How breaking our addiction to excitement helps us access our natural, sustainable energy.
Most people intuitively get the concept of switching your energy source from “adrenalin to inspiration.” It’s actually quite similar to switching from oil to solar power. One form of energy creates negative consequences and is limited, and the other is sustainable and life regenerating. We can grasp this concept for our homes or cars, but what about our bodies and our being?
What I call “authentic” or “connected” power is the source of inspired energy. This is the place where we are in tune with ourselves, nature and others. When we are in tune with our authentic power, we naturally source from inspiration. Disconnected, or reactive, power acts through selfish competition, survival, and without regard for others. When we are sourcing from disconnection, we tap into adrenalin. We need to rush, be busy, not be lazy, and get it done when we are in an adrenalin state.
Most people mistake excitement for energy. Energy is energy, excitement is a heightened state which can burn out your natural energy reserves. This one discernment can change your life. Read on to understand the subtleties.
What is living from adrenalin?
For the most part, many of us use our stress response and adrenalin to increase productivity. We think this is the source of energy – it’s the source of the “just do it” mentality. The greater the pain, the greater the gain, so we push through and engage in a competition to determine who can work the most hours and juggle the most activities.
As a society, we are low-level adrenalin junkies. We chase it through caffeine, reality TV, dramatic relationships, Facebook, twitter, constant stimuli, and avoiding silence and stillness. Whether people know it or not, they tend to rely on adrenalin as their main energy source.
But this strategy is excitement masquerading as life-force. Living this way creates high periods of productivity, but they are always followed by the inevitable crash. That crash leaves us feeling low, disheartened, and guilty about doing nothing. Does this sound familiar to you? Here are few more examples in order to determine if you are sourcing your energy from adrenalin.
Signs and Symptoms YOU Are Using Adrenalin as Energy
- You can go for HOURS with no food or breaks and be very productive, but then you reach a limit after a couple days or on Fridays when you just can’t conjure up the energy anymore
- You feel if you stop for one second you will “get behind”
- Fear fuels your motivation
- You never feel like you “get there”
- You get snippy and irritable
- You procrastinate on what matters, but busy yourself with other work (My house is very clean during tax season.)
- You experience a lack of self-confidence, fraud syndrome, and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
- You are never really full, content, or peaceful but you work hard to convince the world that you are
There is another way! When we are stressed, we cannot access the problem-solving state of mind necessary to relieve our stress. We cannot access intuition and imagination, and yes INSPIRATION. It’s hard to see what’s missing when we’re in this adrenalin soaked, spazzy place. But when we are able to shift to living from inspiration—to a state of connectedness and expansiveness—suddenly what we need becomes as obvious to us as getting a glass of water when we’re thirsty.
What does living from Inspiration look like?
Here are the possible benefits of shifting from adrenalin to inspiration:
- Knowing you are enough, you matter, and your life is purposeful
- Not requiring outside validation to feel on track in life or on a project
- You operate from a place of: “I’m worthy, deserving, and good enough now. From this place, I can create whatever I put my mind and heart to”
- Joy is regularly accessible
- Your cell phone connection to the big boss of infinite wisdom is your intuition
- You become inspired, feeling the desire from within to complete a task and you become an overflowing cup, rather than scraping from the bottom of your will power
- You are pulled by your visions, rather than pushed by your self-criticisms
Simple Steps to Implement Inspiration Energy Into Your Life
I highly recommend stopping the search of what to do, and connect to your own inspired state to ask what you need. You know. I know you know. Now love yourself enough to do it, and be it. Remember, living things need life-sustaining nourishment. We need:
- water
- sleep
- rest and work, ebb and flow
- food that has nutrition for energy
- the Sun
- connection to other living things
You get the picture – doing what lights you up, nourishes you, makes you feel content.
Meditation Injection
Meditation can help train your connection to your inspired state of being. Here’s a quick practice I call Meditation Injection. It can take place during red lights in your car, bathroom breaks, elevators, waiting on the phone or in a line, waking up or falling asleep, commercial breaks, and so on. Giving yourself an uninterrupted two to five minutes is great. They key is to do what you know you will maintain. Here’s a tip: Set a reminder in your phone to remind you do this Meditation Injection.
Begin to breathe and notice how it feels. Feel the sensations: warm, cold, tingly, or perhaps numb, vacant. You can’t get this wrong, just feel and notice. Feel your breath, notice and inhale and exhale. Notice how your body keeps you alive effortlessly. Notice that it’s all being done for you. The Earth is spinning and gravity is holding you in place. You are basically being hugged by the earth’s magnetic core. You might sigh or you might even tear up with relief and recognition. Inhale. Exhale.
Welcome back home – to being you and being connected to life.
Now you can get back to work and be your awesome, inspired self!
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