I recently watched a TV interview that Opera did with J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. Known in the USA as the first billionaire author, Rowling spoke about her life before and after her success and what motivated her. A lovely woman with a very interesting life, one of the things she said resonated with me particularly. After leaving Spain where she had been living with her first husband, she returned to the UK and found herself in the situation of being totally “rock bottom”, a single mother of a small child, pretty much penniless, alone and without work, the situation could have not been worse. She said that this “rock bottom” became her starting point....and I thought YES, this is what being rock bottom is about. It’s about starting points. To really appreciate being rock bottom, we need to recognise this!
Being rock bottom is always scary. It feels like having no way out. It feels like everything is against us, like there is nothing we can do and we feel very vulnerable. More often than not, it comes as a surprise, not being our own doing and is mostly accompanied by feelings of despair, helplessness and decapitating depression.
On being "rock bottom"...
I know this situation. I have been in it many times in my life for just as many reasons. The reasons were always good, very seldom was it my own doing, life seemed simply to be extremely unfair. I was after all a talented, hard working girl, always trying my best to do things right and yet, again and again, finding myself in personal “rock bottom” situations. It is only in retrospect that I recognise that these rock bottom periods were also always my starting points! Each time, as hitting rock bottom seemed to get worse and worse, more and more difficult to bear and less and less easy to move out of, the reward of having gone through it got better and better. My situation always improved as I was catapulted into making decisions that would force me to follow my dreams, believe in myself and become what I became for a while – until the next rock bottom hit.
My phases of happiness would last a while, until circumstances forced me to re-think my initial idea resulting finally, in making a new decision as I moved along my life path. All the time, it was the difficult times that were my motivation to move on, to change aspects of my life, and achieve even more than I already had. Life seems to be filled with these rock bottoms, but more importantly, it appears to me that they are there for a purpose - the purpose of continually pursuing happiness and satisfaction. After all, if we found ultimate happiness and satisfaction, what would motivate us further?
Looking back, I see that my curve of happiness went steadily upwards, my rock bottoms effectively pushing me to know myself and what makes me tick; to understand what I like and don’t like, what I do well with and not so well, and what motivates me – and “failure” always motivated me. Actually amazing actually is it not? Well, thinking about it...not really!
So what is failure?
Failure is really only the end of one thing and the beginning of another. It is like a doorway, a threshold, an opening to something new.
Theories of Creativity and Creative Problem Solving...
One of the subjects I taught ongoing art therapists in my training institute many years ago was Theories of Creativity.
Now this is interesting. Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that artistic creativity is nothing other than a constant problem solving process and that it is always a problem that motivates decisions for the artist: which materials to use for example and which format, what subject...and then where to start, what colours, how to use the brush etc., a series of never ending little problems which can feel quite daunting, followed by decisions or solutions. Well, possible solutions because every time these decisions would be followed by yet another small problem and another big decision! This, never ending, until the painting or art work is completed and then, finally, after completion, there would be the question of what next?
Theories of Creativity are very similar, if not the same, as Theories of Problem Solving and what is more, these are really the same theories used in business all over the world as well as in life in general. So looking a little closer at this, I want to share some thoughts on creative problem solving with you.
Firstly some definitions...
What is creativity?
There are a number of theories on creativity but what they have in common is that it is a destructive/constructive process that destroys old perceptions through new ones. All creativity involves combining and re-combining previously known elements into unique new configurations. This process is guided by the subconscious which is normally restrained, but during a creative process is far less restrained. In order to be creative, one has to be divergent, convergent, and evaluative and this is measured by the flexibility and fluency of our responses. One needs to be sensitive to what needs changing in order to redefine the information or the situation. And in the end, the success of any creative or problem solving process is based on the originality of the result or product. The product is always a transformation something known into something not previously known. This then leads to another definition..
What is creative problem solving?
Creative Problem Solving is the mental process of creating a solution to a problem. It is a special form of problem solving in which the solution is independently created rather than learned with assistance. To qualify as creative problem solving, the solution must either have value, clearly solve the stated problem, or be appreciated by someone, for whom the situation improves.
What about Artistic Creativity?
It is incorrect to think that while problem solving always involves creativity, artistic creativity does not involve problem solving. In the fields of music, poetry, writing and art for example, the artist is constantly solving problems: which color to use, which brush, which word or which theme to make use of? The artist is trying to create something that gets as close as possible to his/her deepest desire, his/her deepest thought or emotion. It also requires newness as a characteristic of what is created, something that will appeal to the artist. However, this does not necessarily imply that his/her creation has value or is appreciated by other people.
What constitutes a problem that requires solving?
The situation prior to the solution does not need to be labelled as a problem. Alternate labels include: a challenge, an opportunity, a situation which can be improved on, or in which there is room for improvement. Next, we need to have a closer look as the phases of creativity and creative problem solving.
Phases of Creativity and Creative Problem Solving Processes
Most theories on creativity define certain phases in a set order. Based on the work of various researchers, I have combined a number of these and defined 6 main phases to creativity and to creative problem solving. Each phase is clearly defined and is accompanied by different emotions.
Orientation Phase: recognising the fact of a problem that needs a solution
Preparation Phase: gathering information about the problem and converting a fuzzy or confused statement of the problem into a broad statement, one that is more suitable to idea finding.
Incubation Phase: almost like being pregnant with the problem. This is usually a sub-conscious phase - waiting for the solution or illumination to “come” while the old and the new stand side by side - the most difficult phase.
Illumination Phase: recognising the solution, what we call a “aha” moment, accompanied by good feelings of pending activity.
Implementation Phase: giving physical form to the idea or “aha” solution – a very active phase of putting the solution into practice.
Verification Phase: verifying the solution as we evaluating or judge the result as to its effectiveness.
And then we are once again very possibly at the new beginning of yet another "problem" that needs solving, and another possible "rock bottom" in life.
The time between the Verification Phase and a new Orientation Phase may be immediate and it may be years. One solution invariably leads to another decision making or problem solving process sooner or later and the process starts again.
Of these phases, the second one, the Incubation Phase, is the most difficult to endure. You know something needs changing because you have recognised the problem. Possible solutions come and go as the mind goes overtime thinking things through, going around and around in a seemingly never ending spiral, backwards and forwards. Emotions run haywire and self-esteem seems not to exist as the actual decision, the final solution seems not to completely emerge.
This phase is ended by the long awaited for “aha” moment which is nothing else than “knowing” - knowing what to do next, bringing relief to the turmoil. Emotions cool down as the mind slows down, as it is now able to think: “I am able to do something...this is what I can do!”
Once again, this is very interesting as, while realising the solution to a problem, there is no certainty about the outcome – ever. Yet we feel relieved because we can finally go into action.
Putting the solution into practice is the real hard work which still has to subsequently be verified as to whether the solution was that good - and this always results in a new problem. Why? Because there is never a totally final solution to anything. If there were, we would no longer exist. We would no longer have anything to live for, anything to work towards - and as humans, we need this “needing” something to work towards. Our striving is always to get better, be better, better the situation, better something in our lives. And that is the very purpose of evolution itself.
The real problem to any problem
The real problem to any problem is having a never ending variety of choices. Some choices are perceived, some are not. And then not knowing which choice to make, or being fearful it may be the wrong one, which inhibits creative flow in any area of work or life. This is as true for artists as it is for work situations and indeed is applicable to all aspects of life. And is life itself not a series of problems that need to be solved, whether we realise this or not? We do it all the time. Perhaps we are aware of this process and perhaps not. We are however in this process constantly. In business as well as in play, in relationships and in aloneness, in all phases of life we proceed from one such situation to another.
A personal account of my recent “rock bottom”
I was in this predicament last year for months on end when my life was impacted by difficulties and problems after the passing of my father, and I hit aall time heavy “rock bottom”. My perceived family structure disintegrated into a continuum of total confusion as trusted family structures broke down, leaving my life in total disarray. What is more, the story reads like a Hollywood thriller/drama in an antagonist play, this being a play in which the antagonist takes over the role of the protagonist in determining the unfolding drama.
The protagonist: the CEO of the large welfare organisation which my parents had begun when I was just 10 years old. She had enjoyed a particularly close relationship with my father with whom she worked together very closely. My 90 year old mother did not particularly like her and after my father’s passing, found herself totally dependent on the CEO’s decision as to where and how she would continue to live. After the CEO invited herself to our family funeral she topped this by standing up suddenly as the main speaker, catapulting my mother into a mentally confused, almost paranoid state of being.
The antagonist: my brother, a drug addict from an early age and now chronically alcoholic, saw this as his chance of consolidating his lifestyle, and removed my mother from her protected place of residence with all the care she needed, and refused to tell anyone to where he was taking her. This resulted in my mother being missing for some weeks. The difficulty was, she went willingly - in her mind, she was fleeing from the clutches of the CEO and she did not comprehend the consequences of such a move. His motivation, being what he was, was obviously to secure her money and her furniture.
The police, family courts and lawyers all had their hands tied. A High Court Order placing my mother under curatorship, allowing them to become active, would take months and cost a fortune, and what is more, may not even have been successful – my mom is charming with outsiders to the family and could easily have convinced the court that she was in her right mind – thus we had been warned by social workers and the psychiatrist I consulted.
The actors: My self, my sister and my nephew. Before the removal of my mom, I had exposed my brother to her when I found valuable small items of furniture missing and her bank card as well as drugs in his possession. She however did not want to believe me resulting in a breakdown of communication between her and myself.
Then too, the communication between my sister and myself broke down as each of us, still trying to come to terms with our father’s passing, hurting and emotional, were overwhelmed by the things we had to deal with.
Finally, the CEO informed me that my father’s firearms had been collected by my brother from their place of safe keeping with the “permission” of our mother, who thought she was preventing the CEO getting her hands on them, and my life was subsequently so seriously and evidently threatened, as to warrant a police protection order which, a few weeks later after the court hearing, resulted in a permanent warrant for the arrest for my brother.
At the handing over of the firearms to the police, it became apparent that one firearm was missing. The the police investigated my brother for some weeks claiming they were going to arrest and charge him with illegal possession of firearms as well as the loss (or illegal sale) of one of them. This however reached a dead end after my brother befriended the investigating officer and the investigation was stalled and finally stopped.
In the mean time, my brother’s son, whose legal guardian I am and who had been living with me since he was 8, became seriously ill with stomach ulcers (at age 14!) and was in and out of hospital during end of year school exams.
The story then nears an ending, two months later, with my brother deserting my mother during a drunken orgy and disappearing. After two days of being totally alone, her landlord finally managed, through the police, to get the details to contact my sister and myself, resulting in the communication between my sister and myself beginning anew, and we were finally able to get our mother out of town and to a safe place.
During all this, I spent many fearful nights of anxiety - the threat to my life in itself was no easy task to deal with, let alone the fear of what was to happen to my mother. I wept tears to fill barrels of rain water tanks as, in all this, I had no idea what to do or where to turn. All the official places of assistance offered no further help. Family members and long standing family friends became very quiet as they withdrew, one after the other, equally overwhelmed by the events and obviously not wanting to get involved.
Nights and days of de-capitulating depression resulted, draining all energy out of my being and leaving me just barely functioning at times. At the same time, understandably, I was hardly in a position to work effectively let alone at all - and after a total of 5 months of this drama and hardly earning anything while at the same time spending more on various consultations etc. as well as the repeated hospitalisation of my nephew, serious financial difficulties followed. It was horrendous.
For weeks on end, I found myself just reacting to the occurrences with no creativity, in fact no life force, flowing through me at all. The phrase “just an ordinary family” often came to my mind, and for the first time, I felt sympathy and understanding for families whose stories filtered into in the media from time to time. These stories of individuals in malfunctioning families had previously appeared unrealistic to me. Now I knew, they too, were just also just ordinary people in ordinary families going about an ordinary life - until the structures in place break down, seemingly out of the blue and nothing, absolutely nothing, seems ordinary any more.
I knew something had to change. I needed something to change. My nephew needed something to change. Something had to give and I did not want it to be our mental, emotional and physical health. This recognition ended my Orientation Phase and set off the Preparation Phase as my mind, at last, became more active trying to think of ways out.
After mentally playing with a number of solutions, including fleeing the country and returning to Germany, the answer arose. Thus, finally, my Incubation Phase set in. It came slowly, almost ghostlike until the solution was “suddenly” there and I could, once again, become active. On a short trip to Cape Town, two close friends sat patiently one afternoon listening to the pros and cons of my solution to this dillema, and by the end of the day I had my “aha” moment and the Illumination Phase was finally there: the decision to move to Cape Town had been made! I felt almost instantaneously relieved and catapulted out of everything that had immobilised me for months.
It had not been an easy decision to take. I have a large beautiful house on the Indian Ocean coast south of Durban which I absolutely loved, three adorable Jack Russell’s (who by the way, were my only warmth and comfort for most of those months), my nephew was in a boarding school not too far away....never the less, it felt good to be going into the active Implementation Phase. Within a few short months of pretty hectic planning, after the school year had ended and my facilitation at the 3-week International Tantra Teacher Training in the Northern Drakensberg was over, my nephew and I arrived in Cape Town early this year - with five suitcases and 25 kilos overweight - finally leaving everything behind.
Now, just on two months into Cape Town living, the Verification Phase to my personal rock bottom solution is feeling very good. The grass is green, the sky is blue, flowers are blooming and the sun is shining – and how it has been shining in Cape Town this summer! My heart is open and warm and I feel pretty “normal” in my life again. I function once again as accostomed, full of creativity and activity, once again enjoying my life in spite of tons of things to attend to as we settle down.
Life now continues in a more "normal" way. I would never had made this decision had not the circumstances last year forced me into action. There is still much to be achieved (my Jack Russels have yet to join me in Cape Town, my house in KZN has to be organised and prepared to go onto the market (which granted still has to revive), new jobs for my beloved domestic workers who had been with me for so long need to be found, much of my moms' furniture has to be divided amongst family members - the list is still endless. But I am now in a position to tackle these tasks, one after the other, and I know, I really do know, that all this will subsequently fall into place slowly.
I sleep well once again and what is more, I have been able to read a couple of novels as well as to write again! New Durga Tantra School retreats are planned and soon, next week actually, Ines, one of the tantric massage practitioners from Germany that I met on the International Tantra Teacher Training, will arrive to spend two months with me, furthering her training and sharing her work with many of my students. My nephew is well settled into his new Cape Town school, now no longer a boarder - this was part of our solution plan - and is laughing and joking and his usual self again. The transisition to becoming a real mum once again, after years of not having this role, has been gentle and actually quite easy, and I find myself enjoying all the cooking, washing of school uniforms and the overseeing of homework involved in the life of a now 15 year old boy. Life is good to both of us!
No doubt, life in Cape Town life will present smaller and perhaps even bigger situations for similar problem solving processes. When it does, would this mean the original decision was a mistake? Not at all! It would simply mean that the circle of life continues as it always does. It presents us with various situations that stretch us, sometimes beyond our wildest dreams. The stretching will result in new endings presenting new beginnings once again.
Why am I relating this piece of my personal life to you, the reader?
I wish to inspire you to think of life along these terms. I would like to motivate you to use this pattern, this interface for your own creative problem solving processes when you have situations requiring radical change...and I hope to instil in you a feeling of everything being in perfect order when things appear to go terribly wrong in your life.
I have always known this basic fact of life and have always reacted in this way, intuitively, instinctively. My instinct was always to survive and to do this well. What Tantra has given me however, is the insight to understand these processes like never before and the strength to experience what has to be experienced, even more fully than ever before.
Taking up the path of Tantra, I have a science, a method and a way of life that supports me all the way. More particularly, I have the knowledge that I can make something out of any situation, even the worst situation imaginable.
Tantra has given me the wisdom to know that I am not a victim of circumstances. I am perhaps an executor of circumstances, but never a victim. How do I feel in my life since coming to Tantra? I feel simply human and I love my life. Just an ordinary woman in an ordinary life, I can create something that will solve anything...and so can you!
Much love and inspiration to you all...
Leandra
"The story of our life is, in the end, not our life. It is our story"
(From the movie Americano)
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost
