Discovering Your Personal Creativity and Vision

Creativity and vision are what distinguish the exceptionally successful person from the ordinary person. Once creativity and vision are established, energy, passion, and leadership follow. To acquire these is surprisingly easy because we are all naturally creative and visionary. Some of us, however, have covered up our creativeness with a mind full of exte al trivia, and the vision that we inherently possess never gets off the ground. To rediscover our creativity is not difficult, other than requiring the courage of a warrior! Do you have that kind of courage? Visionaries have it, and if you have it as well, then you can be visionary too. It's what separates the visionary from the rest of us! Four things will be required. The first is to understand that your life will remain unchanged if you continue down the path you're on. To alter this path, a shift in habit patterns must take place by becoming proactive in stimulating your natural creativity. You must also become dedicated to making the fundamental changes necessary within yourself. The next three steps involve shortcuts that will change you internally; which is where creativity and vision reside. nnDiscipline is of the utmost importance. If you cannot discipline yourself, there is no point in taking this any further. Discipline determines your success or failure in anything you attempt, especially moving from a facilitator to a creative visionary. Discipline in this venue means that you will do the prescribed exercises no matter what. No excuses. You must become a warrior in this pursuit of creativity and vision, anything less than a warrior will fail, and if you have already pegged this as just another motivational pep talk, then don't even begin. Your mind is too cynical and you will not succeed. Continue with your life as a facilitator. If however you have an open mind toward something revolutionary regarding your visionary potential, and some guts, then please continue. nnFocus is the actual training that must be done regularly and determinedly. It involves no study or memorization, no lessons, no packing the already too full mind with more useless stuff; nothing like that. It involves something that you have never learned about in school; it involves unloading your mind! In order to unload his or her mind, a warrior must use diversionary tactics, because the mind, in the beginning, is more powerful than the warrior and keeps the warrior in a constant stupor of non creativity. The warrior uses diversionary tactics because the warrior doesn't know, exactly, how to unload his or her mind, and if you don't know how to unload your mind, you will never get to know your mind. This is important because only when you get to know your mind will you have the courage to dismiss it. And only when you dismiss the mind, will the mind become empty, and eventually visionary. This is analogous to the writer with writer's block who goes into the forest for a few weeks and comes out refreshed and full of vision and new creative ideas. When the mind lets go of itself, a very strange thing happens the mind slips into what we might call a visionary mode that reveals untapped wisdom, more powerful than all the wisdom of the world. It's an internet connection to unbounded creativity. The third step is the wisdom and vision that results. This is true vision; this is authentic creativity, the AHAHs that the great men and women of history have triumphantly proclaimed when their particular visions came to fruition. To enter the stream of constant AHAHs however requires a warrior to empty his or her mind and give it a rest. The warrior begins the process by simply watching his or her thoughts. Thoughts are more powerful than the warrior at this stage as they continue to give the warrior's mind no breathing space at all. So the warrior must fight hard, and in order to fight hard, the warrior needs a few good weapons. The first weapon is your discipline, which is to sit erect in a chair or on the floor, back straight, head level, in an alert, attentive posture. You will sit this way for 20 minutes every morning just when arising, and every evening just before retiring. The next weapon is your own breathing. You are going to watch your breathing instead of allowing your mind to pack itself with more insignificant, trivial thoughts, You are going to learn to focus. This is a battle between your thoughts and your focus. If you lose your focus and thoughts take over, they win and you remain a slave to them. Thoughts wipe out all creativity and vision. A visionary only uses thought after the vision, thought never uses a visionary. n The third weapon is wisdom. When you watch your breathing, watch it at the solar plexus. You will notice a subtle rise and fall of the diaphragm there. Make sure you are breathing from your belly and not your chest, Visionaries always breathe from their belly because they are warriors. If you breathe from your chest, you are fearful and tense. And if you cannot even watch your breathing for more than a few seconds before thoughts carry you away, this indicates how seriously thought has eroded your creative and visionary nature. You are not your thoughts. They are only tools that a visionary uses to facilitate with. You are not your memory, which is merely a tool as well. What you inherently are is the freedom to create and envision. Since we have been thinking non-stop since birth, watching thoughts so that we can gain mastery over them can be a little tricky to begin with. There are so many thoughts and they are so fast that it's like trying to catch a train going a hundred miles an hour. We must find a way to slow the train down. The easiest way to slow the train down is to keep one BIG thought in mind, and then the millions of other little thoughts can't surface. The best BIG thought to keep in mind is the one that is with you at all times; which is simply your breathing. When you direct your mind to your breathing, that's a thought! "I'm watching my breathing." Then, all the little thoughts can't get in. The interesting thing about this simple substitution of one BIG thought for all the little thoughts is that the little thoughts that you have been harboring go away for awhile, and when they go away, the mind finds some breathing space. You never know what will come of that space; sometimes immensely creative things! It's easy to begin practicing one BIG thought. Before you go to bed every night, sit on the floor, knees crossed, back straight, and watch your breathing at the solar plexus. The belly will subtly go in and out. Think, "I am watching my breath." And then just watch the belly go in and out without even thinking about it. If a stray thought comes into your mind that takes your attention off your belly going in and out, then as soon as you discover that you have been ambushed by a little thought, go back to the BIG thought, "I am watching my breathing." Do this exercise unfailingly; no matter if the house is burning down! Regardless of all the traffic noises. It's that important. If you can't do this and you skip the discipline, this reflects how you have been handling your life. The twenty minutes you spend each morning and evening will become a direct reflection of your life, and as you calm the many thoughts that have been blocking your creativity, you will begin to discover freedom, right in the middle of ordinary life, and that will change your entire direction. Applications will naturally present themselves once you master discipline and focus. Discipline and focus must be worked on in the same manner that a warrior sharpens his weapons before battle, with the utmost precision and care. In time, as you refine your discipline and focus, you will notice subtle improvements or changes in your morning routine. Or you might notice a tree, or a building that you have never really been aware of before. In time, these insights will arise in many facets of your life; and at some point, your innate, personal brand of creativity will infuse all aspects of your day as you find yourself completely absorbed in each moment instead of lost in the dark world of the past and the uncertain world of the future. When that happens, you will be on your way to restoring your natural creativity and visionary authority. You will have become a true warrior. Don't make the mistake of underestimating this advice. Unde eath your everyday thoughts and consciousness is the wisdom of ete ity. All you have to do is tap into it. And now you know the secret of the visionaries, and visionaries always change the world. Good luck! n