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Pep Talk | Find Inspiration

Advice, by laughlinWe live in times when more individuals are sharing more of their knowledge with more people than ever before. Amazing, wise, compassionate, generous people offer free inspiration on whatever topic has you flummoxed. Tap into it.

Follow your mouse to the help you crave.

Listen to audio broadcasts, browse websites, discover free seminars, read blog posts and articles, download free info. There’s no excuse for lonesome longing. Whatever you think is holding you back is not rock solid. And it will yield sooner with help.

Let those who’ve been before, those who’ve blazed trails and found answers help you now. They yearn to be of service. A troll through the Internet will bring up legions of comrades, mentors, guides, and treasures to blast that wall of limitations to smithereens.

Get specific. Explore links. Follow leads.

You will find your mother lode, a soothing voice coming through your headphones, words that relax your heavy shoulders and bring tears of recognition to your eyes, a tool that points out the light at the end of the tunnel. So follow that lead. It points to the you of your dreams.

Find your inspiration. Be a collector of leaders.

{ PEP TALKS deliver a bracing blast of Grace }

Flickr photo: Advice, by laughlin

Related reading: Pep Talk | Zero In, Living with Questions

Creativity Prompt | 120

What skill are you missing?

Acquire it or hire it.

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 23 ~ Books | Joyful Self-Employment

Creativity Prompt | 119

What if the project itself could talk?

Listen carefully.

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Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 2 ~ A Moment of Silence, Please

Dare to Be Vulnerable

paralympicsWhat keeps us from showing our vulnerabilities? For me, it’s the fear of being teased or derided or – worst of all – pitied. Better to be on the safe side and keep my true but imperfect self hidden, I reason, rather than expose myself to ridicule.

Sad choice. And one I must now argue against.

While attending a seminar recently, I tangentially learned a thing or two about the power of vulnerability. At one point, the seminar leader instructed us to interact with whoever was nearby. I spoke with the man next to me – a stranger – and thought he was nice enough, but no more than that. Even after our exchange, he remained a sort of blank to me. Soon afterward, we all stood up to clap together to a song, and the man didn’t use his hands normally. He didn’t clap in rhythm and his hands looked a bit deformed. But he clapped with verve, and with a big smile on his face.

In that moment, I loved him. He went from a blank to a role model within the space of a few hand claps. Did I pity him for being different, or judge him to be less-than? No. My immediate and instinctive reaction to seeing him clap was a rushing wave of love mixed with the desire to show my true self to the world as bravely.

Of course, it pays to pick our moments. Because of the type of seminar it was, this man knew he was in a room full of people who were more likely to accept him than, say, a random bus full of city folk. But even then, even when we know the chances are good that we’ll be accepted, how often do we still hold back?

I attended the seminar with a friend. On the third day, I dared to look into her eyes as I cried hard tears from a deep, hurt place, and all I saw on her face was love. No pity. She must have seen in me, in my willingness to bring my truth into the light, the same thing I saw when I looked at the clapping man. It felt amazing and healing to be on the receiving end of that instinctive rush of love.

Paradoxically, when we appropriately expose our vulnerable truth, when we leap into the dare with our weakness exposed, we model strength. And we trigger love.

There’s power in weakness after all.

Flickr photo: Paralympics Wheelchair Basketball Tournament, by Singapore2010

Related reading: Crying and Staying, Pep Talk | Chin Up

<< Important Note >>
The links to Dr. Judith Orloff’s book, Emotional Freedom, in last Thursday’s post were not working correctly. They now are, and they lead to the Emotional Freedom special promotion she’s offering for the book. Please check it out if you’re interested. My apologies!

Creativity Prompts | 118

List the limitations.

Ignore them one by one.

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 65 ~ WORK Is Not a Four-Letter Word

Creativity Prompt | 117

What does the solution sound like?

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 108 ~ Sounding Off

Creativity Prompt | 116

Pontificate from a soapbox.

Note the high points of your speech.

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 14 ~ Pep Talk | Lead

Successfully Sensitive | Dr. Judith Orloff

Author of Emotional Freedom

Dr. Judith OrloffJudith Orloff, MD – a psychiatrist, intuitive empath, and highly sensitive person – is the author of the bestselling new book Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Harmony Books, 2009). Her other bestsellers are Positive Energy, Intuitive Healing, and Second Sight.

Dr. Orloff synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition, energy, and spirituality to help sensitive people come into their power. Her insights create a new convergence of healing paths for our stressed-out world.

For additional information and inspiration, visit Dr. Orloff’s website at www.drjudithorloff.com.

~~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

I am a psychiatrist and an intuitive empath. In my new book, Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life, I write about how I combine these aspects for health and healing. My sensitivity allows me to sense and know things deeply, to pick up intuitive information, to read patients, and to read energy. In Emotional Freedom I write about how to maintain your sensitivity but not absorb the negative emotions and energy of the world – essential skills for all sensitives to learn.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

When I was a teenager I got heavily involved with drugs to try to squash my sensitivity and intuition. At that time I was blessed to work with a psychiatrist who helped me see that in order to be whole I needed to embrace my sensitivity and learn to be grounded and strong. When I was a child I couldn’t go into shopping malls and crowded places because I’d go in fine and walk out exhausted or anxious or depressed. I didn’t realize I was sensing and absorbing other people’s energies. My Daoist teacher has helped me learn to meditate and center myself in the midst of turmoil – tools I teach to readers in Emotional Freedom.

Emotional Freedom, by Dr. Judith OrloffWhat quest currently captivates you?

I am on a book tour for Emotional Freedom, traveling around the county teaching people to embrace their sensitivities but develop a strong solid core – teaching strategies for dealing with emotional vampires so they don’t sap your energy and assault your sensitivity.

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

Meditation to center yourself and setting kind but firm limits and boundaries to protect your sensitivity. I love to help others embrace their sensitivity so it is not a cause of suffering or overwhelm. I love to offer readers strategies for becoming more courageous, overcoming fear, and dealing with emotions in a way that is empowering instead of being knocked off center when the power of emotional energies hit. It is very freeing to develop these skills. I honor sensitive people and want to do everything possible to help them embrace their gift.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dr. Orloff is currently offering a special promotion for Emotional Freedom, which includes free gifts of further encouragement and inspiration.

Photos from Dr. Orloff.

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Samantha Reynolds, Interview | Cliff Harwin

Creativity Prompt | 115

How would you handle this if you were a robot?

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 52 ~ The Reset Button

Creativity Prompt | 114

Experiment with delegation.

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 59 ~ Giving Up Housework

Pep Talk | Forget Finesse

Shipwreck of Point Reyes at Twilight, by Orin OptiglotWe humans are generally proud creatures who prefer admiration over ridicule. If you require finesse at every step of the way, life will dole out only the dullest rewards.

Certainly you have natural talents, areas in which you exhibit natural finesse. We all do. But it’s human nature to strive toward goals that challenge us, and natural finesse will only take you so far.

If it’s worth doing … it’s worth stumbling toward.

The key to a juicy life extravagantly lived is getting used to a few splats along the way. You’re unlikely to find a way forward and upward that’s completely devoid of dorkiness. Not if you crave magnificence.

So learn to blunder. Whether leaning into a smallish blunder or a giant one, set aside your pride, move forward, and let the laughter roll your way. Get used to it. Get into it. Know it’s coming. Learn to respect the flub up.

Practice is a form of reverence, even when you fail.

Each time you stumble, bumble, fall, or bomb, you gain points you can cash in at the brain bank. Think of finesse as your graduate degree in stumbling.

Remember dorkiness. It’s your saving grace.

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without loosing your enthusiasm.”
~ Winston Churchill

{ PEP TALKS deliver a bracing blast of Grace }

Flickr photo: Shipwreck of Point Reyes at Twilight, by Orin Optiglot

Related reading: Pep Talk | Grope, Oops! Wrong Limb

Creativity Prompt | 113

Draw a map that directs you to the treasure you seek.

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 68 ~ Real Adventures with Imaginary Maps

Commit to Difference

Free Dark Angel With Dragon Tattoo Regret, by D Sharon PruittWe are here now. Here and now we can make a difference. No argument. No excuses. Only committment. We are already committed, whether we choose to believe we are or not. Commit to the commitment.

“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”
~ Frodo

“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”
~ Gandalf

~~~~~

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”
~ Galadria

(Quotes from the movie The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring.)

Flickr photo: Free Dark Angel With Dragon Tattoo Regret, by D Sharon Pruitt

Related reading: A Forgiving Tale, Pep Talk | Wing It

Creativity Prompt | 112

Try on various thinking caps.

What would a nurse, firefighter, pirate, monarch, or Viking do?

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 81 ~ Compass Titles

Creativity Prompt | 111

Who do they think you are?

~~~

Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process.
See Grace Kerina’s Creativity Prompts Compendium for more tools to spark your genius.
Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 63 ~ Pep Talk |Oh, Never Mind