“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. 

“Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure.”
-Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap

Over the weekend, I went to a potluck dinner and channeled event at the home of friends. I had been looking forward to this event for several weeks, knowing that it would be both fun and educational.

There were a number of people attending, many of whom were friends who had been on the trip to Iceland with me. It was a wonderful evening, full of loving interactions, fascinating sharings and information during the group, humor and laughter, spiritual connection, delicious food, hugs and gifts.

Sounds perfect, right? It was. Only I didn’t acknowledge it, or allow myself to feel it until the next day.

Huh?

Upon waking that next morning, I realized that it is possible for me to be right in the middle of my bliss and not know it.

It's like how many of us will deflect a compliment. We receive a compliment from some well-meaning person and then  don't allow ourselves to receive and feel the good feelings that the compliment could engender.
 
A friend says, "You're looking great today!"
You answer, "But my hair is a mess!" 

Except in this case, I deflected the good feelings of an entire evening.

I had encountered what Gay Hendricks calls an Upper Limit Problem from his marvelous book, The Big Leap.

Dr.  Hendricks describes how the problem showed up in his own life,
“I have a limited tolerance for feeling good. When I hit my Upper Limit, I manufacture thoughts that make me feel bad...”

Now let’s back up a bit. I drove to the event with my daughter and grandchildren who were also attending. Inexplicably, I began to feel anxiety creep in as we drove. I recognized it as the old social anxiety that plagued me for years. I was not happy to feel it resurface.

“I’m so done with this,” was my predominant thought.  But in fact, I wasn’t.

I was hitting my Upper Limit Problem knowing unconsciously that the gathering we were about to attend would be an opportunity for social and spiritual happiness. Apparently, part of me wasn’t ready to allow that.

When we arrived at our friend’s home, I pushed the anxiety aside and joined the group. Yet, my thoughts kept harping on my annoyance with old anxieties cropping up again.

The group being the kind of supportive group it was, I was able to share about my feelings, and often just airing feelings like this in a supportive atmosphere is enough. But this time, my irritation with myself about my anxious feelings continued.

Finally, with some supportive guidance, I came to understand that fear happens. It is just part of the human condition. I don’t need to beat myself up about it. Nor do I need to be afraid of fear. I can allow it to blow through me like wind through a screen door, in and right out again. I don’t have to get stuck in it.

So, that’s all good, but what does that have to do with bliss?

What it has to do with bliss is the fact that fear and the negativity that goes along with it can effectively veil you from perceiving and acknowledging your bliss. You can be right in the middle of a blissful situation and not realize it.

If you are so caught up in feeling fear, getting annoyed with yourself for feeling it, and trying to fix it or get rid of it, how do you have any room left for experiencing your bliss? Even when your bliss is right in front of you.

And that’s just the point.

The real problem is that for some of us bliss itself can be too scary, and that’s where the Upper Limit Problem comes in.

Perhaps there is a part of us that is afraid that if we allow ourselves to experience bliss something bad will happen, or our bliss won’t last, or we are not worthy of bliss, or undeserving of bliss.

Think of a young child, full of excited happiness, racing around, laughing and yelling exuberantly, being told to be silent by a tired, over-worked parent. How many of us have experienced some version of that very human situation?

Many of us have had life experiences especially as children when we learned that it was not safe to be too happy. For whatever reason we learned to curb our happiness, keep a lid on it, tamp it down. We learned an Upper Limit for happiness.

Self-judgment is an especially effective way to put a lid on happiness, even to the extent that we are not aware of bliss when we are right in the middle of it.

In spite of myself, I had a wonderful time at the gathering.  I was able to focus in on loving conversations and interactions and just be where I was, with whom I was, at any given moment. I just didn’t fully feel that wonderfulness until the next morning. The self-judgment was too pervasive in my consciousness.

But what if I recognized my fears as simply the acting out of my Upper Limit?  What if that awareness allowed me to release self-judgment, let go of struggling against the fear? What if knowing of my Upper Limit allowed those fears to blow right through the screen door of my awareness and out the other side?

I might have allowed myself to experience that scary thing known as bliss.

Now, as I think back over the evening, I can savor those moments of connection and enjoyment and that sweet echo of bliss.
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But next time fear and self-judgment show up I’m going to open the door of awareness wide, walk through and focus upon the bliss that may be just on the other side.

“I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in.”
-Mickey Newberry
 
I have lately been more aware of the beauty surrounding me, especially outdoors. Yesterday morning I walked outside and it was as if it called to me. A bird sang, the air was bright and beautiful. It was like a “heads up!” message. Yet I didn’t know what to do with it except to notice.

Last night I dreamt of being driven in a van through the Alps. The beauty of the mountains was overwhelming. Tears of joy filled my eyes. I was glued to the window not wanting to miss one instant of the beauty.

Recently too, the sunsets have attracted me and felt like a pathway to feeling the love of Spirit, a daily reminder of just how much we are loved.

Perhaps the message is to focus on the beauty of all that surrounds us, both inner and outer beauty. Focus on God’s love and how that love is shown, both large and small. It is all there for us to be open to, to focus on every day.

Pay attention to beauty as a reflection of God’s love and you are choosing to allow more and more of it to enter your daily life.

Additionally, pay attention to what else you are paying attention to. Look at where your attention goes. Is it something you want to increase in your life? It will.

And then there is this - pay attention to where your positive attention is, for it is not random. What attracts and entices you is your Spirit communicating with you, guiding you to your inspiration. 

What is your Spirit saying to you today?

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Photo by Simon Matzinger on Unsplash

“Approach life as an art form, creating each day rather than just surviving it. The key to being able to do this and do it on a continuing basis is inspiration.”
​-Unknown
 
Do you fill your life inside and out with what inspires you?

Do you inspire yourself in your thoughts, allowing yourself to travel new, exciting pathways, thoughts you haven’t had before?

What kind of thoughts inspire you?

When you are relaxing do you choose activities that inspire you?

When you watch TV or a movie, read a book or a magazine, do you choose those that uplift you, inspire new thoughts, leave you laughing, create cathartic emotions, inspire creativity?

When you read or listen to social media, do you focus on those postings that inspire you, leave you feeling positive? Do you inspire others with your postings?

And here’s a new one for me. I just cleaned out all the catalogs and old magazines out of the basket in my bathroom and replaced them with magazines and books that I find inspiring. Now, rather than entertaining my brain with fluff while I am otherwise occupied, I’ll be inspiring myself with new thoughts and ideas.

Do you inspire yourself with your surroundings? Look around those places where you spend most of your time. Do they lift your energy and inspire you?
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What is it about your surroundings that inspires you?

Think about places that you have been that lifted your energy and gave you an expansive feeling inside. What is it about those places that you loved?

For me, beauty, order, light, simplicity, healthy plants, and a feeling of peace and sacredness in my surroundings all inspire me.

Then there are the less tangible things that inspire me, the laughter and play of happy grandchildren, the peacefully sleeping cherubic faces of my grandchildren, with their pink cheeks and long curling eyelashes, the laughter of my husband as he chuckles over some story he is enjoying, a community of spiritually minded women gathering together to share and support with love, the delighted play of my dog with her ball as she races back and forth playing catch, the smell of fresh, morning air, a gentle breeze on my cheek, the sound and feel of strong winds approaching through the tree tops and swirling through the yard, sunlight dappling through the leaves, flocks of birds moving as one in the sky, the unexpected sight of a deer grazing in the back yard. All these things inspire and fill me.

What inspires you?

Photo by Nick Owuor on Unsplash