Attending the Private Practice Section's Annual Meeting last week raised some interesting questions I hadn't considered since my doctoral studies. Important questions that upon reflection it seems I too often glaze over:
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Can we really ever get/make/inspire someone or some organization to change?
- Or do we merely create environments of safety, challenge and opportunity to allow change/creativity to emerge rather than be held back?
To my way of thinking right now it seems all too easy to make objects out of people and have them be objects to which we do things to in order to generate preplanned outcomes…much as we do with a widget coming down the assembly line. While you can coerce certain individuals to behave in some manner, the motivational literature suggests that isn't a sustainable model.
These questions reminded me of the difference between education (educare: to draw out) vs instruction/teaching (to put in) … One has a collaborative sense to it, the other a dominating or "over thou" mentality. Instructing information and skills is fairly easy, being and educator that can provide a learning environment that permits the student to examine their assumptions and test new ones requires a whole other skill set, and I believe a deep personal practice of awareness of the educator's agenda first. If it includes being the doer/the fixer/ or the healer….ohhhhh, I don't know.
What set off this line of thinking was when my son Adam commented on FB that he was sure "You really got them thinking." …which is true I suspect many had something to consider and contemplate. But not so much by what I said as the environment I created. My response to my very wise son, an educator himself, was, "What I learned Adam was that it's most important that people have the chance to "feel/sense" again…once you create that space, then their thinking shifts and they access the wisdom they were looking for outside themselves….very important lesson for me."
So what do you think…where does the inspiration or motivation come from?
Can you make someone inspired? ….I don't think so, but wonder what you think? And if you think you can, I want to hear how you think that might occur? ….great stuff…I've been studying it since 1978….still don't have the answers but lots of good questions.
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Tags: create change, inspire, motivate
It’s interesting with the photo of the heart afire. Inspiration to me is that spirit, the fire in the belly, the light, the breath, that causes my heart to beat more quickly. When I am inspired, it’s on a visceral level, I feel the beating of an angels wing perhaps. I see the light, shining from anothers’ eyes or being. Once we saw a flutist Claudia Tulip whose playing was inspired, it was as if the music moved through her entire being. The music moved her to play, she was moving with the music flowing through her, becoming one with her. She was open to express. Creative people I think are ones whose senses are highly atuned to the energies around, then the vast pool of ideas is there and we are drawn to a certain creation or creative process. If we don’t heed the call then another may connect with the idea or concept we envisioned and bring forth a creation. If i don’t make my own creation no one will ever know that which I would bring forth. Some have said it is not ours to judge that which inspires us to create, yet to simply allow and bring it or express it, for in that creation is our own unique expression. These are some of my thoughts on the fire the passion the fuel of creation.
Inspiration without subsequent action amounts to nothing really. If one is truly inspired, then action must follow. People are inspired in lots of ways. An ad on TV might inspire someone to go buy something. If they actually go buy it, then I’d say they were inspired to buy. If they say, “Oh that looks like a nice product”, but do nothing, then I’d say they were not inspired to buy. People are inspired by others though example. We admire others that achieve something or live their life in a particular way. If that example giver us the energy to achieve as well, or make changes in our own lives, then I’d say we were inspired to do so by the one we admire. However, if we don’t make that change, inspiration did not occur. It would appear then that a person can inspire another with or without even knowing they are doing so, but the person receiving the inspiration must do something in order for the circle to be completed. In my own life, I never really waited for someone to inspire me. I have always taken action through self motivation, influenced by everything and everyone I have ever known. We are products of our environment, but we must “go do” something. I think it was Thomas Edison who said that “success is 10% inspiration and 90% persperation”. That rings true to my ears. Don’t wait to be inspired – ACT!!!
How are you using the word merely? Of what origin the word merely: a body of water, a marsh, a boundary marker, a sharp shaping blade, or a measurement of value? Merely a small insignificant of no great importance small volume single breath? Merely seems small, just enough to be missed by a slumbering soul. Yet what volume arouses or awakens the soul that slumbers unaware, unconscious of incompetence in breathing. Once challenged awakened and aware of incompetence, how does the soul respond? Must an immediate measureable action be witnessed to validate a soul seeded for change? Breath changed chaos in the symphonic movement of the universe. The Ancient Song of Integration and Movement released by Breathing Love, now held back merely by the inspiration of hate. Inspire… to receive breath, to push breath into a receiver, to force breath into an unconscious receiver. I have experienced that the quality of air one receives does inspire creativity.
Oh frozen soul that lies beneath breathe in, breathe in Infinite Soul
Yes breath find home, O Love live into me:
Yes live into me that I be rightly mended
And incarnate the nature you intended!