Creative Leadership

Leadership and Alternative States of Consciousness

I have spent the summer being creative, including writing my first novel which I have submitted to agents in the hope of being published (but prepared for 100s of rejections!). During this period, I have learned the importance of accessing ‘alternative states of consciousness’ or ASCs in order to release creativity.

So what are alternative states of consciousness? One that most people have heard of is ‘flow’ – when you lose sense of time and space and lose yourself in a task, whether that be playing music, exercising or working on an engaging problem.

You can also enter an ASC when meditating, being in nature, getting involved in artistic activities or simply grounding yourself and focusing your consciousness on your body (as opposed to staying in your mind all the time)…lots of different ways.

For leaders it is important to learn to regularly enter into these alternative states. By doing so you expand your awareness of what is possible and learn to access the energies of optimism, clarity, inspiration, compassion, will, strength and peace.

Example of an ASC

Here’s an example. Tune into your body right now. What are you feeling or sensing in your body? Now follow this link and look at the picture. Notice how your body sensations and emotions change – many of you will have entered an ASC. Your heart will have softened, you may have smiled, and you may experience emotions such as empathy, compassion, and love. You
may have felt your muscles relax and any tension you may have been holding, drop. Your hormones will have undergone a change too – more oxytocin (the love hormone) and fewer stress hormones such as cortisol or adrenaline. This will affect how you think about things and how you respond to problems.

Creative Leadership

An example of creative leadership is author, J K Rowling who persisted in writing and submitting her work for publication despite numerous rejections and very difficult life circumstances. When we engage with our creative vision we access what psychosynthesis founder, Assagioli, calls the superconscious. As we act from our superconscious we experience emotions such as excitement, awe, inspiration, optimism, self-belief, joy and ‘will’ – the will that enables us to persist in our projects.

So this page will be devoted to anything that helps induce an ASC – poetry, sayings, pictures and all things non-work related. Maybe reading a poem or seeing a picture will affect how you approach your work, your colleagues and even yourself, helping to conjure more self-compassion and self-acceptance.

Enjoy!

I have just completed my first novel entitled, ‘The Re-enchantment of Kiera Brown: A Modern Day Spiritual Journey’. You might wonder how this relates to leadership, if at all. Well, I could have changed the subtitle to ‘A Modern Day Journey to Self-Leadership’. I believe that leadership and spirituality are intimately connected.

Why?

Because both involve mastering the ego.

Mastering the ego does not mean trying to become less ambitious, selfish or dominant. Nor does it mean trying to become more humble or nicer to people! These may result from the process but the point is not to ‘try’ to contort ourselves into being something inauthentic, especially if someone else tells you to!

Mastering the ego is the process of recognizing and challenging all the ways in which you have been conditioned to become something or someone you are not. It is the process of accessing your true self and the qualities of strength, compassion, will, joy, peace, truth, wisdom, self-acceptance (among others) that lie within and have been suppressed by years of conditioning.

The first sign that you are beginning to master your ego is not being nice to others – it’s being nice to yourself! It’s only when you begin to know yourself, like yourself and operate from your true self that the fun begins – and who knows where the journey will lead you.

I would really appreciate it if you could download the chapters because I have a major task on my hands trying to get this book published. And I want to publish it not to make money (only authors like JK Rowling make money!) but because I genuinely believe it will help people. The more people that download the chapters, the more I can convince a potential publisher to publish the novel.

The book is based upon my own spiritual journey and the events described in the novel are all drawn from my personal experience.

So enjoy. I think you may be surprised!

Enter your name below to download the chapters