The simple truth is creativity functions best when you let go of resistance to the creative flow. Resistance comes in many forms. Anxiety over a creative block is a form of resistance. Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) for why you cannot or aren’t whatever enough to come up with the vision or the energy to create is another face of resistance. Worrying about how you’re going to pay your bills or how the critics will view your work is nothing but resistance. Resistance is saying NO! to YOU. It is saying NO to what your heart is calling you to be, do and experience.

Let go of your resistance. Trust. Trust that you can, are ‘enough’, will be able to keep a roof over your head and handle criticism of any kind. Just drop the baggage of resistance that you’ve been carrying around with you that makes you too exhausted to get your creative juices flowing. Even if you give yourself permission to let go for only 1 day, just drop it! Drop out of the vicious cycle of artist block and stunted creativity.

“Drop out” suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. It meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean ‘Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.’” -Timothy Leary

When you drop your creative resistance you change your structured path of least resistance. Your current path is mired with fear and self-doubt. When you drop your fear and self-doubt you create a new path; a path that is clear, free from the quagmire of restraints and limitations to your creative flow. You are open to new vision.

“It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.” – Anais Nin

It is very easy to drop your creative resistance. Just be willing. Take a deep breath and begin. It doesn’t matter how you begin; just do anything. If you’re a painter pick up your brush or knife and choose a color. Put some paint on a canvas and let go. If you’re an actor, audition for a role that you think is impossible to win. If you’re a writer, write a romantic comedy if your work is largely science fiction. Do something out of your ordinary, out of your comfort zone, and be willing to fall flat on your butt.

“Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.” ~Brendan Francis

If you do create a stink bomb, have a good chuckle over the experience and notice that the fall didn’t kill you like you feared it would. In fact, you learned a thing or two about yourself and how you can improve your work. It is in the lessons learned from new experiences that your vision of what’s possible for you expands. And laughter will give you distance. Laughter lets you to step back from an event, learn from it and then move onto bigger and better experiences.

Drop the resistant Inner Critic monkey-mind chatter filled with doubt and anxiety. Chuckle and hum a little tune..”I can see clearly now, the brain is gone…”

“The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward.” – Joseph Campbell

Copyright © 2009 Valery Satterwhite

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The author of the acclaimed book The DaVinci Method, Garret LoPorto, claims that while the ADD mutation can also be described as a giftedness, only about 10% of the general population is lucky enough to have the ADD gene, and most geniuses, entrepreneurs and artists have it. Such a method is designed to help people with ADD work the strengths and minimize the weaknesses associated with ADD.

While other therapies try to force those with ADD to behave more like “normal” people, this therapy recognizes the genius behind ADD and helps you harness it. Most people with the DaVinci trait excel at lateral thinking ability, a problem solving approach where you attempt many different angles in order to find a solution.

They think “outside the box” and they discover many new ways of framing problems rather than staying stuck in situations where the solution must be discovered as opposed to merely stated. Lateral thinking is paradoxically most effective in situations where there is little or no established procedure for success, or structure.

Another key to focus for someone with ADD/ADHD is passion. When something is truly interesting for a person with this kind of neurological wiring, it manifests as passion which in turn triggers their ability to hyper-focus. While some Hyperfocus is more powerful than regular focus and about 5 times as intense.  It allows one to solve difficult problems easily and it maximizes the energy available for the task at hand.

On the other hand, if the environment does not offer the necessary challenge, freedom and stimulation to people with the ADD gene, they may be prone to develop compulsive behaviours and addictions. Just being aware of this fact may help one avoid some difficulties in their lives.

What do you think? Leave a comment…

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