While playing in Union Square I met Courtney who stopped to listen. What inspires Courtney? "People, nature, strong women." Ely from Israel was also listening and joined in. He took the camera to film us singing Imagine. Ely wasn't sure what Inspiration meant. I pointed to his heart and said "what's in here." His response? "Peace, love and music." This is a wonderful example of the people I meet who by chance slow down and listen or just join in.
What's your inspiration?
Aubrey Lynch stopped by LIRR station while I was performing. In this clip he describes what he's up to now. Another spontaneous interruption provided us with a touching moment. This month Aubrey is my guest blogger
Check out Aubrey's What's Your Inspiration? clip. See how he has taken a career of dancing, choreography, and producing to now mentoring and using dance art to heal people.
Cathy’s Question
I had a thought about one of my favorite questions that Cathy aka NYCsubwayGirl asks regularly. “What inspires you?” I was thinking that what inspires you today may terrify you tomorrow and that is okay. In fact, when the thing that drives you begins to frighten you, this is a sign that you are alive and pushing towards your fullest self. You finally started that business and you know in your heart that the only way for it to grow is to quit your day job. That’s pretty scary. Or, maybe you have lost your job and the hobby you did for fun is now looking more and more like the way to make a living. Not so bad until it comes time to figure out how to make money doing it. How about this one? You’ve been at the same job forever and you know it is time to go. You have no idea where to go or what to do but you know you can’t stay where you are. Deep stuff. So many of us are living these realities including me! What should we do? Look to our inspirations. There is light there.
However, I find that inspirations aren’t so inspiring if we attach outcomes or goals to them. In my current life transition I have faced this a lot. I turned to my inspirations and found fear where I once saw possibility because there was an expectation that these inspirations were supposed to do something for me, propel me forward into the next phase of my life. The most important thing that I could have done was to notice this way of thinking and turn the lens just a bit to refocus.
Remember, while you are looking to inspiration look FOR inspiration and nothing more. Does that make sense? I mean, look for inspiration and expect to find it but just leave it there before you like a sunrise. Inspiration will be everywhere. When I caught myself and did this, I even found inspiration in my fears.
In fact what would it be like to look for inspiration in each other, in each other’s eyes while expecting it to be there? If we all did this right now everything would change. We couldn’t think of hurting someone purposefully if we looked for inspiration in them. What would it be like to look for inspiration in the eyes of our enemies? There’s a scary one. Not an easy thing to do. However, even the thought of doing so starts to open the mind. Okay, I’m pushing the envelope here but we’re going to have to if we hope to get our planet back on track. This need for global awareness starts within each one of us. We can do this.
So what inspires you when you expect to see it? I would guess almost everyone and everything...
Update
on 2011-06-06 21:38 by NYC Subway Girl
check out a part 2 clip from Aubrey and my conversation in LIRR Station
Aubrey Lynch stopped by LIRR station while I was performing. In this clip he describes what he's up to now. Another spontaneous interruption provided us with a touching moment. This month Aubrey is my guest blogger
Check out Aubrey's What's Your Inspiration? clip. See how he has taken a career of dancing, choreography, and producing to now mentoring and using dance art to heal people.