Blog Post #4 Visualization- A Meditation Podcast

The Podcast (please listen to me first)

Reflection

I choose to do my visualization project as a podcast, even though I know this approach to the project is slightly different than most of the others. Instead of putting images into people's heads externally, I wanted to encourage them to find their own visualizations internally. 

My topic is creativity in learning, and many of the articles I used for my blog post #3 recommended meditation as a way of boosting creativity. I have only dabbled a little bit into meditation, most of which has been in theater classes. I have been active in participating when other teachers lead a relaxation meditation, and I have also led meditations for my own students based on what I had experienced before. What I had not done up to this point was research exactly why mediation was good for boosting creativity, and what the best practices of meditation are. 

I discovered in my reading that meditation has multiple benefits to helping your brain think in new ways. The first reason is probably the most common understanding of what meditation is; quieting the mind. Meditation allows us move away from the mountain of distractions we have in our everyday lives and just sit and be quiet. It is not about only having a blank mind, but allowing each thought to appear, and then be released without judgment. This helps with creativity because it can free space for a new idea to pop into the brain. 

Another thing I discovered is the "reptile brain", the part that controls your fight or flight instincts, can be less active during meditation. This is good because it allows us to access other deeper thoughts that we may not have been able to think about when the more primitive part of our minds are active. 

Finally, I discovered that making and publishing a podcast is not too hard, if you have some basic equipment and training in sound. I worked with Audacity, a fairly user friendly multi track recording and editing program. I have a professional microphone that was plugged into a USB audio interface, which was linked to Audacity. My husband has these toys because he is a professional sound engineer. He helped me with set up, but I was learning how to use this equipment as we went through the process. I recorded my voice first, and did two full takes. I then mixed in the additional background sounds on a second track, and lined them up to fit into where I wanted them in the script.
As far as getting the track onto Blogger, it was not as easy as I wanted it to be. Blogger does not have the capability to add a MP3 directly on its tool bar, so I had to post it to my personal website and used an HTML5 audio player to embed it using HTML5. So this last part was probably the most complicated of the steps! 

In regards to the visualization portion of this project, as I stated in the introduction, I wanted to encourage my students to exercise their internal visualization. I really loved the Neilsen Hibbing reading about "mind movies", and how important they are to literacy. It got me thinking about how vital those "mind movies" are to creativity as well. In fact, creativity is rooted in being able to see things in your brain and then put it out into the world as you see it. This ties into meditation by using the quieted brain to encourage these images to be seen in the student's head, and not spelled out for them on a screen. I choose sounds that are familiar but relaxing, like wind chimes and the beach. Even if you have not been to a beach in your life, you have most likely seen one on tv or a movie and have felt sand in a sandbox. So you can use those real life experiences and tap into them in your "mind movie" during the meditation. 

I think this is a tool that I could absolutely use in the future. I could made a series of meditations that progress throughout the semester. The students could listen to the meditation in class once or twice a month and also practice the same meditation at home at least once a week. They would then keep a journal about their thoughts and feelings on these meditations, and track if there are any changes in the way they feel or express their emotions. If I were to do this again, I would want to bring on "guests" and have other experts speak about meditation, instead of just reading from articles. 

Visualization Project

Catie Glogovsky

Script

Welcome to the Learning with Creativity Podcast! Im Catie Glogovsky, your host! Today we are focusing our mind, taking deep breaths, and learning about meditation.


(meditation sound)

First we need to ask ourselves, what is mediation? According to artofliving.com, Meditation is that which gives you deep rest.

(wind chimes)

When the mind becomes free from agitation, is calm and serene and at peace, meditation happens. A calm mind, good concentration, clarity of perception, improvement in communication, blossoming of skills and talents, an unshakable inner strength, healing, the possibility to connect to an inner source of energy, relaxation, rejuvenation, and good luck are all natural results of meditating regularly.
Thebuddestcentre.com describes meditation as a means of transforming the mind. By engaging with a particular meditation practice you learn the patterns and habits of your mind, and the practice offers a means to cultivate new, more positive ways of being. With regular work and patience these nourishing, focused states of mind can deepen into profoundly peaceful and energized states of mind. Such experiences can have a transformative effect and can lead to a new understanding of life.

Over the millennia countless meditation practises have been developed in the Buddhist tradition. All of them may be described as ‘mind-trainings’, but they take many different approaches. The foundation of all of them, however, is the cultivation of a calm and positive state of mind.

But how does this relate to creativity? Meditation can help focus the mind, silence the doubting voices in your head, and open your mind up to new ways of thinking.

(Bach's Orchestral Suite Air on a G String)

In an article on Harvard Business Review,  "Google, Goldman Sachs, and Medtronic  are among the many leading firms that have introduced meditation and other mindfulness practises to their employees. Executives at these and other companies say meditation is not only useful as a stress-reduction tool but can also enhance creativity, opening doors where once there seemed to be only a wall."  Research shows that mindfulness meditation can have many positive effects on workplace outcomes. Regularly doing it boosts your resilience, enabling you to mitigate stress, regulate emotions, and have a more positive outlook so that you can bounce back from setbacks. It helps you develop the ability to switch off reactive fight-or-flight responses and engage in a more thoughtful mode that’s crucial for making balanced decisions.

The HBR.org article continues to talk about Mindfulness for Creativity, a book by Danny Penman. In it, he argues that mindfulness meditation and other mindfulness practises enhance three essential skills necessary for creative problem solving. First, mindfulness switches on divergent thinking. In other words, meditation opens your mind to new ideas. Second, mindfulness practice improves attention and makes it easier to register the novelty and usefulness of ideas. And finally, mindfulness nurtures courage and resilience in the face of skepticism and setbacks, which is important because failure and setbacks are inextricably linked with any innovation process.

There are a number of famous creative people who practice meditation on a daily basis, including Jerry Seinfeld, and Opera. Opera is quoted as saying, “I give myself a healthy dose of quiet time at least once a day: 20 minutes in the morning, 20 in the evening if it has been a good day. Knowing that stillness is the space where all creative expression, peace, light, and love come to be is a powerfully energizing, yet calming experience. Knowing for sure that even in the daily craziness that bombards us from every direction, there is — still — the constancy of stillness. Only from that space can you create your best work and your best life.”

So... how do you start practicing meditation and opening yourself up to these new creative thoughts? Lets find out...

We are going to try a simple exercise, so get to a comfortable place to sit and simply listen to my voice.

(ocean sounds)

• Start by breathing deeply and fully into your body, concentrating on nothing but your breath
• Allow your mind to picture being at the ocean. Listen to the waves splashing against the shore, the wind through the palm trees. Feel the warm sun against your skin, and the sand between your toes. Smell the salt in the air.
• Relax.
• Mentally work your way down the spine, slowly relaxing and unraveling all the knots of tension and stress that may have built up. As your attention reaches the base of the spine, think to yourself now my back is comfortable and relaxed.
• Bring your attention to the front of you body, focus on the chest area and stomach.
• Try to identify any areas of stress or tension in this part of your body. Imagine that all the tension drains away disappearing as you focus on it – imagine any fear, tension or stress that have built up within the stomach disappears…
• Then think to yourself, now my chest and stomach are comfortable and relaxed.
• Then we focus then on our legs and feet, imagining any tension in these areas draining away, disappearing out of the soles of the feet – leaving you feeling comfortable and relaxed.
• Gradually scan down from the crown of your head to the tips of your feet, checking to see if there is any tension left in your body. If you locate any, then engage in the simple exercise or letting that tension drain away, and leaving your whole body completely relaxed.
• We imagine all the tension drains out of our body and we enjoy this experience of relaxation.

(rainforest sounds)

• Think to yourself. My entire body is comfortable and relaxed.
• Gradually bring your relaxation to a close, by becoming aware of your body, position in the room. Gently open your eyes.
Now don't get up too fast. Let your body wake up, as if waking up from a deep sleep.
Take a moment to reflect on this meditation. How are you feeling? Relaxed? Sleepy? Energized? Inspired? There are no right answers, every person has a different experience. Embrace what you are feeling at this very moment.

(Beethoven Moonlight Sonata)

Thank you for joining me today, this has been Learning through Creativity. Now, go make something beautiful. 

Bibliography
Contemplating Mindfulness at Work, An Integrative Review Darren J. Good, Christopher J. Lyddy, Theresa M. Glomb, November 19, 2015 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0149206315617003
What Does Mindfulness Meditation Do to Your Brain? Tom Ireland on June 12, 2014  https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/what-does-mindfulness-meditation-do-to-your-brain/
Mindfulness for Creativity: Adapt, create and thrive in a frantic world, Danny Penman Little Brown Book Group, 2015
Sasha Bronner 2015 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/14/famous-people-who-meditate_n_6850088.html
http://www.meditationinschools.org/resources/
https://thebuddhistcentre.com/text/what-meditation
https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/meditation