Aligning Your Creations With Your True Path

In this episode, we explore: How to sit with inspiration before rushing into action. The art of listening inwardly: what is truly in alignment for you to create next? How to sense energy, intuition, and vision in meditation to guide your creative process. The difference between wisdom-led creation and ego-driven productivity. Why small, intentional steps are more powerful than overwhelming grand visions.

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome back to the Conscious Creator Podcast.

This is the second episode.

And in this episode,

I would love to go over with you how to go from meditation to creation.

So we all have so many ideas.

There's this quote that I love,

Inspiration is a fleeting commodity.

It dissipates quickly.

Maybe we get inspired by an idea,

Some kind of creative thought.

And then over hours,

Days,

Weeks,

We're like,

Do I even want to do that anymore?

That was really cool on Tuesday night,

But Thursday morning,

I'm kind of over it.

So as creators,

Whether you're a teacher,

A healer,

A guide,

Some kind of mindful,

Conscious entrepreneur,

How do you know what it is that you should create and how do we go through the actual process of closing our eyes,

Meditating,

Finding that answer,

And then bringing it out into the world,

Into creation.

So I want to start by just sharing a tiny bit about my journey.

When I lived in Hawaii and I ran a nonprofit meditation mysticism school,

Which I mentioned in the first episode,

I was always kind of poor.

I worked really hard.

And when I went off on my own,

I went to live with my brother,

Let me live with him for free while I created my first online courses.

And I'll never forget,

My first idea was to create this company called Grounded Mind,

Which was a really great name.

I think my brother actually came up with it.

And my first thought was,

I'm going to create a year long course,

New content every week for a year.

And although the inspiration was great,

To have a year long course is great.

That was a really bad idea in terms of where to start.

I was trying to bite off more,

As I say,

More than I could chew.

And so I was going from a place of,

Or coming from a place of,

I need to create something big.

And a lot of us fall into that trap.

So I learned my lesson the hard way.

And I would love to help you maybe not learn such a hard lesson,

Or maybe you already have.

So when it comes to having an idea,

First of all,

Where did that idea come from?

Did it come from comparing yourself to others,

From looking at what other people in the world are doing and wanting something similar?

Did it come from a need for money or attention?

Or does the idea come from some deep place inside you that is really aligned with who you are?

And that is the fundamental question.

So if you're not aligned with who you are,

If your energy isn't aligned,

If you're not in the world in a way that's an integrity,

Then it's going to be difficult to find those ideas that really work for you and bring them out into the world.

So we have to master ourselves and our character first,

And then we could birth something into the world.

If you're listening to this,

You're probably somewhat farther along on this path than the general population,

And you know this.

But I have to caveat with whatever we're going to do by saying that you have to work on and master yourself first.

So when we actually close our eyes and perhaps ask the question,

What is it that I want to create next?

And that is the key,

Next,

Not ultimately.

There might be a huge vision.

Maybe you want to create an epic Avenger series of movies,

But you got to start with a short film.

Maybe you want to write 10 books on enlightenment,

But you might have to start with a blog or an essay.

And then you get on Substack and you start practicing and creating.

Or you want to be a popular teacher on Insight Time or whatever your thing is.

And you get really inspired and you want to conquer the whole world.

So we always have to step back and ask the question,

What is it that I'm aligned with creating next?

And that just might be like 1%,

1% of what you're going to create throughout your life.

And there's much less pressure that way.

And it's much more likely you're going to learn and not expend too many resources,

Time and energy on going down the wrong path.

It might not even be the wrong path.

Sometimes we just,

We create something,

We share it with the world,

And then we move on to the next thing.

It doesn't always have to be the biggest thing.

So for me,

When I'm deciding,

You know,

What course am I going to create next?

Where do I want to teach a retreat?

Do I want to do a long form training or,

You know,

Something recorded for Insight Timer?

I built an app once and that was aggressive.

You know,

It came out fine,

But it took a lot of money and energy and time and more resources than I should have put in at the time.

So that's a lesson I'll do a whole episode about.

So when we close our eyes to meditate and we sit still and we ask the question,

What is it that's in alignment for me to create next?

And we just sit still with that question,

Right?

Nice and grounded,

Nice and still,

And just allow whatever feeling,

Sense,

Or image to arise in our mind's eye,

In our body.

And just almost,

If you've ever gone surfing,

And by the way,

I'm a bad surfer,

But I did live in Hawaii,

So I've gone a few times.

But when you're on the water and you're just sitting with your belly on the board and you're paddling,

And you could feel the waves just up and down,

You know,

Kind of move over them as you're getting further out into the water,

You're just kind of getting a vibe and a sense of the energy of the ocean that day.

And it's just,

You know,

Up and down,

You're kind of buoying.

And that's where you want to be in the beginning of a meditation.

You ask the question and then you just start to get a sense of the energy.

So you kind of energetically touch whatever's coming up from asking the question.

Oh,

There's confusion here or doubt or uncertainty,

Fear of failure,

Or that,

You know,

There's some energy around what I think other people think I should do.

So you might have to work with some of those layers of energy,

But those might also be some of the energies that you use to create the next thing.

So if you're somebody that guides meditation and you close your eyes and you ask the question,

What's the next thing I should create?

And you just feel a whole lot of frustration.

Well,

Then maybe you mold that into a meditation or a series or a blog or a video on dealing with frustration.

So you sit,

You meditate through the frustration,

You get some wisdom out of it,

And then you create that into something.

That's one angle.

There's a quote that I love,

Our anxiety and wisdom are made from the same material.

So if you learn to work through energy,

You can take whatever you're going through,

Whatever block that you feel and have,

And as you work through it and master it,

You can turn it into a form of creation to help others.

So that is something that I do as a teacher.

I observe things in the world,

In my students,

In myself,

And then I mold that into what I want to teach.

On a mechanical level,

As we meditate,

So that's one piece.

We ask the question,

We sense the energy.

Going a bit deeper,

If you sit still long enough,

If you sit still well,

Yes,

You can sit still well,

You might have a clear vision.

There might actually be an image in your mind's eye,

Maybe like a book pops up and you're like,

Whoa,

I just got hit with a deep inspiration to write a book or to teach a retreat or to build some kind of business.

And when you get a vision,

You want to feel the contextual kind of quality,

The texture of that vision.

How true does that really feel to you?

Are you ready for the whole thing or is it just a piece?

We can start intuitively sense when we have a vision,

If it wants to,

And if it's ready to start to come to fruition.

That's something that's hard to teach.

It's a sense that you develop,

You master over time by meditating again and again and again,

And practice and fail.

All right,

Well,

I see this vision,

Let me give it a shot.

Now,

Some people quit too fast because they hit some resistance,

They can't get through a technology wall or a financial obstacle,

Or they feel judged by the world or not ready.

And then they're like,

You know what,

There's resistance here,

So it must not be my path,

And they back away.

I wouldn't back away so fast.

Usually when we're growing into something,

Creating,

There's going to be resistance and struggle.

So I wouldn't always take that as a sign to back away.

So I've had many instances where I'll sit,

I'll close my eyes,

I'll ask the question,

What is it that I really want to create next,

And I'll allow something to arise.

And to go just one step deeper into the mechanics of it,

When you're looking at something in your mind's eye,

And I do a lot of trainings on learning to see energy with your mind's eye,

In a sense,

Maybe that's my core competency,

You know,

Where I spent my 10,

000 hours,

Especially seven years in Hawaii,

Doing that kind of meditation and work.

So I feel very comfortable and confident talking about that and sharing that.

So when I look at something in my mind's eye,

You have to know what direction to look.

And the energy needs a placeholder.

So what I mean by that is you don't want to be looking into the back of your head,

You want to be looking out the kind of like out the windshield or at the window out of the front of your head.

You're not looking physically,

So you're not looking at the back of your eyelids,

You're using your mind's eye,

And you're looking at another dimension.

And you need a placeholder for the question.

So in my tradition,

Sometimes that I came from,

We would use an image of a rose,

You might just use like a box,

And then you open it and see if something comes out.

Or what I really like is a bubble,

Maybe just like a soap bubble,

And it's empty.

And you put it in your mind's eye,

You ask the question,

And you see if it fills with a vision.

So there's no right way to do it.

But when you create a symbol,

And you allow the question to arise in visual form in the symbol,

That gives you a place to look.

So you're not just kind of meandering around your head.

Are you a head meanderer?

You're meditating for 20 minutes,

Just like lost in some other dimension.

Like in Doctor Strange,

Everything's folding in on itself.

Let's not get too trippy here.

So there's an art form in learning how to see,

And where to look,

And how to know.

There's an ability of knowingness that you can sharpen over time as you sit and meditate.

Okay,

So you learn to get this wisdom,

This knowingness,

Through looking at something with your mind's eye.

Feeling is good,

But it's not always enough.

We need to feel,

We need to see,

We need to know.

And for some of you,

You might also hear your inner voice,

And that's great too.

These are skills that get developed over time,

Meditating hundreds,

Thousands of hours,

And hopefully having good teachers.

So that is how I start by going from meditation to creating something.

Am I always right?

It's not even about being right,

It's about being aligned and connected.

Does creating this make me feel good?

Does it fill my heart?

Does my energy open?

Or do I feel dread?

Like,

Oh,

I got to do this for money.

I think people want me to do it.

You don't want to get in that loop.

And I've seen a lot of creators online.

They become slaves to the algorithm.

They start creating because,

Oh,

I know that video,

That content gets the views,

The likes.

That's what people want more of,

So I'll just keep creating that.

And they almost build their own prison because of what the algorithm is doing,

What people want,

Versus what they truly feel they should offer the world.

And if it's not getting traction or landing,

You know,

We'll do a whole video or a few of those on that topic,

On how to reach an audience and raise the quality of whatever it is that you're creating.

But at the core of being a conscious creator is we're creating mindfully.

We're doing it with purpose.

We're doing it to serve the world and also to fulfill something deep in our souls.

So all of that should align.

We'll talk in future episodes about how much we should risk to do that.

If it's not working,

If we get stuck,

All of that.

I would love to explore all of those topics with you.

But if you want to practice this with me or on your own,

Sit down,

Close your eyes,

Ask the question,

What is really in alignment for me to create next?

Not just ultimately,

But next.

What starts to arise?

And it might be vague,

Like,

I really want to help people heal.

That's the sense.

I don't even know what form it wants to take yet.

That's a huge answer.

Okay,

I want to help people heal.

Let me sit deeper with that.

Is it heal trauma?

Is it heal something around body image or self-worth?

Is it around healing something psychological?

Because I have a master's degree in that area.

Is it healing something on the soul level?

So once you get that initial intuition,

Then you can ask the next question and start to peel back some of those layers.

And that's how I do it,

Step by step.

And if you don't have clarity and you don't get any clarity,

Then you might have to sit more and do more work.

We all want our answers super fast.

And when I used to do a lot of one-on-one energy work with people,

Sometimes they would come in like I was the David vending machine,

Put in a coin and David gives you an answer with his third eye.

And I found that very unfulfilling because if you do that for someone and they don't do the work to get the answer,

It usually doesn't work out well anyway.

Finding the answer is probably half or if not more of the battle itself.

And you have to have patience and diligence and persistence.

You maybe have to sit a hundred times until something truly unfolds.

And then the very last piece is,

Are you ready to create?

Maybe you don't have enough training.

Maybe you're not there yet.

Maybe you need more counseling,

Schooling,

Training,

Teaching hours,

Whatever it is.

I know everybody wants it right now.

And I can be famous in 10 minutes on social media,

But there's a difference between fame and wisdom and wisdom comes from experience.

So you don't have to start only creating when you have,

You know,

A hundred percent experience where you feel like you've made it,

But you should have some and you should have something to offer.

So if you don't yet,

Then it's back to being a student and that's totally okay.

So thanks for sitting with me for this one.

And I'll see you in the next episode and go sit,

Meditate and see if something opens up for you.

All right.

See you soon.

Reviews

This was amazing, exactly what I needed right now. Thank you, David. 🙏🏼🙏🏼

Great talk David. A therapist friend of mine said that the brain doesn’t like to learn anything new. So when you talked about any resistance coming up, I thought of that. Is the resistance my brain’s rebelling around learning something new (I’m 68 years old. My brain rebels a lot. lol) 🤍🦋🤍🦋🤍

Thanks David. A big learning curve for me just when I needed it.

🙏

Thanks for your interesting talk. There's much to take away from this session.

Namaste 🙏🏼

Great advice. Patience is key.

Really helpful. Thank you David 🙏

Really great talk

🙏💗

This is really great! I’m going to listen to it again and often. I’m in the middle of figuring out which idea(s) to pursue right now.