Inner Eye Publishing Articles Creativity Intuition Empowerment

A New Problem - A New Solution

By Nancy Marie

"We can't solve the problem by using the same kind of thinking
we used when we created them."
- Einstein

Our youth face a far different world than we faced when we were their age. Reading, writing, and arithmetic alone will not prepare them for the rapidly changing and volatile global economy of today. At the same time current social, economic, and environmental challenges have created an unprecedented need for unbridled creative thinkers. The key to facilitating this revolutionary change is to encourage intuitive and creative development at a very early age. By encouraging this kind of education we can increase our youth's potential for "out of the box" thinking and help them cultivate a deep sense of self. Our daunting fixation on acquiring higher test scores, on the other hand, is compromising the expansion of their creative mind and evolutionarily leading us in the wrong direction.

Since everyone is intuitive, the task is not to teach our youth how to be intuitive, but rather create opportunities for them to learn how to effectively access, strengthen, decode, and trust their own intuition. Art is a wonderful venue for developing these innate abilities, because it can still their mind, open their heart, help them connect deeply with their authentic nature, and reconfigure stifling subconscious beliefs that cloud their perceptions.

Within each of us is the ability to express and trust our truest thoughts and feelings via line, color, texture, and dimension. With a mere flick of a pencil or crayon-like the quick turn of a kaleidoscope-we can move ourselves out of a stuck and boxed-in perspective and uncover a new and innovative solution to a present challenge. It is the fear of being wrong or the feeling that who we are is wrong that stifles creative development and holds us trapped in a box. It is also what silences the intuition.

Every day we are surrounded by color, line, texture, and dimension. Are you aware of how they influence mood, health, and productivity? The marketing world uses these principles to manipulate and sell products, while the art of Feng Shui shows us how to use these same elements to bring about internal harmony. Why does it work? Very simply, our bodies naturally respond to the vibration of color, line, texture, and dimension. When we take the time to explore and play with these elements we can gain a deeper understanding of our true nature, and gain more clarity about our current challenges because art is really the art of seeing.

Using art to enhance the development children's intuition can take place quite effortlessly by pointing them in the direction of their senses and introducing the Socratic method of teaching via questions. "How does it feel when you move your hand in that direction instead of the previous direction? Is there an identifiable sensation or feeling on your skin or in your gut? Or do you experience it in one of your other senses?" By directing the focus on the sensations and the body clues that arise when creating rather than trying to NOT make a mistake, you allow them to drop into a hypnagogic state. Why is that important?

In 1987, while Dr. Bruce Lipton (author of The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles) was a fellow in pathology at Stanford Medical School, his studies proved that our beliefs and perceptions control our cellular biology, and that when we change our beliefs we can change our whole life.

Dr. Lipton also found that hypnotic-like practices were the most effective way to change old beliefs that are stored in our subconscious. He felt that drawing, when approached in a noncompetitive manner, was an excellent method for transforming old beliefs, because it takes the brain into that relaxed and receptive state, which allows for the easy reconfiguration of thought patterns and beliefs, and it is also self-initiated.

After many years of teaching intuitive development, I have found that the decoding of intuitive insights is one of the biggest stumbling blocks many people encounter in cultivating a reliable sixth sense. This stems from a lack of familiarity with nonverbal communication and an inability to distinguish between factual and metaphorical information in the decoding process. Intuitive and creative information is transmitted to us through our five senses. It normally presents itself via our strongest sense, but over time you can construct a grid-work of intuitive cross-referencing with all of your senses. This provides you with the ability to not just get a "hit" but to cross-reference and double check the accuracy of any information rather quickly.

Activities that encourage observation and discovery with no specific right or wrong solutions are a wonderful way to begin learning about the decoding. This allows the child to explore, discover, note preferences, make choices, and become consciously aware of how everything, even something as simple as a line, can affect their biology.

Understanding the role of mind in the intuitive and creative process is also very important because our perceptions, if inaccurate, can easily distort intuitive information. Our mind actually consists of two minds-our subconscious mind and our conscious mind-and they are designed to work in tandem. Our subconscious mind is a stimulus-response device. When it perceives a signal from the environment it merely responds by activating a stored behavioral response. No thinking takes place! Our basic beliefs about life and ourselves were downloaded into this part of the brain in the first six years of our life by us merely observing the behavior and responses of our parents, siblings, and peers.

After the first six years, children's conscious mind becomes functional. This is the "thinking and creative" part of our mind that can help them uncover innovative solutions and synthesize old data in original ways. If encouraged and allowed to develop, it has the ability to look at any problem and ask: "Is there another answer?"-and ultimately uncover a novel solution. On the other hand, if a child's curiosity, creativity, and intuition are met with judgment, criticism, or impatience, the development of the conscious mind can be compromised. When this happens it is difficult for the child to come up with original or novel solutions.

The conscious mind can be developed and expanded through art, music, and real science (not the rote memorization version of these subjects), because they are the study of, and methods for, exploring the unknown. In order to have a strong intuition or be a creative risk-taker you need to be comfortable with being suspended in the "unknown." Our perpetual need for an immediate correct answer actually stifles the development of our sixth sense. Over time our inner guide can become very quick and accurate, but like any other skill it takes time and practice. The development of the sixth sense is best done in the modality of play or playful exploring and discovery, because the minute our system perceives stress, which can originate just from the anxiety of wanting to find the right answer, the blood flow to the conscious mind is constricted and the subconscious mind takes over.

Activities that bring the child more deeply in touch with their senses and their emotions can also assist in the expansion of the intuition and the cultivation of creative problem solving. From my perspective, emotions are not good or bad. They are gauges (similar to the gauges on the dashboard of your car) on our body. They help us decipher if something is enhancing or disrupting our health and well-being.

Intuitive and creative decoding works in the same way. Our senses, be they smell, taste, sound, touch, or sight, are always sending out signals to guide us in a direction that is most beneficial for us. When we are happy our heart opens, our system moves out of stress, and our perceptions become less clouded. When we are stressed our system moves into protection mode, growth is compromised, and our perceptions become distorted. When this happens we respond from preprogrammed behavior: the responses we learned by observing our parents and sibling in our first six years of life.

So if we want to adequately prepare our youth for the future we need to help them learn how to still and clear their mind of all unnecessary chatter and connect deeply with their authentic nature. It is essential that we offer them opportunities that inspire and expand their conscious awareness and teach them at a very early age to speak out and trust their own gut feelings. Understanding how their brain works and the role their senses and feelings play in the development of their intuition and creative mind is also pertinent. This kind of education flourishes best in a climate of acceptance and belonging. For when individuals feel seen and valued for their similarities and differences, their cellular biology can move out of protection and into growth. This seemingly simple shift in awareness does not just take place in the mind, but rather affects their whole body. This change can ultimately impact their family, their friends, their community, their country and the world.

Nancy Marie is a driving force for self-actualization and the creator of the I Create What I Believe! Self-Awareness Art Program. This groundbreaking program, which is based on the research of Dr. Bruce Lipton, introduces children and adults to the art of transforming their stifling subconscious beliefs with the mere flick of their pencil or crayon. Ms. Marie is also the author and illustrator of: Out of the Box and Into Yourself!, Passage of Change, A fable based on the research of Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., and The Beckoning Song of Your Soul, A Guidebook for Developing Your Intuition.