Mindfulness as a Superpower: How to Upgrade Yourself
We as creators have such a huge responsibility – our work and ideas reach hundreds and thousands of people.
Sometimes hundreds of thousands and millions.
And even if your work currently “only” touches a few people…
That’s a PRETTY big deal.
Think about that for a second.
Your energy level, your mental health and your emotional state influence everything you do – and thus, they also affect all the people you and your work come in contact with.
Also, consider just the act of putting ourselves and our work out into the world – it is a massive undertaking in itself with added stressors and challenges that the average person might never experience.
Apart from supporting our mental and emotional health, integrating mindfulness into any creator’s life will supercharge their creative potential in so many ways.
I have been actively practicing mindfulness and meditation in various forms since 2012 and couldn’t imagine myself and life without it.
I look at it as a way of being and living, as its effects are so wide-ranging and compounding. Especially as a creator, I draw very profound benefits from my daily mindfulness practices.
The mainstream take on mindfulness and meditation is pretty one-dimensional: it helps with anxiety, stress, and depression. It definitely surely does that and is important on a fundamental human level, not just as creators.
This article outlines the state of mindfulness science.
There is actually so much more to mindfulness that makes it essential for any creator with a vision and who has a message to share with the world.
The awesomeness of mindfulness and meditation
Mindfulness practice and a mindful way of life impact us in three really big ways. They are related to the mental, physical and emotional sphere.
At its core, THE big reason I practice meditation and mindfulness is that they connect me to me. I get to create a deep connection to myself, which is essential for healthy levels of self-worth and self-love.
Here are the three ways in which mindfulness allows me to do that:
A. I become the observer of my thoughts
Once I understood that I am not my thoughts and that I don’t have to believe everything I think, that I am merely the observer of my thoughts, my whole world shifted.
It means: My thoughts are not the absolute truth – they are only my interpretation of my experience and old conditioned programming (well worn out neuro-pathways in my brain).
B. It helps me cultivate a connection to my body
In our mind-heavy Western world, our bodies are reduced to the level of a “meatsuit” that carries us through the world. It’s time we all find back to our mindbody connection.
For me, mindfulness is mainly about getting out of my mind and into my body.
C. It’s a way to consciously process and regulate my emotions
It helps me to consciously feel my emotions instead of avoiding them (eg. distract myself, dissociate or numb out).
The upgraded benefits for creators
1. You gain more confidence in yourself and your own work
A big part of mindfulness is that at its core it is the practice of accepting the moment without judgment. It helps us to fully accept our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perception of the outside world without judging or criticizing.
This in itself makes this practice so powerful, because as humans we are heavily conditioned to judge everything including ourselves and our work. This causes us and others a lot of misery and suffering.
Through mindfulness, you practice to judge yourself less and in the process, you judge others less and you also judge your ideas and your creations less. By silencing your inner critic, you are able to feel more confident about your creations and more confident to put them out in the world. By understanding that there is no right or wrong in others, you accept the same truth in yourself.
2. You create more meaningful content and work
As we embrace mindfulness and sit with ourselves in meditation, we create a deeper connection to ourselves, which is required to create truly meaningful and high-quality work.
Why? Because the more connected we are to ourselves, the more authentic we are – which leads to more authentic work (which is what the world needs).
The more connected we are to ourselves, the more conscious we are, and the more conscious we are, the more we are in control of our lives, our work, our happiness and ultimately our human experience.
This heightened level of self-awareness and a deeper connection to self enable us to create from a place that is truly you. Plus, when we are more in touch with ourselves and our bodies, we are more in touch with our emotions, which have huge effects on the quality and depth of our work.
3. You boost the superpower of creators: self-awareness
The power of mindfulness practices is that they enable us to observe our mind (thoughts), our emotions and our body (sensations). This awareness of ourselves connects us to ourselves: the more awareness of self, the more connected we are to ourselves in our everyday life. This state of connection is the natural state as a human being, it’s how we are as children. As we grow up and adjust to the rational, body-mind-separated world, we unlearn, we forget this connection.
It’s time to bring it back. Mindfulness and meditation are amazing tools to explore ourselves, who we are, our programming, what’s truly important to us, our values, why we do the things we do, why we have certain blockages and fear, and our motivations.
Being a self-aware creator will leave you more empowered, more confident and more creative. When you are self-aware, you know who you really are, you know your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, your shadows and ego patterns. In this way, you can be way more authentic in your work and how you show yourself to others (and on social media).
4. You have more creative and original ideas
I personally have some of the best ideas during my meditation sessions, let them be guided or silent. When we slow down and anchor down into our bodies and the present moment, we create space for the really good stuff to come through.
Especially in times of constant distraction by digital devices, by tuning down the noise, we can actually hear our own voice, which is essential for us creators to create unique work.
By consuming a lot of social media content, we are constantly being exposed to other people’s ideas and voices. That makes it harder to connect to our own inner voice – apart from the fact that the more consume content, the more we compare and judge ourselves and our creations. Coming back home to ourselves through consistent mindfulness practices helps us to stay grounded and connected – which is the space from which we can truly create original work.
5. You have a deeper connection to your audience
We can only connect to others on the level we are connected to ourselves.
Thus, the deeper we are connected to ourselves, the deeper we are able to connect to others.
Because I am more vulnerable with myself, I can also be more vulnerable in my work and on social media – vulnerability creates connection and I believe there is nothing more important than a deep and authentic connection with the people we serve.
6. You are automatically more authentic and real
This is probably what I appreciate the most about creators who practice mindfulness and who are in touch and connected to themselves.
All this leads to more authenticity and realness. If you don’t come from a place of seeking approval and attention, you can be truly genuine without having to be someone who you think you should be.
Plus, the increased self-awareness is giving you an organic authenticity boost, which is extremely attractive and will attract followers without you having to do much. People love people who are authentic and self-aware, it’s like a magnet.
7. You enjoy more mental clarity
When we practice mindfulness in meditation and daily life, we are more in our bodies and less in our minds. This means fewer thoughts and slower thoughts. None of that crazy overthinking rollercoaster chaos that takes up a lot of physical energy.
With more mental space, we also can think about and perceive ourselves and the world more clearly. This in turn leads to better decisions, higher-quality ideas and inner peace. With less energy spent on overthinking, we have more energy for creative work.
Mental clarity is crucial for creators. Without it we are lost in the wilderness of our minds and controlled by our thoughts and fears.
8. Easier to access the flow state
When you are able to be more aware of the present moment, you are literally opening the door to flow. Flow is the space all creators aspire to be in when we create because it’s the state in which we have the best ideas and are most productive.
So each time we practice focusing on the present moment, we train our focus muscle when we are creating. More focus means less distraction means more productivity.
Also, the more you can be immersed with mindfulness in an activity such as writing or editing or shooting, the better you are at it. That’s just what’s up.
Like right now, if I can get myself to be more present with my writing, the better my writing will be.
9. You upgrade the secret creator sauce: curiosity
If you’re curious, you want to find out something new – you want to gain some new knowledge. A curious person is fully connected with her senses. If you’re curious, you look around intently and earnestly, to see something you haven’t seen before. You ask lots and lots of questions, both of yourself and others.
As you practice mindfulness and meditation more deeply, you are asked to become more curious about yourself, your mind and body.
This will translate into your everyday life and naturally, your creative work.
Since being present and aware is important to foster curiosity, your mindful muscle will automatically boost your curiosity.
The more curious you are, the more inspired you will be, the more new solutions you will find, the more in awe you will be about your own field of work, the more passionate you will become. And there is nothing like a passionate creator whose soul is on fire every day.
10. Helps you become aware when you procrastinate
We often go unconscious and don’t even notice when we are scrolling on Instagram or multitasking. Procrastination mostly happens mindlessly.
When you practice mindfulness, you become more aware of your patterns and can catch yourself earlier and bring yourself back to the task at hand. It also gives you the opportunity to inquire within about your procrastination patterns and understand what the underlying root is so that you can be empowered to transform and make changes.
11. JOMO (Joy of missing out) instead of FOMO (fear of missing out)
Being more connected to myself and the present moment helps me attach less importance to the outside world. I just don’t care much about what everyone else is doing, all the events I’m missing, all the videos I’m not watching – instead, I can focus more on my own work and ideas without comparing them to those of other people.
It gives me an inner peace, a knowing that right here right now is where I need to be. That creating something is always better than feeding my fear of missing out on something.
12. It’s an awesome de-stress tool
Stress and pressure is no joke as a creator. Most of it is self-made, but nevertheless, it’s real.
The problem is that when we are stressed, our inner systems and brains prevent us from creative thinking – it’s just not a priority when we are anxious or depressed. The energy is used to manage our nervous system and our fight/flight response.
Thus, you could say that the more stressed, anxious or depressed you are, the less creative your ideas will be. The more at peace you are internally, the more creative and in the flow you will be.
Also, most creators burnout because they are disconnected from themselves and their bodies (and because they are chasing extrinsic values and want to fulfill their own and other people’s expectations, which is also rooted in a lack of self-worth and self-love). They simply don’t realize or acknowledge the stress their bodies are experiencing and chronic stress also numbs us to its effects – until physical symptoms appear – or burnout.
Through mindfulness and meditation you are more in touch with yourself, which helps you notice signals of stress in your body earlier.
Mindfulness is one of THE tools to help you chill, relax and self-sooth/self-regulate your emotions. Just sayin’.
13. You make better and more conscious decisions
The more mindful you become, the more you raise you awareness and thus your consciousness. This gets you out of autopilot, which is the place from which most people run their lives and make decisions – and into the driver’s seat. Your decision-making will be upgraded on a conscious level but also on an intuitive level because being more connected to your body enables you to trust its subtle signals more, to hear the messages from your intuition.
14. You open the door for more and profound synchronicities
This one is totally underestimated. As our subconscious becomes more open, we become more aware of associations in the external world.
The more I meditate, the more I experiences synchronicities and the more serendipitous events occur in my life. It’s really fascinating. I believe it has to do with the fact that we are more at one with everything and thus mystical experiences can enter into our awareness.
15. You have more clarity on your mission and purpose
With heightened mental clarity and a deeper connection to self, we create the space and open our consciousness to our calling and purpose in life.
Once I started embracing mindfulness as a way of life – which is like taking the red pill – and my level of self-awareness increased, I couldn’t ignore the ways that my life wasn’t in alignment with my soul. Impossible.
And since then, due to my mindful practices and connection to my body, I receive regular downloads and messages as to where I am being guided in my work and when it comes to living on purpose.
16. Your intuition gets A MEGABOOST
Our sixth sense or your inner GPS sits in your body, not in your mind. Thus, once you are more connected to your physical senses and your emotions, and once you turn down the noise in your life and slow down your thoughts, you can actually start hearing your intuition. You also learn to trust the signals from your body more and you connect to your inner wisdom.
Going inside, where we are present with ourselves, is the place where all the answers are. It sounds cliché, but damn, it’s just so true. We keep searching outside, but our intuitive knowledge is so incredibly powerful.
I live 99% based on intuition these days – and that’s 100% thanks to meditation and mindfulness practices.
17. More aware of patterns, shadows and self-sabotage mechanisms
This is a big deal.
The more we are conscious about our shadow parts, the less we are controlled by them: money issues, fear of showing our selves and our work, imposter syndrome, procrastination, perfectionism – in essence, all the fears and inner blocks that keep us from fully showing up and expressing our true potentials.
So here we are.
Wouldn’t you agree that mindfulness and meditation are pretty powerful tools for us creators and entrepreneurs?
Love + Peas,
Conni.