How inspiration awakens your unique gifts

When Viva Editions, (the publisher who is also publishing my book Imperfect Spirituality) sent me The Inspired Life: Unleashing Your Mind’s Capacity for Joy, I was psyched.

Course, I get excited when I get anything in the mail, but when it’s a free book – yahoo! Toss in one like this work by Susyn Reeve and Joan Breiner and the world brightens just by reading the title.

You know I love to read and write and talk about inspiration. It’s the source of goodness and love, and magic in life. The thing that allows us to see beauty and operate from spirit. It is also wholly practical. Inspiration isn’t something out there, it’s within us and the authors give us practical ways to help us tap into our own inspiration, to learn how to access the joy it brings, and live a bolder life of compassion and service.

Author Susyn Reeve talks about just how all that comes together in three special Q&A posts running  here – one today, two next week. Each post will include try-it-yourself tips that will help you awake to your unique gifts to live the inspired life.

Here’s the first installment:

IS: When did you begin thinking about inspiration and how to use it to create more joy in life? How did the book evolve from that? 

 SR: Between the ages of 22 to 25 both my oldest sister and my Dad passed on.  My sister within two weeks of being hospitalized for what was initially diagnosed as pneumonia and my Dad within six weeks of being diagnosed with cancer.  Both of these experiences made it very apparent to me that life can change within the snap of a finger and it was clearly time for me to put to rest my personal I’m not enough beliefs about myself and consciously live my life grounded in passion and purpose – to live my inspired life vision.  This decision illuminated my path to focus on upgrading the software of my mind and cultivate and nourish vibrant healthy self-esteem.  This has been a long journey grounded in my belief that our relationship with ourselves is the blueprint for all the relationships in our lives.  If I desire greater joy and happiness in my life then I must begin with my relationship with myself.  I have studied and apprenticed with many great teachers – Joseph Campbell, don Miguel Ruiz, Jean Houston and Robert Fritz to name a few – and have had the honor of working with tens of thousands of clients and I have learned that when we cultivate vibrant self-esteem in our thoughts, words and actions we are ready to live an inspired life.

IS: How do you define inspiration? 

SR: Inspiration – or in-spirited – is to be awake to our unique gifts, talents, skills and abilities – and to understand that we are part of a larger evolutionary process that calls to us from deep within to be mighty expressions of love in the world.  To be in-spirited is to acknowledge and accept our full co-creative partnership with the Greater Field of Life – listening deeply to and being guided by the still small voice within.  A starting place to awaken to your inspired life visions is to respond to the question:  Who would I be and what would I be doing if I was not afraid and knew I could not fail?

 Try-it-Yourself Tip – Ask yourself this question: Who would I be and what would I be doing if I was not afraid and knew I could not fail? Contemplate the answer for five minutes and begin journaling about it.

 IS: How can we use inspiration to live more joyous lives?

SR: When you allow yourself the freedom to awaken to your passion and purpose you have consciously stepped on the path to living a more joyous life.  Your inspired life vision is your North Star and provides you with direction…although the path may not always be a straight line.  What most often occurs when you have a clear vision is that everything you believe about yourself, others and life that is at odds with your vision surfaces in your conscious awareness.  It is crucial to remember that these challenges to your vision have surfaced for you to become aware of the programming that has been running you that is at odds with your inspired life vision.  With this awareness you have the freedom to focus on the thoughts that generate greater joy in your life.

Try-it-yourself-tip: Write down three things you love to do – your passions – those things that cause you to lose track of time when you’re immersed in them. Now, schedule time each day this week o do one of them.

IS: Is inspiration something that has to be cultivated and created or does it just suddenly show up in our lives?

SR: As with any muscle inspiration does have to be cultivated and nourished.  You may feel a burst of inspiration that captures your attention – for me, since I was a young child I knew I wanted to be a teacher.  Now, in retrospect, as I look back on six decades it is clear that based on my personal journey that being happy, giving and receiving love were my biggest personal challenges.  I have spent decades upgrading the software of my mind so I can now say unabashedly, I Am a Mighty Expression of Love in the World!

Susyn Reeve, M.Ed., as a teenager, wrote in her journal, “What would the world be life if everyone loved themselves?”  This question has guided her fierce commitment to partnering with clients to expand their capacity to be, give and receive love, by removing their inner obstacles to love and living their inspired life of passion and purpose.  She has done this in many roles over her 35 years of experience as a Transformational Coach, Corporate Consultant with Fortune 100 companies, and InterFaith Minister.  She is the award winning author of Choose Peace and Happiness.  Her newest book, The Inspired Life:  Unleashing Your Mind’s Capacity for Joy is your personal invitation to living a life a passion and purpose.  She is the co-founder of www.Self-Esteem-Experts.com where you can get an excerpt from The Inspired Life.