Commit to the Inspired Life

Writers Block!  This is the worst of all possible states of being for a budding writer.  Nothing great to say, no good advice or interesting thoughts; the pressure is on, commitments to be met.  Yet I come up empty.  This is so scary.  I ask myself, ‘is this it? Am I dried up?’ 

 

When I started my blog I made a deal with myself.  I was only going to produce from an inspired state.  No expectations, demands or deadlines.  I would work from an inspired state, period.   

Right now I am definitely not inspired.

Most of my articles come to me at night.  I make some notes to help me remember so I can take a run at it in daylight.  Sometimes, an article writes itself, and I get up and stick with it until it is polished and ready to post.  In truth, they write themselves.  This is really great until one hits a dry spell.  Then faith and trust kick in.

This past summer I took an official holiday.  My sister moved to Prince Edward Island, 'for the adventure’ she says.  What a great opportunity for me to spend some time with her and to see more of the country. 

 

I hopped on a plane and I took an unheard of two whole weeks of doing nothing, other than playing with my sister’s dogs, driving around looking at surreal pink dirt, smelling sea air, and of course, critiquing places to eat. 

 

(Just in case you visit PEI in the future, the winner was Landmark Café, in Victoria by the Sea.)

This village was most like how I remember my mothers home village of Providence Bay on the Manitoulin Island, sans the salt.  

Most of all I was in awe of pink dirt!  

Oh yeah, and the endless seafood.  Yummmm!

When I came back home and settled in, I worked for two weeks straight.  As well as my usual client load, I was writing information packages and re-designing internal systems for my practice.  I also created a huge body of general information files for client follow up.  The keyboard was ‘smoking’.  I was inspired!  It felt like no work at all.  Ah, this is why employers pay people to go away! 

I began to ponder the inspired state.  It got me wondering if this is what our lives could be like and should be like, all the time.  As a society, we tend to be highly production oriented.  We even brag to one another about how fatigued we are while keeping up our end of the ‘Gross National Profit’.

Farmers of yesteryear followed a guideline of planting for 6 years and then letting the field go fallow for the seventh year.  This allowed the land to refresh and repair itself for another productive phase. 

I think the same good advice goes for any endeavour.  Creativity comes from that still place; the hands empty phase.  Yet it is hard to go fallow.  Unless one has complete trust and faith, the non-productive phase is hard to go though.  

The chunking out the data part of my brain seems to be on holiday. If I am true to myself, right now, I have to say that I want all aspects of my life to be ‘inspired’.  No pushing for productivity. No guilt about what I should be accomplishing.  I am giving in to the fallow-phase.  This is the playing, reading and resting phase. 

The higher part of me trusts that in a little while, I’ll be the conduit for ‘the flow of information’ again.