Get Creative: An Exercise in Empty Space Awareness

If creativity thrives in an uncluttered inner space, here is a simple breathing exercise taken From Rebirthing and Breathwork  to create that uncluttered space.  Fill it with whatever your imagination produces: 

What is it you’re interested in?  Are you writing a story or a song?  Are you trying to solve a problem, make a task easier to accomplish?  Are you simply fascinated by something… anything?

Find a place where you can lie or sit comfortably and won’t be interrupted.  Bring your awareness to your breathing.  Connect inhale to exhale – no pauses.  Breathe at your normal volume and pace focusing all your attention on the air flowing into and out of your body. Breathing should be rhythmic but not unusually deep or fast.  There must be no effort or strain of any kind, just a natural comfortable rhythm.

After five minutes or so – whenever you feel you’ve emptied you mind of its usual thoughts and concerns –  bring the subject of your fascination to mind.  Bring it to mind and let it hover there.

It’s very important not to put any effort into thinking about it.  Just hold it in your awareness and breathe gently.  Relax with it.  Examine every corner and angle of it, but without straining.  Let it come to you, don’t go to it.  If it’s the plot of a story for example, let the story unfold before you.  If it’s the solution to a problem, lie back and enjoy your breathing, enjoy the reprieve from the business of daily life.  An uncluttered mind fosters the ability to make connections and put elements together in novel ways.  Solutions often come when we are not thinking about the problem.

When you come to the end of the time you’ve given yourself for this exercise, return your breathing to normal and enjoy the relaxation ten or 15 minutes of indulging your fascination brings.

For more ways to use your breathing :  Rebirthing and Breathwork  by Catherine Dowling  or Conscious Breathing in Everyday Life by Joy Manne