TAPPING THE CREATIVE UNIVERSE

I emailed Mr. Jim Paredes to say hi. I told him about this blog. He was kind enough to reply and he thinks blogging is really cool. He invited me to the seminar which he gives regularly - I think he has given 9 seminars already. The seminar is entitled "Tapping the Creative Universe". The amount is pretty high, but it's really worth it, according to a friend who attended last year. I hope I'll be able to attend - it depends if I include it in my budget for this month. The next seminar (July) will be held in Loyola Heights. There'll be another one in August at Rockwell. I asked for the flyer so that I can find out about the details, and so that I can post it here in my blog.

I don't think this seminar is only for artists. It's for everyone. After all, we are all creative beings. I don't believe that artists are the only ones who are creative. They may be more creative than others, but that doesn't mean the others are not creative at all. And we need creativity in our daily lives, whether at work, school or at home. It adds the "ooommmppphhh" in our lives.

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TAPPING THE CREATIVE UNIVERSE
“Get in touch with your inner creativity and transform every day into an adventure!”

July 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25
Time: 7 to 9pm
Phildra Center
59 C. Salvador, Loyola Heights, QC
P 3,000.00

Call 436-0710/ 426-5375/ 929-0230/ 426-3208

"Jim's TCU workshop came at a time in my life when I needed to experience it. As with anything in this world, you know when something is knocking at your heart's door, and KNOCKING HARD, that you just dive into it and simply wait for the delicious revelations that follow.... Jim's TCU workshop strengthened my faith in my power to create things even more." ---Chiqui Pineda (singer, mother, now also a radio commentator)

"The TCU workshop put me in touch with my creative self. I learned to accept myself as an artist and more importantly to be happy where I am as an artist at this point in time. It helped ease up a lot of pressures I had imposed on myself thereby allowing me to just keep creating." ---Michelle Gemperle (painter, mother)

"After attending the TCU workshop with Jim Paredes, the universe does not swallow me in the great ethereal anymore but cradles me in the placenta of potentialities."---Virginia Espiritu (Teacher)

This is a cutting edge workshop that will help uncover, identify and set aside the blocks that stand in the way of creativity in everyday life. By actively engaging self-defeating attitudes and instilling practices that will help the participant overcome them, the workshop hopes to awaken the inner joy and natural creative impulse each person possesses.

Through 6 two-hour sessions, the workshop will employ practical techniques developed by Jim Paredes plus those found in “The Artist’s Way” (by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan). These have proven to be effective in dealing with blocked individuals in any profession or situation in life, most especially artists who find themselves in a creative rut. An added plus is Jim’s sharing of his enormous wealth of personal experience as an active multi-faceted artist of more than thirty years.

The sessions will extensively deal with issues of creativity through interactive exercises that will get to the core of the blockage and the introduction of new disciplines and practices for everyday use.

The Syllabus

Week 1
· Creative affirmations vs. negative beliefs
· Introduction of “morning pages”, “artist dates” (activities that reinforce the artist in us)
· Seeing the good in us and accepting it
· Dealing with criticism
· Love and Fear
· Excavating buried selves/ dreams
· Exercises in “forbidden joys”
· Instituting changes in life
· Imposing “deprivations”

Week 2
· Getting real
· Meeting the Creator
· Abundance
· Recognizing the Power of Now
· Dealing with perfectionism
· Archeology
· Fear and creative U-turns
· Blasting the blocks
· The 48 hour journey

The reason for the large number of sessions (6) is to be able to give the participants the opportunities to apply the lessons to their everyday lives and progress in a guided manner until the practices are successfully instilled. The workshop promises to be fun, exciting, inspiring, and substantive.

*Jim Paredes is a successful practicing creative engaged in songwriting, record producing, arranging, and performing with the durable and talented APO Hiking Society. He is also a lecturer and has done work for various advertising campaigns. He recently became a published photographer and an author (Humming In My Universe-Random Takes on Everything and Between Blinks). He is currently teaching at the Ateneo De Manila Communication Arts Department.