You wake up on a Friday morning after restless night, filled with plans to make great progress on your important projects, but quickly realize that this moment you feel mentally and physically tired. You stare at your desk and sadly observe the obvious inability to focus which impairs anything you might have gotten done for hours.
So as a high achiever, I think I am driven, ambitious, disciplined… but it also means I have difficulty relaxing. High achievers are notoriously bad at letting go! Do you feel that tension around your back ribs? Yeah, that’s it.

In the extreme, when I am wired for progress, productivity, consistency, and discipline, a break feels like a failure: Achievement and completion are the be sought. Downtime feels as weakness. Doing nothing is for the lazy. Sleep is disturbed.
But here it is: The next time you find yourself slacking to get through some “productive” work that you’ve convinced yourself is necessary, just stop and give yourself the space.
In other words, let a break be it!

Oh boy, it’s cold today, but the sun is shining and I am going for a walk in the snowy forest, nothing on my mind! A few hours later I am happy and recharged, and writing what made me restless already Thursday evening.
So the next time you find yourself stuck, uninspired, remember to let it be, recharge, and flow again.

Inspiration is a gift that each of us can receive, whether planned or unexpectedly. It comes from silence and stillness or any level of stimulation, visual, auditory or sensual, when you’re alone, or with other people, being coached or left alone with no help. It struck with the idea you didn’t know you could come up with. So why, out of the blue, it shows up?

Ultimately, what inspires someone is unique to individuality and personal life experiences. Sometimes it comes from the simplest things, such as a conversation with a friend, a beautiful sunset, or a song you hear on the radio. It can also come from more complex activities such as reading a book, visiting a museum, or traveling to a new place.
It can be an instant, surprising thought in the middle of a dream or in the noisy traffic, or it may come from a slow, gradual process of exploration and learning.
The secret is to be open to The New and step out of our routine, listen and glance at one’s surroundings and do something fresh and relaxing.

Why is inspiration important and can it happen when we are depressed and numb emotionally?
In sleep?

It is quite common to be inspired when sleeping. This can happen because our brain is still active during sleep, and may continue to process and work through ideas and problems even while the conscious mind is at rest. Special hypnotic and meditation practices to get into state between being awake and being asleep, show to generate creative ideas while sleeping. These techniques involve learning to consciously control or observe one’s thoughts and experiences while in a dream-like state.

Inspiration is what starts the progress, clarity to see our path in Life, feature in longevity, fruit of passion and seed to legacy. It brings instant joy and a jolt to act. It’s a gift of the mind!

While depression can often make it difficult to feel inspired, it can be a powerful tool to dig yourself out from depression and find meaning and purpose in life. A path from depression to inspiration is through creativity. The most beautiful, timeless pieces of art, whether paintings, sculptures, poems, books, songs, music, films, architecture, artifacts of any kind, as well as dance and movements came from deeply depressed, alienated humans. So did the acts of kindness and service. If we can find a bit of gratitude, we can find inspiration. If we hit the bottom, but realized that there is nowhere to go but up, we’ll find an inspiration.

Long live Survival Instinct that gives fertile ground to INSPIRATION!