This hand, That hand, Right hand, Left hand, No, your Other hand!

FYour other right!”E is what my kids father use to tell me when he had told me to turn right and I went left. Being ambidextrous has it’s own set of drawbacks like you never know what is truly right or left. On the “other hand”I it is quite convenient when someone asks you do draw, color, or write with your non-dominant hand. Yes, I did tell you in my last post on creativity that we would be working with our non-dominant hands or the hands we don’t normally use.

A cup of Joy and Creativity

 

I have several assignments that can be very good for opening of the brain and fertilizing your creativity. The first one I want to discuss is the coloring with your
I“other”I (non-dominant) hand for 20 minutes everyday. Just get yourself one of those little kids coloring books and start in @coloring EVERYDAY! The use of color crayons is important because they have a certain smell that invokes another sense. If you are not use to being creative, then this could spur all kinds of strange dreams, or at least open up dreamland to you, and allow you to remember those strange dreams you have been having all along. Me, I have all kinds of strange dreams all the time. Dreams to me are a way for the subconscious/Spirit to speak to me. So much information can be gotten out of a dream that you could not access in any other way, but your subconscious/Spirit is using your sleep time to reach you. Let’s see for me there was the large snake so big I could not see it’s head or it’s tail, and it’s belly was over a foot tall. Can you imagine? It just kept jumping at me! To me the snake means transition or transformation, and only being able to see the middle section of the “BIG” snake, meant BIG transformation in my life and I was in the middle of it. So don’t be freaked out A by the dreams this may bring on, it is just your creativity coming out in a new way.B

The second A is kind of fun too. This is great when you have an issue or question you just seem to not have an answer for. Write it with your ? dominant hand (the one you write with everyday) and then switch hands, and start to write with your @non-dominant hand the answer. You will be amazed at the answers that just come out. This is called guided writing. Your dominant hand represents your conscious mind and your non-dominant hand represents your subconscious mind. The biggest thing is to just trust the process and don’t second guess the answers. Don’t worry about the legibility of the writing with the non-dominant hand, it is necessary for pulling out the answers. Here is the thing, never write a “should” question. Instead ask what would be my highest and best for this situation. You also may need to start the process out by asking your higher self or your inner child permission for the answers, so if you are having trouble with this process try asking permission B from yourself.

Now the third process may seem like the most daunting, especially if you tend to not think of yourself as an artist, but just work with it anyways. If it does not turn out just as you were thinking be gracious to yourself, and give gratitude for whatever does come out on the page. Here we will be drawing pictures with our non-dominant hand. These are not necessarily works of art that you will someday frame and put up on your wall (although, you may find that they turn out just that way, as you find the artist within you). These are just exercises in creativity. This is great way to bring out your feelings about a certain situation. This could be a great way to grieve a loss of life, a loss of a relationship, a loss of a job, or just process what is going on inside you. You may find yourself drawing happy pictures or drawing angry pictures or sad pictures, but the point is to just be there in the moment and expressing yourself. C

The point of these exercises are to open up the brain to new ways of thinking, and start to listen to the creative side of yourself. Here is an interesting tidbit, the creative side of yourself is in fact your heart, and not even in your brain. That is why it is often said to follow your heart. I say follow your heart to happiness through creativity! Who knows what you find inside of you…A

Creativity? Do you know how to get more of it?

Getting down to the business of being Creative. First of all what can more Creativity in your life do for you? Well the definition of Creativity:

the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns,relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination (Dictionary.com). (It was the second definition because the first definition was “The state or quality of being creative.” Wow, now that is helpful!)

Back to the first question of what can more creativity in your life do? Business wise, more creativity can make you stand out from your competition. It can help you solve problems and find new solutions to old challenges. Through creativity you can find new ways of doing what it is you have been doing for a long time, which can give you the edge to stay in business when others in your industry may be going out of business. It could allow you to make more of what you already make allowing you to increase the bottom line. Creativity could be just changing what you are doing 10% or even 5%, and that little change could be the difference of thriving, surviving, or dying. It could also help you to figure out a completely new career path you could take if you are tired of what you are doing.

On a personal level it could make a home life much more interesting. Spice up a marriage that seems to be going down the drain or completely flat, as in get some romance back into it. It could help you reach a distant teenager, or younger child. It could help you find a new hobby, or just spice up your life and take the focus off of the fact that you are not in a relationship at this time. It could even give you ideas of new places to go to meet that dream guy or girl. Creativity just spices up life in general, and gives it more passion.

There are several challenges for most to being creative. The biggest is fear! Our society is so bent on everyone being the same. Just drive down most roads and look at houses in neighborhoods they are what we refer to as cookie cutter houses. Most of us fear if we act or look different what would happen? People may not like us or or or… My question is what has being just like everyone else gotten you? Successful people stand out! I read a blog the other day that was about looking to the artist instead of the technology guru, to help us stand out in business. It is not always easy to stand out, as I have found for years when I go to get my haircut and I ask that it be cut in a drastic style say I want it asymmetrical, I want there to be 3-4 inches difference in length between the sides. Inevitably the stylist will only cut it slightly asymmetrical (which in my opinion just looks like a bad haircut). Another way that fear enters into the equation and blocks us from creativity is so many of us believe that we have to be an artist to be creative. Somehow there has become a direct connection between artists and creativity, but that is not the case. You just have to allow yourself to open up to the creativity that is already within you. Artist use it to create (well sometimes), businesses can use it in the same way.

So you say, “Geesh (well you might use a little stronger word), will you get to the point! How do I open to more creativity?” Well the first step is just start to do things differently. Maybe today you drive a different way to work or the store. Maybe you go to a completely different store all together (I am not sure I recommend going to another work completely, although you may get a new job out of it). I know this may sound incredibly easy, but it is just a process of starting to mix things up in your brain. Other little things that you can do is to count backwards (not from 10 cause that is common), but pick a number like 37 and start down, but only count to 24. The idea is to catch your brain off guard. You can say the alphabet backwards (good luck with that one). Ooh, you can write your name backwards or try to say it backwards (now if you have a name like my daughter who’s name is spelled the same frontwards and backwards well that will be less effective). All of these might be good car activities, since most of us are alone in our cars, and with the advent of the bluetooth it is perfectly normal to talking in your car to yourself. They are all just little things, but they will start to get you out of the rut that you have been traveling in, and remember the longer you have been traveling in these ruts the deeper they get. It may take some serious mental effort to get your car to drive down a different street to go to work or the store. The bonus is that changing things up on your brain is like exercise to the brain and helps it work longer for you. Preventing diseases like dementia as you get older and older.

Next we will talk about some fun techniques to open up the brain by switching things up. A hint they will require you to use your non-dominant hand… YIKES! Well not for me, as I am ambidextrous. Have you ever seen an artist with a paintbrush in both hands. I confuse family cause they never know what side of me to sit on at the dinner table to avoid bumping elbows. It is fun, I do have to tell you. Of course, don’t think you can tell me turn left at the next corner and I will know which way to turn! Some days I have 2 lefts and some days 2 rights! Once in a while I get it right! My children s father use to tell me, “No! Your other left!”