We've been taught that taking time to be inspired isn't productive. Yet without inspiration, we're not creating anything new. We're just consuming and reproducing what already exists.

Actual productivity comes from being inspired. The walk in nature, the music, the conversation that lights you up isn't separate from your work. It's the very thing that makes your work worth doing and gives it its life force. Inspiration isn't a luxury we indulge in after we finish the real work. Inspiration is a discipline.

When we create from our highest place, we bring something into the world that hasn't existed before, and bring more abundance and meaning into the world. That's the only “productivity” that matters. Everything else is just spinning wheels.

What inspires you that you've been treating as unproductive?

Freedom isn't about getting to do or have whatever you want, whenever you want. True freedom is having the intelligence to be yourself and express yourself while having fun moving towards what's important to you.

Most of us think freedom means no limits, no responsibilities, no consequences. We imagine it as endless choices and instant gratification. Yet this kind of freedom and the srtiving for it often leaves us feeling empty and directionless, robbing us of purpose and growth.

Real freedom comes from knowing who you are and having the courage to express that authentically in a dynamic way, in co-creation with others who may have different perspectives. It's the joy of discovering the journey toward what matters to you. It's being free from the need to prove anything to anyone while being free to contribute by being yourself.

What might change if you believed freedom wasn’t about what you were doing but who you were being?

Have the discipline to keep life simple before it becomes complicated, and all you want is for it to be simple again.

We have all been taught that we have to make life more complicated and flashy for it to be meaningful. This seems to involve achieving status roles, looking a certain way, having more stuff, and earning stuff to be happy in the future.

Yet, we make our lives too complicated and then try to pay to make them simpler. We pay to unplug from work and reconnect with ourselves, to spend time in nature and sunlight, to create life-giving relationships, and to take care of our bodies through exercise, healthy food, and good sleep. These are all things we can do on our own. Letting life become complicated and stressful is the easy thing to do, and allowing life to stay ease-filled and straightforward feels like the stressful thing to do these days.

Luckily, we can use our commitment and creativity to author a new way. We can let go of looking perfect so we can enjoy what is real.

What simple thing could you do today that you've been making complicated?

Mistakes aren't real. We have no idea how things will work out or “should” work out. We label something a mistake based on our imagined and preferred version of how life was supposed to go, yet our predicting mind is not the ultimate authority of the universe.

Our belief in mistakes gives us a false sense of control. If we can make the right decisions, we think we'll be safe and whole. This belief keeps us small and afraid, constantly second-guessing instead of living fully right now, which is all there is.

What if our only mistake is believing in mistakes? What if every choice is simply another step in an unfolding we cannot see?

When you know you will act from your values, you can trust yourself and feel at ease about the future. Uneasiness about what's coming isn't really about the unknown. It's about not trusting yourself to handle whatever arrives. When you're clear on your values and committed to acting from them no matter what, the future loses its power to frighten you.

You don't need to know what will happen. You only need to know who you'll be when it does. That's the foundation of peace.

What if the ease you're looking for comes from trusting yourself, not from controlling what's ahead?

To truly have abundance, we must enjoy what we have, not just have it. It doesn't matter what we have if we don't cultivate the skills and discipline to enjoy it. Most of us spend our lives earning and accumulating more, yet we never develop the capacity to relish what's already here while we are alive.

Enjoyment and gratitude are abundance, not having. We all know we can have everything and feel empty, or have little and feel rich. It is just a matter of whether we are willing to remember. The difference isn't in what we possess, it's in our ability to be here in the wonder of life. Abundance is a presence, not a destination.

What if you practiced enjoying what you already have and let the more come second if you still want it?

People already know that they are flawed and feel badly enough about it, and by people, I mean you and I.

People never do better by feeling worse. They do better when they feel better. This is why in our relationships, including our relationship with ourselves, our most important contribution is to provide a loving space for people to have compassion for themselves and shift their focus from their “flaws” to their gifts.

What might change for you and those around you if you were willing to practice doing the intense work of loving people instead of criticizing them?

Is it possible that beating yourself up for things that you think you should be better at is keeping you from stepping into your unique purpose?

I sense that the universe, or our higher power, or whatever created us, would not make it difficult to share what we are meant to share. Our work is to start taking responsibility for our lives by being grateful for what our strengths are and focusing on empowering them.

Comparison, resistance, and judgment all disconnect us from our most vital energy and contribution.

What if you weren’t meant to do it the way someone else does it or the way some imaginary version of yourself would do it? What if you are simply supposed to strengthen your strengths?

Life comes in pairs of opposites: hot and cold, joy and sorrow, anger and peace. These aren’t battles to fight. They are opportunities to see how simple wholeness is.

When we feel anger, it can feel sharp and consuming, yet beneath it is often hurt. When we pause long enough to be curious about it rather than react, anger eventually dissolves into compassion. This is the essence of wholeness. We don’t need to resist our anger if we can let it return us to compassion.

The same is true of other intense emotions: fear can dissolve into trust, restlessness can transform into stillness, and attachment can evolve into love. Our greatest power comes not from escaping feelings; it comes from allowing them to transform. Every sensation or feeling carries its own doorway home.

What if your only job was to be curious enough to let it dissolve into the truth?

It’s easier to compare yourself to other people than it is to take responsibility for your own contribution and impact.

The thing is, your contribution and impact won’t look like anybody else’s. There’s no way they could. But if you waste your time pretending they should, you miss the opportunity to contribute to the person, the people, the places, and the things in front of you right now.

Where have you been letting comparison hide your contribution?

Taking the time to be curious slows us down, which we need to do so that we can discover the root causes of our challenges and the authentic sources of our blessings.

Taking the time to be curious also helps us move more quickly in the long run because we don’t waste time solving the wrong problems and overlooking our resources.

Where have you been rushing to an answer instead of being curious, and how has that rushing impeded your progress?

We either transform through experiencing the pain of what doesn’t work or through being brave enough to experience the vitality and beauty of what does work.

The good news is, we can transform either way. And, our work is to lean more into the beautiful way.

Where could you let love lead you towards transformation rather than waiting for hardship?

You can tell a lot about a person, including yourself, by how they treat themselves when trying something new. Or whether they are even willing to try something new.

How might observing this help you understand yourself and others more?

Your suffering is teaching you what it’s time to let go of.

Suffering is different than intensity. It is your resistance to intensity that causes your suffering. If you feel an intensity that you know isn’t serving you, embrace that you are feeling it and use it to teach you what belief or pattern it’s time to release.

What if even your suffering was a part of your freedom?

To experience happiness, we must experience progress. This is a paradigm shift from believing that happiness comes from experiencing the destination we imagine. However, this can feel tricky because progress isn’t linear and therefore doesn’t look the way we expect it to.

A way to experience contentment is to surrender to the idea that anything and everything is happening with the purpose of your progress. When you live into this belief, you take responsibility for your life and your learning, which turns each experience you have into an investment in your future, and into this moment right now.

Embracing the contextual shift that life is happening for you is not meant to help you turn away from or ignore the challenges of our planet and your life; it is to help you remain clear so you can continue to show up as the contribution you are, helping us navigate the challenges.

What might life feel like if you committed to learning from “failures” and integrated them as progress on your unique, ever-unfolding journey of expansion?

There is what you “should” do and what has been done, and then there is what you could do and what hasn’t yet been done.

Which are you letting guide what you are creating? No one else can do the latter for you. You will never be inspired to do something you already know how to do. What if you kept leaning into what hasn’t yet been done?

You cannot control how someone else responds to what is true for you. Your job is only to communicate the truth and take action toward it with love, and love people through any discomfort they may have around it.

You cannot control. You can only love. Or not love- the choice is yours.

When the type of discomfort you are feeling comes from being unaligned with your values, love yourself enough to make a change right away.

When the type of discomfort you are feeling comes from being in the unknown as you take action in alignment with your values, love yourself enough to stay in the discomfort.

What type of discomfort are you feeling?

Your body doesn’t know how to lie to you. It is always telling you if it likes or dislikes what you are thinking or processing, and it only likes the truth.

If your body feels drained, tense, tired, heavy, or overstimulated, it is time to examine how you are relating to something.

What if you trusted the wisdom of your body enough to help you see things clearly?