Have you showered today?
I mean your brain not your bum!
Oh my days - what are you asking me, Nanette? Mind your own business!
Hang on a minute! There is a point, I promise!
The shower is now the only place where my ideas spark. We all know that ideas pop up at random moments. But these days my jumbled brain will only untangle when I’m under water.
With a protective curtain wrapped round it, my brain can step out of it’s endless spin and freely splash around. Then all those loose bits and pieces that were clattering around swirl together and an idea whooshes out.
Probably because in a shower you can’t check emails, can’t respond to notifications and the white noise of water is too loud to listen to a podcast or a family member.1
I’ve read lots people talking about feeling wiped out by social media lately. Which is no surprise as our brains are always muddied now. We can’t just do something - now there’s pressure to record the thing and share the thing. Which means you’re always watching yourself and probably editing yourself.
And it’s not just social media rolling around in your noggin is it?
There’s also all the life things - the practical things, the work things, the caring things. Then there’s the good-for-you things: are you walking 10,000 steps and eating 30 different types of plants? Come on, where’s your new book idea? That sketchbook isn’t going to fill itself!
That small shower cubicle of quiet time is important for your creative brain.
That’s when it gets to sparkle and shine and show you all those brilliant thoughts - made from all the things you’ve seen and felt and experienced, then interpreted in a way only you can.
There must be other ways to wrap a metaphorical shower curtain around your brain, keeping the world out so your ideas can be rinsed through?
Do you have a way to consciously push the world away? A way of “showering” your brain so it untangles and all your ideas can flow out bright and shiny?
Please do share!
Further reading: Jill Murphy’s Five Minutes Peace
All my posts are remaining free and open for the foreseeable future! If you fancy getting me a cuppa tea that would be amazing! Totally up to you, we’ll still be friends!
Although, if you have a persistent toddler then most likely you do have someone talking to you in the shower
Going for a walk does it for me! Strictly no headphones, just a stubby pencil and scrunched up paper in my pocket…
I read something somewhere once, (wonderfully scientific from me there!) that humans need to see or be near/around water. It genuinely boosts all of the happy chemicals in our brains! Maybe there is a fundamental connection between humans and water. Whether that’s the sea, a river/stream or a shower!
For me seeing the ocean has this effect on me for sure, and I’ve never really thought about it but I guess I do have ideas in the bath or when I’m having a shower.
Also at the gym which is weird! I guess I’m so in the zone doing one task it allows for other things to come into my brain rather than being forced out.