Killers Of Inspiration. Part 1: Fear

Hello and welcome to this talk on the killers of inspiration.

The first one we are going to study is fear.

First of all,

Why is fear a killer of inspiration?

Why is there this primal conflict between the two?

Well our inspiration works very much like nature.

To be precise,

Inspiration is the process of seeding an idea in our head,

Mind or in the whole being and then nurturing it into something more material and something that can even yield fruit.

So it's much like gardening or maybe even the process of natural growth of plants.

The moment when the seed is planted into the ground or when the flower is pollinated,

The moment when new life is created or the potential for new life is created,

Potential for new growth is the moment of inspiration.

And in our,

In the world,

It is reflected with an idea or a yearning,

A feeling being suddenly planted into our mind.

And sometimes it is an unconscious process,

We don't even notice it,

But later when we water and nurture this new idea with thinking,

With conscious thinking process,

Contemplative process,

Brainstorming discussions,

Observations and even bodily practices,

This seed of inspiration grows.

Our imagination helps a lot with this process.

When we see the world with child's eyes,

We are the most potent for imagination and for this initial stage of inspirational growth.

So when the idea is very young,

It's just a seed.

It's our first contact with the idea that will later be our inspiration for some creative work.

For example,

You have seen a new material if you are an artist and it's your first contact with a new material.

You've always been drawing sketches on white paper and now you have seen that it is actually possible to draw on colored paper with some contrasting colors and sketch,

You know,

With those white liners,

Let's say on red or dark indigo paper.

And this is the moment when you got inspired and then you are starting to imagine how it might be,

What kind of tools you will need and playing around with all of this.

And the same logic works for your inspiration for new businesses,

New relationships.

So some first seed of an idea,

Just allowing the possibility of something new in your life and then playing around with how it could work in practice.

So here is the stage of you being childlike because you are not an expert,

You are not knowledgeable yet and you are inspired to try,

To play,

To fail,

But not fail falling from a height,

But fail like a child that is learning to walk,

You know,

Falling just from 40 centimeters height and landing softly and laughing it out and trying to stand up again.

And often,

If lucky,

Being supported by others,

By your family and friends and loved ones or by your colleagues and peers,

Community.

So basically playing.

And this is when we are most vulnerable to fear because being childlike in our creative process allows us to be very open and receptive both to the positive and optimistic sides of life and all the possibilities of creativity,

But also to the negative and the scary and the possibility of things going wrong.

And this is why here fear is the most dangerous enemy of creativity and inspiration because our mind may become occupied,

Preoccupied with negative scenarios instead of being occupied with the creative process.

Fear sucks out energy from our mind because actually,

If you look closer,

Fear is just this shadow,

Negative reflection of imagination.

It's imagining negative things that could happen.

And often it is useful when you want to prevent something negative from happening,

A healthy little dose of fear.

It's not wrong.

You don't need to exclude fear from your life.

It's like a spice.

But when it's overwhelming you,

It will stop your creative process.

You will switch from this relaxed and fruitful state into fight or flight response and you will not be able to spend your energy on anything rather than keeping yourself safe even if there is no immediate danger.

And often when we dwell in the imaginary world,

The immediate dangers,

They just don't exist for us and all the dangers are smoke and mirrors and just those feelings of something that just may go wrong and you don't have an enemy to fight or fly from,

Flee from,

You just have your mind that is creating those ghosts for you to fear and your inspiration is completely overshadowed by them.

Your imagination is working for them and that's what you need to stop.

That's how you take the power away from the monster.

You start by getting out of your mind.

So stop watering it.

Stop watering the flower bed if weeds are growing in it.

Get out of it.

Get the weeds out of it and then you can nurture and revive the surviving flowers.

Get out of your mind into your body.

Breathe out.

Take a pause and breathe out again.

Breathe.

Your breath is the first expression of your body that can help you get out of your mind.

It is this regulator of your attention.

When you concentrate your breath in your body,

Trying to travel through your body with your breath,

Expanding your belly with the breath in,

Allowing the breath to flow freely through your lungs,

You're inevitably dragging your attention out of your head because actually you don't breathe into your head,

You breathe into your body and you are dragging the attention out of your head into your body and this is the first step to recover from the fear thinking.

But you need to continue.

If you feel that you're unable to willingly stop being in the fear modality,

It's good to have some physical exercise to warm up your body,

To feel this living vivid energy and empowered with it,

You can consciously return to thinking process but already from a constructive and empowered way,

Position.

And what to do to direct this power that you have accumulated using your body,

Using body practices,

You have accumulated it in the area of your heart and your head and you are ready to face the monster of your fear.

Actually it is in feeding the opposite side of this fear,

Not the stingy and dangerous and toxic one but the fluffy and pleasant and exciting one and we remember that the opposite side,

This reflection of fear in the world of optimism is imagination.

So when you feel more empowered,

Return to the creative process with imagination and allow the possibility of a good outcome.

In this stage it's important to do something constructive,

Anything,

Take paper and draw whatever comes to your mind,

Without judgements,

Sing,

Put on a song that you really like and sing along loudly,

Write,

Create this flow of writing or maybe a short story just about characters that you see around you,

Look around,

You see a cop or a hair clip or some dog running,

Fetching a stick outside of your window,

Anything,

Any topic,

Take it and develop it into your creative process,

Whatever it may be,

The art of word,

The visual art,

The art of creating sounds,

Try to capture this moment of empowerment right after you have come back into your body and develop the creativity that you already have in you and then repeat this practice as long as needed,

As often as needed to create this positive culture,

It's like microbiotic culture but only not in your gut but in your brain,

In your imagination,

Try to overpower the culture of fear that has already spread its spores,

Its presence there in your mind,

You cannot really extract every little seed of fear but you can water and nourish and cherish seeds of positive inspiration and then they will grow and they will occupy more and more space in the garden of your mind and they will force fear out of it,

Your task here is not to create something perfect,

Something that you will be proud of but to use your inspiration in small but positive doses without judgment and to create this beautiful mess of a garden of different plants,

Bushes,

Whatever,

Just not the toxic weed of fear,

Everything that will scare it away,

You need to take the soil of your mind and occupy every little patch of it with some life that is not fear and when this ecosystem is created,

There is a high chance that your inspiration will develop there organically because while you are repeating each day some creative tasks over and over again but with different topics or maybe trying different tools but always being playful,

Childlike,

You will learn not to fear creativity and inspiration will come easier to you and if it doesn't come naturally,

At least you will have healthy foundation to later explore some tools for awakening your inspiration,

Maybe traveling,

Exposing yourself to new experiences,

New topics,

Challenging yourself to be inspired,

Inevitably sooner or later seeds of inspiration will fall on the ground of your mind,

Of your creative potential and the question is what they will find there,

Toxic weeds of fear or beautiful,

Fruitful and supportive garden of your unjudgmental,

Open-minded,

Childlike,

Playful creativity and imagination that you have cultivated by diligently returning from your overwhelmed cycles of fear in your thinking into your body that is your guide,

Your harbor and then by creating small simple things every day or every other day but repeatedly until the garden of your mind truly has a great potential for inspiration thank you for joining me in this talk,

If the topic of inspiration resonates with you and you'd like to join in the discussion or you have your own experience with awakening your inspiration leave comments and I will be glad to address your comments and questions in my future talks thank you again and be well