Plenary #198): Structure and Flow

From one perspective, all that there is, in any discipline, is Structure: the component aspects, the technical considerations, the vocabulary of a craft, and Flow, the ability to move these components to unconscious competance and simply dance with the currents of emotion and art. Brain surgeon, jet pilot, athlete, martial artist, lover...it doesn't matter. To define the former and learn to enter into the latter is the doorway to mastery.

Workshop #197): The LifeWriting Approach to Writing and Life

A uniquely practical and powerful approach to aligning the writer's professional work and personal life. Includes tools for plotting, characterization, breaking writer's block, increasing creativity, and far, far more.

Using the body to teach the unity of mind and breath that allows entrance into one of the most powerful meditations in existence, physical flow. One of the core healing aspects of yoga, tai chi, martial arts and sufi dancing, physical flow can be accessed through FlowFit, a new, total-body exercise routine requiring only an hour a week for basic fitness. The energy released can then be used to reduce phobic response, anxiety and stress, enhance creativity, break writer's block or focus on life goals. The basic technique is accessable to anyone who can walk for twenty minutes, but the advanced technique would challenge a professional athlete.

Creating a link between the inner and outer worlds of the creative life. Aligned in this way, everything you do to improve your life improves your writing...and everything you write improves your life. The myth is that creativity must be a destabilizing, confusing process or lifestyle. The truth is that creativity is our natural birthright, and that the deepest wells of meditation access the same chambers of the human heart. Throughout the ages, the secrets of releasing limitless energy, creativity, and emotional wellness have been scattered through hundreds of different disciplines throughout the world, and rarely has this knowledge been brought to bear on the question of crafting a creative life. Through examples drawn from yoga, martial arts, hypnosis, NLP, and other disciplines both esoteric and practical, Steven Barnes will forge a link between the inner reality of the creative life and the outer, practical reality of the professional craftsman. Limitless creativity, energy, and personal satisfaction are as close as the commitment to living your life fully, and moving through every barrier that has ever held you back from total expression.