“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly…”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Do you have days when you feel uninspired? I do, even though I usually have projects going that really inspire me. Still, there are days when none of my ongoing projects inspire me. I don’t feel the energy to take action on any of them. Those days I just feel tired, and a little cranky, even if I slept well the night before. The cranky comes from an inner assumption that I must be doing something wrong to feel like this, and I’d better fix it. Only I’ve discovered that I don’t need fixing, I need acceptance and a change in perspective.

The other day I wanted to create a post for the blog. I wasn’t feeling sparked about anything. I was feeling tired. So, with no inspiring thoughts to guide me I went back over past journal writings I keep for this purpose. I discovered a story I wrote and found it to be a good fit for the blog.

Before I knew it, I was immersed in rereading the story, adding a little description here and there, creating the post format on the website, finding the right quote and the right picture to go with it. I was in the flow.

It all came so gracefully and unexpectedly when I hadn’t been feeling the spark at all. I’d uncovered a little pocket of joy.

Later that day, though I knew I should be weeding and mulching out in the yard, I just didn’t feel like all that effort. Instead, I drifted into the kitchen and tried out a dessert recipe that I’d been hanging onto for a while. It turned out well. That buoyed me up and I decided to check on-line for other recipes to try. There, I stumbled upon a gluten-free bread baking book. Feeling a little spark, I downloaded it.

There’s a discovery here – little pockets of joy happen, even when we don’t otherwise feel inspired, if you follow your energy.

It’s easy to feel joyful when we’re feeling really inspired about something. That joy spills over into everything. The energy is flowing strongly and it feels great. Yet, even in times when the energy is not flowing strongly, the joy still happens. It’s just quieter, and we’re less apt to be conscious of it, though that is when we most need to be aware of joy happening.

I didn’t think I was inspired that day. I just thought I was tired. Instead, I found my inspiration in places I didn’t expect it, in old journal writings, in a recipe I had been holding onto and never tried, in a new cookbook. I found it and didn’t recognize it for what it was, because I thought I should be feeling inspired about working in the yard. 

Instead, I just did what I had the energy to do.

The discovery is that there is joy happening all the time. It may be quieter, less obvious on the down side, but it is there.

Instead of focusing attention on trying to fix ourselves during these times, we could focus attention on where the quiet enjoyment is.

Maybe it’s a new recipe, an inspiring movie, a book. Perhaps it’s sitting quietly and sipping a cup of tea. The thing is, it’s there. It may just look a little different than we expect.

It requires the self-acceptance not to beat ourselves up because we think we should be doing something else, even as our hearts are guiding us to the quieter inspirations. It requires a change in perspective to see the rainbow.

And the surprise is, it’s not about what we’re actually doing, not really.

It’s about following the changing flow of creative energy from within. It floods sometimes and it trickles other times, but it’s always there.

I thought it wasn’t there that day. I was wrong. I was looking for the flood. Instead I needed to listen for the trickle.

The inspiration is there, even on the days when it feels like it’s not. Your inner self will guide you if you give yourself permission to listen, and look for the rainbow.  

“Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.” – Vincent Van Gogh
 
It is essential, especially now, when so much negativity is flying around, to focus on what is positive in our lives. Let’s take a good look at that by asking, what inspires you today? What is sparking your energy?
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It feels wonderful to be in that place where inspiration is flowing, sparking your energy. As Spring is making her spectacular entrance, royally clothed in pink and white magnolia blossoms, roseate crabapple, palest apple and bright red bud, the ground is dotted with sunny, yellow daffodils and clusters of grape hyacinths, and bright green leaves are poking noses out from their winter beds, Mother Nature inspires us and sparks our energies to join in the dance of creation.

Feeling inspired the other day, I set up my front planters with fresh soil and planted them with ivy wintered over in my garage/green house. Then I tucked in some fresh-faced purple and yellow pansies. I did the same with the front window boxes. It feels so good to mix around in the dirt, (it’s rather like cooking) nurturing new plants into their homes. It connects me with my yard and with the flow of energy that is Mother Nature.  Now I find excuses to stand outside the front of the house so I can enjoy the new display.

Next, I’m on to the planters on our back patio. Today I’ll be picking up vegetable seedlings to plant in them from a local farm.

Paddling around in the dirt, mixing in nutrients, clearing out debris, gentling in new plants and tending established plants, eases me right into my heart. I feel focused and in the flow.

When I finish one project, I enjoy the results right away. Then I look around and the next project steps up and says, “Me next!” So, I’m inspired to keep going, doing the next thing.

It doesn’t have to be gardening. Any project that gets your juices flowing can be the same. It feels like channeling life energy, because that is exactly what it is.

I believe that as Creators, individual sparks of God, channeling life energy is what we came here to do, experiencing our creative life force in action. We do this whether we are conscious of it or not. It just happens, we can’t help but be the Creators we are. It can be a positive experience or a negative one. When we experience it positively, when we love as we create, it is blissful.

The positive experience looks like intuitive inspiration that sparks your energy and gets you moving on manifesting the inspired idea. It feels exciting. You feel enthusiastic about the idea. You love it. You want to do it. You find yourself daydreaming about it, what it looks like, how it would feel to manifest it, what life would be like if you created it.

That first intuitive inspiration, is like a newly planted seed. If it is given what it needs to grow, it will sprout, seek the sun and manifest into your life. But if it is uprooted by negative thoughts of, “I can’t do that. I’m not worthy of that. That’s too scary. I don’t have enough money for that.” It will be like the tiny seedling, uprooted and left to wither and die in the sun. It cannot thrive in that environment.

Intuitive inspiration needs gentle tending and nurturing like the new seedling it is. Then it can grow strong as it manifests in your life. 

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
-Wayne Dyer
 
 
Bliss is one of those feelings, like ecstasy and transcendence, that feel miraculous and unapproachable except by a select few. What does following your bliss look like in everyday, regular old life? Is it a miracle? Maybe, and maybe it’s just a change in how you look at things.
 
For each one bliss looks different, but the foundation is that of perceiving with the eyes of love. To give you an idea of what love flowing on a regular day might look like, here’s an entry from my  journal of several years ago.
 
“It is a glorious, sun-filled morning. The weather is unseasonably warm. I have been following the energy for several days rather than my usual, routine work schedule. Because of that, the windows are put away and the screens are up on the front porch, the dead plants are cleared off the back porch and several plants sit outside here with me, enjoying the early spring sunshine. As I follow the energy, jobs get done before I need to have them done. This must be something the same as squirrels instinctively wanting to collect acorns and seeds in August that they later need over the winter. All part of how the creative energy flows so beneficially for all. It gives me a feeling of being watched over, cared for and loved.
 
I have an increased awareness of the beauty and joy with which I am surrounded. A robin singing her cheery good morning outside my bedroom window. Her evening song lilting and lovely through the deepening dusk of day's end. The sparkling brook flowing through the dark green and rust of the pine woods in back of our home. Perhaps I am simply allowing myself more time for these things by not sticking to a prearranged job schedule. Perhaps I am more relaxed, better able to appreciate. What a gift!”
 
Wouldn’t it be nice to feel like this every day? I’d like to. I don’t always, but that’s what our spiritual tools are for, because we each of us has a choice to change how we look at things today. We can choose to see through the eyes of love. 

​Image by geralt on Pixabay 

“Namasté means that whatever is precious and beautiful in me honors whatever is precious and beautiful in you.” 
-Debasish Mridha
 
In Western culture, the polite greeting, “How do you do?” or the more casual form, “How’re ‘ya ‘doin?” expresses the importance placed on doing in our society, rather than being. Success is measured in terms of how much one has accomplished in a day, a year, or a lifetime. Celebrities are lauded for the number of their achievements. Lecturers are introduced with a listing of their accomplishments. Professionals receive initials after their names with each degree earned. The more initials listed the more the perception of success. Even our religious leaders are perceived as most successful based upon the number of their followers, the size or monetary worth of their church.

In Indian culture, the polite greeting, “Namasté,” meaning, “I honor the light within you,” expresses the importance placed on being rather than doing. Although Western culture has infiltrated many areas of Eastern life, still the revered spiritual leaders teach the importance of being.

In my own life I swing back and forth between my Western indoctrination with the belief that the more I can do in a day the more successful I am, and my Eastern leanings toward the importance of being.

I generally start my day with a to-do list in mind. As the day progresses I mentally check off my list as I accomplish each item. At the end of the day, the more I’ve done the more successful I feel.

I do this in an habitual way, not thinking about the fact that my focus is upon doing rather than being. Doing is my habit. I have to make a conscious choice to make being my first priority and my determinant of success. This is a choice I need to make over and over throughout each day, because I easily slip back into a doing frame of mind.

Today I choose to do from a being place. 

Photo by Raychan on Unsplash

“Bliss is that deep, fulfilling, sustainable, driving need you have. That thing that is the true ‘you.’ Your bliss is your life’s purpose.”
Kenneth Benjamin

For much of my life if you asked me what my bliss was my answers would have been changeable. I might have had to think some to answer the question. I might even have said, “I don’t really know.”

I recently asked a friend what she likes to do more than anything. This woman works non-stop. She teaches during the day, then goes home to raise two teenagers. Her husband works constantly so much of the emotional investment of raising children is left to her. She puts her all into it. My friend had to think about my question. “I don’t know. Reading maybe?” Her own happiness is not her first priority.

How many of us don’t really know what our bliss is?

What we most love, what makes us happiest, the areas in our lives which bring us joy and satisfaction, this is our Higher Self speaking to us of our purpose for being here. Guiding us toward our purpose through the emotion of bliss. Who doesn’t want to repeat a pleasant or blissful experience?

Some lucky people already know where their passion is, they pursue it actively, it is their vocation or their job and consumes their life.

Then there are others like me who enjoyed lots of things and tried lots of different jobs, never settling. All the while I pursued my bliss, unaware that I did so. My difficulty with identifying my bliss came from the fact that it was too familiar, too much a part of my inner life. It was my comfort. It was a place of flow and every so often deep joy and love. It certainly didn’t feel like anything that could be my work or my purpose in life. It was too natural to me, like breathing.

I started journaling as a teenager, living away from home at boarding school in a room with three other girls. A naturally, private person I found the lack of privacy hard. My journal became my private space. A place where I could go to release the adolescent anguish of a fourteen year old learning about herself and others. I wrote furiously of whatever upset took me at the time. As my feelings scrawled over the pages I was able to feel calmer. As I calmed myself, solutions to problems presented themselves and I worked them through in my writing. Always I felt comforted. At times I had an “ah-ha” moment, feeling a sense of enlightenment, like a light bulb coming on in my head. Those were the best times when I felt a tremendous sense of fulfillment, love and connection.
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I am still journaling, fifty years later. My writing has expanded into this blog, and I acknowledge it as having high priority in my daily life. It is my bliss.

​Allow yourself to be guided. Find your bliss and follow it.


Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash