Creative Practice

How yoga and meditation help us overcome mental blocks, enhance focus, and awaken imagination.

- By Andrea Rice and Lisette Cheresson

Here’s the fantasy: You step into your sacred workspace on a peaceful morning just before dawn, fully rested and ready for your uninterrupted date with the muse. You pick up your pen or paintbrush or guitar pick with optimism, and the words or lines or notes come rushing from your subconscious as creative inspiration flows through you like water.

The reality: If you’re lucky, you get a few good sentences down on the page, pick the colors that speak to you, or nail the first two measures of a new song. And then… nothing. Your smartphone pings, and you reach for it instinctively. Before you know it, you’re scrolling. The coffee you poured is cold. You’re hungry. Your cat is hungry. You should probably shower. Did you even brush your teeth yet?

The truth is, no matter how many times you start, stop, and start again, your creativity is never dependent on how much you produce in an hour, a day, or even a decade. Ingenuity and imagination are defining characteristics of the human experience. We are all creators, whether that creativity manifests traditionally as great works of art or discovery—or as quieter moments and expressions of imagination and inventiveness. We simply need to give ourselves permission to create and establish practices that help us find the time and the confidence to do so. Your yoga mat is a good place to start. Your practice will help you get out of your thinking, judging, procrastinating mind and into your body, where you can begin to move stuck energy and awaken the muse within.

THE ART OF SELF-STUDY