What Inspires You?

Photo Credit: Suzanne Goulet

Have you ever thought about what truly inspires you? Those activities or experiences that really lift your spirit? You know and have experienced this before - they gently caress your soul, propel you into higher thoughts, and make you feel elevated and just good about life.

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All the things around you - be they material, energetic or experiential - have the ability to affect your inner energy, simply by your being exposed to them. So in this article, I’m going to be asking you to think about what inspires you, and then invite you to make more room, more time in your schedule and in your environment to fill your life with that which lifts your Spirit.

The word inspiration has its roots from the Latin verb inspirare, to breathe or to blow into, and it originally referred to a divine or supernatural being in the sense of ‘imparting truth or an idea to someone.’ Today the word inspiration refers to being mentally stimulated to do or to feel something, especially to do something creative. But are these two definitions really that far apart?

When we are in the act of doing something creative, something we feel totally inspired to do, we are actually being filled with our own spiritual essence. When our spiritual essence is flowing through our minds and hearts, it creates a sense of fulfillment of a much higher nature.

The more inflow of inspiration you allow to come through you, the more and more divine inspiration you are likely to experience coming forward in your life.

In our highest creativity we invite Spirit into our lives, and act through those great blessings that have been bestowed upon us: our own creative forces.

But sometimes our lives are so caught up in taking care of the many demands that make up a modern, productive life. It’s easy to forget to set out time to fill ourselves with the very inspiration that can keep us moving forward as happy, well-balanced, contributing individuals. Overwhelm, too many obligations, requirements from others that depend on our efforts, all these can often leave us depleted, under nourished and spiritually empty. The last thing we want to think of is what more to add to the to-do list!

However, what I’d like to suggest is that doing what inspires you is exactly the source, or the connection to your spirit that will allow you to see the bigger picture of your life, and bring you new insights into what changes you can make to smooth out the sometimes necessary demands of your schedule.

Your creativity is your connection to Source, and the greatest source of nurturing you could ever receive.

By following a few guidelines for scheduling time-out for you to do what inspires you, you can gain greater and greater access to your true source of inspiration for all things - big and small - that make up your life.

In our highest creativity we invite Spirit into our lives, and act through those great blessings that have been bestowed upon us: our own creative forces.

For instance - when was the last time that you engaged in any activity that truly inspired you? Last week? This morning? A year ago? Keeping stuck on the treadmill of uninspiring activities also keeps your spirit stuck.

The way to know this is happening for you is:

• How is your well-being? Do you feel generally happy and well in your day-to-day life?

• When you go to bed at night, are you so exhausted you can’t even think straight?

• When was the last time you did something for yourself, guilt-free?

Women often adhere to the built-in DNA code that tells them they need to take care of everyone else around them, first; that they are the survivors; that they will be fine; and that taking care of others is their job.

Men will be in hot pursuit of their goals, planning, strategizing and limiting the time they give to themselves, for themselves. The general plan usually is, “I’ll take care of that later” when, that ‘later’ never really comes.

If you’re living your life in constant overwhelm or full-throttle, it’s time to re-assess what you’re doing. Taking care of your life and business doesn’t mean it has to be at the expense of you, now does it? That doesn’t make any logical sense now, does it?

So to begin, schedule some time in for yourself. Without it being actually on your schedule, it’s un likely it will ever get done. You must literally look at your coming week, and plan out when you will take at least 2 hours out to do something that really inspires you. 4 hours would be ideal.

When that time actually arrives, if all you can think about is collapsing in a big relax in front of the tube for some mindless distraction, just realize that you have been long overdue. Go back to your schedule again, and start scheduling more. You are in dire need; it’s 911 for you; and time to let go of some activities that no longer serve you. This was not what Life had in mind when it put you here on Earth.

When you do get to the point of scheduling and actually carrying out some time for inspiring activities for yourself, do you have any idea what you’d like to do? Here are a few suggestions and guidelines to think about:

• Are you lifted upward? Setting yourself up for inspiring activities is not adding more things to your ‘to-do’ list. It should lift you. It should be completely outside of your normal day-to-day. It should elevate your spirit skyward.

• Does it trigger creative thinking? This is where your mind gets to wander up into higher thinking and bring down some new ideas. In order to get to that place, you do have to be in a fairly relaxed state, de-stressed already, and yet energized enough to be mentally alert for the next few hours.

• Are you creating something material in the world? That is, are your thoughts and inspirations then translating to something that comes into our physical world? It could be a poem, a new song, that new lobster bisque recipe or the hardwood cabinet you’ve been wanting to create for some time. Whatever it is, will others be able to see, hold, touch, taste, smell or hear it? These are all good senses to behold new creations!

• Will you feel fully satisfied when you’re done? In other words, are you stretching yourself enough? Staying in smallville may not be enough for you. If you’ve always wanted to tackle composing a new hymn for your church, yet what you do instead is strum the same familiar classics on your guitar when you finally sit down to do your inspiring work, will you feel satisfied? Sometimes taking those big leaps into what would really inspire you requires just that: big leaps. Take those larger steps so that, when your time chunk is completed, you feel really good about how you spent it.

By scheduling your time so that you can actually give yourself over to higher inspirations, you’ll be feeding yourself a gift that keeps on giving. The new mental activity and self-confidence that develops spills over into all other areas of your life. There’s nothing like standing back and looking at, or feeling, touching or hearing something you just created out of nothing. It just feels good, and you’ll frequently be inspired to do more.

Stay tuned next week for “The Larger Inspirations”, another blog post for those of you who already know what you’re inspired by, and are now ready to serve a higher calling with your work.

You're welcome to schedule a complimentary Discovery Session* with me so we can discuss how I can support you in creating a more inspired, fulfilling life.

My Best,

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