Finding inspiration on a cloudy day…
I woke up to a cloudy, gray day and slowly dragged myself out of bed. I just wanted to crawl back in bed and binge watch Netflix, but I promised myself I would write this weekend. After moving through breakfast at a glacial pace, I finally got comfy on the couch and opened up my laptop.
(Long minutes of staring at a blank page…)
Not surprisingly, I had a hard time figuring out where to start. I’m feeling stuck.
How do I find inspiration when I feel stuck? I need to do something that will get my creativity flowing. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I dug up a vague memory of some research on the importance of play for adults. Google led me to Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play. According to Brown, "Play is something done for its own sake. It's voluntary, it's pleasurable, it offers a sense of engagement, it takes you out of time. And the act itself is more important than the outcome." After reading up on the benefits of play, I decided to give play a try to see if it would get me moving.
Now, what kind of play should I engage in? As I looked around my living room, my eyes landed on my piano. I had neglected the instrument for so long, I couldn’t even remember the last time I touched the keys. That was the answer I was looking for. I would play some music, just for the pleasure of it. I found Chopin’s “Raindrop” prelude to be the perfect match for the cloudy weather and my mood. After only a few minutes at the keyboard, playing the piano was producing the exact experience that Dr. Brown described. It was engaging, took me out of time, and the outcome (peppered with lots of wrong notes) didn’t matter. I was just having fun doing it. As I came to this realization, an idea for this article began to form. That was the first spark of inspiration.
The second spark came when my dear friend, Sally, called right at the moment that my idea was emerging. I told Sally about how I was playing the piano in the hope that it would give me the inspiration I needed to write this. She then shared one of the ways she connects with her inspiration. When she is having a great time doing something, she looks around for an object that she can keep as a memento to remind her of the experience.
Her moment of inspiration came when she was hiking with her brother in California. At one point, they stopped to admire a beautiful view. Sally was having one of those great “out of time moments” where she was having fun and truly enjoying herself. She described feeling happy about everything—where she was, whom she was with, and what she was doing. The hike became a vision for something she wanted to become a regular part of her life. It was something that was hard to do in Brooklyn, where she lived at the time. She would have to make some big changes to make this vision a reality. She wanted something that would remind her of this experience, so she picked up a pinecone to take home with her.
This pinecone traveled back to New York with her and sat in her office to serve as a source of inspiration. Whenever Sally started to feel stuck, she would look at that pinecone and remember the vision for her life that she was working toward. A year later, Sally is happily settled in California, where she gets to go hiking every weekend, and the pinecone has moved to a new office to inspire the next person.
I loved hearing Sally’s story, and in the sharing process, I discovered a third spark to light up my inspiration—connecting with others. Telling Sally about how I was trying to get over my writer’s block led to an amazing conversation that helped me connect a few ideas that eventually became the substance of this piece. It was a great reminder of how the important relationships in your life can be a source of inspiration.
My big takeaway from this experience: there are lots of little things you can do every day that can be inspiring. You never know when inspiration will find you. The next time you are feeling stuck, go out and play, remember, or connect. Let fun be your guide.