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  • Home
  • About
    • The Happy Fan Club
  • Offerings
    • Redesign Your Life 2.0
    • Get Creative
    • Personal Coaching
  • Creativity Conversations
  • LET'S CONNECT!
  • Blog
    • Live Free Your Way
    • Seeing Things Differently
    • Mistaking Assumptions for Truth
    • How Humor Keeps Us Sane
    • Know Thyself
    • Peach Pie for Breakfast
    • Explore Experience Express
    • Should You Be Downshifting?
    • Stop the Hustle!
    • Do Your Habits Serve or Sabotage
    • Settle Down? Down Where?
    • What Lights You Up?
    • Saying Yes When Your Mind Says No
    • Independence From What?
    • Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
    • Letting Go of Assumptions
    • Is Kindness Allowed?
    • How to Throw a Wrench in the Works
    • Happiness
    • Daring to be Lighthearted
    • What Happens When You See Things Differently
    • Find Delight in Everyday Life
    • Are You Saying What Needs to Be Said
    • Is Your Life in Alignment
    • Are You Trapped by Your Past
    • Can You Love Your Life
    • The Hallmark of Creativity
    • Out Of Ideas?
    • Waking Up to a New World
    • Are You a Possibilitarian?
    • Want to Love Your Life?
    • Is Creativity Necessary
    • What's Stopping You?
    • An Unexpected Discovery
    • Free Your Mind
    • Is Your Creative Genius Hiding
    • Empty Headed or Clear Minded?
    • Is Stress Really Necessary?
    • Will Creativity Improve Your Life?
    • Is Creativity In Your Future?
    • Replace Fear With Love
    • How to Get Out of Your Own Way
    • Just Take A Moment
    • You Don't Have To - You Get To
    • The Good News About Being Stuck
    • Interested in Inner Freedom?
    • Are You a Hoarder?
    • What Remains
    • Co-vid 19 Free Pass to the Roller Coaster
    • Grace Under Pressure
    • Now is the Time To Notice
    • Hanging With the Wrong Crowd
    • Make Your Life Simpler
    • What Could Be Different For You
    • Everything is a Miracle
    • Do You Have A Negativity Bias
    • Are You Really Seeing Or Just Assuming?
    • Happiness and Resilience
    • Wherever You Go, There You Are
    • Is Stress Making You Sick?
    • What I Wish My Humans Knew
    • Looking Backwards
    • Daring to Change Course
    • Lost in Thought or Taking Action?
    • Still Can't Focus?
    • Do Your Thoughts Get Dark and Gloomy?
    • Can't Focus?
    • An Instant Formula for New Ideas
    • Talk Yourself Out of Another Great Idea?
    • Is Your Busyness Keeping You From Getting Things Done?
    • What's that Feeling In the Pit of My Stomach?
    • How Cool is This?
    • How to Make Your New Year Happier
    • Why Be Open To Life?
    • Simple Ways to Transform Your Life
    • Get Clarity and Confidence
    • Are You Driven by Fear or Love?
    • The Number One Way to Keep Your Vision Alive and Well
    • Why Stop Trying to Figure it Out?
    • What Are You Trying to Prove?
    • Do Your Goals Reflect Your Hearts Desire
    • Why My Cat is My Spiritual Teacher
    • Surviving the Holidays
    • 3 Convincing Reasons
    • 3 Secrets to Enjoying the Holidays
    • 5 Quick Steps to Get Your Mojo Back
    • 3 Ways to Keep Your Energy High
    • 5 Reasons to Do Good
    • Pain Relief for the Soul
    • Tired of Living by the Rules? Go Rogue!
    • What? You've Made a Mess? Excellent!
    • Why You Need to Be Inspired Now
    • Change Your Life in Just 48 Hours?
    • The Cure For Mental Overload
    • 5 Infallible Ways to Stay Inspired
  • Newsletter

May 06th, 2021

5/6/2021

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What Happens When You See Things Differently

5/6/2021

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Picture
Recently I discovered an art form known as surreal collage. When I'm in the mind-less flow of combining new possibilities that result in something totally unexpected, I find both delight and exhilaration at what emerges. 

And by mind-less I mean not thinking much at all about the end product, but letting my mind wander as I arrange and rearrange pieces of paper, putting things together and asking, what would this look like if I did that? What would change? Would I like it more than what's there right now? And noticing the feelings that arise when I play with different options.

This process always  begins with the question: "what if?" Not focusing on whether I "need" things to look or be a certain way, just trying different combinations of color and shape: what would it feel like to create something other than the already known?

Being present is perhaps the essence of creation - whether it's the creation of art or anything else - when I'm fully present to what is, listening deeply and noticing enhance the ground for new ideas to emerge.

My mind feels like it's had a deep spring cleaning when I let something other than my habitual thinking dictate my actions. Mentally meandering and exploring lets my mind travel a path that hasn't been worn into deep ruts of already-thought thoughts. And from a physiological standpoint, I'm sure it helps keep my neural pathways open as well as encouraging a few new ones to be created. It's a recipe for taking care of the body and the mind at the same time.

It's amazing what happens when we give our minds a few hours off. Some people refer to this as "play." Play is such an underrated activity for adults, and according to wanderlust.com,

"Play has been shown to release endorphins, improve brain functionality, and stimulate creativity. And it can even help to keep us young and feeling energetic. Studies show that play improves memory and stimulates the growth of the cerebral cortex."

No one wants their brain - or their world - to shrink; we've all experienced what that's like throughout the pandemic when we've had to temporarily suspend our participation in so many activities that seemed to be such an integral part of our identity.

But if our identity remains rigid and inflexible because we don't allow the way we think to be flexible and open, we lose our ability to go with the flow, to discover something new about the world and about ourselves. If our world shrinks on the outside, it doesn't have to shrink our internal world. In fact, if we allow it, we can use our circumstances to ask ourselves one of my favorite questions: what else is possible?

I can attest to the fact that limiting beliefs have at times severely curtailed my participation in life. I don't want to even think about how many times  I've misused the "gift of thought" (you might have another word that fits here: imagination, ingenuity, creativity) by dwelling on things that didn't work out or I assumed they wouldn't work out and my reality became claustrophobic and sad.

But as I've learned that my thoughts are simply the raw material out of which I can create my life (not unlike what happens with the surreal collage process), I am able to discard what isn't appealing, what doesn't go together, what limits my options and make room for ideas that bring more of a sense of expansiveness and openness.

For me, this art form is also a form of mental training that I can apply in any situation: I can take this same open-mindedness and curiosity into the rest of my life and start asking the same kinds of questions: why not this? what about that? what would happen when?
​
I can have the same kind of freedom to discover a world beyond the known, beyond expectations in which I become an adventurer, not an armchair explorer. 

Just let yourself wonder for a moment: what would your life be like if you didn't take seriously any thoughts that whispered in your ear that you couldn't or shouldn't?
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