Imagination and Mentors

  • Imagination and Mentors

    Imagination is everything. It is the preview to life’s coming attractions. – Albert Einstein

    Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray and imagination:

    I’ve been asking myself, how can I best help empower others at this time of great global change.

    The first answer that came in the flash of inspiration was the word imagination.

    Einstein regularly insisted that imagination is more important than knowledge.

    But the thing is, it’s not just for geniuses. It’s for everyone. We have been taught to favor the rational mind at the expenses of capacities that actually can help us in amazing ways. It’s easy to reclaim.

    Years ago, I learned an exercise from Jean Houston, noted author, visionary and one of the founders of the human consciousness movement. It involves working with an imaginary mentor to get advice on any question that we have for any area of our life. Using our imagination and intuitive mind give us access to a deeper wisdom and way of knowing beyond the capabilities of our linear mind.

    I have used this exercise for years in teaching writing and with creativity coaching. I have been amazed and delighted that my students get much better advice than I could have ever given with all my years of experience. Everyone in class could hear the wisdom coming through as we shared our answers.

    Most remarkable is that the answers actually sounded like they were coming from the individual asked. If someone asked Mark Twain, the response would sound like something Mark Twain would write.

    Tapping your imagination and writing in flow can give you access to expanded awareness and better answers you could think up.

    TRY THIS: Pick someone you think would give good advice. It could be Einstein, Plato or your grandmother. Imagine you have written him or her a letter asking a question you have about anything in your life. It helps to be specific.

    Then using the technique of free writing (writing as fast you can without censoring), write the response as if it is coming from your imaginary mentor.

    Really let go on this one. Don’t think. Just let the answer flow out of the pen or the keyboard for at least ten minutes.

    Then read the answer with an open curiosity as if you really have just received this letter in the mail. Be open, be objective. The more you play with this, the stronger the muscle of your imagination grows.

    OR TRY THIS: Go for a walk with your imaginary mentor and have a conversation with them in your imagination. The key is to play and be open. Let go of thinking that you have to figure out everything with your mind.

    Wishing you an abundance of health and creativity, Suzanne

    Suzanne Murray is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives.

    Suzanne’s ebook, The Heart of Writing, will help: Jumpstart  the Process, Find Your Voice, Calm the Inner Critic and Tap the Creative Flow.

    Marlene C

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  • The Joy of Creativity

    By Suzanne Murray

    Years ago I heard Nobel Prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney give a lecture at the University of Washington. In the middle of this very academic speech, he paused, threw up both his hands and said, “Oh, just write for the joy of it” and then dipped back into the lecture.

    I don’t remember anything else from the talk, but Heaney’s sudden burst of inspiration stayed with me because it really captured an essential element in being creative.

    Whether you are cooking a great meal, growing a beautiful garden, writing a poem or singing in the community choir, you likely feel a deep sense of satisfaction and a joyfulness that comes with being creative.

    Creativity draws on the best of human nature: perception, imagination, intellect, inspiration, courage, intuition, and empathy. The urge to create asks us to bask in the experience of the world, to see, feel, taste, hear, and smell the magnificence around us. It allows us to celebrate, with a spirit of gratefulness, every aspect of our lives and the beauty and complexity the world offers.

    It can help us make meaning from our sufferings. Being creative also breaks us free from our ruts and habits allowing us to look at the world anew. We are able to tell a story that touches others, envision a unique way of solving a problem or offer counsel with fresh clarity, even if we have struggled with the same material or ideas a hundred times before. Embracing our creativity allows us to tap a deeper, more insightful way of knowing beyond our conscious mind and thoughts.

    In looking for your own ways of being creative you can start by celebrating your uniqueness. There never was, nor ever will be, anyone exactly like you. In exploring your uniqueness is there a central preoccupation, an interest or passion that runs through your life? There can also be more than one.

    If you can’t name it right now, think of something that you are fascinated by again and again. The possibilities are infinite; from needlework to rock climbing, from bird watching to playing the piano, from English country dancing to writing haiku, from gardening to giving foot massages. Look for what brings you joy and then begin taking actions to embrace your creativity and enjoy the process. One small step a day will set you down the creative path to increased happiness and fulfillment.

    Excerpted from “How Being Creative Makes Us Happy” on Suzanne’s Blog. Please go to Creativity Goes Wild and scroll to June 3, 2022 to read the entire article.

    Suzanne Murray is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer and poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives

    Marlene C

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  • Calm Your Brain

    Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray has this to say:

    With anxiety and fear running high in the world these days, I wanted to share how we can make friends with these feelings and use them to our advantage. Anxiety and fear can prevent us from being creative or living a life we love. To live and create fully, we be must be willing again and again to step out of our old comfortable life and into unknown territory. This always feels scary.

    Many years ago I read the self-help book Feel the Fear, And Do It Anyway which presents the premise that just because we feel a sense of fear about a project or moving in a new direction in our lives doesn’t mean we are supposed to stop ourselves from proceeding.

    More recently I’ve been fine-tuning my understanding of what this really means and feels like, how to best use it in my life and creative work, and how it fits the idea of following my internal guidance of my intuition and heart to bring my soul and creative gifts into the world. Any time I stretch in a new direction in my writing or my personal and professional life I have to step out of my comfort zone which gives rise to a feeling of anxiety.

    I’ve found it’s important to learn to distinguish between the kind of anxiety that represents our bodily intuition signaling a real threat (like don’t walk down that dark alley or that new relationship really isn’t good for you or that’s really not the best art project for you to pursue) versus the kind of anxiety we feel when we step out of our comfort zone in a way that stretches our capacities, capabilities and sense of self. The anxiety that is genuinely trying to warn us off feels heavy with fear whereas the anxiety that simply marks stepping out of our comfort zone has a sense of exhilaration to it.

    When I’m at my desk writing and I start to feel a lot of resistance, if I make myself sit in the chair and keep writing, (even when I desperately want to get up and make phone calls or clean the refrigerator), I find that I will usually move through the anxiety into what I really want to say and find myself very excited by the work that results. The same is true every time I do anything new in my life that feels like a stretch. I feel nervous and excited whenever I push past the feeling of fear and take action to make the new idea or vision happen.

    When you are trying to decide what the fear or anxiety is trying to tell you, just take some deep breaths and get clear on the exact quality of the feeling in your body: whether you feel contracted or expanded by the thought of what you desire. If you feel expanded then you need to “feel the fear” that comes with it and begin to take action however small toward achieving your desire. Also new neuroscience shows that the simple act of naming or labeling a negative emotion like fear calms the brain which makes it easier to get clear on what to do.

    Wishing you many blessings and creative flow, Suzanne

    Check out Suzanne’s coaching opportunities:

    Creativity Coaching, Creative Life Coaching, Writing Process Coaching & EFT Sessions

    EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)

    CREATIVE LIFE COACHING

    CREATIVITY COACHING

    Creativity Goes Wild Blog

    Marlene C

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  • You Can’t Wait For Inspiration


    Today’s Guest Blogger post is about inspiration, by Suzanne Murray.

    Excerpted from Suzanne’s September 5, 2020 Creativity Goes Wild Blog Post.

    “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London

    Recently a new writing coaching client emailed me to say, “I haven’t been writing. I just don’t feel inspired.”

    I immediately shot a message back, “You can’t wait for inspiration. If you get nothing else out of our coaching together, this awareness will make a huge difference in your creative life.”

    No writer or other artist waits for inspiration before showing up. Painter Chuck Close said, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” Flannery O’Connor, the noted Southern writer,
    described her habit of going to her office every day from 8 am to noon, “she wasn’t sure if anything was going to happen but she wanted to be there if it did.” 

    Most writers just start writing and find inspiration along the way. John Steinbeck would always end one day’s writing in the middle of the page, so he could pick up the thread the next day. He insisted that “In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.”

    Research in the neuroscience of the brain shows that creativity is activated when we are in the brain wave states of alpha and theta which are associated with meditation, intuition and information beyond our conscious awareness. This is why a writer often needs to write a page of what feels uninspired in order slow the mind down and hit the zone. 

    This is true of all acts of creativity. We have to show up and begin to play with the process to access the place of inspiration. The more we commit to our creativity through our intentions and actions the more our creativity flows and the more juiced, excited and inspired we feel.

    Now more than ever we need to play with our creativity in whatever way that calls to us and see where it leads. Even small creative acts can help lift our spirits and energy as we face the many challenges we see in our world. Exercising our creative muscles can open us to new possibilities and inspiration.

    Note from Marlene:
    Many writers use a method of freewriting to warm up before embarking on their writing project. You can use a prompt to inspire freewrites. Writing Prompts on The Write Spot Blog.
    Suzanne Murray is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner, and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination, and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives. 

    THE HEART OF WRITING COACHING Do you want to ignite your creativity and show up to your writing on a regular basis or go deeper into the process and craft? Suzanne offers online coaching to support you and coach you through any resistance or problems along the way.   She holds the space of unconditional acceptance and support to nurturing your unique voice and work on the stories that are really important to you.  

    The Heart of Writing eBook   Jumpstart the Process, Find Your Voice, Calm the Inner Critic and Tap the Creative Flow

     * Follow Suzanne on Twitter at @wildcreativity where she tweets inspirational quotes for creativity and life.      

    Marlene C

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  • Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray and the power of commitment.

    Today’s blog post is by Suzanne Murray.

    THE POWER OF COMMITMENT

    Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. – Rumi  

    I’ve been thinking about the difference between trying and doing and how it applies to our creative lives.   Consider how it feels to say “I’m going to try to write a book versus I am going to write book.”

    The word try brings with it a lot of resistance and a sense of effort, whereas I am going to do it carries the sense “I can do this.”  

    Perhaps the most well-known line in the Star Wars movies is when Yoda says to Luke Skywalker “do or do not, there is no try.”   Yoda is encouraging Luke to commit fully because he know that if Luke is uncertain that he can achieve the goal, he will not be able to.

    Note from Marlene: Pause for a minute. Think about that.  
    If you are uncertain you can achieve a goal, you will not be able to.  

    Back to Suzanne:  There is always a learning curve to anything new we do or to increasing our skill level at something. With commitment we bring our heart to the task which helps fuel our capacity to show up and find pleasure in the doing.

    Suzanne Murray is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives.

    Check out Suzanne’s Blog for ideas about creativity and life coaching. Her April 13, 2019 post tells about how she came up with the name for her business, Creativity Goes Wild.
    The post starts out like this, “When I received the inspiration for the name of my business, Creativity Goes Wild, I was on a modern day vision quest in an extraordinary canyon in southern Utah that allowed me to really open to the flow of new ideas.
    Follow her on Twitter at @wildcreativity where she tweets inspirational quotes for creativity and life.


    Marlene C

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  • Finding Magic in the Mundane . . . Prompt #328

    Today’s writing prompt and title for this post is inspired by Suzanne Murray.

    “I have many favorite poets but, the Nobel prize winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda tops the list in his elegant celebration of common things. These poems help me find beauty and wonder in the everyday and give me a fresh perspective in the face of the difficulties in the world.

    Early in his writing life wrote serious political poems . . .  One line from his poem I’m Explaining a Few Things written in 1935 during the Spanish Civil War has long stayed with me capturing the intensity of Neruda’s work, …and the blood of children ran through the streets/without fuss, like children’s blood…

    Later in his life, as if weary of the burden of protesting atrocities and political corruption, he began to write Odes about everyday things: salt, cat, dog, dictionary, tomato, to name a few. His Odes celebrate the ordinary in an extraordinary way. I have a hard bound collection of Odes to Common Things . . .  I cherish this book because, beyond the fact that the poems are an exquisite, playful honoring of the everyday, those things we take for granted, the things we no longer really see; they remind us to pay attention and look at common things with new eyes and imagination.

    You could do this too in whatever form your creativity takes. Play with it and see if it doesn’t brighten and expand your world. Consider using poetry as your inspiration, fuel for your creative spirit and to uplift and lighten your life.”

    Writing Prompt, suggested by Marlene:  Look up . . .  write about the first thing you see.
    Or:  Write about something on your kitchen table, or coffee table, or on your desk, or on the wall.  Choose an everyday thing and Just Write.

    “Celebrating Common Things Through Creativity,” by Suzanne Murray.  

    Suzanne Murray is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives.

     

     

    Marlene C

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  • Establishing a practice can help you move forward in magical ways.

    Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray writes about: The Power of Establishing a Practice.

    Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!” – W.H. Murray The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

    Whether it’s for writing, meditation, or exercise, establishing a practice can help you move forward in magical ways. Having a practice means that you show up every day, no matter what. You are going to want to release all expectations of outcome or where you think you want things to go. It doesn’t matter how good you are or what you accomplish or what happens with the practice. You sit down to meditate and your mind goes wild with chatter the entire time, that’s fine. You show up to write and find yourself whining on the page, that’s okay. The point is to show up and practice.

    A lot of things are happening when you show up consistently to something. You begin to forge the neural nets in your brain needed for the task and strengthen them so that whatever you are committed to actually becomes easier to do and you are able to increase our level of skill. In writing your subconscious mind is working 24/7 on whatever you give it to focus on, so showing up everyday allows you to access new insights and ideas arising from your expanded mind.

    You commit and take the action. The universe responds in kind to the power of your willingness and the force your commitment. Free from expecting that you need to accomplish something, you relax and open up to allowing. In this receptive state, the your subconscious mind aligns with the workings of the Universe and you find support, synchronicities and inspired ideas coming to you.

    Establishing a practice helps you move beyond any resistance that has been in the way. When you release the need for instant gratification you slip into a sense of satisfaction from the simple act of showing up for yourself. You learn to find joy in the practice itself and this allows you to expand your creative capacity.

    To begin, start small. When I coach writers who are having a hard time showing up,  I ask them at first to commit to writing ten minutes a day. This helps you cross the threshold of resistance and move past the associated voice that tells you that you don’t have enough time. Once you have established the habit of showing up you will find things flowing with greater ease.

    Suzanne MurraySuzanne Murray is a creativity and empowerment coach and offers healing work with EFT.  Her eBook contains material that she has used for more than twenty years in her writing classes. Her ebook helps followers to show up to write, find their voice, deepen their experience with the writing process and surrender to the creative flow and let the magic happen. The portable book is like being in one of her workshops and allows participatns to establish writing as a practice. Suzanne offers her book with a 14 day money back guarantee. For information about Suzanne’s ebook and her coaching packages,  please click here.

    Check out Suzanne’s inspiring Blog, Creativity Goes Wild, for ideas on writing, creativity and life coaching.

    Marlene C

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  • Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray explains How Nature Can Enhance Your Creativity

    When I received the inspiration for the name of my business Creativity Goes Wild, I was on a modern day vision quest with Bill Plotkin in an extraordinary canyon in southern Utah that allowed me to really open to the flow of new ideas. Along with the name, I also got that the essence of the work included three different elements: Nature, creativity and the soul which are aspects we can connect to that can really help us live full and authentic lives.

    I have long thought of nature as the original artist. If you spend any time in nature and pay close attention, you become aware of the beauty and design and patterns in both small things like the symmetry in pine cones and snowflakes or on a grander scale the patterns in the erosion of mountains or the movement of clouds across the sky.

    At first glance nature might look chaotic or random or disordered but the more you observe and learn about the natural world the more you become aware of the elegance of design in every creation. We can draw inspiration for our own creativity from spending time in Nature, the same way we feel inspired by visiting an art exhibit, going to a play or watching a good movie.

    Spending time in nature actually slows down our brain waves, taking us from the beta waves where our mind attends to daily activities into alpha waves which offer a naturally meditative state where we access the part of our mind that has new thoughts and ideas, flashes of insight, and more readily makes connections. This can help us with the essence of the creative impulse and process.

    Whenever I find myself stuck on a creative project I will go for a walk in nature and it always opens me back up to the flow. Or if I am looking for a place to begin a creative work I will plant the seed in my subconscious mind and then go to nature, not to think about it, but to allow the inspiration to rise to the surface of my mind.

    Try it. Whether you like to sit in the garden or go for a walk among the trees, see if you don’t find that connecting to nature doesn’t open you up to new ideas and possibilities.

    Suzanne Murray is a gifted writing and creativity coach, EFT practitioner, intuitive healer and writer with deep ties to Nature and the wisdom of the Earth. She offers writing and creativity retreats in beautiful natural places including Yosemite and the West of Ireland.

    Marlene C

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