I was with a friend recently, sharing my excitement about the concept of "Inspiration In Action." I explained the basic premise of employing gratitude, courage, compassion and forgiveness to enable us to leave our past behind and live a more conscious and inspired life. Her feedback was perfect: "I like the idea of illumination" she said. The idea that all of the qualities we need to employ, to live an inspired life, we already possess.
Think of a dark room, now think of that darkness as your mind, where all of your past stories of hurt and challenge reside along with the fear about the future, those experiences have generated. The memories repeat and morph over time, sometimes disabling us emotionally. Now, imagine a candle being lit in that dark room, illuminating your pure and perfect self, hidden in the darkness. Light another candle and another until the room is bright and beautiful. Illuminating our beauty and purity, focusing on the present instead of the past or the unknown future is what some describe as living consciously.
I challenge myself to stay in the process of living an inspired life by illuminating the purity, the beauty and the good. The past is powerless in the face of this light and we are free to be present. The future can be predicted by the thoughts and feelings we have, so to let go of the anxiety and fear produced by past experience is to step into the light instead of staying in the darkness.
Of course many people love to and feel that they need to hang on to their story, asking "who am I without it?" When we identify ourselves by our story, we sell this life experience short for we truly are spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. When you recognize that you are a spiritual being then letting go of or surrendering your story, your ego, is the only way to be truly authentic.
I challenge you as I challenge myself to employ courage to see beyond what we think we "know" and check in with our true reality, here in the light.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Inspiration
What you believe is a result of your past; what you think about is shaping your future. We are all plugged in to our thinking, believing that we are connected to truth in some way through our thoughts. Living an inspired life involves recognizing that you are not your thoughts and how you think is shaping what comes next.
We all have a story; some of us write books about our story to entertain or educate others. Elizabeth Gilbert's great book "Eat, Pray, Love" is about one woman's awakening to living an inspired life. Her journey started with a sad story about her marriage ending. It's true that for most of us, the journey to awareness or inspiration starts with some sadness or difficulty in our life story. The wonderful thing is how we discover ourselves and rise up into living a more inspired life as a result of something difficult or sad.
My guess is that the universe or the source or god, whatever you call your divine connection, delivers a subtle message and if we're ready to hear it, we can manifest the change without having to go through the difficulties. The truth is that we humans aren't conditioned to listen to that type of subtle message, so we keep going until we run into some type of crisis either emotional or physical and are forced to pay attention. Think of heart attack victims who come to death's door and are given another chance at life. Many of them make sweeping changes in their lives and are more attuned to the subtle messages.
The fact of the matter is that it's difficult to be aligned with your spiritual self in a climate of superficial gratification. We place more emphasis on designer clothes than we do on personal peace. If we don't have personal peace, how can we have peace in the world? We have made great strides in technological development which has served to give us the illusion that we're more connected that ever; in truth we are more disconnected from ourselves and each other than ever.
I mentioned earlier that we are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are a great distraction, like having a multi-media project on the go all the time. There's always some aspect of that project that could require your attention. Some of us make it our life's work to live in that distraction and believe that the distraction is our life purpose. Strange as this may sound: none of that is who you are. I believe that who you are is the purity and perfection that lives behind the distractions. You'll catch glimpses of that perfect energy when you mediate or invite stillness. Living an inspired life requires making peace with the distractions, knowing that they will always be there. Everyone has an ego; the trick is learning to live with having an ego, knowing that who you really are is something much more magnificent, powerful, peaceful, pure and worthy.
I do believe that each one of us has a unique role to play while we're on the earth and that we receive messages, mostly subtle ones, about what that role or mission is. The distractions help us to avoid listening to those subtle messages.
Using inspiration, we can plug into the subtle and nurture our best selves. We can share the miracles of everyday simplicity with each other, celebrating the abundance in our lives, observing the perfection in nature. We can illuminate the peace and goodness that lives within and then share that in our lives. Each one of us can take a small inspired step and make a difference. This is Inspiration In Action.
We all have a story; some of us write books about our story to entertain or educate others. Elizabeth Gilbert's great book "Eat, Pray, Love" is about one woman's awakening to living an inspired life. Her journey started with a sad story about her marriage ending. It's true that for most of us, the journey to awareness or inspiration starts with some sadness or difficulty in our life story. The wonderful thing is how we discover ourselves and rise up into living a more inspired life as a result of something difficult or sad.
My guess is that the universe or the source or god, whatever you call your divine connection, delivers a subtle message and if we're ready to hear it, we can manifest the change without having to go through the difficulties. The truth is that we humans aren't conditioned to listen to that type of subtle message, so we keep going until we run into some type of crisis either emotional or physical and are forced to pay attention. Think of heart attack victims who come to death's door and are given another chance at life. Many of them make sweeping changes in their lives and are more attuned to the subtle messages.
The fact of the matter is that it's difficult to be aligned with your spiritual self in a climate of superficial gratification. We place more emphasis on designer clothes than we do on personal peace. If we don't have personal peace, how can we have peace in the world? We have made great strides in technological development which has served to give us the illusion that we're more connected that ever; in truth we are more disconnected from ourselves and each other than ever.
I mentioned earlier that we are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are a great distraction, like having a multi-media project on the go all the time. There's always some aspect of that project that could require your attention. Some of us make it our life's work to live in that distraction and believe that the distraction is our life purpose. Strange as this may sound: none of that is who you are. I believe that who you are is the purity and perfection that lives behind the distractions. You'll catch glimpses of that perfect energy when you mediate or invite stillness. Living an inspired life requires making peace with the distractions, knowing that they will always be there. Everyone has an ego; the trick is learning to live with having an ego, knowing that who you really are is something much more magnificent, powerful, peaceful, pure and worthy.
I do believe that each one of us has a unique role to play while we're on the earth and that we receive messages, mostly subtle ones, about what that role or mission is. The distractions help us to avoid listening to those subtle messages.
Using inspiration, we can plug into the subtle and nurture our best selves. We can share the miracles of everyday simplicity with each other, celebrating the abundance in our lives, observing the perfection in nature. We can illuminate the peace and goodness that lives within and then share that in our lives. Each one of us can take a small inspired step and make a difference. This is Inspiration In Action.
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