Archive for Creative Living
Protecting Your Creative Brain
Posted by: | CommentsYour brain is an ever-evolving dynamic organ that is involved in every aspect of who you are and what you do. Caring for your brain so it looks out for you takes the shape of simple self-protection as well as the factors mentioned previously.
Protect your brain from physical trauma- by wearing helmets as appropriate, minimizing jarring contact sports, and keeping away from severe jolts to the head and neck. Brain scans of NFL athletes are showing nasty damage that will dramatically affect their future health, not to mention current pain and problems.
Protect your brain from emotional stress, as emotional trauma changes brain function. All your systems go on hyperalert, which in turn impinges on ability to sleep, degree of anxiety, inability to handle modern stress, and physical symptoms like headaches and muscle tension.
Protect your brain from toxic exposure, Read More→
Your Creative Brain- Who Cares?
Posted by: | Comments“The brain is an organ of learning, loving and behaving”, he says.
I just had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Daniel Amen of the Amen Clinics. That man is a walking encyclopedia of cutting edge knowledge on optimizing our life by caring for our brain. So, who’s gonna care for your brain besides Dr Amen? You’d better step up to the plate on your own behalf. As the old commercial goes, you’ll be glad you did!
While there is sophistication galore in his methods, actual steps you can take to make sure your brain is ticking along in top form are simple. For starters, here are a few things you can do: Read More→
Democracy is Creativity in Action
Posted by: | CommentsI just had the experience of spending a day in Orlando with top movers and shakers in Florida at the Florida Job Summit, hosted by Sen. Mark Haridopolous and Rep. Dean Cannon. This was a follow-on event after Pres. Obama’s Job Summit in December 2009, for which my colleague & I were on the visitor waiting list…(behind the Salahis, perhaps?)
We sat next to and held discussions with Gov. Crist, state legislators, university chancellors, presidents and professors, thought leaders and idea-mongers in arenas across the board who have an active interest in generating viable solutions to our current economic woes and joblessness. It was amazing how accessible these high level people were, and how willing and eager they were to learn from the public, consider practical creative suggestions and make effective changes. That is democracy in action- engagement and informed action!
My colleague and I represented Retraining America Now, putting forward ideas on the iBrain Revolution and developing intellectual capital, ( or TALENT, as it’s referred to), through learning thinking and creativity skills in brain-friendly ways and by applying them to effective and efficient value creation. By instigating entrepreneurial thinking in our youth as well as existing job holders and seekers, we up our chances of keeping up with change and creating cool new ways to forge a better future. It also makes learning way more fun and relevant!
I’ll follow up next week with some of the trends observed from the range of discussions. Meanwhile ask yourself, if you lost everything- as many of the people in Haiti have with the recent earthquake, how would you make a comeback? What would your newly designed llife look like and how would you create it?
Step put and step up to being a creative force in your own life!
Creative Connections of Care for Haiti
Posted by: | CommentsPeople care, and given a chance to help out in need, will band together and pull off amazing feats to meet practical and human needs. They just need to know, and to feel included to offer their skills, resources and TLC. The recent horrific quake in Haiti is no different, except that the medium of inclusion this time was and is social media.
Toby Smith, director of Internet communications at CARE, says, “Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are great ways for people to get the latest information on emergencies. CARE has been giving updates that have been reposted or retweeted by celebrities.. . . We’ve also used these channels to solicit donations. The total audience is huge.”
“This is an important tool for the new generation of philanthropists, and we pay just as much attention to those media as we do to normal channels of support,” said Foley, of the American Red Cross.
Can social media mobilize as much money, blood, blankets and food for Haiti as older means? Too soon to tell. But there’s no doubt: They’re how we connect now when catastrophe hits.” The full article follows: http://bit.ly/5uF0dd
Even if we can’t be there physically or don’t know Haitionas personally, there are many ways to be of service, both materially, emotionally and spiritually. Just tune in. Please bring your unique talents, skills and human caring to assist in creating a planetary resonance of hope, sustainability and kindness to a people and a piece of land in dire need of it all.
May God bless us all, that we remember the power of our creative connections and make the world a better place as a result.
Creative Paradox
Posted by: | CommentsCreativity causes a paradox for most humans.
On one hand, the human brain is designed as a pattern recognition mechanism and is supremely good at reacting to what is familiar or repetitive in our environment. This is its strength, and we feel comfortable here. On the other hand, humans have been endowed with an innate desire to create- and creation by definition involves bringing something new into being. We are enlivened by that spark and the energy generated in the creative act.
So, many of us vacillate between the urge to be creative and the pull of inertia to stick with what we already know. This manifests in several behaviors that become obstacles to our creativity at work. These occur both in our creativity applied to life issues as well as the more complex dynamics of creativity in the workplace.
Seven of the biggest problems with people being creative are:
1) A general belief that they are simply not creative
2) Willlingness to go along with the status quo and along the path of least resistance (i.e. don’t rock the boat, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, etc.)
3) Failure to focus on a clear object needing creative attention
4) Not knowing HOW to get new ideas- tools and techniques
5) Lack of boldness to ‘go where no one has gone before’
6) Fear of the unknown and looking stupid on the part of oneself or one’s colleagues
7) Lack of structural underpinnings to facilitate and maintain the creative flow once it is started
Addressing any or all of these obstacles will pave the way for a harmonious experience of creative expression as you put into play your creativity at work.
Imagine Your New Year’s Resolutions Already Achieved!
Posted by: | CommentsImagination is the ability to create mental pictures- to see in your mind’s eye what is not physically present in front of you, and in fact, may not even yet exist. We all imagine, some more consciously, powerfully and constructively than others.
Many who think they cannot visualize or imagine have no trouble worrying in graphic detail. And what is worrying other than imagining- in combinations of thoughts, feelings and pictures- what might happen, or could happen even though it hasn’t happened yet, and may never happen- usually for the worse?
I suggest we look at how to harness and develop our imagination for constructive and creative purposes, starting with some simple exercises. Go ahead, play Read More→
Creative Living & NewYear’s Blue Moon
Posted by: | CommentsA Blue Moon has nothing to do with the man in the Moon or Blue Cheese- rather it’s the phenomenon of experiencing two full moons in one calendar month. Based on a mathematical calculation, a Blue Moon occurs about every 2 ½ years, with the month of the double showing rotating over that period of time. A Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve, however is much rarer, occurring every 19 years.
The last New Year’s Blue Moon was in 1990, and the next one is scheduled for 2028 (if we don’t all disappear with the global pole shift predicted in 2012).
So, while this event is somewhat predictable, it still retains a sort of magic. Most of us- at least the ones who pay attention, still get fluttery feelings when a full moon comes around every month anyway. Add on the unique pull of a Blue Moon and top it off with an occasion like New Year’s where we tend to make conscious and renewed choices to better our lives, and the magnetic attraction is palpable.
In mythic lore, the Moon is seen as feminine and receptive, compared to the more masculine Sun. Perhaps the fact that the moon affects tides and is connected to women’s cycle ties females & femininity closer to the moon, for better or worse. Full moons feature in both folklore and scientific evidence as impacting on weather, accelerating and heightening human and animal behavior with a thrust towards frenetic or frantic activity. Thus the tie between lunacy and the lunar cycles.
As someone seeking to express Creative Living, why not take advantage of moon cycles by aligning the birth of your fruitful creative endeavors with a full moon? This could include both the inception and delivery of your ideas, making use of both the receptive, internal nature and energetic expressive tendencies of the moon. Use the intervening month to incubate or act on your creative ideas, which makes use of the period of time required to form a new habit by rewiring your brain’s neural pathways.
You have thus put your own cycle of creative living & expression of your living legacy into place to be carried along by forces of nature.
So Step Out and Step Up to Creative Living in the New Year. And that won’t then just be Once in a Blue Moon!
