Way To Go, Godot!

A nice, relaxed meal; a slow walk on a sunny spring day; time alone with loved ones. It’s an accepted wisdom that the little things in life are often the most enjoyable. The more you allow yourself to stay in the moment and focus in on the simple pleasures, the better your overall quality of life will be. We all know this already.

The problem lies in trying to remember this simple truth in the midst of all of life’s craziness. Most of us have so much going on in our lives that it seems like all we can do to keep our focus on the deadlines we have to meet, the objectives we have to reach, and the expectations we have to live up to. On top of that, most of us find ourselves surrounded by people who are at least as preoccupied with these things as we are, which reinforces our focus squarely on those things which have the least chance of making us happy right now, in this moment.

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Let’s face it: if you’re reading this article, you’re probably not like the others. There has probably always been something a little different, maybe even a little awkward about you. But you used that difference as a strength; you took it as your permission to explore the world from new angles, and to develop yourself into the sort of person who keeps working to develop yourself. And you probably succeed in your personal development. You are probably much more motivated than the general public, much more likely to succeed in business, more likely to enjoy a happy family life and to age gracefully.

Carl Jung based much of his psychology on the idea that people and societies are fundamentally balanced, that each of us has all of the possible dramatic configurations and mythological motivations built in, and that they each have equal importance for our overall being. This means that the things that you really hate about other people are exactly the parts of yourself that you are trying to disavow. Jung called these parts the shadow.

That’s why I think it’s so important to watch CSI:Miami.

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A million authors have written a million articles about amping up your creativity for a minute or two at a time. This article is different, because I intend to help you develop a full strategy for boosting your creativity whenever you need it and as much as you need.

The first thing to get a grasp of is exactly what creativity is. Creativity is novelty. When someone does something unexpected, we refer to that as a creative choice.

The only way to make unexpected decisions is to see some of the unexpected options which are open to you. This is what people tend to find the most difficult, because there is ultimately no way to really expect the unexpected. You have to find a way to open your eyes to something that has been in front of you all along. And that is creativity. Creativity is perspective.

So here’s how to open your eyes:

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In my work with sufferers of chronic pain, I’ve taught hundreds of people to practice mindfulness meditation. I do this not only because mindfulness meditation is in itself an effective treatment for chronic pain, but also because it helps the practitioner to manage their thoughts and emotions more effectively. It can help you to boost your creativity and can even improve your hypnotic ability.

Mindfulness meditation is probably the simplest form of meditation. It is deceptively simple; a lot of people have difficulty understanding how doing so little can have such deep and powerful effects on well-being. In studies with headache patients practicing mindfulness meditation every day for just 20 minutes a day, the most notable psychological effect of the practice was a pervasive sense of improved control. This is a common experience for people who take up the practice of mindfulness meditation:

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On some level, most people recognize that psychological factors affect physical health. People basically seem to know, for example, that a stressful career or a ‘Type A’ personality might give them a heart attack, or that an abrasive colleague can give them a headache.

What most people aren’t fully aware of is the profound interconnection between the mind and the body. The past twenty or thirty years have seen an explosion of research on the ways that the mind and the body relate to each other. The further the research goes, in fact, the less it looks like there is a mind apart from the body, or a body apart from the mind. Everything that happens to your body has an effect on your thoughts and feelings, and every emotional or intellectual event has effects on your body.

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