Category Archives: Raw Creativity

Clearing Clutter and Blocked Energy for Ideal Creative Flow

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

One of the biggest setbacks to pursuing your creative dreams and challenges usually involves blocked energy from clutter of some sort or another. This clutter is usually in the form of mental clutter or physical cutter.

Examples of physical clutter could include a messy home, unorganized closets and drawers, piled up dirty laundry or dishes (or even clean laundry or dishes that you haven’t put away), etc.

Examples of mental clutter could involve negative mindsets, beliefs that disempower you, fears of some sort or another (the “fear” scale is great, but even a mild fear such as a worry can harm one’s creative flow), or some tedious mental task you’ve put off for a long time, such as doing your taxes.

Slowly but surely, I’ve been working on clearing the various types of clutter in my life so that I can create a brilliant clean slate for upcoming creative challenges.

[As a side note, I’d like to point out that one need not address and clear all forms of clutter before taking on a creative challenge. Sometimes the chaos of clutter can even prove to act as some kind of creative catalyst or stimuli. More often than not, however, I’d say that clutter acts to block creative flow, so it’s a better idea to clear — and keep clear — as much clutter as you can.]

One of the huge mental clutter blocks I’ve been carrying around with me for a long time is the task of catching up on my taxes. I put off doing it for many (many) years. I found the task daunting because it involved doing them in a way I had never done before (claiming various business/professional costs for contract work, for example), and I had let that one initial year pile up many succeeding years… and on top of that, moving apartments/houses a number of times and traveling a lot also put a big slow-down on this task. With each passing year, it simply got more and more daunting.

Finally… FINALLY, I am all caught up on processing all of my overdue taxes.

(I still have yet to submit taxes for last year, but they aren’t even accepting returns yet for last year until later this month!) It’s a huge creative-energy blocker that’s finally off of my shoulders and mind. WooHoo!!!

Other things I’ve been working on are maintaining positive habits such as making the bed as soon as I get up. It’s kind of amazing how this little action can help make my mind feel so much more disciplined and creative throughout the rest of the day.

I’m usually pretty on top of dishes, but have been making even more of a concerted effort to keep the clutter low in this area.

I still have yet to declutter my email inbox (I’m signed up to WAY too many mailing lists), and I’ve been meaning to attend to some mending for some time too. These tasks are definitely important, but attending to them doesn’t feel quite as important as finally clearing away that energy-block that consisted of my overdue tax returns.

I’m really excited to get back on track to diving deep into some kick-ass creative projects this year! 🙂

One type of clutter that I’d like to clear away is of a mental nature, and it involves various kinds of fears, anxieties or worries that I feel have been holding me back in some way.

As such, I want to use this blog to air some of this type of clutter. I’m pretty sure that doing so will help me to clear up even more blocked creative energy.

Expect a few very vulnerable subsequent posts as I write with the intent of clearing my mental blocks and paving the way for awesome, powerful creative flow.

Namaste, my friends.

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The Instrumental Music of Being

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The Instrumental Music of Being

“Music is an outburst of the soul.”
― Frederick Delius

I’ve been taking yoga classes (in Spanish) every weekday while here in San José for the past two weeks. I have a lot of Bikram yoga experience, but since the postures in Bikram yoga are set and never change, I feel as though I have had a very limited exposure to yoga in general; but I certainly enjoy the challenge nonetheless.

I’m improving my Spanish vocabulary little by little each day. I can’t always remember the words I want to use, but I figure with consistent exposure, the language will start to stick more and more during my stay. That said, I don’t always know what Paula, my yoga instructor, is saying; but I can usually pick out words here and there, and I’ve begun to recognize certain terms, postures, body parts, left and right, etc.

In yesterday’s class, her use of the word instrumento stood out for me. Obviously, this is Spanish for the word instrument, but that’s not what struck me about the word.

It’s not uncommon to refer to our bodies as instruments. Such terminology is especially used somewhat commonly in the realm of theatre and performance. But yesterday, as I was laying on my back in Savasana, I began to wonder… “If our bodies are instruments, then… Who is the player? Who is the musician?”

In response to this question, I suppose we can think of our mind as being the musician, and our body the instrument. If this is the case, we must differentiate between the mind and the brain, because the brain is also part of the physical body/instrument; even though mind and brain are usually considered to be synonymous, what we often define as one’s “mind” — personality, thought patterns, etc —  sometimes seems to exist as something apart from the brain.

Case in point: Take Hemispherectomy, a procedure in which half of someone’s brain is surgically removed. Even with half a brain missing, studies have found that those who have undergone such a procedure have not displayed any significant long-term effects in terms of one’s memory, personality, or humor, and minimal changes in cognitive function overall.

I find this to be utterly fascinating.

I hope that some day we will know with precision and certainty where in the brain the mind truly lives, as there’s still so much we don’t fully understand about the brain, the mind, and that magical spark of life that transforms simple carbon matter into a collection of living, growing cells that we call Life.

This path of thought led to me thinking about the possibility of the universe existing as an entity unto itself. What if the entire universe is akin to some kind of living and breathing organism? What if the evolution of the universe is merely representative of its ongoing growth process, where the big bang denotes its moment of inception? Or, what if its own evolution is not too unlike that of our own species? What if conscious beings in the universe somehow have the same impact as the trillions of bacteria we have in our own system? …What if, like bacteria in humans, we as conscious beings are somehow essential to the health, development, and evolution of the universe as a whole?

Maybe we are but elements of the larger instrument that is the universe, not too unlike the strings of a violin or a piano.

If we are instruments, then we are simultaneously composers and musicians, composing and playing out the melodies, harmonies, and dissonances of our own lives.

How will the music of your life sound?

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