Meditation and Creative Thinking Skills

So, what is the link between creativity and meditation? Some hunches:

- Meditation can be seen as one way of reflection. As Dawson (2003) in Reflective Practice, Vol. 4, No. 1 writes about meditation: "..while educational discourse pays considerable theoretical attention to critical reflection and creativity, the working reality of everyday life in many educational settings seldom affords the kind of ‘space for silence’ that allows them to be nourished or extended.". So, how much 'space' do you have in your work place for silence? Are techniques and thinking processes that support reflection really valued?

- Amabile (1983) has seen Creative Thinking Skills as one of three components of creativity. Could meditation be included in those Creative Thinking Skills?

- I personally have experienced that with meditation you are able to get an open, positive attitude towards yourself and other people and this in turn may help you to get better connections to the Field (In terms of Csikszentmihalyi's Systems Model of Creativity). However, this process is not immediate, it takes many years.

- Emotions are related to the theme. Lex(is) Higgins, Sara Qualls and J. Daniel Couger wrote in 1992 an article " The Role of Emotions in Employee Creativity" for The Journal of Creative Behaviour. (Good work, Lex! Happy to continue in the future about this topic!). Their findigs were : "Emotional states with influence creativity at work may be stimulated by the immediate work environment (proximal causes) or by events, relationships or thoughts in non-work contexts (distal causes) ... Managers will also need to develop skills to address proximal causes of disruptive emotions as well as distally-caused emotional distress". Their article was not about meditation, but the topic: 'handling your and your colleagues emotions' may be closely linked to mediation?!

- Managers need to understand better and better human needs and respond in a proper way. There are some interesting new management & leadership programs like Intelligent Leadership from Pertti Sydänmaanlakka, Pertec Consulting Ltd. Meditation itself is not integrated in them, but some ideas of it may be?!

- See the excellent Meditation Blog and some critical views (including my comment ;-) about mixing belief systems and meditation techniques.

- Is meditation just self-suggestion? This question has come up to my mind many times ;-)

I am still wondering how meditation could be included in creativity and innovativeness training programs in a proper way. As a technique, not as weird all-solving-mumbo-jumbo :-)