When I was a little girl, I tapped into my muse.
What I mean by that is that I tapped into an energy that excited me that I hadn’t been fully aware of yet.
I felt electric, fearless, inspired and connected. It felt like the magic of everything I was feeling as a little girl was a reality.
Growing up, my grandparents went to Maui every year. My parents and I would make a trip out to visit them during my spring break and it became a tradition that I fell in love with. Coming from Oregon, I had never really seen surfing before but the moment I felt the culture of it, I was in love. Everything from the palm trees, to the ocean, to the style, it all felt like magic. Then after seeing surfers standing on the boards, gliding with the waves, it felt like they knew a secret that the rest of us weren’t in on; it’s possible to walk on water.
Every year in Hawaii, I would get sparks of creative inspiration – when I was eight I wrote an entire album worth of songs for my hypothetical girl band (the Spice girls were big then and I wanted to start the 3rd grade version called the Sugar girls). I had never sang before, but songs were pouring out of me faster than I could write.
Each year we would be driving around, with salt water in the air, and I would get creative inspiration. I would visualise dreams and incredible scenarios that my mind had never entertained before.
When I got back home to Oregon one year, I decided that I would make my room ‘surf’ themed. My parents helped me to deck out my entire room with all things surfboards, palm trees and Hawaii. I wanted to be surrounded by something that gave me feelings of such aliveness. When picking colleges, it’s no surprise looking back that I selected a college that was 15 minutes away from the hub of surf culture: Newport Beach.
The freedom and aliveness that I feel when I’m around surf culture is my muse. I feel that energy and I create dreams, visions and new projects that have little to do with surfing, but everything to do with that incredible fearlessness and imagination I feel when I’m around it.
I thought that it was just surf culture that gave me that feeling, but after going to Europe last year and traveling around in Greece, I felt so free. I met other young people who were out in the world exploring where their hearts lead, and I felt that raw fearlessness again. That energy helped me to go forward with creating the #RadLivin festival and I am so grateful for that.
If you’re stuck and not sure where to go or turn next, tap into your muse.
Think of a time that just felt different; magic – where you were experiencing new feelings of aliveness or inspiration than you may have had before.
Once you feel or remember your muse, close your eyes and feel what it felt like to be in that scenario. In order to tap into the energy of your muse to help you in the present, you don’t need to be surrounded by it or in that scenario in order for you to receive the inspiration of it.
