Uncreative Cacophony
When I was a kid, I remember buying a book to help me increase my vocabulary. One of the words in there was “Cacophony.”
The New Oxford American Dictionary defies it as, “a harsh discordant mixture of sounds.” In short, noise.
You may be looking to create something new in your life but your creativity will be thwarted at every turn, unless you turn down the noise in your mind.
Creativity feeds on silence, not din.
When incessant mental conversations take up all the space in your mind, there is no room for a creative thought. Think of a walkie-talkie. When you push the talk switch, you cannot receive. The same is true with your mind. One of the secrets of the universe may be ready to come to mind, but you may be too busy blabbing to yourself to make room for it.
Want more creativity to enter your mind? Find a way to leave your thoughts behind, at least for a while.
If you don’t have a mind quieting practice, get one. There are many to choose from and they all work, when you work at them. One of them takes about 10-15 seconds and I write about it in my free ebook available at https://grasshoppernotes.com. Here’s an excerpt:
This “clean-up-your-thinking” exercise is one I learned by listening to a recording from Jerry Stocking. I met Jerry in 1988 at a seminar we were attending conducted by Dr. Dave Dobson.
Jerry writes books and conducts seminars and is a world-class teacher on how your mind works. This 10-second exercise came from one of Jerry’s students.
It seems like it could never work, but it does:
1. Move your eyes up and make a picture of something either a remembered or created picture. It can be of anyone or anything. It doesn’t matter.
2. Move your eyes down and left and hear an external sound.
3. Move your eyes down and right and feel a sensation going on
in your body. It could be as simple as your shoe pressure against your toe.Then, close your eyes for about five seconds. That’s it! You’re done.
How is this exercise effective? By getting you out of your head. You may be inside your head making pictures that are giving you unwanted sensations in your body. You may have feelings or sensations that are producing less-than-elegant pictures in your head or bothersome internal conversations. In short, noise.
When you get some spaces between your thoughts, which this exercise will produce, you quietly open the door to creativity.
You may have a better way, but no matter how great your mind quieting exercise is, it won’t produce results unless you use it, and use it often.
Allow me to leave you with this pearl of wisdom: “A noisy noise annoys an oyster most.”
Want more precious creativity? Clam up!
All the best,
John
Below is a recorded version.
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