When you are preparing to design or run sessions for your games, what do you do to generate ideas or prepare yourself? Do you meditate? If you'd asked me a week ago I'd probably have said "No." Now I think maybe I do.
I was listening to a Buddhist monk that runs a monastery talk about the practice of meditation. They were discussing the "exquisite medicine of stillness." How quiet and calm allow you to open your mind to ideas that are roaming the vastness of the place.
I mean I get the concept but I've never really considered myself one of "those people." I don't do yoga. I'm pretty sure that I'll never be in the lotus position again without the breaking of a few bones. The less time I spend on the floor on a thin mat the better off I think I am these days.
Then somebody from the audience asked how to get started doing this whole meditation thing. "I mean is ten minutes enough? What about fifteen? Do I need to start at twenty minutes in order to get the benefit?" That seemed to be missing the point somehow in my mind and the monk quickly supported my opinion. "How long is less important than the fact that you reach a point of inner calm where you are relaxed and in touch with what your mind has to tell you."
Suddenly it was clear to me that I was being silly and close-minded about what meditation was all about. It had nothing to do with robes or mats or the lotus position. It was about shutting out distractions that were in the way of what your subconscious had to tell you. You just gotta get away from the barrage of information long enough to let yourself see the stuff that really matters.
I quickly identified two common circumstances where I do this. I do it when I'm out walking my dog in the neighborhood and I do it when I'm soaking in my hot tub. Most of the time anyway. I also use both of those activities to communicate (which is about 70% of what I do for work, play, and love), especially with my wife. And communication is great. It's another way I process and think. But sometimes you gotta shut up and listen to yourself.
In the hot tub it's pretty easy to get close to a sensory deprivation experience. I can close my eyes and float all stretched out (I have a big hot tub). I can focus on the sound of my breathing and relax. Think about how rare it is nowadays that we get that opportunity. We're so connected all the time that not absorbing any new information is a pretty novel experience.
When I'm out walking the dog, it's a bit different. Obviously I'm not being physically still and I'm not closing my eyes (dude, cars). But I'm in a very familiar environment. The neighbors’ houses are all right where I left them. The road is clear of obstacles. I'm not absorbing much new information.
In either of these circumstances I'm able to open my mind to whatever it wants to tell me. It's pretty busy most of the time and this is no exception. I'm not striving to turn my brain off. The point of this exercise is to stop feeding it new info and let it tell me what it learned from the info it already had. It's got important stuff to share if I'll be quiet long enough to let it.
I've noticed a few things about what it shares. My mind is pretty stubborn. If I think I'm going to relax and ruminate on how I'm going to help a client, sometimes my brain wants to talk about gaming or the vacation I'm planning. Telling it that I want to focus on the client is usually pretty unproductive in that moment. That's not what it wants to talk about. It wants to pitch me this idea about my next gaming session where the PC's are finally entering the lair of the BBEG. The smartest thing I can do is let it talk.
The other trick is learning when it is done talking and not asking it for more. What I've discovered is most of the time my mind is pretty smart about sharing the amount of info I really need. If it gives me one or two really good ideas for the BBEG lair, that is almost certainly enough. When I start racking my brain for more ideas, I'm usually trying to cram too much into the game/session/etc. See? My brain is my friend and it's trying to look after me. I need to let it do that without pressuring it for more.
Another practice I try to put into effect is recording what my brain has generated for me. It would be a terrible shame to forget the stuff it has worked so hard to produce simply because I didn’t go the extra step and put pencil to paper. Also, when I "brain dump" and get that stuff down on paper (or type it into a computer), my brain is freed up from having to keep track of it any longer. I try to do this regularly as the various notepads laying all over my desk can attest.
So I guess I’ve got a more “New Age mind” than I thought, huh? This whole thing illustrated that the way we label things has a lot of power to influence our thinking and I ought to keep a more open mind than I sometimes do. Guess I’ll have to meditate on it.
Do you meditate? How do you find that stillness so you are able to listen to what your mind is trying to tell you?
I was listening to a Buddhist monk that runs a monastery talk about the practice of meditation. They were discussing the "exquisite medicine of stillness." How quiet and calm allow you to open your mind to ideas that are roaming the vastness of the place.
I mean I get the concept but I've never really considered myself one of "those people." I don't do yoga. I'm pretty sure that I'll never be in the lotus position again without the breaking of a few bones. The less time I spend on the floor on a thin mat the better off I think I am these days.
Then somebody from the audience asked how to get started doing this whole meditation thing. "I mean is ten minutes enough? What about fifteen? Do I need to start at twenty minutes in order to get the benefit?" That seemed to be missing the point somehow in my mind and the monk quickly supported my opinion. "How long is less important than the fact that you reach a point of inner calm where you are relaxed and in touch with what your mind has to tell you."
Suddenly it was clear to me that I was being silly and close-minded about what meditation was all about. It had nothing to do with robes or mats or the lotus position. It was about shutting out distractions that were in the way of what your subconscious had to tell you. You just gotta get away from the barrage of information long enough to let yourself see the stuff that really matters.
I quickly identified two common circumstances where I do this. I do it when I'm out walking my dog in the neighborhood and I do it when I'm soaking in my hot tub. Most of the time anyway. I also use both of those activities to communicate (which is about 70% of what I do for work, play, and love), especially with my wife. And communication is great. It's another way I process and think. But sometimes you gotta shut up and listen to yourself.
In the hot tub it's pretty easy to get close to a sensory deprivation experience. I can close my eyes and float all stretched out (I have a big hot tub). I can focus on the sound of my breathing and relax. Think about how rare it is nowadays that we get that opportunity. We're so connected all the time that not absorbing any new information is a pretty novel experience.
When I'm out walking the dog, it's a bit different. Obviously I'm not being physically still and I'm not closing my eyes (dude, cars). But I'm in a very familiar environment. The neighbors’ houses are all right where I left them. The road is clear of obstacles. I'm not absorbing much new information.
In either of these circumstances I'm able to open my mind to whatever it wants to tell me. It's pretty busy most of the time and this is no exception. I'm not striving to turn my brain off. The point of this exercise is to stop feeding it new info and let it tell me what it learned from the info it already had. It's got important stuff to share if I'll be quiet long enough to let it.
I've noticed a few things about what it shares. My mind is pretty stubborn. If I think I'm going to relax and ruminate on how I'm going to help a client, sometimes my brain wants to talk about gaming or the vacation I'm planning. Telling it that I want to focus on the client is usually pretty unproductive in that moment. That's not what it wants to talk about. It wants to pitch me this idea about my next gaming session where the PC's are finally entering the lair of the BBEG. The smartest thing I can do is let it talk.
The other trick is learning when it is done talking and not asking it for more. What I've discovered is most of the time my mind is pretty smart about sharing the amount of info I really need. If it gives me one or two really good ideas for the BBEG lair, that is almost certainly enough. When I start racking my brain for more ideas, I'm usually trying to cram too much into the game/session/etc. See? My brain is my friend and it's trying to look after me. I need to let it do that without pressuring it for more.
Another practice I try to put into effect is recording what my brain has generated for me. It would be a terrible shame to forget the stuff it has worked so hard to produce simply because I didn’t go the extra step and put pencil to paper. Also, when I "brain dump" and get that stuff down on paper (or type it into a computer), my brain is freed up from having to keep track of it any longer. I try to do this regularly as the various notepads laying all over my desk can attest.
So I guess I’ve got a more “New Age mind” than I thought, huh? This whole thing illustrated that the way we label things has a lot of power to influence our thinking and I ought to keep a more open mind than I sometimes do. Guess I’ll have to meditate on it.
Do you meditate? How do you find that stillness so you are able to listen to what your mind is trying to tell you?
