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

 

Creativity - Detachment

"If your mind is empty it is ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginners mind there are many possibilities in the experts mind there are few." Shunrya Suzuki 

There is a story that perfectly illustrates what is meant by the term 'detachment': A prominent university professor with many published papers to his name went to visit a Japanese Zen master to ask many questions about Zen. Whilst the professor went on and on in intellectual, scattered, long-winded and pedantic way the Zen master made and started to pour a cup of tea. He filled the professors cup, and with tranquility continued to pour.

Eventually the professor finally noticed that his cup was over flowing and cried “stop” Alarmed that the master had made such a mess he said with great urgency “the cup’s full! There is no more room for any more tea.

“Exactly “ said the Zen master, putting down his teapot “just like this cup, you are so full of your own views and opinions that there is no room for any new understanding”

Creativity is full of paradox. It simultaneously involves analysis and intuition, order and disorder , judgment and non judgment, fullness and emptiness and thinking and non-thinking. The process of detachment is really non-conscious thinking, being free from worry, doubt, expectation and the voice of judgment which chatters away in your mind. In such a state you will be detached from the ego and can experience your true self enjoying creativity not as an isolated event but as something real, direct and present.

What is detachment?
Being able to let go of any attachment and fixation to the process and outcome. This is the beginners mind, you are free from preconceptions, judgments, opinions, memories, expectations and mental chatter you mind is free of emotional clutter. It is this state of mind that is often stated as being the source of entrepreneurial success. Steve jobs says “When we started, we didn’t know what we were going to do, we didn’t know what products we were going to make. All we knew was that the first commercial radiation machine was about to come to the market. These entrepreneurs have learnt that detaching from the pressures of everyday life and taking time to think and be aware and also ending the cycle of worry has resulted in achieving great things.

The importance of both physical and mental ease for inducing creative thinking is repeated in the stories of thousands of entrepreneurs, artists and sportsmen. They find time to acknowledge regular peaceful tome, and getting away. This is either through down time in the shower, recreational sports or meditation. In all these examples the mental chatter has ceased and you are completely aware. Swami Mukatananda says of meditation that ”We do not meditate just to relax a little and experience some peace. We meditate to unfold out inner being.” The advantage over running, gardening, playing a musical instrument, is that meditation can help you concentrate on your creative energy.

Detaching fro a situation also means ceasing worrying about past mistakes and future worries. Mistakes are something to learn from and use as a spring board for new opportunities. Nolan Bushnell the developer of some of the most successful computer games uses extreme fantasy to evaluate decisions by imagining the very best and the very worst thing that can happen regarding that scenario. Once the decision to proceed is made then there is no need to think about success or failure. You can concentrate to do you best in each moment.

"The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp." John Berry.

There are many different tools for decision making like market research and quantitive analysis. These can end up as methods for increasing worry which leads to analysis paralysis. The most effective decision makers according to David Kreps professor of decision science at Stamford University are those that use these tools with a healthy measure of intuition.

Like much of the best advice achieving a sense of peace is both simple and very difficult. Shut down the mind chatter and live in the present. How can you do this? If you want to achieve your creative potential you must stop doing contradictory things that do not apply to the present moment. This would include habits like reading whilst eating breakfast, being plugged into the i-pod whist exercising, continually running past events in your mind. Detaching from these actions will lead you to being in the moment. As your life is composed of lots of moments strung together, living a full life means detaching from distractions and living fully in each moment.

Tools

Embracing the unknown
Take your ego from your ideas. Your brain works incredibly quickly and can come up with many creative solutions if you just let it. Avoid having your self-worth tied up in your creativity.

Fluidity
Be able to move your mind freely from one thought, element and/or industry to another. Staying rigid keeps you on the same path whereas fluidity allows you to flow from one area to perhaps a totally unrelated area and creating a synergistic relationship between the two or more areas.

Ambiguity
Embrace ambiguity, let random elements influence your imagination and look at things from multiple perspectives. Look for what else could things mean. Don't try and have THE right answer but look for several probabilities and then several possibilities.

Recreation
Make time to relax and take away the stress of having a good idea. You need quiet time to allow all the thoughts, concepts and ideas generated to incubate and create new neural connections in your brain resulting in new thoughts and ideas.

Exercises

Categorise your thoughts
To see the effects of your internal dialogue you are going to catch it at work. It might help to have a note book at which each hour you write what you were thinking when this is possible. Set an alarm on your watch, mobile or computer and when it rings record whatever you were thinking. Or record your thoughts when you are in a place or situation that you regularly find your self like at traffic lights, the water fountain, photocopier, during adverts.

You may find that they form a pattern of categories on the positive side like evaluation, planning, creating, and considering on the negative side it judges, schemes, doubts and imagines.

Meditation technique
This is an exercise that you should do every morning before breakfast this week It will take you about twelve minutes although the more you do it the less time it will take. Eventually you should be able to do it at any time to clear your mind and sharpen your perceptions. This exercise will help you shut down your chattering mind and help you focus on your body. It will have the side effect of relaxation, enhanced sensory perceptions and problem solving insights. If you have a particular problem providing you focus on the exercise and not on the answer you will probably receive some sort of answer.

If you can record this and play it to yourself or get a partner to read it to you in a slow, calm voice with long enough pauses between each paragraph to feel the movement of energy.

Sit comfortably with your feet flat on the floor and your hands resting on your thighs. Slowly close your eyes and begin to relax. Breath deeply several times into your stomach, letting each breath out with a sigh each time.

If your thoughts come, just let them go. Think of them as passing clouds. You and your mind is relaxing because you have nothing to do at this moment other than this exercise.

Now you feel energy begin to move up your right foot. You can feel all the bones in your foot and the muscles and the shape of your foot as the energy moves from your toes into the heal of your foot and into your ankle. And now it begins to move up your right leg.

If thoughts come into your mind, let them go. All you have to do right now is to concentrate on the energy as it moves up your right leg. Your eyes are closed as you feel the energy move up the shin area and you can feel the roundness of your leg in that area. You can feel the energy move into the right knee, and feel the back of the knee and the knee cap. 

The energy moves into the upper part of your right leg. Feel the energy and that part of your right leg as the energy moves into your right thigh and right hip. You feel the pressure of your right hip against the chair as the energy begins to move into your right hand.

You can feel the energy moving slowly through the fingers of your right hand, into the knuckles, across your palm and inside your right wrist and into the forearm. The energy is moving into your elbow and beginning to move up your right upper arm. You can feel the muscles and the shape of your upper arm as the energy moves through ti and into your right shoulder. There is nothing to do accept to let the energy moving into your right shoulder , across the top of your back and into your left shoulder.

The energy is moving now, down your left arm from your shoulder, You are able to feel the upper part of your left arm, its shape and even its internal structure as the energy moves down to your left elbow. The energy begins to move further down through the muscles and bones of your left arm into your wrist and the fingers of your left hand.

Now the energy is moving out of your left hand fingers into your left hip. You can feel the left hip as the energy moves into the left thigh and slowly makes its way down to the left knee. You can feel the left knee with the energy there as it slowly begins to seep into the lower part of the left leg, you can feel the energy in the back of your leg and through the shin area.

Now you can feel the energy in your left ankle and all the bones there, as the energy gradually moves into your foot and out of the toes of your left foot. You can feel the energy moving through your left foot and slowly flowing out of the toes of your left foot.

Allow time for the energy to continue to move down the left side of your body and into your left foot and out of your toes. If you cant feel the energy moving out of your toes right away, that’s OK. Just relax and feel the energy moving. Sense your left foot as the energy moves out of those toes.

Your eyes are still closed and now you should pay attention to your limbs on the right side of your body - right foot, leg, arm and hand. Sense your right foot, leg, arm and hand.

Now pay attention to your limbs on the left side of your body - left foot, leg, arm and hand. Sense your left foot, leg, arm and hand.

Now sense both arms and hands. And next forget about your arms and hands and concentrate on your legs and feet

Next sense all your limbs - arms and hands, legs and feet. Pay attention to just your arms and hands, legs and feet, Sense only your limbs - arms and hands, legs and feet

Now keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them. When I tell you to open them , you will continue to sense your arms and feet but you will also just look. And also when I tell you to open your eyes and to just look, you will open your ears and whilst still sensing your arns and legs, just listen.

Slowly and comfortably open your eyes now. Open your ears. Continue to sense your arms and legs, hands and feet. Just look, just listen

Continue sensing, looking and listening for as long as you like. Then come back into the room in a normal way without sensing looking and listening