The Muse Doesn't Care About Your Morning Routine

It's 4:20am. There is already light outside when I open my eyes. I can't sleep, a clever sounding idea comes to my mind.

“I'll write it down in the morning when I start working after doing my run, eating 50g of protein, and making a coffee with beans from Kenya”.

I go back to sleep, but wake up tired because of the insomnia. My morning is ruined, and the clever idea already moved on. I guess I am not creative after all.

The Shift

That was my thought process for most of my life. But last week I started breaking this pattern. I remembered what my dear friend Georgi told me.

The muse shows up at the weirdest times. When she comes, you drop everything and listen.

Let's see if it works? I wanted to go back to sleep eventually, so I opted for my journal instead of my computer. The moment my pen hits the paper, ideas start flowing.

Next thing I know I am recording a reel. I am not optimising the script, the lighting, or the sound. Just me sitting half naked in the kitchen with the sleeping mask still on my face. I have no idea if I'll use it(plot twist…I will).

That gets me going, and I have two ideas for blog posts. Radical expression of love and life force multipliers. I don't even know what that means in the moment, but those two ideas started a process in my brain. More on that later.

I open up Chat GPT and start a stream of consciousness with it. Suddenly we are vibing, and I am coming up with mathematical models to explain why we should relentlessly keep asking “why” about every single thought and action in our lives.

All of this took me 30 minutes and zero effort. This would have been hours if I'd forced myself to come up with it after my 9 step morning routine.

I have an insane amount of energy flowing through me. Suddenly I think about someone special I wanted to send a message, but delayed it, because I did not want to come across needy.

I want to share the energy that is flowing through me. I am not playing any games, it is genuinely how I feel. I don't care that it's 5am in the morning or what I write might come across as needy. The stories I constructed in my head disappear. It feels freeing.

The Price

There is no free lunch though. At the end of the day, I have a physical body, and that needs sleep. I cannot just flow through life indefinitely. Shout out to my brother Michael Sealey and his excellent sleep hypnosis. His latest video knocks me out after 10 minutes, and I manage to get a few hours of sleep.

But here is the catch about the 9 step morning routine. That routine is extremely valuable, but I was doing them for all the wrong reasons throughout my life.

They are helpful on the days when the muse is far away on a backpacking trip in Southeast Asia, and I am stuck in my cold Lisbon flat. The discipline and routine help me to stay connected to the physical world, and create the conditions for the muse to visit.

But I can't expect her to come on my watch. The best I can do is to set the table by getting in touch with myself. When she eventually comes over for dinner, I will have the place ready for her to thrive.

I imagine the love of my life is coming over for dinner. I make sure the lights are dimmed, the food is delicious, bake some dessert(taking into consideration her allergies…), light some candles, put on beautiful music and regulate my nervous system.

I will spend as much time as possible with her, and be fully present with what she has to say from her trips in faraway lands.

Eventually I let her go. I can't hold onto her, that would stiffen her power. She takes the morning flight to Brazil, and I try to make sense of the beautiful night we spent together.

I go back to my life. Take care of my body, integrate the experience and continue creating an environment where she wants to come back.

Final Words

All my life I thought I am not creative. I was envious of my friends who wrote poetry, created epic videos, wrote blog posts. I wished I could be them!

Turns out I just needed to let go of my desire to control every detail of my life with the most optimised solution a grifter was selling online.

The past 48 hours I wrote 5 articles. All flow through me, and I believe they are high quality, well thought out pieces. Everything feels effortless. I don't have to think about the next sentence, and I am making connections that leave me in disbelief.

It is such an unreal feeling. I suddenly have more ideas that I can act on.

I believe this works for you as well. You are incredibly creative. You may just need to stop demanding that creativity arrive on your schedule, and start creating a life it wants to visit.