Tag: Productivity

Morning Rituals for a More Grounded Day

Posted on by Allan Johnson in artist's way, Observations

The early bird 40% off offer for The Artist’s Way Circle: A 12-Week Creative Journey closes at midnight tonight. In this powerful small-group experience, we will work through Julia Cameron’s classic book together, sharing insights, deepening our practice, and building a creative community that makes the journey feel less solitary and more alive.

For me, mornings have become less about rushing into productivity and more about creating a small pocket of time that feels set apart, a threshold into the day. This is, after all, what Julia Cameron invites us to do in The Artist’s Way: show up to the blank page before we show up to anyone else.

A ritual isn’t a routine; it is a way of marking time as meaningful. When I light a candle before writing, or make my coffee slowly in my V60 instead of rushing, I am reminding myself that this time is not just another item to cross off a list, it is where my life begins for the day. Mircea Eliade, in The Sacred and the Profane, writes about ritual as a way of stepping into ‘sacred time’, a space where the ordinary becomes charged with significance. For me, this might mean lighting a special candle that reminds me of that changing of the seasons going on at the moment, or pausing for a moment on the balcony to notice the light on the plants before I open my laptop. These small gestures are a way of crossing the threshold deliberately, rather than being dragged into the day half-awake.

Groundedness begins in the body. No amount of list-making and project management will make a difference if I wake up already scattered and tense. The first thing I try to do now is move. I have been trying to get into running again, which I alternate with indoor rowing (my preferred cardio of choice). And after years of not making progress or any form of commitment to resistance machines at the gym, I’ve taken up strength training with two simple dumbbells, which has been an absolutely fantastic development in my fitness journey–the trainers on FIIT have revolutionised my entire outlook on dumbbells. This comes alongside my yoga practice, which has been with me for nearly 25 years. The point is less about physical fitness (although, as I get older, I am becoming increasingly aware of the need to build lasting wellness) and more about arriving in my body. As Bessel van der Kolk reminds us in The Body Keeps the Score, our sense of safety and clarity begins somatically, not intellectually. If I can bring my nervous system into a calmer, more coherent state first thing, the rest of the day feels less like a battle.

Creativity thrives in spaciousness, not in haste. This is where Morning Pages come in—Julia Cameron’s influential practice of writing three longhand pages first thing in the morning. They are not intended to be polished or even interesting; they are more like clearing mental static, a way to compost the thoughts that would otherwise clutter the mind all day. I find that pairing them with something tactile—a favourite notebook, a good pen—enhances the ritual. (In The Artist’s Way Circle, we’ll not only practice Morning Pages but also discuss what they unlock: the surprising insights that surface when we permit ourselves to be imperfectly present.)

Not every ritual has to be still. A ten-minute stroll before sitting down to write can be as clarifying as a meditation cushion. The Go Jauntly app has been such a fantastic presence for me. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks beautifully about walking meditation as a way to arrive in the present moment, and I find that even putting on a playlist and tidying the kitchen can create that same bridging effect between sleep and wakefulness. The point is to let the mind settle before reaching for the phone, before taking on the noise of the world.

During my sabbatical, I’ve been focusing on testing and adjusting my daily habits so that when I return to a busy routine of teaching and administration in the new year, I will have a clear understanding of what best supports my growth and development. Protecting the first hour of the day is, I’ve come to see, an act of self-respect. Seneca reminds us that we are often more careful with money than with time, though time is the one thing we can never get back. I’ve started following a ‘no-scroll rule’ in the first hour of the day, and replaced it with going straight to the gym.

The key is not to design the perfect morning but to make a start, consistently. There have been mornings where the ritual falls apart—when I oversleep, or skip the gym entirely—but I’m learning that a ritual that only works on perfect days isn’t really a ritual at all. The point is to keep coming back. James Clear’s Atomic Habits puts it simply: habits compound over time. A short, wobbly practice is better than a grand plan you never do.

This time of year feels like an invitation to recommit. I’ve always felt that September carries more of a ‘new year’ energy than January—it must be the academic calendar still in my bones. This month, I’m choosing to double down on the things that anchor me: lighting a candle before email, a few minutes of breathing exercises, and breakfast that feels nourishing rather than hasty. I’d love for you to consider what this season might invite for you.

Ultimately, a grounded morning is an act of creative resistance. In a culture that would have us wake up and immediately start scrolling, choosing ritual is choosing presence. So tonight, ask yourself: how do you want your mornings to feel for the next twelve weeks? And if you are ready to experiment—with ritual, with creativity, with spaciousness—I’d love for you to join us in The Artist’s Way Circle. The early-bird 40% discount closes at midnight tonight, and there are just a few spots left. Your mornings—and your creative life—might look completely different on the other side.

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Ignite Your Imagination: Essential Mindfulness Practices for Creatives

Posted on by Allan Johnson in creative industries, creativity, meditation, mindfulness, wellbeing

Imagination does not always come galloping through the mind like a wild horse across open ground. More often, it creeps in — hesitant, flickering, partial — like light beneath a half-closed door. For the creative spirit, this can be both a torment and a gift. We long for the fullness of vision, the burning clarity, the intoxicating moment when idea and form lock together and the world briefly makes sense. But more often, we are in the waiting room: alert, uncertain, rehearsing fragments and false starts, hoping for a signal. It is in this threshold space — this in-between — that mindfulness becomes not only helpful but transformative.

Creativity has long been romanticised as divine madness, a burst of genius, a possession. And while there may be truth in that mythology, it is not the whole truth. The more interesting question is not what inspiration is, but how we prepare for it. Not how we command the imagination, but how we create conditions in which it might choose to speak. Mindfulness, in this light, is not a set of breathing techniques or an escape from the demands of artistic work. It is an ethos of attention. A way of being that sharpens the contours of perception and makes the self available to wonder.

To live mindfully as a creative is not to disengage from the world, but to engage it more fully. It is to notice, in radical detail, the colour of morning light on the floorboards, the twitch in a friend’s voice, the quiet violence of a passing thought. This kind of noticing is not simply decorative. It is the material of art. All creative acts begin with attention — not just to what is seen, but to how it is seen. Mindfulness cultivates that how. It refines the inner lens. And with that, the imagination becomes less a distant realm and more a neighbour — elusive, yes, but not unreachable.

The challenge is that modern life trains us out of this kind of perception. We scroll, skim, switch tasks mid-thought. Our nervous systems are fragmented, our minds colonised by speed. In such a climate, the imagination withers — not because it lacks ideas, but because it cannot find stillness. Mindfulness returns us to a slower rhythm, one more akin to the pace at which creative insight naturally moves. The imagination does not shout. It whispers. It offers symbols and sensations before it offers structure. To receive those fragments requires a kind of inner spaciousness that mindfulness can restore.

It is important to say that mindfulness is not a cure for creative block. It is not a pill or a shortcut. It is, in many ways, a deepening of the block. A way of entering it with presence rather than panic. When the artist is blocked, they are often not lacking ideas — they are overfull. Jammed with expectations, self-comparisons, imagined critics, and internalised metrics of worth. The block is often a symptom of too much noise, not too little content. Mindfulness teaches us to sit quietly in that noise until it begins to part. It does not dissolve resistance, but it changes our relationship to it.

At its heart, mindfulness invites us to meet the moment as it is — not as we wish it to be. This is perhaps the most radical act for a creative. Because we are often trained to work from an ideal: the perfect performance, the future masterpiece, the imagined audience who will finally understand. But the work does not emerge from the ideal. It emerges from the real. From the slight tremor in the hand. From the smell of the paper. From the deep breath taken before the brushstroke or the chord or the sentence. When we attend to the real, we begin to loosen our grip on perfection and make space for play — and play is where the imagination feels safest.

There are practices that support this shift — not as formulas, but as invitations. One of the most powerful is the simple act of arriving. Before beginning your creative work, pause. Close your eyes. Feel your feet on the ground. Sense the breath in your body. Let yourself come into presence, not as an act of performance, but as a gesture of receptivity. In doing so, you are not asking the imagination to perform. You are letting it know that you are listening. This small ritual can become an anchor — a way to mark the space between ordinary time and creative time.

Another practice is mindful observation. Take an object — a leaf, a stone, a photograph — and study it without naming it. Let yourself be absorbed by its texture, its edges, the way light moves across it. Notice your mind’s habits — how it wants to interpret, to comment, to categorise. Gently return to the act of seeing. This seemingly simple exercise reawakens the raw materials of creativity: detail, pattern, form, and most of all, wonder. It is wonder, not novelty, that fuels true imagination. And mindfulness is a training in wonder.

Body awareness is equally vital. Creative work is not only intellectual — it is visceral. The body speaks in tone and rhythm and colour, often before the mind knows what it means. Writers sense a sentence’s weight. Dancers feel a phrase in the spine. Painters move through gesture. Musicians enter trance. Mindfulness reconnects us to these signals. A body scan — gently bringing attention to each part of the body — allows us to hear the somatic wisdom beneath the surface. Often, an idea is stuck not in the mind but in the jaw, the shoulders, the chest. When we release these holding patterns, the imagination begins to flow again.

Mindfulness also teaches us how to recover from the inevitable crash after a creative high. Every artist knows the pattern: the flush of energy, the intoxication of vision — followed by doubt, fatigue, the sense that none of it is working. This cycle is not a flaw. It is the natural rhythm of the creative process. Mindfulness helps us ride it without drowning in it. It teaches us to greet the high with gratitude and the low with compassion. Not to cling to either, but to keep returning to the work, with steadiness, even when inspiration recedes.

In a deeper sense, mindfulness reminds us that the imagination is not a separate realm to be accessed, but a mode of being to be remembered. Children live in this mode. They animate the world with story and symbol. They know, without being told, that the line between what is and what could be is porous. Adults, trained in control and outcome, often lose this porousness. But it can be recovered. And mindfulness is one way to trace the path back. It allows us to unhook from habitual thinking and return to what is called “beginner’s mind” — a mind not emptied, but freshly open.

Beginner’s mind is a paradoxical place. It requires discipline to enter, but surrender to remain. For the creative, this is the site of pure potential. It is where the known world dissolves just enough to let the new world appear. But it does not come through force. It comes through presence — through the willingness to stay close to the edge of unknowing, to sketch with the left hand, to listen without deciding. This is not the absence of technique. It is technique softened by trust.

And trust is perhaps the most essential ingredient in creative life. Trust in the process. Trust in the self. Trust that something worthwhile can emerge even from a messy first draft, a broken melody, an unfinished canvas. Mindfulness strengthens this trust, not by feeding confidence, but by cultivating stability. When the mind is steadied, we are less thrown by failure, less addicted to success. We become more willing to explore. And the imagination — that sensitive, skittish creature — comes closer when it senses safety.

Of course, not every moment of creativity will feel mindful. We will still have days when the mind races, when the work feels brittle, when nothing seems to cohere. This is human. Mindfulness does not erase difficulty. It simply offers us a way to meet it without collapsing. To meet it with a little more breath. A little more kindness. A little more space. Over time, this changes not just how we work, but who we become through our work. It reshapes the creative life from a series of outcomes to a deepening relationship — with form, with feeling, with the mystery of making itself.

So light the candle. Take the breath. Touch the clay. Return to the sentence. Let your attention lean in. The imagination is not a bolt of lightning. It is a door. And mindfulness is the key that helps you hear when the latch lifts.

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If you want to start putting these ideas into action, you can sign up for Integrative Meditation (Level 1). This course represents the culmination of years of learning, practice, and personal growth. Integrative Meditation is a comprehensive framework designed to enhance your mental and emotional well-being. It draws on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), positive psychology, neuroscience, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), journaling, and breathwork to support you in reducing stress, enhancing focus, building emotional resilience, and discovering your true self.