Are You Living An Inspired Life?

What's your first impulse of the day, do you wake up inspired and excited about your new day or do you wake up with a feeling of dread and negativity? Maybe you are one of the many who wake up and are simply operating on auto pilot.

For most of us neither the desire to be inspired nor the stimulus of fear is a conscious thought; we are operating simply out of habit, function and reactivity. The sad truth is that, for most of us, if we thought about it, operate out of fear.

How we view our day "starts as soon as we climb out of bed in the mornings. A vast array of impulses and information begins to stream across the broadband of our consciousness-even before we are fully present in the world." But if you are lucky your first thoughts may be of the excitement of a new day...

But then……"the radio, T.V. or newspaper soon sucks us into a vortex of violence, crises and tragedies. At breakfast, we read the labels from the cereal maker counting calories, carbohydrates or cholesterol. Already we are multitasking. We pack up our children and their lunch bags and backpacks, and on the fly, we review the school day and work assignments. Breathless and wound up, we hurl ourselves into traffic, and our own unique workday worries as we flow into the world, juiced with fear." "Fear is the dominant experience of our lives. We are afraid of health risks, suspicious of our business institutions and governments, wary about our neighbors, nervous about financial insecurity and just plain scared of terrorism, violence and dying."

Because fear is so widespread, it seems to be the catalysts for everything in our lives. "In every field fear is used as a motivating force: religion (join my religion or you'll go to hell); education (learn what I tell you or I will flunk you); parenting (do as I say or I will withhold my love and approval); politics (vote for me or the terrorists will get you); business (do what I say or I will fire you); advertising and marketing (buy this product or you will be ugly!)

Fear places a wedge in our relationships and distracts us from our daily tasks. It diminishes our effectiveness in the world and the contributions we make as humans. Our basic primal desire is to love and be loved; the second is to inspire and be inspired. But when fear rules our hearts, there is little room for love or inspiration to reside there. When we are frightened we cannot lift up anyone else, because frightened people are not inspiring people."

So many of us are running on autopilot that we don't even realize that we are reacting to life instead of living life. Because of the onslaught of fear that dictates our society, we are on guard and react to each event in our lives as if we are at war. Life is to be lived not survived. We cannot truly tap into our inspired selves until we stop reacting to life and proactively pursue our own unique thoughts, ideas and selves. We are so fear-based we are even afraid of being ourselves! Fear has become the basis for almost all our decision-making. STOP and THINK about why you are doing what you are doing and what your motivation is?

Our actions are so far out of alignment with our true inspired selves that we would not recognize it if we fell over it! There are three questions that author Lance Secretan recommends that you ask yourself:

- Why are you here?
- What do you stand for?
- What will you do?

It is hard to live an inspired life when your "destiny, cause, and calling are not in alignment with all aspects of your life." It is not possible to live an inspired life at home, but not at work or at church or at the grocery store. Living an inspired life means integrating all aspects of your personality and aligning them with the source of your destiny, cause and calling. YOUR INSPIRATION!

Some of us require a catalyst to wake us up to the fact that we are not aligned with our authentic selves; that what we thought was an inspired life was quite the opposite.

To truly live an authentic inspired life requires that you not indulge aspects of your personality but to fully live from the inside out. I was forced through circumstances to look at my life and truly understand how the choices that I was making had an effect on my physical and mental wellbeing.

I neglected the fundamentals of living a healthy inspired life. My life was not balanced and I was putting tremendous amounts of energy in one or two areas of my life while neglecting others. Living a healthy inspired life incorporates all aspects of life: the physical, mental and spiritual and truly understanding the source of your inspiration.

Keep in mind your destiny; cause and calling may not necessarily be to live a life like Mother Theresa or Gandhi. Some of us influence the world in smaller ways, but with greater results not always known to ourselves. The key is to change your way of living to live your authentic inspired life; through that, you will ultimately change the world.

The wonderful quotes are from Lance Secretan a leadership advisor and author of Inspire! What Great Leaders Do. They are from an article he wrote called "99% Inspiration" for the July 2005 issue of Ode Magazine.

Take the conscious road to authentic power!

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