This week’s SARK Dream Boogie class is about Building Platforms of Support.  In the booklet that we get every week, she talks a lot about the word Inspiration.  About it being about breathing air into things, like your work, your dream. M-W defines it as, “The act of drawing in, specifically:  the act of drawing of air into the lungs.” 

My favorite movie to quote these days is “Kiss Me Deadly.”  In it, Mike Hammer has gone to an apartment building, following up a lead.  He needs to find out about a tenant.  There is a man standing at the back of a truck, struggling to get a pack on his back as he moves someone in.  Mike helps him lift it.  The elderly man thanks him profusely in a strong Italian accent.  He says Mike gave him “a deep-a breath.”  And he returns the favor by telling Mike what he needs to know.  Mike gave him the breath he needed to keep going. He gave Mike the information he needed to keep going. Inspiring both. I like that image of inspiration.

SARK asked us to think about what kinds of people, things and situations inspire us, breathe air into what we’re doing. The more of those you have in your life, the more sturdy support you have.  She took it a step further into ways you inspire yourself.  I guess I knew I had to be inspiring myself.  After all, who gets me to work every day?  But I was surprised to realize there are many other ways I inspire myself. I’ve learned, over the years, what motivates me.  And I have, after all, done “The Artist’s Way.”  I know how to fill the well when it runs low.  Some days I love my writing, I’m delighted by what I’m doing and feel I have much to share.  But there are other days, other times when I find myself lazy, hackneyed and breathless.  Boring and bland. 

What a marvelous thing to have sturdy platform of support I can go to for motivation and inspiration on those off days.  I have what I feel is a strong platform of outside support.  There are ways I can improve it for sure.  But I have some wonderfully wise and helpful friends I can call on.  Such is the world, though, that they are not always available right when I need them.  That’s when it pays to have a support team . . . shall we say, from another plane?  My Ideal Family from Barbara Sher’s “Wishcraft,” are all busy, famous people.  But I can have them with me by simply asking and they are there. Better still, I can find inspiration right here, in me.  Consistent, on the spot care.  Now that’s some great support!

SARK tells us we can find inspiration in ordinary, every day things.  That way we can use what’s around us to help support us.

Sometimes we need support or help from others.  SARK is teaching us ways to receive.  I am of the mind that people love to help, want to share their stories, their resources.  For me, anyway, it makes it a whole lot easier to give if someone tells me what they need.  There is an art to asking others for support.  You need to let go of your expectations, ask without consequence, and allow the other to respond from the heart. If they chose not to participate, it’s okay with you.  If you stay open to whatever happens, you can learn much from the experience, whatever it is.

We are practicing asking, specifically, for what we want or need.  And allowing the other to give. Being on the receiving end and allowing that to inspire us to give more to others.