Part Two
Do you wonder what stands between you and your full potential? The answer is: the right conditions.
In 2008 a palm seed that was over two thousand years old was germinated. The ancient seed was among a small number found in the Masada fortress on the edge of the Dead Sea in Israel. All that was required, even after all that time, was simply the right conditions.
Thankfully, unlike the long dormant palm seed, we don't need to wait for those conditions to come along. We can make them happen.
This is the striking thing about nature, when the conditions are right we can naturally fulfill our potential to grow. So what do we need to germinate our creativity and what is that potential?
Why serotonin is the elixir of creativity
In his book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’, the brilliant Bessel Van Der Kolk observes how serotonin helps patients gain a sense of perspective, and become less reactive. In particular, he notes how serotonin allows people to be present and not locked in the past.
Being present to the challenges we face – creative or otherwise is key to our chances of success in overcoming them. The more present we are, the more we can feel the situation as it is, rather than bring our history to it and skew our understanding of it.
The vital link between serotonin and alpha waves
It is important to note a connection rarely made. There is a link between alpha waves – the perfect condition for creativity - and the release of serotonin. The presence of alpha waves promotes the production of serotonin and vice versa. I don’t believe this is a coincidence, but rather the brilliance of nature that knows exactly what the prime conditions are to germinate our potential.
Serotonin gives us a feeling of well-being, which encourages us to search out the pleasure of the alpha state, creating a virtuous circle. By connecting the production of serotonin with alpha waves the body encourages us to maintain the alpha state.
Serotonin is an essential connector
Serotonin is not just a carrot it has a further vital function. It enables our brain cells and other cells in the nervous system to communicate with each other. The impact of this is to allow us to connect with the whole of ourselves, which is what nature intended – to be in harmony with the whole - both within us and beyond us. Being connected to the whole takes us out of the beta state - which blocks our alpha wave production.
Being connected to the whole also takes us out of our heads and into a greater state of presence.
Why is being present important?
All creativity happens in the present. Being present allows us to bring all of ourselves to the moment. Allowing us to be present also permits us to be open to all the resources available within us, which are infinite.
The more present we are the more spontaneous we can be and the less tied down we are to the way we see the world from the viewpoint of our intellect. As Philip Shepherd says in his excellent book ‘Radical Wholeness’: “A surrender to wholeness is a surrender to the ceaseless creativity of the present – it invariably takes you someplace new” and new is exactly where we want to be when we are creating.
Serotonin also makes us smarter
This is not the limit of the benefit of serotonin. Research has shown it improves cognition and according to a joint research project between the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (CCU) in Lisbon and University College London (UCL), it also enhances the speed of learning – all perfect ingredients for the creative process.
As the visionary Eugene Gendlin, inventor of the somatic process of Focusing, said: “Your physically felt body is in fact part of a gigantic system of here and other places, now and other times, you and other people – in fact the whole universe.”
Alpha waves (and theta waves) give us that sense of connection to something beyond us and along with serotonin open the door for us to tap into that creative potential beyond our conscious awareness and invite us to walk through it. That's good for business and good for our health.
When the palm seed lay dormant, all its potential was contained. However, once germinated it became connected to everything through its roots to the earth, through its foliage to the sun and to the air.
If we consider that when the seed grows into a plant it forms an integral part of its environment – as we should be in ours – that process correctly understood then begs the question where does it end and the rest of the universe begin? That question, of course, also applies to us and nature invites us to expand our horizons.
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