Give a child a stick and a stone and they can play for hours. Remember those days? You have not lost the ability to tap into your creativity – it is here with you right now! But as adults, we often forget about our bodies and live from our heads, consumed with habitual, logical thoughts. So here are some tips for quieting your logical brain, centering in your body and tapping into your creative mind:
1. Bilateral Eye Movement
Take your writing instrument, hold it in front of your face at eye level – and move it back and forth horizontally, left to right for 30 seconds, following it with your eyes only. This exercise can increase the “cross-talk” or “inter-hemispheric interaction” between the left and right hemispheres of our brains, which can open up “creative options” or new ideas about your story.
2. A Room with a View
Find a place in your home, yard or out in nature and settle in. Now, place your feet flat on the ground, feel your seat bones squarely below your hips and simply gaze skyward. Yup, it’s that simple - look upwards and allow your dreams and ideas to come flooding in – the sky, literally, is the limit!
3. Creativity Begets Creativity
Before sitting down to write, choose another mode of creation to tap into first, literally going through the “backdoor” to your own creativity. Sometimes when we sit down to write, everything flows easily. Other times it doesn’t. When you are setting up a writing space, you can include things like colored markers and pencils, pastels, calligraphy pens, even stickers, glue, scissors, glitter, clay – other things that spark your creativity. And if tactile tools don’t get you excited, get that speaker bumping and grooving – get up and dance! Any form of creativity works!