Audacious Creativity Technique #1: 7-Day Mental Cleanse for Writers

Among the 12 most powerful keys for dissolving creative blocks and soaring as a creator is also perhaps the simplest: the mental flush. Use this technique first thing in the morning on a daily basis, and you'll soon notice you have a new degree of lucidity. Think of this flush as a process of dumping, a chance for the mind to let go.

Have you ever noticed how the first thought of the day often is the most vulnerable? That's because you release conscious control over your mental processes while you're asleep, and as you rise back into consciousness--in the moment just before you re-exert control--one last unconscious thought is picked up in the open: "I'm so angry with so-and-so!" "I feel terrible, GUILTY, about what I did last week!" "How am I ever going to get everything done on time? I'm in over my head." "Couldn't I just stay here in bed and rest some more?"

Your brain is readying you for the day and doing its best to make its priorities known; especially by revealing your innermost feelings--including those that are normally concealed. It feels dangerous and sticky to dwell on certain images, so your mind may immediately respond by shutting them down. Vulnerability is not normally a revered condition, although the longer I am a writer the more I appreciate it. When I compiled Audacious Creativity (2010), I became fascinated by what it took for contributors to deliver me a simple article. Some hemmed and hawed and resisted; others flowed their pieces out, seemingly effortlessly. I saw that the ones who wrote most freely did not avoid negativity, but had a way of responding to it that was healthy and simple.

Remember, all of this resistance of our thoughts and feelings happens in a flash. It's not something we necessarily do on purpose. It just is. The brain is tasked with keeping us alive, so it acts defensively. But when it comes time to create a life we love and really live forward toward our best intentions, ideally we want to be friendly with our subconscious thought streams--and this means letting them have their say. Good ideas are to be found in the recesses of the mind.

This is where the Mental Flush comes in. So, here are a few basic instructions.

Get out a clean piece of paper and a pen. For four minutes, write down every thought that comes into your head, without rushing, but also without pausing in the middle. You're going to throw away the output at the end, rather than save it. So you don't need to concern yourself with punctuation, grammar, or readability. Beyond giving your mind a chance to speak up, be heard and accepted, in this process you are enabling the rational mind to integrate the input of the feeling mind. Metaphysically you are recycling energy that otherwise will remain trapped inside your biofield.

At the end of four minutes, stop writing. Then throw away, shred, burn, or otherwise dispose of your handwritten pages. Resist the temptation to use this process for the generation of content. If you want to create good content, do the mental flush first, and then do your content-creation process second once your mind is clear.

Do mental flushing for a minimum of seven days in a row, and notice whether there is a shift in your consciousness. This prepares open space in your inner landscape where your inner creator can flourish and flow, functioning in peace and harmony.

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