How Creative Experiences Promote Personal Development

Some photographs show Einstein holding a violin, an instrument he loved and studied but often found frustrating. It was piano that he played every day. He improvised as a form of relaxation, and said “when that appears to be going somewhere, I require the clear constructions of Bach to follow it through.” Improvisation is the most inventive musical expression, with a formal structure to which even Einstein surrendered. Creative freedom, in art and in life, requires those clear boundaries within which movement and surprise and spontaneity can flow. If we are going to change the way we think, we can use Einstein at the piano as a model.
Improvisation in music, theater, or comedy grows out of a dynamic interplay between form and freedom, a “yes-and” way of thinking which we can easily apply to the situations and interaction of daily life. The “yes….and” approach to any given moment means we accept what we have been given to deal with and build on it. This is critically important for navigating the stresses of daily life, and especially during periods of great uncertainty or transition. Improvisation and arts-based learning experiences show us a way to redirect our attention so that we use our skills and energy not to predict the future, but to co-create it.
If we can learn to say “yes” to the premise of the present moment, then we can add to it or change it up in some creative way that heightens the possibility of success in shaping the outcomes we seek. The mind and skill set that develops over time from this approach results in a greater sense of self that translates into more greater self-awareness and connectedness to others, both essential to success in the networked world.
“Yes-and” thinking is an open-ended and expansive approach to communication that has gained credibility in business and other realms not specifically artistic in nature. “Imagine you’re improvising with a comedy team and someone throws you an idea,” challenges an article on leadership and listening skills in Nonprofit World.“You can’t deny it or ignore it; you have to accept it and add to it to keep the improv going. The end result is better, richer, because of all the different inputs and viewpoints. Practice saying ‘Yes, and.....’ It’s a conversational technique that builds on another person’s ideas. It promotes a sense of real dialogue and shared discussion while sending a message of commitment and positive assertion.”
The “yes-and” and other spontaneity-enhancing ways of thinking work to make us better thinkers, problem-solvers, and actors on the stage of life because problems in living are very much like the problems encountered in the arts. An example: Early in my career as a creative arts therapist, a sixteen-year old young man with spina bifida attending a school for multiply-handicapped children and adolescents was referred to me by his treatment team for music therapy in the form of guitar and voice lessons. The idea was to strengthen his confidence and sense of self by responding to his desire to play and sing popular songs—and hopefully impress girls. At the same time we hoped to provide a means for him to work through his deepening sadness and alienation over the physical limitations that would be with him for life and support his independence navigating life on crutches or a wheelchair. His natural musicality, singing voice, and great personality made him a pleasure to work with, but the 20 minutes before and after each session were surprisingly important—and agonizing—for both of us.
His therapeutic plan required that he bring the materials for the lesson to the music room and set them up without my help, while my supervisor and I observed through a two-way mirror just to monitor his progress and safety. It was a noisy, messy process, painful to watch. He tried to carry the guitar, music stand, and books all at once while making his way on crutches, sometimes simply dropping everything out of pure frustration. He used the wheelchair to drag whatever would not fit into his lap, which made an unbelievable racket and usually left a trail of music sheets down the hall. At times anger at his limitations so overwhelmed his desire for the music experience that he would procrastinate so long his lesson was only 10 minutes out of a half hour. It would have been so easy to step in and finish the set-up for him, but it was clear that his psychological development depended on his ability to manage the emotions, process and consequences. And he did gradually learn to pace himself. To organize the tasks. To work within boundaries. To express rather than act out his feelings.
Then there was the music, his adolescent impatience with the process, his insistence I teach him songs beyond his level of mastery. Forging ahead too fast on his own, he would botch things, feel inadequate, and want to give up. He could not be bothered with learning scales—too boring. But working through each conflict that came up around the music training raised his self-awareness and strengthened his competence to deal with emotional tensions gradually, consciously, and honestly, at the same time that he gained mastery as a musician.
Dr. Elliott Eisner, author of The Arts andthe Creation of Mind, writes that working out the issues we face when training in an art form prepares us for the uncertainties and ambiguities of life, and perhaps most importantly, teaches through lived experience that “small differences can have large effects.” Arts education trains the mind and personality to persist in a visionary process toward an unknowable outcome, as we deal with situations that have no single correct solution and call for a range of perspectives to find a way through.
All art forms train the brain to focus attention, exercise discipline, and realize gradual gains in skills. To learn scales on the piano, practice, practice, practice. To become an effective stage or film actor, give time and attention to simple, focused acting exercises. To be a writer, spend an hour each day writing even when it seems there is nothing to say. Small actions over time for no immediate pay-off steadily increase our artistic skill level, but the gains translate in ways we can choose to make us better people, able to see things through, and recognize the power of persistent action in the same direction to realize great and meaningful change. Arts experiences have a built-in feedback loop—in music the sounds we create, in theatre the energy and connection to co-actors or audience, in painting the visual image—which completes the experience and at the same time stimulates further action. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi relates both music-making and music listening, as well as other forms of arts-based training, to states of “optimal experience”and “flow” characterized by the following factors:
• There is a balance between challenges and skills;
• Action and awareness are merged;
• Distractions are excluded from consciousness;
• There is no worry of failure;
• Self-consciousness disappears.
• The activity becomes an end in itself.
The feedback loop that makes the creative process such a kick is just as powerful and fulfilling in life and relationships, where there is movement and surprise and transformation as long as we give ourselves over to it. Enter into it completely. Do whatever we must do to play the song that keeps repeating in our head. Because we become the sum of our choices, the expression of the paths we take in life. We are the music we make.