Be Here Now: Mindfulness and the Creative Spirit

Mindfulness is the art of paying attention to the details of the present moment. When we are engaged in the process of creating--whether through words, music, art, or movement--without getting caught up in where it might be leading, it is a form of mindfulness.

It's been a rough few weeks and I have to admit that it's been hard to focus on the present; the past and future seem to be taking up most of the neural pathways in my brain these days. A colleague is seriously ill, family and friends have been distressed by tragedies, and my work life hasn't been without occasional irrational and uncontrollable sputters and rumbles. The media is no source of relief either; one week it's the "miracle on the Hudson" and then it's back to watching retirement funds circling down the bathroom drain and witnessing thousands of people facing unemployment or losing their homes. Even Psychology Today has me seriously depressed that I may not have had enough sexual partners to have a happy afterlife after all.

Just before I might have jumped into the Ohio River [the closest body of water available to me other than the bathtub], I happened to stumble upon this film that gave me a needed cosmic nudge. Take a couple of minutes, listen to the music, and watch 400 people persuade hundreds of unsuspecting commuters in London's Liverpool Station to "be here now:"

The film was produced by T-Mobile as a vehicle for an advertisement, but it brought home to me of the value of creativity in a mindful life. To dance -or paint, drum, write, or play-- does not make it all better, but to be mindful in a creative moment does. Some refer to that process as a state of flow and others call it a form of meditation. No matter what this state of being is called, recent studies underscore the potent combination of "being here now" and the creative process to impact illness. There is growing evidence-based research that mindfulness practices combined with creative interventions such as art therapy [also known as mindfulness-based art therapy or MBAT] are transformative experiences in the lives of people with cancer. In brief, there is a significant decrease in symptoms of distress and improvements in health-related quality of life, two key elements in the treatment of psychosocial aspects of cancer recovery, aspects translatable to life and health in general.

Most of all, creativity as a form of mindfulness reminds me that the present moment contains the possibility for all things, including the liberation from the world of suffering. It is not going to make my friend's illness go away, reverse the tragedies of the past few weeks, untangle life's little soap operas, or make my stone-cold dead retirement account reincarnate as the robust portfolio it was last June. But we are here in this drama for other reasons-- to abandon ourselves in this moment and become fully conscious so we can experience the dance of our lives.

[For another uplifting, be-here-now experience, revisit Dance Like Your Life -And World-Depends On It]

© 2009 Cathy Malchiodi

www.cathymalchiodi.com