Okay, right at the start let me just say that it isn’t as if yoga has the power to transform a regular person into a creative person. I am not talking about some magical transformation. What I want to talk about today is about how yoga and meditation let us tap into our own inner selves and discover depths that we may not fully be in touch with. My point is that yoga can help us reconnect with ourselves. It can help put us in touch with our creative soul and mind. These age-old disciplines can help us discover abilities that we never knew existed within us. Or they may help us rediscover talents that remained dormant for years.
Think back to your school days
Maybe you were the art teacher’s pet at the time. It could be that your friends were always amused by the witty rhymes you composed. Perhaps you were a part of the school choir or the band. It may have been that you used to be the one whose projects were always on display in school fairs and so on. You may have excelled at craft or other hobby class in school or may have been a star at the college cultural festival.
However, today all this may just be a distant memory. What happened in the intervening years? Why are your walls today not full of your own artworks? When did you stop writing the poetry that gave you and those around so much joy? Are you singing or playing the guitar as you did in school or college?
Recall, revisit, and reconnect
When people say that their childhood or college years were the best years of their life, there are many reasons for this. Yes, those were carefree years when one wasn’t weighed down with the responsibility of earning a living, raising children, securing their future and looking after older people in the family. But this was also a time when you allowed yourself to truly be yourself.
This was a time when you were curious and courageous. You tried out new experiences and believed in yourself. Did that change at some point? Did you lose touch with that inner child – so unafraid and so joyful and so enthusiastic? Did you let yourself become that depressing thing – a mere adult? Did you forget to do all the things that gave you so much joy, such a sense of achievement?
Yoga and creativity
In my yoga classes, I often have to persuade students to try new things. I have to convince them that they can in fact do things that they didn’t think themselves capable of. During my yoga therapy sessions as well, I find that people have to un-learn certain habits, and negative and limiting self-beliefs. I have seen the positive impact of doing yoga and meditation on these negative self-beliefs.
Firstly, regular practice lowers stress, helping put people in a much more positive frame of mind. This helps create a more optimistic view of life.
Secondly, as one spends time meditating and looking inward and learning to control the mind, one becomes better aware of one’s own abilities. As one trains the body to become stronger, fitter and more able, one gains confidence in one’s physical as well as mental capacities. This is how meditation and yoga help us renew our relationship with our inner selves.
Thirdly, I find that gaining mastery in these disciplines helps get the creative juices flowing. We are able to think of new ideas, consider possibilities that we would have earlier shunned. This helps us unlock abilities that always existed, but which may have lain dormant for years. Maybe ever since those carefree childhood days? I think this is true in a lot of cases.