Creativity Problems: How Meditation Training Aids Art Creation and Problem-Solving

You have probably heard of both mindfulness and art creation therapy? I found that it was easy to motivate others by providing examples and telling them to try out new things to solve problems or inspire creation for art, but to apply those to oneself is another thing— sometimes it just doesn’t work on me.

It was after I took a course in meditation that I learned that it was not just a “motivation-to-create” that I needed. I was skeptical at first when I heard about the benefits of mindfulness training but when I started seeing stark results, I immediately shared it with my friends and family. This article will take you through my journey of learning about how mindfulness could help in creativity how it has truly helped me land my first art exhibit.

This Article Includes:

Creativity
4 Steps to Creative Process
Specific Meditation to Tap the Mode of Thinking That you Need
How Mindfulness Helps

Creativity

I was tapped to participate in a group art exhibit last 2018, we were advised to work on a new piece (to abide by the theme ) and I planned to do it with just pure instant inspiration. I was one week away from the submission date and I still had no output— what happened was, I was not able to meet the deadline. I was so devastated that it took me a year before I was able to paint again, the creativity urge only came when I started my mindfulness training. Creativity is defined by the American Psychological Association as “the ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques, or thoughts; a creative individual typically displays originality, imagination, and expressiveness.” It does just come in the form of art, creativeness also comes in situations that call for problem-solving. The process of art creation and problem-solving is not an exact science, a research by Kaufman indicated, that the creative process uses different parts of your brain. Now as two different creative tasks (creation and solving) are on hand it is important to learn how to stimulate the right areas. The first meditation I did was not able to help me in my “search for inspiration” but it did aid me to resolve the discouragement and frustration that I experienced from my first failed attempt with an art exhibition. But before I go on with the meditation types that I used let’s first have a look at the creative process.

Creative Process

You must have heard it a thousand times but it has been found out that ingenuity does not just involve a single area or side of the brain! It was only when I learned about this from the meditation instructor that I realized how important it was to know about the creative process so it could have helped me in my struggles of being an artist. To help simply explain here are terms that will be used throughout the four stages of creativity.

• Divergent Thinking, coming up with new ideas according to the task at hand (art creation)
• Convergent Thinking, the process of generating one possible solution to a particular problem (problem-solving)4 Steps to Creativeness

  1. Preparation

  Before imagination takes its course to start up the creative process it first has to tame the part of the brain that actively probes and defines what is being searched for (cognitive control network), you can think of this as the investigating part of your brain.

  It is when this part of the brain is restrained that the part of the brain (default mode network) responsible for imagination, gathering information, the random, messy, trial-and-error urge you have in your brain

  2. Incubation

  After a tedious brain exercise and lots of thought processing, then comes what seems like a resting part of the process. It is the part where your brain starts to focus on something or that looking into specifying more into a prospect idea.

  3. Illumination

  This is the part where that idea bulb lights up! This is the moment that the thoughts processed are suddenly brought up and linked as a unified notion that then inspires us to dig deeper into it.

  4. Verification

  This is now where our brain checks if our idea is sensible, this is the part that evaluates if our chosen subject is “useful and new”— which is how we define the concept of a creative idea.

Specific Meditation to Tap the Mode of Thinking That You Need

It was through a specific kind of meditation that I was able to find my way of creating art again. My first meditation training focused on convergent thinking (or problem-solving), I was doing breathing-focused meditation, this has helped me realign my thoughts and attention to my breath when my mind wanders and lets me focus on the present. It has helped me resolve my dilemma regarding feelings of frustration and accepting that I did have my shortcomings like I did not put effort enough to spark motivation and I did not allow time for it although it was in my urgent priorities.

It was the second kind of meditation that had helped me tune into the mood to create again. Now, this is called as open-focused meditation. This is the kind of meditation that has helped me with divergent thinking (or the thinking that leads to novel ideas) as this practice has let my mind wander that instead of getting rid of thoughts that comes (and focusing back to breathing), it included nonjudgmental awareness followed by curiosity. Now the features of the breathing-focused (focusing on the present) and open-focused meditation (being nonjudgmental and curious of your thoughts) are both aspects of mindfulness. A balance of these two modes of thinking is important and a way to do it is through mindfulness. Mindfulness is bringing one’s focus to the present and observing thoughts and feelings without judgment.

You Only Need 10 Minutes of Meditation to Induce Creativity

Creativity is a must not just for “creative” jobs but also in almost every occupation since it also entails problem-solving skills. My meditation instructor likes to boast how prominent companies like Google and Goldman Sachs have started practicing and encouraging mindfulness and meditation to their employees. They have seen how these practices could help in stress-reduction and increases creativity. An experiment at Erasmus University has shown that a short meditation spanning 10-12 minutes was enough to note a boost in ingenuity as the meditating group produced a much wider range of topics or ideas than the non-meditator groups. They also noted how a short meditation, puts people in a more optimistic and relaxed frame of mind just like when they have done physical exercise. They also felt less negative as there was a decreased feeling of impatience (by 23%), anxiety (by 17%), and annoyance (by 24%). Imagine having better concepts, better judgment for decision making, and an overall better mood and all you need is to do is sit down and savor that cup of coffee (yes you can do this when you try mindful eating). What Happened When I Had Applied Mindfulness

As 2018 was a year of frustration, I tried a meditation training program which helped me paint again after a few months of no motivation. With mindfulness and meditations, I accepted that I did have deficiencies when the opportunity came to me, I reconciled with my sense of the present, and instead of frustration I strived to learn more about my medium (watercolor) so I would be ready when I get the urge to create again.

Now when that light-bulb moment hit me, I was ready and I decided to pursue another water-based medium, gouache. I realized that I was more comfortable with gouache and what hindered me back then with my creative process was a lost sense of thrill and confidence with my old medium.

I was asked to participate again in a group exhibit last 2019. And I was ready. I planned to make a piece in watercolor again.

This time, armed and ready with mindfulness training I was able to paint my piece two-weeks ahead of the deadline!

Mindfulness-based art creation combines forms of mindfulness and art to offer a method to help manage psychological issues, particularly among those experiencing other problems such as physical illness or end-of-life concerns.