April 13, 2011
creare8una8vita
Left and right brain functions and exercises
LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe
RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking
Here are some ideas of activities that involve both sides of your mind:
- Set - HOW TO PLAY
- Drawing with both your hands (switch back and forth as you draw)
- Sudoku
- Juggling
- Mind mapping (Especially if it is rich. Use bright words and branch out some stems into lists.)
- Playing a musical instrument (Especially if you freestyle)
These are just a few ideas to get you started. By looking at the qualities listed above and finding activities that use a mix of both sides (with a touch of creativity) you’ll be able to come up with many more.
The Right Brain vs Left Brain test
Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?
If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.
Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.
Click on the picture – you will find that it hows an animation of a lady spinning around. If the research is true then the direction you see her spinning suggests the side of your brain that is most dominant. As a test, see if you can get the lady to switch directions. It’s difficult but with a bit of concentration you can do it. Think about techniques you could use to achieve it.
The Importance of Creativity
When we consider the importance of creativity we are apt to think of it only in the context of art. Though important, art is only a small part of creativity. We use creativity in every aspect of our lives, everyday.
Our ability to express our deepest feelings is at the core of the importance of creativity. As humans we have a very strong need to express ourselves and we’re happiest when other people understand what we are trying to get across to them. We find all kinds of ways to do this.
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It’s important to be able to tap into your creativity in order to let people know what is important to you in a way that satisfies you. It is important to be able to express your feelings when words aren’t close to enough.
We express ourselves in the form of paintings, music, sculptures, even graffiti. I could fill a page with the different mediums people use and still miss some. They are all meant to get something across to others and they satisfy us because we feel we’ve gotten our message out to others.
Art would seem to be the most obvious way to express ourselves in certain situations…but we don’t limit ourselves to the world of art.
Our creativity is evident in the clothes we wear, the style of our hair, the cars we drive. Whole industries have been built in order to give people the outlet of expressing themselves in their everyday lives. It is that important.
We gather things that mean something to us, things that ‘say’ something about us. And almost everything we acquire, we add a touch of ourselves to it. Even if it is only the way we display our treasures, in some form we mark them as specifically ours.
And we use our creativity to do all those things in just the way that satisfies us.
Creativity is an outlet.
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Your expression can be loud and out in the open, or it can be subtle, an innuendo that is evident only to yourself. Creativity can be relaxing or invigorating. It can be an outlet for feelings whether they are happy or sad, angry or content and anything in between. Creativity can be used as a business, or a hobby, just for fun, or as a form of therapy, simply work or play.
Creativity can just be a natural part of your life that you don’t bother sticking a label on. You may not even be consciously aware that you are bringing it into practice.
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There are so many aspects of our lives that creativity touches that the importance of creativity defies logic. We are human, we need to express ourselves as much as we need the air we breathe. Creativity isn’t just art. It is our very essence.
Coaching – definitions
Coaching is the art of facilitating the development, learning and performance of another. The School of Coaching
Coaching must be learned mostly from experience. In the Inner Game approach, coaching can be defined as the facilitation of mobility. It is the art of creating an environment, through conversation and a way of being, that facilitates the process by which a person can move towards desired goals in a fulfilling manner. It requires one essential ingredient that cannot be taught: caring not only for the external result but for the person being coached. Timothy, Gallwey, The Inner Game of Work
Importance of Creativity in your daily live by Allyson Rice
Your Life Is A Work of Art
“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso
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people’s fear of having to be creative is one of the most pervasive fears and avoidances that I confront when working with clients and students. It’s intricately woven with low self esteem, fear of not being good enough, not measuring up, looking foolish. It is a fear of being vulnerable by putting your unique personal Voice out there in the world and running the risk of having people not appreciate you, or perhaps worse, not even understand you. And yet, when you don’t let that energy flow through you and into your life and your work in a constant and unblocked flow, when you don’t put your creative self out there, you become like a stream that’s choked off and stagnating.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a culture that encourages the development of the creative voice within us. Rational practicality is placed over all else. We have school systems that are under-funded; and the programs that are considered “expendable,” the first to be cut, are art and music. So we learn at an early age in life, that the expression of the voice of our soul through our art, is expendable, not necessary in our daily life. For most people, the idea of taking time each day to slow down and daydream and create something is a ridiculous notion. “Sure, it sounds fun, but it’s a little frivolous. Who has the time?…” There’s no connection with the fact that the time you spend on creating for creating’s sake, when there are no important stakes riding on it, is the very way you learn to incorporate the creative flow into everything you do in life.
Students and clients sometimes complain of not being able to come up with solutions to their problems, they feel that they are “stuck.” To me that’s an expression of a block in the creative flow, the inability to see an alternative path in front of them. The ability to create innovative solutions in your business, or creatively negotiate a difficult relationship, or envision the life that would be fulfilling to you are all outgrowths of how open the creative flow is in your life. If you don’t “practice” by being creative in the moments when there’s nothing at stake, how do you expect to have your habitual mental blocks disappear; and easily flowing creative ideas magically appear when you need them? They don’t. It’s a way of life that you cultivate by participating in the creative flow without self-judgment, on a regular basis.
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Just through the simple act of coloring, it opened up a place that calms and nourishes her. She continues to color several years later, because it’s an immediate doorway to opening that flow in times of stress and feeling “stuck.”
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You are a deeply creative being,
and when you open to that creative flow within you,
the gift that arrives is that your life becomes your greatest work of art.
Ken Robinson onTED
God Bless you Ken Robinson! 
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity on TED 2006
Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution! on TED 2010
Is this the year when you will develop your creativity?
The educational system in the western world is very good at developing our rational, logical, left-brain thinking. Often at the expense of our creative, imaginative, right-brain thinking. However, we’re all capable of both. It seems a no-brainer to want to access all your assets, so … Is this the year when you will develop your creativity?
Albert Einstein pointed out the folly of such thinking: ‘Only the insane person does the same thing over and over again and yet expects different results’.
So – you’re going to have to do things differently. How do you conjure up a new idea, a new process, a new way of working, a new way of being? At any time, but especially in times of enormous change, you need your creativity. Your creativity is already in you, waiting to help you come up with those new ideas and to boost your confidence in your ability to, not only survive, but to benefit from the changes going on around you. But when did you pay it any attention? (… be continued …)
An Artist Coach
“When you’re feeling lost and confused…” – August 27, 2009
Today, at a coffee shop in Nashville, I stumbled into a conversation with an incredible Artist who feels ‘lost’. Although, he would never say he was lost, because that wouldn’t “look good” to an industry pro like me. But I’ve been in his shoes, I have said his words, I have felt his hesitation in my own voice, and the truth is, he feels LOST. For over an hour, he was trying to figure out what his next move could be that could bring in the next paycheck, so he could pay his September rent and keep his daughter in school. He has 1 week to come up with the answer. (nothin’ like a little pressure to get things moving!) He kept asking tormenting questions like, “What do I say to make them think…?” or “How do I label myself?” or “How do I even get those people I don’t know to answer my calls?”
My first words for him was a smile. He is not alone. Many of us are finding ourselves in this ‘lost’ place these days. More now than ever, it feels like the world is holding back it’s money, it’s availability, it’s belief, it’s creativity, it’s heroic risk-taking. (You can substitute any name of choice for ‘the world’.)
But is the world really holding back from us?
Or are we holding back from the world?
After our talk, I went to YouTube and watched a video this Artist had made, by himself, with no budget. It was incredibly moving. It was creative, inventive, and just as he said, something that most people don’t get. But when he says ‘most’ people, he’s talking about the Nashville Country label execs who have all turned him down.
I quickly realized that his predicament was not because the world didn’t get him, but because he wasn’t being clear on what he wanted.
He’s not even confidently clear on who he is! Not only as an artist, but a creator, a teacher, an innovator, a pioneer for something new. He’s busy trying to fit it all into a box that he can label so people will understand him (pay him). The only problem with this is, he can only fit himself into an idea or a box that already exists. And that, for a TRUE creator, is just never going to happen, successfully.
What’s happening is this beautiful Artist is being isolated from all the things that are distracting him from living his highest potential, so that he can truly understand and know himself more. When we ask, we do receive! Is it possible his ‘just enough’ paycheck from the publishing company who can do nothing more than be a bank, has distracted him? Maybe the opinions he’s heard about ‘how you make it’ in this town, have distracted him. His own idea of how he could never tour like a ‘wealthy’ artist does to make money has most definitely distracted him. And the fact that he doesn’t know how to reach his people yet, well that is most certainly a distraction.
The truth is, all possibilities for us are infinite here, but it’s our own perspectives that keep us from seeing it.
I have known this, and now, more than ever, I’m living this. When you experience having ‘nothing’, anything is possible. It has to be. Will this amazingly talented Artist have to lose everything, and resort to a ‘regular’ job and misery in order to get this lesson? It’s possible.
But a profound clarity comes when you’re
looking through the eyes of
non attachment to anything…
Or what some of us call, ‘the bottom’.
When you’re willing to let go to what you ‘think you know’, life tends to ebb and flow very peacefully and abundantly. If you resist or refuse to move, life will move you. Either way, you will be moved. It is only our attachment to the idea that it should be different that causes our suffering.
This was confirmed to me by a twitter message I saw from Marianne Williamson today, “It’s not up to you what you learn, but only whether you learn through joy or through pain.” – Course in Miracles.
This is my advice to this Artist, to myself and to any of you out there that is feeling ‘lost’ in whatever you do.
1) You are not lost. You have only separated from your true self.
2) Reconnect to your true self by asking,”What would bring me the most joy right now?” and do that from the depths of your soul! Money will follow.
3) Become very clear on the life you desire, and the life you’re willing to have. Do not settle with what you think is possible!
4) Share what you’re doing and what you want with everyone you know. And I mean EVERYONE. The world is connected.
5) Surrendering is a LOT easier than figuring it out. Release the question of “how?”, and say Yes to what shows up in front of you.
6) Forgive the world for not getting you yet. They’ve just been patiently waiting for you to be ready for what they have to offer you.
7) Every need you have will always be provided. If something is taken away, you didn’t need it.
8) Doesn’t hurt to pray a bit more.
And specifically to my new Artist friend, “Don’t Give Up. You were born to teach us how to be what you are so naturally. We need you in this world, present, whole, and willing to give us what we crave. And most important, God can provide all of your hearts’ desires in the timing you need. Heck, it only took him a week to create this beautiful life we’ve been gifted. Never stop sharing yours.”
Oh yeah, and always, always, always…
Expect A Miracle!
Nureyev&Fonteyn – Romeo&Juliet
What words could never tell … maybe, not even Shakespeare’s
Movement amazes me. I find it magical how we all move in this collision of space, gravity and the human body. It amazes me how a perfect movement can be produced by driving our bodies to meet space and gravity in a specific way. There are no barriers to human experience. And when we think there is… we are our own barriers. Movement like this above was not known until Nureyev showed us that it was possible for human body to float in space like a swan and he showed us how to do it. The proxy is defined!
Is that for you?
I’m now interviewing excellent, creative, knowledgable visual artists/communicators–video production and editing, graphic design, creative writers and copywriters. Someone who is part geek and loves the technology and fast moving trends, stays on top of that and can blend their creativity with the dynamic, fast-moving technological changes. Someone who wants to contribute at a higher level and live with more meaning and purpose. If you know of such a person please introduce them to me.
Terry Tillman
TTillman@227company.com
