{"id":6563,"date":"2017-04-13T09:20:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=6563"},"modified":"2017-04-13T09:19:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:19:22","slug":"6563","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/6563\/","title":{"rendered":"Relax To Enhance Your Creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Unplug.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5737 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Unplug.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"205\" height=\"262\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a>The <a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?cat=4\" target=\"_blank\">Write Spot Blog<\/a> is all about writing: <a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?cat=4\" target=\"_blank\">Writing Prompts<\/a> to inspire you; <a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?cat=126\" target=\"_blank\">Just Write <\/a>tidbits to motivate you; <a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?cat=3\" target=\"_blank\">Quotes<\/a> to let you know others are in the same boat as you; <a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?cat=71\" target=\"_blank\">Places to Submit<\/a> to get your work out there; <a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?cat=52\" target=\"_blank\">Book Reviews<\/a> to share authors\u2019 work; <a href=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?cat=104\" target=\"_blank\">Guest Posts<\/a> for all kinds of writing-related things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">Today\u2019s Guest Blog Post by Suzanne Murray talks about increasing your creativity by relaxing. Sounds easy, doesn\u2019t it? But what about cortisol, adrenaline, and epigenetics? Factor those in, and it becomes apparent that relaxation isn\u2019t as easy as drifting\u00a0in a hammock.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">Fortunately, Suzanne Murray offers strategies to help us learn to relax.<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">HOW CREATIVITY CAN HELP US RELAX<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">We all know that relaxation makes us and our bodies feel good whereas stress causes us to tense up and feel less that optimum. New scientific research shows just how important relaxing our bodies and minds is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">The emerging science of epigenetics shows that our genetic expression is not permanently fixed at birth, but actually evolves as we grow and learn. Environmental factors including nutrition, stress and our emotional responses can affect how our genes express themselves without changing the basic blueprint of our DNA, the genetic material in our cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">When we are stressed our genes produce hormones associated with fight or flight like adrenalin and cortisol that are associated with aging and making us more susceptible to disease. When we are relaxed and feeling good our genes produce chemistry that boosts our immune system and helps with cellular repair and growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">A study looking at mindfulness practices like meditation, yoga, breath work, and other relaxation techniques, showed that we can actually \u201cturn on\u201d disease-preventing genes and \u201cturn-off\u201d disease-causing genes through relaxing. Research on the energy psychology modality EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), an easy to use self-help strategy that combines western psychology with Chinese acupressure, found that an hour session of EFT lowered cortisol levels by 24 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">I\u2019d like to add creativity to ways we can relax as well as develop more of our potential. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">Creativity is really a form of mindfulness since it puts us in the flow of the moment and feels good. Adult coloring books have been shown to reduce stress. I like doodling or free writing where you just let the words flow out of the pen with no thought to what you are writing. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">Bringing play to whatever process you are working with and letting go of attachment to outcome is important.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">Stress so often stems from the fact that our mind has leapt ahead with worry about the future or is chewing over something that happened in the past. When we do things that bring us into the moment we naturally relax. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">Find what works for you. Play with it and see if you feel better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/creativitygoeswild.com\/2009\/06\/29\/about-suzanne-murray\/\" target=\"_blank\">Suzanne Murray<\/a> is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others\u00a0to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives. She works with simple, powerful techniques to help clear whatever gets in the way and creates a safe and sacred space for your creative and soulful life to blossom. She provides an experience of the joy and beauty that comes from embracing your gifts and expressing them in the world. With a lifelong connection to the natural world, she enjoys sharing the grace and wonder that Nature can bring to your life and creativity<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/creativitygoeswild.com\/writing-in-nature\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Writing and Creativity in Nature<\/strong><\/a><b><br \/>\n<strong>One Day Workshop Point Reyes CA<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>April 22, 2017, 10 am to 4 pm<\/strong><\/b><br \/>\nSpending time in nature is good for our health, enhances our creative capacities and increases our general sense of wellbeing. It can help us enter\u00a0the flow. Join me for this one day workshop where we will work with our creativity in the\u00a0beauty of\u00a0nature.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.creativitygoeswild.com\/eft\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been working with EFT in new ways that allow us to laser in on the issue and shift it at the core. We often make significant shifts in a single session. Sessions are available by phone and Skype<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin: 0px; color: #606060; font-family: 'Helvetica',sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\"><br \/>\n<\/span> <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">Original posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/us4.campaign-archive1.com\/?u=c4b1aba2d4b59ed46577dd4cf&amp;id=0003f58242&amp;e=2448cf25e8\" target=\"_blank\">Suzanne&#8217;s April 2, 2017 Blog<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Write Spot Blog is all about writing: Writing Prompts to inspire you; Just Write tidbits to motivate you; Quotes to let you know others are in the same boat as you; Places to Submit to get your work out there; Book Reviews to share authors\u2019 work; Guest Posts for all kinds of writing-related things. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[234,1055,105,160,329,342,10,11],"class_list":["post-6563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-eft","tag-emotional-freedom-technique","tag-just-write","tag-suzanne-murray","tag-the-write-spot","tag-the-write-spot-blog","tag-writing-freely","tag-writing-prompts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s43Dj8-6563","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6563"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6569,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions\/6569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}