Edward Prince Furniture Design - Creativity - How to be more creative - Attunement

 

Creativity - Attunement

"A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow". Charles Brower

A western businessman had heard that living on a faraway mountain lived a Zen master who knew the three secrets of life. He also heard that with these secrets anyone could obtain these secrets would know everything they needed to live a happy, fulfilling life. The businessman, whose life felt empty, reflected at length what these secrets might be. What would be the possible words that would answer all of life’s problems and guarantee constant feelings of well being? Determined to find the answer he sold his business and began his search of this Zen master. Two years later he arrived at the top of the right mountain and at the right Zen-do. There sitting in the centre was the Zen master.

The man approached the sage and said ” oh master, I have travelled far and wide to find out the three secrets that will lead me to live a happy and rich life. Would you tell me those secrets.

The master bowed in return and said, “yes I will tell you. The first secret is to pay attention, the second secret is to pay attention and the final secret is to pay attention.

If you read the story and felt a drop inside as you thought is that it, you are in good company. But stop for a second and think what does it mean to pay attention? To what, Your thoughts, your feelings, your senses the surrounding environment? Becoming attuned to yourself and your world will result in a new way of life in which you slow down yet become more productive, efficient and energetic and able to focus on the task at hand without distraction.

When you seek to understand through Attunement, you bring unconscious knowledge to the conscious. S James H

Attunement is bringing into harmony, tuning in to yourself and a feeling of being "at one" with another being, to perceptions, structures and rules, and your surrounding environment. By being attuned you will gather relevant information for what you wish to achieve by providing you with a systemic overview. This overview is essential when exploring possibilities for change.

Attunement in the body
Attunement is a natural tendency involving at least two separate things moving, operating and working at exactly the same rate together. The human heart consists of over 10,000 pacemaker cells which trigger the rest of the heart to beat properly. If each of these cells failed to have the same rhythm as each other the heart would fail. Fortunately they communicate by sending electrical currents to each other, but at an abstract level they're the same as many other phenomena that synchronize. Without proper attunement of our pacemaker cells, our cardiovascular system could not function. The same can be said in our minds when we learn something we are attuning our understanding to that of the knowledge within our society or a part of society.

"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why". Eddie Cantor

The art of attunement requires that we both focus and pay attention. But how can we do both at a the same time? In the Japanese martial art of Aikido is a technique called ‘soft eyes’ in which your eyes are open but not focused but take in the largest possible field of vision. It is this habit that you should develop. Paying attention with the inner chatter silenced, and habitual responses curbed we will have a far better chance of being in attunement. The practice of being attuned rather than acting out of habit means that when you are attuned you are conscious of everything around you all the time. While acting out of habit is doing something without being conscious of your actions because that is what you have always done.

Before anything new can be created, any problem solved it is important taking the time to attune to possible areas that may be affected by your venture. When you have an intention to make change, learn a new skill/profession or take on a challenge, Attunement will give you a better understanding of what may be involved. Becoming attuned will also give you an appreciation that both the pleasure you feel and the beauty you appreciate come from within your own creative resources.

The Stanford university psychologist Rodger Shepard found that people who are attuned to the imagery in their visualisations and dreams are lead to breakthroughs in allsorts of fields. For example Jack Nicklaus changed his golf grip and improved his game by ten points, a gynaecologist discovered a new way to tie a knot deep in the pelvis with one hand, James Watt came up with a simple way to make lead shot Fredrich Kekule solved the outstanding problem of the molecular structure of benzene. The list is huge in areas from physics, chemistry, architecture, engineering to ordinary people who anticipate a new way to do something.

AtTUNEment for your ears
Have you ever thought how much poor listening skills cost? Rescheduled appointments, misunderstood presentations, retyped letters, rerouted shipments, breakdowns in management labour communication and so on. There is a big difference between hearing and

Listening. Hearing is to receive sounds whilst listening is the act of paying attention to the sounds themselves.

"If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut".
Albert Einstein

It is certainly true that you can improve your effectiveness in communication by developing your speech, writing and presentation techniques. However at least half the effectiveness of communication comes from listening and being attuned too what the other person is saying to you. Rather than the voice in your head shuffling through your stock of relevant stories and waiting for a break in their monologue for you to start talking.

When you are developing your attunement skills there are 3 areas of exploration to consider. The following diagram illustrates both the internal and external elements of business environment:

Attunement in Business
There are three elements that are found both inside and outside the business that you will find contain productive areas for becoming attuned to.

• People Identify skills, culture; values, clients, market, competition.
• Infrastructure Identify policies, processes, tools, hierarchy, networks.
• Environment Identify the spaces, stimuli, branding, trends, economic factors. 

Successful people are able to tune in and understand other people’s perspectives. This doesn’t mean they sacrifice and change their own views but are able to truly listen and understand other viewpoints.

Attunement is also about being aware of all aspects of the discipline you are involved and particularly the current patterns that exist within your domain. Three primary elements will identify where you are and where you want to be.

Aside from tuning into the domain systemically on a more personal level Attunement requires having the following characteristics:

1. Pattern Awareness / Association
The brain is a self-organising system that creates patterns. Patterns are made up of how you interpret people and events around you and the meaning you associate to those people/events. You need to know where you are and how things work before you look at where you want to be and how you're going to get there. At times of frustration or annoyance ask yourself what patterns are you aware of. You may notice thought, behavioural and/or emotional patterns that occur regularly. Examine why they occur regularly. What part do you play in these patterns? What can you do differently? 

2. Rapport
Rapport is the ability to attune to others. The best way to achieve this is to genuinely give your attention to people. This allows you to tune into other people's perceptions and see from their point of view. When in rapport you can combine your imagination and life experience with another person's to create a third mind, which dramatically increases your opportunity of finding a creative solution.

3. Complementarity
Think 'What goes with that?' rather than copying what exists. This can be challenging because as from a young age you learn by copying (eg: learning to walk, talk, write etc). As Beethoven asked what instruments go with this music or Picasso asked what colour go with this image, you need to look for a complementary idea/action.

4. Being Supportive
Ideas need to be nurtured in a supportive environment. Rather than responding with a 'No, because', it is much more productive to use a 'Yes, and' attitude. Creativity blooms with a positive outlook and withers in negativity. For ideas to be built upon each other you need to be positive and always looking for the positive. A high trust element is crucial those working in the creative realm.

5. Sensory Acuity
The brain takes in information through your senses so being aware and developing your senses results in an improved understanding of people, events and ideas. Being able to be aware and take in more information means that you will make better informed decisions.

Tools to help with attunement

The expert listener
A professional listener like a clinical psychologist listens with finely tuned to every thing that a client says in order to pick out the tiny nuances that require clarification and could indicate some element for attention.

These are five basic tools that you should practice in order to develop your listening skills

1. Give yourself permission to listen by giving up that part of you that wants to be more important than the speaker. Let yourself absorb the speakers reality with all your senses.

2. Stop your desire to talk. Like your internal mind chatter, your desire to hold forth is nothing but self important ego. Your mind may try and convince you on the basis of your social responsibility to enlighten the other, However your voice is the biggest block to creative listening.

3. Suspend judgement. When you hear that critical voice of judgement interrupting your thoughts strangle it before too much damage can be done. Don’t allow your own judgements, conclusions, opinions and emotions distort the clarity of your reception.

4. Search out what is truly important for the speaker. Try to imagine yourself in their shoes.

5. Focus on the main event by scanning the details. So when someone says “I didn’t get that job”, “my child is poorly” Imagine what for them is the big issue (depressed, anxious) your listen will reveal the big picture, highlight details and focus on the most important points.

Three ways to see
When an artist is training they are learning to see as well as mastering techniques, this involves three kinds of seeing.

1. Operational An object is noticed yet the viewer does not register as to its particular form, function or details.
2. Associational An object is seen and it triggers memories associated with that object. This then develops into free association which are not related to the object.
3. Pure The object is seen in complete detail from every angle, the form, texture, the way light reacts to it, in order to learn as much information as possible.

Practice the skills of pure seeing by stopping at an image either two or three-dimensional and spend at least ten minutes looking at it. Instead of the usual long chains of associations keep coming back to the image and notice tiny details that you have not previously noticed. Turn away from the image and try to recall what you have seen piece by piece. Developing your visual attunement skills need not be time consuming simply take an extra moment to remember a room layout, window displays, the clothes people wear

Soft eyes
Stand with your feet a shoulders width apart. Place your left hand about 30 mm below your navel. This level is your physical centre of gravity the actual centre is in the middle of your abdominal cavity. Breath from your belly as described in the exercises in week 3 day 3 for a couple of minutes.

To practice soft eyes relax the muscles around your eyes and see with your peripheral vision as well as with our central, focused vision. See what is in front of you, the people to both sides, and the clock on the wall, the ceiling lights and the floor pattern. Take in everything and be distracted by nothing. Seeing in this way sends an entirely different set of signals to the brain from ordinary seeing. As your eyes see more, the brain becomes open because the left side (language and logic) is not playing a dominant role. So a result intuition, creativity and athletic ability is brought out.

Day of attunement
Most of us spend most of the time as if we a dreaming, paying little attention to what is going on. The purpose of this exercise is to wake up and hear the birds sing, to smell the roses and to keep our eyes on the ball. Pick one day in which you are going to be attuned to everything you do. Be conscious of being conscious. Everything that you do, recognise that you are doing it and also the purpose of doing it. Notice the thoughts, responses and behaviours that occur during the day. All of a sudden you will start to see things opening up all over the place.