This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 642nd episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, How Meditation Can Inspire Your Next Story. As writers it often can inspire your next story.

As writers, it often seems we are channeling our stories more than creating them. So it should be no surprise to learn the tool of meditation can inspire your next story. I have

often thought of writing as something of a meditation. When we are really in the

zone it can feel like an altered state. Especially when I was younger,

inspiration would sometimes strike with such force that I would call it a story high.

I could write it for weeks sometimes before experiencing Story Hangover.

As writers, our great love affair is with inspiration.

Sometimes that relationship is on and we are flooded with creative passion and more ideas than we know

what to do with. At other times we have to put in the work to court our

inspiration. Most writing lives require a balance of both. One of the most

profound lessons I have learned over the last decade is the importance of cultivating a lifestyle of creativity.

This means not just observing what lifestyle patterns contribute

to sustainable creativity over the long term,

but also seeking out specific tools that can help foster and boost creative patterns.

Turns out, meditation can be one of those tools.

Meditation has become increasingly accepted and popular in recent decades, mostly for its positive effects on mental health.

For me, it has been a game changer in so many ways.

I came to it several years ago during a difficult period in my life and I've instituted a daily practice that has literally become my favorite time of the day. But before I was ever meditating on purpose, I was using this same

brain space whenever I played with my stories, whether I was daydreaming in the

car, telling myself stories as I fell asleep, imagining my

characters throughout the day, writing away on a story high, or purposefully

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