The Creative Principle, writing and meditation.

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I don’t always show up feeling inspired. Sometimes I go to sit at my computer and stare at the cursor blinking on a blank screen for minutes while my mind wrestles to find the words to write. There are so many angles, thoughts, feelings, pieces of life I’m living everyday that I could draw from. There are so many new lessons I’m learning about myself and the world around me. Science says that our mind processes anywhere between 60,000-80,000 thoughts per day. This means that as human beings, we are professional chronic thinkers. There are times when I feel I have so much to say that it overwhelms my mind and I tap out of the wrestling match.

I say nothing at all.

When moments like that surface, I know it’s a subtle wink from God hinting to me how busy minded I’ve become.

So I often find myself resorting to what moves the needle for me every time.

I will myself to walk out to the balcony. I gaze at the moon. I stretch my body in ways that release any tension lingering in it. I sit down on the chair. I scoot my bum towards the edge of the seat so my feet are shoulder width apart. I firmly plant them on the ground. I rest my hands gently on my thighs.

I close my eyes with ease and I meditate.

For 5 minutes, I draw my breath through my nostrils as I inhale and I relax my shoulders as I exhale. I bring all of my attention to the air that is flowing in and out underneath my nose. There may be other thoughts that appear but I acknowledge them for a moment and I draw my attention back to my breath. I listen to my mantra. I feel it’s vibration resonating through my mind and body. Then the words flow through. And they are not just any words. They are honest words. Words that make me feel connected to something greater than myself. Words that guide me into harmony with my Spirit.

Ah-ha!

What does in-spiration mean but to be in your Spirit?

When I am too busy in my mind, I am too busy for my Spirit.

How can I hear what the soul wants to say?

After all, we are Spirits having a human experience.

It is our job to devote ourselves into practice each day to train the instrument that is our mind. To teach it how to live in union with our Spirit so that we can live everyday of our lives in extraordinary ways. So we can break free from the auto-pilot routes of thinking. So we can break away from the chains of the culture and do what God moves us to do— not what we think we’re supposed to do.

To say what God moves us to say, not what we’re supposed to say. To write what God moves us to write, not what we’re supposed to write. To create how God moves us to create, not how we’re supposed to create.

This is easy to say but challenging to remember when the daily responsibilities of life requires you to respond to them.

There is constant input.

Bing!

Bing!

Bing!

Like notifications on a phone that won’t stop ringing.

What do you do to remember?

To stay in this creative flow?

Do you pack your bags and run away to a cave tucked in a mountain in the middle of no where? Do you shove aside all of your responsibilities and run the other direction?

Or will you show up and put in the work?

Will you realize that the constant input can be turned off just like the phone for a moment and stop those notifications from binging while you re-center yourself?

What no one tells you about exercising your creative energy is that it takes effort and it takes work. It doesn’t just happen. The music doesn’t make itself. The book doesn’t write itself. The art doesn’t create itself. It requires our input to become a masterful output.

It requires our daily devotion.

I once read a piece from one of my favorite authors on writing, Natalie Goldberg, and she says:

“As writers we live life twice, like a cow that eats its food once and then regurgitates it to chew and digest it again. We have a second chance at biting into our experience and examining it. ...This is our life and it's not going to last forever. There isn't time to talk about someday writing that short story or poem or novel. Slow down now, touch what is around you, and out of care and compassion for each moment and detail, put pen to paper and begin to write.”

“Writers live twice. They go along with their regular life, are as fas as anyone in the grocery store, crossing the street, getting dressed for work in the morning. But there's another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives every second at a time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and details.”

When I meditate, it does something that nothing else can do.

It creates spaces between the 60,000-80,000 thoughts in my mind.

It organizes it like a traffic officer standing in the center telling the thoughts exactly where to go.

It slows down the rate of my thinking.

It brings me into the present moment.

Being in the present moment allows me to contemplate.

Contemplation allows me to reflect.

The practice of contemplation and reflection is the background to creativity.

Toni Morrison says, "I can’t explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn’t really be a writer."

Maybe it’s not about waiting to be inspired.

Maybe it’s about learning to live in harmony with our Spirit.

And we can’t wait around and expect that to happen.

As my meditation teacher once taught me,

“Ascending human effort is always met with descending Divine Grace.”

You must put in the work to attune to your Spirit.

To listen to what it desires to say, to write, to create.

And then you do it.

You break out of your habitual, auto-pilot ways and you do it.

You can transform those 80,000 thoughts into anything you desire.

You can turn it into art or you can turn into a shadow of fear that’s always casting dark clouds over your head and blocks your sunshine.

“You must not let your life play out in the ordinary way. Do something no body else has done. Show that world that Gods Creative Principle works in you.”

-Paramahansa Yogananda

I hope you keep creating.

You do not have to be writing to create.

Every lived experience can be a creation; from the plate of food you make, to the way you move about in your day, to how you brush you teeth, to how you tie your shoes.

We must not be so busy moving with our minds that we forget to move with our Spirit.

Let us move with our Spirit, let our life be the inspiration we draw from, and see what happens. 🍵

Warmly,