Ep 151: Emotional Alchemy and the Art of Invention

Embrace the full spectrum of your emotions and unleash the true potential of your imagination. This isn't your typical spin on creativity—far from it. We take a deep and invigorating look at how our feelings, those vibrant threads of our emotional fabric, can be the very catalysts of our imaginative prowess. Forget the stifling boardroom attempts to 'think outside the box,' which often leave us drained and uninspired. There's a more playful, colourful, and indeed miraculous approach to sparking creativity—involving a dance with our physical sensations and emotional states.

We explore a transformative process that begins not with forced cognitive effort, but with an authentic engagement with our bodies and hearts. Whether it's an ache in the knee or a flutter in the chest, learn how tuning into these sensations can open doors to uncharted realms of creativity.  Discarding the false notion that only positive feelings can lead to brilliant ideas. Instead,  every feeling on the emotional spectrum is be the kindling for that imaginative fire. 

Expect to be surprised, moved, and exhilarated as we venture into the heart of imagination's power.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn. Truth and Transcendence, episode 151. Our theme today is imagination, and we know that imagination is one of our most powerful faculties. But something we don't all realize, I think, is our imagination is actually fed by our feeling capacity, our emotions and our feelings. So the number of times I've sat in a boardroom, and our feelings. So the number of times I've sat in a boardroom where the chairman or the CEO wants the board to be imaginative about something and they call on them to be imaginative, and everyone tries desperately to be imaginative, using their mind to do that, using their cognitive faculties to try to be imaginative, trying to come up with new ideas, different ideas.

Speaker 1: 1:10

People call it thinking outside the box, trying to do that through the mental faculty. Now, the thing with the mental faculty well, yes, there is such a thing as lateral thinking, but even lateral thinking is still in the same plane as straightforward thinking. You can think in a straight line, going in one direction. You can think laterally, going off to the side from that direction, but you're still in the same plane. You're in a two-dimensional situation. You're not in a 3D situation. Dimensional situation, you're not in a 3D situation. What that means is the variety and the, if you like, the scope of new ideas is limited by simply using the mental faculty, and also because the mental faculty is actually not designed to create imaginative ideas, not designed to create imaginative ideas. It's a strain on the system Again.

Speaker 1: 2:10

I've sat in brainstorming sessions where everyone is getting more and more stressed, exhausted, wrung out, just feeling terrible. The more they try to brainstorm using the mental faculty, the more they tried to brainstorm using the mental faculty, which is a shame, really, because imagination, when it's really running, is great fun. It's playful, it's colorful, it's interesting, it's full of possibility. It's almost miraculous, actually, I think. So how come, when we try and do a brainstorming session or when we try to be imaginative, it doesn't feel that way? It's almost miraculous, actually, I think. So how come, when we try and do a brainstorming session or when we try to be imaginative, it doesn't feel that way? It's because we're trying to use the wrong muscle to be imaginative. We're trying to use the mind to be imaginative instead of using the feeling and emotional capacity. Now, of course, you're not going to get somebody in a board meeting saying right, let's be imaginative in order to do, let's connect in with our feelings first, although as I speak, even as I say that I feel sure that someone somewhere right now is doing exactly that. So good for you, because that is a much better way to do it. That's actually work.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Trying to be imaginative in our heads is painful and ineffective. At best we might come up with a good extension on an idea we've already had previously which in and of itself could be extremely useful. It could be what's needed at the time. But that's not really imagination, that's just being a little bit creative. So, in order to be really imaginative and allow our imagination to open the doors and the windows and the ceilings and everything else of possibility for us, and to allow in the most fantastic creative ideas full of color and interest and light and play and usefulness and flair and genius and insight, we tap into our feelings. How do we do that? By tapping into the body and the heart. So tapping into the body means noticing the sensations in the body. So who knew that? Noticing that our left knee is aching, or noticing that we've got tension in the belly, or noticing that we have heat in the chest, or tightness in the neck or in the jaw, or prickliness in the eyes or a feeling of tightness in the shoulders or a feeling of energy moving around the body. Who knew that tuning into any of those things is actually a way of opening up our imaginations? So next time you want to be creatively imaginative, start by tuning into exactly what's going on in your body.

Speaker 1: 5:16

At this point, the rational mind will probably say, all right, I need to make sure that what's going on in my body is good feelings, because good feelings will lead to good imagination. No, any feelings. They don't have to be feelings that you like or don't like. It doesn't matter what they are. I mean, it does matter what they are to you and me, because we care how we feel, of course, but in terms of the process of generating the imaginative state, it actually doesn't matter. One feeling is as good as another. It's the tuning into it. That is the thing, and I've known situations where people have actually said to themselves I can't really feel what's going on in my body. I just don't really feel it. How can I kind of tune in? Well, one way to do that is to move around, literally stand up, breathe, maybe swing the arms, maybe pace up and down, maybe even dance, jump up and down, go outside, just to get connected with the body, and then you find there are feelings there.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Now, the thing about that, of course, is sometimes we find feelings that we don't like very much, feelings that have been stuck in there, sometimes we find tensions. All sorts of things are stored in the body, which is part of our self-management system, because as we go through life, we're not always particularly when we're very, very young or when we're very vulnerable, for whatever reason we aren't always actually able to process everything that we experience in the moment. So sometimes, in order to avoid being overwhelmed, our system, which is beautifully designed, will actually stash that stuff away and say look, we're just going to shelve that for now. And where does it get shelved? In the body? And most of the time we don't notice it. And where does it get shelled In the body? And most of the time we don't notice it. But if we actually move the body around, sometimes we start to notice these things. Or if we go to a yoga class or if we have a deep sissy massage, we discover there's all sorts of things locked in the body. Now, the fact they're locked in the body actually reduces and impedes the flow of energy through the body, and it also interferes with our sensitivity to what we're feeling and experiencing, both physically and emotionally. So what that then does is it actually impedes our access to our imagination. So everything we can do to connect with the body helps with this process.

Speaker 1: 7:51

And then our whole emotional world. We have so many different emotions, we have so many capacities for emotion. It's just extraordinary. And yet we say to someone hi, how are you? I'm fine, I'm fine. You say to someone, hi, how are you, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. Now, I'm fine usually means I have no idea how I'm feeling. I don't want to know how I'm feeling, and if I did, I don't want to tell you about it.

Speaker 1: 8:21

On some level, that's what's going on with us. We don't realize it. We're not doing it on purpose. Mostly. Sometimes we are, but that's part of our, of our civilized mode of being, so that we can be proper, we can be grown up, we can be moving through our life with apparent equanimity. But actually true equanimity comes about from absolutely being open to all of the emotions that flood through us, really, really noticing them.

Speaker 1: 8:56

The number of people I've worked with who said, oh God, I can't do that I might go red in a meeting if I'm letting my feelings through. I might cry, I might shout Well, you might, but you are actually an adult now, you're not a child, so you probably won't. Your system will probably cope with it absolutely fine. In such a way that nobody's going to know you're doing it and they always come back, and way that nobody's going to know you're doing it and they always come back and say my God, catherine, you're absolutely right. I was absolutely fine. I allowed all the feelings to flow through me. I decided what I was going to say and how I'm going to say it, and it was absolutely fine. And in fact I felt much more present and much more powerful and I noticed that my intuitive faculty, my insight and my mental faculty also were much sharper, because on the other side of imagination is the mental faculty.

Speaker 1: 9:49

The imagination actually feeds the mental faculty, not the other way around. So our emotional, feeling aspects, realm capacity, feeds our imaginative capacity, which then feeds our mental capacity. So the whole thing as a sequence takes us to a place, ultimately, where our decisions are that much sharper, more relevant, more clear. We are more confident because we know that what we're coming up with mentally is rooted in several layers of reality for us, and it's authentic and it's real. It's not a superficial idea that isn't resonating all the way through us. That isn't resonating all the way through us.

Speaker 1: 10:45

We know why we want imagination. It takes us to places we cannot reach through logic or thought alone. Without it, we're limited by that which we've done or thought of before. And yet our capacities are so much broader than that. Why would we not want to open up the imaginative faculty?

Speaker 1: 11:01

Because, a bit like the emotional and the body sensation aspect, it can be scary. What will emerge? Will I be able to manage it? Will it be stupid? We have no idea, and that's the point. The fact that we have no idea is the point, because if we did know what was going to come through, that wouldn't be imagination and it wouldn't be new and it wouldn't be adding something to what we already have.

Speaker 1: 11:28

So this is another of those situations that I invite people to consider, which is go in the direction of the discomfort, go in the direction that your voice in your head is telling you not to go in. Go in the direction of the feelings, the body sensations. Allow those to feed the imaginative faculty, which will inevitably, naturally, organically feed the mental and intellectual capacity which then, of course, leads you on to choices, decisions and actions. So I want to say thank you to the great John Herron for his multimodal model, which I've just talked through in a particular way, which he put together after many, many, many years of research into human potential and how people function. So thank you for listening. I wish you an imaginative week. See you next time. Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating, reviewing, subscribing, buying me a coffee and telling a friend. If you'd like to know more about my work, you can find out about mentoring, workshops and energy treatments on beingspaceworld. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.