Guest Post Time!
Cheryl Congrove is a talented artist with a MA in Counseling Psychology and Art Therapy. She currently resides in Prescott Arizona and uses talking, writing and creative forms of expression to facilitate healing.
You can learn more about her and the work she does by clicking here.
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The beginning of art
was born out of resourcefulness. There
was no mega art supply store in town to get supplies. Individuals had to come up with their own
medium to make or communicate what was needed for their physical and historical
survival. Their creativity had a
purpose. They had a goal.
Kelly Lambert, in her
book LiftingDepression: A Neuroscientist's Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain'sHealing Power, shares research that supports the premiss that doing
things with our hands creates a sense of wellbeing. Through her clinical studies she found a link
between the symptoms of depression and key areas of the brain involved with
motivation, pleasure, movement, and thought, which she connected to the
movement of muscles in our hands. Her
research showed that this sense of wellbeing isn’t created by just anything
done with the hands. It can’t be
something we do mindlessly. It has to
require mental engagement and creativity.
It also needs to have utilitarian value.
She expressed that “we are predisposed to hand movements that our
ancestors needed for survival -- those necessary for nurturing, cleaning,
cooking, grooming, building shelter, and farming,” and that our brains “crave
the feelings generated by survival-based activities.” She goes on to say that even when our hands
create items less directly related to our survival, such as jewelry or art,
that they “tap into the fascinating and unique characteristics of the human
mind relating to hope, creativity, celebration, and aesthetic awareness.” The key for creative people is to see that
all of their art making meets their own mental, emotional, and physical
survival needs. It has a utilitarian
purpose!
Kelly Lambert’s work
parallels the findings of MihalyCsikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of OptimalExperience. He states that “flow” comes
from engagement with a sustained goal-oriented and self-contained activity that
is performed with attention that is purposefully maintained on "doing.” It also needs to be an activity that includes
a gradual increase in difficulty or challenge, which then brings a great sense
of fulfillment. Overcome challenges give
way to enjoyment and an increased sense of self-worth. However, for flow to happen, the goal must be
pre-established and appear manageable while still remaining challenging;
concentration and immersion in the activity must be maintained; the task must
provide immediate feedback; the venture must allow for deep, effortless
involvement; the activity must provide a sense of control; and attention needs
to be placed on the enjoyment of the here-and-now experience. Along the way, flow yields a loss of
self-consciousness and a loss of the preoccupation with self, as well as an
altered sense of the passage of time.
The bottom line is that being in flow, or “the zone” as many call it, is
a natural high.
So what can a
creative person learn from this? Nothing
that we didn't already intuitively know.
What draws most toward creative tasks is childlike attraction to a
pleasurable sensory filled experience, one that makes us feel so good that we
want to do it again. So why do we often
find it so hard to get our creative self moving? Why is our Muse so elusive? Why is it so hard to set or achieve our
goals? One problem for me in the past
was the tendency to turn a creative endeavor into a task rather than allowing
it to remain an in-the-moment experience.
The European work ethic I was raised by took over, and it became all
about getting done, about the product rather than the process. I think it was my way of trying to give my
creativity a worthy utilitarian purpose, justifiable value over seeing it as a
self-indulgent activity. The problem is
that it already had value. Even if my
art is only for me, it has served a meaningful purpose. I’m worth it!
People often refer to
their “inner child.” Books have been
written about embracing, nurturing, or analyzing our inner child. The fact that we have, or should have an
“inner adult” is of no surprise. But
what about our “inner parent,” the one who swallowed all kinds of messages from
authority figures in our life? The inner
part of ourselves that most often rattles off a list of shoulds, shouldn’ts,
dos and don’ts. All of these parts have
desires, wants, needs, and concerns. All
become active when we attempt to be creative or achieve our goals.
Here is an
interesting goal setting activity presented by the psychotherapist, Ian Stewart
in Developing Transactional Analysis Counseling.
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What you need: 15
minutes, several sheets of paper, pencils, watch with timer, and to remember
that there are no right or wrong answers.
1. Write the title: What are my lifetime
goals? on the top of your first page.
Use timer and take 2 minutes to list as many words as possible, without
censoring or evaluation. Then, take
another 2 minutes to review, alter or
add to your list as needed. Star your top three goals in the list.
2. On the top of a second sheet of paper,
write the title: What do I want to achieve in the next 3 years? Repeat the
procedure above.
3. Title the third page: If I knew I would
die 6 months from today, how would I live until then? Repeat the procedure followed for steps one
and two.
4. Spend a minimum of 2 minutes reviewing
all 3 pages, change or add to lists in any manner that seems right. Rewrite items, if necessary, as positive
statements about what you will do or have rather than what you won't do or will
not have. Adjust starred items if needed.
5. Without judgment, notice any big
differences between your lists or conflicts between items, what does it tell
you about what you want from life?
6. Make a final priorities list by taking
your top three items from each list for a total of nine goals.
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Where did your
creative endeavors show up on your lists?
Did they show up at all?
If desired, repeat
the above exercise with the following questions:
1. What are my lifetime creative goals?
2. What do I want to achieve creatively
during the next 3 years?
3. If I knew I would die 6 months from
today, how would I live creatively until then?
How do your two sets
of lists compare? Where do you see your
responsible parent speaking through your lists?
Your logical adult? How about
your inner child?
To be successful with
discerning, setting, and achieving goals, these three parts of ourselves need
to feel as if they have had a voice, that they have been heard, and desire to
feel satisfied. Specifically, if you don’t plan in playfulness for your child, as well as “responsible” goals for your parent, those parts of yourself will sabotage all of your best efforts! Review your final list of nine items. Is there something there to satisfy all three
parts of yourself? Allow your child to
be creative, your parent, and then your adult.
How do each of them express themselves?
Can they work on a piece together?
Can they collaborate on attaining your goals?
Goals are not static,
but fluid concepts. You need to revisit
them regularly. Once you have goals you
can come up with a list of actions that will help them become reality. Importantly, your list of proposed actions
needs to be clear and specific. They
should answer questions, such as: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, How?, How much?,
How often? With whom? You would never
climb a mountain without being able to
answer similar questions, would you?
Many of us make a list of goals, but no action plan.
Goals provide a sense
of direction, but the magic is in being specific about our actions, how we are
going to get there. That is what simplifies things and allows creativity to
flow. With all of that said, I admit to
being an art book and supplies junkie.
In my mind, if I am not finding the time to be creative (or making the
time!), at least I am touching or collecting products that have creative
potential! Unfortunately, it is easy to
then fall into the trap of thinking that having the right stuff or equipment
will make my creativity flow. It does
nothing to move me toward my goals. Many people say they want to be creative,
but what does that mean for me, what does it look like? What I find is that I
begin drowning in a sea of possibilities.
I become frozen and directionless.
Recently I watched a
TED Talk called: Phil Hansen: Embrace the shake .
(Kadie and Kate featured this same video in their blog post HERE) An amazing talk about how embracing
limitations expanded his creativity. He
really made me rethink goal setting.
Rather than thinking big, maybe we need to think small. Maybe thinking small will allow us to get our
hands moving, reduce anxiety about the major artistic accomplishments that are
“supposed” to happen, enter into a state of flow, and reconnect us with our
love of how creating art makes us feel and think. Having a finished product is great, but I
promise, embracing what you are passionate about, and learning to enjoy the
journey will miraculously take us toward our goals
