|
|
Thinking as an addiction in the creative process
|
|
A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic | |
|
Copyright 2009 by K. Ferlic, All Rights Reserved | |
| RYUC Home Why free? Contact Links Programs Services Contributions | |
|
Most of us think of addictions as being dependence on external substances, especially those that give pleasure. But relative to robbing ourselves of our creative power, thinking itself can be an addiction. Rather than face what we feel we occupy our mind so that it cannot hear the heart. If we refuse to silence our mind and/or refuse to give up comparing ourselves to some standard in the external world to see the disconnect between the life we are living and the reason why we came into life and where our heart wants us to go, we are using thinking is an addiction. Similarly, if we deny the desire that we have within our heart and silence our mind or renounce the world, the silence or renouncing itself becomes an addiction. We may discover joy and bliss within a silent mind isolated from the external world as many eastern mystics have done, but that joy and bliss is an addiction if the desire that brought us into physical creation is denied. We are here for a reason that either we accepted or created at some level of our being and whatever we use to avoid discovering and fulfilling that reason is ultimately an addiction. To attempt to become desire-less is a desire. Attempting to become desire-less at the expense of the desire the creator/Creator had for bringing us into physical form is only another addiction of the mind and a denial of the creator/Creator itself/Itself. The only way we can truly become desire-less is to surrender and align with the intention and desire that brought us into creation. This is a journey only we can take. We all ready have all the tools we need to accomplish the journey if we know how to use them. We need to understand in any creative endeavor, we are faced with the anxiety of creation. Life is a creative endeavor. As such, we will always have some anxiety in or about life. Mind will do many things to avoid this anxiety. In particular it will find some way to numb what it feels or somehow suppress it or overly it with something that feels good. Yet when we don’t face the anxiety and/or any associated pain, we risk developing an addiction. Thinking arises as an addiction when we think in order not to feel and escape from what we feel. This can become a significant problem in any creative endeavor when we are unable to live and be present in the moment to what we feel in the chaos of creation and/or any other part of the creative process. What happens to individuals when their mind does not allow them to be present in the moment and experience the chaos of creation and the anxiety of the unknown is that they are unable to pursue their unique creativity true to its nature. The point of creative power is the present moment. When we are not present in the moment, we are in some response pattern and habit of mind. This then causes problems and issues as significant as any addiction we can develop for we are not responding to what is. Rather we respond to the past and what mind overlays through its habits. When the habits are about avoidance of what is, then an addictive thinking behavior takes over. When an addiction develops from these response patterns, we lose control over their creative power. Hence, to access our creative power, we will need to wrestle with how we use our mind, particularly how we use our mind to keep us from feeling but rather judge what we feel based on our emotions of the past. The reason why thinking can be an addiction is that the energy that sustains our being is a creative life energy. It is an energy in that it gives us the ability to do things. It is life itself and it is creative. If this energy is not free to flow into its creative efforts, it will create nonconsciously. If it is consistently blocked, it can result in accident, illness, disease, misfortune, depression, divorce from life and those within one’s life, and other similar events to force us to become consciously creative or to respond creatively to life. From a creativity perspective, the root of many thinking addictions in addition to being a natural phenomena is that many individuals have given away the permission to exercise their creative powers to some authority in one from or another. If we look carefully, the root of any addiction whether it be an addiction to an external substance or whether it is an addiction to an internal habit, is the mind suppressing what we are feeling. To check this out, we can become mindful and aware of when we try and run away from what we are feeling. Before we reach for our addiction we simply need to ask ourselves, "What am I running away from and what don’t I like about what I am feeling?" But, to do this, we need to become mindful and aware. We need to become aware of the space between the awareness of what we feel and the thought that arises about what we feel. We need to insert our awareness into that space to see why we have the thoughts we do about what we are experiencing.
Related topics
The Password Protected Area provides access to all currently posted (click for current loading) Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity related discussion files and applications. |
|
|
RYUC Home Why free? Contact Links Programs Services Contributions | |
