How to craft a more creative & intuitive mind

A mini master class to enhance problem solving and expand artistry

Introduction: Life Conversations (audio - 5 minutes)

Written version of program further below, under the line

First exercise

Take a few moments to consider the conversation that you’ve been in with Life. What’s it been like? How has it changed? Where does it feel like the conversation is open and flowing, and where does it feel closed off? Think about who you are in this conversation. What is the relationship that happens in the space between what is you and what is not you?

You can ponder any or all of that. Just contemplating this invites you into new ways of thinking!

Class: The Es of conversation (audio - 12 minutes)

Explore - Exercise

Choose an object somewhere near you. For five minutes, take that object in as if you have no idea what it is, but know that is has something to tell you. Let it speak to you in whatever way it does. This may be weird, but relax and let whatever ideas come. Remember, you can’t get the conversation wrong.

Experiment - Exercise

Pick another object near you and for at least five minutes, ask the question over and over, “what can I do with this?” Keep letting ideas come to you. Remember from the exploration phase it helps to get old ideas out of the way so new ones come in. If you’d like to keep the experiment going, follow through in action on one of the ideas that came to you and see what come of that.

Keep in mind, this is just a simple way to highlight what I mean by experimenting with Life. Remember, you can do this with anything, not just physical objects.

Express - Exercise

Take a few moments to ponder, what would you like to express to Life, and how would you like to express it? For now, consider the simplest and smallest way you can do that, then go do that.

Experience - Exercise

There isn’t really an exercise to help you better experience Life, because you’re never not experiencing it. But you can become more fully aware of the experience. So, take a moment to consider all of what is your experience in this moment. What is the experience that is happening right now?

Introduction (written)

Have you ever considered the very essence of how Life works? What the elemental forces are doing on a regular basis? Pondering this opens up a lot of possibility.

In my own ponderings, I’ve seen that creativity and engagement are two elemental forces of Life. Things are constantly coming into and out of existence. Energy is always interacting and collaborating. Creative and engaged - these are the basic qualities of Life. The essence of how we work is the same. Our minds are natural creators and connectors, bringing things into existence through ideas, exchanging those ideas with everything else in Life.

I like to think that the way these forces work is through conversation. Everything in Life is constantly in conversation. Our cells are talking with each other. Our heart is communicating with our blood vessels. Our lungs are consulting with oxygen and carbon dioxide. Our whole bodies are in counsel with our physical environment. All that, just on a physical level. This “conversation” is happening on all levels, physical, mental, emotional, psychological, spiritual, one’s we don’t have names for …

This is our greatest asset. We can communicate and interact with ourselves and everything else in existence. The potential of our creativity lies within all the ways we are in conversation with Life and the relationship that develops in the space between what is us, and what is not us.

It’s an intuitive process that is constantly happening, mostly without our awareness or control, and usually outside the lines of what we’d call logical.

But, we can become a more conscious participant in this conversation, and in doing so our mind develops a fluidity, flexibility and confidence that enhances problem solving and artistry. We find our way back into the flow of those principle forces of Life. We craft a more creative, intuitive mind.

Perhaps not so much as craft, as get back to. Just like the natural state of everything, creativity and engagement are the natural state of our minds. As we move through life, we often narrow the depth and breadth of the conversation we’re in, making our minds more rigid and stiff. That’s not our fault, though. The environment we were born into and interact with throughout our lives narrows our bandwidth.

Most of your life people have been telling you how to think, how to act, what’s good and bad, right and wrong, what’s acceptable and not acceptable, what’s normal, what’s weird… The western school system, society, culture, well-meaning people, (and sometimes some not so well-meaning people) ask us to use our minds in very narrow ways, for very narrow means. We have been both punished and rewarded for thinking in certain ways, so our own flavor and flow of creative thinking and being has been tucked away. Most of us have been forced into having a conversation with Life that’s so narrow that we miss out on what’s fully available to us.

We stopped having our own full, open, intimate conversation. The one that is uniquely ours.

I think we should let we poor, neglected creative mind out for fresh air and let them say what they need to say, and ask what they need to ask, so we can learn to engage with Life in different ways, for different means.

The good news is that is always possible. We can always reignite and enhance that conversation.

In the next section, I’m going to give you some ways in which you can do that. For now, to begin the spark, take a few moments to consider the conversation that you’ve been in with Life. What’s it been like? How has it changed? Where does it feel like the conversation is open and flowing, and where does it feel closed off? Think about who you are in this conversation. What is the relationship that happens in the space between what is you and what is not you?

You can ponder any or all of that. Just contemplating this invites you into new ways of thinking. That’s the start of a new and interesting conversation!

When you’re ready, join me in the next section where I’ll talk about the pillars of a being a good Life conversationalist and how you can develop skills of creativity and intuition this way.

The E’s of conversation

In the last section I talked about the metaphor of being in conversation with Life and how that can enhance our creativity and intuitiveness.

In case you couldn’t tell yet, I’m in love with metaphor of being in conversation. I think there is great power and reassurance in engaging with Life this way. I like it because it means the line of communication is always open and it’s open both ways. And because we’re talking to Life, with a capital L – literally everything in existence can be your conversation partner. You can exchange ideas, ask for help or guidance, layout your harshest complaints to/from/with anything. You can open a form of communication with other people, nature, art, your own imagination, science, the flight of a bird, the temperature of the wind, a social media post, a park bench, a photograph, a mathematic equation. I dare you to find anything that you can’t have a conversation with, learn from, or see something deeper inside of. We have an extraordinary guide and co-conspirator available to us 24/7, as long as we are willing to keep the lines of communication within ourselves open.

Now, there is no right or wrong way to be in conversation, but the best way will always be your way. In case you’re not sure what your way is, or you want to give your way a boost, I want to share the elements that I’ve seen in my own conversation that I have found always help me to see something new, experience something new, or think of new things in new ways.

My own process for activating this deeper conversation, has (unintentionally) come down to four ‘E’s

Explore. Experiment. Express. Experience.

I’m going to talk more in depth about each of these so you can get a better feel for what I mean. I’ll also give you some simple exercises so you can practice your conversation skills.

Explore

One of the ways we can engage with Life is to be open to exploration.

When you’re exploring something, it’s a given that you don’t already know the territory. Or at least, you’re looking at it with fresh eyes. Exploring involves looking just to see what you can see, not to see what you’ve already seen. It’s setting the intention to move forward but without a strict agenda, or relying solely on what you already know, think, or believe. That’s no easy task considering we’ve created a world in which we’re told to have a strong opinion, position or stance on almost everything. But if you intend to explore Life or something about it, it requires going off map. You have to un-plant your flag from the area you already claimed to know and start moving toward the uncharted horizon.

Conversing with Life this way starts with honestly saying, “I don’t know, let’s have a look.” And then genuinely and patiently looking.

Considering Life in this way opens up new possibilities, ideas, and opportunities. I think of it almost as an invitation to creativity. You can’t force her to come in, but you’ve let her know she’s welcome. Creativity likes at least a little room, and if your mind is full of all the ideas you’ve already had, thoughts you’ve already thought, opinions you’ve already formed – she’s just going push herself against the wall in the corner and not want to talk to you. You have to ask your old ideas to leave the party, at least while entertaining fresh creativity.

Having an explorer mindset is a great way to make that kind of space.

So, let me give you an exercise to help you talk with Life as an explorer. Choose an object somewhere near you. For five minutes, take that object in as if you have no idea what it is, but know that is has something to tell you. Let it speak to you in whatever way it does. This may be weird, but relax and let whatever ideas come. Remember, you can’t get the conversation wrong. Pause the audio, perhaps write down anything you got out of that exercise, and then come back for the next element of the conversation.

Experiment

Experimenting is working with what is revealed to you. It’s being curious, perhaps even playful about the implications and applications of what you’ve seen or heard in Life. You can physically, mentally or emotional try things out. You can test and flirt with ideas.

You’re saying to Life, “I’ve seen something here. What, if anything, can be done with it?”

You work with the ideas Life gives. You don’t even have to worry about the experiment going well, whatever that might mean to you. You can experiment with a light heart and easy touch because you learn and see more just because you experimented. And if your endeavors lead to what looks like a dead end, you can always go back to exploration and get more ideas. This gives Life even more room to show you more things.

So if you’d like to practice a bit with experimenting, pick another object near you and for at least five minutes, ask the question over and over, “what can I do with this?” Keep letting ideas come to you. Remember from the exploration phase it helps to get old ideas out of the way so new ones come in. If you’d like to keep the experiment going, follow through in action on one of the ideas that came to you and see what come of that.

Keep in mind, this is just a simple way to highlight what I mean by experimenting with Life. Remember, you can do this with anything, not just physical objects.

After you’ve played with this idea for a bit, join me in the next section.

Express

Being open to the conversation of Life requires expression just as much as reception. That’s what a conversation is. It’s an exchange.

You’re saying to Life, “I am here. I am with you. I’ve listened. This is what I’ve got.”

Without the expression there is no way to ask questions or receive Life’s feedback. There’s no way to see if you’re lost in the endless fields of your own personal (and often warped) psychology, or actually walking with the realities of Life.

The nice thing is there are no rules for the form the expression takes. It can be grand and artistic, or plain and ordinary. It can be written, or spoken, or sung, or danced, or painted, or carved, or built, or taught, or cooked, or played, or washed. It can be poetic and beautiful, it can be angry and fierce, it can be private or public, it can be coherent or irrational. It can be anything. This is your conversation. But if you’re not expressing something in some way, you’re not really in it.

As an exercise in expression, take a few moments to ponder, what would you like to express to Life, and how would you like to express it? For now, consider the simplest and smallest way you can do that, then go do that.

When you’re ready, join me in the next section.

Experience

The experience you have of being alive is the byproduct of your participation in the conversation of Life. It’s the culmination of the conversation you’re in right now. It’s when all the steps blur together and you’re living what you’ve seen and heard.

You’re saying to Life, “I’ve understood something. Now I embody it.”

Here, you step out of having a conversation, and you become the conversation. You become fully engaged, creatively and intuitively. You are connected and in operation.

Conclusion

I hope you found one or more of these elements helpful or interesting enough to spark your conversation with Life.

As your conversation becomes more skillful and fluid, it becomes easy and natural. You don’t necessarily go through steps, you just do it. In this way you are fully present and active with what is in the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual worlds that we live in. You can creatively and intuitively give and take from those worlds resulting in a richer experience of being alive.

Your proficiency in having this conversation comes simply from willingness to have it. If you repeat any or all of these steps often, with awareness, you will become quite proficient in having a deep conversation with Life.

If you’d like to share anything you’ve taken away from these audios or exercises, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at brianne@briannegrebil.com.

You can also email me if you’d to talk more in depth about how to connect with life this way. I’m happy to offer free 30 minute conversations to as many people as I can. Reach out through that email and we’ll schedule some time to talk.

Otherwise, I want to say thank you for letting me be part of your conversation. Take care.