Free Flowing

As a writer, sometimes the words just flow. Your brain moves faster than your fingers can type. Your imaginary friends are so excited to talk and tell you about their "lives" they speak a mile a minute. 

And sometimes they're mute. 

Crickets.

The portal to creativity is through the right brain. While the left side of our brain is great for things like doing taxes or putting together an Ikea shelf, it's the right side that opens us up to inventive, original thinking. Art, music, writing, and more. 

I believe the right brain is our connection to Spirit. To the Divine Source. In her groundbreaking book, "My Stroke of Insight," Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, tells of her experience having a stroke in her left brain. She was left with "only" right brain awareness, and the story is beyond incredible. This excerpt from an article on her book describes it perfectly: 

Strangely, after her stroke, she felt a powerful euphoria, and that awareness of the state of near spiritual intensity never left her. So during a years-long and difficult recovery, she felt remarkably upbeat and happy, even when she had only a few minutes of energy during the day. Living primarily through right brain experience completely changed her sense of who she was.

She lost the feeling of separation from other people, declaring we are all "one." What I believe Jung would have called her "opening to the collective unconscious." 

As a creative person, sometimes this portal is wide open, like standing in a blizzard and ideas are like snowflakes you just have to reach out and touch – before they melt. And sometimes it feels like you're in a dark room searching for the slightest flicker of light. You're looking for anything to create that spark. Thankfully, I'm not much of a drinker or drug-taker. Meditation and isolation is the best path. When that doesn't work, I put the creative stuff aside and focus on checking off the things from my "left brain list," like reading articles or, yes, doing taxes or working with numbers. 

Check out Jill's Ted Talk: