Refreshment

Sometimes you gain a new insight in a new place.

Sometimes it is when you reread a book.

Sometimes it is just because you slow down.

Refreshment comes when we give ourselves permission to renew.

We become aware that it is OK to take a break.

We give ourselves permission to look around, and to look at new things.

A new setting provides a different place for reflection.

We can feel ideas coming at us from new directions.

Placing ourselves in a different relationship to authority is refreshing.

Sometimes it is OK for other people to do those things we have always done.

Even when we steal away for a few hours to do something different in a very busy day, we are giving ourselves time for refreshment.

Our productivity goes up when we come back.

We have found the new solution.

We have an idea for reorganization.

Doing our work has its own rhythm, its own qualities, its own rewards.

Refreshment strengthens those rhythms, brightens our qualities, and rewards us with an enlightened perspective.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.Inspired Practices.com

The Urge to Evolve

I no longer think that things are happening because of the economy or politics or any of the other things we consider the powerful drivers of our lives.

I think they are happening because of the urge to evolve.

We are being bombarded with statistics and analysis of all kinds of trends, but these are all after the fact.

Despite the push of advertising and its massive power, there is nonetheless a consciousness that wants to come forth into view. It is what is being heard and felt and practiced despite anything else done by the so-called “powers that be”.

The Occupy Movement is part of it.  The Arab Spring is part of it.  The Slow Money movement is part of it.  Slow Food is part of it.  Permaculture is part of it.  The Bioneers have been tracking these trends for over three decades.  Paul Hawken’s book “Blessed Unrest” noted so many of the grassroots movements, with millions of people taking part in them for years and years.  

The Greeks have just rejected a capitalist leadership.  Americans and others are demanding that #All Lives Matter.  We are all Charlie Hebdo.

Our humanity is rising.

We want a fair and good life for all of us.

We insist on it.

Instead of being manipulated into our own destruction as a society and civilization, we are actually getting to consciously witness our own evolution.

Count on it.

Watch it.

You are part of it.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Listening for New Ventures

New Birth and Introductions

Each new contact with someone is a new birth.

We are seeing the birth of a friendship, a business, or simply, an opinion.

As we introduce ourselves, we are creating the beginning of a link.

It will extend in any possible direction.

We guide that direction by our support or lack of interest.

Focusing our intent on the possibilities, we nurture and guide our new friendship or project.

We let it grow in its best and most useful direction.

We shine love and feelings of unlimited potential on it.

We embrace all who are part of it.

We help it extend itself to include all who can be benefitted by it.

We see ourselves and our new contact as part of an outpouring of love, intelligence, service.

We claim our right to happiness and success throughout all our dealings together.

We expand our hemisphere to include all of like mind.

We expand in a way that brings others on board.

We expand in a way to bless all who are associated with us.

Our introduction is met with happiness and acceptance.

Our service is embraced and desired by all who can benefit from it.

Our expansion into service is calm and rapid and without obstacles.

Our preparation has been long and thorough.

We know ourselves, our purpose and our commitment.

We are ready.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Language Translation

When we create beauty, we are translating the language of our heart to the language of our hands.

We may paint or sculpt or weave or make music or write.

When we do this, we are manifesting the ideas from within.

The tools we use may be in proportion to our training.

They may be intuitive.

But they yearn to be expressed and we cannot hold them back.

Recently, a performer overcame a lifetime of criticism and put himself on stage.

His power was magnificent.

And so it always is.

Our power from within, our creativity which cannot be stopped, is the reason we are here.

We are translators, from our hearts, through our hands.

The messages of beauty and meaning and suffering and hope all find their way through our many hands and into the hearts of those who witness our work.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Good Ideas

My purpose is to listen for and to receive good ideas.

These ideas are to benefit me and the segment of society which I serve.

When I receive good ideas freely, I can feel their good work flowing into the work which I do.

When I move myself into a place of receptivity, I feel like my best self.

I know that whoever the Universe brings into contact with me at that point is here to do good, and that I can freely share my ideas with them.

They will feel their benefit and be led to share them even more widely.

In this way, we spread a feeling of goodness, valuing each person we meet.

We are all so beautiful.

It is wonderful to share this feeling.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Beauty as a Priority

Using my mind to conceive beautiful things, and then my hands to make them, has become a priority for me.

I like the idea of balancing my requirements to include the making of beautiful things.

I am cooking nutritious food, living tiny so that I don’t have so much space to take care of, and consciously devoting myself to the deep enjoyment of creativity first.

This is a new priority, although I have always enjoyed creative expression.

Since we we generate more of what we think about, I would like to generate more beauty.

When we think about providing for necessities and being disciplined and obedient to do so, we are making only adequate decisions.

But they are not the kinds of decisions that let us live radically expressive and satisfying lives.

There are entire parts of the brain devoted to creativity.

We are meant to use them.

Giving some time to the letting go of obligations and just daydreaming about the way we want to live and the ways we can be of service and the creative things we can make to inspire ourselves and others is a part of our lives to invest in.

Letting the imagine loose in these ways adds a delightful dimension of happiness to us.

Different mental and emotional sensations are available to us as we begin this exploration.

Don’t be afraid to be a beginner.

Be generous with yourself.

Take the baby steps.

It feels so good to activate those mental and emotional centers for creativity and beauty.

Continually visiting them celebrates the experience, and with reiterations and more inspiration, even improves the products.

More beauty can come in as it is shared out.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com