To think like an artist is to make contact with your intuitive spirit of exploration. This week's podcast is all about how to think like an artist. Welcome to the modern creative woman. Explain the art and science of creativity. This is the podcast for women who want to elevate their creativity and start applying creative thinking in their everyday lives. I'm your hostess and creativity expert, Dr. Amy Backos. I'm a licensed psychologist and a registered and board certified art therapist with almost three decades helping women live their authentic lives at the Modern Creative Woman, we are obsessed with helping you build your creativity and self leadership. Through our conversations and creative insights, I'll provide simple tricks and practices that will help take the mystery out of the creative process so you can start each day feeling empowered, creative, and ready to take on whatever comes your way. Let's get started!
I wanted to catch you up on some things happening at Modern Creative Woman headquarters. I am getting ready to take a little trip to L.A., and I'm so excited to be in the warmth and the sunshine. If you've been to San Francisco, you know it is gorgeous and always a little chilly. So I'm excited to get out of town and my family will be going with me, so that will make it extra special. If you have any recommendations on where I should go, do let me know. We're definitely doing some hikes in Griffin Park, going to art museums, looking for some delicious food. So those modern creative women in LA tell me, what are the secret local spots I should go to?
I've also been chatting with some art therapists about putting people know what art therapy is and who it's for, tint it's for everyone, and really explaining to people who get confused about what it means to be an art therapist and how it's possible to use creativity through the art to expand our lives and really make our own world and the wider world a better place. It's been so good to connect with some art therapists.
We're going to take a deep dive in this episode all about how artists think. And I want to talk about metacognition first. And that's really just thinking about thinking. It's observing your mind. It's being curious not just what you're thinking about, like the content, like you're thinking about dinner, but the process of your thoughts. You're having a curious excitement about what you're going to eat for dinner at a new restaurant, or you're grumpy and uninspired about it. That's the how the content is just dinner. When we think about our thinking, we really empower ourselves with some strategies for being in the present moment as well as new insights. It gives us so much peace and relaxation when we can understand our mind. When I talk about presence, I'm talking about making contact with the present moment and also yourself as context.
And so thinking about your thinking has a little bit to do with making contact with the present moment, and a lot to do with engaging yourself in a flow state and an acceptance state. So presence is really about getting out of your mind and getting into your life, but observing your thoughts from a little bit of a distance and a perspective is how you make contact with the present moment. Seeing yourself as the context of your life is really a amazing way to focus on life is going on, but you're the constant you're experiencing and interpreting what's happening around you. And if you're a long time listener, you know, I talk so much about making contact with the present moment. And I want to tell you why it matters. When we are in the present moment, the ever present now. We're so much better at communication. Our problems become much more manageable. Certainly our love relationships improve. Imagine talking to someone when they're kind of checked out or preoccupied with their own thoughts. Our work relationships improve and our focus is enhanced when we make contact with the present moment. We really learn to enjoy our company a lot more.
We can be more authentic, more self expressive, and being in the present moment helps make the world a little bit better, because the people that we are taking care of, who rely on us, who interact with us, also get to have that opportunity to make contact with us and the present moment. We're setting the example. When I started imagining and researching how creative people think, one area of research and philosophy came up over and over, and it's really about integrating our senses.
The consensus is that creative thinkers link seemingly unrelated ideas, and they pull different things together. Of course, to make art, new concepts might be an invention or just a new way of doing things. I talked a little bit in episode 41 about synesthesia, and it's a neurological phenomenon. It's where stimulation to one pathway in our brain leads to experiences in other areas of our brain. Essentially, the senses become interconnected and it causes really unique perceptions for people. 1s And when people have this neurological phenomenon, it's consistent over time, and it's found in about 1 to 4% of the population. It's not a diagnosis. There's nothing wrong with someone who has this. And it comes from Greek translating into perceiving things together. And there is some research that people who have synesthesia might do better on memory and intelligence tests. And it makes sense because they're able to link more information in their brain. Here are some examples. Seeing colors when hearing music. I talked about that in episode 41 with the musical piece about Prometheus. Other people experience tasting flavors when they're reading words. People may associate colors with numbers or letters, and it's different than you might have an association to a letter. People with synesthesia will have the same association, same color, same letter across their entire lifetime. They simply go together and fire together in their brains, and certain sounds might trigger specific colors or shapes.
There's some really famous examples Mary J. Blige, Nikola Tesla, the musical artist, Lord Duke Ellington, Pharrell Williams, Beyonce, Marilyn Monroe. Patricia Lane Duffy is the first author of a book about synesthesia, and she started an organization for people who have it. The example that I gave you before Prometheus, the beautiful piece of music by Alexander Scriabin, he was not necessarily experiencing this level of brain integration, but he was highly influenced by going to French and Russian salons and the salons in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where a mix of artists and scientists coming together and they so influenced each other. Now, you may have had similar associations, and cultivating more of these kinds of associations can help you with your memory and your cognitive functioning.
So a song might remind you of a happy moment, a smell might remind you of a sad moment, and these two senses essentially get paired together. When we consciously cultivate linked perceptions, we can really enhance our brain functioning and, of course, contact with the present moment. So here's your first main lesson thinking like an artist includes intentionally linking your experiences. You can experiment with this a little bit by picking up an object, any object in front of you. A pen is fine and have a look at it as if you had never seen it before. And integrating your senses then focuses on the object itself. How does it feel? And then focusing on how your fingers feel holding that object. Next you can look at smell. Sound. Can you make any sound with the object you're holding? Just tap your fingernails on it or tap it on the table. Does it taste like anything and then really have another look at it? What do you see? Is there anything new that sticks out for you? And these kinds of sensory observations of an object are really stimulating to your brain, so you can do it anytime, anywhere doesn't require you to do anything special. It just allows you to ground yourself into the present moment. Other examples of this would be focusing on eating a piece of chocolate and just really savoring it. Savoring your first sip of coffee. Noticing your movement when you first stand up in the morning.
I have a few questions to inspire you. What might you be willing to risk knowing that your brain can generate new ideas anytime it wants? The more you are creative, the more creative you become. So what might you do if you just allowed a free flow of creative ideas? What would you do? What would you try? What problem would you try and solve first? What solutions would you go for? How might you help other people? How might you focus on parenting or relationships or work if you're looking to enhance your brain? You can do really simple list making. You can write a list of ten things that you find beautiful places, people, objects, ideas, concepts, and allowing your mind to find value in beauty wherever you see it could be nature, your pet, your child. This isn't about looking for conventional standards of beauty or whatever is popular. This is really about your neuro aesthetic experience and allowing your brain to find that just as valuable as thinking and doing. If you want to focus on synergy, you can start linking your present moment awareness with music. And there's a lot of really incredible research on music therapy and how it stimulates the brain. I challenge you to create a list of your top ten favorite songs of all time, and you might say, how could I possibly narrow it down to ten? And then how could I possibly rank it in order of my most favorite piece of music? Well, the act of limiting from millions of choices in the world down to ten and rank ordering them is a powerful brain exercise. It allows you to distill away what is not of interest and helps you prioritize. And this kind of exercise will help you in decision making in so many different circumstances with this one. Just have fun. Don't judge it. You can always change your list. And when you're done with your list, make a playlist and listen to it and see. Do you need to make any arrangements or rearrange the songs or switch them out? And finally, your artistic thoughts are very powerful and you can use them intentionally.
So what are you interested in? Go ahead and write and doodle any association you have to a topic that you're interested in could be music, food, art, nature, hiking, religion, relationships. Start doodling and writing words that just remind you of that topic and let your mind wander all over the place. You can think of it as a brainstorm to see what comes up for you, and you can solve a lot of challenging or perplexing things. In this manner, you could choose a perplexing problem and write your associations to it, and that will give you a lot of insights for solutions.
And before we end real quick, on a scale of 0 to 10, how present are you right now? Zero being not at all, ten being fully present, making contact with the present moment. Five is half in half hour. Have a wonderful rest of your week.
Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level and want you to know you have options inside the membership, and if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Dr. Amy Backoks. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month, all those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative Women Comm. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.