[Neurons] 2012 Meta Reflections #17

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2012  #18

March 19, 2012

Empowerment Series #9

 

 

THE POWER OF CREATIVITY

 

 

If you are intentional (last week's Meta Reflection, #15) then it is
inevitable that you will be creative and access your powers of creativity.
Why?  Because you will be creating what you are intending to create, what
you want to create, what you set as your desired outcomes.  The power of
intentionality governs how you use your other powers as it sets your
direction and focus and the result is the creation of outcome.

 

You have powers of creation and are creative because you do not have
instincts.  And without instincts, you have to create!  You have to create
your thoughts, your understandings, your meanings, your values, your
intentions, in fact, you have to create just about everything!  And when you
look at infants and small children-what creativity!  They are so playful,
inventive, full of surprising ideas, and expressions.  In fact, to look at a
small child, you are looking at creativity in action.

 

And why?  From the perspective of Maslow's Self-Actualization Psychology it
is because we are by nature and inherently creativity.  Creativity is part
and parcel of human nature.  It is not something that we add on to our
nature and skills, it is at the essence of what it is to be human.  That is,
to be human is to be creative.

 

I'm writing this from Washington DC where we (myself and the people of the
Institute of Neuro-Semantics- USA) are doing the Creativity and Innovation
Workshop.  It is the third Self-Actualization workshop and has the title,
Unleashing Creativity Solutions.  And in this workshop, one of the quotes
that come from Maslow is the quote that the problem is not, Why are we
creativity or how can we be creative?  But, Why are not everyone creative?
What causes so many people to lose their innate creativity?

 

If to be human is to be creative that explains why the very process of
thinking is the essence of creativity.  After all, what do you do when you
think?  You create a thought, a representation, an understanding, a belief.
In thinking, you are constructing a set of images, sounds, sensations, etc.
You are creating your model or map of the world.

                                                                        

This innate creativity is so pervasive, so extensive, and so descriptive of
what human nature is and how it expresses itself-that we can say that almost
everything that we do is creative.  And yet, surprisingly, most people -
most of us- do not recognize the pervasiveness of our creativity.  And so,
it is so common to think that we are not creative, that others are creative,
that we have to learn to be creative, that creativity is what we had to add
to ourselves.

 

Yet it is the power of creativity that enables us to creative both positive
and wondrous expressions of the highest and brightest of human nature and
the most negative and pathological of human nature.  After all, when you
look at animals, given their instincts, they do what they are programmed to
do.  There's little room for creating something new and different.  In fact,
with animals, it usually takes a clinical situation that a human being
creates and imposes upon an animal in order to create "experimental
neurosis" in a dog or sheep or some other animal!  In their natural
habitants, neurosis is very unusual.

 

But not so with us.  We humans are so creative to creating all kinds of
neurotic and sick and dysfunctional experiences!  That's the dark side of
creativity.  The bright side of creativity is human excellence and
expertise.  And in terms of this power of creativity, once you recognize it,
own it, and take charge of it, then all kinds of wondrous things open up.
Of course, this is the purpose and reason for the Unleashing Your Creativity
Solutions workshop- to empower people to discover, activate, mobilize, and
apply their creative powers.

 

To give you a peek inside that workshop, we focus on four things: outcome,
problem, solution, and innovation.  Why?  Because these are the four stages
of creativity.  Outcome because it is a desired and longed-for goal that
provokes the best context for creativity.  When you say what you want or
what you need, that creates a space where creativity can thrive.  Yes,
necessity is the mother of invention, so is desire.  And the wonderful thing
about goals or desired outcomes is that where you create a goal, you thereby
create a problem.

 

Ah, a problem- the gap between where you are and where you want to be.  A
problem is something between you and your goal, an obstacle.  And if you
want to fully use your creative powers, then frame and define the problem so
that it is clear, precise, and solvable.  Yes, that is possible. And Yes,
you can learn to do that.  You have that kind of creative power.  Well, if
you discover it, develop it, and use that power.

 

Solution is then what you answer your problem question.  That is, with a
problem, you have a question and when you pose that question and use your
creative power to solve it, you come up with a creative solution.  This is
what is typically recognized as creative solutions and is what we need to
resolve the obstacle between us and our goal.

 

The final stage of creativity is innovation.  We innovate the solution.  We
implement and execute the creative solution that answers the problem
question and the resolves whatever is interfering, sabotaging, or blocking
us from stepping forward to experience our outcome.  So with these four
stages: outcome, problem, solution, and innovation and the ability to create
precise and clear statements of each, we experience our full power of
creativity.

 

May you unleashing more and more of your innate creative powers!

 

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Neuro-Semantics Executive Director  ----   <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
www.neurosemantics.com

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA                              

1 970-523-7877                                               

     

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Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential Movement in 2007, for
information about the Self-Actualization workshops, go to
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

 

 

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