Resource Library
(i) Start Here!
(ii) Creativity
(iii) Creative Thinking and Innovation
(v) Procrastination vs. Marination
(iv) Neuroscience and Psychology
The ‘Third Layer’ process itself
The Creative Foundation and Creativity Pyramid
Calming the Nervous System through Creativity
… meditation and breathing are like staring the parasympathetic nervous system straight in the eyes and daring it: ‘Calm, dammit! Right now! Now now now!’ While creativity is more like dropping a hankie in its general direction coquettishly: ‘I’m just gonna be doodling or playing air guitar over here, if you don’t mind and … Sure, I’d love to go on a date together!’
The Inner Critic Comes Knocking
Even the names you give them bring a smile to my writerly heart. I’ve met the Sludge Monster, Doctor Doom, California Barbie, The Bird, Shapeshifter, Wicked Witch, Fuckface, Professor Von Fancypants IV, and many delightfully, creatively-named others.
The. Pre-Creativity. Foundation. Is. Everything.
Learn your creativity rules so you can break them without breaking you.
Flow and creativity: thanks, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
But happiness is like being in a flowing river. You can feel the water as it rushes past, but try to grab hold of it. The water has to come to you; even thinking of trying to control the water changes the experience.
Noping, defined
‘Noping’ denies, negates, belittles, refuses, gaslights, shuts down, lacks empathy … often all of the above.
Poetry vs neuroscience: a creativity smackdown
Just like video killed the radio star, science threatens to kill both the theologian and the poet. It doesn’t have to be that way, but scientists need to acknowledge we do lose something when we gain scientific knowledge.
Writing: Self-awareness vs rumination
Writing can improve your mental health, but the writing should elicit self-awareness (not rumination).
The mathematics of joy
Start a list.
Write down 3-5 things that bring you joy.
Over the next week or two, continue to add things until you reach 100.
Ode to anger
… anger is further north of the more passive negative emotions for lots of us — sadness, hopelessness, despair, depression. If we’re angry, our brains are active.
Be willing to get squiggly
Creativity is messy, inelegant, tangential. But it’s precisely within this messiness where our creativity starts to take shape.
Start where you are. Start where they are.
Creativity is hard. So start where you are, not where the world expects you to be.