Have you ever had one of those light bulb moments where an idea comes in out of the blue?

It’s the sort of idea that you feel compelled to act on and it can make you drop everything or keep you awake in the early hours. Perhaps you had a vision for a new invention that will make you rich, an idea for a novel or even something to save or change the world.

These types of inspirations are wonderful.  They seem to come in at random when you are least expecting them and they happen to all of us. They also seem to come in fully formed in less than a second.

Isaac Newton apocryphally had one when an apple fell on his head leading to his Laws of Motion and Theory of Gravity. What actually happens in these cases is that you are thinking of something other than the task at hand.

To understand where these types of inspiration come from, it’s worth looking at times when they don’t happen. Say you are suffering from road rage or you’ve had an email that’s upset you, I think you’ll agree it’s hard to be creative. On the other hand, if your inner critic or internal dialogue is running, it has the effect of damping inspiration and the flow of ideas.

Mind maps are a really useful tool to use to get you into a creative way of thinking.  The left brain tells the right brain, “Leave the maps to me, I’m good at structure and navigation.”  While the logical left hemisphere is busy, the right brain is left free to sneak under its radar and get into full creative flow.

To get into a dissociated mode where you are “not thinking” about an issue, here’s a simple mind mapping exercise. Note that you don’t need any special software, pen and paper is just fine.

In the middle of a piece of paper, draw a picture that represents the opportunity or issue on which you would like some inspiration.

Now get any book and pick four pages at random and count down to the 7th line on each page. When you get to the 7^th line, find the first noun in that line for each page. If there isn’t a noun, use the first adjective and if there aren’t 7 lines choose another page at random.

Now draw four branches off your central image with each of the words on them. Then, without thinking if possible, draw sub-branches with words that come to mind from each of these seed words. Like word association, just write down the first words that come into your head.  Feel free to make more associations from the new words.

You should end up with a picture something like the one below which I did in conjunction with writing this article. You will find you have been taken down several new routes in your thinking and you may even have had a blinding flash of inspiration.

Have you ever experienced a flash of inspiration or a so-called light bulb moment?

They seem to come in as fully formed ideas, in less than a second that might take a few minutes to fully appreciate. Apocryphally, Isaac Newton got the theory of gravity in this manner and took a whole life time to get it down in words and mathematics.

You probably assume that these illuminations are random when, in fact and with a little practice, it is possible to experience them on demand.

Now for a writer, and perhaps, one who is a little blocked, this could be truly a god-send.

The answer is perhaps surprising as it doesn’t lie being more intelligent or studying any esoteric practices. It involves doing something we all do every day, without thinking about it, and that’s to breathe.

Of course, this is quite handy as we all breathe anyway to stay alive.

What brought me to this conclusion was some research I did around the actual word, inspiration.  Our words and our sayings give away much about their true semantics.

If you look up the word inspiration say at www.dictionary.com, you will see the following definitions:

The first four you will probably have expected but it’s maybe a surprise to see that there is a theological connotation for inspiration. The last definition is one that most people don’t think of even though it’s perhaps fairly obvious. Inspiration is of course one half of the respiration process.

Further insight comes from looking at its etymology, or root meaning.  You find that the word ‘inspiration’ is comprised of the word “in” and the Latin “spirare” which meant “to breathe”.

You may not have noticed this but you always speak on an out breath. Almost certainly we aren’t consciously aware that we gather our thoughts for what we are about to say on the in breath.

So could it be that ideas come to us on the in breath?  I did some more research and found that Eastern mystical practices such as Taoism use breathing exercises in meditation to both balance Yin and Yang energies and encourage the connection to the divine.

In summary, it appears that the key to tapping into inspiration is to be aware of your breath and pay attention to your thoughts. It’s entirely possible most thoughts aren’t what you think of as your own.