Stop Overthinking Your Creativity & Trust Your Body Instead

Season 3, Episode 6

What if overthinking is the very thing blocking your creativity? 

In this episode, I'm exploring the connection between your body and your creative process, and why trying to think your way into better work can actually make things worse. 

From piano to yoga to writing, I've noticed the same pattern: the moment I overanalyze, I lose the flow. 

Listen in to hear about somatic practices, simple ways to reconnect with your body, and how to create from a place of instinct instead of control. 

(Resource referenced in the show: https://resiliencecounselinghtx.com/somatic-therapy-exercises/). 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome back to Your Next Chapter, the podcast for women who read, write, and live creatively. I'm your host, Rebecca Hasselak, and I am so glad that you're here today. We are going to be talking about an interesting topic that I think might be kind of fun to dig into. The whole idea is about trusting your body and not overthinking when it comes to creativity. So if you are a fellow overanalyzer, overthinker like I am, this one is for you. So let's get started. This topic came to me because I kept noticing something. I would go to my parents' house and they have a lovely piano. My grandma taught me piano growing up, and my mom plays beautifully, and I can play. Um, I was never the best at light reading. So I would painstakingly figure out notes and then memorize a piece. And to this day, I can play the first third of Fural Lease, and I can play maybe half of Memory from Cats and a little bit of Paco Bell's Canon and D, but just a little bit. Oh, and Born Free. For some reason, those are Lefour that I can do sort of and only partially. So clearly, uh not going to be putting on any piano performances anytime soon, but I do love it. I think piano is so peaceful and therapeutic. And so sometimes when I'm at my parents' house, I just want to sit down and I want to play. And it's not for anybody else. I just enjoy it. So I'll sit down. And if I just jump right in, I can play the third or half or whatever I have at the ready of any of those pieces. But the moment I start to think about what comes next, the moment I'm like, oh wait, which key is it? And which chord, I can't. I stop. My brain sort of does this thing where I'm just, it goes offline and the ability to play the piece is gone in an instant. And it's an interesting phenomenon. But I've noticed that this happens for me across hobbies, across creative output. For instance, this happens to me sometimes in ballet. If I let my mind think too hard and kind of get out of my body, I might forget a combination part way through. And same with yoga. I'm so used to doing yoga that if I let my body take over and I'm really tuned in with my body that I follow along and I do great. But the moment my mind starts to think about something else or even overanalyze the yoga itself, I'll be like putting my legs in a way that they're supposed to be for a posture that's three postures down the down the road in class and like not ready for the next one. And it's just, it's kind of a weird thing. So I wanted to dig into that. It's just the idea that sometimes we have to just trust our bodies and let our minds get out of the way. Your body often knows before your mind does, and thinking can interrupt that knowing. So if you have ever felt like the moment you think about something, you kind of lose the thread. You're not alone. So know that. But also it can be a little tricky with some of these artistic fields because writing, for instance, you're having to think the whole time. I mean, any of these things, you're having to think your brain is firing, your brain is very busy, no matter what you're doing, whether it's an instrument or writing or anything like that. But so you do have to think, obviously. But overthinking doesn't actually improve creativity. It interrupts it. If you are in a feeling, you can perform. If you follow your instincts, you have control. And if you go with the flow, you have a level of kind of natural ability that will come from that. So the more you try to control counterintuitively, the worse it'll often get. So, what can we do about this other than try to just go into a session and tell ourselves we are not going to think too hard, we're not going to focus on the notes, we're just going to see what our fingers do, how we play without overthinking it. Well, I want to talk a little bit about somatics. There is something called somatic therapy, but the gist is that somatics refers to being of the body. It is a focus on internal sensations and lived experience. And it was coined by Thomas Hanna in 1976. That's according to the Hopkins Medicine website. Somatics is different than mindfulness. So some of the things I am going to share with you about somatics might kind of overlap with what you've heard about mindfulness, and there definitely is some commonality between the two, but they are different. So mindfulness is basically being present without judgment, whereas somatics refer to how emotions show up physically. And somatics comes from the word soma in the Greek, which refers to the body. So I think that's pretty cool. I like to know where words come from. So what you want to think about when you are taking a somatic approach to your creativity or to anything is focus in on what your body is telling you right now. As creative people, we need to remember that creativity, yes, it's intellectual, but it's also very, very, very physical. Even if you're not doing, let's say, dance, which clearly is physical. Even something like writing, it is physical. There are ways that your mind and your body work together to allow you to be creative. And your body also remembers patterns and rhythm. So your body is processing a lot. It's maybe holding on to something from a conversation you had the day before or a trauma that you experienced years earlier, it is still in the body, even if you're not consciously thinking about it. So our bodies are pretty incredible. There's a phrase that some people use that says, the body keeps the score, which basically means that even if you try to suppress certain feelings or ignore certain things, that your body still keeps an awareness of everything that you've been through and everything that you've lived through. So your body also knows how to create before your mind explains it, which I think is pretty cool. So the goal isn't to think your way into better work, it's to feel your way into it. So a little bit of some ideas for you. This is all well and good, but if I don't give you anything practical, it's just, you know, oh neat, your body ties into creativity, which yes it does. But some somatic practices that you can try today. One of them is doing a body scan. So when you sit down to create, you have your sculpting materials ready, you have your paintbrushes ready, you are sitting down at the piano. Before diving in, just do a quick body scan. Start at the top of your head, scan down through every part of your body and kind of check in. Notice if anything feels tight, notice if you have tension, notice if something just feels a little off, or notice if something feels really good. All of that. You're just wanting to scan your body to have a greater awareness of what's going on. Another somatic practice is breath awareness. Breath is so important across so many different disciplines. It's so important in yoga, it's so important in obviously mindfulness and meditation. I mean, breath is life, right? So in somatic practices, you want to come back to your breath, and I will give you an example. So, this a couple cool somatic practices I found were from a website for a counseling website, which is called Resilience Counseling and Wellness. And I don't know anything about them as counselors, so all I am sharing with you is just this one blog that they shared, but it's some somatic therapy exercises that anybody can do at home. When it comes to breathing, they recommend trying something called voo sounding. That's V O O. So you inhale deeply into your belly, then exhale with a long, low voo sound, like a fog horn. Feel the vibration in your chest and your abdomen, and repeat that for several rounds. And what they say that does is it actually stimulates the vagus nerve, which promotes relaxation and engages the parasympathetic nervous system while releasing muscle tension. So, in other words, it helps to soothe the body and help you process emotions. So you could do a body scan, you could do that sort of breathing, you could also do a grounding exercise. They mentioned grounding through the feet, which helps you find stability. You basically sit or stand with your feet hip width, say that five times fast. Sit or stand with your feet hip width apart and flat on the ground. Notice the sensations where your feet touch the floor. Slowly shift your weight forward and back, then side to side. And if helpful, they recommend visualizing roots growing from your feet deep into the earth. But what this does is it helps you focus on the lower body, it helps you anchor your awareness, create a sense of stability and grounding. So if you're feeling anxiety or some physical tension, that's a great one to do. And then another one that I like, which is super easy, is the butterfly hug. This helps to calm your nervous system. So you cross your arms over your chest, rest your hands on opposite shoulders, and begin gently tapping each hand alternately, left, right, left, right, while maintaining steady breathing. Continue for a few minutes staying present with your body. And they talk about how the bilateral tapping technique actually helps to activate both hemispheres of the brain, which aids in emotional regulation, cognitive processes, and trauma processing. This is what EMDR, if you've heard of EMDR therapy, is basically based off of. So EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing. And it's a psychotherapy treatment that helps to alleviate distress associated with traumatic memories. And it also taps into that, literally taps into that bilateral tapping technique. It's pretty fascinating stuff. There's also EFT or tapping therapy, which can work similarly to this as well. So the point is that that bilateral tapping really helps to activate both sides of the brain and it helps you emotionally regulate and calm your nervous system. So you can do the butterfly hug, you can try the boo breathing that I mentioned, the body scan. There are so many different things, and I'll throw this link into the show notes for this episode in case you want to check out all of them. But really, you can Google somatic practices, and I'm sure you will find a wealth of information on the good old internet. But the point is to just be really aware of how our bodies are connected to our creativity. I mean, they are where our creativity lives. And I did have an episode about loving your body back in February. So that is a great episode. It takes a different angle, though, than this. That is more about how we treat our bodies, exercise, nutrition, rest, all of those good things so that we can fuel it and so it will fuel us in return. But obviously, this is more about preparing ourselves for creativity and making sure that our body is poised to help us create and that our mind isn't getting in the way. So a couple other way things you could try, just start before thinking. I mean, it sounds so simple, but for me, if I sit down at the piano and I just literally start, I usually am gonna do a lot better than if I sit there for a moment and go, huh, which key am I supposed to start with? You can also try setting a timer, maybe set it for 20 minutes and just say no stopping during that time, no active thinking. Just let your body take over and see, see how it goes. You can also try moving your body before being creative. I've mentioned that walks can be really amazing. Just do a quick walk and then try creating and see how that feels for you. You could also, I mean, depending on your creative pursuit of choice, you could close your eyes potentially, which reduces some input and can help you to zero in on kind of just where you are and your other senses without being distracted by anything visually. So the point in all of this is that you can't hope to create if your body is tense or disconnected. You don't think your way into flow, you allow your way into it. The next time you feel stuck, don't ask what you should do, ask what your body already knows. I really hope this helps you. And before I close here, I want to say just a quick quote. This one is by Martha Graham, and she says, the body says what words cannot. So trust your body, give your body what it needs to feel settled, calm, and regulated before you create, and then try to get your mind out of the way. We need our minds, but our bodies know what to do. I hope this resonates and I hope you have a lot of fun creating this week. Until next time, keep creating and keep turning the page.