“Creativity has something to do with the quality of your consciousness. Whatsoever you do can become creative. What matters is are you putting your very soul into what you are creating?” – Osho

All we need to do is look at nature to see that our creator must have had a great imagination; creativity is everywhere around us. But it is so easy to disconnect from this, and confine ourselves to our strictly rational lifestyles. The thing is, we have creative energy in us. Every one of us. Have you ever seen a child that is not creative?! You were once like that. And you still are! But the more we focus all our energy on logic, the more our creative energy gets blocked.

I’m not talking about not having enough time to paint, sing, dance, write… anyone can do that, and most people find a way to intellectualize art into a logical, uncreative phenomenon anyway…. That’s not what creativity is. I’ve seen people move around their yoga mats looking about as fluid as an accountant, and I’ve seen people walk down the street as if they were dancing! Creativity doesn’t lie in the activity, but in HOW you do things; the approach you give everything you do.

Blocked creative energy isn’t just relevant to an artist who needs to produce. It’s relevant to every single one of us, because like any form of energy, if it’s flow is obstructed, it becomes destructive. That’s what all disease of the mind and body is anyway – blocked, misused energy. Energy needs to move, to be expressed, to be creative.

See, the brain has two hemispheres: the left controls discipline, logic, order. The right is the hemisphere of chaos, originality, love, beauty, poetry. They’re both there for a reason! But the more we follow logic, the more energy shifts away from the right brain so it barely functions. (Except when we are asleep or have taken a drug).

This is what happens to us as we grow up – we’re taught everything about ‘right and wrong’, discipline, becoming an egoist, learning to be neurotic. We become efficient experts in doing things the ‘right way’. We become respected, at the cost of going to the extreme of becoming entirely ‘left-brained’.

Why do we live like this? Because everything we do is driven by our ego. We want to accomplish. We strive towards more challenge, more difficulty, because these situations sharpen our egos further. We stay in our heads! It is a lot easier to be an efficient robot than to be receptive and creative and let things happen naturally.

So boring. So silly.

It’s obvious our right brain rules. Think about it – why do we earn money, why do we work?! The goal always remains to play, to relax. So it seems pointless to abandon that which we are working towards in our everyday life, in the space between the goals; especially at the detriment of our mind, body and spirit’s health.

“To live a creative life we must loose our fear of being wrong” – Joseph Pearce

Think of artists. Think of children. They don’t consider achieving perfection, they just want to be totally in their work so that in the middle of their dancing, painting etc. they get lost, and some other force takes over them.

That’s why people make art. To get out of their heads and into a state of presence. Only then is it possible to add real beauty and light to the world.

We too, as non-artists, need to learn to unlock the right brain to find internal balance again.

Being creative means switching gears as to why we do things. When we drop the ego, and make what we do not purely economic, this conflict ends. We approach everything lovingly, regardless of what that action is. Stress, anxiety and tension turn into feeling in tune, relaxed, and happy.

It begins with receptivity. With taking the risk to surrender to a power that is beyond us. Only then can we find thoughtlessness, and become less mind and more heart. That’s where art comes from! A creative person is not scared to curiously play around with the wrong ways, knowing that the right way means nothing but the way discovered by others. A creator is willing to look foolish and eccentric so that the moment becomes fun and exciting, and self-consciousness falls away.

It’s this kind of attitude of celebrating, exploring, risking that makes us get back into the moment. Only once we have dropped our heads and our egos can we be present. And that’s when life HAPPENS, and becomes sooo much more than just to-do lists and stress! Indulging in the present moment gives us inner growth; an intrinsic reward that feels way better than any accomplishment.

So when we next work, move, and play, lets take responsibility for the present moment, and consider how we want to use that freedom. Do we want to add another moment of disengaged boredom, or an innovative one of creativity and beauty?

“I am here to seduce you into a love of life; to help you to become a little more poetic; to help you die to the mundane and to the ordinary so that the extraordinary explodes in your life.”
—Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Written by Isabella Gucci-Ruffalo

Artwork by Hash Halper @newyorkromantics