Mindfulness and liberating the creative process
Elizabeth J. Coleman, guest blogger and Qualified MBSR Teacher (also an attorney, published author, and amateur guitarist and artist!) reflects on her ongoing mindfulness journey through the lens of creativity. She shares how mindfulness can liberate the creative process…
For me, mindfulness, writing and guitar are intertwined. A life-threatening illness led me to the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course in 2001. In part inspired by that course, I decided to transition from a thirty-year public interest law practice (which was for many years rewarding in so many ways), to begin writing poetry and teaching MBSR in 2005. Thanks in large part to mindfulness, I now have an MFA degree and six books under my belt.
I have always been an amateur musician, and for the past thirty years, I have studied classical guitar. However, it is only with mindfulness that I have slowly become comfortable performing.
I also create watercolor paintings and collages. While I am much less confident and trained in art, mindfulness has given me the courage at least to try.
Let me start with my first love: writing. Writing requires a kind of stillness and pure observation, free from our obsessions and distractions, a kind of letting go of judgment, especially self-judgment. And that is exactly what we begin to learn from mindfulness: to pay attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgment. The worst thing a writer can do is edit her thoughts and words before they hit the page. Only with mindfulness and meditation did I start to let go of the shame, terror, and inhibitions that stop me completely or make my writing stilted. (“I can’t do this, I am a bad writer, I don’t deserve to write. And, anyway, who gave me permission to write?” Does this sound familiar?)
The guitar/mindfulness journey has been equally thrilling and more elusive. After 25 years of studying mindfulness and thirty-five studying guitar, I have finally begun to accept my playing as “good enough,” even if I am not Segovia or a wunderkind in any field, far from it. And it’s mindfulness which grants me the courage and heart to perform at Memorial Sloane Kettering for patients and their families, which I have been doing for about twenty years.
I fully believe mindfulness is a “journey, not a destination,” as are writing, guitar, and art. We never arrive there, wherever there is. But mindfulness can give us the patience, the lightness, and the humor to let go, if only for a little while, if only a little bit. This is just enough to put words on a page, or paint on a canvas, or string notes together with intention and spirit.
Mindfulness has also taught me to be more generous towards myself and towards others. I think it is only with lovingkindness that we can be part of any community, especially a creative one. Mindfulness helps me wish other writers well, and it helps me understand that we perform music not to show how virtuosic we are, but to bring comfort or joy to others.
Mindfulness is about creating space. One of my favorite mindfulness quotes is the one attributed to Viktor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space there is a choice, and in that choice lies our peace and freedom.” Unless you can create space between your “inner critic” and you, you cannot move forward in any artistic work. I heard Paul Simon talk once about the time he shamed his inner critic. He had given her a name, and finally one day when he was feeling great shame about the songs he was writing, he turned and said to the inner critic: “What have you written lately?” That put her in her place, and she never bothered him again.
To be honest, I am personally plagued by self-doubt, perhaps more than some. But mindfulness has given me the determination to not let my self-doubt paralyze me, or keep me from doing what I want to do with my life. Before I experienced cancer in 2001, my question was: what’s my next big job? After I had experienced illness AND as a result took an MBSR course, my question became: what do I want to do with my remaining years on this planet?
The answer which has evolved over twenty years is in my intention to express my creativity to the max in every way while caring for my family and friends and community, practicing my religion of kindness, and doing what I can to heal our hurting planet and its inhabitants.
For twenty years, I have meditated virtually every day, and use informal mindfulness techniques, which help me, as a Type A personality and a driven person, maintain equanimity (much of the time) as I try to pursue my goals. Informal breathing and body exercises also help me relax before I need to perform. I love teaching mindfulness because I am thrilled to share with others all that I have learned, and I am confident I learn at least as much from my students as they might from me.
Out of my mindfulness practice grew my latest book, a collection of poems I edited in 2019, HERE: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press). HERE is a call for hope and action on behalf of a planet in crisis, with an introduction by the Dalai Lama and an activist guide from the Union of Concerned Scientists. This, apart from my family, is my proudest accomplishment. In large part, I have MBSR and mindfulness to thank that I overcame enormous self-doubt and fears of unworthiness to do it.
I’d like to end with one of my favorite and most reassuring quotes from the great teacher Pema Chodron, one which helps remind me not to worry about being perfect, and to do the very best I can with joy, passion, intention and kindness:
“Finally, couldn’t we just relax and lighten up? When we wake up in the morning, we can dedicate our day to learning how to do this. We can cultivate a sense of humor and practice giving ourselves a break. Every time we sit down to meditate, we can think of it as training to lighten up, to have a sense of humor, to relax. As one student said, ‘Lower your standards and relax as it is.’”
© MML Editorial Team, 2021