Creation and creative energy.

This one is huge.

Usually, when we go to yoga classes, we are being told what to do, how to move, exactly where to place a hand, a foot. How to breathe. When to breathe. Often even what to feel – physically and emotionally. (another topic for later)

I try to give people the tools to experience for themselves so they feel enable to make their own decisions and change their position from only receiving to creating.

There are various ways one can develop a creative energy and experience the empowerment to create. Many people need some type of guidance and skills to reach this state though.

If I take myself as an example, I always wanted to be an artist, basically a rockstar, create things that move others (emotionally and cognitively) and inspire them. I had idols, or inspirational figures that were though so removed from me, so far away that they were not guides to me. And in real life, there was no one really who would teach me the skills I needed, starting from the confidence to freely think and create without being limited already in my roots. There was no manual, no person. This took like 20 years from my life in terms of being able to reach my goal of feeling free and encouraged to create.

So this encouragement, giving people the skills to create has become one of my focus points in my teachings. I want others to learn to listen and trust what they hear on the inside. Have the courage to explore and play and find exciting things.

The beautiful thing about a movement practice is its tangibility. It is easy to notice and see blockages or openings. And it is able to reach mental and emotional levels of our being that are hard to reach just thinking about them.  Therefore, I like to use this physical approach to break ones own barriers and limitations.

I see it a lot in people I work with when I leave a moment of free movement exploration how often they feel lost instead of free to just feel and move. It takes usually many steps of slowly working towards a state where movement can freely flow out of someone and break the usual routine and special limitations, such as the borders of the mat.

But once people get to this place of really feeling connected with themselves and confident in their movement choices, what happens is truly magical. Their experience reaches a whole other quality. The intensity of pleasure and satisfaction, of confidence and calmness is much greater. There is a lot of joy.

The other aspect of creation is to actually create.

In the world we live in right now, where there is so much input and information from outside – and I am not complaining, I love to consume aesthetically pleasing things, such as art, fashion photography, style inspirations, color psychology, dance and movement, music – it easily takes our time that we have to create ourselves.

While taking all the inspiration in, it needs also time to digest it, process it to a point we can use it and add ourselves. Create ourselves. And this exercise of creating ourselves is a process that needs to be done by actually taking to time to spit things out. In whatever is the form or métier that you “float” or more actively “swim” in.

The importance of actively spitting things out has taken me so long to realize.

Creation and creative energy are a huge topic and so satisfying when they arise.

One of my favorite meditation questions is “How can I serve?”, a question I took from Tara Stiles, who took it from Deepak Chopra, who probably also got it from somewhere.

I have had people react to this word of “serve” negatively, as they felt that they were already doing so many tasks for other people in their lives, but I understand this question totally different.

To me, how can I serve? Refers to who am I and what can I create. What are my skills and talents, how can I contribute to this world. It is a very beautiful question as it refers back to our abilities, values, the beauty of our existence. All the reasons people or the planet would like I spend time with us. It means that we are an active part of our environment, not just passive consumers.

Coming back to the physical practice, the mindful movement practice: if we learn certain skills, which can always be deepened and are a continuous learning process, but if we learn skills and the confidence to listen and respond, we are able to create. We are able to make our own choices of movement and what kind of experience we would like to have. Expand, break habits and old ways and come up with new ones.

This is why my approach of movement practice includes people to learn about their bodies and be able to notice. I don’t manipulate anyone or tell them right and worng, but I teach them the skill to notice the difference. This gives them theopportunity to apply this skill any other area in life.