Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 142 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast!
So, when I have down time I’ve been reading another one of Dr Dispenza’s books called “You are the Placebo”. You know what I love about his books? It isn’t that they are an easy read, because they aren’t. He gets deep in the weeds on the brain and how it works, but ultimately his books make me feel empowered. They make me feel inspired. Who doesn’t love to be inspired?
In the last episode I talked about having moments of inspiration and capitalizing on them when you do.
I got curious and wondered what makes us feel inspired?
I love to feel inspired. In fact I journal every morning that one of the things I really want is to feel joyous, alive and inspired daily. I know that sounds like a dream or maybe like I’m trying to live in Lala land but think about it. If you actually set your intention to feel joyous, feel alive and feel inspired daily you’re probably going to do things a little differently then if you were just waking up hoping not to be late for work. When do I feel the most inspired? Honestly when I’m creating or learning. Creating my cartoons or my videos or doing the next unit in my Feng Shui course. I also feel inspired when I’m exercising or just walking in nature. When I did a little research, I found that learning new things, walking in nature, challenging yourself in one way or another and having an open curious mind are all ways to help you feel inspired.
It seems like anymore distraction and entertainment are so prevalent and addictive that inspiration might pop up in the form of a post or a TikTok but then by the nature of social media, within a second or two we are scrolling on to the next post that may be negative or political or just puppies and kittens playing which gives us a roller coaster of feelings that our brain loves, but we don’t ever allow ourselves to just think anymore. During my research I also found that on just about every list showing what hurts creativity or causes our brain to go on autopilot is consuming too much TV or social media.
True inspiration has to be intentional because it’s so easy to get distracted from our inspired moments!
Inspiration is something you feel in your bones. Inspiration is something that comes from inside. Inspiration is a pulling force. It’s a calling you have to answer.
And sometimes we get motivation and inspiration mixed up. Motivation is more external and inspiration is more internal. Motivation is effort and driving force. Inspiration is more effortless and a feeling of pulling you towards something.
Here’s the thing though. I don’t feel inspired when i’m watching TV or reading the news or scrolling on TikTok or Instagram. Maybe there are moments of inspiration but very few have the willpower to stop scrolling when they read an inspirational quote and go do something about it, I know I don’t. When I start scrolling 45 minutes later I’m like darn-it, I can’t get that time back.
If you are feeling less than inspired but you have something inside you pulling you, telling you there’s more for you then you have to give it a chance, you have to free your mind from the chains of consuming (which if you look it up means completely filling one’s mind and attention) It means putting our phone down.
It might be a little hard at first because we are so conditioned to just do everything on our phone, restaurants even have their menus on the phone now, I don’t like that at all. It makes everyone get on their phone right out of the gate. I ask for a menu because I don’t want to use my phone at the table and they always have one. And at first it will seem weird and hard and awkward because sitting at a table alone just taking in the scenery while your husband runs to the restroom feels weird, it’s more comfortable to grab my phone and bury my head until he comes out, but then I miss the adorable waitress’ side story or the little cute baby next to me trying to get my attention. And look, I consider myself an extrovert, but since COVID, even I’m not sure how to interact with strangers…My brain has me questioning if someone even would want to say Hi because everyone is so afraid of everyone else…but is that true or is that just my brain telling stories. So the easy thing is to stick my head in the phone and act busy and I still do that occasionally but guess what? I’m just distracting myself from life by connecting from the good stuff.
Which reminds me of a story of a philosophy professor who stood in front of his class with a large empty mayonnaise jar. He filled the jar with large rocks and asked his students if the jar was full. They all agreed that it was full. He then took small pebbles and added them into the jar. He shook it so they distributed themselves among the larger rocks. He asked again if the jar was full. The students all said yes, it’s full. He then proceeded to pour sand into the jar to fill up all the remaining empty space. The students said it’s definitely full now!
You see that jar represents your life. The rocks, pebbles and sand are the things that fill up your life. The rocks represent the big stuff. The important stuff. family, friends, your health if the pebbles and sand weren’t there, your life would still have meaning. The pebbles represent your job, your hobbies, your house,. These things come and go but aren’t necessarily permanent or essential to your overall well-being. The sand represents the fillers. Watching tv, scrolling on social media.
You see, if you filled the jar up with sand first you eventually would run out of space for the important things like family, friends, your health.
My challenge to you this week is to get a book, one that I love and is very inspiring is 212 the extra degree by Mac Anderson. It’s short and it will give you high fiving yourself. But get a book and keep it with you. For at least once each day when you are grabbing for your phone to scroll because you feel bored or anxious or sad or whatever feeling it is, stop for one minute and let yourself feel that feeling and then read one or two page in your book and then you can go back to doing whatever it is you are doing, I’m going to be doing it right along with you. We are training our brain to not only be ok with feeling our feelings but also to break our habit of distraction by phone, because reading is one of the fastest ways to feel inspired and who doesn’t love that I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days!
