West of the Moon Creative Retreat

It's Not Just Creative Writing, It's Creative Living

  • Home
  • West of the Moon
  • WOTM Retreat
    • About The Retreat
    • Our Team
    • What If I’m NOT A Writer?
    • WOTM Yoga
    • Historic New Harmony
    • Image Gallery
    • Register
  • The Round Table
  • Contact

Yoga And Writing

March 20, 2014 By Dave Leave a Comment

Yoga Into Writing

Using Yoga As A Way Into Your Writing

“. . . the intellect is a great danger to creativity . . . because you begin to rationalize and make up reasons for things, instead of staying with your own basic truth — who you are, what you are, what you want to be. I’ve had a sign over my typewriter for over 25 years now, which reads ‘Don’t think!‘ You must never think at the typewriter — you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway.” – Ray Bradbury

In addition to the vast disconnect many people have with the world around them, there is also a disconnect from the self which is perpetuated by the multitude of distractions man has created for the purpose of keeping the conscious self from delving into the unconscious, into the subtle body, into one’s feelings.

Back in 1923, Aldous Huxley alluded to those distractions when he wrote, “There are quiet places in the mind, but we build bandstands and factories on them. . . . to put a stop to the quietness . . . All the thoughts, all the preoccupations in my head–round and round, continually . . . To put an end to the quiet.”

Huxley suggests that it’s not just part of the human condition to have obstacles to overcome, but that we also create them so as to divert our focus. So as to keep ourselves out of the quiet, out of stillness, which is, of course, exactly where the writer must go.

Those defense mechanisms are often set up to keep you away from your emotions, which, as Bradbury states, is a problem if you want to be creative. Yoga offers you a way out of your head, so to speak, a way to pull back from those preoccupations that go round and round, and a way back in – through the body – to your unconscious mind, to your feelings, to the very place where art is created.

Yoga is trendy these days. You can find at least one class of some sort in most communities: often in an assortment of styles and flavors, not to mention a variety of settings from strip malls to churches to dance studios, from fitness facilities to board rooms to classrooms. To some, yoga may possess a “new age” quality – perhaps due to it’s ability to help one reconnect with oneself – mind, body, and emotion – yet it is an art and a philosophy that has been practiced and espoused for thousands of years. So, you could say, it’s a rather ancient trend.

Believe it or not, even if you can’t quite reach your toes, even if you haven’t seen them in decades, a little time on the mat can help you get to the page. And it can also potentially help you transform the white space into something more, to imbue all the possibility you find there with some essential part of yourself.

Writing is an extremely rewarding endeavor, not because it isn’t work, but because it is the sort of work that brings the writer closer to her true self. She turns inward, away from the ubiquitous distractions of the world, but also away from those in her own mind.

She dives down to the darkest depths where imagination and memory spark, where her conscious focus blends with her unconscious subtle body, and she explores that part of herself she could not otherwise see except in the special light of those sparks.

This is, at times, daunting, yet also quite wonderful, especially if she is able to dive when and how she chooses.

If you develop a separate yoga practice, you’re likely to experience the positive physical, mental, and emotional effects of your yoga sessions as they carry over into your writing sessions. But if you intimately and intentionally join the two, if you unite them into one practice, the results can be remarkable.

And that’s one of the things about the retreat that I enjoy most. Showing writers how to do specific yoga sequences as part of their daily writing practice, as a prelude to the writing – whenever they might lack inspiration, or as a way back into that part of the self from which the stories are to be mined.

Depending on your specific writing intention, you can customize the sequence of poses to quiet your mind, to tap into your emotions, to slip out of the conscious mind and into the unconscious, into a creative flow.

“If there is no feeling, there cannot be great art.” – Bradbury


Huxley, Aldous, Antic Hay, London: Chatto & Windus, 1923, 123. 

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Creativity, Flow, Obstacles, Uncategorized, Writing, Yoga Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, body, conscious, distractions, don't think, emotions, feelings, flow, mind, obstacles, Ray Bradbury, sequences, subtle body, unconscious, writing, yoga

Obstacles to Creativity: Get Out of Your Own Way

March 6, 2014 By Dave Leave a Comment

Hang Gliding by Steve Slater

Hang Gliding by Steve Slater

If you go hang gliding and you spend most of your energy and your focus watching your hands to make sure you’re steering the right way, well, is it really any wonder you keep crashing into the cliff face?

You need to throw yourself into the wide open and be aware of your hands, but everything else is you responding to the air around you, to the moment.

A Few Obstacles to Creativity That Start in Your Head

Perfection (or Finding the Right Answer/Writing the Right Thing) – having a desire to do your best is a good thing. Seeking perfection, on the other hand, tends to be a pursuit that gets in the way of creativity.

There are two big problems with a quest for perfection.

For one thing, it presumes that the final outcome is already set.

Planning is important, but most creative work tends to be organic. A plan is often a springboard to other ideas. A plan can also help keep you on track/task (structure is certainly important; shackles, not so much).

The magic, though, is found in the way the unconscious self takes over. Seeking perfection tends to keep that from happening.

Why?

Well, that’s the other problem with perfection – as we create, we have our internal critic turned on. We pass judgment on the work we’re doing, WHILE we’re doing it.

We end up like the poor dog on the leash that sees the bird perhced right there on the backyard fence but the dog can’t get to it. The dog keeps running and running in circles around the post where the leash is tethered. Without intending to, we plant one foot into the soil and then we try to run, but the judging part of us is constantly evaluating, keeping us from getting into any flow.

Think of a dancer with one foot nailed to the floor. The amount of fluidity and movement is quite limited. It’s so much harder to get into a flow.

Creativity Requires Flow!

Another problem with judging while creating is that the focus shifts from whatever it is we’re intending to work on to US. I’m evaluating how I am failing to do it right (or I’m worried that I won’t be able to get it right). When the focus is on the self, it can’t be on whatever it is we’re trying to create.

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything
self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things
.” – Ray Bradbury

A friend recently told me: “Some days I can’t believe I work so hard at a project that may be entirely unsuccessful, by traditional measures.” This is a very common feeling among creatives (the traditionally accomplished ones and the newbies). For example, each time Alice Hoffman starts a new novel, she thinks, “I don’t know how to write a novel. I don’t know how to make it come alive. I don’t know how to tell a story. I don’t know what I’m doing”

My question to this concern is simple – what are you creating for? What is the deep-down intention behind that specific work? The whole concept of “success” again focuses on the outcome . . . before there actually is an outcome. The focus is so fixed on the destination that we often struggle to really get started. But if we remind ourselves, my intention is to explore this relationship and then we allow ourselves to explore, we tend to make discoveries we never even knew were possible.

I mean, Columbus, for all his faults, had no real idea what he would “discover” until after he set sail.

Critical Thinking (or being in your head too much) also gets in the way.

Art is a combination of the artist’s interpretation of something (an object, person, place, event, circumstance, emotion, etc). It is perception and point of view combined with creative expression. It’s the transformation of that perception into an idea that is communicated through the artist’s chosen language.

Critical thinking relies on logic and order and rules. It imposes constraints, and some constraints are useful for shaping a story or a painting, but not for the actual creating which requires “innovation” and response.

I love movies. And the best actors, the ones who have mastered their craft so well that you can’t separate them from the characters they’re portraying, they are the ones who use the framework of the dialogue and the scene to shape their actions, but they react to the other actors, to the environment, to the nuances of a particular moment.

The stiff, cardboard actors are the ones who just do everything as it is on the page. The “natural” or brilliant actors are the ones who embody the character and react intuitively.

When we spend time consciously thinking about what comes next, we’re the stiff actor. When we know this scene takes place here with these characters and then we just let go and see what happens, we tend to get into a flow. After we’re done, we can go back and judge it.

Ever misplace your keys and then spend time getting more and more frustrated the harder you try to remember where you put them . . . then, later, when you’re making dinner or driving to the store or taking a shower, you remember?!? Yep.

Sometimes doing some other activity can free up the creative mojo. One activity that often works is daydreaming (or “mindwandering”).

Being playful can also help. Take whatever it is you’re stuck on and imagine something nonsensical and try to create that. This can actually allow you to discover a sticking point without consciously setting out to do so.

Another way to get into flow is through movement.

Go for a walk. Do some yoga. Or thai chi. Or dance. But do so with intention! That’s the key. Use the movement of your body as a way into your writing or into your painting, as a creative tool you can rely on as part of the process. This is one way to help you get yourself into a flow.

Use your body as a way to get out of your head and into the creative process.

And remember, have fun! Creative expression should be fun. Most of the time, we don’t have fun by thinking hard this is fun this if fun. We just do whatever it is. Like Bradbury said, “Don’t think . . . You simply must do things.”


One of the reasons I like developing specific yoga sequences as a way INTO my writing is because of the way the brain works with the body. We tend to try to separate the two, when bringing them together is really a key.

“Albert Einstein said of the theory of relativity, ‘I thought of it while riding my bicycle.’ Anyone who exercises regularly knows that your thinking process changes when you are walking, jogging, biking, swimming, riding the elliptical trainer, etc. New ideas tend to bubble up and crystallize when you are inside the aerobic zone. You are able to connect the dots and problem solve with a cognitive flexibility that you don’t have when you are sitting at your desk. This is a universal phenomenon, but one that neuroscientists are just beginning to understand. ” To read more of this article on “The Neuroscience of Imagination” (and how moving your body can help with creativity) click here.


Photo Credit: Hang Gliding by Steve Slater photo above is used as per Creative Commons License on Flickr.

Filed Under: Creativity, Flow, Obstacles, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: body, creativity, Critical Thinking, Einstein, getting in yor own way, movement, obstacles, painting, Perfection, Ray Bradbury, writing, yoga

West of the Moon Blog

"Listen With Heart" by Len Matthews

Listen With Your Heart

March 20, 2015 By Dave Leave a Comment

“The things which hurt, instruct.” - Benjamin Franklin As a boy, my one true love . . . was basketball. That’s right. Like Juliet to Romeo, basketball was the sun, only . . . okay, well, that may be stretching it a bit. But the idea of playing, the … [Read More...]

Terry & Dave Chat

West of the Moon Writer's Retreat

What People Are Saying

“. . . what was missing from a story that I had been struggling with for months suddenly became obvious.”

Writing Outside

West of the Moon 2022
June 5th-10th

Previous Blog Posts

  • It Really Is About Creative Living
  • Move Toward Your True Self
  • The Power of Rituals
  • Obstacles to Creativity

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

Join Our Mailing List

Mission Statement

The Intention behind West of the Moon is to help writers and other creatives recognize and move beyond obstacles to a creative life.

WOTM FORUM REGISTRATION

Log In
Register

WOTM FORUMS

  • WOTM Writer's Forum

What Are YOU Creating For?

Whether you Write, Paint, Dance, Play Music, or work in some other medium, you do it because it's in you. You do it because you must.

All Text & Materials © 2023 Dave DeGolyer & Terry Price · West of the Moon