inspired

This month’s theme in our Backstage Pass community and on the blog is INSPIRED! We have some juicy conversations lined up for you.

Are you ready to open your mind and heart to get inspired this month? If you have an article you’d like to submit on the topic of being INSPIRED, we would love to hear from you.

Today, you’re going to hear from our new Creative Director, Megan Monique and what the topic of being INSPIRED opened up for her. When you’re done reading, take a moment to leave a comment and let us know what resonated with you!

 

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I have been dancing with inspiration and inspired action for as long as I can remember. In my 20s, I always felt like I was chasing the next inspired moment.

Inspired actions would come to me like a wave I could ride into the vision of my future.

When I reached my 30s, I went through some more challenging life events that deprived me of my inspired actions and visions. I was in survival mode where the most important thing was to make it to the next hour or day in one piece.

I am in the latter half of my 30s now, and my relationship with inspired thought and action has shifted quite a bit. Inspired moments are no longer something I chase, but something I allow to find me.

I don’t go searching for them, I make sure I leave space in my day, in my heart, in my mind, to feel inspired. To be gifted with inspired moments.

And most importantly, (I’m still working on this one) I do my best to not attach an end result to the experience of an inspired action. I savor the inspired happening for just what it is and nothing more.

When we tie our inspired moments to real world actions that must be productive or producing, we are diminishing the arrival of the inspired moment.

When you are inspired, stay present when what’s presenting itself. Listen to it. Play with it. Release expectations and enjoy!

Here are a few ways that you can tap into and navigate being inspired in your own life whether inspired action is something that comes easily for you, or if it’s been missing for quite some time.

Struggling to Be Inspired

The world we live in today is a heavy one. There is nothing light and free and fun about the things we are working through on a societal and social level.

But that doesn’t mean that inspired thought and action does not exist. It is actually the golden thread weaving our entire existence together.

The ways in which we are inspired can and will change over time.

When you find yourself struggling to be inspired, start at where it all began. Your childhood.

There is a practice often used when we’re doing inner child healing, where you refer back to what was fun and enjoyable for you as a child. When you engage in the activities you did when you were little that brought you joy, that spark of inspired action and what matters most to you will come rushing back.

The more you engage with your child like inspired thoughts, the easier it will be for that same inspired action to flood into other areas of your now adult life.

While this practice is a powerful and helpful one. It’s important to not get stuck here.

Not all of us had childhoods where there is the luxury of reaching into a bag of inspired, enjoyable moments to utilize in our adult lives. And sometimes, this practice just doesn’t work for everyone.

That’s okay!

Sure, our child-minded-inspired actions can reinvigorate our adult lives. But it is not the only way to tune back into what it is you are inspired by.

Leaving Room for Your Inspired Experience to Change

Opening yourself up to new spaces, conversations, people and activities can also light your inspired spark.

The Backstage Pass is a perfect place to start for its inspiring connections of thought leaders, industry disruptors and business activists & where the community is well of inspiration. 

You can even use your immediate surroundings to spark inspiration back at you. look around your environment at home. Your community.

Look within yourself and how you structure your day. Are you creating pockets of time for inspired action to show up? Do you have your dial turned on so that when an inspired moment happens upon you, you will in fact be receptive to it?

As you are moving throughout the day, consider what thoughts come to you: “That would be cool to try that.” Or “I’ve never been to that new restaurant downtown.” Or “I think I’ll buy a different style of blouse than I normally would.” Or “Let me buy this plant for my friend just because.”

Inspired action and thoughts come in all shapes and form.

The goal isn’t to be inspired and see your inspiration through to some kind of self-created endgame that produces results. (That is a very masculine and capitalistic perspective.)

The point is to feel the inspiration and let it guide you to more inspired places.

When you find yourself inspired, it may only be for that one moment of experience. Your inspired actions do not have to result in anything but you feeling… inspired.

So leave room for inspiration to show up throughout your day in all the forms. Even if it’s just a lovely idea that pops in your head as you’re driving. Give gratitude for the inspired moments that find you and be open to more pouring in soon.

Moving through the World Inspired

I know most of us here in America hold expectations of inspired thought and action to bring big sweeping change through our lives and communities. But the reality is that all things here on Earth are done in small movements.

Sure, there are moments and actions that cause change forever. That is undeniable.

But when it comes to us being inspired in our lives and the actions we take, we often want those very actions or results to be dramatic. Big. Noticeable.

Whatever we are to do with the inspired action that finds us, we must milk it for every morsel it carries or was it even worth it?

The truth is that the hand of inspired action is a grace-filled one. It is a twinkle of delight meant to muse the senses and creativity. It is a soft and loving hand, guiding you down an experience of exceptional inspired moments.

As you move through the world, inspired – do not place too much weight on actions you take from your inspired moments. Do not carry the pressure of capitalism into the tunnel of inspired action.

I invite you to relish in the experience of being inspired, just for the sake of the experience itself.

You are worthy of having enjoyable inspired moments for yourself without having to make anything more of them, but simply enjoying and acknowledging that they exist.