Try Unexpected Incongruity

  

During a time that feels empty or dry, we need to discover ways to freshen our thoughts.  

Soren Kierkegaard believed in the rotation method to keep the mind fresh. He indicated that a farmer can't grow wheat year after year. They must replenish the soil by sowing beans one year. It also may need to remain fallow.

Albert Einstein used "combinatory play."  Imagining he traveled on a beam of light and glancing back at a clock created breakthroughs for him. He visualized letting go of a coin in a free-falling elevator.

Any changes in thinking and perception jostle the mind. Distractions help to reset thoughts from focus on a single task and its implications, concerns and consequences. It helps us move into to a new venue where creativity blossoms.

Try, "See the Kite" approach.  If you want to divert someone in conversation, point to the sky and say, "What a Kite." An individual will look up and stop speaking, thinking or doing.

Use the distraction to accomplish whatever you need.  Divert an unpleasant situation, steal a bite of someone's dessert. . . or even a kiss.  

Adapt this idea.

Use unexpected incongruity when feeling frustrated. Consider these examples:

What do eagles, Robinhood and pencils have in common?

How do baboons, Monterey and chocolate reveal their differences?

Combine kittens, cranberries and the Pacific ocean for a play day.

What skitters in and out of the hole below change?

Intuition ticklers, absurd thoughts, and humor intrigue the mind and provide unexpected insights. 

Use the kite approach and search the sky for ideas when frustrated..Try three unrelated items, extend to more. Freshen and free your spirit.

Locate Inspiration

 

Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr, Nobel prize-winners, presented many counterintuitive theories. Once while Pauli presented his ideas about a radical new hypothesis, Bohr came out of the audience to the stage and interrupted his colleague. 

Bohr said, "We all agree that your theory is crazy. What divides us is whether it has a chance to be correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough."

Consider your ideas and possibilities. Could they be crazy enough to be true?  Go on an unpredictable quest to free trapped vitality.  

Try an experiment to awaken sluggish magic.

Look into nature for nurture. Try combining creative ideas to develop music, literature, and another art form.

Synthesize and coordinate all aspects of life you do the best. 

Express yourself with a flourish.

Notice with renewed awareness areas of life you take for granted.

Look.

      Listen.

Locate

      inspiration through

              imagination.

Find the Joy

 

"Authentic joy is not a euphoric state or a feeling of being high. 

Rather is it a state of appreciation that slows us to participate fully in our lives." 

- Pema Chödrön 

Equanimity involves mental composure. Moving into a difficult situation with calm brings balance. "In the moment we come to abide with the energy instead of acting it out, we are training in equanimity," says Pema Chödrön. 

We achieve freedom by engaging with the energy of the moment rather than reacting. Not an easy activity, it takes discipline and practice to release former behaviors and select others to replace them. 

When sad or glad, we need to widen our circle of understanding and compassion.

Use creativity to change attitudes.

Get out of the way of the ego's control. During a negative experience, project that event as a movie and see it in all its dimensions. Breathe to calm and quiet the emotions that arise. Observe the scene with all senses.

Imagine a musical or comedy evolving from the situation. Sing into silly.

The next anxiety that arrives, use a metaphor from nature. Watch it bloom like a rose. Count the petals, smell the fragrance, feel a touch of breeze. Make positive problem solving choices without judgment.

If an initial reaction to stress is, "Oh sH&^!" find a word to replace the habitual response with a key word.  Say:  Shift. Turn. Flip. Then say the chosen word. Get to the other side of your typical response.

Rainer Maria Rilke said, "This in the end is the only kind of courage that is required of us. The courage to face the strangest most unusual most inexplicable experience that can meet us."

Awareness, creativity, and patience help us dwell in the places that frighten or frustrate. Flexibility in times of uncertainty enables equanimity.

Slow down to savor life's wonders. Find the joy.