To get more creative and reduce your stress - Notice your thinking.

I started writing this piece while sitting in the USAirways club in Charlotte, NC, waiting to board a plane to return to Buffalo, NY. I was returning from delivering creativity training programs to the Federal Aviation Administration in Norman, Oklahoma and to the Veterans Administration in San Antonio, Texas.

One of the objectives of my training programs is to help people become “deliberately” creative. By design, these programs can help people make their ideas happen instead of waiting for them happen. I believe that to become deliberately creative, one needs become aware of their thinking. In meditation this is know as being the “observer.” Psychologists call this, “meta-cognition” or thinking about one’s thinking.

When teaching people how to generate ideas, I tell them to defer their judgment; to hold off on judging an idea until they have a number of ideas to choose from. The very act of deferring judgment is an exercise in meta-cognition and becoming the observer of one’s thoughts. We need to notice when our thinking is judgmental so that we can defer that judgment, and as a result change our idea generating behavior.

Observing one’s own thoughts goes far beyond creativity training. I consistently remind myself that my thoughts are not “mine” but are just the stuff that I am thinking about. There really isn’t any reason to get attached to those thoughts even though they are floating around in my head.

I recently made it part of my daily practice to notice my thinking. So, if I get upset about something, I try to shift my thinking to the “observer.” I ask myself, “It seems like you are upset about this. What’s that about?” By observing my thinking, I’ve noticed my stress level decreases. I also find myself living more in the present.

I am doing my best to notice my thinking as much as possible, and to not take what I about think so seriously. After all, it’s just an idea. I have even posted a reminder on my computer screen to “notice my thoughts.”

If you are interested in becoming more aware of your thinking, I recommend the book, “The Theory and Practice of Meditation” edited by Rudolph M. Ballentine, M.D. I found the section on “Meditation in Action” by Swami Ajaya, Ph.D. very useful.