Why Are All Our Interns On Zoloft?

Anxiety sucks. It emotionally and physically saps your energy.  This article addresses how to use the creative flow to turn mental churning off and enhance productivity.

Forward:  About this site and the author of this post.

This site is the baby of Scott Witner who is doing an amazing job of coaching writers worldwide.  This is something he should be truly proud of and I am honored to have him on our team.

Scott is an expert in the tactical from how-to for writing to blogging to social media and the very important how to make a living doing what you love.  I’m more of a creative coach that speaks to your soul and the passion you have for your craft.

I consider myself a life scientist.  I discover, test, and adopt habits, techniques, processes, and explanations that take the pain away from everyday life and bring happiness and joy.  Life will throw tests and trials and the only control we have is how we respond.  They can hold us down or propel us forward.  I am a curator of the rocket fuel that gets you to nirvana.

I would be honored if you would allow me to be your creativity coach and guide.  Maybe someday, I’ll have the pleasure of working with you.

In 2015, we began adding interns to our marketing agency.  Neighborhood kids who couldn’t find a job with their journalism, web design, and graphic design degrees.  My goal was to give them the experience that their resume needed to get them into their first job.

This was back when talking about mental health meant exposing there was something wrong with you.  One day the office chatter turned to medications and everyone confessed they were taking Zoloft.  Everyone!

Being in a creative field creates anxiety! It’s a tough gig.

I come from a math/engineering/business background where I was judged by my knowledge and experience.  I quickly noticed how those in a creative field, writers and graphic designers, were insanely judged to highly subjective standards.  Math, even business, is black and white, right/wrong, profit/loss.  The products of creativity do not have such clear-cut standards

In addition to irrational measurements of good and bad, creatives also invest a piece of their soul into their work.  This personal investment into an unreasonable judgment system is the perfect recipe for extreme anxiety.

To reduce the anxiety that comes with producing work that will be judged, get into the creative flow!  That’s it.  It’s that simple.

In the creative flow channel, you are accessing intuition, inspiration, guidance, and a depth of wisdom from sources beyond our comprehension.  This is an unlimited resource that you can tap into.  You can invite creative geniuses to your channel to help and guide you.  Allow it to flow through you without judgment or correction, just let it flow.

View it as an infinite river of ideas, solutions, with a single purpose to help you create.  You can tap into it anytime and where.  The force is always with you.

This takes practice but I assure you it’s easy to master.  This site offers tools, workshops, and techniques to help you access it more easily and quickly. Soon, it will be second nature and the most useful instrument in your pencil box.

Where does the creative flow exist?  Right below the stream of your day-to-day thoughts is the creative flow.

Beyond all the noise and business in your head is where you tap into a sacred space of genius.  It feels calm. peaceful, and creative but at the same time you are in high-productivity where ideas, designs, words, and solutions are all firing at the same time.  It’s truly awesome.

To access it, follow these steps:

1. Observe your thoughts. Step back in your mind and simply observe your thoughts passing.
2. Allow them to simply pass by.  Try not to grab onto any single one, just observe.
3. See the connection with feelings.  This is the secret.  Your thoughts create your feelings.  You don’t have to get sucked into the drama in your head.
4. Start to work, allowing thoughts to pass by and most importantly DO NOT judge your work.
5. If you find you latch onto a thought, start going down a rabbit hole, or have a feeling related to a specific thought, try to catch yourself and go back to just observing your stream of thoughts. And, start working again.

How to stay in the creative flow.

Be aware of feelings triggered by thoughts.  A feeling, typically negative, is your signal that you are slipping out of your creative channel.  You’ll find yourself back in your head again.  Ugh.

As you watch your thoughts float in and out like clouds passing keep an eye on feelings.  You only have a feeling when you have a specific thought.  When you experience the connection that your thoughts create your feelings, sometimes it’s an epiphany and other times it’s a gradual slow ah ha, that’s when you start to gain control of the process.

When you’re in the flow and see everything come together, it’s spectacular.   But, interruptions can be annoying. Create a space where you can avoid distractions and interruptions.  Go dark, go deep, and enjoy the peace.

It is my opinion that social media has put us each in our own personal fishbowl. We are exposed to extreme measures of scrutiny and judgment.  It becomes a hamster wheel of needing validation but instead of getting validation, we barnacle onto anything we perceive as negative. The negative puts pressure on the small inherent cracks in our psyche. As a result, we begin to care too much about what other people think.  We worry and obsess.

We worry more than we’ve ever worried in the history of the human race and it infiltrates all aspects of our thoughts.  In the unfortunate case where negative comments are intended to hurt or harm, it can chip away at our souls.

Mean comments suck but they don’t need to sting.

Once you understand the connection that your thoughts create/trigger your feelings, you immediately recognize thoughts that are harmful, allow them to pass.  You learn to just wait for the next better thought and get into the wonderful space of creative flow.  You will find that the impact of the negative will be less and less and less.  It goes from a gut punch to a slap to a pinch to a ‘hm? I think that was that supposed to hurt?’.

Today, I say to myself  “wow I don’t like the way that made me feel” or  “hmm, that’s unusual.”  I don’t even go into self-evaluation. I just let the thought pass and look for the next better thought.  I try to do something that will push my mind into the creative flow.  If there is a real problem that is causing anxiety, I use the creative flow to come up with 50 or 100 solutions.

It’s shocking how it seems you should be getting control of your mind or your thoughts to fix the problem but it’s the opposite, it’s about letting go.  Know that you have 60,000+ thoughts a day and you’ve trained your mind to be on heightened alert for those that harm.  Observe the feeling, let the bad ones pass, and let the thoughts flow by without grabbing onto any.

Good luck.