Find a comfortable position.
Notice your body.
How it's feeling today.
Your spine straight.
Your eyes closed or lightly hooded.
Your hands comfortably in your lap.
Feel yourself connected to the ground.
A chair or on a cushion or lying on the ground.
Wherever you are,
Feel your connection to the ground and the earth.
Now begin to notice your breath coming in and out of your body.
Notice the nature of your breath today.
Is it long or short?
Is the in-breath longer or the out-breath?
Do you feel constricted or loose?
Without judgment,
Just notice how your breath is today.
Take a few deep breaths.
Just allow your breath and your body to settle.
Set your intention for this meditation.
To help you develop your creativity and mindfulness.
So that you can create things to benefit others and our world.
Now I want you to cast your mind back to a time when you felt a sense of creative flow.
A feeling of effortlessness when you're doing something that you love.
Maybe something creative or it may be something else that you're doing.
When time just went by without you even noticing.
When you're in this state of flow,
There's no hope,
No fear,
Just an openness.
And a willingness to bring into presence what wants to flow through.
Sometimes our ego and self-image can limit our ability to create as we would like.
We might worry about how other people might see us.
Whether they'll like our work.
Whether our work is good enough.
This internal self-dialogue and self-doubt can create an obstacle to our creative work.
Today we're going to work with one of these obstacles.
To better understand it.
And understand how we can come back to a feeling of spaciousness and flow.
In our creative work and lives.
We're going to do this without any judgment.
This is something we all do out of fear and self-doubt.
Firstly,
Consider some of the self-dialogue or ideas that might affect your ability to create.
Thoughts like,
I don't have time,
No one will like it,
I'm not good enough,
Or I don't have the energy.
What are some of your thoughts or self-dialogue that you have about your creative work?
Now drop this dialogue and listen to silence around you.
Feel a sense of spaciousness and openness.
Hear the silence around you.
And rest in this openness of mind.
And from this space of stillness and spaciousness,
Think about one main obstacle that you have with your creative work.
Bring your main obstacle back to your awareness.
And observe it clearly.
Without judging or evaluating.
Without concepts.
Just take a minute to observe it.
You might find that it has a shape,
Or a color,
Or a particular texture,
Feeling.
Now take a deep breath of pure awareness.
Bring this awareness directly into the image or energetic feeling of the obstacle that you've selected.
As you exhale,
Breathe out the blockage and experience it dissolving into space.
Continue to do this a few times,
Taking deep breaths into the field of this obstacle.
And with each breath,
It becomes smaller and smaller,
Until it eventually disappears.
Now imagine it has dissolved completely.
Be aware of the space.
And effortlessly rest here for a minute.
Feel a sense of joy stirring in your heart that this obstacle has been cleared.
And allow that joy to expand throughout your body.
Through your blood and skin.
Feel all the cells of your body communicating with each other.
With this warmth and joy.
Feel this warmth of joy radiating out from you into your environment.
And feel your environment as a whole.
Radiating joy back to you.
And remember that you can reconnect with this feeling of warmth and joy and openness at any time throughout your day.
Now dedicate this meditation to your own creativity and offerings to the world and all sentient beings.
Slowly bring your attention back to your body.
Sitting on the chair or the cushion or lying on the ground.
Bring your attention back to your breath,
Coming in and out of your body.
Just wriggle your fingers and toes.
Open your eyes.
Come back to the room.
And have a stretch.
