Can you remember being completely engrossed in painting a picture as a child? There was only the brush, the paint, and your imagination, as the image on the paper came to life. In our adult lives, we can also experience the same connected engagement with a creative activity. Perhaps you sing in a choir, paint, write poetry, or play an instrument. When we participate in these activities, we occasionally feel the same sense of total engagement as a child does, which is part of the pleasure that comes with being creative. In fact, creativity and play share similar characteristics.
The ability to be creative is not limited to the especially talented few; it’s something everyone can experience. Creativity means going beyond established ideas and forms and creating meaningful new ones. Creativity is important to us as individuals as well as organisations; for instance, it drives innovation in products, services, or processes. We can be creative in finding solutions to problems, cooking meals, and expressing creativity in our relationships with others.
Imagination is an important part of our ability to be creative, which can be defined as “The ability to consider possibilities that we know are not true in the here and now.” In human evolution, we developed our imagination to explore future situations, including how we or others might react emotionally in advance, which is useful for making decisions. When you think about it, everything around us that humans make started life in someone’s imagination, from the International Space Station to the London tube map. Even AI was developed from someone imagining its possibilities.
Research on the neuroscience of creativity found that regular creative hobbies like visual arts, playing music, or dancing reduced brain aging. In the case of tango dancers used in the research, their brains were, on average, seven years younger than their biological age. So, being creative promotes good brain health. Other research found that two different neural networks, the frontal lobe (focused attention) and the default mode (mind wandering), which normally oppose each other, work together during creative tasks.
Some of the theories of creativity include incubating an idea; mentally sending a question or request for the mind to work on, without expecting an immediate result. At some point in the future, you may be in the shower or walking the dog, when a solution or creative idea pops into your head as an answer. Creative ideas are free-flowing thoughts that are more likely to arise when our mind wanders, rather than through logical and deliberate thinking. The important thing is that you notice the good idea with your attention, which is backed up by the research on the two different neural networks mentioned above. This positive side of mind-wandering is a normal part of how our brain works. The downside is that automatic thoughts can sometimes be negative and self-defeating. So, there are good reasons to be aware of and notice your automatic thoughts. On the one hand, it could be a great creative idea that you don’t want to miss, and on the other, it could be your inner critic attempting to feed you negative thoughts that no longer serve you.
Apart from noticing thoughts, how can practising mindfulness improve creativity? Creative ideas are more likely to emerge when we have less agitation and noise around. A bit like a shaken-up snow globe, with all that content spinning around, it’s not easy to imagine original ideas. Mindfulness and mindfulness meditation can help create the space and stillness for ideas to emerge. We’re also more able to break free from existing patterns and habits of thought, including some of the limitations of language.
Given the complexity and uncertainty in the modern world, the need for human creativity to find solutions to global challenges has never been more important. As Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Maybe cultivating mindful awareness can help us access the insight and creativity that makes a difference.
Suggested weekly practice
- If you’re not doing this already, weave some creative projects into your life. For example, you could have a go at creative writing, poetry, painting or play an instrument.
- It’s not easy to be creative by thinking hard about something, especially a solution to a complex problem. Try asking a question and throwing it out there in your mind to incubate and see what happens.
- To really improve your creativity, try taking a different perspective, breaking the rules, turning something upside down, reversing the emotional lens (e.g., from anger to openness), capturing ideas when your mind wanders, and bringing in things from a different discipline, and see what difference that makes.
Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.
- Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
- Then play the second practice to help create the space and stillness for creativity to emerge.