The most magical sunset in Ras Sudr, Egypt. Photo taken by my best friend MM; a unique human being.

As human beings, we’ve been blessed with the power of creation. We really are a natural creative ball of energy. We can think it and voila, we put it out there for the whole world to see, hear, smell, taste or touch. And we very pleasantly take pride that we were able to make it. It’s a real power for sure; a power that we were granted to imagine and to bring about this imagination to life, in a process we call ‘creation’.

One might think that with such a creative power, our lives in this world must be a wondrous space and time to live in. But it’s not always. I do believe we currently live in a world that’s creatively constipated. Except for a few of us, we’re all creatively constipated. We don’t usually feel this exotic sense of inspiration; the one that floods your senses and creates a poet out of you, allowing you to see beauty in everything. That natural ball of fire that burns in flames to make you feel radiant and full of life. That flow of energy and clarity that kicks in and puts you in a state of a wonder, ready to play your magic wand of creativity onto the world. For how can we, when we’re not nurturing the soil it grows in?

We’re living our lives in a very predictable monotonous manner; even with the kind of lives we think are very exciting. We create to-do lists, schedules, targets and fill our calendars till they’re choking and we go about every day of our lives following those lists. We put goals to add a healthy habit to our schedule or a new year resolution to chop off a negative one. We wake up every morning, make this cup of coffee, do this sum of work, go to meetings, have a jog, then back to bed with a crazy alarm clock that goes off in the next morning to snatch us from our extraordinary world of dreams and then guess what? We go on repeat mode. It’s literally a recursive loop that we’re hooked up on. I believe that we really are forgetting that creating those habits and producing those lists is what’s making us doze off from life in the first place. And it’s surely taking a role in holding back our creative power.

But what is a habit anyway? I believe it’s an action that you do unconsciously. Whether it’s a positive or a negative one, a habit is an action that you don’t have to think about when you do it. As if you’re on a doze-off pill for a few seconds/minutes while you do the action autonomously and thus presumably empty a portion of space in your mind to think about something else. And boy have we created a dozen of those doze-off pills throughout our day!

I really do believe that we need to go back to consciously doing things. We can just start by contemplating on how we used to do things when we were younger, or even easier, try to watch a child or even your pet and see how they can just live purely in the moment and simply create. They do create wonders that’s fascinating not only for them but for us as well. And if you think about it, this fascinating creation is just their game or their play at a given moment; an imaginative friend or a mythical world (bonus point; even adults are into those mythical worlds now; harry potter, lord of the rings, a game of thrones and many more). So shouldn’t our play be our creative process? And isn’t our creative process simply life?

We need to stop living our lives with a check list and go back to first sensing and then doing. Maybe you don’t really need that cup of coffee today or maybe you feel like laying low and skip that cross fit session today without whipping yourself the next morning, or maybe you really don’t have to go on befriending this childhood friend, if every time you’re together you feel a drainage in your energy. Break your habits loop and start contemplating on every action you’re doing, and choose to do it or not do it but in a conscious manner. The key is not to put your mind up for the challenge to take that decision for you, put out your heart instead; just feel it.

Our mind is there to help us in our creative journey for sure, but this mind is like a monkey. If not managed properly, it puts its nose in everything and keeps jumping up and down nagging for attention and creating a source of distraction to your present moment. And the present moment is your creative moment. It’s the playground where you receive your inspiration, the channel where you tune into the phenomenal and magical power of the universe. And if you’re blocking off your senses at a given moment while you’re on an automated pilot mode, you’re literally blocking off any connection with this creative existence. And you’re becoming more constipated every day.

We need to go back to our innate understanding of how to orchestrate our body parts including our mind; for the well being of ourselves and of the world around us. We need to stop listening to our minds when it’s not its time to drive at the moment. We need to start giving the driving wheel more to our heart, our senses and to our emotions. We need to start to consciously ‘feel’ in every moment, to get the level of our senses back to its innate strength, and we need to definitely increase the frequency of using those senses. They’re our tools of creation. And it’s a muscle that we can simply train.

Put your senses to use in very simple decisions of your everyday; like deciding with you friends whether to go for sushi or for burgers. Also, perceive each action you take in a day as a creative process; like even making that morning cup of coffee is an art on its own, not just throwing in a spoonful of coffee followed by a flood of hot water. In my perspective, such engagement of your senses and your change of perception put a speck of life into every action you take. It’s like you’ve added a part of your soul out there in the world, represented in that cup of coffee. In my own opinion, such simple acts will for sure train your sensing muscle and help you in cultivating this natural creative force of life within you.

The world is in definite need of more phenomenal humane creations that we once had. You’re born a natural creative being, so ask yourself this question: are you creatively constipated? If you feel so, then give your heart the lead for a while and let it guide you into your birth right of miraculous creativity.

…and enjoy its unfolding process of wonder.