6.09 /// Free. Your. Mind. (How Imagination Becomes A Daily Lifeline)

Ever feel like your brain won’t sit still? That restless energy might be the best tool you’re not using. I, Stephen, open the door to a lifetime of imagination! From bedroom-wide toy battles and homemade radio shows to adult rituals that make real life feel more manageable, kinder, and surprisingly fun.

I trace how mental rehearsal helps before tough meetings and delicate conversations, not as a trick but as a practice for clarity and warmth. I also share the structure that I learnt as a kid who staged elaborate scenes and how that same instinct now underpins serious work: writing better, speaking straighter, and deciding faster. You’ll hear about pacing the house while answering imaginary interview questions, a simple way to stretch thinking and find words when they matter most.

Sleep, too, gets a creative twist. Listen to my  walk through of a sensory beach visualisation that quiets the nervous system, then confess a well‑worn Die Hard fantasy that sends me to sleep before the third act. The point isn’t spectacle; it’s familiarity. Returning to a known story signals safety and lets the mind ease off the accelerator. I also talks about loosening self‑censorship in writing, catching ideas on the phone at 2 a.m., and leaning on a partner who welcomes humming, odd laughs and noises, and the all important free‑form thinking.

If you’re looking to turn imagination into a daily habit, this is may be your map too: rehearse before it’s risky, practise where it’s safe, capture ideas when they arrive, and build an environment that applauds your quirks. Subscribe, share with a friend who overthinks, and leave a review with your best tip for calming a racing mind—we’ll feature our favourites next time.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Gratitude
• 2:11 Setting The Theme: Imagination
• 4:20 Using Play To Manage Life
• 5:40 Rehearsing Conversations For Calm
• 8:55 Childhood Solo Play And Structure
• 12:00 DIY Radio Shows And Early Creativity
• 14:20 Adult Self‑Talk And Practice Interviews
• 15:45 Sleep Routines And Die Hard Fantasy
• 18:20 Letting Creativity Flow Without Filters
• 20:10 Support, Freedom, And Closing

Transcript

Stephen: 0:45

Oh, welcome to Infinite Battle. Thank you very much for joining me again. And thank you very much if you've subscribed, liked, listened, downloaded, or give me some feedback, which is always nice to know that someone's out there rather than just listening. It's nice to know you're listening. But it's nice to get some feedback and some comments and some questions and some insights into how you think too. So thank you if you've done any of them things. And if you haven't, you could. I suppose. Anyway, um today, I'm gonna put my hat on. Hang on a tick. I can't remember which hat I was gonna wear now. See, this is what happens when you recall back to back and you you you're trying to run through things. You can see I'm wearing the exact same same clothes as the as the last episode. I'm spoiling the magic, aren't I? Anyway, reckon Morty Art. Um God. I don't get any better, do I? I don't get any better. Six seasons. Like a hundred and something episodes, hundred what was it, a hundred and I don't know, 180 episodes I think it is. Which is a milestone. Um I will get better. Anyway, today's episode is going to be about imagination and how I use my imagination even at 42 years of age. Um now, one of my most popular episodes was the second episode I released. So the very first episode was called This Is Stephen Speak because my podcast was called Stephen Speak at the time. Now it's called Infinite Brattle. Confusing, I know. Maybe a bad choice to change the name four seasons in. What are you gonna do? Anyway, uh Imagination uh was the uh Coming Me to a Wheel of Imagination was my second episode, and one of my most popular ones. Uh and in that describe I describe like how I I'm in my own head a little bit too much, probably. Uh, and how I'm a bit of a kid. So I just wanted to expand on that and tell you some more stuff than I do. Uh probably recap a little bit of stuff I do, but go back and listen to that episode. I'll put a key card somewhere so you can click. And then come back and listen to this, and it might make a bit more sense. I don't I don't know. I've not listened to that one. Probably should have listened to that one before I start doing this one. I did not. Because I am not very organised. Um because my imagination and my mind gets away with me. Um where did I put my brew? See what I mean? Uh yes, so imagination is a massive thing in my life. I and I I don't know how much it plays a part in other people's lives, really. I don't know whether people are naturally managed and managed imaginative and how they apply that to their world. Um my mind is constantly going, it's always on the move. Um which is a great thing, and it's also a terrible thing at the same time. Um it's it can be quite difficult to relax, and it can be quite difficult to to like manage the order of things in your brain. But generally I'm okay. I'm okay, I'm I I I'm used to how I am, but m imagination kind of helps me get through things, it helps me sleep, uh, it helps me organise my thoughts. Um and people would probably think I was mad if they saw me doing it. I'm I'm I'm sure they would. Um and I probably do stuff that most people would do. So I sing in the shower a little bit and I probably pretend that I'm a stage. No. I am in a band, but I pretend I'm on a bigger stage. Um and I pretend sometimes that I'm in an award ceremony ceremony performing or at a Super Bowl and um or on stage and doing doing theatre if I'm singing like a theatre song. Um and that's probably normal. I think most people have sang with a brush into a mirror and danced around the house and had that kind of fantasy, fleeting as it may be. Um But my I think my brain sometimes takes it a little bit further, and I take it into everyday life. Um I I I I think I'm realising the older I get and the more um the more I look at myself, the more I kind of organise my thoughts and understand myself just how I use my imagination and my thought process to just get through to life really. And it's a soothing technique as well. So let me let me get into the the crux of the matter. So I use imagination in a way to script my life, uh, and I don't think I've ever told my wife this, so it might be a bit of a revelation to her, but I I kind of um will rehearse things sometimes, and if I'm if I'm anxious about a situation, uh say a work meeting or or a situation with with someone where I've got to talk about something serious, or even not serious, but I want to come across um happy or jovial or trying to change my mood or trying if if there's a thing that's making me anxious, I'll try and rehearse it in my brain. And again, this might be a normal thing, I don't know. I don't know whether people do this, but I will literally imagine the conversation between two people and try and logicise what is logic a word? I use it a lot, probably isn't a word. Uh trying to make logical thought processes and how that conversation may go. And even at work I I practice sometimes conversations just so I just so I don't embarrass myself because my brain sometimes thinks faster than my mouth. No, my mouth thinks faster than my brain. Um so I I spurt stuff out sometimes and have to go back and crack myself and and I don't I don't like doing that because I like people have confidence in what I'm saying. So I I I like rehearse conversations, I rehearse Um situations. Um and I think I think for me that's like a soothing technique to to kind of make me realise that that situation probably isn't as bad as I'm expecting it to be, and that you know, even if I put out a worst case scenario in my head that it's not that bad. I don't get hung up on this, and I don't do it for everything, but if something is really stressing me out and I've got time, say I'm sat on a train and I'm travelling somewhere, that's kind of where my brain goes sometimes, and it is I think for me a soothing technique. I don't know I don't know where that's come from. I've just always done it, even from a child, something that I've I've always done. And when I think about it, it's probably because I played a lot on my own as a child. I liked my own space, and I liked to be in control of that situation. So maybe it's a form of control for me that I rehearse that situation so I can almost foresee what's gonna be said and practice what my lines are to lead it into where I want it to go. Sounds quite manipulative manipulative, doesn't it? I never really thought about that. Uh but I know I don't mean it to be manipulative, it's literally something that's just gonna help me process what's going on. But as a child I I played alone quite a lot through choice, but also my brother's five and a half years older than me, so he when he was when I was like six or seven went to play, he's like twelve, he doesn't want to play with his six-year-old brother, like you know, and I've always had a really, really vivid, vivid imagination, which unless you're in my brain, I didn't really want you to play with me anyway, because I had a very very logical way of playing. So like when I was a kid I had like I had like micro machines and manta force. Google them if you don't want to know no don't know what they are. Brilliant toys. I wish I'd never give them all away to be fair, but I give them to charities that help people with with with like kids with less less fortunate lives, so they would like I thought they were just on my loft and the value of them to sell, I could have probably got money for them, but they were they were just sat there and I you can't put everything on display. And um there was a charity asking for toys, and I thought, you know what, they give me so much joy, I'm gonna give them away. Part of me regrets it, but part of me knows that they obviously went to people that needed some toys, and hopefully they're still being played with them, not in a landfill somewhere, fingers crossed, because that would upset me. But anyway, I digress. Um I I used to basically plan my play. And that might sound sad to some people that it wasn't organic, and it was a little bit organic, but I used to pl plan a battle um between the good guys and the bad guys, and I set it up all on the landing in our house, and so like sod you if you need to go to the toilet because my toys were everywhere. And my dad used to try and play sometimes, but he'd be like, Alright, I'm gonna move this, and I was like, do not move that, that's not gonna move yet. This battle has to happen over here, then they're the reinforcements, and what you want what you what you're doing. Uh and I'd get kind of like pissed off, if I'm honest with you. Um I almost wanted them to be observers of my play, because again, there there was there was no time to explain it, the play had to happen. There was no time to say what the plan was, and sometimes it was organic, but generally I had an idea of like, right, I've set that up over there, this is a battle scene that's gonna happen, that's gonna happen, then they'll come over here because they'll win that battle, they're gonna come over here, do this, etc. And it had it had a flow, and uh in my brain it was almost like a film, like I was directing a movie, uh, even from a very, very young age. Um, and it's always something that'd been interesting, I think, that if I'd have got into film and TV and how that would have how my kind of imagination of visualizing things would have played out in that kind of world, because I've always kind of played with things, even when I had action men, the action men were puppets in my show almost. Um and there was plots, plots, plots, there was plots, subplots, like when I got a bit older, there was really complex things going on. Um I almost wish I could be a fly on the wall of my own play sessions because I was probably quite silent apart from making like gun sounds and stuff like that. And I was probably quite silent apart from the talk and speech of the people that would be talking. Um because it was all going on my brain, like my brain was like sst firing away on all cylinders. Um I did that with all my all my toys and all my and all my um playthings. Um one of the things I really really really really loved doing um was kind of like maybe an early podcast actually, thinking of it. Um in the time I used to pretend I had my own radio show. So I used to uh and my brother used to do this, I think, but I don't think he was like open and open to admitting it. But I had like a a boom box, I've still got it somewhere down here. It was like a it's an attachy cylindrical one, it's a great piece of kit. So futuristic l looking back in like the late 80s, early 90s when I got it for my birthday. I think I got it for my ninth birthday or eighth birthday. It was my first proper adult piece of tech, really, and um had a built-in microphone, so m I got a couple of blank cassettes so I could record my own shows. So I used to put uh a tape in in the playback tape deck, and I used to press record and then speak into the microphone, pretend I was a DJ, and like introducing guests, like I don't know. I've still got a tape actually. Um and I should I should have actually see if I could have copied it to to my computer for this. I don't know how I'd have done it, but I'm sure I could have maybe played it in the tape deck and recorded onto my phone or something. But there's there's there's one and I'm really young and I've actually loaded the the game Dizzy on the Amstrad to play the music, and um that was the music for the radio show I think, and I'm um saying how Dizzy was a cool dude, and then I'm saying I've got m a MC Hammer in the studio with me, and he's dancing, and then I play some music, and it's right at the end of a I heard one of my mates copied me the the Teenage Beauty Ninja Turtle soundtrack onto a tape, and it's after the last song on side B where there was some blank space and I decided to do this radio show. So my imagination's always been like really, really high level as even as a even as a kid, and like really detailed, like and I I get so into the thing I was doing, like really dedicate myself to it, um to such a degree that if someone interrupted me then I would be furious. Um I I don't necessarily think I was embarrassed by being caught doing stuff like that unless I thought they were taking the piss. Um then I'd be more frustrated thinking that you know I'm j I'm just doing something normal in in my eyes. Um But yeah, my my imagination for acting stuff out has always been there and and nowadays I I use it um I think as a self-soothing kind of tiny, but if I'm in the house on my own, I will walk around talking to myself, um say acting out conversations, you know, pretending I'm being interviewed for a magazine. I still do that now at 42. Is that weird? I I I I feel like it isn't weird. Maybe it is, I don't know. I don't care. I don't care. And I really don't care. Um I don't I don't care, it's just something that I do, and it's something that it it makes me laugh, it may it flexes my brain muscles, um, enables me to think on my feet, because I always challenge myself to come up with some explanation for something in my life, or I'll imagine I'm being interviewed, say about my podcast, or you know, I'll imagine the podcast has got famous and and blown up on YouTube or something like that, and and I'm being interviewed about it, and how how would I handle that situation? Or I'll imagine that you know, and this this is a bit far-fetched me, but I've I've saved a tower of I've saved a building from terrorists like John McLean, and I'm being interviewed about that, or I or or I'm that's actually one of the scenarios I used to go sleep, actually, weirdly enough. This is this is bizarre. Now this is bizarre. Uh if I can't sleep at night, I think I've I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, I can't quite remember. Um but as as a as a soothing technique for going to sleep, I have a couple of techniques to go sleep. One of them is to imagine just a beach, a very, very plain beach. So lying on the beach, imagining the ground, the sand on your skin, and this is a really good technique, actually. It it really works. Imagine the warmth of the sand, the warmth of the sun, clear blue skies, not a cloud in the sky, it's very, very quiet apart from the lapping of the sea, and you can you can feel the breeze on you, and you just you just constantly keep imagining that, and you'll be asleep so quick. Um if that doesn't work, then generally I imagine that I'm I'm John McLean. Nor normally weirdly from uh Die Hard 2, um, where it's set in an airport, and that me and Sarah are going on holiday somewhere, sometimes uh a mum's there, and basically we get separated in in the airport because I've gone the toilet and terrorists storm the airport and I have to climb into the ceiling and and rescue them and and I'm the hero of the day. But I normally don't get anywhere near that. I normally get down to taking out out the first couple of terrorists and getting a radio and then I fall asleep. Um but literally that's how I go to sleep. Like and it and it weirdly relaxes me because I'm comfortable with that story, I think. I don't know. I think I've just got so used to that story, and now my brain's conditioned and that thought process induces sleep. Now that could be considered weird, I suppose, but it's just how I use my imagination. I I apply it to things that I need to make myself feel better. Um and I think I think that creatively I have a I have a reasonably good uh imagination. I think I hold back, weirdly enough, when it comes to like just random shit, I don't really hold back on it. But when it comes to creativeness, like I'm more I trying to be I try to restrain myself, which I shouldn't. I should just be completely open, just rip the lid off the top of my head and let things pour out. Um and I'm trying to be more like that with the the books I'm writing and just write stuff and don't kind of question it as I'm writing, and because I don't do that when I'm in the flow with thinking about my imagin imaginative stuff. Uh and I don't think about that right now. Like what I'm saying now is not scripted whatsoever. That's the whole ethos of this podcast, is that I don't I think of the subject, I may do some limited research, I may do some limited notes, but in general terms, there's there's nothing here that is scripted or planned apart from the the subject matter. Um and I should be like that more and I think everyone should be a little bit more like that. It's it's nice to be um a bit unhinged sometimes and free. And as as Morpheus said in the in The Matrix, free your mind. And I think that'd be a good title for this podcast actually, free your mind. Um I'll have to remember that when I'm going into the editing. Um yeah, I j I just think that like don't don't hold back, you can be a child, you can be childlike, it doesn't matter. Um I use my brain in all sorts of ways, and when I'm at work I have quite a serious job, I have lots of serious things to review and serious paperwork to write. So when you can be childlike or free and express yourself, kind of like in the previous episode, I was talking about my haircuts, my hairstyles, and down to the clothes you wear. Like, be interesting, use your brain, and you never know, you might get something out of it, you know. Using your imagination, you may have an epiphany about something. You may come up with a brilliant idea. Um I've started to write things down now a lot more again. I used to write things down loads when I was when I was living on my own. Um and I I I think I felt restricted a little bit sometimes when I'm living with with Sarah just because I feel that my actions are always going to impact her. I just doesn't care. She doesn't care. So I've been doing a lot more when I've been in the middle of the night if I've come up with some thoughts, I've been grabbing my phone, and she's not even noticed. She's not even noticed. Well, she hasn't said that she's noticed at least anyway, so I'm I'm really pleased. So I'm kind of trying to be a bit more free with my thoughts. Um sometimes you have good ideas in the middle of the night, and when you wake up in the morning, you could not remember them. And that's bad. Um so yeah, so I'm trying I'm trying to do that. It was a bit of a higgledy-piggledy episode today, so I'm not gonna apologize. I'm gonna I was gonna apologise, I'm not gonna have to apologize because that is what you should expect from Infinite Prattle by now. Um is just a a whirlwind of information in some sort of order, which might not be the right order, um you know, delivered in hopefully my unique way. Um I really enjoyed doing this. I I again I said in the last episode, thank you for like tuning in and and listening. Um please keep your using your imagination and you know, keep that childlike essence, that imaginative being, that creativeness going. Um you only can be creative if if you relax into it. You can't force it. You have to be in the right environment and the right situation to do it, and make sure you are, make sure you're with the right people, with the right person, uh that will support that. Because that's really important too, you know, having that having that support of of being who you are, essentially. Um like I how rude my phone's going off, even though it's on Do Not Disturb. How does that even happen? It's my mum, I'll phone her back in a minute. Um anyway, I think that you know having that support and being able to be free, like I apologize to Sarah all the time for being myself, um singing to myself, making silly noises to myself, like chuckling to myself, because like that's what I do. I have to openly be expressive sometimes. Uh, and it's not good to keep them them feelings in. And it brings me joy to express myself like that, it brings me happy. Um and it makes her happy that I can be me. So make sure that you can be you. And I'm gonna leave it there. I'm gonna go phone my mum and see what she wants. Um, probably just a good old Sunday chat. So I'll uh I'll go and speak to her. Uh, but yeah, until next time, um, you know, take care of yourselves, look after each other, um, use your imagination, and make sure you keep trattling.

SPEAKER_01: 21:44

Thanks for listening to Infinite Prattle with your host Steven. Follow me on social network at InfinitePrattle. And don't forget to subscribe.