For me, I am learning that inspiration is an inside job right now.
It feels almost naughty to say that. To admit that I am finding a lot of things “out there” less than inspiring. But in fact, it’s my truth at the moment. I have found over the past couple years that I no longer look to other people for inspiration, instead, it’s in the quiet spaces of my own soul where my ideas blossom, where new projects take root and where I truly get lit up and energized to take action.
I find myself weighed down by so much of the content swimming around on social media and the web these days. It feels overwhelming at best and inauthentic at it’s worst. I am in no way saying that there aren’t still lots of amazing people doing incredible, inspirational work in the world — I KNOW THERE ARE. However, right now, for me, I have found in this season of my life that I am not called to watch others to fan my flames.
I love the book, “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield, I recommended it to all my LightMaker Book Club ladies because I think it’s a great companion for the creative process. Steven talks a lot about “showing up” and allowing the muse to find you ready and working. At first, as a crazy romantic creative type, I found this absolutely annoying. I don’t “force” anything, I wait for inspiration. Ah, what a beginner’s notion! If there is anything that having successfully ran a coaching business for five years, written an internationally published book and doing countless videos, events and blogs have taught me is that if you don’t make the time for the muse, she will actually never appear. Inspiration needs space, it needs you sitting at your desk or on the beach with a notebook ready, it needs you to show up and say “please use me as a vessel”.
I believe that it’s our job to create the conditions for inspiration. We can constantly be listening to what our soul’s voice is rumbling about and we need to give ourselves permission to follow it.
So if spending time reading certain blogs you love, flipping through magazines or stalking your favorite inspirational yogis on instagram gets your juices flowing and gets you excited to dive into whatever endeavour you have in front of you, then please by all means schedule that on your calendar. And if what inspires you is nature, hiking, the beach, post-meditation journaling sessions and juicy gaps between social media consumption (like where I’m at right now) that’s okay too.
Either way, inspiration is an inside job.
It’s inside because only YOU can know what’s truly working for you. Only you can honor the season you are in right now. I have found a lot of time that inspiration comes from me flexing my creative muscles in a totally different area: if I’m struggling to create new recipes than maybe I give myself a day away and go to a pottery painting workshop or walk through the farmers market and allow myself to only buy weird, beautiful looking vegetables that I haven’t tried before. If I’m deciding on creating a new offering, I sit with it, I beach walk with it, I throw myself into something else like laundry or cleaning and allow it to creep back in if it’s truly ripe for the making.
Creating the environment for inspiration is not about forcing, it’s actually about creating the space for allowing. And yes, sometimes that looks like staring at your computer screen and writing jibber jabber for a few mornings before your book starts coming out and other times it’s allowing yourself to admit that something is NOT inspiring you.
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I have found this the hardest. The letting go of what’s no longer inspiring me. I have now realized that when it’s aligned, it does feel inspiring, sometimes it can require a lot of work, getting outside my comfort zone or an extra notch of discipline but if it’s truly aligned, it also feels inspired. And that means when it doesn’t, I can release it.
Where are you with your creative process? What do you find helps you get those sparks flying and your energy a-buzz?
I would love to hear from you below in the comments!
xo,
C
** Even though it’s too late to join the LightMaker Book Club, if you’d like help creating the space and birthing your creative project or book into the world, feel free to reach out for a one on one breakthrough session. I’d love to midwife your dream.**