Not everyone feels able to access their own creative power. Perhaps due to preconceived notions about the definitions and characteristics of creativity, or perhaps because many feel their innate childhood creativity dwindles as they navigate life in the adult world. Luckily, there are tools to help make lighting the mind’s creative candles easier, more fun and less intimidating. These top 3 best journals to increase creativity pair well with cannabis, though people of any age or predilection can enjoy the wacky prompts, soothing coloring sheets and communal spirit within the journal pages.
Let’s start by addressing a barrier that may hinder people from tapping into their pilgrim soul.
Do Non-Creative People Exist?
Part of what may make creativity allusive is an over-emphasis on the product. Often the end result—whether it be an artistic rendition, a feat of engineering or musical sensation— is the only definitive proof of the creative process. But what if the process is the whole point?
Creativity relies on the brain’s ability to follow imaginative or novel thoughts and engage with these ideas through action.
Imagine the brain as a toolbox—full of knowledge, insight, experience and inspiration gained over the course of a lifetime. Creativity is the process of using, combining and exploring these tools and seeing what comes out the other side. Judgments of the final product do not detract from the magic of the process in its entirety—highs and lows, errors and victories and everything in between.
Shifting the view of creativity to a process orientation rather than a product orientation opens the door for more people to tap into their natural creativity. However, some people do not see themselves as creatives or wish to work towards a less rigid thinking style. Luckily, there are tools outside of the brain that can help people engage with their explorative spirit.
Creativity and Cannabis
Throughout history, many of the world’s innovators integrated cannabis into their creative processes. Great minds in areas of arts, sciences, and philosophy—George Orwell, Francis Crick and Malcolm X to name a few—have all reportedly found cannabis a wonderful tool to expand their focus, generate unique ideas or allow them to see problems in novel ways.
Cannabis stimulates blood flow to the brain’s frontal lobe, allowing neurons to fire more freely, perhaps allowing for new connections or pathways to form. The frontal lobe is an essential component of creative thinking, as it is an essential neural structure involved in information processing. Cannabis is also known to deactivate areas of the brain connected to inhibition, self-censorship and cognitive-emotional control. The quieting of this brain region can help people engage with their thoughts with less judgement, allowing ideas to arise and evolve freely.
Pairing creative journals with cannabis can allow some people a shortcut to more fun, focused or free-flowing experience.
Pilgrim Soul Creative Journal
Shawn Gold, the founder of Pilgrim Soul, sought to help people tap into their natural creative thinking, allowing them to reinvent, experiment and take hold of the competitive edge that creativity cultivates. Thinking communally, the Pilgrim Soul team seeks to empower everyone—not just artists—to reconnect with their creative abilities while also empowering marginalized artists by showcasing their work and setting up endowments.
The namesake of the Pilgrim Soul Creative Journal draws upon the poetry of William Butler Yeats:
“But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, / And loved the sorrow of your changing face.”
Yeat’s outlines the dynamic multiplicity of the human spirit—dubbed the pilgrim soul—and through exercises and prompts tailored towards reflective perspective-taking, this journal honors his sentiment of human expansiveness.
What to Expect From This Journal
Built on research-proven creative thinking techniques, this journal has four areas of focus.
- Creative Imagination: Explore new ideas without the self-critic
- Creative Focus: Solve problems and think deeply
- Creative Awareness: Learn to better appreciate the outside world
- Creative Reflection: Acquire an empathetic approach to self discovery and community consciousness
Whether it’s making birds out of squiggles, drafting a new set of admission criteria for a hypothetical top university, or reflecting on the intersection of cultural tensions and the idealized self, this journal boasts a wide range of exercises. The rules? Avoid: perfection, judgement, self-doubt and default thinking. Between exercises, trippy coloring pages allow for a relaxing break before diving back into the creative journey.
What if the best way to increase creativity is taking the rules, dousing them in ketchup, rolling them in shredded pieces of wrapping paper and lighting them on fire? Canadian conceptual artist Keri Smith embraces chaotic liberation in her brainchild journal: aptly titled, Wreck This Journal.
Often the unencumbered childhood instincts of fantastical dreaming, destruction or messiness is dampened as kids progress through school systems meant to prepare them for proper adult society. This journal crushes any notions of properness and allows for free and wild creative action.
This journal is meant to be carried around with its owner, ready for whenever creative inspiration strikes. Each page starts with a prompt:
- Color this page red
- Spill things on this page
- Rip this page out and make a paper airplane
- Chew this page
- And the order, discretion and participation is up to the journal holder. Let go of the need to be perfect and lean into the chaotic frenzy of creativity
If shattering illusions, deep thinking or making a bit of a mess isn’t on the evening’s agenda, The Stoner Activity Book is a perfect companion for a mellow creative experience—best served with something green.
The coloring pages, word searches and mazes so often handed out as activities in classrooms are redesigned and updated by author Susan Byron for the stoner adult demographic.
The first pages have space for free form doodling and notes, as well as surveys about what flavor high the journal user is currently experiencing. Are they buzzing? Hungry yet? Next there are a variety of sudoku, word search and maze puzzles—all themed around the world of cannabis
The Stoner Activity Book is a great way to engage conversation with friends and has silly stoner trivia sure to keep the giggles going. Relaxing is an important part of self care and these simple activities can add more ease to a calming night in or help stimulate the brain before a brainstorming session.
Would you want to try any of these journals? Let us know in the comments below if using a creative journal has ever helped you tap into your expansive self.
