Finding Inspiration!

Often the question is asked of me, "Where does your inspiration come from?" This question suggests that our own inspiration is held within some external place, and if we were able to just finally reach there, then maybe the miraculous floodgates of inspired action would then deluge our lives with all the things that we desire. The question also suggests that there might be some external force, such as a muse, that then could, upon our meeting that muse, inspire us to action in our chosen field of endeavor, creating masterpiece after masterpiece of success. While these two suggested directions of thought all outline perfectly what motivation is, they do not in any way touch upon what inspiration truly is. Motivation comes from an external source, a mentor, a coach, a loved one, a muse, while inspiration can only come from us when we are being our true selves. Our true selves are us, when we are in the profound and deep experience of our own pre-existing self-worthiness, which then causes us to live lives of inspired action.

The key meaning behind what inspiration really is, is in the definition of the word itself. Two components in particular are of interest if we are to fully practice inspiration: "The drawing in of air, or inhalation." And, "Divine guidance or spark." Taken this way, inspiration literally means to "To breathe in the Divine." When we breathe in the Divine, we then literally, "breathe out" inspired action. What's the Divine? We are! We are no less part of the Divine, literally, than anything else in this entire Universe, and beyond. To the ancients, this breath was defined as the Divine breath of life, or Prana. The ancients knew that without this Divine breath, we would die. A human life uninspired then, is like walking around without air. Not particularly comfortable, and not filled with much aliveness. And not the kind of life most of us had envisioned ourselves living! Yet this is the life we live, when we are uninspired. If you look into the faces of those around you, it would be an unavoidable conclusion to come up with the truth, that most people, most of the time, are living uninspired lives. When in truth, not one of them have to!

Why don't they have to? Because with just one small shift in their thinking, our thinking, we all can continually, more and more and more, begin to breathe in the Divine. And just where is this Divine to be breathed in? It's not external to us, it's not coming in a few years, and it's not sourced from outside of ourselves in any way whatsoever. And until you get here, as fully as in any one now moment that you can get here, and with all you have, as your true-self, right here and right now, then your mother, your father, your rich uncle, icon, rock star, religious figure, dogma, law, rules, powers that be, or new government program, is not coming to save you, ever. Until you get here, inspired by your own recognition of your self-worthy, true-self, then you will remain invisible to others, as well as to yourself. And how can an other outside source, in any way support you, if you are invisible to not only yourself, but to them to? Truth is, they can't. They cannot support what they cannot see. So many walk around feeling their own "as if they're invisible" non-existence, I know, I coach them all the time. And it's not that they're necessarily walking around in some existential funk, depressed, or even close to it, but they are filled with a longing that something "is missing" in their lives, and they can't quite put their finger on it. That there's something that they just have to do to get noticed, to get recognition. Something that if they could just "find it" would then make that annoying longing for something else, go away. Some of them have large houses, good businesses, and a few cars in the driveway, by the way. We're talking successful people here, at least, in the eyes of society they live within. Yet despite their great material wealth, or great amount of acknowledgement, they are still don't necessarily feel inspired. And there's nothing out of place with material wealth or acknowledgement either, so don't read that into these words.

How then, can anyone get inspired? Believe it or not, like just a few other things in life, inspiration takes work, commitment, discipline, and habitual behavior of action, thought, and belief, over time. We can be instantaneously inspired, but only after traveling a long road of preparation. For a long time I believed a belief about inspiration, that was continually lived out through action, which means my actions indicated my beliefs about inspiration, regardless of what I either thought or said about my beliefs regarding inspiration. This is when the two sets of beliefs, the one indicated by my actions, and the one indicated by my words, didn't match. I always said that outside influences "didn't matter" to me, that awards, gifts, more money, status, words of encouragement, or recognition at the hands of others, were not what inspired me, while at the same time pursuing them thinking that eventually, if I got enough of them, I would then feel what it was like to be truly inspired. Truth was, they weren't what inspired me, but I didn't know that. I was mistaking motivation from external sources as inspiration from inside of me. Yet, despite my words insisting that I knew what I was really doing, I still felt that hungry need to go out and seek more and more awards and recognition all the time. I called it "acknowledgement" which took a little of the non-spiritual sting out of my searching to satisfy my hunger for that which would then make me "feel okay" about myself. College degrees, seven black belts, awards from two presidents, writing nominations for poetry prizes, a thousand letters and words of thanks, becoming a community leader in my church, and winning the lottery, all served as pieces in this structure of acknowledgement that my actions believed would finally satisfy my hunger to feel my own self-worthiness, and so in turn, become inspired. In truth, not one of these many, many, things, did anything of the sort. Not one of them inspired me, because not one of those awards came from inside of me.

It took giving up my pursuit of happiness, to finally be inspired. When the huge hunger for something, anything, that was going to make the longing for some nebulous prize that would finally make me "feel better" enough, was ignored for a long enough time, and in the stillness of day after day of mediation and energy practice, I finally realized that my own experience of self-worthiness, and then the flow of my inspiration, wasn't going to come from any outside source. This pursuit of happiness while being unhappy and unfulfilled, wasn't something my stated beliefs indicated, but my actions certainly did, as it is the case with most of the thousands upon thousands of people I have worked with in seminars. My stated beliefs were of the "cool" New Agey norm, because I "knew" all the answers. I knew there wasn't really something "out there" to get to that would finally make me happy, yet we all know that. At least, I knew this truth with my words, but until I was in total alignment in thought, beliefs, and action, I really knew nothing at all. Until I was living out my own internal inspiration, I wasn't really living out inspiration, I was living out more of the same pursuit of what I wasn't being, in order to get it, rather than to be it, to be inspired, to be happy, to be in the experience of my own self-worthiness. They're all connected, they're all internal experiences, and the gaining of one, gains you all the others simultaneously. What a great plan for our success!

In the interest of giving to you the means to reach this experience of your own deep and profound, pre-existing experience of self-worthiness, in order to answer the question of "How?" "How?," can I do this?, the most efficient process I have ever done for the gaining of our deep and profound experience of self-worthiness on a permanent basis, is called The Loving Process© found at the completion of my second book. Getting into that experience of my own, pre-existing, self-worthiness, was exactly when true inspiration came to me, or rather, out from me, out from the only place we can ever "get it from" in the first place! The best part of my journey of giving up everything in order to get more than everything back, is that I discovered that the place that inspiration comes from, exists inside of every single one of us, bar none. All any of us have to do, is to stop looking for it, and instead, be it. The good news, is that this means there is nothing extra to do, nowhere else to seek it, and no one else to depend upon for it. It's ours, all of ours, and right now! What? No extra work? No. What? No fulfillment of the demands of an other so that an award or a piece of recognition be given? No, again. With such a perfect plan for fulfillment, how easy is that? And the biggest irony of all is that when we are deeply within our experience of self-worthiness, all those things that we were seeking come to us so easily it makes the head spin. All the money, recognition, inspiration, and power to impact our lives is right there, the moment our internal permission slip to have it all is written with the ink of our experience of self-worthiness! How inspiring is that!

All we have to do to get truly inspired, is to breathe inward into our own bodies, and find The All That Is that exists there, already, waiting for every single one of us. When we do The Loving Process© for a long enough time, then our literal outward breath of inspired action then becomes that which lights up our very world. Now that's inspiring!