by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
When an Idea Wonโt Let Go the GO WITH IT
Thereโs something thrilling about an idea that just wonโt leave you alone – one moment, itโs a fleeting thought, barely graspable; the next, itโs gripping you by the collar, demanding attention, rearranging your life, and reshaping how you see yourself, the world, and reality itself.
When this happens, itโs more than just inspiration – itโs a call:
A call from the depths of your unconscious, and in the highest cases, from something even greater – the Superconscious, the Universal Mind, the Ether, whatever name you want to give it…that something that we all know is where we long to return because – deep down – we all know that it’s REAL.
When these ideas start to break through, we have a choice:
We can ignore them, try to push them back down, pretend we didnโt hear or we can listen, surrender, and trust the process. The first of these option always leads us more deeply into the EGO; the second allows us to face the SHADOW SELF and whatever we’ve been ‘hiding’ as we let this idea take us back to where we belong: a state of WHOLENESS.
But hereโs the thing whichever option you CHOOSE:
If the idea is REAL, there is no stopping it.
The Ideas That ‘Choose’ You
Think about the moments when something truly creative, meaningful, or transformative has entered your life – it might have been a book you suddenly felt compelled to write, a project you needed to complete, or a truth about yourself that refused to stay hidden and so you decided to pull on the thread and unravel yourself (or, more accurately, your ego).
In many cases, these arenโt just passing whims but invitations – to grow, to express, to evolve into something more REAL.
Most recently, Iโve felt this myself with my latest book, TRUST, and before that with the Flow Builder Journal. Both started as whispers – faint but persistent…then they became obsessions.
Before I knew it, I had no choice but to follow them to completion (if I wanted to accept myself and not have to spend all day wrestling in my mind).
Thatโs the nature of real ideas. They come when the time is right, when some unconscious ‘thing’ inside you is ready to be made conscious.
And thatโs why ignoring them doesnโt work – because the ‘stuff’ that’s ‘down’ there is often some of the realest ‘stuff’ about you… it’s just been hidden because of the great Shadow Dance between the Ego and the Shadow but – when the time is right – and it sees some cracks to send some light through to the surface of your life, well, it’s just gonna come bursting through so you better be ready.
The Conscious, Unconscious, and Superconscious Minds
Every person carries an unconscious mind, full of forgotten experiences, suppressed emotions, and unprocessed fragments of the self. Carl Jung called this the Shadow – the parts of us weโve rejected or buried because of underlying shame, guilt, and/or trauma (that’s how I see it, anyway, and talk about in my book Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World).
When an idea emerges from the unconscious, itโs often because something REAL but hidden deep inside you is ready to be integrated.
You might not even realise it at first, but that creative urge, that itch to start something new, is more than just self-expression – itโs an attempt to bring wholeness back to yourself so you can become the real human being you were meant to be (instead of the idea of one that you may currently be identifying with).
In the highest cases, these ideas donโt just come from your personal unconscious, but from something even greater – the Superconscious, the Universal Intelligence, the deeper flow of life. This is rare but people often confuse the unconscious becoming conscious for this (I’ll write a post about how to tell the difference in the future – it’s also in my book TRUST).
When this happens, youโre not just expressing something personal – youโre bringing something into the world thatโs needed to make not just yourself more REAL but the world more REAL too.
Trusting the Process: Why Resistance Leads to Frustration
The short-version of all this is that if a REAL idea comes through you, itโs because youโre the right person for it because youโre at the right place in your relationship with yourself for it to be realised. It really couldn’t come at any other time because it’s appearance depends on you being open enough to yourself to let it arise.
The problem is that the mind often resists because it’s in the service of the Ego.
This is made even more complicated because real ideas require commitment and commitment to something real is always perceived as a threat by the Ego (because the ego is unreal and the opposite of reality).
Real ideas shake up routines; they demand energy. They take you into the unknown – away from the familiar sense of ‘order’ and control’ that the Ego has carved out for you – and they force you to confront the parts of yourself that might rather stay hidden (which will dissolve the Ego once faced as the Ego only exists as a reaction to avoiding these parts and keeping them locked in the Shadow Territory).
But resisting these ideas leads to one thing: frustration.
When you try to push them down, they’ll just keep resurfacing. If you try to ignore them, then you’ll feel the unexplainable tension of the Void. This is basically because your unconscious is trying to give you something – the gift of your own realness – and youโre refusing to accept it.
This is why the only real choice is to trust and let go.
Integration: The Healing Power of Following an Idea
Following these ideas isnโt just about creativity – itโs about healing (and healing literally just means returning to WHOLENESS instead of fragmentation –“The word “healthy” comes from the Old English word hฤl, which means “wholeness, being whole or sound”).
Anytime you commit to a REAL idea thatโs breaking through, youโre allowing something unconscious to become conscious – youโre integrating a missing piece of yourself.
Jung believed that psychological healing happens through a process of individuation – bringing together the fragmented aspects of the self into a cohesive, whole identity.
When you follow an idea thatโs calling you, youโre doing exactly that.
Youโre taking something that was once hidden and making it real. As you do this, you allow some of those Shadow ‘parts’ of yourself to return to where they belong and to play a conscious role in your life so you can become WHOLE again.
Youโre merging your unconscious drives, your conscious mind, and – if youโre truly receptive and the time is right- something greater than both.
What we’re talking about is the difference between chasing ideas and being chosen by an idea:
When you chase ideas, youโre often acting from a fragmented place – trying to prove something, trying to force creativity, trying to control outcomes. All of this just comes from ego rather than from your REALNESS.
On the other hand, when an idea ‘chooses’ you, itโs coming from the deeper layers of your mind, from the ‘part’ of you that knows what you need before you do.
Practical Application: How to Know When an Idea Is Real
So how do you know when an idea is REAL?
How do you separate the passing whimsy of ego from something that truly needs to be followed through to completion and integration?
Here are a few signs:
1. It wonโt leave you alone
Real ideas donโt just come and go – they persist because the Shadow Self may start whispering for your attention but will start screaming for it the longer you go without listening. You might try to ignore them, but theyโll resurface again and again in different ways (including being projected ‘out’ as signs and symbols in the world).
2. It excites you and scares you at the same time
Real ideas stretch you. They force you to grow and that can be uncomfortable. If an idea lights you up but also makes you nervous, itโs probably real becuase it’s going to take you out of your comfort zone, stretch you beyond your edge, and show you who your really are.
3. It feels like itโs ‘choosing’ you – not the other way around
You donโt force a real idea – it finds you by flowing to you. You might not even know where it came from, but suddenly, itโs there, demanding attention and – upon closer examination – following it and flowing with it is the most natural thing in the world given where you find yourself at the time.
4. It connects to something deeper
A real idea isnโt just about external success or validation (ego) – it connects to your values, your truth, and your personal evolution (realness).
5. It feels inevitable
When a real idea takes hold, it feels like thereโs no other choice – even if you resist at first, deep down, you know youโre going to follow it. More than that, you know that you’re going to COMPLETE it because you can trust the process until it’s DONE.
How to Follow the Idea Without Ego Resistance or Distortion
Once you know an idea is real, the next step is to follow it without unnecessary ego resistance or distortion.
Hereโs how:
1. Commit to the journey
Accept that this idea is here for a reason and decide to follow it – even if it takes time, even if itโs inconvenient, commit to seeing it through.
2. Trust that it will unfold in the right way
You donโt need to force it but to FLOW with it. The idea has a life of its own and – if you stay receptive – it will lead you where it needs to go (which is more life of your own).
3. Let go of perfectionism
Donโt overthink or try to control every detail. The idea isnโt asking for perfection – itโs asking for expression through you and your realness.
4. Allow your routine to shift
Real ideas require space so be willing to adjust your habits to give it the time and energy it needs.
5. Stay connected to your WHY
Remember why this idea matters – connect it to your deeper values and personal growth and the process of the UNCONSCIOUS BECOMING CONSCIOUS so that you can become more whole (though you can always go deeper).
Conclusion: Go With It – Thereโs No Choice Anyway
When a REAL idea comes through, itโs not just a passing thought – itโs a process of evolution that will leave you changed forever once you’ve seen it through to completion.
Itโs something breaking through the unconscious demanding to be made real and – if itโs coming through you – then youโre the one ‘meant’ to bring it to life.
Thereโs no need to resist; thereโs no need to second-guess; thereโs no need to force.
Just let go, trust, and follow it where it leads.
Because at the end of the day, thereโs no choice, really. The idea has already chosen you.
Stay real out there,
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical โRevolutionsโ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst weโre still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.
