Derailing the Matrix of Habit - Creative Self Awareness
Breaking Habits
Before I go into a shoot or start work on a project and at frequent intervals throughout my day I step into what I (pretentiously) call my ‘Creative Awareness Tank’ the purpose of which is to centre myself and create space between my thoughts and to create a glitch in the matrix of habit. Eh it’s not a real tank, obviously, I’m not a total loon.
It’s simply my own personal meditation cobbled together from around twenty years of various practices. Seriously though, I do this consciously and I’ll often plot times in my journal for this and set little reminders. Why? What I’ve seen in my life is that I am mostly hooked into an habitual way of doing things.
Quality of Time
There is a difference between being in a flow state and being in a groove of habit. I can so easily become a slave to a task list or at the mercy of apparent time. It is also so easy to get into filling my day with stuff just to … well fill my day. Being busy has nothing to do with being successful in my opinion. Being successful has to do with fulfillment and happiness and for me fullfillment and happiness has everything to do with the quality of how I’m doing things. It has to do with the quality of time rather than the quantity of time.
The Illusionary Drag of Time
It has fck all to do with how busy I am. Now, I’m not going to do a complete hatchet job on the wonderful world of todo-lists. They have their place I suppose. I mean to-do list apps are a growth industry. But for me, it is so important to have an awareness at the beginning of each month, week, day, and in the moments before I start whatever it is I’m doing so that what I’m doing is infused with awareness and quality and also to make sure that what I’m doing is still worth doing and I’m not just doing it because I put it on a list.
By the way, this practice of slowing down and maintaining an awareness is something I practice guys. I’ve not mastered it. It’s a practice for my life and probably always will be. I am always on guide against the illusionary drag of time.
Less is Always More
When I feel like I don’t have enough time it is simply because I am not present to what it is I am doing. I am distracted. I am always refining my method of working so that it is infused with a creative quality. Less is always more. I tend to want to add to everything. To fill in the spaces.
But what I am noticing more and more in my life is that space is where the juice is. The gold is in the gap. Putting aside awareness time at the start of the day enthuses my work with a creative quality that isn’t possible with that checking off task after the task way of doing things.
All The Time in the World
You might well ask “who the hell has the time for that?” My experience is that when I slow down and create space between my thoughts, when I practice awareness and when I center myself ahead of action I have all the time in the world.
It is never the amount of time I spend on a project anyhow. It is the quality of time. Again, less is more. I also notice that there are quality shortcuts that become apparent when I slow down. Shortcuts are often thought of as a negative thing and for sure they are when it is at the expense of quality and integrity. But quite often there is a whole bunch of stuff that I think has to be done to achieve a particular goal when in fact a lot of it is just stuff I’ve jotted down to fill my day. So that I’m busy. It’s a con.
The Stream of Thinking
We are so habitual in our working methods. In our living methods too frankly. This is why I have to be on guard against the tide of lethargic habit. It’s quite scary if you ever take the time to look but the long and short of it is us humans are like machines. We are on autopilot. We’re living in a kind of Matrix, like the film but instead of being plugged into some tank, we’re plugged into a stream of thinking that we are mostly not aware of.
All-day this thinking is telling us to do this and do that. Don’t do this and don’t do that. It is only when we become aware of it that we can begin to step outside the matrix and start taking charge. Did you notice in the film the Keanu Reeves character, Neo, had no frigging idea he was even plugged into that thing? It’s the same with us.
A 10 Minute Practice
We have no idea we’re being run by our thinking and habits because we’re not aware of it. What we can do is begin to practice slowing down our thoughts for maybe 10 minutes at the start of our day, or before we set out on a photography shoot or sit down at the computer to write an article.
The way to slow down our thoughts is simply to become aware of them. We don’t have to work to slow them down. The simple act of bringing our thoughts into our awareness, noticing, is enough to create a little glitch in the matrix. Gradually the stream of thought will slow down.
I think in these times when we have the lure of smart devices and social media and email and notfications top of everything else it is so important to have a practice that is disconnects us from the momentum of modern day living. So very important.