Category: Creativity

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Unique inspiration

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Every person is unique, therefore what inspires us individually is always different.

A whole crowd of people can be watching the same performance or experiencing the same moment and respond to it completely uniquely.

What inspires your neighbour will bore you.

What enthrals you, won’t even be noticed by a friend.

My son Max is currently obsessed with helicopters.

He wakes up in the morning and the first thing off his lips is ‘helicopter!’

So most mornings, more often than not  you will find us together watching a helicopter documentary on YouTube and my eyes glaze over.

(I don’t care what components make up a helicopter, I am bored by 15 mins of non stop helicopter flying.)

My son however is enthralled.

The thing about inspiration, is so often we apply formulas to our lives hoping that the formula will make us feel more inspired or bring change.

What worked for someone else may never work for you.

Mostly because what inspires them is completely foreign to you.

We all have a inspiration language.

Just like the popular book Love languages, I believe in inspiration languages.

Do you feel uninspired?

What is your inspiration language?

What about music, candles, flowers, quiet, reading, friends, coffee, tea, space, cafés, metropolis, new cities, aeroplanes, like me?

Or is it something else.

Write down the things that inspire you?

Write down the atmospheres that inspire you?

Write down your most inspired moments.

They become your clues.

Stuck

Frustrated

Lonely

Uninspired?

Go back to your list.

See you tomorrow

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Stuck

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I had a dream last night that I was frozen in an icey pole.

Hilarious.

Yes.

Scary.

Overwhelmingly so.

The subtle nature of our psyche cracks me up though.

My new health regime means no icey poles or sugar for this junkie, but at the same time my heart constantly longs for freedom.

Waking up feeling stuck was the most awful feeling.

I was freaked out.

How about you? Do you stop change in it’s infancy stages because of fear of lack of freedom?

Do you feel stuck?

It’s funny the things that hold us back from making changes, the little things that make us feel constrained, restricted and overwhelmed.

Stuck.

We can also get stuck in our creativity.

I had a pretty awful experience last week with this blog and despite my humility and recognition of fault, the person I was communicating with didn’t make the interaction very amicable.

It made me feel stuck.

It made me feel like never opening myself to vulnerability and creating again.

Quickly though I realized that we are never going to be able to please everyone, we all make mistakes and we were not created to live in a stuck place.

This new health regime is going to bring freedom not rules, it’s just the way I look at it.

This scripture sums it up for me at the moment.

Psalm 119:

45 And I’ll stride freely through wide open spaces as I look for your truth and your wisdom; 46 Then I’ll tell the world what I find, speak out boldly in public, unembarrassed.

Here’s a toast to wide open spaces dear friends.

Life lived where the icey poles melt around us and that which has kept us contained melts away.

Stay true to your commitments.

Bring changes that will set you free.

Amanda

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Sore feet and happy heart

20140203-210355.jpgDay one of my new health regime, Day 34 of my #inspire14 project  and I sit here with very sore feet and a happy heart.

Watching all the pictures of the little ones going off to school today made me smile, but I felt like I had my own first day today, getting back on the exercise/ healthy eating wagon.

Why does it take so much effort to do the things that make a massive difference?

When I exercise, I feel amazing after.

When I eat well, I feel clearer and more inspired.

Entropy happens though and those chips at my friends house, the bar of chocolate, the lure of the couch, they  all win the battle.

I know it is only day one but I am hoping the sore feet and the happy heart last.

What is it that you have been putting off?

What do you need to live inspired in 2014?

Write it below and maybe this first step will lead you towards accountability and the first baby step towards making the change tomorrow.

Amanda

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Artful beauty

20140202-123334.jpgThe last 24 hours have been super thought provoking for me. After publishing my blog yesterday Excuses I have been deep in thought about what truly is beautiful.

At the same time on my instagram account, I started a instagame encouraging my friend to Occupy Social media with Art rather than selfies, Shark debates, Bit Strips, weird recipes and more.

To fill our worlds with beauty rather than the overwhelming tide of opinion, debate and consumerism.

How often do we feel overwhelmed in our need for perfection when we were created to evoke beauty in our originality?

This sanitised world we live in promotes perfection, it promotes more clothes, more debt, more belongings, a better car, a better husband, a better blog, a better instagram. If only we had just one more thing, we would feel beautiful and therefore happy and content.

A new car is not going to fulfil you.

The satisfaction of a new outfit will be short lasting.

New shoes, new boobs, new friends, new house… The list is ever growing.

As we purvey each others lives through iphone shaped screens, we are silently sinking in the belief that if I just had that…I would feel so much better.

So I am encouraging you, to surround yourself with beauty.

A quote that inspires.

A painting that evokes emotion.

A book that challenges you on the inside.

Maybe it is time that we deal with our dissatisfaction from the inside out.

One insecurity at a time.

With vulnerability and courage.

Giving away what we have to de-clutter our lives from the crumbling walls of our consumerism.

Living in beauty rather than debt, living lightly knowing what truly satisfies eternally than momentarily and fleeting.

All my love

Amanda

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Excuses

20140201-203246.jpgBeing pregnant has amazing benefits; growing nails, growing hair but many challenges as well.

Exhaustion

Weight gain

Lethargy.

Honestly I have been struggling with my weight this pregnancy. I hadn’t lost the weight from my first pregnancy, I was exercising and we eat mostly well, but I really wanted to be in a better place before falling pregnant again.

It’s funny, because this area of my life, affects my inspiration, it affects my productivity, it affects my marriage.

It is core to every part of me.

The last 12 weeks or so, I have been pretending that it is no big deal, but really it is.

Every week as I grow bigger and do less exercise, I am feeling worse and worse.

So today I took charge.

This monday a new round of Michelle Bridges 12 week course begins and I have decided to do the pregnancy program.

I have put it off so many times because I use the excuse of pregnancy, busyness, life, anything to stop me from making a commitment that will take charge of my health.

It is a big commitment, but I am believing taking hold of all the excuses of why I shouldn’t and bringing forth all the reasons why I should, I have committed to making change.

Pregnancy can’t be my excuse anymore. I will be healthy about it, but not exercising is not an option.

The way I eat and the way I exercise, clearly affects my mental health and my inspiration output.

My creativity is directly affected by the way I treat my body.

My relationships are directly affected by the way I exercise and consequently feel.

No more excuses.

What are the excuses that are stopping you committing to something that really needs to change in your world?

12 week’s starts on Monday.

Oh my.

Amanda