

Finally, keep a journal. This journal will become the treasure chest of your mind's adventures, capturing the sparks of inspiration that visit you. It's a tangible reminder of your creative potential, waiting to be explored further.

Understand that quieting the mind is perhaps the most challenging aspect of this practice, but also the most rewarding. With patience and perseverance, you'll find yourself guided toward the boundless divine where emptiness becomes the fertile ground for your inspiration.

Remember the journey to unlocking your creative essence through meditative ideation is unique to everyone. Be kind to yourself as you navigate this path. The beauty of this practice lies not just in the ideas generated, but in the process of inviting silence, allowing your mind the space to breathe and to wander.

It's in this space that creativity dances freely, untethered by constraints. Of the focused mind. So embrace the quiet and let your creative journey unfold. Who knows what incredible ideas await discovery in the serene landscape of your mind?

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Creative Shoofly..

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That's it for now. Be well and be creative.