Inspiration or Bust
Posted on June 22, 2010 by Jill Bluming, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.
Pep talk for creative people.
Have you ever heard the following phrases about inspiration? “It will come to me” or “just can’t find the inspiration”, somehow suggesting inspiration is a thing that is gotten or acquired from an outside source… to appear in your lap or backyard as if by magic?
Today, amongst all of the information we are receiving in our proverbial “inboxes”, inspiration frequently becomes swapped out for activities like shopping, eating, drinking, gambling, or whatever our consumer habits or addictions of choice are.
In the past being a commercial artist, I had often subscribed to such clichés around being “lit up” or “on fire”, only to be left let-down and disappointed when that flaming white horse never ambled across my desktop background. We decide some “thing” is missing. So we look to the book, the sky, the joke, the stone, the song… and we pray that is where we might find whatever creative drive or catalyst we need… and second thought there is of course some validity as to where we might uncover ours.
One day, EUREKA!!!!! It came to me… (No not the horse, or any other thing but an idea!) Being inspired was not an object that landed in one’s lap after a great epiphany, or a wave of A-HA born crashing across the shores of creative doldrums, sent from the almighty finger presiding above… no that was not how creativity worked. However, inspiration is a concept that one must choose to look for in everything around and in every moment, a try-on, take on or commitment (yes commitment) to one’s creative energies.
In my own experience I’ve found it nearly impossible to “be inspired” without removing the holy roadblocks to that world where one can create magic. Namely disempowering or limiting beliefs that shut down creativity and right brain thinking. For example the idea “I’m not good enough” or “others are better or more deserving than me” or “wish it wasn’t so difficult” or “will it ever come?!!”. Any thoughts like these might be limiting enough blockades to any creative pathway for new ideas. In fact it’s a shortcut to more of the same.
It may be challenging to try to replace those patterns of thinking with other patterns geared toward generating new ideas. Sometimes just knowing you are looking for something is what opens the causeway toward divine inspiration. I had to master acknowledging my own accomplishments to learn how to be inspired. And it took some time for me to figure out that was my personal key. It just seemed so easy to feel that something was missing and so difficult to see anything else in that state.
Eventually the feelings of accomplishment became accessible in an instant. Now I just have to open to it and I get that raised hair, goose bumps, butterfly feeling and I know I’ve hit it!!! Like any skill, inspiration takes practice and sometimes you have to give it a good “fake it til you make it push” before it clicks into full gear
Why not make yourself a new practice! Take on one week where you simply give up criticism, and that means any criticism that shows up in your head, either toward you or anyone around… your sweetheart, your kids, your mom, your boss, your self, your mailman, the tax collector… just be aware when you are criticizing either inwardly or outwardly, notice it and let it go… Or make a list of what your greatest accomplishments have been. Read them over, add some each day. (It’s OK to feel a little proud.) Put the list somewhere where you can see it.
It serves no purpose to compare yourself to Ghandi or Mother Teresa. That does not serve your highest being or power, nor does it acknowledge where you’ve succeeded. Become aware of how it feels to simply accept you have done something you care about. Even if no one has pinned a medal on you or given you a gold statue, it still feels good… admit it. After all, you might already be the enlightenment you are looking for.
