How the Sedona Method Helps You
in Challenging Financial Times
How to Be More Creative – and Why
It Is So Important in a Bad Economy
by www.Sedona.com
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort." Indeed, creativity is not just for artists and poets. It’s a skill that you can use to solve problems more quickly and come up with new ideas to better your career and daily life – something that’s especially important amidst the current economic climate.
Best of all, for those of you wondering how to be more creative, know that creativity is something you can learn.
“Creativity helps to keep your body and mind in shape. Even when we are in jobs or careers that don't appear to be creative, we always have the opportunity to bring creativity to what we do,” says Hale Dwoskin, CEO and director of training of Sedona Training Associates. “The more creative we are, the happier we are and the more effective we will be.”
Aside from giving you the ability to uniquely solve problems, creativity enables you to feel more at peace and more fulfilled. It’s also a key component to achieving “flow.” Flow is the elated feeling you experience when you’ve just had a completely gratifying experience.
According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, “Engaging in an experience that produces ‘flow’ is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, rather than for what they will get out of it. The activity is its own reward.”
In other words, engaging in activities that are challenging, that give you purpose, and that you get positive feedback from (meaning you are successful at them) is key to feeling fulfilled, and being creative helps you identify and succeed at these challenging activities.
Reaching the Essence of Creative Thought
You know you’ve reached your creative peak when ideas begin to appear before your eyes faster than you can jot them down. Your mind feels clear and focused, yet at the same time delightfully free. You are able to easily access your intuition, and you know without a doubt that this inner knowingness will propel you in the right direction.
In fact, at its core, creativity is a natural out-flowing of the presence of awareness or intuitive knowingness that you are. So if you want to know how to be more creative, you first need to get in touch with this inner presence.
The problem is, most of us cover up our intuition with thoughts and negative emotions. They cloud our judgment and keep our natural creative juices from flowing freely. The key, then, to accessing your natural creativity is to let go of the racing thoughts and overthinking in your mind using The Sedona Method.
“Creativity is natural to each and every one of us and can be easily augmented or uncovered by letting go,” Dwoskin says. “Creativity or creative energy is always here, so it simply takes a willingness to be opened to energy and a willingness to let go of whatever it is inside of you that is preventing you from feeling creative and acting on that creativity.”
Meanwhile, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that feeling happy frees your mind and increases your creative thinking abilities. The Sedona Method helps in this area as well, helping you to release negative thoughts and open yourself to more positive ones.
Another Crucial Part of Being Creative
If you’re interested in maximizing your creative abilities, make sure you are getting a good night’s sleep. Sleep has been found to increase creativity by 33 percent, according to Dr. Jeffrey Ellenbogen, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School and director of the Sleep Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Sleep works to boost creativity in two ways -- it enhances performance, learning and memory, and assists your brain in making connections between unrelated ideas. After sleeping, this “incubation period” allows your brain to process the problem and come up with a new, creative idea.
Remember also that if you’re having trouble sleeping, letting go with The Sedona Method will help to quiet your mind and lull you to sleep. When you release, you’re therefore getting a three-pronged approach to tap into your creativity. You’re:
- Getting in touch with your inner knowingness
- Adapting a positive attitude
- Easing your mind into restful sleep
“As you let go using The Sedona Method your mind gets quieter and more cooperative,” Dwoskin says. “And the more you let go the easier it is to be a clear channel for creativity.”
Sources
The New York Times September 28, 2008
University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center | 
