I had a dream the other day – one of those dreams you have in the early morning hours when it’s still dark, but your dream-state is at its most vivid. In my dream, I was at a workshop. It was some kind of art or design workshop, I think, held in a (pre-Covid) crowded room full of serious shadowy men, and I was really excited to be attending.
The person leading the workshop started speaking. At some point, he asked the audience to share, and I eagerly volunteered. Everyone turned to look at me, and halfway through speaking, I realized that what I was saying wasn’t interesting to any other person there. I shut my mouth and shrank back against the wall. Then I realized that this workshop wasn’t even a thing I should have been attending; not only had I mis-spoke, I had completely mis-read its purpose. I was in the wrong place entirely. I started hunting for an exit, trying to remove myself from the room without disturbing the people who were supposed to be there.
I found myself standing in a damp cobblestone alley outside a door with an EXIT sign hanging over it. And I realized, even before I’d woken up from the dream, that I’d walked myself right out of a room I’d decided I wanted to be in.
In his book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams*, Matthew Walker points to studies that suggest the last hour or so of sleep before we wake up is dedicated to helping the brain process emotions. My brain, obviously, was dealing with the idea of self-selecting myself away from something I wanted, because of perceived social pressures. It’s something I deal with all the time; I create semi-anonymous ‘safe spaces’ on the internet where I can post art and engage with strangers because I often can’t bear the pressure of well-meaning comments from in-real-life people who don’t ‘get’ what I do.
I am getting better at it. Slowly. This dream, the one described above, was so clear it almost felt like a message: Stop walking yourself out of the room.
A phrase that’s been going through my mind a lot lately, imposter syndrome notwithstanding, is this:
It’s only part of a phrase which you’re probably familiar with: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” the Third Law of Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author and explorer. (Clarke’s First Law is “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong,” and Clarke’s Second Law is “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”)
And he’s not wrong, about the sufficiently advanced technology, I mean; hence the popularity of the phrase. Airplanes, to me, are indistinguishable from magic. A modern magic carpet that picks you up in one area of the world and whisks you off to another, safely enclosed in a climate-controlled cabin with a bathroom and snacks and an in-flight movie? YES PLEASE. I love everything about air travel and I can’t wait to do it again safely.
The problem with the phrase is, I don’t think we apply it enough.
Take a deep breath, because here’s where it’s going to get woo-woo.
I’ve been doing a deep dive into Law of Attraction territory for the past couple of years now (mostly Abraham Hicks videos on YouTube), because it speaks to a lot of the mental health management we need to allow/accomplish in order to be successful as creators. I have a feeling Abraham Hicks ideas underpin a lot of success-guru fare these days; there’s an invisible code of catch-phrases that you start to recognize if you listen to them long enough.
The thing people get confused about with LoA principles is that it can seem like if we didn’t successfully pick that million-dollar lottery ticket, LoA either must not work, or we aren’t “applying” it correctly. We didn’t wave our woo-woo hands in a fancy enough manner to cast the spell. This is where most people yell “Fraud!” and get the hell outta Dodge.
But the Law of Attraction is not a thing that’s ever turned off. It’s us, creating our lives. It’s like gravity, and you don’t “apply” gravity. We are constantly re-creating our lives and attracting that re-creation to ourselves. If things aren’t changing, they say, it’s because you’re looking too hard at what already exists and creating the same thing over and over again.
But what does this have to do with mental health management for creators? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Because the best answer Abraham Hicks has for every question is just, earnestly and sincerely, to somehow try to feel better. To be kind to yourself, to love yourself, to realize that you’ll never get it ‘done’ and that there is no right answer. To meditate for a little bit, and to pet cats, or dogs, so you can get in the flow and be inspired to creative action.
The other thing Abraham Hicks gives you in spades is permission to tackle your dreams and a confidence in your own guidance system – to listen to yourself and have confidence in your own feelings. How many of us have had to slowly and painfully re-learn this? How wonderful when we do! It’s the banishment spell for imposter syndrome.
Do I get it perfect every day? Heck no. Am I learning to right myself before my mental health goes into a downward spiral? You bet. Am I meditating regularly? I’m trying to, notwithstanding a small cannonball of a three-year old who’s decided that a comfy quilt around Mom’s shoulders is the perfect tent to play squirrel tag in.
People are wising up to the fact that ‘hustle’ isn’t the solution. From the outside, hustle looks like momentum, but it isn’t the same thing at all. You can’t fix things by grinding or by hammering away at the problem, because the frequency of the problem doesn’t match the frequency of the solution. You have to let go of the problem, turn away from it for a little bit, so you can receive the inspiration that is the solution. Great thinkers throughout time have known and articulated this; I just don’t believe it’s ever in the history of mankind been packaged up as a series of convenient, free audio clips on YouTube.
*That* is indistinguishable from magic.
Magic is not just a thing we don’t understand, although some days I feel I understand it a little better now. It’s a thing we can’t fool by pretending to be what everyone else thinks we should be. It’s not an instant band-aid; sometimes magic takes time and serendipity and, yes, work. But it is real.
Gravity is indistinguishable from magic.
Money as an exchange of energy is indistinguishable from magic.
Creating things, whether it be with a paintbrush, or code, or a hammer, is indistinguishable from magic.
Let’s go make something.
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