Hello, my love.
Welcome back to The Wisdom Path Podcast with me, your host, Rosie Peacock. This episode is a little different, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how I actually create things. And in return, how those creations shape me. This isn’t a polished episode. It’s more of a peek inside the mess, magic, and meaning of my creative process.
People often ask me about how I bring my ideas to life, and honestly? I’m just as curious about other people’s creative processes as they are about mine. Whether it's photography, writing, poetry, business, or art, there’s something endlessly fascinating about how we take something from an idea and turn it into something real.
So today, instead of walking you through each of my current projects (which was my original idea), I’m going to share the story of how this episode itself came to be. Then, I’ll answer some of the questions I get asked most often about creativity.
Behind the Scenes: How This Episode Was Born
Earlier today, I was in a group mentoring session where my mentor showed us behind the scenes of her creative process. It was such a beautiful moment of honesty, no polish, no perfection. Just real people sharing how they actually create. And it got me thinking about my process.
Not long after that session, someone left a comment on one of my Substack articles asking how I created that particular post. That simple question nudged me into reflecting more deeply on how I make things.
And so, I started voice-noting. Then I started writing. Then I fed parts of my ramble into ChatGPT and asked it to reflect my patterns back to me. What emerged was this episode, a kind of creative self-interview, a coaching session with myself, and a love letter to the process of creation all in one.
My Creative Rhythm
I work across a lot of mediums: writing, podcasting, photoshoots, course creation, oracle decks, and beyond. And I’ve learned that every project has its own rhythm. Some come flying in like lightning bolts. (Like my first book draft, 75,000 words in 72 hours.) Others take months of slow brewing, voice notes, overthinking, and eventually clarity.
The Idea Lands
This part is pure spark. Often it’s embodied — I feel lit up. Something clicks. It’s not always rational, but I can feel when an idea wants to be followed. It might come while I’m listening to someone speak, or in response to a conversation, or just land out of nowhere while I’m washing up or walking around. There’s usually a kind of buzz to it. And honestly, sometimes I don’t even get a choice — it just won’t leave me alone.
The Outline
I get the clay on the table. This part is messy and loose. I might voice note some early thoughts, brain dump into a Google Doc, or jot things down in Notion. Sometimes a full poem pops out, but more often, this stage is just notes and scraps — half-thoughts, phrases, metaphors, things I don’t want to lose. It’s not about making sense yet; it’s about catching the threads before they float away.
The Blank Space
I step away. Bath. Walk. Silence. This part is non-negotiable for me. I need time to let the ideas percolate. I always describe it like marinating chicken before you cook it — and yes, I know it’s wild that an English girl actually marinates food in spices. But it makes all the difference. This is the bit where I stop trying to make it happen and instead let the ideas come to me. Sometimes I make space for an hour after a client call, sometimes it’s a few days of just letting something simmer in the back of my mind.
The Flow State First Draft
Then I come back and move with what’s alive. Something forms. If I’ve honoured the blank space properly, this part usually flows. I might be a one-take wonder on a podcast, or get the bones of an article down in one sitting. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect, it just means something real has landed. This is the phase where I get it out of me, like getting the clay onto the wheel. I’m not shaping yet, I’m just making sure it’s there. This is as much about getting out of my own way as anything, letting my words or photos flow out and being in the state where I don’t bring the critical editors mind to the table, that comes later, now is for trusting the process and knowing done is better than perfect (because perfect is never done).
The Refinement
Editing. Shaping. Deleting. Reworking. This is lowkey my favourite bit. Whether it’s a photo gallery or a poem or an essay, this is where I really build the world, where I alchemise the ideas, where I take a rock and smooth it into a pebble. I cut things out, layer things in, find new meanings, ask better questions. Sometimes I put the draft into ChatGPT and ask, “Where are my blind spots?” or “What could go deeper here?” I love this part, it’s where the piece stops being an idea and becomes art.
The Sharing
And then… sharing. Sometimes it’s quiet. I send it out on Substack and don’t say a word. Other times it’s a full launch, with a name and an offering and an email sequence. I let the thing decide what kind of birth it wants. Not everything has to be a performance. Some things just want to be witnessed.
I use this rhythm whether I’m writing an essay, planning a photoshoot, building a course, or creating an oracle deck. The creative structure is fluid, but those stages show up again and again.
The Sacred Mess of Making
Some creations feel fast, others take years. My oracle card deck, for example, is a slow-burn collaborative journey. My client photoshoots, on the other hand, can feel like cinematic ceremonies where we both step into transformation. My self-portraits sometimes bring me to tears with joy. My writing evolves in layers, through editing, reflection, and voice notes-turned-drafts.
And it all matters. The flow. The pause. The editing. The many, many Google Docs. The long baths. The spaciousness. The snacks.
Creativity is not something I extract. It’s something I collaborate with. Something I co-create with. It makes me as much as I make it. And the older I get, the more reverent I feel about that symbiosis.
I’ve realised that one of the most important values I hold both in my creativity and in my mothering is spaciousness.
I like to be as spacious as I can in the way I parent, so I can be really present with Theo when I’m with him. Not half-there, not juggling ten mental tabs, but fully dropped in with him, whether we’re playing, exploring, or just having a quiet moment together.
But last year? I didn’t have that spaciousness. I was fully booked with photography clients, which, on paper, looked incredible. My calendar was packed. My business was thriving. I was grateful, deeply so, that so many people trusted me with their visual transformations. The work I got to create was powerful. Magical. Real.
And still, it was too much.
I was overbooked, not fully booked.
I had no time for anything but photoshoots and editing. And while I love that part of my work, I also need breathing room to let things percolate, to rest, to allow ideas to bubble up from beneath the surface. Spaciousness is not a luxury in my creative process, it’s a core ingredient.
And I didn’t have it.
I didn’t have time to work on personal projects like this podcast, or my Substack, or the longer-gestating ideas that need a slower kind of tending. I didn’t have space to follow the threads of inspiration or to play with passion projects just because they lit me up. And that’s where things started to feel… tight. Like I was holding my breath.
So this year, I’m making a conscious shift. More space. More presence. More listening, to my child, to my creative pulse, and to the part of me that knows when I’m blooming and when I’m being squeezed.
Fully booked isn’t always the goal. Fully alive is.
Create for the Joy of It
I think, as creators, one of the most important things we can do is make space real, scheduled, sacred space for creativity that exists just for the joy of it. Not for profit. Not for productivity. Not to be posted or monetised or turned into something “useful.”
Just for the love of making.
The other day, I went to the woods with Jordan during golden hour. I wore this gorgeous dress, we took the cameras, and we played. We shot dreamy portraits, playing with bits of material and whatever else we could find to shoot through. It wasn’t for a client. It wasn’t for a campaign. It wasn’t for anything but the sheer pleasure of it.
And I had one of the most profound, joy-filled moments of my life.
I found myself sitting on a tree, literally happy crying, because I felt so fulfilled. So deeply connected to the experience of creation itself. Not because I was creating something to sell. I could’ve spent that time editing client galleries. I could’ve been pitching something. But instead, I followed the call of creativity, not the call of capitalism.
And that, to me, is a vital part of being an artist. Listening. Really listening to what your soul wants to create. Because we live in a world that constantly tries to commodify creativity, to turn every idea into a product, every inspiration into a pitch.
We are taught to make in service of the system.
Not in service of the soul.
And I get it, we live in a capitalist world. Many of us do rely on our creativity to support our lives, to feed our families, to build our businesses and offer meaningful work. There’s nothing wrong with making money through creativity. But when everything becomes about earning, selling, scaling… something sacred gets lost.
It’s a colonial mindset, too, this idea that creativity is a resource to extract, exploit, and squeeze value from. That art exists to be useful. That ideas must be harvested for productivity. That the muse is only worthy if she’s paying rent.
But creativity, real, raw, human creativity, doesn’t thrive in those conditions.
It needs space. Slowness. Nourishment. Freedom.
To decolonise creativity is to return it to the people. To honour its roots in ritual, community, embodiment, story, and spirit. It’s remembering that creativity has always been communal and sacred, something shared around fires, sung in ceremony, woven into fabric, passed down through generations. It’s not something that needs to be turned into a personal brand or a polished feed.
To decapitalise creativity is to allow yourself to make things just for the joy of making. Just because the idea landed in your lap and asked to be brought to life. Just because it feels good. It’s the moment you pick up a pen or a paintbrush or a camera without asking, “How will this pay off?” It’s taking photos in the woods for no reason. It’s writing the poem that no one else will read but you. It’s giving yourself permission to create without performance.
And that doesn’t mean you can’t charge for your art. You absolutely can. But not everything you create needs to feed your bank account. Some things are there to feed your spirit. Some things exist just to remind you that you’re alive. So this is your permission slip, or maybe just a gentle reminder:
You don’t need to post it.
You don’t need to sell it.
You don’t need to turn it into a ten-part funnel.
You can just make it.
Because you want to.
Because it moves you.
Because it’s yours.
Creativity was never meant to be colonised. It was never meant to be hustled or hacked. Creativity is not a resource to be extracted and monetised. That’s creative burnout in the making. It was meant to connect us. To heal us. To move through us.
Let’s return to that.
Creativity is a life force. A current. A pulse. It is the paradigm of the psychedelic feminine, a wellspring of vision, energy, and expression that flows from our wombs, our hearts, our hands. And when we let ourselves co-create with that force, when we honour what wants to come through just because it wants to, we tap into something bigger than us. Something sacred. Something true.
So please, create things that don’t make sense. Make things that don’t need to sell. Play. Wander. Follow the thread. Let yourself be made by the making.
Creativity, for me, is a spiritual path.
There is a creative force that runs through all things, a pulse woven into the fabric of existence itself. It moves through nature, through art, through language and love. It lives in our bodies, takes up residence in our wombs, and flows through us whenever we write, build, dream, or birth something into being.
And when I create, I feel myself in direct relationship with that force, the same one that formed the moon, the sun, the tide, the trees. The same energy behind every invention, every masterpiece, every song, every soul, every stone. It’s the thread that connects all of us, a reminder that we are not separate from creation. We are it. Children of it. Carriers of it.
Tuning into that, the creative force behind all things, is what brings me back when I feel lost in the middle of a project. It’s what helps me keep going when the spark fades. It’s what lets me drop deeper into trust, into rhythm, into the knowing that creativity isn’t something I have to force. It’s something I already belong to.
Creativity, for me, is a spiritual path. It connects me to myself, to others, and to the creative force that runs through all things. Whether it’s a poem, a podcast, or a sacred photoshoot, the work shapes me as much as I shape it.
And that, I think, is the real art.
Creativity Isn’t Just What You Make, It’s Who You Become
One of the biggest things I’ve learned through years of making things, books, podcasts, photoshoots, courses, businesses, essays, ceremonies, oracle decks, the occasional poetic ramble that never sees the light of day is this:
Creativity isn’t just about the thing you’re making.
It’s about what the process of making makes of you.
We often think of creativity as a means to an end, something with a deliverable, a product, a neat little bow at the end. But for me, it’s rarely that tidy. The journey of making something, truly making something, has a way of reshaping you in the process.
Every time I write a long-form piece, I discover something about my mind I didn’t know. Every time I step behind the camera, I’m tuning into someone’s essence in a way that shifts my perception, not just theirs. Every time I work on my oracle deck or sit with the draft of my book, I’m stretched, spiritually, emotionally, creatively. The project evolves. I evolve.
And sometimes, the most powerful pieces aren’t even the ones that get published or shared. Sometimes it’s the half-finished essay that cracked open a truth. The poem that gave me words for something I hadn’t been able to name. The self-portrait session that gave me a moment of stillness in a chaotic week. The futuristic dytopian dark romantasy that may never see the light of day because writing the outline was enough.
These things shape me. And I think that’s part of the magic.
We talk a lot about the outcome: the finished piece, the sales page, the post, the performance. But the alchemy is often happening in the middle. In the sitting-with. In the unravelling. In the “why the hell am I even doing this?” moment and in what you find on the other side of that.
So this episode, and this blog, is really an invitation. Not just to make things. But to make space. And in that space, pay attention to how your making is making you.
How has your creativity softened you? Strengthened you? Taught you to trust yourself, or helped you let go of something you didn’t know you were still holding?
Where has your creativity called you into more presence, more depth, more truth?
What have you become through the act of bringing something into being?
Because in the end, yes, it’s about what you make, but just as much, maybe even more, it’s about what it makes of you.
If this resonated with you, I would love to hear about your creative process. Come and leave a comment on the Substack version of this post, or DM me on Instagram @iamrosiepeacock .
If you know another creative who would love this, please share it with them. And if you’d like to help support this podcast, leave a quick rating or review, it means so much.
Thanks for being here. We’ll speak again soon.
In creativity and connection,
Rosie
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