When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
~Lao Tzu
Inspired.
When I close my eyes and ask myself what does this one small word really mean to me, the answer comes back like a prayer on the wind.
I shouldn’t be so surprised really. One dictionary definition of this magical word declares it “To be guided by the Divine.” Or-“being of such surpassing excellence as to suggest inspiration by the gods.”
Synonyms for this powerhouse of a word include beauties such as brilliant, aroused, impressive, thrilling, and memorable. Sound good? I thought so. How about uplifted, exhilarated, enthused and elated?
Does this sound like a life worth living? A goal worth stretching toward?
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, wrote a wonderful book called The Power of Intention, Learning to Co-create Your World Your Way. I highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it. It’s on my reading list every January. In fact my copy is so worn by now that the book opens to certain pages by habit as if it knows exactly what I am coming back to re-fill my mind with at the start of every year.
Like the page where this juicy nugget falls out of:
Practice Being the Kind of Person You Wish to Attract
As I’ve touched on before, if you want to be loved unconditionally, practice loving unconditionally. If you want assistance from others, extend assistance whenever and wherever you have the opportunity. If you’d like to be the recipient of generosity, then be as generous as you can as frequently as you can. This is one of the simplest and most powerful ways of attracting the power of intention. Match up with the forthcomingness of the universal mind from which everyone and everything originates while extending it outward, and you’ll attract back to yourself all that you intend to manifest.
So after reading that passage again as I worked through my 2009 reflections and my 2010 goals, I began to meditate on the following questions. What kind of person do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to have as I cross that threshold into the next fifty years of my life?
And as I sat there the answer came to me like a prayer whispered on a soft breeze.
INSPIRED
I want to live a truly Inspired life. A life filled with Divine Inspiration, enthusiasm, brilliance, passion, excellence, and elation.
For the longest time, tucked away in a closet I’ve kept a little blog called The Inspired Artist!, where I’ve hidden away recipes, paintings, photos. Stuff I really don’t expect anyone to see. (Not a very inspired attitude it now occurs to me as I write this). I loved the title. It resonated with who I wanted to be. An Inspired Artist filling my life with creative endeavors to share with the world.
The reason it never went anywhere? It isn’t enough. Art is just a part of me, it isn’t all of me. I want ALL of me to be inspired and I want all of YOU to be inspired. I want to change the world with inspiration.
That’s my big hairy audacious goal for 2010. To live an Inspired Life in 2010 and hope you will join in with me to live one too.
Dr. Dyer has already given us the recipe. We know what we have to do. If we want to attract more Inspired people to come along on our journey, all we have to do is practice. That simple…practice being inspired…living inspired…embracing inspiration wherever we can find it.
How to find inspiration?
Open your eyes and heart and look for it. Make it an Intention. An on purpose daily habit to seek it out everywhere. Begin to see it in the little things. It’s all around us, in the people right next door, in the places we go day to day, in the lessons that spirit is trying to teach if we take a moment to listen. It breaths in the smile of a child, in the deep brown eyes of a beloved pet who’s unconditional love knows no end, in the loving touch of an elderly couple still holding hands.
Stop and look…take it in…and then don’t forget to share it with others. Spread the inspiration! Be the inspiration! Manifest the energy and watch it grow forward!
BE the Inspired Life. I plan to. Will you join me?
