What Inspires You?
Recently I was at a professional meeting when asked, “what inspires you?” And given that the workshop was in Greece, honestly, there was a lot to inspire me. To walk among temples thousands of years old, to sit where Aristotle sat, where Alexander visioned, where Homer wrote…truly that was inspiration; let alone feeling the energies of Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Artemis and the other gods of Mt. Olympus.
But beyond that incredible venue, the question was a powerful one, “What inspires you?’
We seem to talk a lot about “motivation”, but that’s more an external thing. Motivation often comes from a project deadline, a race you signed up for, an elixir (like coffee). There’s a timeline, a specific goal, a ticking clock, an expectation that gets your adrenaline going. (And these are all good things, for sure)
But inspiration is different. It’s far deeper. It comes from a place inside of hope, of purpose, of courage, of remembering why we are here and what we want to bring to the world. Yet, how often lately have we asked ourselves, “what inspires us?” And then there’s the follow up questions of, “how can we build that inspiration into our day, our decision making, our communication with others? How can we use our inspiration to move beyond our fears?
Inspiration takes us back to our hearts…to our humanness…to our connections to others, nature, spirit and the stars. Inspiration expands us. Try it. Spend the next 2 minutes thinking and or writing down what inspires you and then just sit in that awareness. Notice how you feel, what ideas come to mind. Allow your nervous system to both settle in and expand out.. Do this for a few minutes every day for the next week. See what emerges. What inspires you and how can you bring that awareness into how you show up today?
To wondrous, enchanted inspiration,
Sandy
Six Minutes Daily….3 minutes or so of breathing slowly…Allowing the light of the day to flow through the crown of your head down all your body’s pathways, and allowing the fire from deep in the earth to flow up through your feet — feeling both the light and fire swirl around and energize your heart and core. Just breathe in presence of the moment.
Then 2 minutes of so of breathing in your intentions for the day… a word, value or phrase to ground you. Perhaps just the intention of “feeling inspiration”.
And then a minute or so of breathing in gratitude for something or someone whom you appreciate or learned from. And perhaps even picture your breath as a golden thread of thanks from your heart to theirs.
