Hitting the Wall

Here I am with this decision to be a sentinel at the gateway of consciousness, a mighty commitment indeed! And I suddenly found myself knee deep in the sludge that lies at the base of a new creative mountain.

I was going into the video studio to do a series of demos for our anti bullying program, Breaking Out of the World Game. And I was in a panic. I felt like a total failure. I didn’t know my script (which I have taught in nearly 500 hundred schools).

Like the Magic Eight Ball where words keep surfacing out of the black ink, my feelings and thoughts exploded out of the dark onto my mental screen. My world spun out of control. ”Not good enough!” “I can’t do it!” “I feel lost.” ”Where do I start?”

Here I was touting mind management and I couldn’t even manage one thought. What happened!? I hit the wall and I found myself back in my own ground zero.

The only viable thought in the whole thing was really, “Where do I start?” But it took me a while to get there.

When I finally did get there, I took a proactive stance. I went back to the creativity template I had burned into my mental hard drive 30 years ago.

1. Preparation – Engage in the process. Be willing to concentrate fully on the subject. Struggle with it. Visualize it. This feeds everything into the sub-conscious mind. (In my case I had to review the material and think deeply about how to do the video without an audience.)
2. Incubation –  Let it all go. Relax. Change the subject. Play and sleep usually work for me. (In this case, I went to bed. I was going into production the next day.)
3. Breakthrough – This usually comes as an ‘AHA’ experience, like Archimedes ‘Eureka’! This breakthrough cannot be forced and arrives in its own time.

In my case, I got up on the day of the shoot and I was in ‘the zone’. I had an extremely successful day in the video studio.

But I could have done it without all of the panic and the negative self-talk. I could have had more wisdom about it and caught it by the tail before it caught me.

I was reminded of Ashley in The Operator’s Manual for Planet Earth. I had fallen asleep and lost the plot again!

I’ve recommitted to my initial goal. Staying awake on Planet Earth is a challenge, especially when the old deep habits kick in!

I’d love to hear you experiences…. I’m going to keep tracking mine and sharing the experience!