“Inspiration follows aspiration.” ~Rabindranath Tagore
Inspired or in spirit is a way to live into each moment. However, I have noticed that inspired action has been a bit harder for me to hold onto these days. Of course I am only speaking from my current moment experience while exploring if my true inspiration and sense of awe inspiring moments still exist. What I am discovering is that they do except it all looks different now.
I am writing this from my own lens of experience because these past few years have taken some of the awe out of my daily life. I am now starting to move back into the remembering of how the feeling of awe actually felt. I am coming out of the semi-coma that has been induced by the constant bombardment of hate, fear, trauma, psychological warfare, medical tyranny, grocery store surveillance of masking to keep me and you healthy and controlled and we can not forget the restauranteurs being given medical clearance to ask for your medical information. These life experiences have led me to become hypervigilant about how I meet myself in my daily life.
One of the main lessons learned is that it is time to Grow up! I have always had a phrase that resonates within me and that is —most people are looking for a Mommy and Daddy to take care of them. Whether it is religious, government, employer, etc. it is something or someone outside of themselves that they thought they needed to survive. And living through these past few years has brought that completely to the forefront for me. I have watched and experienced the debilitating effects of this type of living and thinking. And it is hard to comprehend and at times it’s actually somewhat shocking for me to come to terms with the reality that most people want to be led.
Being self employed for the majority of my adult life has helped me to know the meaning of growing myself up, mainly because I had no one to depend on but myself and that started at age 15 when I began earning my own income. I learned early on the value of each dollar earned and what I would and wouldn’t do for that energy exchange. There is no job that I would go to while trudging along for my 40 or more hour weeks just to get health benefits and a salary even though I would basically be selling my soul for that “gift” of pseudo security.
I lived that existence for many years while working for large corporations and because of that I know what it feels like to be bound to that type of tortuous(IMO) living. I chose to leave it behind for the “uncertainty” of leading a life that I sculpted into what I have today. I have never been a person to be led by another’s dictate and because of that attitude I was suspended and fired from jobs and expelled from school. Those situations occurred during my developmental years of cultivating a strength to live my own life in my own way and the only way I knew to do that was to be rebellious. So I learned about patience and when and how to speak and when to discern what to say. That only comes by experiencing failures and accomplishments of learning who I am and how I want to live my life. In our culture and especially in today’s world being self directed and an independent thinker are the antithesis to what a “good and caring” person is supposed to be.
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
— Henry Miller
What are you choosing to give your attention to?
I guess we all get to decide what we want out of life and where we want to direct our focus. I will never stop focusing my attention on how I feel and how that feeling is impacting and informing my present moment experience.
Are you caring for yourself? Are you putting others ahead of your own desires, needs and wants? Are your waiting or expecting someone else to show you the way? Are you allowing for the fear of the unknown to take you over and be led by the loudest voices?
Where are you at in your life? Who are you? What makes you happy? What makes you want to get up each morning and know you are alive and loving your life just because “it is YOUR life!”
Those are the types of questions I continually ask myself. So when I started reviewing my sense of awe and lack thereof I became more empathetic to what we have all been living through these last few years.
I will never stop advocating for the continued exploration of these years and how I have been impacted by them. How my life and thinking has so greatly changed. How at times I feel a deep anger, gut wrenching sadness and then other times the total ecstatic joy of being alive during the greatest time in my life!
