Expanding Your Creative Thinking
I’ve been reading a lot this month as I create our workbooks, practices, and reflection for the upcoming Creativity Lab - The Abundant Imagination (which is open to all). Apparently, that preparation is known as priming your creativity for the AHHA moments. It’s doing the pre-work so that you can draw together different perspectives for that magical dopamine moment when the brain and body connect in insight. Love it! Who here also wants to chase that feeling? (Raises both hands!)
I first began learning about creativity as a process when I taught grad students social science research and scholarly writing. I’ve since shifted away from viewing creativity as a tool for our productivity (research, writing, teaching, whatever). Now I understand it as a process that is infinitely expansive, hence abundant, when we combine three elements: (1) training our big beautiful brains to shift out of control and scarcity mode so we can reconnect to the two sources of infinite creativity: (2) the body and (3) Nature.
[Each weekly Creativity Lab workbook is structured around those three elements. I’ve totally geeked out, and hope you’ll join us! It’s $197!]
Now on to what I’ve been reading…
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer (2012)
Dated and out of print due to some issues with the author fabricating quotes and plagiarizing–ouch. (I didn’t know that when I got it from the library.) The book is heavy on industry examples with some Bob Dylan stories. My big takeaways, though, involve (1) a better understanding how the brain generates ideas and (2) the important impact of work environment and collaboration.
The former point helped me appreciate the important role of daydreaming as a way to activate our default mode network (aka the imagination network). The latter point was refreshing since so many creativity books emphasize, I think overly so, solitude.
I’ve taken some good notes from this read as they talk about creativity as a messy process (not linear) that is an interplay of habits, mindsets, and experiences. The authors narrow that down to ten key habits and behaviors: imaginative play, passion, daydreaming, solitude, intuition, openness to experience, mindfulness, sensitivity, resilience, and thinking differently.
Big takeaways: openness and preparation preceded inspiration - so if you’ve been waiting for inspiration to hit, you’ve got to prime yourself. Or if you’re the opposite, and you’ve been muscling your creativity, you need to let go and embrace play, daydreaming, hiking, and fun. While they don’t bring in the body much at all, it is the only book so far that has a whole chapter on sensitivity. If you have ever been called ‘too sensitive’ or identify as a highly sensitive person, they talk about how it can be (in healthy supportive environments) a huge source to great joyful creativity and aliveness. This book is packed with insights and may be a read again book.
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life by Twyla Tharp (2003)
If you are or ever have been a dancer or related artist, this might be the creative book for you. Tharp is a well known American choreographer and takes a very disciplined approach to creativity as a skill to develop. Oddy, she doesn’t apply that practicality to creating an index, thus making my brain explode, but that’s a Me problem. Her creative approach is about strict routine, preparation, and hard work and it’s delivered in a memoir-like writing style with recommended practices. Here’s a quote of hers I’ve always loved:
“Creativity is an act of defiance. You’re challenging the status quo. You’re questioning accepted truths and principles. You’re asking three universal questions that mock conventional wisdom:
“Why do I have to obey the rules?”
“Why can’t I be different?”
“Why can’t I do it my way?”
That continues to be a good message for these times.
Honestly, of all the books I’ve read (including the ones I didn’t bother to give you a summary of here), I’m disappointed, but maybe not surprised, how most books don’t include the body, perpetuating our brains act alone and in isolation. I want more creativity process books where we get the organic messy nature that involves the body and Nature with strategies. I guess that’s why I’ve designed this next Creativity Lab in that way. Guess you should sign up. 😉
Even if you don’t join us for this round of Creativity Lab, here are some free resources on how creativity can be a tool for resilience in times of crisis:
Creativity is Resilience Work – Frames creativity as an essential tool for adapting to challenges, building resilience, and envisioning new ways forward in uncertain times.
Creativity Isn’t a Luxury – Emphasizes that creativity is not optional but necessary for personal and collective survival in turbulent times.
Creativity is a Process with the Power to Alchemize Your Grief – Discusses how engaging with creativity can help process grief, including eco-grief and career grief, both of which arise in times of collapse.
Courting Your Creativity – Frames creativity as a practice of deep listening and connection to the world, a mindset crucial for reimagining sustainable futures.