Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.
But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.
When I'm off the road, my husband and I recharge our batteries. It's a day of deep rest and connection with the spiritual, and that can be anything - going for a walk in nature, being in silence, burning incense.
Writing the record for me - every record is almost a surprise. When people ask me, what are the themes you want to grapple with on this one? I have no idea until the record's finished.
All of my unconscious fears were in my face about letting go of the current identity. A lot of the thoughts that came up were fear-based and false, so I had to work to let them go.
I notice that when I feel the most disconnected, once I'm done blaming the moon and everything else, I can see that I am so mired in identification with form and ego and story and identity, and that if I want to, I can read some scripture or read some spiritual book or pray or meditate or sit in the sun or hang around the birds and the dogs, and get a real objective sense of what's really going on here. That usually softens things.
There is no better feeling than when you write something you know is a piece of you and that, at some point, is going to communicate with someone else.