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Storytelling creates
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"Go Solo" with Melinda: on Creative entrepreneurship

2/11/2023

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Melinda was recently featured in "Go Solo," a digital magazine focusing on entrepreneurship, discussing her entrepreneurial journey as coach and consultant, as well as her work with Syncreate. She described both the challenges and joys of starting and running a small business, and how creativity and entrepreneurship go hand-in-hand.

One of the questions posed to her was:

​What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
  1. Don't give up if your first venture doesn't work.
  2. Find good collaborators.
  3. Seek out, build, and invite community around your business idea.

Read the full article here!
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Syncreate on the Stories4good podcast

12/10/2022

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We were recently featured on the new Stories4Good podcast. 
Listen here as we discuss the Syncreate book, our model of Play, Plan & Produce, and get some inspiration for your next creative project!
Episode Show Notes:

In this episode, we will talk with Melinda Rothouse and Charlotte Gullick, authors of Syncreate. 
Melinda Rothouse's focus as a coach is creativity in all forms. In addition to being a career and leadership coach with Coaching 4 Good, she has many other professional roles as an author, facilitator, musician, educator, and consultant. Her background is based in psychology, religious and spiritual studies, and mindfulness. In addition to executive leadership coaching and team coaching in organizations, Melinda often works with creative professionals that are experiencing transitions or hoping to bring a creative idea to fruition. 

Charlotte Gullick is an accomplished novelist, essayist, editor, educator and Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College (ACC). She and Melinda met at ACC while working on a study abroad project. As the pandemic was shutting things down, they decided they wanted to bring something creative and helpful into the world during the time spent in isolation. 
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Syncreate was the product of the team's creative pandemic endeavor. The book aims to demystify the creative process, while re-writing the story of creativity for the US. You don't have to be a tortured artist all alone to be creative or bring creative ideas into reality; "creativity is your birthright." Syncreate uses a framework of "Play, Plan, Produce" to guide readers through the creative process in a way that is accessible and community focused.

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following through on your creativity

4/28/2022

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In our previous post, we described the three major stages of creativity: Play, Plan and Produce. But how do we move from playing to planning in the creative process? In this video, Charlotte walks us trough the Syncreate Creative Project Timeline Template, which helps us map out our creative projects with a mission statement, specific goals and milestones, accountability partners, and celebrations. In our experience as teachers and coaches, we've learned the importance of identifying micro goals for incremental progress and celebrating the journey along the way. 

How do we put this into practice? It's easier than you think. For example, we know a woman who committed to only four minutes per day and still managed to make major progress on her book project. Knowing she had limited time, she made the most of it using the power of incubation (thinking about her book in the background while doing other things). Then, when it was time to write, she got right down to it and composed three chapters over two months. 

​We offer this template to help you follow through on your creative projects. Email us to get a copy of the template today!
If you're interested in learning more about the Syncreate process, we have a virtual six-week coaching group beginning May 25th via Zoom. We'll offer an in-depth exploration of Play, Plan, and Produce, the stages of creative ideation, project planning, and fruition. Weekly meetings will include experiential exercises and discussion to stimulate your creativity, identify your own best practices, and provide accountability for your creative goals and milestones. 
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Visit our Events page for more details.
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The Syncreate process: play, plan, produce

3/17/2022

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We recently published a book on creativity and we’re so excited to share it with you! We believe that by learning to understand where we are in the creative process, we can approach our work with more agility and joy. This video (8 minutes) highlights our approach to creativity and describes how the three interrelated modes of Play, Plan, and Produce can guide us in the creative journey. ​
As described in the video, we have found that asking these three questions can help us stay empowered in our creative projects:

Where do I start? Play.
What do I do next? Plan. 
How do I finish? Produce.


Understanding and working with these distinct elements can make the creative journey more accessible and enjoyable.

If you're interested in learning more about the Syncreate process, we have a virtual six-week coaching group beginning May 25th via Zoom. We'll offer an in-depth exploration of Play, Plan, and Produce, the stages of creative ideation, project planning, and fruition. Weekly meetings will include experiential exercises and discussion to stimulate your creativity, identify your own best practices, and provide accountability for your creative goals and milestones. 
​
Visit our Events page for more details.

We also have a Meetup group focusing on the creative process - our next Meetup on Wednesday, April 20th via Zoom will focus on empowering our creativity by letting go of our creative wounds. Click here for more information and to register. 
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The syncreate method

4/10/2018

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By The Syncreate Team

​Creativity requires the integration of linear thinking and associative thinking— sometimes known as “left brain” and “right brain” thinking. Both are necessary to bring creative projects to fruition.


Creativity is a journey from ideation to finished product, whether it is a book, a work of art, a symphony, a business venture, or a professional collaborative project. Creating a map of your journey, including specific orientation points to help you find your way when you get stuck or lost along the way, helps you to see where you are in the larger process, which helps you find your way when you take a wrong turn or lose your bearings.

​Every journey is made up of a series smaller steps. That incremental progress is essential to feeling empowered and keeping us accountable to our work. It is necessary to shift between associative thinking and linear thinking in order to keep the process surging forward, to gain true perspective on your projects, and to maintain the faith and momentum required to keep producing.

Join us for a Meetup at Capital Factory in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, May 29th, 2018, at 6:00 p.m. for a demonstration and discussion of the Syncreate Method.


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Mindfulness techniques for greater workplace productivity, Creativity and engagement

4/23/2017

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By Melinda
Originally published in April 2017 by Coaching 4 Good

When was the last time you felt truly engaged at work? Do your work hours fly by as you move from task to task and meeting to meeting in an effortless flow state?

Or do you more often alternate between anxious multitasking, glancing at the clock, and obsessively checking email and social media? If the latter scenario sounds more familiar, you might benefit from practicing some basic mindfulness techniques at work.
 
The term mindfulness derives from the traditional Buddhist concept of present-moment awareness. Jon Kabat-Zinn, developer of the immensely popular program of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), defines mindfulness as

“paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.”

Similarly, David Gelles, author of Mindful Work: How Meditation is Changing Business from the Inside Out, explains,

“mindfulness, put simply, is the ability to see what’s going on in our heads, without getting carried away with it. It is the capacity to feel sensations – even painful ones – without letting them control us. Mindfulness means being aware of our experiences, observing them without judgment, and responding from a place of clarity and compassion, rather than fear, insecurity, or greed.”
 
A growing body of research now recognizes the psychological and physiological benefits of mindfulness and meditation. And the business world is catching on, realizing the potential benefits of mindfulness for organizational productivity, performance, and innovation. For example, various mindfulness techniques have led to improved

  • task performance
  • executive functioning
  • decision making
  • creativity
  • communication
  • work engagement
  • empathy
  • leadership skills
 
A number of forward-thinking companies have implemented mindfulness programs to enhance wellness, creativity, and a host of other elements of workplace functioning. Innovators like Steve Jobs to progressive companies like Google, with its “Search Inside Yourself” program, and even the U.S. Marine Corps have reaped the benefits of mindfulness practice, including better focus and decision-making skills, creativity, team collaboration, and employee engagement.
 
What are mindfulness techniques I can use at work?

So the next time you find yourself feeling burned out from staring at a computer screen for too long, try the following simple mindfulness exercise:

Simply take a moment to turn away from the computer, plant your feet firmly on the floor, and bring your awareness to your current physical and emotional state. With a sense of curiosity and non-judgment, feel the physical sensation of breathing, both the in-breath and the outbreath. Allow your thoughts to come and go without following them too closely or trying to push them away. Simply be, just for a few moments.

Try this technique several times a day when you feel the stress coming on, and notice how it affects your state of mind and well-being.

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Accountability Partnership: The Key to Meeting Your Creative Goals

3/19/2017

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Photo from Syncreate's "Creative Sandbox: Plan, Play, Produce" workshop at the 2016 Creative Mornings Global Summit in Austin, TX
Let’s admit it. You have a big idea. Something you’ve never done before. Something you feel you can do, if only you broke it down to small tasks and took little steps to complete the larger goal. But, your inner doubt says, who are you to try to do this thing you’ve never done before?

At Syncreate, we help individuals and groups name their bigger goals and then break those goals into smaller increments--we call them milestones. We also recognize that one of the key factors in hitting those milestones--which leads to accomplishing the overall goal--is accountability partnership. It’s one of the main reasons people hire us to coach and consult--to help hold their feet to the fire so that they reach those milestones. And along the way, they build confidence and momentum, and the possibility of actually finishing that creative project comes into sharp focus.

Of course, many of us hold two misconceptions about the creative process: 1) That’s it’s a solo venture and 2) It’s done in a single--or nearly single--push. Both of these myths hold us back, keeping us stuck in a rut: if we were really talented, we’d be able to write that novel all on our own, without any external encouragement or milestone partnership.

However, if we look back or around at the most creative people, we see that they have both: community and accountability, as well as the commitment to spend lots of time by themselves to do the work needed to be done. And it’s this movement between the collective and individual which opens up the process, allowing us to complete the milestones along the way to the big goal. We need people--especially other creatives--to help us name the small steps along the way, and to make sure we meet them. Accountability partnership is also a standard in other areas of life: fitness, weight loss/diet change, and financial solvency.

Partnership helps us identify our barriers and the strategies to overcome them, as well as take delight in the momentum of others. It’s a way of building a creative community and rejoicing in the efforts of more than just ourselves. At Syncreate, we aim to reveal the creative process, empower your ideas, and help you identify both milestones and partners. It’s a formula we’ve found that works.

#creativity #accountabilitypartnership #creativeinspiration #creativecommunity


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Infusing creativity into your entrepreneurial process

2/5/2017

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Join Syncreate Co-Founders Charlotte Gullick and Melinda Rothouse this Thursday, February 9th, at 12:30 p.m. for a workshop at Tech Ranch in Austin, TX, on creativity and entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is essentially a journey of creativity, requiring the generation of innovative products and services to solve real-world problems. Creative innovation requires both divergent (non-linear, so called “right brain”) and convergent (linear, “left brain”) thinking, integrating different neural pathways to imagine and envision solutions and put them into action. This dynamic, hands-on workshop will demonstrate how to move between the two types of thinking with agility and clarity. Each participant will have the opportunity to focus on a specific entrepreneurial challenge or project to arrive at a better understanding of their own creative process and productivity.

For more information and to register, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/infusing-creativity-into-your-entrepreneurial-process-tickets-30928811909

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Whole-Brain Creativity: The Synergy of Associative and Linear Thinking

5/24/2016

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Creativity requires many different types of brain activity, including both divergent and convergent thinking, or what we might once have labeled “right brain” and “left brain” processes. We now know that to bring a creative idea to fruition, we must employ both associative, or non-linear, thinking that plays with different ideas and images, weaving them together in new ways, as well as more logical, linear thinking that clarifies the required steps to complete a creative project and share it with the world.

Many of us in the creative fields are quite good at associative or divergent thinking. We’ve come to trust our ability to weave together ideas or patterns that might seem, at first glance, unrelated. Some might say that this is the essence of creativity. If we examine deeply creative people such as Leonardo Da Vinci, we see much of his genius lay not just in his technique but also in his interest in a wide swath of subjects. To diverge, to explore many possible solutions or connections, is to approach the world through an expansive, curious lens.

Linear thinking, on the other hand, applies a structure or set of goals to a given project, suggesting a pathway for completion. Learning to move between these two kinds of thinking with discernment and agility is key for anyone on a deadline or who wants to enjoy both process and product. It’s fun and meaningful to brainstorm and consider possible associations and connective threads between disparate elements, but at some point, most of us feel the urge to move into forming a concrete plan for delivering on our ideas. 

For example, a songwriter may begin with a simple phrase or musical refrain based on an emotional experience, a dream, or an image. From this basic poetic or musical element, she may then write out a set of lyrics based on associations with that primary image or element in order to tell a story or create a musical tapestry out of it. This is the associative phase of the creative process. But then she must edit and hone the lyrics so that they flow and rhyme and fit together with a specific melody, and then practice the song over and over, solidifying the arrangement, and rehearsing it until it is ready to be performed. This is the more linear phase of the process.

Once we start to apply linear thinking to a project, we’ve entered a new phase of creativity, and this phase is one we’d like to celebrate a little more. It’s not just that we get things done, but that new associations can arise as a result of integrating these two types of thinking. In other words, we need both types of thinking and once we learn to use them with more agility and discernment, we can become open to the lovely synergies that can occur. It's not just about one mode or another, but how we bring all of them together.

At Syncreate, we’re excited about the ways these two types of thinking can enliven the creative process, build community, and help a greater number of people know the joy of both process and product. We’re working on a set of tools that will foster all of this, and we invite you to check out Syncreator, your digital creativity coach.

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Ancestral voices: creativity as legacy

11/12/2015

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Quote by Linda Hogan; Image courtesy of The Mankind Project
By Melinda

Our most recent Syncreate Meetup took place on November 1st – Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a time of year when many traditions honor and celebrate the ancestors. With this seasonal resonance in mind, we felt inspired to consider how creativity might be part of a larger legacy, and how ancestral yearnings may appear consciously or unconsciously in our creative work. We pondered what legacies we may be carrying forward from prior generations, and/or how our creative work might be in reaction to, or protest against, the experiences of our forebears.

We did a creative exercise with the group in which we each wrote a note to ourselves from a particular ancestor, describing the legacy and significance of our creative work. My ancestral inspiration came from my Great Uncle Henry (a renowned adventurer, labor organizer and general rabble-rouser). Though I actually never met him, my father has told me many stories and often compares me to him. The exercise helped me see my own creative work, and particularly my music, in an ancestral context, and made me feel more connected to the creativity of my grandparents’ generation.

And then… Something happened in the night. I dreamed vividly and woke up feeling quite melancholy and introspective. Something compelled me to go into my music studio to work on a couple of my newer songs and dust off some older ones. Arrangements I had been puzzling over for months suddenly came together, and I recorded four of the songs for my new band project. I felt a rekindling of passion and energy for my music.

Something about these ancestral speculations got me fired up about my creative work. How might this be true for you as well? Try writing yourself a letter from an ancestor (known or unknown; real or imagined) about the significance of your creative work, and let us know what you discover!

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Incremental Goals to Climb the Tallest of Creative Mountains

10/2/2015

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by Charlotte

At a writer’s conference, I heard this quotation attributed to Ron Carlson, “It only takes twenty minutes to write a novel. Twenty minutes a day.” This can be twenty minutes in the car before you pick up your children from school or before you do the weekly grocery shopping. Instead of a dedicated space, it is the dedicated time that will help us get the work done. The novelist Walter Mosley offers similar advice in his book, This Year You Write Your Novel. He asserts that it is through the small goals we climb toward the visions we carry inside us.
 
In addition to taking the tiny steps to complete the journey, writing regularly in short sessions helps us build muscle memory so that we more fluidly slide into the creative project. If we regularly connect to our vision, it becomes clearer—the peak remains within sight; it does not become so easily obscured by the clouds of self doubt. Mosley calls this connecting to your unconscious mind. Although he offers this advice for writers, I think it can apply to all creative disciplines, “If you skip a day or two between your writing sessions, your mind will drift away from the deep moments of your story.”
 
For many of us, it is too easy to put the creative project at the bottom of the to-do list, but if we are able to keep it near the top, with a realistic amount of time allotted to the daily practice, we are more likely to stay in touch with the project. I say realistic because I often set unrealistic goals.
 
For example, even this past weekend, I said to myself: if you don’t work on your current project at least four hours, then you’re not really a writer. (It’s interesting how the inner critic is so ready to help me set up these unrealistic goals). I had to take a deep breath and consider all that I needed to get done—four hours just wasn’t possible. So, instead of chucking the whole venture, I adjusted my expectations and wrote down on my to-do list for both Saturday and Sunday: 30 minutes, memoir project.
 
Once I re-calibrated, I was easily able to complete these tasks. Over the past 14 months, I have written 220 pages of new material, getting closer to the peak of my goal to complete a full memoir by May 2016. By regularly connecting to the material, I am divining the way.
 
Working with small goals doesn’t necessarily fit the picture many of us carry about creativity; we think true genius comes only in inspirational bursts. However, working with incremental goals, we will more likely reach the peak. Step by step, we might climb higher than we ever imagined.
 

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Creativity: How We get stuck and How we break free

7/21/2015

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By Melinda

At Syncreate, we strive to understand the common barriers to creativity and find ways to help people overcome them. We host a monthly Meetup in Austin to bring together creative people working in all genres to share ideas, inspirations, and artistic challenges, and to foster a sense of community. We recently asked a number of our friends and peers about the major obstacles to their creativity, and about what tools or solutions might enhance their creative process.

The response was very enthusiastic; people had a lot to say about this topic, which was quite illuminating, and certainly resonated with our own experiences of the creative process. We found that the most common barriers are self-doubt (including perfectionism, fear of failure, shame, and self-judgment), lack of time or time management, and distractions.

One friend, a professional musician, composer, instrument maker and tuner, answered “One word - doubt - what all other obstacles boil down to. The antidote for me is anything that eliminates that doubt and it most often comes in the form of simple, mindful recalling that the internal dialogue that often gives rise to doubt is simply chatter and only has the power I give it.”

Another respondent, a writer, exclaimed, “Intimidation. Sometimes the stories in my head feel bigger than me…Sometimes, the laundry needs to be folded, or the toilets cleaned, or the animals fed (including the human animals), priorities that seem like they are supposed to come first. But mostly, I can't tell when I have gone too far or not far enough. The vulnerable bits feel ugly, or embarrassing.”

The number one solution that people identified (and seemed most excited about), above even time management, accountability, money, and focus, was finding a sense of community, including support from others and feedback on creative work. Indeed, creativity and art-making can often be very solitary endeavors, which can lead to a sense of loneliness and isolation. At Syncreate, part of our mission is to facilitate communication, collaboration, and community in service of the creative process. We are actively developing new tools to both support individual creativity through time management, accountability, and inspiration, and to help foster creative communities and collaboration. Over the coming months, we will be sharing more of our discoveries and creative tools, so please stay connected with us through social media and our website, syncreate.org.


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Other Ways of Imagining the World: Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Hearing the Stories Around Us

4/29/2015

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By Charlotte

Recently, I finished reading Thomas King’s The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. This short collection of essays weaves together both personal and political narratives, with an underlying premise that our world is shaped by the stories we hear and choose to believe. This book reinforced my belief that multiple perspectives and viewpoints matter, that we all need to keep our minds and hearts open to experiences other than our own or those that confirm our viewpoints.

In this work, King allows different kinds of stories to glide alongside each other, demonstrating the possibility that multiple narratives each have power and merit. We don’t necessarily need to privilege one narrative over another; the world is more complex than that, and if we limit our exposure to a narrow set of stories, we undercut our understanding and connection to the larger community. In essence, listening to a variety of narratives is essential to our critical and creative thinking.

If you’re interested in documenting the stories around you, in learning more about the people in your life through the narratives they carry within, you might find this app useful and exciting. Story Corps, known for the tales they collect and archive, as developed this app that allows users to record, document, and upload the stories they collect. Once uploaded, they become part of the living body of narrative in the library of Congress. To hear the Ted Talk, click here: Ted Talk about Story Corps and its App.
 
Our stories matter—maybe more than ever. To transcend our despair, to open our ways of knowing the world, to finding the empathy that connects, let’s listen.

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Art, Meditation, and the Creative Process - An Interview with Steven Saitzyk

2/17/2015

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By Melinda

I recently completed the Shambhala Art teacher training program in Los Angeles with one of my beloved teachers and mentors, Steven Saitzyk. A longtime student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the renowned Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, Steve is a talented artist and art professor, and one of the premier Western teachers of contemplative arts. He helped to develop the Shambhala Art curriculum, based in Buddhist meditation and mindfulness traditions, and he recently released a wonderful book called Place Your Thoughts Here: Meditation for the Creative Mind that describes how meditation can enhance and enliven the creative process. I had the pleasure of interviewing Steve for our blog about meditation, creativity, and art-making:

Melinda: For artists and creatives who have never practiced meditation, how would you briefly describe the potential benefits of meditation for one's art-making process? 

Steve: Finding just the ‘right’ psychological place to start one’s art making can be stressful.  I call the search for that place, “finding a place to land.”  People often develop little rituals in order to do just that.  But, those rituals themselves can become distractions.  I once knew a famous screenwriter who would repeatedly circumnavigate his computer until he felt he could take his seat and begin to write.  It could take quite some time and frequently did not work.  Developing a mindfulness meditation practice teaches us how we can place our mind where we want it to be.  It helps us find that psychological space in which to land so we can begin.  Meditation could be seen as a more efficient and less stressful way of arriving at a starting, or restarting, point.  It provides the mental space for insight to arise and be recognized as such.  If our heads are constantly filled with stuff, there is little room for something new and inspirational to take form.  This increased awareness is the natural outcome of practicing mindfulness meditation.  Meditation also helps us with our viewing process so we can see our work with fresh eyes and even glimpse how others might perceive the result of our creative process. 

Melinda: In your experience as both a meditation practitioner / teacher and art professor, how would you compare and contrast traditional Western and Buddhist approaches to art and creativity?

Steve: For the most part, I feel that the Western approach to art and art making over-emphasizes self-expression and narrative.  A Buddhist or meditative approach examines this by posing the question: What is the “self” that is being expressed?  Is it ego, or what?  A meditative approach advocates that we would be best served if we focused less on the “self” and more on the expression part of the creative process. Such an approach is called pure expression rather than self-expression, because one has learned through meditation how to let go of the relentless self-referencing, self-dialoging, self-consciousness, self-criticism, and so on, for at least a few moments, in favor of being relaxed, present, tuned-in, and responsive.  Which, by the way, is not all that easy to do, but meditation sure helps.  In terms of narrative, a meditative approach questions why we need to make a story out of everything we see, hear, taste, and so on.  We might even ask why we need to make a story out of everything we do.  Not everything is, or has, a story.  Some things could be an experience, something to just appreciate. 

Melinda: How has your own creative process evolved over the years, particularly once you began practicing meditation? And how has your art itself evolved?

Steve: I learned to trust not only who I am, but who I am not.  My creative process has been one of learning that I can come back to what some call square one, or what I call original space, and trust it.  That has been profound for me.  I have come to better appreciate that discovering original space is not just a one-time event, but a process of returning to it over and over again in deeper and more inclusive ways.  As for my own art, over the past decade, it can be loosely be described as a synthesis of abstraction and conceptual ideas.   I use words, sometimes barely visible words, on, or in, a multicolored ground.  I love the exploration of the place between felt sense and thought sense, where experience takes shape into thought and thought dissolves back into experience.  You can see my work at www.stevensaitzyk.com.

Melinda: What's one piece of advice you would give to people experiencing a creative block, or who feel stuck with respect to their creative process?

Steve: If I have to offer only one, it would certainly be to develop a mindfulness meditation practice.  One of the things people learn in practicing meditation is to not take themselves so seriously.  After all, if we look at meditation practice, it would seem absurd.  You choose to develop a practice to achieve certain goals such as to be more mindful, aware, and kind to yourself and others, but while you are practicing meditation you have to totally give up any hope of ever achieving anything.  And, somehow that works. 

With creative block we worry where the next inspiration is going to come from.  We search all over the place.  We try to think something up.  We can’t seem to do it.  And, yet when we sit and meditate we are essentially practicing the art of doing nothing, all the while we cannot seem to stop things from arising.  It is like something my late teacher said.  We each have our own stinky pile of manure, which we try to get rid of, and then we go to the nursery and buy other peoples manure in which to plant our garden.  We could have just used our own manure.  Inspiration is arising all the time, but we don’t recognize it from all the stuff that arises, so we toss it all out, or ignore it.  Meditation is like taking a break.  It provides the opportunity to feel some spaciousness, to take a fresh look and see what naturally arises and then to try it out, and then take another fresh look, and try that, and so on.  Relax, something will arise, you cannot stop it from doing so.  You just need to be present enough to perceive it.  Meditation helps us with being present even when we are not meditating.  That is called meditation-in-action.

Melinda: How is Place Your Thoughts Here: Meditation for the Creative Mind different from other books on art, creativity, and/or meditation? 

There are books that talk about meditation.  There are books that talk about art.  There are books that talk about both in parallel, but my book specifically talks about how meditation and one’s creative process work together, how they inform and benefit each other.  I also explain the contemplative viewing process, and take on subjects that others steer away from such as the source of originality, conditional and unconditional beauty, presence, and the sublime and how each of them not only applies  to our creative process, but how we live our lives. 

Steven Saitzyk is an Adjunct Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Art Center College of Design and the International Director of Shambhala Art, a nonprofit arts education program designed to integrate meditation into the creative process. See: www.shambhalaart.org and www.stevensaitzyk.com.  He is a painter, author, and has practiced and taught meditation internationally for more than thirty-five years. 


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The Importance of Drawing and Drooling

1/15/2015

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By Charlotte


The other day, I asked my ten-year-old daughter to take an hour break from technology. I suggested she could read, draw, or drool. “Did you say drool?” my husband said.

I did say drool—I’m of the firm mind that spacing out or staring at a blank wall and drooling (just a little. I’m not suggesting copious amounts here) are essential for creative thoughts. There’s something about letting the brain have a break that opens the possibility for new connections, associations, and insights. The topic of whether or not spacing out is an essential part of the creative process was recently covered in an NPR story, “Bored and Brilliant: A Challenge to Disconnect from Your Phone.” The article explores how smartphones may be negatively impacting our creative lives. The coverage also nicely underscores the point that boredom is a necessary component of new ways of thinking.

At Syncreate, we maintain that technology can be an asset but it is the judicious use of the many technologies that can create the necessary space for imaginative wonderings and wanderings. The simple act of doodling might allow the brain to diverge into the multitude of thoughts, influences, and conversations we have in a given day. Without filling our “brain space” with new stimuli, we become open to the possibilities of connections, associations, and links necessary for creative thinking.

From the NPR story: “Studies suggest that we get our most original ideas when we stop the constant stimulation and let ourselves get bored, Zomorodi says.” This article also asserts that there might be other, deeper impacts of our technological habits: “Studies also show that smartphones impinge on our ability to do ‘autobiographical planning’ or goal setting, which may keep us even more stuck in a rut.”

If you are interested in tracking your own smartphone use and exploring whether or not you might need to draw and drool a bit more, there is a challenge to track your phone usage using an app (which is a funny little irony) called Moment. Beginning February 2, the “Bored and Brilliant” challenge lasts for a week, asking participants to consider how phones might be draining their creatively. If you’re interested, sign up here: Bored and Brilliant.

Either way, we hope that you take some time away from your phone and allow for the connective associations waiting for you inside the boredom.

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Books to re-ignite your creativity and life force

12/17/2014

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By Melinda and Charlotte

Over the past year, we’ve both explored so many resources for creativity, writing, learning, embodiment, storytelling, and healing. Here are some of our favorite books that would make great gifts for yourself or someone whose creative journey you’d like to support.

Melinda’s List:

-  Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul, by Shaun McNiff (insights from art therapy)

-  Place Your Thoughts Here: Meditation for the Creative Mind, Steven Saitzyk (meditation and the creative process)

- In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, Peter Levine (embodiment, healing, and self-actualization)

- The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World, David Abram (relating with the phenomenal world via the sense perceptions)

- Expressive Writing: Words that Heal, James Pennebaker and John Evans (the healing benefits of writing)

Charlotte’s List:

-  Are You My Mother?: A Comic Tragic, Alison Bechdel (graphic novel exploring primary relationships)

- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie (YA novel good for adults)

- The Re-Enactments, Nick Flynn (memoir about family, memory and self)

- The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative, Vivian Gornick (guidance for writing memoir and personal essays)

- No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, Daniel Siegel (positive parenting)

You can see that our titles cover a wide range of topics - we hope there’s something here to launch you into the new year with inspiration and joy.

-Melinda and Charlotte
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Technical Tools for Creativity, Meaning, and Connection

11/25/2014

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By Charlotte

I was recently invited to participate in a Creativity and Technology panel at Austin Community College – I said yes, pleased to have the opportunity to share how I see the intersection between tools (technology) and expression/agency (creativity). It was a pleasure to sit with four other professionals and hear their perspectives on the role of technology in their various fields: photography, education, and large-scale sculpture.

I see technology as a means for students to gain agency and artistry—if educators provide opportunities for learners to reflect, consider, and connect their experiences and ideas, we’re all richer for the exploration, and available technology is one means for this exploration.

Technology, for me, is simply another means to forge insights and deepen self-confidence. However, it’s all too easy to feel dogged by all those apps, programs, information, etc., that can flood our daily lives. It’s important to understand that the strategic, intentional use of certain technology can create meaning—otherwise, keeping up with the Jetsons can become just another way to disconnect and fall out of touch with the self and with others. For me, I choose one or two new forms of technology to play with, as a writer and as an educator, and this allows me to feel empowered and in charge, rather than being swept away into the stream of options. For example, this past year, I taught myself iMovie and set up an Instagram account; the year before that, I learned Prezi. iMovie and Prezi are primarily teaching tools, while Instagram allows me to play more with visual images, which feeds my writer’s eye for analogy.

I also talk to students to see what they are using and how—often these discussions lead into bigger issues of time management and disciple, and together, as working artists/writers, we discuss strategies for finding balance and meaningful expression.

At the Digital Media Learning conference I attended in Boston last spring, one session focused solely on the role of technology, creativity, and engaged learning. A panelist put in this way, “Our job in the classroom is to make our students feel confident. And in this job, I always use these three frames: I can, I create, I connect.”

Paper and pen and crayon allowed us to connect and express when we were little. We’ve just received some new toys to explore the same desire: to share our inner selves with power and clarity, to create meaning and connection, to see what is possible.
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The "Softer" side of creativity: How emotions and group dynamics drive organizational creativity and innovation

10/10/2014

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By Melinda

Have you ever stopped to consider how your emotional state affects your creativity, or how interpersonal dynamics, such as trust and a sense of safety, affect your team’s ability to work together effectively? Creativity always happens within a context, and the people and environments we interact with actually play a huge role in our ability to generate fresh ideas and put them into action within a group or organization.  In recent years, creativity researchers have investigated creativity and innovation among individuals in specific professional environments, as well as within teams, organizations, and industries in order to better understand group creativity and innovation, including what factors promote or hinder creativity, and how organizations can facilitate and enhance creativity in order to drive innovation.

Creative problem solving (and question asking) requires both critical and creative thinking, including an ability to apprehend the depth and complexity of the creative task or problem at hand, and to think imaginatively about possible approaches in order to arrive at an original and elegant solution. Indeed, creativity and innovation at the organizational level represent complex interactions between individuals and teams requiring a good deal of empathy, sensitivity, and skillful communication between parties in order to achieve effective collaboration and the best and most harmonious solutions to challenging problems.

A number of studies on organizational creativity have shown that individual-level emotional and affective states, as well as interpersonal and organization-wide dynamics, play a significant role in the creative process. Generally speaking, group creativity benefits from positive affect and activating moods, a feeling of flow that involves task engagement and challenging goals, and a balance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on the part of individual team members. When individuals collaborate in teams and organizations, they thrive on a sense of connection, empathy, trust, and good working relationships.

Teams also benefit tremendously from positive, transformational leadership built on the ability to communicate a larger vision, enroll team members in that vision, and truly listen and receive feedback. It’s important for leaders to allow team members a large degree of individual autonomy and freedom to explore. In contrast, negative mood, an overly controlling leadership style, and a lack of trust and psychological safety among teams can hinder collaboration and creativity in the organizational context. Ultimately, leaders and team members who are able to listen deeply, communicate skillfully, and promote positive affect and organizational climate are those most likely to thrive creatively and drive innovation.


Interested in learning more? Check out these references:

Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1996/2013.

Encyclopedia of Creativity, 2nd Edition, Edited by Mark Runco and Steve Pritzker, San Diego: Academic Press, 2011.

Group creativity: Innovation through collaboration Edited by Paul Paulus and Bernard Nijstad. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Handbook of Organizational Creativity, Edited by Michael Mumford. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2012.

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Humor's Power and PlaceĀ 

9/13/2014

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By Charlotte

I love a good laugh; as a teacher, I often use humor to (hopefully) create an atmosphere where students will take risks, to share vulnerable material, and to take themselves a little less seriously. However, when I write, humor usually slips away. Perhaps because I grew up in a religion that asserted Bible stories were literal, I feel a certain heavy-handedness or responsibility when creating a narrative.

As I draft the memoir for my MFA program, I’m trying to cultivate a greater facility with humor. One permission-giving thought came from my mentor, Melissa Febos. She suggested that humor is a form of mercy.

My, did this idea resonate—and quite possibly—because mercy is a lofty, high-minded concept, on the same level as a literal story. This idea has been percolating, and then two nights ago, I looked up mercy’s definition, to better understand its meaning and nuances.

Webster’s defines it as: compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm. This is pretty trippy, to think that I might show compassion instead of being punitive; or put another way, have I been punishing my readers? This is a question to inform the rest of my writing life.

In an attempt to understand humor’s chemical dance in the brain, I’ve been reading Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why by Scott Weems who holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA. This book has lots of insight and a few that struck are:

-“Humor happens when we connect with other people and share their struggles and confusion” (xi).

“Humor is a process, one that reflects the times and needs of its audience. It’s the social or psychological working through of ideas that are not easily handed by our conscious minds” (xii).

“The same processes that give us humor also contribute to insight, creativity, and even psychological health” (xiv).

-“Women tend to laugh less as they get older, but not men” (xiii).

The last one gave me pause; it made me want to cry—see, I’m already getting older. In my non-writing life, laughing is as essential as breathing (and thank goodness, I am married to one of the world’s funniest people). On the page, I need to think about ways to bring surprise, mercy, and relief in the density of material I’m working with. When I revise, if I’ll remember that humor is a means to connect with other people as well as an act of mercy, I’ll move toward a work that is textured with both meaning and mirth. In the process, I might more effectively connect with readers and keep myself younger. Here’s to the chuckle waiting to be found in the work.

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Shambhala Art: meditative mind and the creative process

8/2/2014

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By Melinda

This past January, I had the opportunity to complete a teacher training for Shambhala Art, a curriculum I had been studying since I began going to the Austin Shambhala Center seven years ago. Because of my creative leanings, I was drawn to the Shambhala Art path because of its synthesis of meditation and creativity, and its approach to the creative process, emphasizing direct experience via the five senses, engagement with the phenomenal world, and the state of mind of both artist and viewer/perceiver. Plus, Shambhala Art is playful, with exercises designed to wake us up and connect us powerfully with the world around us as we create art.

As a songwriter, I had often found myself struggling for inspiration, or approaching the creative process as "work," with little joy or spontaneity. When I began studying Shambhala Art and other contemplative arts
disciplines like Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) and Miksang (contemplative photography), I began to see the world and the creative process in a new way, which brought more freshness and dynamism to my songwriting process. The contemplative arts have also helped me to see my whole life with fresh eyes, and to understand the artful nature of everyday activities like gardening, cooking, and the way I dress and decorate my home.

The Shambhala Art curriculum is based in the teachings of Tibetan Buddhist teacher and Shambhala founder Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, condensed into the book True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art. The curriculum is divided into five distinct programs programs which explore the creative process from the perspective of the Buddhist teachings on mindfulness and meditation, and can be applied to any artistic medium or practice. I will be co-teaching a Shambhala Art weekend, along with my mentor Lynn Wolfe, the weekend of August 16-17, at the Austin Shambhala Meditation Center. The weekend will cover Shambhala Art Parts 1 & 2: “Coming to Your Senses,” and “Seeing Things as They Are.”

For more information about the upcoming Shambhala Art weekend in Austin and to register, please visit http://austin.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=178441. For more information about the Shambhala Art curriculum more generally, please visit the Shambhala Art International website at http://www.shambhalaart.org/.


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Narrative Resonance

6/5/2014

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By Charlotte 

During the spring semester, 2014, I had the awesome opportunity to teach a Digital Storytelling class. I became inspired to do so last summer, when I attended a traveled to Cleveland for the 6th annual International Conference on Conflict Resolution Studies. 

One of the sessions I attended discussed digital storytelling as a means to render moments of social justice and activism. Listening and watching these short memoir pieces come to life with image, narration, and audio layers including music, I fell in love. I wanted to create such pieces and I wanted to lead other people through this process.  Even though I’d never worked with movie-maker technology before, I felt like this format could be a powerful and vibrant way to help writers find the right important moments to bring to the digital storytelling realm.

Despite the challenges with the gadgetry, and my bumblings as a first-time teacher of a new way of creating narrative resonance, it was a terrific success on many levels. We built community, we repeatedly discussed the power of storytelling, and we dove into our vulnerabilities with specificity and an eye for the way “turns” can evoke surprise and transformation. By allowing for an emotional shifts within the narratives, we discovered that our audiences felt more connected to the piece. To learn more about turns, we examined poetry with an eye for the ways a distilled piece of writing could include pivotal shifts.

We had frank discussions about technology—what worked, what didn’t, where one could turn for help with challenges. The students learned as much from each other as they did from me, and it’s been a gift to read their cover letters, including their advice to possible future students:

"You will learn much about the writing process, and about creativity, and about being a giver."

“Sincerity and honesty become easier as you get acquainted with yourself.”

"My parting advice is: keep your eyes open--to the beautiful stories surrounding you and the ones within you."

A digital story is a short memoir piece of about 200 words, augmented with visual images, audio layering (if desired) and music. That’s the technical definition. I think the emotional definition goes something like this: it’s another powerful means for connecting with others and creating coherence for one’s self.  For a look at my second piece, where I examine my role as a writer in the context of my family, click here: A Separate Gaze


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Embodied Creativity: Fully Present and Alive

4/30/2014

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By Melinda

“Ultimately, the embodied life would be one in which the physical body, feelings, and mind are being expressed creatively in congruence with each other and with the changing nature of reality.” –Diana Halprin

(Living Artfully: Movement as an Integrative Process, 1999)

The body possesses enormous knowledge and wisdom of which the conscious mind is often only dimly aware. In fact, the activities and awareness of the conscious mind represent only a tiny fraction of what is occurring constantly in the body in the form of automatic physiological processes, incoming information from the sense perceptions, and non-conscious brain activities. However, many researchers acknowledge that embodied knowing, while often pre-verbal and thus largely unconscious, remains no less real or powerful than other, more conscious forms of wisdom.

While a good deal of psychological research has focused on empirically measurable aspects of human mental phenomena, a growing number of psychologists working within humanistic, transpersonal, and depth-psychological frameworks have begun to seriously investigate non-conscious psychological processes. Similarly, researchers in the emerging fields of cognitive neuroscience and consciousness studies have acknowledged the important role the body and emotions play in psychological functioning and this emphasis on embodiment and embodied experience has also extended into theories of learning and education.

The theme of embodiment also finds a natural home within the fields of psychotherapy, transpersonal psychology, and expressive arts therapy. In my graduate work in creativity studies, I am exploring how psychological theories of embodiment relate to creativity, and how a deeper awareness of embodiment on the part of both researchers and practitioners can both support and enhance the creative process.

So, what does embodied creativity look like, and how can we put it into practice? The fields of art therapy and expressive arts therapy, as well as the contemplative arts disciplines rooted in Buddhist meditation, philosophy, and aesthetics, offer some intriguing possibilities. These disciplines have carefully considered the relationship between perception, sensation, lived somatic experience, creativity, and meaning, and have developed particular ways of cultivating creativity by encouraging imagination, artistic expression, mindfulness, and an enhanced relationship with the world via embodied practices.

Expressive arts therapy aims to foster a deep sense of integration and congruence between the individual and her or his wider webs of belonging through embodied creative practice and expression. According to Diana Halprin (1999),

To live in our bodies, in our families and communities on this planet with greater awareness and sensitivity to the sanctity of life is the goal of expressive arts therapy. In order to bring this vision to life, we must begin by developing a more creative relationship with ourselves and with the issues that separate us. (p. 133)

Expressive arts therapies employ a variety of different creative and artistic disciplines, such as visual art, music, dance, writing, and ritual to effect healing, growth, and transformation.

Practitioners of expressive arts therapy create a sacred space in which clients can experience play, improvisation, and other creative explorations which can yield new insights and new ways of being in the world, as they grapple with suffering and trauma. Expressive arts practices emphasizing movement and dance specifically address how living in a fully embodied way can facilitate greater awareness about the wisdom of our bodies, as well as how our physical presence informs our engagement with life:

We can use the language of the movement arts to bring our separated parts together into conscious and creative relationship…We literally move throughout our lives, yet rarely do we pay attention to how we are moving and what we are expressing in how we move. Stored in our muscles, bones and organs, in each body part and body posture, are the imprints of our life experiences. The body is full of information about who we are, how we feel and what we think – a living body anthology. (Halprin, 1999, p. 133)

Expressive arts therapy thus utilizes techniques of creative embodiment to bring embodied experience and wisdom into conscious awareness for the sake of healing and greater integration.

The Buddhist contemplative arts, rooted in meditation practice and Buddhist philosophy, also offer time-honored techniques for working with the body and mind, using the breath and mindfulness practices, to facilitate embodied creativity. Indeed, according to Reginald Ray (2008), embodiment is inseparable from enlightenment, the ultimate goal of Buddhist meditation practice:

To be awake, to be enlightened, is to be fully and completely embodied. To be fully embodied means to be at one with who we are, in every respect, including our physical being, our emotions, and the totality of our karmic situation. It is to be entirely present to who we are and to the journey of our own becoming (Touching Enlightenment, p. xv).

In this context, Chogyam Trungpa has presented a path of dharma art rooted in Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, which emphasizes the synchronization of body and mind, practices aimed at direct perception of the phenomenal world via the sense organs, and the principle of first thought, which cultivates non-conceptual mind. In Trungpa’s view, meditation practice supports our natural ability to relate with our sense perceptions and our direct experience. The dharma art path lays out a philosophy and approach to creativity that cultivates an appreciation of beauty and sacredness in everyday life, and pays particular attention to the process of art making and the state of mind of the artist, grounded in the physical body and perceptual experience.

Similarly, the Japanese Zen Buddhist tradition has developed a number of contemplative arts practices, such as calligraphy, gardening, ikebana (Japanese flower arranging), Chado (tea ceremony), and Kyodu (archery) designed to bring the meditative experience into everyday life. As John Daido Loori (2004) explained:

Each artist expresses through art his unique way of experiencing life. This is the essence of creation. Through our art we bring into existence something that did not previously exist. We enlarge the universe…The creative process fulfills our need to express our experience. And if the expression has been true, we will feel a sense of completion and satisfaction. (The Zen of Creativity, p. 84)

The Zen arts traditions thus cultivate creativity as a type of embodied, post-meditation practice which, in humanistic terms, nurtures the human drive toward self-actualization and wholeness.

Expressive arts therapies and the Buddhist contemplative arts disciplines provide examples for how embodied creativity may be put into practice, and for what purpose. My explorations of this topic so far reveal that creative expression based in fully embodied experience can facilitate the integration of unconscious and somatic material into conscious awareness for the purpose of healing, personal growth and self-actualization, transpersonal states of consciousness, and meaning making. In my view, an embodied approach to creativity opens up many possibilities for how individuals, therapists, and coaches may incorporate creativity into everyday life and practice, as well as how educators and organizational leaders may more meaningfully integrate creativity into classrooms and organizational settings.

Resources for Further Exploration of Embodied Creativity:

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (1996). Creativity: The psychology of discovery and invention. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Daido Loori, John. (2005). The Zen of creativity: Cultivating your artistic life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Damasio, Antonio. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Haidt, Jonathan. (2006). The happiness hypothesis: Finding modern truth in ancient wisdom. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Halprin, Daria. (1999). Living artfully: Movement as an integrative process. In S. K. Levine & E. G. Levine (Eds.). Foundations of expressive arts therapy: Theoretical and clinical perspectives. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Levine, Stephen & Ellen. (1999). Foundations of expressive arts therapy: Theoretical and clinical perspectives. Philadelphia, P: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
May, Rollo. (1975). The courage to create. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co.
McNiff, Shawn. (2004). Art heals: How creativity cures the soul. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications.
Ray, Reginald. (2008). Touching enlightenment: Finding realization in the body. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
Richards, Ruth. (2007). Everyday creativity and new views of human nature: Psychological, social, and spiritual perspectives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Trungpa, Chogyam. (2008). True perception: The path of dharma art. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications. (Original work published 1996)
Varela, Francisco, Thompson, Evan, & Rosch, Eleanor. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
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The Creative Pause

3/3/2014

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By Charlotte

While the creative process can be hard to map, emerging studies show that engagement of the brain’s prefrontal cortex is key. Indeed, this area of the brain needs to focus and work diligently – and then! It needs a break, a time away from the problem at hand, which is known in creativity studies as the incubation period. This is such an important element of creativity to understand – the process does require dedicated time and attention, but it also demands a breather, a chance to gain perspective, an opportunity for expansiveness.

For all creatives, but especially beginners, it is essential to know this. I have found, through my own experience and that of my students, when we begin to feel tired or burned out, we often walk away from direct engagement with a project informed by a sense of defeat. However, the science is revealing that this movement away from conscious focus on an idea, an image, or a lyrical phrase, is a key ingredient in the path to clarity and insight, and maybe even transformation.

So, the impulse to take a walk, or a shower, or to pace around the house – these are not necessarily moments of avoidance. Rather, they are all part of the healthy rhythms of the creative process. This often runs counter to what people think about when their best work happens. Yes, a deadline may force product (and this is why small deadlines can help us reach our larger ones), but it’s important to build in rest periods. The resulting work will often be clearer and more powerful.

If we take this idea – a small break as essential to a given creative project – and build upon it, it’s interesting to explore the ways a fuller break from a product-driven focus might deepen our creative life. What if, through restorative time and a community of support, we had the chance to get quiet within ourselves—would we then have even greater insights?  

I think the answer is yes, but I’ve learned that transformation can be both subtle and raucous, and I’ve learned to be patient when the wide-sweeping insights I had expected don’t take place. Perhaps, like the creative process itself, a single thought or modest impulse will bloom into fuller presence through a series of pauses. Maybe over time, with enough support and gentle inner attention, the insights will accumulate into a relationship with creativity that is based in trust, expansiveness, and radiance.

Nursing and nourishing these impulses can take many forms, and Syncreate invites you to commit to your own creative rhythms and quiet impulses. As part of that commitment, please consider joining us for our “Deepening Your Creative Life” retreat, April 4-6, 2014, in Marble Falls, Texas.

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Weaving Personal Narrative into Public Speaking and Professional Life

2/11/2014

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By Charlotte & Melinda

In business, success requires the ability to connect and resonate with colleagues, employees, vendors, and clients. The path to authentic connection begins with sharing our ideas and experiences, yet many struggle with the level of vulnerability needed for true connection, which can often be perceived as weakness in the professional context. We suggest that appropriate vulnerability can actually establish credibility and create opportunities for collaborative thinking and connection, as well as foster professional growth.

We understand the hesitation; we’ve been taught to adopt strict roles in the workplace, which emphasize a separation of the personal from the professional in order to be successful. However, emerging research in psychology and sociology emphasizes the power of storytelling and personal narrative to create meaning and connection, especially in the age of statistics and “big data.” For example, Brene Brown, PhD, who has spent her academic career studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame offers, “Maybe stories are just data with soul.” Furthermore, in recent LinkedIn article, Shane Snow (Chief Creative Officer for Contently), suggests that storytelling will be the number one business skill of the next five years.

At the 6th International Conference on Conflict Resolution Education, Mark Schulte, Education Director for the Pulitzer Center, offered a keynote address entitled “Telling Better Stories.” Mark began by sharing a short anecdote about a recent interview with the president of an international banking organization. He had asked the executive: “What is the number one trait that all people must have to be successful?” Much to Mark’s surprise, the response was “empathy.”

At the root of a good story is the power of empathy – the ability to create emotional connections that resonate between individuals and across the human experience. Indeed, current neuroscience research shows that listening to a story activates the same neural pathways that fire when one is actually experiencing the events of the story, literally creating the experience of empathy. Once a connection is made, listeners are much more likely to align with the speaker and to feel invested in the subject matter.

Melinda has found that when teaching or facilitating discussion groups, it’s easy to hide behind her “religious studies professor” title, which can end up creating a sense of separation from the group. However, when she steps beyond that role and begins sharing her own personal stories and experiences, the group in turn becomes more receptive and more willing to discuss their own. Her personal stories, especially of her own challenges and uncertainties, create an atmosphere of invitation and engagement that allows participants the opportunity to acknowledge and share their own difficulties. The dialogue then becomes more authentic and embodied rather than abstract and theoretical.

Charlotte, as Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College, uses storytelling in both her classes and in her various positions on committees. Recently, while making a presentation on success equity to a group of higher education professionals, she decided to start by asking how many people in the room had actually attended a community college. Only about a fifth of the attendees raised their hands, including Charlotte. This question created an entry point for discussing the different experiences and resources students bring to their educational aspirations. “As a first time college student,” she shared, “I was looking for a reason to not belong – I was waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to leave.” She shared this experience in order to underscore the sense of inadequacy students might feel while attending a community college. Instead of talking about the data first, Charlotte grounded her presentation with the emotions she wanted to highlight. She also established a connection with those in the room that had not gone to a four-year university immediately out of high school—she found her education companions, so to speak—and this increased her confidence. In opening up and allowing a moment of possible vulnerability, she created a more resilient space for the presentation.

Not only do vulnerability and storytelling create connection, they can also transform individuals, relationships, and organizations. As Brene Brown observes: “vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” We communicate our vulnerability through sharing our stories, and we all have stories to tell. As Charlotte often tells her students, stories are the great denominators; they evidence our shared humanity.

While this may all sound compelling in theory, how do we decide which stories to use in a professional setting? When considering whether to weave a personal moment into a work presentation, we suggest asking yourself these three questions:

1)    What common foundation do I have with this group? Thinking about the points of connection with a group/client can create an opportunity for empathy and resonance.

2)    What emotions do I want to inform this session? A careful consideration of the emotional bedrock of a meeting/presentation can greatly increase the success and power of the associated outcomes.

3)    Why am I telling this story? Considering why is key. Without an understanding of why, we might easily get off track and/or veer into victimization rather than creating connection.

Once you have done some thinking/talking/journaling about the why of a specific story, it’s time to consider what story to tell.

Here are a few guidelines for weaving a story into the professional setting:

• Know the essence of your story. Think about the universal emotions of love, loss, joy, anger, shame, and grief – what is the emotional resonance of the story?

• Key details create connections – what sounds, smells, tastes, or touches, informed the situation? Our stories live in our bodies, and it is through the visceral you will create resonance. Remember, use a light touch here; just a couple of sensory details can transport an audience into a moment.

• Don’t tell the most recent story. The brain, body, and heart need time to process, and sharing your most recent vulnerabilities may undermine your professional aims.

If you’re looking for resources to deepen your own connection to the power of storytelling, we suggest listening any of these shows: Radiolab, The Moth, and Ira Glass’ “This American Life.”

If you’re interested in diving into your own stories in a supported environment, join us for our Storytelling for Life workshop on Sunday, February, 23, 1:00-4:00 at Soma Vida, 1210 Rosewood Ave, Austin, Texas 78702

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Creative Connections and Cross-Pollinations

2/3/2014

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By Melinda.

I just returned from the Spring 2014 Saybrook University Residential Conference in San Francisco. Each semester of my Ph.D. program in Psychology / Creativity Studies begins with such a gathering; it is a time for students and faculty to come together to share knowledge and research, to network, and to bond. This was my second residential conference, and I attended seminars on Buddhism and healing; positive psychology and film; and dreamwork, including dream poetry and dream theater.  

During the conference, I had the opportunity to give a presentation on Holocaust Art, based on my recent trip to Eastern Europe with my friend and mentor Jake Lorfing. We had planned the trip to explore the possibility of leading a contemplative arts retreat for photography and writing at Auschwitz. While visiting the camps at Terezin (Czech Republic) and Auschwitz (Poland), I was struck by the prevalence of art and creativity under unimaginable circumstances, prisoners’ efforts to remain connected to their humanity. Most heartbreaking to me were the exhibits of children’s art, including drawings dedicated to “Maman” and “Mutterlein” (“mother” in French and German, respectively), and the stark realization that 1.5 million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust. Feel free to email us if you’d like to view the PowerPoint slide show I created for the Saybrook Presentation.

Also at the Saybrook conference, I had the pleasure of co-facilitating a workshop on “Embodied Creativity” with my friend and colleague Michael Brabant of Integral Awakening, who will be in Austin this week to lead a “Culture of Connection” retreat (February 7-9). Michael and I will also be offering an expanded version of the workshop we presented at Saybrook, called “Embodying the Muse: Where Creativity and Spiritual Awakening Converge” on February 6th at Soma Vida. In an intimate and inclusive setting, we’ll be exploring how movement, breathwork, and deep listening can reconnect us with our bodies and sense perceptions, thus enhancing our everyday creativity.

I am looking forward to my courses this semester, particularly “Perspectives on Creativity” with Dr. Steve Pritzker, and “Personal Mythology and Dreamwork” with Ruth Richards, M.D./Ph.D. I feel energized and inspired by the synergy between my academic studies of creativity and my work with Syncreate. I am particularly eager to explore the connections between my coursework for this semester and our upcoming “Storytelling for Life” workshop (February 23rd), as well as our spring“Deepening Your Creative Life” retreat (April 4-6). Every day seems to bring new creative insights, connections, and cross-fertilizations between my studies and my professional work.

I also recently completed a Shambhala Art Intensive and Teacher Training program in Los Angeles. Shambhala Art emphasizes direct, fresh experience of the world using the sense perceptions, a contemplative approach to creativity and art making based in meditation practice.  I will be officially co-teaching my first Shambhala Art program at the Austin Shambhala Meditation Center on 19-20, 2014.

It is incredibly gratifying to me to simultaneously study, witness, experience, and facilitate the transformative power of creativity, and I look forward to a year filled with creative explorations. I hope you’ll join us for one of our upcoming creativity events!
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