The Spirit of Creativity

In the mid-1980s I was fortunate to have met and studied with Angeles Arrien (1940 – 2014), a world-renowned cross-cultural anthropologist who studied indigenous people and their cultures around the globe, and was beloved by thousands. She brought extraordinary clarity to how indigenous wisdom offered significant guidance for living a fuller life and expressing that vitality through creative, innovative activities at work. 

So, when my company planned to host a conference on the Spirit of Creativity, I asked Angeles to share her wisdom with everyone as our keynote presenter – which she most eloquently did! She showed us how creativity is a way of being as well as a way of doing.

She began her talk by saying:

“My passion is what we share as a human family: the cross-cultural values, ethics, and universal themes among people everywhere. It’s important, at this conference, for us to look at creativity and the creative spirit as a window that connects us to something primordial.”

Angeles then set the stage for our coming together to co-learn about the Spirit of Creativity by quoting a short poem from Rumi, the 12th C. Persian poet:

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

That 2-sentence poem remains a key reminder for me about the non-judgmental mindset it takes to nurture fresh insights, new knowledge, and open-minded creativity. Angeles then led us into a self-inquiry process based on one of the cornerstones of her work, saying:

“I want to look at the ingredients of creativity, success, and problem-solving. And I want to pose some questions that come from my cross-cultural studies of indigenous peoples. What do they have in common and what do they bring to us from their teachings of how to survive?

And what I found is that all indigenous peoples -- whether African, Native American, North Atlantic, Oceanic, etc. all teach within their cultures four basic principles. And they say life will be very simple if we follow the Four-Fold Way...”

(1) SHOW UP. Choose to be present. Lots of us show up with our bodies, but once we get here and park our bodies, the vacancy signs go on. So actually we're not here emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, energetically.

(2) PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT HAS HEART AND MEANING. Indigenous people recognize that there's a big difference between weak-heartedness and vulnerability. Vulnerability is part of being strong hearted and is part of being one's authentic self… Where is it that I'm weak hearted and lack the courage to be who I am, to say what's so?

(3) TELL THE TRUTH WITHOUT BLAME, SHAME, OR JUDGMENT. For example: I love you so much; but loving that much frightens me, and I end up pushing you away. (No blame. No shame. No judgment.)

(4) BE OPEN TO OUTCOME AND NOT ATTACHED TO OUTCOME. Be open to opportunity and not attached to my way or my plan. In indigenous cultures, the cross-cultural meaning of detachment is the capacity to deeply care from an objective place.

Everyone at the conference ended up asking themselves, “Where and when do I…”

• Fully show up to be creative and innovative at work?
• Pay attention to what has heart and meaning for me and for others?
• Tell what is sincerely true for me – but without any blame, shame, or judgement?
• Stay open to outcomes without being attached to them?

Each of these 4 questions enabled us to recognize and confront where we were, and weren’t, living or working by these principles – and how we can benefit from shifting ourselves first before moving to change our conditions at work.

We personally and collectively explored the Four-Fold Way for its application to creativity and innovation at work – an exploration that has continued these many years.

• Where do I have any self-doubt that can keep me from becoming fully engaged in creative, innovative work?
• Where do I have any lack of awareness about what’s meaningful in my life that can hold back my motivation for creative, innovative work?
• Where do I have the tendency to blame or shame others, or myself, that can diminish innovative teamwork?
• Where do I have attachment to goals and outcomes that can create high levels of counter-productive stress?

Angeles brought the Fourfold Way principles home for us with this summary:

“The creative spirit is relentless about wanting to manifest, relentless about following its vision, relentless about bringing my heart song into form. In order to bring my life dream or my heart song into being, I need to show up, I need to pay attention, I need to tell the truth, and I need to be open to outcome and not attached to outcome.”

But Angeles was just getting started! She then began to delve into how indigenous people recognize each day as an opportunity and to create that day as a gift. Another of her truth-telling questions that has stayed with me is, “Is my self-worth as strong as my self-critic?” Angeles commented:

“If I can say yes to that question, then I am ready to bring my medicine into this day. That all of us have original medicine is basic to the belief sets of indigenous peoples. If I say yes, I'm embracing what indigenous people call good, true, and beautiful in my nature. And I am also saying yes to the beast in me, to all that challenges my nature. If I say yes, then I am embracing the ‘both-and’ and not the ‘either/or.’ If I say yes, I am embracing my heart's wish to be engaged for the day. The creative spirit is engaged.”

“If I cannot say yes, I'll automatically move into habituation. I'll do what I've done before.

"If I don't bring who I am into this day, then I preclude healing coming into myself, into my family, into my work.”

Ultimately for Angeles, the spirit of creativity within each of us is found first in who we ARE – our BEING-NESS – and secondly in what we DO. As she summarized at the end of the day:

“The creative spirit has movement and follows a song, a story, a movement, and relentlessly moves in silence within us. When we release the creative spirit within ourselves, we remember who we are; and whenever we don't release the creative spirit within ourselves, we are involved in habituation and we tend to forget who we are.”

Angeles left us in “high spirits” with a concluding poem from Lao Tzu, as she invited us to “consider the creative spirit as relentlessly re-greening itself”:

"If you look to others for fulfillment
you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money,
you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have:
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you."

To see Angeles Arrien in action and learn more about her Four-Fold Way, visit her Tedx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kDRRBK95no

The quotes from Angeles Arrien were first contained in an article published in SICA Inspire written by Latifah Taormina, who took copious notes at the conference.