March 27, 2025 • 29 mins
What happens when inspiration doesn't strike but you still need to show up? Is it possible to live an inspired life without constantly chasing big, bold visions?
Most of us think of inspiration as dramatic flashes of insight or overwhelming passion that propels us toward magnificent achievements. But this narrow definition leaves most of our lives—and many types of people—out of the "inspired" category. In this illuminating episode, I challenge this limited view and introduce a three-dimensional framework that makes inspiration accessible to everyone, regardless of circumstance.
We dive deep into the multidimensional concept of inspiration and explore how to find it even when we don't feel particularly animated or resonant.
• Inspiration isn't just grand epiphanies but exists on three levels: macro, meso, and micro
• Macro inspiration refers to big visions, life purpose, and seeing your journey from a higher perspective
• Meso inspiration involves breaking down big goals into steps and finding motivation for monthly focuses
• Micro inspiration centers on finding magic in day-to-day moments, even when not working toward big goals
• The heart serves as a gateway to soul wisdom and helps us move past fear to follow inspired paths
• Barriers to inspiration are opportunities to pause, reflect, and perhaps approach our goals differently
• True inspiration involves showing up consistently, taking small measurable steps, and seeing yourself as the hero of your own story
Whether you're feeling creatively blocked, between major life purposes, or simply wanting to experience more aliveness in ordinary moments, this episode offers practical wisdom for rekindling your inner spark and recognizing the inspiration that's already present in your life.
Join us next week for an all-new episode of Your Heart Magic and more psychology, spirituality, storytelling, and heart wisdom.
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Your Heart Magic is a space where heart wisdom, spirituality, and psychology meet. Enjoy episodes centered on mental health, spirituality, personal growth, healing, and well-being. Featured as one of the best Heart Energy and Akashic Records Podcasts in 2024 by PlayerFM and Globally Ranked in the top 5% in Listen Notes.
Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright is a Licensed Psychologist, Spiritual Educator, and Akashic Records Reader. She is the author of Small Pearls Big Wisdom, the Award-Winning Lamentations of the Sea, its sequels, and several books of poetry. A psychologist with a mystic mind, she weaves perspectives from both worlds to offer holistic wisdom.
FIND DR. BETHANNE ONLINE:
BOOKS- www.bethannekw.com/books
FACEBOOK - www.facebook.com/drbethannekw
INSTAGRAM - www.instagram.com/dr.bethannekw
WEBSITE - www.bethannekw.com
CONTACT FORM - www.bethannekw.com/contact
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an
illuminating space wherepsychology, spirituality and
heart wisdom meet.
Here's your host, dr BethannKapansky-Wright.
Author, psychologist andspiritual educator.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Aloha everybody.
Welcome to your Heart Magic.
This is Dr BethannKapansky-Wright, and today we
are talking about the topic ofinspiration and diving into
inspiration.
How do we find it?
How do we understand theconcept of inspiration and find
(00:54):
a little bit more inspirationfor day to day life?
It's airy season and we justpassed spring equinox fall if
you are in the southernhemisphere but we just started
the astrological new year.
There is an eclipse coming upand I always feel this time of
year just has this fresh wave ofmovement.
(01:15):
Anytime we change a season,especially, I think, starting
the astrological new year, itjust feels like new momentum and
new beginnings.
So inspiration seemed like thetopic du jour today to talk
about, and you might be able tohear roosters in the background
of this podcast, but if so,you're not hearing things.
(01:37):
There's just a lot of chickensand roosters out today on the
island.
So before we dive more fullyinto our topic and look at some
different ways to conceptualizeand understand inspiration, I
thought I'd talk a little bitabout my process of finding
inspiration for this podcast andfinding inspiration for
creativity and writing and beinga creative person in general,
(02:02):
and usually during a podcast, Ieither have an idea that comes
through.
It could be any time during theweek.
One of the ways that I haveworked for a long time is just
putting out to the universe myneeds, and my needs are like hey
, I need a podcast theme or Ineed something to focus on right
now.
I need some sort of inspiration, and something will usually
(02:24):
come through.
It will come through during theweek.
Some sort of inspiration, andsomething will usually come
through, it will come throughduring the week.
Some sort of an idea, a topic,something like that.
Sometimes it will come throughthe morning of if I am going to
make the podcast that day, Imight put it out there and then,
when I'm running I run almostevery day it might come through
during that time and I mighthave this moment of clarity and
(02:47):
think, oh okay, this is what Ifeel really inspired to talk
about.
I love making podcast episodeswhen I feel inspired, because I
think it makes for a juicierepisode and it's joyful to talk
about a topic that I'm jazzedabout, and more often than not,
that works for me.
Every now and then, somethingdoesn't come through or I've got
(03:09):
things going on in my life andit is my commitment to show up
and do a weekly podcast.
So I might be a little bit morehard pressed for inspiration
and be like, okay, just putsomething together and try and
make it from the heart.
If nothing else, just show up,right.
I think that is what it is tolive an inspired life.
When the juice isn't flowingand the zaza zoom isn't there
(03:33):
and we might not feel theamazement, it is okay sometimes
to say, well, I'm just going toshow up and do the best I can.
But I love those days wherethings flow.
And so I had a long run thismorning and I'd put out to the
universe I need a podcastepisode and help tap something
in me.
And oh, it was a terrible run.
Nothing came through.
(03:54):
I had no moments of runner'shigh.
I had no clarity.
I felt like it was one of thoseruns where it was just like
gutting it out is how it felt tome, and I had a certain mileage
in mind.
It was a training run for amarathon and I was like watching
the miles and being like, oh mygosh, I've only gone like 0.2
miles.
It feels like it's been forever.
(04:16):
Oh, now it's 0.5 more miles.
Like how long until I get there?
It was sort of this interestingexperience and that actually is
what got me thinking today ofwell, what do we do when we
might not feel particularlyinspired and we need to show up
anyways, and how can we workwith inspiration and define it
in a way that we can still findit, even if something doesn't
(04:39):
really move us to doingsomething?
And I think, typically when weare thinking about the idea of
inspiration, I think of it asthe spark, a flame, something in
us that animates us, it movesus, it makes our heart leap in
the direction of something.
We feel drawn to doingsomething.
(04:59):
We are lit up by the idea andthen we have this energy burst
that we actually have the followthrough.
And sometimes inspiration mightcome as a flash of an idea or
an insight.
We might be inspired becausewe're talking to somebody and we
have a great conversation, andthey help spark something within
(05:20):
us, like if you were trying tostart a fire and you were
rubbing sticks together or usingflint to try and get a spark in
the kindling.
It's something will spark usand it could come from an
external source.
It could come from justsomething that lands in our
brain.
It could come from a dream.
We might wake up from a dreamand have a sense of which way to
(05:41):
move.
It could come from something weread on the internet and read
on social media where we seesomething great that somebody
else is doing and it moves usand it helps kindle that within
us.
But usually inspiration startswith some sort of a spark,
something that makes us say Iwant to do this thing and then,
(06:01):
if we have good follow through,we don't just burn out and have
the idea, we actually take astep in that direction, which is
a pretty important part ofinspiration.
Inspiration isn't great for alot If we don't take a step and
follow through.
If we just have the origin ofinspiration and are really good
at generating ideas but neverfeel inspired to move in that
(06:24):
direction.
We're just an idea person.
That's an incomplete experience.
I think of inspiration when Ithink of inspiration in a
holistic way.
We get the origin of the ideaand then something animates us,
it moves us inside and we findourselves organically taking an
action step or having that extraboost that we need to follow
(06:47):
through on something.
I had no inspiration during myrun today, not really, except
usually I will start marathontraining in March and it's
usually right after the equinox,right around the middle of
March, and the Kauai Marathon,which I run almost every year.
Since we've moved here, it'salways Labor Day weekend.
There is a half marathon inJune that we will usually run,
(07:11):
and so this is just the time ofyear that I do my spring
training, and so that was theinspiration that I drew on is
that it wasn't an option to notdo it.
It's time to start buildingmileage again and running and
getting all that in.
But I didn't have anythingnatural within me.
It was having that carrotdangling today that kept me
(07:34):
inspired enough to keep goingand not just quit.
And even though I wasn'tfeeling it inside, I know the
consequence of what happens ifyou don't train, and that's a
terrible way to have to show upfor a race or show up and feel
unprepared.
And so I suppose what wasinspiring me today was nothing
organic.
I didn't feel particularlyanimated or resonant, I didn't
(07:57):
really feel lit up by it, but Idid know that I would feel
better when I was done with itand that I would feel good about
the completion of that.
So we can think of inspirationin a very multi-dimensional way,
and sometimes inspiration issomething that we have like a
huge burst of energy for, andit's really just coming from in
(08:20):
us, and sometimes we have tokindle that teeny, tiny spark
inside of us and, like, keepthat little flame alive in order
to keep moving in the direction, towards something that we feel
inspired to create or actualizein our life.
So when I sat down today andconceptualized the idea of
(08:41):
inspiration, I decided to breakit into three levels, because I
think inspiration, like anyother concept, it's
multidimensional, it's not justone linear thing and either
you're inspired or you're not.
I think inspiration issomething that we can understand
in a bigger way and a moreholistic way than we might have
(09:02):
traditionally thought ofinspiration.
First, I think there's what I'mcalling macro inspiration,
macro being like the biggerpicture of our life or the
bigger thing that we are tryingto create.
Macro inspiration is when, like, the big idea hits you and you
have this huge inspired visionand say I feel inspired to do,
(09:28):
fill in the blank of whatever itis, and it could be something
huge.
It could be something that youare starting a new venture or
you decide to relocate and gosomewhere geographically.
It could be something external,where there's a big goal or
dream or step that you take andit feels like this huge,
(09:49):
purpose-driven picture for yourlife.
Sometimes macro inspiration canbe a little bit more internal,
where we will have a momentwhere we see our journey and see
ourselves from this higherperspective and it's almost like
all of a sudden we have ahigher vantage point and we have
a greater access tounderstanding the scope of our
(10:13):
path and we'll start to see whycertain things happen.
We'll start to see that thingsare moving together in our life
journey in this very intelligentway and that, yes, our soul
actually does know what it'sdoing and spirit and the
universe and life is supportingus in creating that path, and so
we might just have this senseof seeing ourselves from this
(10:36):
wider gaze and having access tomore of ourselves, a bigger
picture than we had before, likeall the puzzle pieces come
together and we get this flashof clarity.
So when I think of macroinspiration, I think of the big
stuff, and I actually looked upwhat's the word that falls
between macro and micro, becauseI was thinking like, well,
(10:58):
what's the middle level ofinspiration?
And according to the internetit is meso, which means medium.
So I'm calling meso.
Inspiration is the middle area.
It is the ways that we mightfeel inspired to move towards
that bigger picture.
It is taking a singular step orbreaking down the big picture.
(11:21):
Like, let's say, you're tryingto manifest a new business and
it is going to take a littlewhile to put all the pieces in
place.
Well, the meso stage might betaking it piece by piece and
being able to focus on just onepiece and move your energy in
that direction.
Meso inspiration might besomething where we think what am
(11:43):
I inspired to create this month?
What's my focus point?
What am I moving my energytowards?
How do I want to interact in mylife?
What are the different thingsthat I'm working on and how can
I feel inspired to show up inthose different areas and keep
aligning, keep creating, keepdoing the things that I need to
(12:07):
do in order to build the nextstep, that is, creating this
bigger platform of my life.
So that's kind of this middlearea, which is a little bit
harder to define.
But I do feel like there's amiddle area that falls between
macro and micro, because when Iwas thinking of micro
inspiration, I was thinkingabout like, well, what about the
(12:28):
times that we don't have abigger picture?
What if we feel dead in thewater or feel kind of stuck, or
we feel like something's comingin but it hasn't shown up yet.
Let's say that we have beenthrough some sort of big
transformation but we don't havethe next step yet we don't
really know what we're workingtowards.
Is inspiration not available tous, then that seems unfair and
(12:51):
I really don't like that.
And if you listen to your heartmagic, you know I'm really big
on redefining concepts to makethem work for us and make them
feel friendlier and moreall-encompassing.
So I really don't like the ideathat inspiration is available
to you only if you have all thisfire and spark and movement and
(13:11):
you're working on these bigthings and what you're not
living an inspired life ifyou're just showing up and
chopping wood and going to workand doing your normal things.
Like that feels really unfair tome and I refuse to accept that
as the status quo.
I refuse to accept that wealways have to do some big,
grand thing in order to feelinspired and to feel like
(13:35):
inspiration is available to us.
So I feel like this micro levelof just focusing on our
individual moments.
How can I be more inspired in amoment?
How can I show up in the day today and find these like little
polka dots of inspirationthroughout the day, these Easter
eggs of inspiration, andcollect them and see myself from
(13:57):
a bigger vantage point.
I feel like that is a reallyimportant thing to understand,
because if we're alwaysoperating at this big picture
level of inspiration, then itcultivates the potential for
this toxic productivity where wefeel like we constantly have to
be working on some big, grandlife purpose or taking big steps
(14:19):
, or working on the next project, working on the next thing.
I think that is a real risk forcreatives and for anybody who's
some kind of a creativeentrepreneur or artist or writer
.
People always want to know whatare you working on now?
What's next for you?
What's in the works, what's inalways want to know what are you
working on now?
What's next for you?
What's in the works?
What's in the cauldron?
What are you brewing andcooking?
(14:41):
And what if there's nothingthere?
What if you're just doing itfor the process?
What if you're in betweenprojects and you're not feeling
particularly inspired?
We have to have moments wherewe're receiving.
We can't always be in thisoutput expat phase where we are
pouring energy out.
We have to have lulls and ebbsand moments of receptivity.
(15:03):
We have to have moments wherewe're gathering our magic back
into us, especially if we'vejust had a big burst of
something and really movedenergy to make something happen.
It's like recharging a phone orrecharging electronic device we
have to plug in for a while andreceive and feel ourselves back
up.
(15:23):
I think when we over focus oninspiration as always having to
do some big thing that the riskto ourselves is minimizing the
magic that's happening in themiddle moments and the magic
that is happening in the tinylittle micro moments, and I
think it's all inspiration.
(15:44):
Inspiration is amultidimensional concept.
It is a layer cake of manydifferent flavors and many
different ways of understandingthe role of inspiration in our
life.
Something else that I wasthinking about today, when I
finally honed in on talkingabout inspiration on the podcast
, was five years ago now 2019.
(16:06):
So I guess that was six yearsago.
I first launched my onlinenewsletter and it's evolved
since then.
It was your Heart Magic, andthen it was Intuitive you and
then it was Akashic MagicMonthly, and it's still Akashic
Magic.
It's now Akashic MagicQuarterly.
I recently shifted it to aquarterly newsletter instead of
(16:27):
a monthly newsletter due tolimitations of time and the fact
that I am a one-woman show,doing quite a bit in my life and
trying to make space for all ofit and reinventing it to make
it work for me.
But when I first launched thisnewsletter, it was such an
exciting thing and it was such abig step for me and it came
(16:47):
together in a way that had to bea flash of inspiration.
I don't remember specifically,but it was something I thought
about for a while.
Back then in 2019, I was reallylearning about how to ground
inspiration that you can have anidea right, I have inspiration
to make a newsletter but that ifwe can't ground it and take a
(17:08):
step towards it or see thebigger picture of what we're
trying to create, then usuallyit just stays in that idea phase
.
And at the time when I decidedto call it, your Heart Magic
which is where the name for thispodcast actually came from is
like way back then.
I'm still doing your HeartMagic.
All these years later, I've justshifted form of how I'm
(17:30):
bringing that into being.
I really had the desire to helpconnect people to their hearts
and to connect people to thevoice of their hearts and the
inspiration in their heart.
The heart is very integral inmy work for a lot of reasons,
and it's not to rule out howimportant our mind is and our
(17:50):
thoughts are, and it's not torule out how important our body
is and our somatic sensoryexperience.
All of that needs to be inbalance.
But for me, listening to myheart and learning to work with
the energy of my heart and thevoice of my heart and the
intelligence of my heart, whichis different than the thoughts
of the mind that has been key toevery beautiful good thing
(18:13):
that's happened in my life,every big risk that I've ever
taken.
Anytime inspiration has comethrough, if it has started in
the mind as an insight, it is myheart that moves me and helps
me find the courage and thefortitude in order to take
whatever that is and find theaudacity to put it out in the
(18:34):
world and move past the fear ofjudgment and what others might
say and is this going to be asuccess or a failure?
And move past all of thatnonsense, all that stuff that
the mind throws up in our way tocreate obstacles.
And my heart has overriddenthat and says well, this thing's
in your heart, so you need togo do it anyways and that has
(18:55):
been so integral.
And I also see our heart as thegateway, the doorway that leads
us into our soul, that helps uswith our spiritual connection.
All of that is accessed in theheart.
So at the time I had this desireto just talk about the heart
and to use that as language thathelps others connect with their
(19:17):
heart magic and their heartwisdom, and to think about the
way of the heart, the wisdom ofthe heart, as something that was
distinguished from just wisdomin general, and conceptualize
our heart wisdom and heartintelligence in a different way
and start putting language to it.
So I launched this newsletterand the theme was inspiration
(19:40):
and I focused on how to findinspiration and how do we
inspire ourselves, and I think Ihad some art activities and
journaling prompts and a littlereflection.
I might have made a YouTubevideo or something that I linked
to it and I wrote a blog postand I'm going to read a portion
from that post in a momentbecause I cleaned it up and put
(20:01):
it in my book Small Pearls, bigWisdom, and it's on inspiration.
So it's very fun, six yearslater, to bring this podcast to
you, your Heart Magic Podcast,and be inspired by the origins
of inspiration, which was theyour Heart Magic newsletter back
in March of 2019.
Definitely feels like I'mcoming full circle.
(20:22):
The other thing I wanted toshare that ties into this topic
today is about a week ago.
I had a big burst ofinspiration come through and it
was actually for a poetry bookand it was something that did
come through while I was running.
Like I said, I have some of mybest ideas while I am out
running and they will just likecome and almost like land on me,
(20:44):
like it's been hovering aroundin the ethereal field and the
Akashic field and it's just beenwaiting for me to be in a place
where it can anchor in and landand it landed.
And I actually have severalideas right now of creative
projects that I'm wanting todevelop and work on, and so I
will have to sit down and groundand prioritize and all those
(21:06):
good things.
But I've been wanting to getback into my poetry recently and
I've been wanting to redevelopa poetry practice and just
rewild my voice as a poet andbring that back to the forefront
as not only a creative practicebut maybe one that I do
something with, and so I hadthis idea come through to create
(21:28):
this poetry book and the bestnews was is that I already have
some pieces for it.
Sometimes when I'm starting abook, I will just sit down and
collect all the recent writingsthat I've done since my last
book and I'll see what's thereand sometimes the ideas of
something will take shape.
Or I will see that I have a newcollection, or it acts as a
(21:49):
springboard where I can take itand get some buoyancy and then
dive into something bigger andwork on expanding that.
So I was really excited aboutthis book and I had some good
ideas for the podcast comethrough.
That's when the Aries archetypecame through last week running
as well, and I ran back home and, you know, did my thing, got
(22:09):
ready, walk the dogs and allthat sat down to make this
podcast, to start writing thisbook, to do all the things.
Because I was so inspired and Ipulled out my laptop and I got
the dreaded black screen ofdeath and, long story short, I
spent most of last Sunday tryingto relaunch, reboot, do all the
things.
(22:29):
I got my husband involved andwe were watching all the YouTube
videos and everything that theysay that you should do.
I called Apple support.
I called a person on the islandwho does computer stuff.
Tears were shed, nothing waschanging, like I did everything
and still had the black screen.
And so I chucked myself in onMonday morning to the computer
(22:52):
store in town and right now mycomputer's in Maui.
It's not even on the island.
They had to send it to the BigMac store and it is apparently
getting fixed and something ishappening with the screen.
The screen just wasn'tdisplaying anything.
The computer still works, sothat's the good news.
But I have some costly repairscoming my way this week and
(23:13):
hopefully this time next week Iwill have my computer back and I
will be back in action again.
But I have to tell you that thatjust took the wind out of my
sails.
I had all this inspirationalenergy and I sat down to just
launch it and to start doing itand the first thing I was met
with was like this barrier, thisobstacle, that was like you
(23:36):
can't work on this right now.
You have to go troubleshootthis instead.
And so I've been kind ofpiecemealing things this week.
Thankfully I have some otherdevices.
I don't have a computer, but Ihave an iPad, and I have a
business iPhone and a personaliPhone, and between all of that
I've had access to the basics ofwhat I need.
I've had to use my husband'scomputer.
(23:57):
That's how I spliced the musicinto the podcast last week.
And when I said earlier youmight hear roosters, I have my
big podcasting microphoneplugged into my iPhone because I
don't have my computer that Iusually make it on, so I think
my voice is clear.
But if you have heardbackground noise today and have
(24:18):
heard the roosters crowing oranything like that, I don't have
the technology that I usuallyuse that helps drown that out.
So we are making do and I ambeing resilient and I am
learning that barriers toinspiration are just that.
They help us pause, they helpus regroup, they help us reflect
.
They might not always feelparticularly fair when we get a
(24:41):
barrier.
They might not always feel likethere's a rhyme or a reason to
them.
But I do think when we arefeeling inspired to do something
, sometimes life just happensand we get a curveball and the
timetable changes and we lose alittle bit of momentum.
But we have to trust thatwhatever we feel inspired to
(25:02):
move our energy towards, if it'smeant for us, it will still be
there.
Maybe we create it in adifferent way if we don't have
access to the things that we hadhoped for and we have to get a
little bit resourceful in howwe're going about doing
something.
Maybe we have the inspirationand the big picture comes
through and then the timing'snot there and we're not able to
(25:26):
really take action on somethinguntil a little bit further down
the line because life keepsthrowing us curveballs.
None of those things mean thatwe don't have an inspired life.
We can always work withinspiration from any of those
levels of the big macro picture,the meso-middle picture of just
showing up and taking steps,and the micro, day-to-day
(25:48):
pictures of being inspired bynature, by our lives, by our own
journey.
How can we inspire ourselves?
How can we learn to seeourselves as the inspiration and
the catalyst in our life?
I love the idea for inspirationof just making a list of what
inspires you.
What do you feel inspired tocreate right now and how have
(26:11):
you inspired yourself in yourown journey?
How have you shown up foryourself?
How have you taken a risk or aleap or made a change?
How have you been brave?
How have you been the hero, theshero, how have you been the
source of inspiration in yourown journey and if you're
(26:32):
struggling for inspiration, thenopen up to the universe, open
up to your angels, open up toyour spiritual connection, your
connection with energy, and justsay help me feel inspired right
now, help me to live with moreinspiration, Help me to see the
areas of my life where I canbring the quality of inspiration
into it.
I want to close today with apassage from Small Pearl's Big
(26:56):
Wisdom.
This is called A she Rose Pointof View and, as I said earlier,
it was originally part of thatfirst blog for the your Heart
Magic newsletter back in 2019,and it's been cleaned up and
condensed to be published inthis latest work, a she RoseRo's
point of view.
Living an inspired life isn'tabout hopping from one giant aha
(27:19):
moment to the next.
It's not about keeping themomentum going all the time.
It's not about never havingcrashes, burns and false starts.
True inspiration is aboutshowing up.
It's about taking small,measurable steps that move you
towards your dreams.
It's about acknowledging thosesteps for what they are you
(27:41):
doing you and being your dreamshaker and change maker.
Each of us is living out ourstory of inspiration.
If we can learn to see ourselvesthrough the right lens, we have
to learn to see ourselves asthe heroes and sheroes in our
own stories.
Even if we're the unlikelyprotagonist or the dark horse
(28:04):
story, we must learn to see theperseverance, grace and
diligence it's taken to get thisfar.
We have to see ourselves througha bigger scope of possibility
and keep re-scripting ournarratives to honor the courage,
heart and kindness it requiresto take this human journey and
(28:24):
engage with life from awholehearted space, to heal our
wounds, uncover our traumas,grow in wisdom and do the good
work of soul becoming.
Even in our dark stories we canfind ways to see our resilience
, to cover the story with grace,to forgive ourselves for what
we didn't know or do, to noticeour strengths, to look for the
(28:48):
buried light of hope and to seeourselves through a shero's
point of view.
We can learn that inspirationisn't always a glorious flame
but can be a quiet spark wenourish with persistent
affirmation, fortitude andfervent belief in our
possibility.
Thank you so much for joiningme on the podcast today.
(29:13):
I will be back next week with anew episode on psychology,
spirituality, heart, wisdom andstorytelling.
In the meantime, as always, bewell, be love, be you and be
magic you've been listening toyour heart magic with dr bethan
(29:40):
kapansky.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Right tune in next week for a new episode to
support and empower your light.
Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an
illuminating space wherepsychology, spirituality and
heart wisdom meet.
Here's your host, dr BethannKapansky-Wright.
Author, psychologist andspiritual educator.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Aloha everybody.
Welcome to your Heart Magic.
This is Dr BethannKapansky-Wright, and today we
are talking about the topic ofinspiration and diving into
inspiration.
How do we find it?
How do we understand theconcept of inspiration and find
(00:54):
a little bit more inspirationfor day to day life?
It's airy season and we justpassed spring equinox fall if
you are in the southernhemisphere but we just started
the astrological new year.
There is an eclipse coming upand I always feel this time of
year just has this fresh wave ofmovement.
(01:15):
Anytime we change a season,especially, I think, starting
the astrological new year, itjust feels like new momentum and
new beginnings.
So inspiration seemed like thetopic du jour today to talk
about, and you might be able tohear roosters in the background
of this podcast, but if so,you're not hearing things.
(01:37):
There's just a lot of chickensand roosters out today on the
island.
So before we dive more fullyinto our topic and look at some
different ways to conceptualizeand understand inspiration, I
thought I'd talk a little bitabout my process of finding
inspiration for this podcast andfinding inspiration for
creativity and writing and beinga creative person in general,
(02:02):
and usually during a podcast, Ieither have an idea that comes
through.
It could be any time during theweek.
One of the ways that I haveworked for a long time is just
putting out to the universe myneeds, and my needs are like hey
, I need a podcast theme or Ineed something to focus on right
now.
I need some sort of inspiration, and something will usually
(02:24):
come through.
It will come through during theweek.
Some sort of inspiration, andsomething will usually come
through, it will come throughduring the week.
Some sort of an idea, a topic,something like that.
Sometimes it will come throughthe morning of if I am going to
make the podcast that day, Imight put it out there and then,
when I'm running I run almostevery day it might come through
during that time and I mighthave this moment of clarity and
(02:47):
think, oh okay, this is what Ifeel really inspired to talk
about.
I love making podcast episodeswhen I feel inspired, because I
think it makes for a juicierepisode and it's joyful to talk
about a topic that I'm jazzedabout, and more often than not,
that works for me.
Every now and then, somethingdoesn't come through or I've got
(03:09):
things going on in my life andit is my commitment to show up
and do a weekly podcast.
So I might be a little bit morehard pressed for inspiration
and be like, okay, just putsomething together and try and
make it from the heart.
If nothing else, just show up,right.
I think that is what it is tolive an inspired life.
When the juice isn't flowingand the zaza zoom isn't there
(03:33):
and we might not feel theamazement, it is okay sometimes
to say, well, I'm just going toshow up and do the best I can.
But I love those days wherethings flow.
And so I had a long run thismorning and I'd put out to the
universe I need a podcastepisode and help tap something
in me.
And oh, it was a terrible run.
Nothing came through.
(03:54):
I had no moments of runner'shigh.
I had no clarity.
I felt like it was one of thoseruns where it was just like
gutting it out is how it felt tome, and I had a certain mileage
in mind.
It was a training run for amarathon and I was like watching
the miles and being like, oh mygosh, I've only gone like 0.2
miles.
It feels like it's been forever.
(04:16):
Oh, now it's 0.5 more miles.
Like how long until I get there?
It was sort of this interestingexperience and that actually is
what got me thinking today ofwell, what do we do when we
might not feel particularlyinspired and we need to show up
anyways, and how can we workwith inspiration and define it
in a way that we can still findit, even if something doesn't
(04:39):
really move us to doingsomething?
And I think, typically when weare thinking about the idea of
inspiration, I think of it asthe spark, a flame, something in
us that animates us, it movesus, it makes our heart leap in
the direction of something.
We feel drawn to doingsomething.
(04:59):
We are lit up by the idea andthen we have this energy burst
that we actually have the followthrough.
And sometimes inspiration mightcome as a flash of an idea or
an insight.
We might be inspired becausewe're talking to somebody and we
have a great conversation, andthey help spark something within
(05:20):
us, like if you were trying tostart a fire and you were
rubbing sticks together or usingflint to try and get a spark in
the kindling.
It's something will spark usand it could come from an
external source.
It could come from justsomething that lands in our
brain.
It could come from a dream.
We might wake up from a dreamand have a sense of which way to
(05:41):
move.
It could come from something weread on the internet and read
on social media where we seesomething great that somebody
else is doing and it moves usand it helps kindle that within
us.
But usually inspiration startswith some sort of a spark,
something that makes us say Iwant to do this thing and then,
(06:01):
if we have good follow through,we don't just burn out and have
the idea, we actually take astep in that direction, which is
a pretty important part ofinspiration.
Inspiration isn't great for alot If we don't take a step and
follow through.
If we just have the origin ofinspiration and are really good
at generating ideas but neverfeel inspired to move in that
(06:24):
direction.
We're just an idea person.
That's an incomplete experience.
I think of inspiration when Ithink of inspiration in a
holistic way.
We get the origin of the ideaand then something animates us,
it moves us inside and we findourselves organically taking an
action step or having that extraboost that we need to follow
(06:47):
through on something.
I had no inspiration during myrun today, not really, except
usually I will start marathontraining in March and it's
usually right after the equinox,right around the middle of
March, and the Kauai Marathon,which I run almost every year.
Since we've moved here, it'salways Labor Day weekend.
There is a half marathon inJune that we will usually run,
(07:11):
and so this is just the time ofyear that I do my spring
training, and so that was theinspiration that I drew on is
that it wasn't an option to notdo it.
It's time to start buildingmileage again and running and
getting all that in.
But I didn't have anythingnatural within me.
It was having that carrotdangling today that kept me
(07:34):
inspired enough to keep goingand not just quit.
And even though I wasn'tfeeling it inside, I know the
consequence of what happens ifyou don't train, and that's a
terrible way to have to show upfor a race or show up and feel
unprepared.
And so I suppose what wasinspiring me today was nothing
organic.
I didn't feel particularlyanimated or resonant, I didn't
(07:57):
really feel lit up by it, but Idid know that I would feel
better when I was done with itand that I would feel good about
the completion of that.
So we can think of inspirationin a very multi-dimensional way,
and sometimes inspiration issomething that we have like a
huge burst of energy for, andit's really just coming from in
(08:20):
us, and sometimes we have tokindle that teeny, tiny spark
inside of us and, like, keepthat little flame alive in order
to keep moving in the direction, towards something that we feel
inspired to create or actualizein our life.
So when I sat down today andconceptualized the idea of
(08:41):
inspiration, I decided to breakit into three levels, because I
think inspiration, like anyother concept, it's
multidimensional, it's not justone linear thing and either
you're inspired or you're not.
I think inspiration issomething that we can understand
in a bigger way and a moreholistic way than we might have
(09:02):
traditionally thought ofinspiration.
First, I think there's what I'mcalling macro inspiration,
macro being like the biggerpicture of our life or the
bigger thing that we are tryingto create.
Macro inspiration is when, like, the big idea hits you and you
have this huge inspired visionand say I feel inspired to do,
(09:28):
fill in the blank of whatever itis, and it could be something
huge.
It could be something that youare starting a new venture or
you decide to relocate and gosomewhere geographically.
It could be something external,where there's a big goal or
dream or step that you take andit feels like this huge,
(09:49):
purpose-driven picture for yourlife.
Sometimes macro inspiration canbe a little bit more internal,
where we will have a momentwhere we see our journey and see
ourselves from this higherperspective and it's almost like
all of a sudden we have ahigher vantage point and we have
a greater access tounderstanding the scope of our
(10:13):
path and we'll start to see whycertain things happen.
We'll start to see that thingsare moving together in our life
journey in this very intelligentway and that, yes, our soul
actually does know what it'sdoing and spirit and the
universe and life is supportingus in creating that path, and so
we might just have this senseof seeing ourselves from this
(10:36):
wider gaze and having access tomore of ourselves, a bigger
picture than we had before, likeall the puzzle pieces come
together and we get this flashof clarity.
So when I think of macroinspiration, I think of the big
stuff, and I actually looked upwhat's the word that falls
between macro and micro, becauseI was thinking like, well,
(10:58):
what's the middle level ofinspiration?
And according to the internetit is meso, which means medium.
So I'm calling meso.
Inspiration is the middle area.
It is the ways that we mightfeel inspired to move towards
that bigger picture.
It is taking a singular step orbreaking down the big picture.
(11:21):
Like, let's say, you're tryingto manifest a new business and
it is going to take a littlewhile to put all the pieces in
place.
Well, the meso stage might betaking it piece by piece and
being able to focus on just onepiece and move your energy in
that direction.
Meso inspiration might besomething where we think what am
(11:43):
I inspired to create this month?
What's my focus point?
What am I moving my energytowards?
How do I want to interact in mylife?
What are the different thingsthat I'm working on and how can
I feel inspired to show up inthose different areas and keep
aligning, keep creating, keepdoing the things that I need to
(12:07):
do in order to build the nextstep, that is, creating this
bigger platform of my life.
So that's kind of this middlearea, which is a little bit
harder to define.
But I do feel like there's amiddle area that falls between
macro and micro, because when Iwas thinking of micro
inspiration, I was thinkingabout like, well, what about the
(12:28):
times that we don't have abigger picture?
What if we feel dead in thewater or feel kind of stuck, or
we feel like something's comingin but it hasn't shown up yet.
Let's say that we have beenthrough some sort of big
transformation but we don't havethe next step yet we don't
really know what we're workingtowards.
Is inspiration not available tous, then that seems unfair and
(12:51):
I really don't like that.
And if you listen to your heartmagic, you know I'm really big
on redefining concepts to makethem work for us and make them
feel friendlier and moreall-encompassing.
So I really don't like the ideathat inspiration is available
to you only if you have all thisfire and spark and movement and
(13:11):
you're working on these bigthings and what you're not
living an inspired life ifyou're just showing up and
chopping wood and going to workand doing your normal things.
Like that feels really unfair tome and I refuse to accept that
as the status quo.
I refuse to accept that wealways have to do some big,
grand thing in order to feelinspired and to feel like
(13:35):
inspiration is available to us.
So I feel like this micro levelof just focusing on our
individual moments.
How can I be more inspired in amoment?
How can I show up in the day today and find these like little
polka dots of inspirationthroughout the day, these Easter
eggs of inspiration, andcollect them and see myself from
(13:57):
a bigger vantage point.
I feel like that is a reallyimportant thing to understand,
because if we're alwaysoperating at this big picture
level of inspiration, then itcultivates the potential for
this toxic productivity where wefeel like we constantly have to
be working on some big, grandlife purpose or taking big steps
(14:19):
, or working on the next project, working on the next thing.
I think that is a real risk forcreatives and for anybody who's
some kind of a creativeentrepreneur or artist or writer
.
People always want to know whatare you working on now?
What's next for you?
What's in the works, what's inalways want to know what are you
working on now?
What's next for you?
What's in the works?
What's in the cauldron?
What are you brewing andcooking?
(14:41):
And what if there's nothingthere?
What if you're just doing itfor the process?
What if you're in betweenprojects and you're not feeling
particularly inspired?
We have to have moments wherewe're receiving.
We can't always be in thisoutput expat phase where we are
pouring energy out.
We have to have lulls and ebbsand moments of receptivity.
(15:03):
We have to have moments wherewe're gathering our magic back
into us, especially if we'vejust had a big burst of
something and really movedenergy to make something happen.
It's like recharging a phone orrecharging electronic device we
have to plug in for a while andreceive and feel ourselves back
up.
(15:23):
I think when we over focus oninspiration as always having to
do some big thing that the riskto ourselves is minimizing the
magic that's happening in themiddle moments and the magic
that is happening in the tinylittle micro moments, and I
think it's all inspiration.
(15:44):
Inspiration is amultidimensional concept.
It is a layer cake of manydifferent flavors and many
different ways of understandingthe role of inspiration in our
life.
Something else that I wasthinking about today, when I
finally honed in on talkingabout inspiration on the podcast
, was five years ago now 2019.
(16:06):
So I guess that was six yearsago.
I first launched my onlinenewsletter and it's evolved
since then.
It was your Heart Magic, andthen it was Intuitive you and
then it was Akashic MagicMonthly, and it's still Akashic
Magic.
It's now Akashic MagicQuarterly.
I recently shifted it to aquarterly newsletter instead of
(16:27):
a monthly newsletter due tolimitations of time and the fact
that I am a one-woman show,doing quite a bit in my life and
trying to make space for all ofit and reinventing it to make
it work for me.
But when I first launched thisnewsletter, it was such an
exciting thing and it was such abig step for me and it came
(16:47):
together in a way that had to bea flash of inspiration.
I don't remember specifically,but it was something I thought
about for a while.
Back then in 2019, I was reallylearning about how to ground
inspiration that you can have anidea right, I have inspiration
to make a newsletter but that ifwe can't ground it and take a
(17:08):
step towards it or see thebigger picture of what we're
trying to create, then usuallyit just stays in that idea phase
.
And at the time when I decidedto call it, your Heart Magic
which is where the name for thispodcast actually came from is
like way back then.
I'm still doing your HeartMagic.
All these years later, I've justshifted form of how I'm
(17:30):
bringing that into being.
I really had the desire to helpconnect people to their hearts
and to connect people to thevoice of their hearts and the
inspiration in their heart.
The heart is very integral inmy work for a lot of reasons,
and it's not to rule out howimportant our mind is and our
(17:50):
thoughts are, and it's not torule out how important our body
is and our somatic sensoryexperience.
All of that needs to be inbalance.
But for me, listening to myheart and learning to work with
the energy of my heart and thevoice of my heart and the
intelligence of my heart, whichis different than the thoughts
of the mind that has been key toevery beautiful good thing
(18:13):
that's happened in my life,every big risk that I've ever
taken.
Anytime inspiration has comethrough, if it has started in
the mind as an insight, it is myheart that moves me and helps
me find the courage and thefortitude in order to take
whatever that is and find theaudacity to put it out in the
(18:34):
world and move past the fear ofjudgment and what others might
say and is this going to be asuccess or a failure?
And move past all of thatnonsense, all that stuff that
the mind throws up in our way tocreate obstacles.
And my heart has overriddenthat and says well, this thing's
in your heart, so you need togo do it anyways and that has
(18:55):
been so integral.
And I also see our heart as thegateway, the doorway that leads
us into our soul, that helps uswith our spiritual connection.
All of that is accessed in theheart.
So at the time I had this desireto just talk about the heart
and to use that as language thathelps others connect with their
(19:17):
heart magic and their heartwisdom, and to think about the
way of the heart, the wisdom ofthe heart, as something that was
distinguished from just wisdomin general, and conceptualize
our heart wisdom and heartintelligence in a different way
and start putting language to it.
So I launched this newsletterand the theme was inspiration
(19:40):
and I focused on how to findinspiration and how do we
inspire ourselves, and I think Ihad some art activities and
journaling prompts and a littlereflection.
I might have made a YouTubevideo or something that I linked
to it and I wrote a blog postand I'm going to read a portion
from that post in a momentbecause I cleaned it up and put
(20:01):
it in my book Small Pearls, bigWisdom, and it's on inspiration.
So it's very fun, six yearslater, to bring this podcast to
you, your Heart Magic Podcast,and be inspired by the origins
of inspiration, which was theyour Heart Magic newsletter back
in March of 2019.
Definitely feels like I'mcoming full circle.
(20:22):
The other thing I wanted toshare that ties into this topic
today is about a week ago.
I had a big burst ofinspiration come through and it
was actually for a poetry bookand it was something that did
come through while I was running.
Like I said, I have some of mybest ideas while I am out
running and they will just likecome and almost like land on me,
(20:44):
like it's been hovering aroundin the ethereal field and the
Akashic field and it's just beenwaiting for me to be in a place
where it can anchor in and landand it landed.
And I actually have severalideas right now of creative
projects that I'm wanting todevelop and work on, and so I
will have to sit down and groundand prioritize and all those
(21:06):
good things.
But I've been wanting to getback into my poetry recently and
I've been wanting to redevelopa poetry practice and just
rewild my voice as a poet andbring that back to the forefront
as not only a creative practicebut maybe one that I do
something with, and so I hadthis idea come through to create
(21:28):
this poetry book and the bestnews was is that I already have
some pieces for it.
Sometimes when I'm starting abook, I will just sit down and
collect all the recent writingsthat I've done since my last
book and I'll see what's thereand sometimes the ideas of
something will take shape.
Or I will see that I have a newcollection, or it acts as a
(21:49):
springboard where I can take itand get some buoyancy and then
dive into something bigger andwork on expanding that.
So I was really excited aboutthis book and I had some good
ideas for the podcast comethrough.
That's when the Aries archetypecame through last week running
as well, and I ran back home and, you know, did my thing, got
(22:09):
ready, walk the dogs and allthat sat down to make this
podcast, to start writing thisbook, to do all the things.
Because I was so inspired and Ipulled out my laptop and I got
the dreaded black screen ofdeath and, long story short, I
spent most of last Sunday tryingto relaunch, reboot, do all the
things.
(22:29):
I got my husband involved andwe were watching all the YouTube
videos and everything that theysay that you should do.
I called Apple support.
I called a person on the islandwho does computer stuff.
Tears were shed, nothing waschanging, like I did everything
and still had the black screen.
And so I chucked myself in onMonday morning to the computer
(22:52):
store in town and right now mycomputer's in Maui.
It's not even on the island.
They had to send it to the BigMac store and it is apparently
getting fixed and something ishappening with the screen.
The screen just wasn'tdisplaying anything.
The computer still works, sothat's the good news.
But I have some costly repairscoming my way this week and
(23:13):
hopefully this time next week Iwill have my computer back and I
will be back in action again.
But I have to tell you that thatjust took the wind out of my
sails.
I had all this inspirationalenergy and I sat down to just
launch it and to start doing itand the first thing I was met
with was like this barrier, thisobstacle, that was like you
(23:36):
can't work on this right now.
You have to go troubleshootthis instead.
And so I've been kind ofpiecemealing things this week.
Thankfully I have some otherdevices.
I don't have a computer, but Ihave an iPad, and I have a
business iPhone and a personaliPhone, and between all of that
I've had access to the basics ofwhat I need.
I've had to use my husband'scomputer.
(23:57):
That's how I spliced the musicinto the podcast last week.
And when I said earlier youmight hear roosters, I have my
big podcasting microphoneplugged into my iPhone because I
don't have my computer that Iusually make it on, so I think
my voice is clear.
But if you have heardbackground noise today and have
(24:18):
heard the roosters crowing oranything like that, I don't have
the technology that I usuallyuse that helps drown that out.
So we are making do and I ambeing resilient and I am
learning that barriers toinspiration are just that.
They help us pause, they helpus regroup, they help us reflect
.
They might not always feelparticularly fair when we get a
(24:41):
barrier.
They might not always feel likethere's a rhyme or a reason to
them.
But I do think when we arefeeling inspired to do something
, sometimes life just happensand we get a curveball and the
timetable changes and we lose alittle bit of momentum.
But we have to trust thatwhatever we feel inspired to
(25:02):
move our energy towards, if it'smeant for us, it will still be
there.
Maybe we create it in adifferent way if we don't have
access to the things that we hadhoped for and we have to get a
little bit resourceful in howwe're going about doing
something.
Maybe we have the inspirationand the big picture comes
through and then the timing'snot there and we're not able to
(25:26):
really take action on somethinguntil a little bit further down
the line because life keepsthrowing us curveballs.
None of those things mean thatwe don't have an inspired life.
We can always work withinspiration from any of those
levels of the big macro picture,the meso-middle picture of just
showing up and taking steps,and the micro, day-to-day
(25:48):
pictures of being inspired bynature, by our lives, by our own
journey.
How can we inspire ourselves?
How can we learn to seeourselves as the inspiration and
the catalyst in our life?
I love the idea for inspirationof just making a list of what
inspires you.
What do you feel inspired tocreate right now and how have
(26:11):
you inspired yourself in yourown journey?
How have you shown up foryourself?
How have you taken a risk or aleap or made a change?
How have you been brave?
How have you been the hero, theshero, how have you been the
source of inspiration in yourown journey and if you're
(26:32):
struggling for inspiration, thenopen up to the universe, open
up to your angels, open up toyour spiritual connection, your
connection with energy, and justsay help me feel inspired right
now, help me to live with moreinspiration, Help me to see the
areas of my life where I canbring the quality of inspiration
into it.
I want to close today with apassage from Small Pearl's Big
(26:56):
Wisdom.
This is called A she Rose Pointof View and, as I said earlier,
it was originally part of thatfirst blog for the your Heart
Magic newsletter back in 2019,and it's been cleaned up and
condensed to be published inthis latest work, a she RoseRo's
point of view.
Living an inspired life isn'tabout hopping from one giant aha
(27:19):
moment to the next.
It's not about keeping themomentum going all the time.
It's not about never havingcrashes, burns and false starts.
True inspiration is aboutshowing up.
It's about taking small,measurable steps that move you
towards your dreams.
It's about acknowledging thosesteps for what they are you
(27:41):
doing you and being your dreamshaker and change maker.
Each of us is living out ourstory of inspiration.
If we can learn to see ourselvesthrough the right lens, we have
to learn to see ourselves asthe heroes and sheroes in our
own stories.
Even if we're the unlikelyprotagonist or the dark horse
(28:04):
story, we must learn to see theperseverance, grace and
diligence it's taken to get thisfar.
We have to see ourselves througha bigger scope of possibility
and keep re-scripting ournarratives to honor the courage,
heart and kindness it requiresto take this human journey and
(28:24):
engage with life from awholehearted space, to heal our
wounds, uncover our traumas,grow in wisdom and do the good
work of soul becoming.
Even in our dark stories we canfind ways to see our resilience
, to cover the story with grace,to forgive ourselves for what
we didn't know or do, to noticeour strengths, to look for the
(28:48):
buried light of hope and to seeourselves through a shero's
point of view.
We can learn that inspirationisn't always a glorious flame
but can be a quiet spark wenourish with persistent
affirmation, fortitude andfervent belief in our
possibility.
Thank you so much for joiningme on the podcast today.
(29:13):
I will be back next week with anew episode on psychology,
spirituality, heart, wisdom andstorytelling.
In the meantime, as always, bewell, be love, be you and be
magic you've been listening toyour heart magic with dr bethan
(29:40):
kapansky.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Right tune in next week for a new episode to
support and empower your light.
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