(This is the second part of a series on creativity, which began with a piece I wrote a while back called “To Be Creative, Step Beyond The Survival Mindset.”)

Many of us are driven by a need to “know who we are”—a desire for a clear understanding of our roles in society and the universe.  It gives us a feeling of security to say and think things about ourselves like “I’m a lawyer,” “I’m a father,” “I’m an opera lover,” and so on.  However, we can get so attached to the comfortable feelings these labels offer us that we end up limiting our creativity and enjoyment of life.

Each identity we adopt comes with a set of beliefs about what we can and can’t do, say and think.  If I think of myself as a respectable professional, for instance, I’ll probably shy away from going to a party with my face painted purple, even if I’m curious about what it would be like.  If I see myself as a countercultural modern artist, I’ll probably avoid doing something “mainstream” like going to a baseball game, even if I secretly like the sport.  If we did something that ran counter to our identity, we might lose the feeling of safety it offers us, and experience the sinking sense that we “don’t know who we are anymore.”

On the other hand, when we become willing to dispense with our self-labels and stare into that abyss of uncertainty, we gain access to inspiration we may not normally feel.  I recently saw this in a client I worked with.  He’s a lawyer and a devoted husband and father, and he loves playing the harp.  For a long time, he harbored the secret dream of releasing an album of him playing Irish songs.  However, he was convinced that someone with his job and family situation “just doesn’t do that.”

As we worked together, he came to recognize that there were no practical reasons why he couldn’t release his album.  He doubted that doing it would harm his colleagues or family.  Ultimately, he realized, only his beliefs about what a lawyer and father “should” and “shouldn’t” do were holding him back.  He saw that his desire to play music was stronger than his need to be what a lawyer “should” be, and he decided to finally start recording.  In other words, he was able to express his creativity when he became willing to let go of his identity.

How can we escape our identities’ hold on us and access the inspiration we want in our work and elsewhere?  Over time I’ve developed and learned some useful exercises for letting go of who you think you are, and reconnecting with your natural imagination and spontaneity.  I’ll share three of them here.

1. Do something solely for yourself.  One exercise I often recommend to people whose creativity feels blocked is to, at least once, do something alone that’s entirely for their own benefit.  Examples might include taking a walk in the woods by yourself, going to a concert alone, writing in your journal, and so on.  I tend to ask clients not just to do something by themselves, but to commit not to even tell anyone what they’ve done.

If you think about it for a moment, you may see that the identities you’ve formed for yourself are based on the ways you relate to others.  If you think of yourself as a musician, for instance, that means you perform music for other people.  If you see yourself as a parent, that means you raise and take care of your children. 

When you’re by yourself, your self-labels have little meaning—if you lived alone on a desert island, for example, it would make little sense to perceive yourself as a lawyer, as there would be no clients, adversaries or courts to interact with.  This, by the way, is one reason I think many of us feel afraid when we’re alone—our roles lose their meaning, and we start to worry that we don’t know who we are.  When you do something alone that no one else will ever know about, you get an opportunity to experience living without a role or identity for a little while.

As the identities you rely on for a sense of security start to slip out of your awareness, you’ll likely experience two sensations.  One, as I described, is the fear of not knowing who you are.  But if you can breathe through this fear and let it pass away, you’ll likely feel a sense of creative freedom you don’t normally experience.  I encourage you to keep a journal in these solitary moments—you may have some of your best ideas.

Remember, before you take time for yourself, to commit to keeping quiet about what you’re about to do.  This way, you won’t be distracted by thoughts about how others will see what you’re doing, and how you can positively “spin” it to them.  As Michael Brown writes in his wonderful book The Presence Process, “the risk we take in talking about work we are doing on our experiences and for ourselves” can have us start doing our work “to confirm and validate our efforts as being worthy and appropriate.”

Although this activity is only intended for you, the creative gifts you gain from it may serve to improve others’ lives as well going forward.

2. Meditate for five minutes.  Many people think of meditation as an exercise they have to spend many hours doing, while sitting in a lotus position, if they want to see any “results.”  When it comes to lifting yourself out of a creative lull, however, often just a few minutes is enough.  If you simply sit down, close your eyes, and focus your attention on your breathing, for five minutes, you’ll likely be surprised at how quickly and spontaneously ideas can arise.

I’ve used this technique to begin the creative process for many articles I’ve written.  In the past, when I felt like it was time again to send out an article for publication or post one on my website, inspiration often failed to strike and I’d get frustrated.  I used to assume the only solution was to wait until insight randomly came to me.  But I discovered one day that, if I turned to meditation for just a few minutes, a new, exciting topic would quickly reveal itself to me, and I could jump back into writing immediately afterward.

Why are brief meditations a great way to stimulate creativity?  I think one key reason is that, in meditation, we’re momentarily freed from our identities.  For those few quiet moments, we aren’t playing any role in the world, and there’s no need to please or impress anyone.  When we let go of the rules governing what we can and can’t think or do, fresh ideas arise far more easily.

3. Write with your non-dominant hand.  This technique may sound a little strange at first, but it’s actually been endorsed by many psychologists as a method for getting more connected with repressed thoughts and emotions.  To do this, find a blank piece of paper and write at the top of it, using the hand you normally write with, “What do I want to create?”  Take a deep breath and focus for a few moments on that question.  Then, place your pen in the hand you don’t usually write with—that is, if you’re right-handed, use your left hand, and vice versa—and put down an answer.

Reconnecting with parts of yourself you may have been cut off from can bring up intense sensation.  As Dr. Mavis Tsai writes in A Guide To Functional Analytic Psychotherapy, “often, to the surprise of clients, more unusual and childlike responses tend to be expressed, which can in turn result in intense emotions, connections to old memories, and explorations of difficult and important material.”  However, when we get back in touch with the childlike aspects of ourselves we aren’t normally conscious of, we can rediscover a playfulness, curiosity and imagination we forgot we had.

As with the five-minute meditation I described, I got into doing this exercise when faced with writer’s block, and I’ve found it very effective.  You may be surprised at the originality and brilliance of the ideas that flow out of you when you simply switch your writing hand for a little while.

Related posts:

1. To Be Creative, Step Outside The Survival Mindset
2. Interview With Marelisa Fabrega, Author of “How To Be More Creative”
3. Who Were You Before Your Identity?
4. Get “Emotional” To Get Creative
5. Let Go Of Responsibility For Your Ideas