“Inspiration and manifestation on all levels are birthed in the present moment from your ‘I Am’, your ‘God Self.’” 
-Red Feather
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The present moment is your source of inspiration.

Suppose you have a job to do. It must be done. You’ve committed to getting it done. Now it’s time to do it and you feel uninspired. You’d rather be doing something else. You can feel the energy of inspiration around other projects, just not this one. How do you get inspired about doing this one?

You could just push your way through and get it done so that you can get on to what you’d really like to be doing. You could say to yourself, “As soon as I get this done, I can do this other thing that really inspires me.” It would be like eating your vegetables before you can have dessert. That’s one way to get the job done, and plenty of us work that way.

But where does inspiration live?

Red Feather says that inspiration comes from within, from our God self. Our God selves live in the present moment, right here, right now. Our God selves are not anticipating the future or worrying over the past. Our God selves are right here. This is where the magic happens. This is where inspiration lives, right in the heart of our God self.

Now, suppose you have a job to do, something you feel you have to get done. You have chosen to get it done now despite the fact that there are other things you’d rather be doing. It feels like work to you. Remember the saying, “It’s only work if you’d rather be doing something else,”? Well, right now you’d rather be doing something else, so it’s work. But you’ve chosen to get this done now.

So, do you push through and just get it done, focused on the product and on the doing of the job, wishing you were somewhere else? You can do that. If you do, you’ll be motivating yourself through fear or anger or some other emotion linked to your ego. Maybe you’re afraid that you won’t get paid. Maybe you’re afraid that if you don’t meet your commitments others will be disappointed, or you’ll be disappointed in yourself. Maybe you’re angry that you have to do this job, and that fuels your energy. However you motivate yourself from ego, it’s not likely to be enjoyable, but you’ll get the job done, even though it will feel like work.

Or, you can motivate yourself from your God self, with love. You can find your inspiration within your heart, opening yourself fully into this present moment.

Let’s take an example – Pretend we’re not in the middle of a stay-at-home social isolation order and you’re giving a dinner party tonight. You’re feeling stressed because the house needs to be cleaned, the table set and dinner cooked. You have an image in your mind of a clean, attractive, welcoming home, a delicious meal to offer your guests, and you as the relaxed and gracious host.

It’s a lot to live up to and not much time to make it happen. You’re feeling stressed about it. Your mind is bringing up images of the past when you felt disappointed in yourself for offering less than your best to your guests. Your fears are conjuring an image of future disappointment. Fear motivates you to rush through the cleaning, forget the decorations and barrel into cooking dinner as fear constricts your stomach. Not surprisingly, you don’t enjoy your dinner party much.

There is a more enjoyable way to approach this. You can get focused into the present moment where inspiration lives.

What would that look like? In this same example of the dinner party, the house still needs to be cleaned, table set, dinner cooked. Instead of launching yourself into a cleaning frenzy, you sit down, close your eyes, and take several, deep, calming breaths. Now, thank your Higher Self for opening the blossom of inspiration in your heart. Invite your Spiritual Support Team to guide and support you, that you may offer your guests a loving welcome, a clean, supportive environment, and a nurturing and delicious meal. Thank your Spiritual Support Team for giving you exactly what you need to accomplish this.

Next, you put on some upbeat music that sparks your energy. You gather together your cleaning materials, and while grooving to the music, you vacuum, wipe and wash. You feel energized as you enjoy the process, keeping your mind fully focused on what you are doing.

You’re not planning out the dinner as you clean, or worrying about getting it all done. If stressful thoughts come up, you mentally hand them over to your Spiritual Support Team and trust that you have exactly what you need.

You flow through the cleaning and on into the kitchen to start preparing the meal. You’re listening to music you love. Maybe you pour yourself a glass of wine or make a cup of tea to enjoy as you chop the vegetables. You feel relaxed. This is fun!

With dinner started, you turn your attention to setting the table, arranging the flowers and creating a beautiful, welcoming environment. Your guests arrive and you’re delighted by how much you enjoy the evening.

When you call on your Higher Self and your Spiritual Support Team and focus into the present moment, you are releasing the egoic fuel of fear and anger, and energizing your actions through love. That’s when what might feel like work turns into enjoyment because you feel inspired.

“Overwhelm is an illusion that states: ‘I am not capable. I cannot handle all this. It is too much. I am doing this all alone.”
-Shoshona Ortalia Rogers from Goddess: 7 Rings of the Heart

We’ve just returned from a week in New England visiting with family and friends and a week driving back and forth. Our days were busy, fitting in everyone we wanted to see. It was wonderful and exhausting.

Getting back home, though tired, I swung full tilt into Weight Watchers and creating a new way of eating. Learning how to use my new FitBit, (which is at this moment buzzing my wrist because I haven’t taken enough steps in the past hour!) Preparing to co-teach a Goddess class. Taking an on-line writing and publishing course. Writing and editing fiction and non-fiction. Planning for our upcoming holiday and birthday parties. And last, but certainly not least, grandparenting, parenting and spousing (is that a word?). I swung myself right into overwhelm.

Overwhelm is a state of mind. It really has nothing to do with what and how much you are doing.

There are many who can handle a daily schedule that is packed from morning to night and beyond with equanimity. There are those whose flexibility makes it possible for them to easily go with the flow. And there are those who get overwhelmed by any change in their daily routine. I probably fall somewhere in the middle depending upon the day.

Overwhelm has everything to do with what and how you are thinking and feeling about what you are doing.

I experience overwhelm when I perceive a task as bigger than it actually is. This happens particularly when I have a number of different projects and responsibilities that I am juggling at once. They gather together, increasing exponentially, and loom over me, mountainous and huge.

I feel confused. I don’t know where to start, and so I don’t. I am stuck. I feel like there is not enough time to accomplish what I must.  I feel alone, as if there is no where to turn for support.

The specter of resistance then rears its head. My ego-self digs in her heels and pulls in the opposite direction from where I want to go for fear that what I do or create will not be perfect. Sigh…

Overwhelm is not fun.

So, what do we do when the illusion of overwhelm, does its thing and overwhelms us?

1. Understand that the feeling of overwhelm is an illusion. It is a misperception. You have the power to look at things differently.

2. Know that you are not alone. Your Spiritual Support Team is interested in and involved with every little bit of your life. They’ve got your back. You can hand that fear in your gut, which is at the base of the perception of overwhelm, over to your Team. They will take care of it. Today’s Spiritual Toolbox is a visualization guiding you through doing this.

3. Focus and Organize. Break each task down into, small, incremental steps. Then, take one step at a time. As you do so you reduce that looming mountain of overwhelm into manageable, orderly, small piles of pebbles. These you can deal with, one at a time.

4. Express gratitude for each small step that you take. Gratitude shifts your energy, lifting you into alignment with your Higher Self. That’s a nice place to be.

Are you willing to give it a try? Me too!

​“Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo). Here comes the sun, and I say, It's all right.
Little darling, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo) Here comes the sun, and I say, It's all right.”
-George Harrison, The Beatles

In the past my everyday life felt pushed or maybe I should say driven, because it was me doing the pushing. I was always thinking about what else needed to get done, who I needed to take care of, how to keep everyone happy, how this or that wasn’t good enough. It took conscious effort for me to relax, allow and appreciate what was. At the end of the day I’d look back over the day and think of all that I should have accomplished and didn’t, setting myself up for a driven tomorrow.

My life was motivated by fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not having enough, time, money, parenting skills, you name it. Fear of not doing enough. It is not a comfortable way to live.

Fortunately, I’ve learned that there is a better way.

When I began doing sessions for clients, I learned to center and align myself before each session, calling in my Spiritual Support Team. I learned to trust the guidance I received. Trust the topics that came up for healing. Trust the words and tools that came to me to offer and trust the outcome of our work together.

On several sacred journeys to Brazil and to Iceland I was able to expand this into full days of trust.  I learned to trust what was in my present reality enough to fully relax into the moment. Trusting that who I was with, where I was, and what I was doing, was exactly right for that moment.

I stopped thinking that I needed to be with someone I wasn’t. I stopped thinking that I should be saying or doing something else other than what I was saying and doing. I learned to trust and be with what was.

It was like in my sessions but expanded outward into full, shining days.

Unfortunately for me, there was a big difference in how I felt when I was doing a session, when I was on a sacred journey, and my daily life at home.

That sense of relaxing and trusting what was, was missing.

Instead, I pushed to get through to the next activity or the next person to connect with. I drove myself to get everything right, make sure everything and everyone was taken care of.

Yet, I couldn’t help but think, wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel that relaxation, trust, contentment, inner peace, acceptance, allowing and joy throughout all of my days?

Now I know it is possible.

We can each of us do this through consciously intending it to be so.

We make the choice in each minute to consciously connect with our Source within. We breathe deeply, relax and allow ourselves to align, until it becomes our habit and we are living our days in love rather than fear.

What is needed to make this possible is a change in perspective. It looks like this.

The contentment comes from trusting that we are connected and guided and following that guidance. Knowing that something greater than ourselves holds the big picture.

The inner peace comes from knowing that we live in a beneficent Universe and that we are a beloved and essential part of that. No one else can express the part of the Creator that is uniquely you.

The relaxation comes from focusing in on what is in this present moment, and being fully present with whatever that is.

The joy comes through appreciation, gratitude and allowing yourself to experience the pleasure inherent in whatever is.

​It is this change in perspective that allows you and me to relax into what is. When that becomes our habit, it changes our lives. We shine like the sun.

“You are so lucky to have every day.”
-Shoshona Ortalia Aurora Rogers
 
I’ve been reading a romance novel (my not so secret pleasure) set in rural Ireland about a woman whose heart’s desire was to be a writer. She gave up her city life and moved to a small village in Ireland to pursue her dream.  The description of her walks over emerald green hills in the mornings, then the delight she felt as she sat at her table, steaming cup of tea at hand, and wrote in the afternoons, all touched a chord deep within me. The more I brought up that feeling within me, the more I realized that she described my dream, and despite the difference in location I was stunned to realize I am living my dream.

The author of the trilogy writes so poignantly of her character’s life because she writes with love of what she loves. Why is it that we forget to see with the eyes of love in our every day lives? My dream is all around me and yet all I saw was the mundane and the repetition of every day. I guess even the bright shine of a dream dims from daily familiarity. Or perhaps I changed into it so gradually I took it all for granted, writing, woods walks with my dog, a loving marriage, my family who are my friends and my friends who are my family, my spiritual community. I am living my dream, how did I lose track of that?

Living your dream isn’t really about the physical aspects despite what we may think, it is about the feeling, paying attention to and expressing love in your every day life. The physical aspects of whatever it is you dream of may provide a vehicle for moving into that love, but it is the love and the expressing of love that creates happiness.

“A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don’t get the happy moments because they’re so busy trying to get a happy life.”
-Abraham-Hicks
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Appreciating each thing about every day that you can is an expression of love in your life. It creates happiness and it creates the energy for you to attract more of what you want, more of what you love into your daily experience.

You don’t have to wait until you’ve achieved your dream, whatever that may look like on the outside. For dreams change and shift even as we do. You can focus your attention upon appreciating the elements of today that are your dream, those bits and pieces of your day that you love. As you do so you open up to allow more and more of your dream into your every day.

photo by elijah-hiett - unsplash