Creative noise rattling around in your mind can be an inspiration or a frustration, a calling or a distraction. How can you tell the difference? Practice choosing.
The skills you build when you take the risk of making a “wrong choice” help you get more comfortable with taking chances and trusting yourself as you work through challenging situations. More practice, the better you get at feeling your truth in each choice rather than needing clear, mental approval and proof in order to move forward.
When the mind tries to jump in and figure things out with an intention of protection, the callings of the heart tend to get drowned out in the background – which means you are missing a very powerful half of your decision making tool-set.
If creative noise is all you seem to hear, the heart has been kicked out the back door. It also means the insight you think you hear is actually bias and one-sided, and probably leading to more confusion because your gut isn’t engaged in your overall decision-making process.
Take What Seems Real in the Mind and Get Into Your Body With It
The best way to take circling thoughts and process them is by getting into the physical body. It’s a great filter for creative noise and helps engage that missing partner – the heart.
I notice when I have a lot going on, nothing sounds good and everything sounds good. This is a clear indicator that I need yoga, a walk, to lay in the grass, pet my cat Monty or to simply stare into the sky from a comfortable chair.
Find a space away from your computer or electronic devices and stretch. Get into your body. Look around at people, nature or engage in tasks around the house. Then you will feel the mind slow down and the body kick back in, balancing you out. It may take many mini-breaks like this on super distracted days, but the more you can practice, you will start to notice when the mind takes over everything.
Then, when you feel more centered and out of your head, reflect on the same creative noise. Does it sound the same? Is it as urgent as you first thought? Is there a new angle you can feel that wasn’t available earlier? Being back in the body opens up a more grounded, balanced perspective that allows you to approach things from a place of power, not fear and over thinking.
Handling Creative Noise that Just Won’t Quit
If you have a thought or idea that keeps buzzing in your brain, even when you’ve spent time reflecting and/or making choices of how to work with it, there may be a few different things going on:
- Some inner healing needs to take place so you can move past the creative noise instead of getting caught up in it
- A seed within the creative noise is actually a heart’s desire – it’s just disguised and/or hidden behind judgment or fear so it keeps cycling back to you so you can grab it
In either case, the first choice is the same – be honest with yourself. Be willing to dig in the cracks, to root around in the dirt (as the Peter Gabriel song goes). Spin the creative noise on it’s head and greet it, asking yourself, what if? Then the idea is addressed instead of avoided, free to spin off into something instead of hanging on limbo, re-churning in the mind.
Trust Yourself First, Everything Else is Second
Building trust with yourself over time helps you connect more deeply with what your heart desires and what your mind is telling you as separate entities, empowering you to make a decision from a balanced point of view when you choose to combine input from both.
With practice you can see past the big cracks in the windshield and feel confident you are moving in the right direction for yourself, right now. Instead of noise, you hear the inner voices transition to self-encouragement and clarity while the rest falls away.
What are some ways you practice to get the mind and heart to collaborate? Do you need a little outside perspective from someone else to help you sort what’s going on?
Photo credit: pantaeba, Ian Burt, Heather Dowd, The Shifted Librarian