Creativity.  It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean?

How do we define creativity, and how do we understand the creative process itself? At Syncreate we see creativity very broadly. Humans, by our very nature, are creative beings. We adapt. We problem solve. We innovate. And to be creative is to bring together aspects of our emotional, psychological, and spiritual selves. 

I’m Melinda Rothouse, PhD, and I help individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life. On the Syncreate podcast, I’ll be sharing stories of the creative journey with you. On this show we’ll talk to changemakers and visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.

​We'll talk about surprising sources of inspiration. We’ll consider the physical nature of creativity and how it lives in our bodies, we’ll look at how we can use creativity to steward change for ourselves and others.  And we’ll explore what it feels like to be infused with creativity. 

Join us on the Syncreate podcast. 

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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. 
​
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.

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!

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. ​

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.

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

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.

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!

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.
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/.

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

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.