Madeleine L’Engle said that inspiration usually comes during work, not before it. And if it’s one thing I have been learning, it’s that sometimes you just have to show up for life even when you don’t feel ready, excited, or inspired.
And so I’m showing up now, to my lovely little blog, to write something even though I don’t feel inspired, because it’s in the midst of the creative, the lack of inspiration, the emptiness, when it matters most. I think that it’s in those moments of silence, where you simply show up for life and say “I’m here” that transformation happen, that awareness and deepness are cultivated.
For me, showing up to life means that I continue to attend the things that normally bring me happiness, even when they don’t seem to in that moment. It means doing the things I planned to do, even if I feel too “fat” in the moment to do them. It means sitting on a yoga mat for 4 minutes, if that’s all I can manage that day. Showing up to life means just putting one foot in front of the other in the moments when you don’t know where you’re going exactly. It means just doing the next thing. Showing up to life is saying “i’m here” when that’s all you can mange. And knowing that that’s enough.
I imagine that for the great writers of the world they also had days where they just sat at a desk and stared at a blank sheet of paper. And days where everything seemed pointless and meaningless, and the last thing they wanted to do was sit at their place of creativity when they were uninspired. I imagine them just showing up, being there. Putting faith in the idea that it’s going to pay off, even if it didn’t appear to be doing anything, investing in themselves by being there, by being ready to be ready.
And sometimes, in the midst of doing that, you find your inspiration again. And sometimes you don’t. But you keep plugging forward, just taking it one day, one hour, one minute at a time.
For further reading:
really liked this article (or video series) by Glennon. she writes a lot about showing up to life.
Sarah the Adventurer 
2 replies on “inspiration”
Dear Sarah,
I’m so glad you write in this blog; it lets us see your growth and maturing. Life is full of doing things when we aren’t ready or inspired or excited about whatever it is, but we can sometimes receive great satisfaction from some of those moments when they unexpectedly pay off at some later time.
Grandma Reedy
Yes, that’s true. thanks for commenting! 🙂