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How can one cope with the distractions of daily life that inhibit or
deflect creativity (for example, child care, elderly parents care, dull job, ill health,
etc.)?
Set aside a special thinking time or thinking place. Maybe a
corner of a room at home where you could indulge listening to soothing music, use or buy a
flotation tank, go running in the morning, take up yoga, mediation, tai-chi or some
similar meditative activity.
Get involved with children's activities; you may find that
some toys aid the creative thinking process. Jig-saw puzzles (for spatial thinking),
building blocks, drawing, role-playing/acting, just talking and asking questions, all
contribute to creative thought and practice.
Gaming, as a hobby, can improve problem solving and creative
skills. There are many types of games that involve intellectual thought and creative
solution; investigate miniatures, board games, card games, computer games and simulations,
and so forth. Much creative exercise can be found in such activities.
Try and use daily distractions to practice being creative. If
you can take something dull or monotonous and play with it, it will become more
interesting to you. There will be times when you can't make the extra effort, but it is
very unlikely that in your entire day you can't find some activity you can make new to
yourself. For the specific of child care - encouraging your kids' creativity along with
your own would be wonderful. It will help their identity building and self-worth and will
be a lot of fun if you let it. Recognize the inherent creativity in children and profit
from exposure to their novel solutions to common problems in daily life.
The distractions of daily life can be reframed as challenges that
require your creative abilities to meet. Your day to day routines afford the most common
opportunities for you to be creative. In fact, if you take stock of a typical week, you
will find that you have indeed been very creative in solving many of the problems that
confront you. Of course, we tend not to notice this. You may even tell yourself that what
you do is not creative at all. Be careful what you tell yourself. You may begin believing
it.
Coping with the distractions and necessities of daily life is a major
challenge for most of us. But just as we find the time to eat and sleep, we need to find
the time to ignite our creativity. Is it not possible to find one hour per day to spend
exploring our talents and finding our creative path?
Loosing our creative energies due to the distractions of daily life has
a lot to do with focal and conscious attention. In our very stressful society, we do not
learn much about focusing attentively and retrospectively onto something, onto what we are
doing. Meditation can be a very good way to help to be more attentive and thus creative.
I heard a story about a doctor's office that placed large nuts and
bolts in their waiting room and found that noone complained about waiting.
If you want to relax....go fishing.
Learn to incorporate the imagination into every activity, to use your
creative talents to improve your daily life.
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