How to Find Your Hidden Stories

And Other Lessons From Deep Sea Diving

I often ask writers who take my writing workshops to watch ten minutes of Craig Foster’s breathtaking documentary My Octopus Teacher. His deep sea adventures are staggeringly beautiful and offer a rare glimpse into the watery depths—but that’s not why I encourage them to watch. (The film did win an Oscar though. So if you haven’t seen it yet, stream it!)

The part of the film I’m talking about runs from about ten minutes to twenty minutes in and offers a master class in the creative process and how to work with the unexpected gems you find. Here’s the thing: What transpires is so simple it’s easy to miss the importance.

This is how these ten minutes unfold—and why it matters (no spoiler alerts here!):

At the start of the film Foster has suffered personal and professional loses. He’s world-weary and his perspective is shot. In search of relief and solace, Foster goes free-diving near his home in Cape Town, South Africa in an underwater kelp forest in the frigid waters of False Bay. He swims along the ocean floor when something captures his attention: A strange creature covered in shells unlike anything he’s ever seen.

Foster swims closer to get a better look only to have it dart away. In the process the shell-covered sea creature drops the shells and reveals itself as an octopus. His curiosity piqued, our intrepid diver resolves to return to discover more about this underwater being.

This isn’t the star of My Octopus Teacher, but a gorgeous stand in courtesy of Unsplash stock photos.

Every single day for the next year Foster submerges himself in the sea and swims through the undulating kelp with the hope of a repeat encounter. Some days he approaches too quickly and startles the octopus away. On other days he gets his approach just right—a slow, smooth, and easy glide that doesn’t unnerve his new companion. He then trails the octopus to observe its curious and mesmerizing ways.

What transpires during Foster’s daily visits is what makes the film such a gift. I promised not to give it away, so suffice to say that a magical relationship grows between Foster and the octopus that changes his (Foster’s!) life forever.

And here is the secret for our lives as writers and deep sea divers into the rich and wondrous realms of psyche and nature: It lies in our intention to return daily to the marvels that capture our attention. It lies in our willingness to dive beneath our own world weariness, the static of our busyness, the loops of our thinking, the stories we tell ourselves about what does and doesn’t matter.

When we do this the universe begins to speak to us. Animals engage. Images haunt us. Phrases that people say play on repeat in our mind. Ancestors whisper. A sense of presence given off by a river or a tree wants to convey something vital.

This is our job: To notice and nurture what invites our curiosity. To not rush too quickly to try to capture it (counter-intuitive, I know!).

Our job is to relate with it and wait to see what wants to be revealed. This relationality is how we find our way to our deep and hidden stories—that are sometimes hidden in plain sight.

So whether you’re a new or seasoned writer, artist, meditator, or any creative explorer compelled to search for stories and hidden meaning, you want to know about this. If you feel like you need inspiration, or you’re flailing around wondering where to begin a project, how to get out of your own way, or how to find your way through what feels like a setback, then this practice is for you. 

This moment captured my attention when I was hosting a reading and event for my novel Tree Dreams at the Bioneers festival in California in 2017. This is a photo of an art installation there, and a family enjoying the afternoon sun.

7 Steps to Find Your Hidden Stories

1. Step away from the known world: Foster literally left the banks of his known world and submerged himself in the ocean. Every day. There’s something essential in this. So find a way to immerse yourself in the unknown. It could be as simple as a quick shower or living room dance party in the middle of the day to shake off your habits of mind. Commit to walk in new neighborhoods on a regular basis and notice. Take yourself into nature—a forest, the ocean, remote desert. However you go about it, rearrange your relationship with discovery.

2. Write it down: Each day before you go to bed, take no more than five minutes to write down three things that captured your attention that day. Use the ‘First Thought, Best Thought’ method of writing the first three things that come to mind. Do this for a week and you’ll be amazed by how quickly you become attuned to new observations. Do it for a month and you develop a kind of x-ray vision. You’ll start to see the sublime in what was previously mundane.

3. What's on repeat?: Notice if there are themes that cycle through your nighttime lists. Does nature play a big role? Does the dynamic of a particular relationship take center stage? Has an injustice made your blood boil? Does a particular symbol keep popping up? One friend found herself drawing hearts all the time, and then saw them everywhere. Recurring topics point to bigger stories that are begging for your attention.

4. Activate your curiosity: Kick your curiosity up a notch. If you begin to notice a recurring theme, take the next step and explore the topic further. What do you want to understand: The bumpy dynamics in a relationship? A spiritual practice that will unlock wisdom? The complexities of the many shades of blue? Do you need to learn more about a given system, like finance, or forestry, or being a death doula? What are new ways to learn more?

5. Make lists: Write down everything you’d like to learn. Make a list of five or ten things that you’re really curious about. You can divide your lists into specifics (I am going to research more about trees in my neighborhood) or general categories (I know I want to learn about forest activism). Either way, lists help to set the wheels in motion.

6. Pursue the shock of wonder/ outrage/ beauty: The universe is talking to you so you want to pursue what stops you in your tracks, or the themes that are recurring. Foster resolved to dive everyday to learn more about the octopus. But it might not always be a wondrous or beautiful curiosity, and that’s okay. Heartbreak over clearcuts in the forests near where I used to live in Portland, Oregon made me want to learn everything I could about trees. I signed up for Urban Forestry 101. Then I discovered that a neighbor was an arborist who climbed and measured the biggest trees of each species for The National Champion Tree Registry (who even knew such a thing existed?). He let me tag along on expeditions. All of this helped me respond to the devastation of the clearcuts—and ultimately evolved into my novel Tree Dreams.

7. Take your time. Listen. Notice: Work with your “To Explore” list every day for a week or month (or more!). The more you do this, the more you’ll see. Write down everything you discover. Let one insight lead to the next and practice staying in relationship with what wants to reveal itself. This requires equal parts noting and listening and being patient. It invites, as Rilke famously wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet, learning to “Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

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What has captured your curiosity lately? How do you immerse yourself in the unknown? Click below to share your wisdom and experience in the comments.