Many non-practisers, may think of yoga, as a kind of light gymnastics for agile women, alternatively, a leg-bending practice of Indian yogis dressed in loincloths, somehow related to fakirs resting on beds of nails. While yoga could be both of that, it is also much more.
A Zen student asked his Master “What is Zen?”
The Zen Master replied, “Zen is eating when you eat, working when you work and resting when you rest”.
The student was puzzled and said, “But this sounds so easy”.
“Yes”, said the Master, “yet so few people manage to do it”.
Illustration: Pixabay.com – NeuPaddy
When I was a young medical student in the mid-1980s, I was taught that the brain was a rather fixed structure, and throughout life we would every year loose a large number of neurons that could not be regenerated. As many other “medical truths”, this has also proven to be wrong.
Continue reading “Five ways how to beef up your super brain”
We are very much steered by the primitive reactions that are evoked in our reptile brain. One of the strongest of these instincts is fear. Fear is a survival function, and potentially dangerous situations affect us much more than positive signals that say everything is calm and that we can carry on with what we are doing.
Continue reading “The fight between your inner fears and your creative courage”
Numerous tasks and projects are never finished due to the belief that the result needs to be perfect. Indeed, perfection may be the biggest enemy of getting to the finish line.
Being well-organized does not need to be in contrast to being creative. On the contrary, most great artists know the place of smallest thing they need for their creative work and the coolest and wildest rock musician may have his sound studio in meticulous order. Keeping track of your things, and not having to spend 10 minutes every morning to find your car keys also frees up a lot of time for other more useful activities, including creative work.
One of the most important abilities that distinguishes us from most animals is our ability of self-awareness. We can, if we so wish, with our imagination place us outside ourselves, and observe ourselves with (partly) independent eyes. Doing this with a combination of self-criticism and self-compassion is a good exercise that can help us grow as human beings.
When we encounter problems and external difficulties, which eventually will happen to all of us, we can choose between two fundamentally different ways of handling the situation.
Firstly, we can see ourselves as victims of the circumstances and cursing the fate or those we consider have caused this miserable situation. This means that we choose to place ourselves in a passive position, where the situation can only change for the better if something or someone else changes.
Continue reading “You’ll become a victim only if you choose to be one”
By learning how to better listen to our inner voice and to be aware of the present moment with tuned down filters and with no judgment, we will also more easily access our intuition. You have probably been in a situation where you intuitively knew how to act without really knowing why. You have simply listened to your “gut feeling” and strikingly often it has turned out you were right.
Almost on the day five months ago, I was contemplating to start writing a blog, sharing my views on creativity and personal growth.
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Creativity boost 