I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant!

…or reflections on unconscious creation.

Dear Creators,

When I was just starting out in TV, my main job was to support my bosses doing admin, filing expense reports, making agendas for meetings, and generally keeping our department running smoothly. I was young and didn’t know a lot about making television. I worked in development and the job was ideas: finding them, fleshing them out, and shaping them for our audience. Because I was so green, I wasn’t taking pitches or hearing ideas from producers yet, so I had to find other ways.

It was 2009, and I was living in Virginia and commuting to Silver Spring, Maryland where I worked at the Discovery Health Channel (RIP). Traffic on the DC beltway was always a mess, so my drive was about an hour each morning. I’d pass the time listening to one of the morning radio shows. One day I heard a DJ discussing a story about a woman who landed in the ER in agony, thinking her appendix had burst. Within minutes she had given birth to a full-term baby. She didn’t know she was pregnant.

Let’s pause here for a moment.

At this point in my life, I had already had two full term pregnancies. I’d like to tell you I was one of those cute pregnant ladies, who glowed from within and carried herself with grace. Alas, I was not. I gained 60lbs and felt like a stranger in my own body. As my babies grew to term, I started to walk with a waddle. I had indigestion. Every inch of my body felt pregnant. So, you might understand my incredulity when I heard this story. As an isolated incident, maybe I could believe it. But the DJ opened the phone lines, asking his listeners to call in if this had happened to them or someone they knew. The calls poured in.

When I got to the office, I pitched the idea to my boss who was also a mom, and although skeptical, she agreed it was fascinating. We did our research, discovering there were enough women to whom this had happened to cast a show, and a series was born.

To be clear, I’m not casting aspersions on any women to whom this has happened. I’m looking at it more symbolically, revisiting my creative choices of years gone by. I think most of us hope that with time and experience, comes a little wisdom and self-awareness. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the shows I worked on and what strikes me about this one is the act of unconscious creation.

When I say ‘unconscious creation’, I’m talking about when we do not bring a deeper level of awareness to why we create what we create. I am not referring to the unconscious, which can be defined as a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories outside of our conscious awareness. Many people believe the unconscious is a tremendous source of creativity, and I would agree. It can be a magnificent ally. But if we don’t at some point consider WHY we created the show (or wrote the piece) and what its potential impact is, that’s unconscious creation in my book.

It's hard to admit now, but I was probably unconsciously creating for the first half of my career. Chasing ratings, chasing audience, chasing novelty. I wasn’t thinking deeply about the stories I was choosing to tell (or omit) or the message I was putting out with each show I worked on. With age came some humility, and I started thinking more about my creative choices and continue to do so, vowing to do better than my younger self.

There is power in storytelling. With every story we choose to tell, and the way we choose to tell it, we are putting something into the collective that has ripple effects. If you have a platform and subscribers, you have power, whether you know it or not. I’m asking you to know it. We might be alone with our coffee, sweating it out word by word, writing in our own little universe…but as soon as we hit publish, it becomes part of something greater.

Let’s look at Substack for example. With each piece I publish, with every Note I create, and every comment I make on someone else’s work, I’m co-creating this environment along with every other writer on this platform. Every creative choice I make adds to the ocean we are swimming in together. So, I ask myself: what kind of ocean do I want to swim in?

I want to swim in an ocean that feels expansive, enlivening, and supportive. One that stokes my creative flame and leaves me inspired. One that rewards curiosity, bravery, and vulnerability. One where I learn and can expand my view of the world. One that’s curious and compassionate. One that welcomes voices that haven’t been heard.

If we zoom out bigger than Substack to the world at large, we are simply in a larger ocean, and our choices matter even more. Because what we create, creates the world. That piece you wrote (or poem, or song or documentary) might feel like a drop to you, but the truth is, with everything you create, you’re adding to the ocean.

So Dear Creators, let it pour out: your writing, your story, your creations. Let it flow. And then pause a moment before you hit post or publish. Before you pitch that next show idea to Netflix or Hulu. Check in. Check in with yourself about what you’re creating. Does it feel good? Does it do harm? Does it reveal a truth? Does it feel like the ocean you want to swim in? That’s conscious creation.

I’ll see you out there in the waves.

Emerald Isle, NC