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An excerpt from The Power of Daily Practice 
by Eric Maisel, PhD

I’ve been working with creative and performing artists for more than thirty years, and so the most usual daily practice that a client of mine needs to create is one centered around creativity. This might be a writing practice, a painting practice, a composing practice, an instrument practice, or something else expressive. I encourage every client to begin and maintain such a practice, because without it, an already hard thing, living a creative life, is made that much harder. Having a strong daily creativity practice in place is the best way to realize their dreams and accomplish their goals.

Consider Joanne. Joanne had been hoping to write a fantasy novel for more than a decade. She had a vague idea for it and a handful of notes but spent very little time actually being with her novel. The way she let herself off the hook was by saying, “I don’t feel inspired.” Partly she meant it, as she did hold a core belief that without inspiration she would produce a lifeless thing. But more centrally, invoking that need for inspiration was the way that she avoided the hard work of bringing a novel-length work of fiction into existence.

I shared with her one of my favorite quotes, from the Russian composer Tchaikovsky: “I’m inspired about every fifth day, but I only get that fifth day if I show up the other four.” She smiled at that and nodded. “I’m sure that’s true,” she said, but without much conviction. She did, though, agree to commit to a writing practice of twenty minutes a day, first thing each morning. But over the course of those first few weeks, she got to her writing only a total of three times.

As she struggled to get her daily practice into place, it became very clear to her which element of practice was the hardest for her: discipline. “It isn’t that I can’t be disciplined,” she told me. “It’s more like I’m fighting with the idea of it. I feel like a little kid who’s been told to sit still and just hates the idea.”

I advised her to try a very simple thing: to write “Hate” in big letters on one side of a sheet of paper and “Love” on the other side of that same sheet of paper in equally large letters. “Right now, in some deep place you hate the idea of discipline. Let’s see if we can turn that around,” I said. “Just do the following thing. When you think about your daily writing practice, look at that sheet of paper. Look at the ‘Hate’ side. Really be with your hatred. Then turn it over and really be with ‘Love.’ You are trying to turn hate into love.”

A week later, in a Zoom session, she caught me up. “I wrote four days this week,” she said. “And I had this vivid memory. It had to do with practicing the piano. My mother wanted great things from my piano playing. I think that secretly she wanted me to become a concert pianist. But I hated it. Not the piano, not the music, not even the idea of it, but the ridiculous pressure, her watchfulness, her false praise, the whole thing. Discipline and my mother are the same thing.”

I asked her what she wanted to do with that insight. “Maybe I could ceremonially cut something — a thread, maybe — to cut the connection between my mother and the idea of discipline. I do want to love the idea of discipline. Maybe somehow literally cutting a cord is the thing to try?”

Joanne knew that she was embarking on something edgy, something that almost felt like a betrayal of her mother, but she committed to that ceremonial cutting. Afterward, she told me, “It’s funny. I did that cutting. I literally cut a piece of rope. And something really did change. All that work around the word discipline and around the idea of discipline, and suddenly that all receded into some distant background. It was like it was never an issue at all.”

As with so many clients, Joanne then proceeded to work steadily on her novel. She had her bad days, her days of crisis, and her days of loss of faith in the project; and she had all those skipped days because life got too busy, too chaotic, or too pressure filled with other things. But most weeks she wrote four or five mornings, which naturally led to the novel getting built over time. Within six months she had a draft of her book, a feat she hadn’t believed she could pull off.

There is no single more important thing that a creative person can embark upon than creating and maintaining a daily creativity practice. That practice will likely make all the difference between having and not having a creative life. When nothing could feel more natural than that daily practice, you will become one of those very rare creatures, someone who virtually effortlessly produces a body of creative work.

You’ll be asked, “How did you pull that off  ? How did you become so amazingly productive?” And you won’t know what exactly to say, since the true answer will sound too simple. But that simple answer is the true answer. “I just get to work every day. That’s about it.” What you’ll get in reply is a shake of the head, meaning, “No, there must be more to it than that!” All you’ll be able to do is shrug and maybe repeat yourself: “No, it’s really that simple. I show up just about every day, and the work accumulates.”

Food for Thought

Would a creativity practice serve you? If you think that it could, what might its contours be?
In contemplating your prospective practice, what do you think is going to prove most challenging about it?
What strategy might you employ to meet that challenge?

Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than fifty books on creativity and personal growth, including The Power of Daily Practice. Widely regarded as America’s foremost creativity coach, he writes the Rethinking Mental Health blog for Psychology Today and facilitates creativity and deep writing workshops around the world. He lives in Walnut Creek, California. Find out more about his work at EricMaisel.com.

Excerpted from the book The Power of Daily Practice. Copyright ©2020 by Bridgit Dengel Gaspard. Printed with permission from New World Library.

I go through periods when I have deja vu constantly, like almost every moment, and sometimes these periods last for weeks at a time. (Then things go back to being normal.) What do you think this means? Is there some action I should take?

Devane

Astrea:

Being a Leo, you're probably having lots of flashbacks to your past lives. Since Leos aren't usually on their first incarnation, you no doubt have many lives to flash back to as well.

Now that you're grown in THIS incarnation, these lives are bombarding you to give you information you need so you don't make the same poor choices and mistakes you've made in your Before Times. Having these flashbacks for days on end may be troublesome, but they're probably important in some way.

Remember that there are other worlds beyond the Earth. Being a Leo, you might have lived in another dimension or galaxy in the past, and it may be important to your spiritual growth to get in touch with more than your past lives on Earth.

Be sure to keep records! Get a special notebook to record these experiences in. Write down every detail of what you see, hear and feel as it comes to you. Pay special attention to how your surroundings look and what you're wearing if you can see those too.

If you can't write things down when deja vu is happening to you, then do it as soon as you can when you come to. As you make more and more entries into your Deja Vu Diary, you'll begin to see patterns of choices and consequences from your past lives.

Pay very close attention to the other people you see in these moments too. Some will be Angelic Beings who are trying to guide you, and some are real people you've been with before and will probably meet again in this life. This experience is preparing you for those things to happen - you're being kept open to all sorts of possibilities for positive change in this life.

Once you've sorted through this Universal Information, the deja vu will subside and you'll be able to incorporate the lessons you learned in your past incarnations in this one.

You have a special purpose in life or this wouldn't be happening to you now. It's so important that you find out where and when you've been, not only for your own future but so you can help others find their way too.

You've been Chosen. Sometimes that's a pure blessing, and sometimes it means there is a lot of hard work ahead, but whatever you discover, I'm sure it will lead to a lifetime of greater happiness and spiritual reward.

*****

Susyn:

Deja vu comes from the French language and means already seen. There are many theories about deja vu. Most people describe it as a sense of being in the midst of an event, place or conversation that feels like it has already been experienced. Having deja vu frequently can make us feel very unbalanced, as this creates the impression that we're repeating things over and over.

The deja vu sensation is very common - it's experienced by roughly 70 percent of the population at one time or another. Deja vu has even been the subject of a number of movies.

Metaphysically, deja vu is viewed as evidence of psychic ability or extra sensory perception. Here it suggests the ability to see or recognize an experience before it happens, hence creating the sense that it has been experienced before.

There is also the possibility that these incidents are evidence of prophetic dreams we might have but not recall until we are faced with the event in real life. Yet another theory is that these memories come from past lives, like when we encounter a stranger that feels strangely familiar.

Scientists and researchers have attempted to attribute deja vu to neurological causes or the side effects of various medications. However, because it is such a common phenomenon, researchers have been unable to tie it to any one cause.

Most likely, your frequent experiences with deja vu are signs that your psychic abilities are on the upswing. Delving into more metaphysical studies or finding a way to share your gifts with the world should balance out these episodes.

There is no need for alarm when they happen; your awareness of them is simply a wake-up call to pay closer attention to the development you are going through. Once you take action to encourage your psychic powers, you may see these deja vu experiences either fade or transform into important signs and messages that you can then interpret or act upon.

It will be helpful to record these incidents in a journal, as once you put them down on paper, you may begin to see a pattern or discover deeper meaning in them. Paying closer attention to them is all you need to do until they reveal their true higher purpose in your life.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.