The Six Elements of Circular Sounds are Guided Imagery, Storytelling, Games, Music, Movement and Mandala. The combination of these stimulates the natural creativity locked away in the right side of the brain, bypassing the habits of the conscious mind and opening up possibilities for problem solving in new and exciting ways. No matter the challenge, the use of these six Elements generates surprising and unique answers to the question – “Is there another way to look at this?” – which is in itself, the wellspring of creativity

Guided Imagery
Not to be confused with hypnosis, Guided Imagery is a process using visualization and relaxation techniques to access the subconscious mind. It’s a great way to get the ball rolling as it can help uncover thoughts and ideas that you never knew you had. The physical effect on the body is to calm the nervous system, slowing the heart rate and regulating the breath. This allows us to drop out of the thinking mind which analyses everything we do, and enter into the heart of the operating system. Guided Imagery is a tool that empowers you to rewrite your programmes and to erase those that no longer serve you. It’s a great way to help learning, reduce stress and at the same time promote success in what is important to you.

Storytelling
There are stories everywhere – on the TV, in magazines, in advertising, at work. We spend our lives listening to stories and telling them to others. Sharing our stories is how we get to know each other. This is because stories are more than just narrative – they involve emotion, opinion and passion – concepts that easily grab our attention and help us to empathise. We are constantly creating stories about ourselves and about others so as to give meaning to our lives and to understand our place within the world. Sometimes those stories limit us. Actively changing our stories and telling them in new ways allows us to change our attitudes towards situations that are holding us back, and helps us to see life from a different perspective.

Games
Play is the way we learn new skills and assimilate new ideas. When we play and have fun we are far more receptive to learning than when anxious. Games with simple rules can help us approach problems from a different perspective and laughter can relax us enough to allow our creativity to flow. Studies have shown that we are more likely to think creatively when in a good mood – though anxiety sometimes stimulates focus, it doesn’t help us to think out of the box. Playing games brings people together and focuses them on a common goal, often revealing skills they never knew they had. They are the best way to build teams, as it’s far easier to work with people you can have fun with and enjoy being around.

Mandala
Mandala is an ancient form of visual art, using shapes and colours placed harmoniously within a circle. Representing wholeness, every culture in history has placed importance upon the circle’s unifying power and it can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself. Carl Jung believed that creating mandalas helped people make the unconscious conscious and it has been said that awareness of the mandala may have the potential of changing how we see ourselves, our planet, and perhaps even our own life purpose. In the creative mandala process, ideas are represented by shapes, colours, and patterns that arise from the subconscious and speak to us through the language of symbols. Being free to create our mandala without censorship or judgement, it becomes an excellent tool for expressing ideas in a very different way. Designing mandalas in a group is a wonderful metaphor for discovering the place of each individual within a greater whole and can be a very powerful representation of the group purpose itself. The created mandala remains a tangible piece of art which becomes an icon for the individual, or group.

Music
Music works on the individual in subtle ways, both lifting the spirits and regulating the autonomic nervous system. It bypasses the rational mind and goes straight to the emotions, winding us up or calming us down depending on what we are listening to. We can therefore actively use music to express concepts and ideas without having to explain in words what we mean. Furthermore music has the capacity to combine many complex ideas into one experience. With harmony the human brain is able to distinguish all the different instruments in an orchestra and experience them as a pleasing symphonic whole, rather than a jumble of noises. When we are actively engaged in making music we can use this facility of harmony to understand how different elements fit together and complement each other. Creating music in groups is also a wonderful way of bringing people closer together – when we participate in shared rhythm and harmony we literally become one in the service of the song.

Movement
Movement shifts the focus of activity from the intellectual to the experiential. When we find movements to express other things, for example music, we add a physical dimension to the activity, which stimulates the Limbic Brain and aids learning. Adding movement to words or music really helps us to remember them. We begin to tap into the muscle memory, which is linked directly to the subconscious. Using the body can really free the mind. Once we co-ordinate our movements with others we can develop a shared, group memory which is very powerful in creating community.