Beginnings are always messy.
John Galsworthy

And moving into my new home proved to be no exception... There is some semblance of order emerging from the chaos now.

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Are You Tired of Being Stuck in Routine? Here Are 8 Ways of Breaking Out
Make Space in Your Life For Creativity

Want to know how to be creative? There are several techniques you can use to unleash your inner creativity. In this film brain guru Tony Buzan talks about how to develop your creative thinking, and apply it in many different ways.


How To Improve Your Creative Thinking

Step 1:

Everyone is Creative

It's a misconception that some people are not creative. The brain has a million brain cells, and has huge powers of creativity. Many people are just not trained to tap into their brain's creative potential.

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Step 2:

The Left & Right Brain

The left brain tends to deal with words, logic, numbers etc, and the right brain tends to deal with colour, shapes, rhythm etc. However, it's another misconception that creativity is purely right-brained. Real creativity involves both sides of the brain.

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Step 3:

Speed of Thought

Training the brain think faster can help improve creative thinking. Exercise the brain with things like sudoku, crosswords, puzzles and chess, and try to do them as fast as possible.

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Step 4:

Originality of thought

Try to think about things in as many different ways as possible. Think 'outside the box.'

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Step 5:

Flexibility of Thought

Most people tend to focus on one way of perceiving the world around, to improve your creativity try to discover and explore as many perspectives as possible.

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Step 6:

Imagination & Association

Great creative thinkers use their imagination, and then try to make links and associations between things. Find new connections between things is a way of creating something new.

I used to work in a psychiatric outpatient clinic. One of the steps in treating mental health disorders is to put the patient on a schedule. This is to provide some stability in their daily lives and stop their minds from dangerously going haywire. But what if you, as a sane person, have too much stability in your life? It's boring. It's stagnating. It's debilitating. And it may lead to depression ...

So why not go a little haywire in your daily life? Living in the moment is dangerous. It can open you up to all kinds of new experiences. You never know what might happen.

Here are some ideas on how to break out of your daily routine:

• 1. Change your path. Take a different way to go to work, school, shopping. Look around you and really take in what's going on around you. Be aware of the sights, sounds and smells of your surroundings and the people you encounter.
• 2. Create something in a medium you have never used before. Knit a scarf if you have never knitted (This one's for guys, too. In Turkey, it's only the men who knit.) Paint or draw, if your usual medium is writing.
• 3. Eat something you have never eaten before. It doesn't have to be snake or chocolate-coated termites, although I can recommend ostrich steak for red meat lovers.
• 4. Celebrate being alive. Gather some friends and throw a party. If the climate allows, have it outdoors.
• 5. Take a day off work and go on a mini vacation. If you're a really conscientious person in employment, make sure you go on a day you're supposed to be at work. Shock yourself and take a sick day. Enjoy your day off by following your nose. Do exactly what you feel like doing in the moment. Except for feeling guilty for bunking off work.
• 6. Do something really silly and childish that makes you roll in laughter. Or just be a kid again. Take a ruler and challenge someone to a fencing match. Grab a co-worker and do a tango. Slide down a slide or swing to your hearts content. Take a friend along and you'll soon be laughing yourself silly.
• 7. Boldly go where no man has been before. Or at least where you haven't been before. If you can afford it, visit Paris. Or visit the wrong side of the tracks in your town. Or the right side of the tracks, if you're on the wrong side.
• 8. Spread some art around. I once printed and decorated a whole stack of cards with positive messages on them and spent the afternoon surreptitiously hiding them between the products in supermarkets and in menus in restaurants. It's the opposite of stealing, but feels naughty.

Routine suffocates creativity, so make a little space to live in the moment. What do you really want to do now? Follow your instincts. You may find it such fun and so liberating, you'll want to do it more often. And more often. And even more often. Until it takes up not only part of your life, but is your life. Go on, live a little. You won't have to call the medical emergency services.

From time to time we all suffer from creative block. When the going gets tough, I open up my creativity jar and pull out a little creativity prompt to get me going. I downloaded these cards from eyewire.com some years ago. The website unfortunately no longer exists, but I kept the cards on my hard drive.

You will need:

• a jar, either glass or porcelain
• glass paints and glass outliner
• gesso or white acrylic paint
• acrylic paint
• print out of eyewire cards (click on images to get a larger view)

Step-by-step instructions:
1. wash the jar and lid with soap and dry thoroughly
2. prepare the lid with gesso or white paint
3. paint the jar with glass paint
4. paint the lid with acrylic paint
5. decorate the jar with the outliner
6. let dry for 24 hours
7. burn the jar in oven (not the lid!)
8. cut up the cards and put in jar

Now you're all set to cope with your next creative block.

Living near the beach in a holiday resort, I often pretend I'm a tourist and go on a mini holiday. I usually take a book with me, some sun tan oil (which I never use otherwise), a colourful pareo and go plonk myself in one of the sunloungers at a hotel. It's lovely to while away the afternoon sipping (sometimes laced) coconut water and going for occasional dips to cool off. The people I meet invariably think I'm on holiday as well and I've struck up some really good conversations and met many interesting people from all walks of life. At other times, I will go down the beach to be on my own, writing in my journal. It's amazing how a mini vacation can recharge your batteries and fire up your creativity. Try it!

Pack a big bag with:
some munchies
a journal or notebook and pen
a flask of your favourite beverage
a good book
some cash in case you feel like mixing with people in a cafe
a yoga mat or whatever you feel you might need

The key is to not plan ahead exactly when and where you plan to be. If you're going to the beach or woods, let your intuition guide you to the best spot. If you're visiting your town, be spontaneous and do exactly what you feel like doing at the moment. This might be sight-seeing, going to the museum or busking in front of a cafe. Let the day just unfold. Celebrate being. That's what you do when you're on a "proper holiday", isn't it?

If I'm suffering from a creative block, I can often get through it by sitting for a few minutes with my hands in the ushas mudra position.

A mudra is a yoga hand posture that facilitates the flow of subtle energy in a specific way. Our thumbs, fingers and the palms of our hands are constantly emitting currents of energy. By creating certain postures with your hands, fingers and thumbs you can stimulate certain energies and send this energy to particular chakras. This is a mudra which activates the sacral chakra (centre of creativity and sexuality) and hence is good for getting your creative energies going.

Mini mudra meditation for creativity
Put your hands in your lap, palms up, on top of each other. Ladies, interlace your fingers with palms facing upwards. Encircle your right thumb between your left thumb and index fingers. Guys, interlace your fingers with palms facing upwards. Your right thumb rests on top of your left thumb with gentle pressure. (This is because our energies rotate differently. But you knew that one already ...)
Concentrate on the sacral chakra at the sacral bone (on the lower back). As you sit, remember to pull your belly button towards your spine. This helps circulate the energy in the sacral chakra area.
Breathe gently.

You can do this as a mini-medition a couple of times a day for 10 minutes or even whilst doing something else. Mudras can be done anywhere and anytime. I often do mudras whilst vegging out in front of the TV. You don't have to concentrate on the mudra, just keeping your hands in the position (and sitting up straight whilst doing it) will do the trick as well.

You will also feel an increase in sexual energy, as creative and sexual energy is basically the same. If you don't want that ... well then: sublimate, my dear, sublimate.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could just flick a switch and turn on your creativity? Sadly, at times, tapping into your creativity can feel like turning the tap to find that the water company has switched off the water again. The good news is, there are ways of encouraging creativity and one of these ways is through balancing your sacral chakra.

Chakra is the Sanskrit word for moving wheel; the chakras are vortexes of energy present in the ethereal body and in corresponding locations of the physical body. There are seven major chakras and they function as pathways for energy to be taken in.

The sacral chakra, sometimes called the spleen or navel chakra, is located in the lower abdomen, approximately two inches below the navel. It governs sexuality, self-worth and creativity and is also associated with desire, pleasure, emotional balance and the abundance that you allow into your life for the fulfillment of your desires.

If this chakra is functioning well, you will experience enriched creativity, enhanced emotional gratification and courage, sexual vitality and positive self-esteem. If this chakra is blocked, however, both sexual and creative frustration occurs. You may have difficulties tapping into your creativity. Or you may have brilliantly creative ideas, but problems with manifesting your projects. A blockage can also manifest physically with lower back pain, sciatica, problems of the reproductive system, lowered libido and urinary problems.

Luckily, there are many tools to help balance the chakras. I’ve listed some of the correspondences for the sacral chakra together with guidelines on how to use these tools to balance this chakra and hence enhance your creativity.

• Colour: Orange - Surround yourself with orange. Wear it, eat it (preferably in the form of food) or paint your studio or workspace with it. If you meditate, visualize orange around the area of this chakra.
• Music: sensual flowing music with passionate rhythms (think Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing”) - Try belly dancing or just dance, using your hips. Gyrate, baby, gyrate!
• Gemstones: any orange stone (e.g. carnelian, orange jasper, fire opal, moonstone). If you can't find a gemstome, try a piece or bead of coloured glass. - You can wear these stones as jewellery or carry them in your pocket or purse.
• Essential oils: sandalwood, jasmine, ylang ylang, clary sage, bergamot, orange blossom. - Shower gels and other cosmetics sometimes have these aromatherapy oils already added. Burn oils in an oil burner. Combine 10 drops or use singly on a washcloth during your shower. (This is particularly effective as water is the element governed by the sacral chakra.). Put some drops on a handkerchief and sniff it when you need inspiration. Make yourself a massage oil by adding a few drops of essential oil to coconut oil.
  

Now you know what to do to get your creative juices flowing; go take an essential oil shower whilst eating a mango, come out and drape yourself in orange clothes and jewels and start swaying those hips to a cool groove.
Then, go create!

"I can't go on. I will go on." is a Samuel Becket quote that my mother has hanging in her kitchen. Now, I understand that this is supposed to be motivational and inspire one to perseverance (I think), but I've always found it somewhat defeatist. Isn't this how so many people are living their lives? Staying in the daily grind, justifying to themselves their need to stay in the mold because life is so difficult? These people think that life creates them instead of the other way around. I prefer to create my life.

The first thing to do on your way to a creative life is to make space in your life. Modern life is incredibly busy and tends to fill up our minds and free time. To be able to create, you need not only physical energy but emotional and mental energy as well. If your life is cluttered with bad relationships, work stress and trying to cope, there is no room for creativity and intuition.

So what is the solution? You need to declutter and simplify your life. It's a question of defining your priorities and redistributing your time. For instance, my most creative time is at night and my least productive during the morning, so at one time, I took on a half-day job that didn't require much input in order "to pay the bills". In this way, my creative energy was not used up during the day. Everybody has different priorities, but, if you want to make space for creativity, you will need to downsize and FREE UP TIME. Many people suggest that you schedule a certain time everyday for your creative activity, but I have found that this sheer doesn't work. If you limit your creative time to a schedule, you don't leave space for intuition to flow and this is vital for creativity. You need to make enough time for just "being" and going with the flow in your daily life. Suddenly, your intuition and creativity will soar!

I moved to the Seychelles, islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, a couple of years ago. Living on a tropical island pretty much forces you to live the simple life. Everything is slower and time loses it's relevance. It's easy to get into the flow here. I do understand that it is more difficult in an urban environment, but it is possible.

So do yourself a favour and simplify your life. Cut out all the extras that eat up your emotional, mental and physical energy. Make time and space for creative simple being and your creativity will flourish in no time.