Unlock your core creativity

Dr Ronald Alexander is a pioneer in the field of holistic health, psychology and behavioural medicine since 1976 and was of the original founders of the very first holistic health and medicine at the Cedar Sinai medical office towers in 1978. He has been teaching and writing books on mindfulness, positive psychology and creativity since 1976.

When he was a teenager he lived in Boston and often spent much of his spare time at the weekends at the Harvard book store reading about philosophy and Zen Buddhism. In the evenings he would go to different music venues initially to listen to folk music but then to the bands that made up the ‘British invasion’ including The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who and Jethro Tull. He also started playing in a group at high school and became fascinated by the creative process in both his own group and through sitting, listening to and being mesmerized by high profile bands.

When artists describe their creative process, they inevitably talk about being in an open mind state where the download of core creativity can happen. Musicians such as The Band’s Robbie Robertson’s description that “Creativity comes from the womb of emptiness” to James Taylor’s observation about “waiting to hear it” and having “to be in a place where you can receive the song” reveal that creativity isn’t a rational, calculated activity. It’s about allowing oneself to become receptive. 

Whether its creating from scratch, interpreting music and adapting music, Ronald feels the processes are similar or are derivations of each other. There is a similarity between all creative processes in music and other forms of art in that the thread is in innovation, invention and a development of a particular musical or artistic theme. Then there is core creativity and that's something that is very unique and special. For example Paul McCartney wrote the song ‘Yesterday’ after dreaming it. When he woke up and wrote it down and played in on the piano. For a month or so he took the song round London asking people if they had heard it before realising it was his and that it had come from a creative unconscious.

Pure originality is core creativity and arises whether its Mozart or Beethoven. When they are composing they actually hear simultaneously the various parts of the symphony and its as if it’s coming from some sort of mystical other. If we want to de-mythify the thing Ronald calls the mystical other, we could say it comes from ones pure core collective unconscious. From all cultures, all histories all times, for example the Greeks organised and articulated creativity through the metifor of the nine goddesses, the sense of the muse.

Most of the creatives Ronald has interviewed, whether they have a formal meditation or prayer practice or something more informal such as sitting outside of their studio on their front deck have a cup of coffee or tea, smoke a cigarette and look at the sky, what they are really doing is creating their own meditative state to access or tap into their creativity. Mindfulness meditation takes us out of overthinking and into the mind state of receptivity. The stillness and focus involved in meditation alters our brainwaves, and therefore, our mind state. Distraction-free time leads us to an open mind. Both core creativity and intuitive wisdom and knowledge can be accessed in an open mind state — not because we have an open mind, or are trying to be open minded, but because we’re in a state of pure receptivity after giving ourselves over to emptiness.

You can find out more at www.CoreCreativity.com or at https://ronaldalexander.com Dr Alexander is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change (2008), and the new book, Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self.

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