Head Hand and Heart - What Was, What Is, What Next?

Wow!  What an amazing weekend. 

What an amazing privilege to have shared head hand and HEART with thirty-four other aspiring and inspiring creators. I was overwhelmed and so encouraged by the collective exploration into the creative experience.

We, danced, we sang, we drew, we dreamed, we wept, we composed, we shared, we dared...

I quote Henny van den Wildenberg... ‘We are a beautiful race if we can be engaged in creativity, embrace serendipity and dare to come outside our well established self.‘

Thank you so much to everyone for daring play, daring to open your heart and daring to share it so freely with others.

As I sit here our resident satin bowerbird scurries about our garden, a familiar and welcome friend.  He reminds me of another bird famous with ability to continually recreate from the ashes of its own destruction - the Phoenix.

The last two days have been recovery for me.   Sitting by the smoldering fire of the first public head hand and HEART chewing over what was, what is and what can be?  

Everywhere I see wisps of possibility rising from the ashes of that glorious fire, fledgling ideas, inspirations and opportunities.

I’m nervous, excited and expectant.

I was amazed at how often during the program someone would ask me – what did that last session mean and what next? Well the question for us to ask and begin to explore together now is what next?

If you were touched, moved and inspired by head hand and HEART, I invite you to share your experience, share what head hand and HEART has opened up for you and share your dreams for the possibilities of head hand and HEART for the world.

Creativity - It’s Not About Quality, It’s About Permission

A big thanks to writer, singer, cancer survivor and head hand and HEART facilitator Jo Hilder for our latest blog.

Almost everyone who attempts to operate in the creative realm does battle at some time on some level with the ‘demons’ of self-doubt.  

Learning to master self-criticism is one of the keys to increased creativity and free flowing creative self-expression.

I once heard singer songwriter Kristina Olsen describe the creator's dilemma as a dance between the inflated ego crying - 'nobody understands my amazing talents' and the overactive internal voice of judgment shouting 'You are doomed, hopeless, you'll never be good enough'.

Many people are stifled in their quest to become more creative by these unrealistic voices - those that break free either silence them, choose to ignore them or use them as a source of creative inspiration.

I've known and worked with Jo Hilder for over 30 years and throughout that time have witnessed first hand her burning need to express and share her powerful life experiences with others.  I've also seen her battles with fear, self-judgment and self-doubt.

Despite this, or perhaps because she’s chosen to fight and win those battles, Jo has become an accomplished creator, singer, songwriter and music teacher.  

Jo is a gifted writer pouring her heart and soul into her daily blog and her recent insight into the world of cancer survivors and soon to be published book - What Not to Say to a Cancer Survivor.

Here's how it happens for Jo...

Paul Macklin - Creative Director head hand and HEART 

Creativity - It’s Not About Quality, It’s about Permission

"Every child is born an artist, the problem is to remain one once they grow up."

Pablo Picasso 

My most memorable creative moment happened when I was a small child of about five or six. It was a significant point in my life as an artist, but unfortunately, it’s been pretty much all downhill from there.

I was the kind of precocious youngster that liked to make sure everyone knew I was around. I liked to sing and dance and make up plays where I would parade around in my mother’s nightdresses, pretending to be Indian royalty. You get the picture. I didn’t realise that a significant thing was happening in the actual moment; it’s only now when I think back I really wish I’d held on to that flash of genius. If I had by now I’d probably have created a vast body of artistic work, but as it stands, I have wasted about thirty of the last forty two years not making the art I love so much. And why? Well, mostly because I was afraid it would not be any good.

I was singing, you see, just before it happened. I was singing my head right off, and by God, I was good, just about as good as a five or six year old can be. I was thinking how amazing it was to be able to produce such a wondrous noise just by opening one’s mouth and sending the voice out as big and wide as possible. Now, this was not just self expression or exuberance – this was technical. My big ‘ole voice could go up and down, and up and down again, and oh, what a wonderful feeling! I was quite lost in this place of pure joy, just being a small child singing its heart out, when someone who should have known better interrupted me. “Oh!” they exclaimed, actually putting their hands up over their ears, “What a terrible noise!”

That, by the way, was not the significant moment. It came immediately afterwards.

I looked up at the person who should have known better, and I thought, you know what? She’s wrong. She’s just wrong, because that was not a terrible noise. That, right there, was some mighty fine singing. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

And there it was. I’ve struggled to get back there ever since.

Oh, if only I’d been able to bring that six year old back into the room every time I put down my guitar because the inner person who should have known better said “Oh, what a terrible noise!” I wish I’d asked that little girl what she thought all those times I laid down the paintbrush, or pushed my chair away from the keyboard, or dropped out of the dance class. I wish I’d remembered my significant moment when I burned the romantic poems of my adolescence because I thought they were stupid, and when I refused to play my songs in public. I wish I’d listened to her every time my inner perfectionist refused to let me waste time making bad art, and made me get a job I was good at instead. Imagine what a musician, what a dancer, what a poet, what a painter, what a writer I’d be by now, if only, if only I’d never stopped every time I heard a voice say “Ah! That’s awful! For the love of God, stop it!” I wish that I’d remembered to say “Are you out of your mind? Of course it’s bad! Who are you - the friggin’ art police?”....and then just got on with it anyway.

I know now that it takes a long time to get as good as you’d like to be when you first begin. You learn to do something by doing it, says John Holt, there is no other way. A very wise friend of mine says you need about ten thousand hours to become proficient at something, be it throwing a pot, writing a sonnet, or probably even raising a child. Nobody can make something incredible right away. When it comes to creating art, it’s not about quality, it’s about permission. And permission to make your art, good, bad and ugly, is a gift only you can give yourself.

Creativity is subversive. It needs room to move. It needs to be allowed to rebel, to think, to explore, to explode, to sleep, to feed and to question. It will eat everything you feed it and eliminate its waste as its requirements dictate. Your creativity will boldly announce itself as having arrived, and then may sit by and do nothing. It may take over, it may undermine. It may sleep all day, and work all night. But in the end, creativity will be the essence of wonderful, because it is greater than all conventions. If you want to excel in convention, do just what has been done before and merely seek to improve upon it. But if you wish to be an artist, break faith with convention; starve it in the dark, smash it and crush it and put it outside while you fly around the room with paintbrushes and flugelhorns. Chase your convention screaming from the room and throw its pretentious crown out after it into the street. Take your creativity and kiss it with passion right on the mouth, then let it kiss you back. Give yourself permission to love that part of you that scares others to death; your muse, your thinker, your child, your dreamer, your explorer, your artist, your heart, your ideas, your creations. They are yours, they are you, and that alone makes them great and worthy.

Write the book you cannot find, the one that tells your story. Sing the song that haunts you in your dreams. Bring your wild vision forth and fill the hungry canvas.  Get that art out of you, as if you could push your own heart right out of your mouth. Don’t worry about it being wrong; don’t worry about it being good enough. There is no art police but your own inner judge, your critic, your resistance to wrongness and imperfection and mistakes. It’s not an awful noise I promise you; it’s wonderful. Your creativity is not just what you do....it’s who you are. And I...I am the Queen of India. :0)

 Jo Hilder - Facilitator Head Hand Heart

Have you ever been held back from fully expressing yourself by the voice of judgement?  Are you missing out on a world of creative experience because something inside you claims you’re not creative, not good enough, won’t be able?

If so, join Jo and the team from head hand and HEART and gain a deeper insight into how to silence or ignore your ‘voice of judgment’ or better still, use it as a source of creative inspiration and in doing so liberate your creative self-expression and self-confidence.

www.headhandandheart.com 

Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st November 8am - 5pm Australian Technology Park Eveleigh - NSW
$295 per participant donation to Tabitha $230 early bird discount booked before October 22^nd

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain 

Why did we call it head hand and HEART?

 The other day someone asked me, “Why is head hand and HEART, called head hand and HEART?”  A good question really, and one that I hardly contemplate anymore given that head hand and HEART has been some years in the making.

Let me take you on a journey into the creative space and the genesis of the name head hand and HEART.

Quite often when I’m creating, photographing, painting or drawing, something rather magical happens – a kind of transcendent experience in which my mind, my spirit and my body seem to merge into one.

In that somewhat mysterious state, the subject I’m drawing, the drawing and my ‘self’ seem to become one. 

I’ve had similar experiences creating music and jamming with others, a real blurring of the boundaries between self, others and the collective creation.  It’s an awesome experience.

In that creative space the ‘voice in my head’ that constantly compares, analyses, criticizes and judges goes quiet, all comprehension of myself as a separate entity disappears and for an indeterminate moment, time stands still.  

When it occurs this ‘flow state’ is wonderful, mysterious, elusive and really quite intoxicating. 

In fact, creating access for others to share in this experience is one of our prime motivations in creating head hand and HEART.   www.headhandandheart.com

 

Flow can be characterized as the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity and was first identified as such by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.  Csíkszentmihályi conducted research with over seventy leading creative people, scientists, artists, performers, all game changers in their fields.  Almost all described flow state as something they experienced when deeply engaged in their creative process.

Csíkszentmihályi described flow as ‘"being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost." 

It’s an experience that is actually somewhat difficult to describe, as it is an experience that is not bound by the world of logic, language or rational thought.  Like trying to describe the act of balancing on a bike!

Betty Edwards in her seminal work, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, described it as a shift to right brain mode of operation and over the past 30 years her work has enabled literally thousands of people to overcome their fear of drawing by learning to recognize the shift from ‘left to right’ brain mode that takes place as you draw.

Brain researcher, and left brain stroke survivor, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor in her wonderful TED lecture, http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html 

describes the experience as feeling ‘enormous, expansive, like a genie liberated from her bottle’.

To me, flow occurs at the meeting point of head, hand and heart.

Democrates, a little known Greek philosopher, gives us some indication of this his quote…

“If done by the hand only – one is a slave,

If done by the hand and head – one is an artisan

If done by hand, head and heart – one is an artist”

Flow state is not however the sole domain of the artist.  True, I’ve experienced it many times as a musician, writing poetry or painting.  But I’ve also experience it walking in nature, playing tennis, repairing my bicycle, riding my mountain bike, ocean kayaking, working in the vegetable garden, playing with my kids or making love.

What’s common to each of these experiences is an uncommon interaction of our three primary domains, our mind, body and spirit, our thinking, feeling and doing, our knowing, intuiting and expressing. 

While our understanding of the nature of creativity and the science of consciousness has evolved much since the time of Democrates, his simple triune view of human creativity and experience still pervades much science, art and culture.

Creativity emerges as result of the dynamic interaction of these three domains, known in psychology as the cognitive (head), psychomotor (hand) and affective (heart).

The cognitive domain or head is the domain most associated with thinking, language and rational thought, logic, reason, intellect and cognition.  It provides mental frameworks that help us understand, make sense of and function rationally in the world.

The psychomotor domain or hand is the domain of tangible action through which our thoughts and feelings are made manifest in some physical form, hand skills, dexterity, application, vocal and physical expression.

Finally the affective domain or heart is the domain of our emotions, feelings, intuition, imagination and values.  It enables us to experience and connect deeply to a more immediate sense of who we are beyond the need for logic and reason. 

When I’m engaged fully in creative activities, like drawing, my sight, my emotional response to what I see and my capacity to express what is see and feel with charcoal or paint, merge into one.

When this occurs my drawing is free, spontaneous and seems to possess a life that both captures and goes beyond the subject.  More importantly for me I become united with both the drawing and the subject in a new relationship that was not previously present.

When we visit galleries and see those great ‘works of art’ that excite our sprit and capture our imagination I believe we are experiencing, as an observer, a small glimpse into the ‘captured flow state’ of the artist creator.

When we see children creating that same spontaneous creative joy and expression is present.  Likewise, when we play with our children, with no intent to any purpose other than to be with them, enjoying the connection and having fun.  And isn’t it amazing that these are so often the experiences that create strong, meaningful and long lasting bonds.

In our time pressured, specialised and often highly focussed lives, it’s not often that we take time out to recreate; to reunite head, hand and heart.  So much of what we do is a directed, purposeful form of delayed gratification.  We do things ‘in order to’ and our schedules brim with ‘things to do’.  When we are doing one thing our mind is on the next thing and as a consequence we are never fully present, never in the flow. 

The experiences of head hand and HEART are designed to reconnect you to that wonderful state of flow.  To open the door to a spontaneous interplay of head, hand and heart in which time stands still and your life takes on new meaning.

head hand and HEART will explore the interplay of our minds, emotions and actions, giving you access to creative flow and connecting you to a deeper sense of what it is to be fully human.

Throughout head hand and HEART you will explore experiences that combine thinking, feeling and doing in a way that unlock your creative flow state. 

head hand and HEART  will open up different modes of thinking, feeling and doing – modes that have been know to artists and creators throughout history.

You will discover ways to give voice and form to your heart’s intuition and imagination. 

You will experience, explore and make sense of emotions and feelings and open the door to unexpressed perspectives and a richer deeper understanding of who you are and how you operate in the world.

Finally, head hand and HEART will open the possibility for the unexpected, for serendipity, chance, mystery and wonder to emerge. 

“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”  Henry Emerson Fosdick

Find out more and register at  www.headhandandheart.com

Why head hand and HEART?

People often ask me, "Why are you so passionate about creativity and what is head hand and HEART all about?"

In this first head hand and HEART blog post I'll attempt to answer both these questions and open a door for you to see creativity, your creative potential and yourself as a creator, in a whole new light.

Talk to any highly accomplished and recognised creative person and it's likely they will tell you that perception is a critical faculty and a key part of the creative process.  Perception is all about how we see and interpret the world.  

You probably know from experience that no two people see the world in exactly the same way; we all have our own very unique point of view or perspective.  What's more, our perspective determines not only what we look at but also what we see and what that means to us.

So let's explore some perspectives on creativity and how you relate to creativity and yourself as a creator.

When I explain head hand and HEART as a program designed to develop and uncover creative potential many people respond with the claim "Oh, I'm really not creative"

It's a common, but truly remarkable perspective, given the overwhelming evidence that humans as a species and as individuals are creative beyond imagination.  

Look back over the past 200, 100, 20, 10, 5 years.  We are witness to the most remarkable explosion of creative enterprise that our species has ever seen.  The combined forces of the industrial and information revolutions are literally reshaping every aspect of our lives, our communities and our planet.

Humans are creative at their core.  We create to learn, we create to explore, we create to improve, we create to solve, we create to enjoy, and we create to engage with others.

Whether we do it consciously or not we create our homes, our careers, our communities, our characters, our relationships, our families, our collections of possessions, and our beliefs.  Literally everything about our world is created.

Look back over your own life to the time of your childhood.  There was a time when creative play was one of your most important and well-loved experiences.  Creativity is not something we have to learn.  Creative is something we are, from birth.  Creativity is our birthright.

Unfortunately for some of us, somewhere during our development, our free and playful sense of innocence is lost.  Somewhere along the line some of us either take on the belief 'I'm not creative' or restrict our creative endeavors to a narrow specialist field.

There are many pressures both biological and social that encourage us to conform as we question and form our identity and our capabilities.  In a world where the 'artwork' of creative experts; musicians, painters, movie makers, architects, designers etc. is everywhere, it is all to easy to compare our 'child like' creative expressions with the works of the experts.  It's easy to feel like we are falling short.  Once we stop exercising our 'creative muscle', it, like all muscles, withers and retreats to a place of 'safety' where its exercise can't be questioned or criticized.

In fact, what most people are saying when they claim to not be creative is "I'm not creative in the traditional sense of the word" - "I can't paint, draw, sing, dance, write poetry, etc like the experts."

When we associate creativity with traditional arts it's easy to see ourselves as not creative or lacking in any creative talent.  But just for a moment I'd like to expand our view and explore some different perspectives on what creativity could be.

Let me ask you, how do you view your world?  

Is it an overwhelming, incomprehensible and endless cacophony of challenges and demands that you struggle from one day to the next to meet?  Or is it a field of infinite potential, an amazing, multidimensional canvass into which you paint your hopes and dreams?

How do you view your life?  

Is it a well-scripted play from cradle to grave with you a well scripted character playing out a predetermined role?  Or is it an unfolding mystery, an amazing journey, a masterwork, with you a master artist or at the very least a Master’s apprentice?

How do you view your creative capability?

Are you the kind of person that says, ‘I’m sorry, I’m just not creative, I can't even draw a straight line!’ (As if drawing a straight line was a pre-requisite for creative success!)?  Or, do you recognise and realise the wealth of creative ability and potential that is yours by pure dint of the fact that you are born human - homo creator?

Know it or not, acknowledge it or not, act on it or not you live in a universe that is creative beyond either our imagination or our intellect to comprehend.

Know it or not, acknowledge it or not, act on it or not, you are a creative being.

By your very existence you are constantly engaged in creative acts – consciously and proactively or passively and unconsciously.  Once conceived, (conception itself is a mind boggling creative miracle), you enter the world as 'homo creator' and from that moment forward your every breath, movement and thought is a creative act leaving its footprint upon the earth.

Which brings me to why I'm so passionate about creativity and what head hand and HEART is all about.

I believe that to deny our creative capability is to deny something that is at the very heart of who we are as individuals and as a species. Something we lived and breathed as children - open, innocent, imaginative, wide eyed and full of possibility and wonder.

I believe that to deny our creative expression is to miss out on one of the purest, deepest, richest parts of our very humanity.  The deeply soul satisfying experience of creative play. 

I believe that to deny our creative potential is to miss out the possibility of being the captain of our own ship and the master of our destiny. 

I believe that to deny our creative contribution is to deny the possibly of that our dreams, hopes and desires can be realised and in doing so positively transform the world. 

Conversely, to realise our creative capability, creative expression, creative potential and creative contribution is to open up a whole world of possibility.  

head hand and HEART will not teach you to be creative.  You cannot teach something to someone when they already have what it is you are trying to teach!!!   

head hand and HEART will simply alter your perspective and help you deal with the voice of judgment and false belief may be holding your 'creative child' captive. 

head hand and HEART will provide a safe environment in which your dormant creatively can be nurtured and brought back to life.

head hand and HEART is awakening to yourself as the creative being you were purposed to be.

head hand and HEART is a catalyst that will lead you into the realisation of your amazing creative potential.

head hand and HEART is a call to awaken to yourself as a conscious creator and through that to the beautiful contribution that you can make to your life and the lives of those around you.  

Register now www.headhandandheart.com