Creators, Let’s Redefine Inspiration
And the unconscious mind, while we're at it
I’m so sick of hearing of inspiration as something “out there.”
I’m sick of thinking this.
One thing I’ve learned on my journey these past few years is that it’s definitely not “out there.”
Quite the opposite—it’s fully inside you, all the time. It is not mysteriously birthed from a capricious muse. It’s a product of YOU—your experiences, thoughts, feelings, the million random bits of life you witness every day.
The good news is: Inspiration is entirely up to you.
The bad news: It’s entirely up to you.
And wait, there’s even more news: Every thing you experience that might cause you to be inspired in the first place is also entirely up to you.
Let me explain how I got here.
This Peculiar State of Being
First of all, let’s be clear on what inspiration is.
There’s a huge sliding scale.
On the easy end, it’s an “a-ha” moment, like when you suddenly remember that word you were looking for.
In the middle, you’re sitting at your desk, unaware of time passing because you’re so engrossed in your work.
At its more sublime levels, your mind gets blown.
In other words, inspiration is not just a eureka moment—it’s a state of being. It’s what science calls “flow.”
When I’m in this state, I feel engaged and vibrant. I don’t think as much—answers just come. I feel clear, confident, and calm.
For most people, it’s usually accidental. But you can do it on purpose. It can even, with practice, become an ongoing state.
Scientists are studying flow states with the idea that we have to “bypass” the conscious mind and “unlock” the unconscious.
The vast majority of our current science is very insistent on objectivity. It’s not having any of this subjectivity shit, even when it pops up inconveniently in quantum mechanics or medical science. It’s just there, and we have to ignore it.
But you are subjective, and understanding inspiration also means valuing your subjective experience. So yes, it’s great to look at the science, and we’re going to do that, but we’re going to need a lot more than that.
For now, science has one thing right: Inspiration is connected to the unconscious mind.
The Unconscious Needs a Major Re-Think
I prefer to call this space the Inner Self.
As a writer I have kept up a steady relationship with my Inner Self—but largely without realizing it. I always imagined that inside me was a vast storehouse of information that was made up of every experience I’d ever had. When I write, I am somehow calling forth that information and shaping it into a story.
Science talks about it this way: in flow, you bypass the prefrontal cortex and allow a direct channel to unconscious processing.
Writers talk about it this way: coffee + laptop + blank page = that novel you just read.
Storytelling always involves the unconscious mind. Writers know this implicitly: when you start writing, stuff just pours out like it’s being birthed from a magic storytelling machine.
You might think that, because I’ve been writing for many years, I’d be much better at flow than most people. And I would agree, except for one thing.
Occasionally, that magic storytelling machine grinds to a halt.
Writers, especially those whose livelihoods depend on flow, are not necessarily better at it than other people, but only more determined to find out exactly what goes wrong and how to fix it.
And that is where I found myself a few years ago, massively blocked on a project that meant so, so much to me.
I see now that this block was absolutely essential to my development, but at the time it created a profound conflict, which triggered an unflagging interest in figuring out my Inner Self.
I spent a couple of years investigating this space—through writing, creativity, research, and discussion—and the more I looked at my Inner Self, the more I realized that our current theories about this space did not match my actual experience.
When we say “unconscious mind,” this is what we tend to think:
It is hard to access.
It is a closed box.
It is filled with memories, instincts, and suppressed urges.
It is a negative space where we lock away all the bad stuff.
It turns out that your Inner Self is far richer and more interesting than that! Every point of my journey has led me to discard each one of these ideas and explore what is really going on.
The Inner Self is not a closed box filled with dusty old treasures. It is an open, active, intelligent, and intuitive space. It is a tremendously powerful resource that you’ve probably been cut off from, thanks to toxic and outdated cultural beliefs.
In fact, the whole notion of an unconscious mind is just the tip of the iceberg. It taps into a much bigger space that might properly be called a universal intelligence.
Most importantly, this Inner Space is YOU, and no one has the right to cut you off from that.
Inspo
Next time you sit down at your desk, remind yourself that inspiration is not something “out there.”
It is a state of being that occurs when we access our Inner Selves, a vast and powerful “unconscious” realm that is filled with hidden superpowers.
Inspiration is literally you. It is a native part of who and what you are.
If you would like to learn more about how this all works, subscribe to Story Medicine for an upcoming series of essays that explore critical new insights about the Inner Self, inspiration, and how to fully unleash your ultimate, creative self.