How Are You Inspired?

I know that many people are discouraged at this time, and therefore not inspired. Maybe you experience discouragement from time to time. However, you certainly must know more about inspiration than you know about discouragement or you wouldn’t be reading this.

I wonder … How are you inspired?

Hearing my voice inflection is, of course, lost when you read my written words. By emphasizing different words in the question, the meaning changes. So, let me repeat that question in different ways. You can hear your own voice emphasizing the different words. You can consider your answers to any or all the different questions:

HOW are you inspired? How ARE you inspired? How are YOU inspired? How are you INSPIRED?

Pick any of the above, and answer for yourself or make a comment to this article. I am interested.

If you are already generally inspired, you may answer the question differently from the way you’d answer it if you are currently discouraged.

You may find that you have a constant flow of inspiration. If so, that’s wonderful. How does your inspiration come into your awareness?

For me, I find that I can use almost any stimulus to trigger inspiration. Usually, my inspiration follows silence, as for example after meditation, sleep, relaxation, or taking a walk in nature.

I’m also often inspired by "doing something else." By that, I simply mean that I might be uninspired about something, and then I shift my attention or my activity to something else, and I am inspired. This dynamic is especially clear to me when I’m trying to gain some insight and it’s just not coming, so I stop trying so hard and do something else and THERE IT IS!

Another way to say this is that I let go of resistance to find my inspiration. I love watching movies, listening to music, meditating, and other activities that shift me out of the helper-writer-consultant mode. In the midst of the relaxation, I often get an unexpected inspiration.

When I’m relaxed and not trying to figure something out, I usually become more receptive to receiving mindful information.

And, I’ve saved the best for last … I am most inspired by my clients. When others ask me questions, especially questions that require more than knowledge, I am inspired. It’s like tuning a radio to a different frequency so that I can hear something that I would not ordinarily hear.

Inspiration, for me, is often non-ordinary. But it can also be an aha! that within a few minutes of reflection seems quite ordinary or obvious.

What is inspiration to you? How are you inspired?

Energy Work for Balancing Guided Meditation

Here is a guided visualization meditation that lasts two minutes. Please watch/listen to it and share it with others. I’d love it if you would comment on it at the YouTube site.

I have other Videos at YouTube which I hope you’ll also watch and share. Any of the videos can be posted at your web site if you think your visitors would benefit.

In addition, I’ve posted this video on the home page of my main web site. Just like the YouTube version, this file can be downloaded.

Not all Help is Helpful

Most of the people I know want to be helpful to others — at home, at work, in the community. I think that most intelligent people have a natural inclination to help others, regardless of their own resources or needs. The instinct rarely is about things; it’s usually about caring.

This "To Help or Not to Help" topic comes up a lot in my work with clients. It also comes into conversations with friends. And on my radio shows and teleseminars.

My first "Ask Jeanie" Radio Show episode was called "Help for the Helper-Manager." This show responded to Donna’s question, "How can I get out of this habit of helping everyone else so that I end up working so many extra hours?" I provided a variety of empowering practices for her.

Years ago a friend of mine told me that when she grew up, her father gave her money whenever she asked for it. A little here and a little there. She had no allowance that she had to learn to manage, instead, she asked Daddy. To this day, she doesn’t know how to manage money, nor do her children, and they live most of the time in poverty consciousness.

Recently a client was telling me about problems with his son, who is an intelligent man, now in his 40′s. This son, like my friend, learned early to go to Daddy whenever he had a financial need. My client was expressing disappointment in himself (NOT his son) for the situation because he felt that he had weakened his son.

It’s not my role to pass judgment. I observe. I encourage greater awareness. I don’t know all the answers, but I love to ask empowering questions to prompt deeper thinking.

I know, for sure, that not all actions that are considered "help" or "helpful" really are. Usually when you help someone you are saying, in effect, "I’m helping you with this because I believe you cannot do this for yourself." You may be correct, or not.

If a young child is learning to ride a bicycle, help is appropriate. But at later ages, if you are still holding the bike for an able-bodied adult, something is amiss with the picture.

It is a joy when a young child learns something and exclaims, "Wow, I did it all by myself!" To repeatedly take this thrill from a child can have consequences when the child is no longer a child.

There are so many sides to the helping equation. To not ask for help when you need it can be debilitating — or it can tap a depth inside yourself that you might not have known otherwise.

To refuse to help when asked can leave either or both parties feeling empowered — or it can leave either or both feeling disempowered. It depends. It depends on a lot of variables.

No matter the circumstances or what side of the equation you are on, the key is to feel good. To help someone can feel exceedingly satisfying. To be helped can feel exceedingly satisfying.

The answer to the following question needs to supply the most compelling piece of the puzzle: "How do I feel?"

If you feel good, do it. If you feel not-good, do not do it. If you feel good and then you don’t feel good as time passes, you’ll have another time to check your feelings and your actions.

Keep asking, "How do I feel?" Listen for your answer, and you will know when help is helpful.

Helping is a process, not a single, isolated event.

Keep it So Simple

Sometimes people make things unnecessarily complicated. I know I sometimes do. Do you?

Give yourself a KISS.

It can certainly be satisfying to sort through a maze of complicated or complex information and find a simple solution or route. To me, this moves us in the right direction … to or toward simple and clear answers.

I love clarity. When I’m confused, I remember that I want clarity. Reminding me of my desire to be clear is my first step out of confusion. Perhaps you have a different relationship to confusion or clarity.

Many of us have plenty of opportunities to move from confusion or other non-clarity to clarity in this time of the convergence of technology advances and spiritual awakening. But some things are by nature simple, not complicated.

Albert Einstein said,
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

Often a very simple situation can give you a new perspective or teach you something profound. Situations such as eating a meal in planned silence with a friend, planting seeds in your garden or a pot, or taking a walk by a peaceful stream can help you access your inner wisdom more easily than your regular, daily routine.

In the silence, miracles happen.

A pot of herbs on the windowsill, tomatoes on the patio, or seeds sprouting in a glass jar can connect you to the natural cycle of life. Time spent in an indoor or outdoor garden can be as nurturing as food, sleep, rest, or meditation. If you’re not already growing food, you can start simply.

Plants can teach you the cycles and seasons to help you to be more at peace with your own cycles and seasons, as well as the cycles and seasons of global transformation. When you grow food, flowers, or trees, you participate in nature’s cycles. Even a tomato plant can give you a sense of freedom and satisfaction.

You can, of course, be just as grateful for a store-bought tomato as one you pick from your own yard or patio. You can appreciate the majesty of nature through any living thing, but something special can touch you when the food you put in your mouth was grown under your eyes and with your hands.

Keep it Simply Simple.

KISS

Everything is Energy

I wrote a book years ago in which I said, "Everything is energy." One of my peer reviewers reacted very negatively. In discussing the subject with him, I got more clear than ever that "everything is energy"! While I did not convince him (I didn’t try), the clarity that came to me during and following our discussion has served me well over the years.

Yes, everything is energy and each person, place, thing, and idea has an energy field. This energy field is readable and discernible. Each particle in the universe has a vibration, and it is this vibration that connects or does not connect with other particles.

Everyone has a unique way of reading energy. Many people don’t relate to the idea of "reading" energy. As with reading words in the book, you must open the book and understand the markings on the pages. I have found that there is a language of energy. And, as in our other languages, a dictionary can be helpful, but each individual also has a unique set of vocabulary words and interpretation of the words and meaning. Being mindful is the key.

I find it’s helpful to expand on this dynamic of "reading the energy field" by explaining some of the methods people use to read energy. I call these "noticing mechanisms" and place them into four categories:

• Your Five Physical Senses
• Your Sense of Balance
• Your Intuition or Inner Knowingness, and
• Your Full Range of Emotions and Other Feelings

You’re already familiar with all of these, so I’ll only touch the surface here. Perhaps in a later article, I will expand on these, as I have done in multiple personal development programs.

Your Five Physical Senses are sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. These physical senses are commonly accepted as ways of taking in information or of relating to the physical world. However, there are parallel ways of knowing in the non-physical world, such as inner sight, and hearing internal messages, and smelling when something seems amiss.

Your Sense of Balance is also primarily a physical sense. However, I keep it separate because "the sixth sense" has a generally accepted different meaning. Your five physical senses or some combination of them are involved in your awareness of balance, as are the other noticing mechanisms.

Your Intuition or Inner Knowingness is your inner wisdom. It can come to you with visions, sounds, a bubbling up from inside you, a tap on your shoulder, or knowingness without words. It’s a powerful way of noticing energy. Everyone has it. Some people are aware of it and some are not.

Your Full Range of Emotions and Other Feelings are among the most misunderstood of all these ways of noticing. When you know your feelings, you know more about where you are and where you are going than any other indicator can tell you. Both positive and negative feelings provide powerful information about the energy field.

Aligning and fine-tuning your noticing mechanisms makes reading or discerning energy more accurate and comfortable. They help you to be more mindful of the information all around you.

Everything is energy. Everything.

© 2012 Jeanie Marshall. All rights reserved.

The book I wrote referred to in this article is
Energetic Meetings: Enhancing Personal & Group Energy & Handling Difficult Behavior

Please check out my Personal Development Programs

Do You Take Time to Relax?

Many people think of relaxation as optional, or as a luxury, or as doing nothing. If you have such a mindset, you might find that it is helpful to re-think your perception so that you make relaxation as important as other items on your to-do list.

Consider your current relationship to relaxation. Here are a few questions to prime the pump:

• What is your opinion about relaxing?
• What are your thoughts when you begin to relax?
• How often do you relax?
• What are the common forms of relaxation you already use?

I’m not suggesting that you turn this into a big analysis. My intention is to help you to get in touch with your mindset about relaxation. I am encouraging you to gather mindful information. I am also encouraging you to relax regularly so that you experience a life-changing empowering practice.

Start where you are. When you acknowledge your starting place, it’s easier to know what the most appropriate next step is for you. For example, you can start by relaxing for 60 seconds every hour.

When I suggest that people spend 60 seconds to relax every hour, I usually suggest that they do intentional breathing. This is especially helpful for those who associate relaxation with "doing nothing," so I give the assignment to "do something": breathe! To breathe intentionally for 3 breaths — even when you take long and slow breaths — rarely takes as long as 60 seconds.

There are many other valid focal points in addition to or instead of the breath for a 60-second, regular relaxation. Visual focal points such as a beautiful view from a window or a favorite picture or icon can hold your attention and prompt relaxation. The chosen visual, of course, needs to be something you associate in some way to relaxing.

Listening to a brief music clip or closing your eyes to listen to the silence or music from inside can also stimulate relaxation when that’s your intention.

You may find it helpful to give attention to your shoulders or your forehead or your neck — anywhere you typically hold tension — so that you can tighten and then relax the muscles. Simple as this is, you may not be aware of the stress you carry until you take a few seconds to notice by tightening and then relaxing the muscles.

People who meditate regularly find it easier to relax. People who relax regularly find it easier to meditate. Relaxing and meditating are not the same, but certainly one can be used in place of the other for somewhat similar benefits.

So, when is the next time you will relax?

I have recorded many guided meditations.
My free guided mediations are under 5 minutes.

My other Guided Meditations are longer,
promoting relaxation and other positive benefits.