How to find inspiration for life, art and self-love?
Find your inspiration for life, creating art and self-love in this article!
Interesting life that inspires us to create art can be during any emotional state we are going through. But I truly believe that the fullest of us unfolds when we are in the most happy state. The trick is, we can be happy and inspired in any life period. (Yes, sometimes it’s incredibly hard.) And self-expression in art is a great soul-healing tool. Our creations reflect different emotions (happiness, pain, love, sadness, charm, anger, … and we always enjoy the process of creating, whatever emotion it is. It’s very healthy practice to embrace the life that is happening with you now and to let it out in any kind of creative practice you prefer. And the magic is, someone will see your art and it will heal them too, as it healed you, while you were making it.
As a person who went through many years of depresion, somewtimes close to suicidal states, and still kept creating in these darkest times, I surely know, that it’s very important to express yourself through all the life periods, in the safe, not self-destructive and not toxic way. Whether dancing, painting, screaming alone at home/field, hitting a pillow, crying into the Earth… We all deserve cleansing of our subconsciousness from the emotions that are waiting there to be relieved.
So what inspires us to live, enjoy life, love ourselves and create?
Inspiration Requires:
Emotions
Time
Energy
Let’s talk about the fundamentals of happiness.
Emotion - is our hormones plus thoughts. Emotions create feelings, including the feeling of happiness. If we keep both (hormones & thoughts) in a good condition, we stay happy and inspired. We are able to leverage our energy.
Everyone has their own ways to manage hormone levels and steering the thoughts towards positivity. When our body does not produce enough happy hormones (dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin), it’s harder to think positively, to have motivation and energy to do things . Our lifestyle - healthier, more enjoyable and relaxing habits create happy hormones. The simplest ones are proper breathing, good sleep, sport, healthy food, removing all the toxic influences (habits and people that steal our time, energy and attention towards an unproductive and unhappy state) writing a diary, and learning interesting and enjoyable things. Consciously nurturing the aspects of the life we need to move in a right direction. And when we are happy, self-love comes naturally. Yes, we can’t be super happy 100% of the time, but we can feel much better and enjoy life much more.
The other most popular solutions are:
1. Creating safety. When we feel safe, we are much less stressed. On top of the basic safety precautions there are few extras. Feeling of community creates safety (you're not alone in this world). Keeping home cozy makes us feel safe as well, (we are in our little bubble, doing what we want).
1. To do good things for your body. Sport (any kind and intensity of sport), massage, contrast shower, breathing exercises, ext. Our breathing regulates our nervous system. By relaxing the body and learning how to properly breathe we set the fundamentals of our mental health.
2. Nature. There's a lot of inspiration and fresh ideas waiting for you there. Also, spending time with animals.
3. If you have long-term goals, it’s great. But you need to be satisfied every single day to actually be able to move towards your big goals. Do something good that you can accomplish now - short exercise, face massage, knitting/painting/cooking/cleaning - anything - small and easy. So you can feel satisfied with your achievement, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Believe me, it can save you in critical moments, when it’s hard to continue grinding towards your dreams.
4. Diving into a process. If you have any joyful activities that can fully involve your attention (hobby, talking to someone about interesting topics, walking, visiting a new place, meditation, music, movies etc) and you can forget about the rest of the world - go for it. Relaxing your mind will help you to be more focused after.
5. Food for the soul. Trusting the world, that the bad times are the part of the process of growing, they are temporary, it all will change. Gratitude; centering your energy and deeply focusing on your inner self; self-appreciation no matter what, hugging yourself as a reminder that you’re so amazing and you love yourself. Even reading this article is a great reason to give yourself a hug, because you’re investing time in learning about yourself right now! :)
6. Therapy, antidepressants can be a solution for some periods of our life, and if all the ideas you tried yourself don’t work, please ask the professionals to help you.
This list can be endless. I encourage you to explore the topic about happy harmons deeper and to find your personal solutions.
Time
We trick ourselves with an idea of Time.
We all have the same measurement - years, days, hours, seconds… But how different it flows in every moment! What helps to properly use the time for our goals is FOCUS.
Our energy goes to whatever we pay attention to. Whether it’s our thoughts or external objects. Our thinking patterns create our understanding of reality and moving through life, basically moving through time. Focusing on the things that destroy, disturb us, don’t move us forward, they make us feel like we don’t have time to do what we want in life.
It’s never enough time for the dreams come true…and the life is passing by!
It’s scary to realize, isn’t it?
I know we all have crazy-busy lifes, we have to work, take care of family etc. But I will tell you one thing. You Are The Main Person In Your Life. The world is literally spinning around you. Entire universe. Because all you have - is your world. And you don’t have any other worlds. You don’t have your children’s world, you don’t have your husband’s world. You are not them and they are not you. They have their own realities and you have only yours. You create your time. With steering your focus on what you want, using power of will, changing your thinking patterns, trusting the process, doing time planning - you can achieve a lot.
It’s easy to say and very hard to implement in life. But, it worth it.
Energy
Energy is a combination of the first two aspects - happiness and time management.
Inspiration requires a lot of our energy. Choosing your priorities, realizing and satisfying your needs (physical and mental health), learning to keep the feelings and thoughts naturally balanced (with no lying to yourself), gives a lot of energy.
The most common ways of losing energy and mental space:
1. Taking the responsibility for the things and people that don't need it. For example, solving a friend's problems when they don't ask for it, teaching your friends how to live. Just accepting them the way they are (if you can) - is bigger and more natural help and support. Instead of this responsibility as “savior” and “teacher”. Instead, you can take more full responsibility for your health.
2. Too much attention to your past.
3. Procrastinating.
4. Feeling victim: “I’m not worthy”, “I can’t make it good enough”, etc.
5. Too much attention to the things/people/events you can’t control.
6. Lying to yourself and others.
7. etc.
With conscious leveraging of your power, you lead yourself to inspiration in life, creativity and self-love.
Conclusion
In the end, inspiration - is the energy of Love. Love to anything. We love what we feel, what we see, what we touch… This spark of light - is what we desire for living.
Find this point of love in yourself and you can be inspired right now.