How to Cultivate Beginner's Mind

If you're a perfectionist like me, learning and creating while practicing "beginner's mind" is something you might find challenging. What is "beginner's mind" you ask? Beginner's mind is a concept from Zen Buddhism that encourages the practitioner to cultivate a sense of openness and eagerness.  It asks that we let go of prejudgement when engaging in an activity. No matter what your skill level, it is helpful to bring a sense of openness, presence, and childlike curiosity to your creative endeavors.

Despite its name, beginner's mind is not just for beginners. Practicing beginner's mind even when we're "experts" can help invigorate our acting, our creative endeavors, and our everyday lives with a sense of wonder and "nowness." It can help bring us into the present moment.

What are some ways you can begin to apply "beginner's mind" to your creative life? 

1) Allow yourself time to transition. Arrive early to a new class you're taking so when you get there you're not in an anxious and harried state. When you arrive, take some quiet time to center and prepare yourself for the experience. This can take many forms. For example, you might find taking a couple of minutes for meditation helpful, or perhaps journaling helps to quiet your mind. Find what works best for you and turn it into a ritual.

2) Breathe. I know it sounds simple, but there's a lot of wisdom in this simple reminder. When you breathe, you relax your body and create more openness. More openness in your body leads to more openness in your mind, your heart, and more openness to the present moment.

3) Have a sense of humor about yourself. Many artists (myself included) have a tendency to take themselves way too seriously. This cuts you off from the enjoyment of learning and also from creativity itself. You can't be fully alive and creative if your inner-voice is prejudging everything before you have a chance to utter the first lines of the monologue, put pen to paper, or wet your paintbrush.

4) Be curious about resistance. If you're feeling anxious about trying something new, ask yourself what is making you uncomfortable. Figure out why you are afraid of committing to the activity. Oftentimes, "This is stupid," actually means "I'm afraid of looking like an ass."

5) Don't be afraid of looking like an ass.  As an artist, you have to be willing to risk looking like a fool. This requires some vulnerability on your part. I'm not certain of many things, but I am certain  that nothing great was created without vulnerability.

The next time you find yourself in a situation where you're exercising your creativity, notice how you react to it. Do you allow yourself a sense of play and openness? If you do, you are practicing "beginner's mind." If you don't, don't beat yourself up- that only exacerbates the problem! Instead, breathe, take a step back, and remember the above tools. Happy creating everyone!

The Birth of Creative Work

As those of you who have been following this blog know, a few weeks ago I started taking a weekly art class. It's been great for me to connect to my creativity in a structured way. I have learned so much about my creative process and I've only been in the class for 3 weeks! I can't wait to see what else I learn over the next couple of months.

This week in class the focus was portraits. The instructor had us put a big blob of red paint in the middle of our paper, which was used to create the shape of the model's head. She told us to use black and white paint to convey where light and shadow were hitting the model. We had 15 minutes to complete the painting. The idea of this exercise was to work quickly and not get bogged down by thinking about each brushstroke.

We did three of these 15-minute paintings over the course of the class. Each time, mid-way through, I was convinced I was doing a terrible job and I should start over. (There's that sneaky inner critic again!) However, instead of crumpling up my paper, I breathed through the discomfort and finished each painting. And guess what?! A face emerged on the canvas. I started each painting with a big blob of paint in the middle of the paper and over the course of 15 minutes somehow I created a portrait. In a way, it was magical.

It got me thinking. When I'm in the middle of a rehearsal process I often go through a similar experience. I start off the project excited about the possibilities and happy about the chance to create something new, but in the middle of the process, I sometimes feel lost. Everything feels muddy and uncertain. It's a very uncomfortable time, often filled with self-doubt. It can feel as if you are eight months pregnant with your creative work, awkwardly lumbering about, anxiously waiting to give birth.

What I've come to realize is that the middle of the creative process is very much a liminal zone. Liminal is defined by Merriam-Webster as "of, relating to, or being in an intermediate state, phase, or condition." Liminal zones are transitional times in the human experience when we are neither here nor there. Examples of common liminal zones are: graduating, moving, starting a new job, getting married, being pregnant. These are often challenging times in our lives, filled with uncertainty and discomfort.

My thought for you today is to realize that the middle part of any creative process is a liminal zone. It's okay that in the midst of creation we are uncomfortable-- you could even say that it is natural or inevitable. You will get through it. Trust that you won't stay there forever. That "in-between place" is simply a part of the creative process. It is a necessary part of your art being "born." And while that is sometimes an uncomfortable, and even painful process, it is also necessary. We can't NOT create in order to avoid the discomfort. The consequences of denying ourselves artistic expression are simply too high.