Category: Nervous System

  • Mindful Listening: A Doorway into Creative Flow

    Mindful Listening: A Doorway into Creative Flow

    Today, I was called to advance my craft by reflecting upon my failures. A big failure for me when it comes to creative writing is just sitting down to do it, especially when inspiration isn’t already present. I’m not the only one who struggles with this. Just doing it is often the hardest part of the creative process for many writers. So what type of resistance is that, and how can we work with it?

    The First Step of the Creative Process

    I’ve been doing a good job lately of keeping a consistent daily writing practice, even if I only do a few minutes of journaling. But I know I could do more, or get started sooner and more easily, or maybe have even more time for writing if it weren’t so hard to get warmed up into it.

    That’s the point of resistance, isn’t it? Getting warmed up. By that, I mean getting settled into the sense of slowness, warmth, and safety that I need to enter a flow state. ‘Warming up’ in this sense is a matter of nervous system regulation: specifically, of transitioning.

    Our nervous systems aren’t designed to make sudden starts and stops and twists and turns. Suddenness usually puts us into one of the dysregulated states of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and it is very difficult to be creative or playful in these energies.

    Therefore, the first step of the creative process MUST ALWAYS be safety. Or else the rest of the process will be like a night of insomnia: restless, unsettled, uncomfortable, forced.

    Mindful Listening As a Threshold to Safety

    Synchronously, I happened to read the section in The Artist’s Way on Listening. It did a pretty fair job of summing up the solution I’ve been narrowing in on lately. Let’s see a few main takeaways:

    • You’re doing the writing wrong if you’re trying super hard to think something up. Just get some random, meaningless words down instead. It should feel easy. There should be no work involved, no effort-ing.
    • The Creator (or the muse, the genius, Spirit, God, the higher self, the collective consciousness, or whatever you like to call it) is the one doing all the work; you are just a conduit. “Expect the universe to support your dream. It will.” -Julia Cameron
    • The story you are writing already exists in its entirety. Your job is to listen for it, watch it like cinema in your mind’s eye, and write it down like a good secretary.
    • “Listening is a form of accepting.” -Stella Terrill Mann

    Listening is the key. Listening means the same thing as mindfulness meditation, safety, and (for me personally) privacy. Mindful listening means slowing down, being present, letting go of thoughts and fears, listening for whatever else is arising spontaneously.

    Art happens when the mind is enjoying a simple, comfortable world.

    I find that when my mind is full of those overexcited voices, intrusive thoughts, fears and doubts, it’s because I am not using my physical ears. I am listening internally too much. Artists are often sensitive or introverted types, gifted at listening inwardly with keenness. And yet if we go too far along that side of the spectrum toward inward focus, we disconnect our consciousness from our bodies and physical reality, which is the only thing that is actually real.

    So, it’s a catch-22. Yes, have a rich inner world and explore it indulgently. And also, don’t forget to come back to earth. To do this, you must find ways to place your awareness on the external world. Mindful listening is just one option.

    Here is a simple mindful listening practice to try out:

    1. Put your focus on the tactile sensation of sound hitting your eardrums.
    2. Notice sounds around you that are highest in pitch, then medium, then lowest in pitch.
    3. Notice sounds around you that are closest to your body, then in the immediate vicinity, then quietest or furthest away from you.
    4. Let in all sounds from all of these separate ranges at once. Imagine letting your conscious awareness fill the world outside of you, rather than staying inside your head.
    5. Allow curiosity to lead your listening flow. This means, don’t get stuck on any one sound. Don’t hold onto expectations. Meet each sound as if hearing it for the first time.

    Speaking of Curiosity…

    Sometimes when I practice listening, I am able to slow down and find some peace and calm, but I still feel resistance to the writing work. Do you experience that, too?

    I think this resistance comes from an implicit construct that many of us in Western cultures have: the belief that work is supposed to be hard. And our inner child responds to this with: “I don’t want to do something hard!”

    For instance, I feel resistance to figuring out where to pick up again in my novel writing, to thinking logically about what happens next, and to trying really hard to make it ‘good.’ This, and every other form of resistance, is just judgment.

    When we get to this stage, curiosity may be the remedy. Curiosity is judgment’s opposite. It allows, rather than critiques. It flows, rather than tries. It pulls you along playfully, rather than asking you to grind it out effortfully.

    Curiosity about my fictional world allows me to feel excited about diving into another realm. Curiosity about the characters helps me uncover motives and backstories with ease. Curiosity about what could happen next (not what should) pulls me along toward discovery, rather than pushing me begrudgingly toward high standards.

    A simple definition of curiosity is the desire to explore, which is inherently delightful, fun, and easy. It is motivated from a place of love and meaning, a place entirely free of judgment. With a curious and open mind, we can ask questions instead of reaching for answers. We can let go of needing to have it all figured out and instead let the question float away into the dark ether, trusting that the answer will be given to use from our Source when the time is right.

    Reflections

    Your somatic system and creative process are unique. Not everything discussed in this blog may resonate with you. So I’d love to hear what does and doesn’t work for you and what other ideas you have. And as you continue on your creative journey, feel free to borrow these journaling prompts to help you cultivate your relationship with your muse:

    • How important is nervous system safety to your creative practice? In what ways do you (or do you fail to) provide yourself safety?
    • How might the practice of mindful listening help to bring your awareness back into your body, external reality, and the present? Would some other somatic mindfulness technique work better for your system?
    • Is creativity supposed to be hard? Is work supposed to be hard?
    • How might you reframe your resistances and creative blocks as forms of judgment?
    • Rather than thinking about what to write, what questions do you have about your story so far?
  • Patience: The Path of Least Resistance

    Patience: The Path of Least Resistance

    Have you ever experienced resistance in the moments leading up to creating your art? Have you ever sat down at your laptop to write and found it immensely difficult to open your word processor or to decide what to write next? Then do you start to wonder, what’s happening on those days when getting started is actually easy?

    One of my intentions of late is to follow the path of least resistance – literally, to embrace and follow what’s easiest. I think this has to do with patience.

    Normalizing Resistance

    When it’s hard to get started, I’m usually anxious. Anxious about the effort that goes into warming up. About the writing itself. About where in the writing to pick up. About money. About trying to figure out and analyze the story so far in order to create the story. About getting the day’s word count clocked. And all of this anxiety is resistance.

    If you have experienced resistance like this, first just know that resistance is totally normal. It’s a block that every artist encounters in one way or another, at some point or another. And it’s also a necessary part of the creative process.

    I personally believe that what an artist creates, or how much she creates, or how well, is actually less important than the deep internal work required to overcome the resistance of creating it. The never-ending battle to overcome resistance is the artistic process; it is the meaningful life work of an artist.

    Resistance As Nervous System Dysregulation

    First let’s talk about what resistance really is and what it feels like in the body. If you’ve read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, you may be familiar with the same tired patriarchal advice to GET YOUR LAZY ASS UP and FORCE YOUR BRAIN INTO GEAR and JUST DO IT!!! Respectfully, Mr. Pressfield, I’d like to offer a less brutalistic way to understand resistance for those who are actually more likely to suffer and fail horribly under authoritarian discipline.

    Polyvagal Theory: A Brief Overview

    We can better understand resistance as nervous system dysregulation. I highly recommend doing your own research on Polyvagal Theory or working with a somatic coach if this interests you, as I will now offer only a brief overview here.

    In essence, Polyvagal Theory says that evolution designed the nervous system to be able to respond to threats with different strategies: fight, flight, or freeze. While these nervous system states are certainly helpful for staying alive when a lion attacks you, this isn’t a scenario we often see in the modern world. Instead, the threats we encounter in modern society tend to endure over longer periods or resolve covertly outside of the body’s awareness. So, the body will get stuck in one of these states if it continues to perceive the threat or if it does not experience an overt transition after the threat is gone.

    Polyvagal Theory In A Creative Context

    When it comes to creativity, these nervous system states – fight, flight, and freeze – are a few of the faces of resistance. You may relate to “fight” if your resistance looks like workaholism, urgency, a need to control, or hypervigilance. If your resistance feels like “flight,” you might experience avoidance, withdrawal, or restlessness. For those who experience “freeze,” notice what’s happening in your body when you draw a blank, feel unmotivated, or dissociate with doomscrolling or other numbing addictions.

    There is only one absolute certainty about art-making: resistance will always show up. If resistance is a guarantee, then perhaps we can take some comfort in expecting it. Might our artist’s journey then also comprise keeping a toolbox of guaranteed strategies for coping with it?

    One for the Toolbox: Patience

    What Is Patience?

    What do we mean by “patience”? In The Creative Act, Rick Rubin talks about patience as the acceptance of “what is,” rather than wishing reality were different in any way. This is similar to gratitude, a form of acceptance that emphasizes one’s positive reaction to a positive aspect of reality. Patience, on the other hand, is a more neutral and nonjudgmental acceptance of reality, for better or for worse. Simply put, patience accepts a shit sandwich, while gratitude celebrates a delicious sandwich.

    Using Patience to Address Dysregulation

    When I am experiencing that “fight-or-flight” type of resistance, it feels like my internal state is constantly moving, impatiently urging me to move at lightning speed to get to my self-prescribed destination. At the same time, the world is constantly in flux, shifting and moving around us, too. I more often find myself getting stuck in my creative process when I’m feeling chaos both internally and externally.

    Patience helps me to slow all that rapid energy down. I practice “accepting what is.” I accept my internal state, no matter the good or the bad, by sitting still and listening to it without any judgment. Stillness builds, and I become aware of the contrast between my internal state and the chaotic world outside. Suddenly, I am the one who is completely still, and the world outside is the one who can’t stop moving. There is contrast. A restless internal world will experience stuckness in the outer world; a still internal world will perceive the chaos to be in the outer world.

    Patience Is For HSPs

    I cannot recommend the practice of patience enough, especially to those who are highly sensitive. Sometimes, maybe it’s not that you are too sensitive to external stimulation, but that you are overwhelmed by existing internal stimulation that’s been stuck there for too long. Radical acceptance of your internal state means slowing down enough for your nervous system to realize it is safe.

    The Muse Thrives In Safety

    If the restless energy of “fight-or-flight” is what creates resistance, then stillness is what our inherently creative inner child needs to feel playful and active. Stillness and nervous system safety are one and the same.

    I like to imagine that ideal nervous system state of safety as a place. For me, it’s a secluded library-study, deep within like an underground bomb shelter, shrouded in the most absolute darkness and privacy. Sometimes, it’s a vibrantly green forest and the sound of a soft breeze in the foliage. What does that place look and feel like for you?

    Here in your place of safety and emptiness, innocence and inspiration (aspects of the inner child) can emerge. Innocence is a childlike mind with no preconceptions, biases, or rules that can discover countless never-before thought-of solutions, ideas, and methods. Likewise, an empty mind (through the practice of patient stillness) invites inspiration into its vacuum.

    A Patient Writing Practice

    To sum up, patience is the practice of employing a radical acceptance mindset to our anxieties. Much of acceptance comes down to letting go of control and trusting the universe (or Spirit or the muse or whatever you believe in).

    We often sit at the empty page, trying to figure out what comes next. But maybe, we don’t need to know the full picture. If we have just a small window of the picture, we can get started writing, and we can trust the muse to reveal more as we go and as it is relevant. When we are in the flow, we don’t know what’s coming around the bend. We don’t try to adjust according to what we think may be coming. Instead, we trust our intuition and senses to be able to react in our best interest when the bend does arrive and reveal whatever it reveals.

    In other words, we show radical acceptance toward all areas of uncertainty. Allow questions to be intentions and nothing more. Our only job is just to ask the question, not to go searching for the answer. The answer is entirely up to the muse, and we just have to trust that it will be revealed when the time is right.

    As Rick Rubin says, “All we can do is invite it in and await it actively.” So once you’ve slowed down enough to regain your sense of safety, just set an intention or ask a question. Then do nothing else but listen patiently for a response. Because doing nothing is the easiest thing in the world – it’s the path of least resistance.