Resources for Expanding Your Imagination, Creativity, and Writing Skills

InnerViews #3/pdf: When Life Gets Messy and Won't Behave: The Positive Use of Ambiguity, Uncertainty, and Disorder (6/02)

InnerViews #4/pdf: First Cues: Making Friends with Your Reptile Brain (Intuition Magazine 3/98)

InnerViews #12/pdf: Being a Medium for HER Voice (1103)

InnerViews #16/pdf: The Art and Entertainment of Life in the Flow (604)

Books by Friends and Colleagues

Michell Cassou
Point Zero: Creativity Without Limits (JP Tarcher 2001)
  A guide to breaking through creative blocks to discover the emotional and spiritual rewards of spontaneous art.

Life, Paint, and Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression co-author Stewart Cubley (JP Tarcher, 1996)
     An involving journey inward using the creative process for self-discovery. Helps open spontaneous creativity.

Judith Cornell
Drawing the Light From Within: Keys to Awaken Your Creative Power (Simon&Schuster, 1992)
     Overcome barriers to creative power and learn to visualize images before you create.

Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing (Quest Books, 1995)
     Full color art book that shows how to use sacred mandalas as self-transformative tool. Exercises, visualizations.

Peggy Joy Jenkins, PhD
The Joyful Child: A Sourcebook of Activities and Ideas for Releasing Children's Natural Joy (Aslan, 1996)
     A source and resource to guide your own and your child's expression of creativity and joy. Award from UNICEF for outstanding contribution to the well-being of children.

Creativity Exercises
(in random order)

Cultivate Surprises

Write about something or someone who surprised you this week. What was revealed to you about life, or about some hidden aspect of yourself? Then write about how you surprised yourself or someone else. This week, emphasize words like Oh, Wow, Ho-ho-ho, Open, Now, So! Notice how your mind responds to the exclamatory "O" sound.

Open Some Space

Get quiet and see what you really want to create next in your life. Now ask yourself, How can I create a "hungry void" into which something authentic can come? Make a defined space in your calendar, in your evening, in your file cabinet, on your bookshelves, in your closet, in your journal, and ask for the new and good.

A Hymn of Thanksgiving

In your journal, make a gratitude list, write a poem or a letter to the Earth, the Universe or to the Creator, expressing your gratitude for your life. Include details from your observations of your body, your environment, what amuses you, what you find beautiful and amazing. Write from your feminine mind.

Write a Prayer

Write a prayer to your own favorite spiritual figure or divine source. Make it personal and meaningful. Ask for what you want the most, and say what you want to give. Tell what your your intentions are.

Identify Your Personal Symbols

1. Make a list of your positive character traits, the things you like about yourself. These traits should describe both the way you do things and the way you are inside. Next to the words and phrases, list images that represent those characteristics. For example, for FREE you might list HORSE, EAGLE, WIND; for INDUSTRIOUS you might list ANT, BEE, BEAVER, HAMMER.

2. Pick the traits you want to use to represent yourself to the business world. How do you want to feel when you're "out there"? What do you want others to notice about you? Design a logo for yourself.

3. Pick the traits you want to use to represent yourself to your mate or a potential soulmate. Design a logo for yourself.

4. Design a meditation symbol or mandala to help you focus on your essence.

Public Conversations Soup

This week keep your ears open for tidbits and snatches of conversation you overhear at restaurants, on subways, on the radio and TV, from your children, at the market or gas station or from passersby on the street. Immediately write down or tape these random phrases, or even interesting single words. At the end of the week put it all together in a poem or piece of creative writing, allowing the phrases to act as triggers for your imagination. Remember: it doesn't have to make sense!

Open a Stream of Consciousness Flow

Let your mind feel relaxed, like a loose muscle, and clear any images or thoughts. Then wait for a new image to appear. Take the first one you get. Let that image turn into something else; take the next image that appears. Let that one turn into yet another. Maybe your first image is: a ladder. That turns into a giraffe, which turns into a tree, which turns into a green balloon, which turns into a parrot flying in the sky, which turns into a paperclip, which turns into a tiny whirlwind scooting across your desk. . . Keep going, entertaining yourself, keeping the process fluid and animated, like a living cartoon, for 5 minutes.

And, Then, What Might Happen?

Try conducting an imaginary interview with your dream self. Start by asking: "How do you feel about (image from dream or dream fragment)?" Or, "What do you experience as you see (image)? Then, "What else comes to mind as you experience this?" As you reach a statement based on fear, ask "What would happen if (the situation you're trying to avoid) occurred?" When you get the answer ask, "And then what would happen?" Continue the "And then what?" questions until you feel you've arrived at the core fear. You might then ask, "If this worst possible scenario happened, what might you learn that would be positive?" This process works equally well with images that aren't based in fear.

(All exercises are excerpted from The Intuitive Way and are copyrighted.)