How many times have you sat in front of your screen, ready to write, only to end up staring at a blinking cursor for 30 minutes?

You decide to walk away and do something else.

Then — mid-shower, mid-drive, or mid-dishwashing — you're hit with a flood of ideas, perfectly formed sentences, or creative concepts you couldn’t force earlier.

Why does that happen?

And more importantly… how do you recreate it?

Not just once, not by chance — but consistently.

How do you get into a state where your ideas come to you with ease, and creativity flows daily?

Why You’re Blocked and Struggle To Access Your Creativity

Here’s a hard truth:

Most creators don’t have a creativity problem.

They have a clarity problem.

(It could be argued that no one has a creativity problem; they just haven’t developed the skill, but that’s a conversation for another day.)

Think about it like this:

You’re always consuming.

Always stimulating your brain.

Always trying to force a coherent idea out of a chaotic internal state.

Your thoughts are scrambled.

Your nervous system is fired.

You listen to 4 podcasts, read 3 newsletters, and switch between IG reels and TikTok videos — all while expecting yourself to come up with something original and true.

No wonder your creativity feels blocked.

There’s never space for your creativity to shine through because there’s so much noise blocking.

But understand this:

Creative work comes from inner clarity.

And inner clarity comes from stillness.

But stillness scares most of us.

Why is that?

Simple.

Stillness forces us to be with ourselves.

To listen and to observe.

And when you haven’t sat with yourself for long enough or you’ve been avoiding yourself, it’s awkward.

Like being on a first date.

The silence feels uncomfortable— even threatening and dangerous.

So instead, you keep pushing.

You drown yourself in noise.

With more ideas. More content.

You bury your head in your work. In hustle.

But then you look at your work and you aren’t proud of it.

You aren’t saying what you want to say.

Or you’re faced with the blank cursor, not knowing what to say.

You’re scattered, uninspired and disconnected from your voice and vision.

But there is a way to be focused, inspired and connected again.

You aren’t blocked because you aren't creative.

You’re blocked because you don’t know how to be still.

How Stillness Unlocks Greater Creativity

When you dare yourself to strip away the noise.

To sit in the silence, what’s left is not nothing.

What’s left is you.

Your thoughts.

Your emotions.

Your perspectives.

Your experiences.

Your voices.

Your vision.

Your ideas.

Mindfulness, although trending as a wellness habit, is far more than that.

It’s a powerful creative discipline.

It teaches you to hear yourself and connect with the deeper parts of you.

The parts of you that want nothing more than to create.

It teaches you to notice the ideas as they bubble up.

To see the words on the page before you’ve written them.

To see the colours before you’ve painted them.

To hear the song before you’ve sung it.

It teaches you to separate signal from noise.

As Jon Kabat-Zinn says:

When you practice stillness and cultivate mindfulness:

• You stop forcing ideas and start noticing them

• You access more flow, not by pushing, but by allowing

• You unlock your unique voice because you’re finally listening to it

• You stop copying what works for others and create what you envision

• You bring more play into your work — and people sense that

Creators often ask:

“How do I find my voice?”

“How do I stay consistent without burning out?”

“How do I access into flow?”

The answer is this:

Learn to let your mind settle.

Learn to create space.

Learn to be still.

Learn to listen.

That’s what stillness gives you.

How to Be Still And Access More Flow, Creativity & Clarity

Here’s your challenge:

Let go of the constant stimulation. And embrace stillness.

Below are 5 practices you can follow to experience more stillness and cultivate more mindfulness in your day-to-day.

You can do one at a time or combine them to create a protocol.

Practice 1: Go Silent Once a Day

Pick one daily activity — walking, driving, cooking, cleaning — and do it in complete silence.

No music. No podcasts. No background noise.

Just you and the activity at hand.

This builds the muscle of being with yourself, teaching you to be more comfortable in silence, but also being in the present moment.

Practice 2: Dwell in Stillness and Observation

Take 5–10 minutes each day to go outside and observe without reacting.

As Kabat-Zinn says:

Notice the light, the chatter of people, movement, the wind, and the small details.

This helps build your awareness.

Practice 3: Start a Meditation Practice

(This wouldn’t be my newsletter if I didn’t mention meditation at some point.)

If you’ve never meditated before, don’t stress.

Find a comfortable position, whether sitting on a chair or the floor.

You want to be in a space where you won’t be disturbed.

Start with 5–10 minutes.

Breathe in and out. (Don’t force yourself to breathe in a particular way, just breathe as you normally would.)

I suggest softly focusing on the sensation of your breath coming in and going out. It’s a great anchor.

You’ll notice thoughts come up and sensations ‘begging’ for your attention.

Let them be there.

Observe without judgment or resistance.

It’s like standing on the side of the road and looking straight across.

You don’t follow a specific car that passes, but look straight ahead to the other side.

And if you do so happen to follow a passing car, that’s okay.

Just bring yourself back to looking straight across the road.

It will be hard in the beginning to observe your thoughts without getting attached or distracted by them.

That’s okay. Don’t put any pressure on yourself to get it “right”.

As you notice yourself getting distracted by the thought, just come back to focusing on your breath.

See the thought.

Realise you’re not the thought, but that which watches the thought.

Return to the breath.

Return to the present moment.

This is how you begin to separate yourself from the noise.

Practice 4: Setting a Pre-Work Intention

Before you create, pause and ask:

“How do I want to show up?”

You can set an intention that’s linked to an outcome, e.g. “I want to write 500 words”, but I want you to focus on being instead of doing.

How do you want to BE as you do the work?

Curious? Playful? Explorative? Focused?

Focusing on being instead of doing invites more creativity and flow in your work, instead of being pressured to create and perform.

Practice 5: Sit and Do Nothing (Yes, Really)

This is a little different from meditation.

You want to sit and literally do nothing.

No intention.

No technique.

No goal.

Just you and this moment.

Let your mind wander. Let your body slow down. Let yourself be.

This helps you to be okay with stillness. To be okay with being where you are.

Because, as you’ve experienced in the shower, it’s often in this emptiness/ stillness that your best insights arise.

BONUS Practice: A 24-Hour Mind Cleanse

Try this once a week or once a month:

For 24 hours, no input.

This includes books, podcasts, music, messaging, social media, socialising, etc.

If you can book a place and get away from your normal environment, great. If not, do what you can to the best of your abilities and access.

But for 24 hours, you want to do your normal activities (walking, cooking, cleaning, etc.) without any input.

You can create, obviously, but also take time to notice what comes up and how you can incorporate that in your work.

Perhaps you take it a step further and don’t create, but instead, you are just in silence, observing what comes up and taking note.

It’s up to you, but it is a great challenge to try out.

Closing thoughts

Creativity is not something you force or follow the latest “hack and tip” to access.

It comes from you getting clear enough to hear your brilliance.

Your creativity isn’t blocked.

It’s buried under a whole lot of noise.

And it’s waiting for you to slow down long enough to listen.

It’s waiting for you to ditch the noise and come back to stillness.

Thank you for reading.

I hope you enjoyed it.

See you in the next one.

— Shana