Inspiration
I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration and its association with creativity – not just in the “creative” or performance industries, but in life in general. Inspiration comes in a plethora of forms, doesn’t it?
Can you actively seek out inspiration, or is that too aggressive an approach? You can’t force inspiration to come to you – it just happens… right?
Where do we think inspiration lives?
Perhaps there is some truth in the idea that inspiration “arrives” when it’s ready. But it’s also worth asking whether the way we think about inspiration makes it feel more elusive than it needs to be.
Is inspiration “out there”, somewhere separate from us? Does it come to us, or do we go to it? What if our whole approach is from the wrong direction?
Maybe true inspiration begins inside us, and we gain access to it through how we interact with the world – through attention, curiosity and the willingness to see things differently.
How our habits can get in the way
What if the way we’re interacting with the world is actually inhibiting our access to inspiration? On one level, we are all connected – not just as humans, but with everything around us. We’re all made of atoms, molecules and energy in different configurations.
We tend to compartmentalise our lives into neat boxes. That can be useful for organising diaries and responsibilities, but it can also shape how our brains sort experience. The conditioning we undergo to be accepted in whatever society, industry or group we’re moving through – social, cultural, professional – can make it feel risky to see or say something differently.
“Thinking outside the box” has become the catchphrase for defying convention and finding inspiration beyond collectively received boundaries. But what if there was never a box in the first place?
What if there wasn’t a box?
What if you just thought? What if you allowed yourself to think differently to everyone else in your company, your social circle, your family? Would that be acceptable?
Would you have greater access to your inspiration? To seeing the world in a completely different way? To noticing inspiration in everything and in nothing – in the everyday as much as in the obviously “creative”?
Letting go of the imagined box doesn’t mean disrespecting other people’s norms. It means noticing where those norms live in you, and giving yourself permission to step sideways from them when something in you is curious.
Let inspiration in
Let inspiration in. Let yourself see inspiration in something you’ve never considered inspiring before. Look at the world with new eyes, just for a few minutes.
See what is around you. Notice colour, texture, sound, light, silence. Take a moment to breathe… to inspire.
And if you want to keep exploring how voice, creativity and presence intersect in your work and life, you can find us at: