Become A Magnet To Creativity

*This practice was part of Insight Timer's 30-Day Challenge (Jan 2023) and is a more structured time.

In today's session, Darius Bashar will guide a meditation on embracing your creativity. Did you know that being creative can increase positive emotions, lessen depressive symptoms, and reduce stress? Building time for creativity into your day cracks open the mind and provides the space to express your truest and most authentic self. Take the time today to nurture and nourish this side of you.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to day 22 of Insight Timer's Building Healthy Habits Challenge. Let's take a moment to get settled. Close your eyes, Take a deep breath in and exhale out. Let's dive into today's healthy habit. Hello and welcome to the Building Healthy Habits Challenge here on Insight Timer. During this challenge, You will be getting access to a wide range of different wellness techniques and self-care practices with the hopes that you'll be able to pick and choose the routines that work best for you and your life in 2023. My name is Darius Bashar and today I will be introducing you to a practice to help you tap into your creativity. This practice I'm going to share with you has changed my life in so many ways. It is the best way I know to help quiet my mind, My very overactive mind, So that I can journey into the depths of my heart and find my truth, My expression, My realist, Most authentic self and build courage to bring that authentic self into the world. For me, Creativity is not just an outcome or an output. It's not just a painting, A blog post or a book. Creativity is actually a lifelong relationship we have with this energy we call creativity. And by finding ways to nourish and nurture this relationship, We get to become more of who we truly are. We get to find ourselves and then express ourselves. The aim of this particular session is to help you create a deeper connection with creativity and to listen. If creativity has specific guidance or advice for you, We're going to capture that at the end of the meditation, At the end of the practice through your journal. So if you have a pen and paper with you, That will be really helpful for our practice. Let's begin our practice today. This practice can be broken into steps. There are seven steps. Step one is remembering that creativity is not just an outcome or an output, But a relationship with an energy, With an essence. I like to personify creativity as a human and each of us can do this differently. You can choose if it's a he, A she, A they, An animal, A spirit, You decide what feels best for you. For me, I like to imagine creativity as a woman. She's intelligent, She's fascinating, She's generous. And so step one is to build that persona. Step two, I want to create a set and setting where creativity feels really welcome. So I carve out a little space for myself and creativity, My creativity, She loves beauty. So I put postcards and pictures and books that have beautiful titles and beautiful covers. She also loves things that smell great, Feel great. So I burn some Palo Santo, Some sage, Some incense. Sometimes I have poetry books, I have frothy coffee. So I'm creating a scenario that just feels so yummy, So delicious, Because I have found that creativity really enjoys this space and feels comfortable and welcome. Now you might not have any of this available to you in this moment, And that's okay. Option one, You can do it next time. Option two, You can hit pause and grab a couple things. You can even keep it really simple. Find one thing that looks visually beautiful, One thing that smells nice, And that's it. Step three, We want to slow things down and give ourselves a chance to land. So often creativity is connected to doing and moving forward. This is a spacious environment we are creating where we get to slow down. So I'd like to invite you to take a nice deep breath here with me, Breathing in, Holding at the top, And just letting it go. You can continue taking some slow deep breaths here. Your eyes are open, You can close them and just get connected with what's alive and real inside you right now. And here's the key with this third step of landing. I want to invite you to give yourself permission to let all feelings, All thoughts, All sensations to just be. If your mind is wondering, That's okay, That's what creative minds do sometimes, Let it. If anxiety or resistance shows up, Let it. All feelings are just colors and as cosmic artists, Which we all are, We want access to as many colors as possible. Maybe today you won't paint with sadness or joy or rage, But you want to always have access to the colors. So all of your emotions are welcome here. It's nice to just be in the stillness, Knowing we have full permission for all of it. Take a deep breath here together. You notice my breaths, They have sounds. Part of connecting with creativity is connecting with our own voice. Maybe your voice is shy this morning and that's okay. The more practice you can have in hearing yourself in the world, The more expansive and confident your voice will be. So let's take another breath and add some sound to it. Step four of our practice is gratitude. Everybody loves gratitude, Adores gratitude. Gratitude is a portal that opens up and on the other side is infinite creativity. So I want to invite you to place your hands on your heart now. If you're open to it, Gently just place your hands on your heart and connect. Can you feel your heart beating? I'm going to share some gratitude for our hearts. If it resonates, Just take it in. Thank you, Dear heart. Thank you for everything you've done, All the feelings, All the excitement, All the joy, All the fear, All the sadness. Through all of it, You've been here with me by my side, Literally right under my nose. Taking a deep breath here, Breathing into your heart, Seeing if you can breathe into the back of your heart and to the bottom of your heart. Breathing in. Now, Of course, You can share gratitude for whatever you'd like, No matter how sacred or silly, No matter how big or small. It doesn't actually matter. Creativity loves gratitude. Step five. From this place of gratitude, From this place of our hearts being open, Even if it's 1% more open, We ask creativity. If there's anything creativity wants to share with us in our lives, And I'll demonstrate this for you. Dear creativity, Thank you so much for everything you bring into my life. Every day, A chance to create something beautiful with my life. Thank you for always being here from the very beginning of my life, From the first act of creation, My birth, To the very last breath. You have always been here. To your creativity, I am open, I am ready to hear any guidance you might have for me, Any advice, Anything you would like to share with me. I am open. I am here. I am ready. Step six, I'd like to invite you to get your journals out and just listen and receive anything creativity has to share with you. It might start small. It might be a random scribble. It might be a couple of paragraphs. You can even put the prompt on your journal to start you off. Dear creativity, Is there anything you'd like to share with me? And just listen and capture anything that comes through. Now, Normally I pair this with 15 or 20 minutes of journaling and maybe creativity will speak to me for a minute, Sometimes 15 minutes. For the purposes of our practice today, Obviously we have a shorter period of time for the journaling part, But that part is so crucial and you don't need to only do it through journaling. I make a habit of asking creativity a couple of times a day. Hi creativity, I'm here. Is there anything you want to tell me? Is there anything you want to share? Sometimes I'm walking, Sometimes I'm driving, Sometimes I'm journaling, But I promise you creativity is there and it's not a critical voice. It's almost always a deeply loving, Supportive, And honest voice. So feel free after this practice is done to continue writing and continue exploring. The last step in our practice is closing our session with a little bit of gratitude. That can look and feel and sound however you'd like. Gratitude for creativity, Gratitude for your heart, Gratitude for anything. It doesn't matter. Just close the session with some gratitude. And remember, These are the steps that work really well for me, But each of you is a unique creative being, So you get to pick and choose which work best for you and adapt. I know lots of people that don't journal, They actually paint. I know people that dance, The message creativity has. I know people that just sit. So you find what works best for you and remember to actually pay attention to see and feel if creativity is responding, Is open to your invitations. And if not, What can you tweak and adjust to make the experience even more welcoming for creativity? Thank you for your time. Thank you for your energy. Thank you for your creativity. This has been so fun for me. Before we end this session, I'm curious, How do you feel? Do you feel closer to creativity? Do you feel more open to the energy and essence of creativity? Did creativity have a message for you? Feel free to share in the comments in the forum. My name is Darius and I will see you next time.

Reviews

Awesome! I loved this guided meditation. His voice takes you right in.

Thank you for this practice, perfect timing for a perfect message. I stumbled across this practice before I shoveled snow. I am currently joined in your 7 day Supercharge Your Creatity course so I have journaled a lot. Thank you again yes another well done.

I’ve only heard one session on connecting to creativity. I really loved it. It felt like a personal session and the guidance was really useful

As soon as Darius invited us to set the environment for our interpretation of Creativity, I envisioned myself in a room full of people dancing around, playing drums + instruments, and smiling, laughing, healing. As someone who journals, I for sure thought I’d be adding on to his given prompt: “Creativity, what do you want to share with me?” but Spirit spoke clearly through my vision and Darius’s suggestion - GET UP AND DANCE! Thank you so much for this challenge. I needed it!

Exactly how I was feeling. Thank you for giving the words and direction for it. My creativity is my spirit daughter Emma who past away and is with me always in this very special way. ❤️