Inspiration Archives

Ask a Luminary

Am I Supposed to Ignore Money?

"The area of struggle for me is money. Manifestation concepts say that you should be thinking about what you want, feeling it, and imagining what it would be like to have it. However, when I have read the concepts of manifesting money it seemed to say not to focus on it but rather to focus on gratitude of the money I currently have. This leaves me rather confused. I daydream daily about having money and the things I would do with it, I have no problem feeling the freedom and abundance that would come with having money. Is that wrong?…

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At One with Your Circumstances

There have been many times in my life, and still some today, when I fight reality. I want a different outcome. I desire for things to be different than they are. I pray for divine intervention to change the facts. What usually occurs are that the facts remain and all I have done is create pain and disappointment for myself. It is said that what we resist, persists. What if instead of resisting, we accepted? Recently I was introduced to the Navajo word “Hozho.” It is the most important word in the Navajo language. Roughly translated it means peace, balance,…

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Sunset over the Ocean

To Have More Happiness, Eat Peas and Grapes! Part 2

Welcome back.  I trust that you have explored holding the energy of Ease and that you’re finding it serves your feelings of happiness to do so. Let’s continue with how being in Ease helps you experience Peace. Ease is the surface layer of this deeper inner state. Peace is your State of Being beyond resistance. A place we all strive to get, and yet, there’s only one place to go to arrive there. Peace is within the Essence of you, the inner state of allowing and trust, the space of unequivocal knowing that everything is exquisitely right, that all is…

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Your Triumph Over Discontentment

Discontentment is a kind of psychic echo. In fact, whatever the unhappiness may be, it is only an inner echo that is "sounding" within us. As difficult as it may be to understand this at the present time, suffering only seems real. It has no real life. How is this possible? Our inner stress, strain, and pain feel real to us, for sure; but then, so do all of the fears we feel in the middle of a nightmare. But where is the terror once we wake up? It doesn't exist anymore because it was only real as long as…

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Blue Butterfly

Your Past Doesn’t Have to Determine Your Present

In today's world, where technology has eclipsed our humanity, many of us are looking for a way to operate in our lives with a day-to-day sense of excellence and wellbeing, a way that fulfills our spiritual nature. People have tried different religions or disciplines with varying degrees of success or failure. They have taken motivational workshops to try to discover some meaning to apply to their lives and many have come away wondering, "Is this all there is?" This vague sense of emptiness or dissatisfaction can permeate our lives, even when we accomplish the goals we set for ourselves. People…

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Be Type-ME Stress Relief

Why Are We So Stressed? And What Can We Do About It?

Never in history have we had such comforts and ease of living. Our grocery store shelves are stocked and we can cook a meal in minutes. We can communicate with family and friends around the world instantaneously and face to face. Modern conveniences make our day to day life easy. Then why the heck are we so stressed? The reason is because of this technology, and our limbic brain. I have been preaching this a long time and recently spoke about it.  Now new research by Dr. Marc Schoen, psychologist and faculty member at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine, has…

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Ask a Luminary

Can I Ignore Rather Than Let Go of an Issue?

"When there is something that bothers me, is it necessary for me to make the effort to 'clean up' my vibration and energy around that particular topic, or is it enough to simply distract myself and look in a different direction?" ~ Susan, Heber, UT Dear Susan, I always encourage cleaning up your vibration around anything that creates resistance in your life. Otherwise, each time that particular situation or person shows up in your reality, you continue to vibrate at the level of that resistance you hold about it or them. Put your focus on what it is you do…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Stay Positive?

"I'm dealing with difficulty in my life right now that is affecting my health. I'm normally such a positive person. This situation is really taking its toll on me and I just don't know how to stay positive anymore. What can I do?" ~ Sally, Green Bay, Wisconsin Dear Sally, The best thing for staying positive is to remember that what we focus on expands, so here are a few great tips. Music is amazing for raising our vibration, our mood even when we don’t feel well or positive. Force a smile on your face, it will immediately change the physiology…

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Footprints on a beach

To Have More Happiness, Eat Peas and Grapes!

I’m sure this sounds like bizarre advice, and you’re itching to know what happiness has to do with peas and grapes. It came from one of my favorite mantras… A friend overheard me quietly saying it one day, and she thought I said “Eat peas and grapes.” It never occurred to me that what I was saying might sound like that. I laughed as I thought it about it for a moment. I do love eating that’s for sure. In fact, it’s probably one of my all-time favorite things to do. It’s not the chewing and swallowing part of eating,…

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Ask a Luminary

Can Procrastination Help Me Get Things Done?

"I need to learn time management, for I always seem to be running late and out of time. How can I bring peace into my world?" ~ Alden, Ashland, AL Dear Alden, So much to do, but life is calling! One unconventional, but surprisingly effective solution that helps me get things done is procrastination. I know that sounds odd, but it is actually a useful method! Start one task, whatever seems important, and soon, another job will pop up. Go and do it right away, as that is where your brain is ready to focus. Given the chance, your mind…

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Song for the Special

By Marina Keegan, Author of The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories.  Every generation thinks it's special -- my grandparents because they remember World War II, my parents because of discos and the moon. We have the Internet. Millions and billions of doors we can open and shut, posting ourselves into profiles and digital scrapbooks. Suddenly and totally, we're threaded together in a network so terrifyingly colossal that we can finally see our terrifyingly tiny place in it. But we're all individuals. It's beaten into us in MLK Day assemblies (one person can make a difference!) and fourth-grade poster projects (what do…

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Cupcake decorated with colorful birthday candles

Happy 6th Birthday, InspireMeToday.com!

Six years ago, we launched a little website to provide daily inspiration, to remind us of our connection to something greater, and to help us remember our own divine magnificence. Six years, hundreds of Luminaries, and thousands of inspirational essays, quotes, and photos later, we're now shining light into more than 150 countries and inspiring more than 25 million people through our site and partner networks! To Sir Richard Branson, Ellen Whitehurst, Cirque du Soleil, Mariel Hemingway, Derek Sivers, Jack Canfield, Dr. Joe Vitale, Seth Godin, Marci Shimoff, Neale Donald Walsch, Gini Gentry, Arielle Ford, and every single one of…

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Girl looking through a telescope

Higher Help for Persistent Problems

Why do we end up as often as we do in those painful situations in which the last words usually spoken go something like, "How in the world did I get myself into this mess?" Sound familiar? It should. And while the answer to this woeful question should rescue us from similar future sticky situations, it rarely works out that way. This is very important to admit to ourselves. The truth is we keep falling into the same old snares. Why? There is an authentic answer to this question that may surprise you. The reason we haven't as yet realized…

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Ask a Luminary

How Do I Move Past My Fear?

"I have been overwhelmed by FEAR of almost everything my whole life. I have been diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). but it all boils down to fear. I am 47 years old and want to finally live life instead of just safely exist!" ~ Nadine, Mountain View, CO Dear Nadine, The problem is that we all resist emotions, even though we have no control over what first shows up in our minds. The Buddha refers to this as having two darts in the body. The first dart is what shows up without our control. It's the fears, the moment we…

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Woman in a Red Coat among Trees

The Heart is Where the Soul Resides

The heart is contained in four ways: first by the physical body, next by the emotional armor we all carry, next by the physical heart itself, and finally, at the very center of everything, is the inner heart, the heart within the heart: Ananda Khanda. This is what desires to be cracked open to the world. [av_hr class='short' height='50' shadow='no-shadow' position='center' av_uid='av-1k60vls'] Heart opening is a symptom of personal growth. We might call this emotional opening, or psychological breakthrough. But if we use the lens of spirituality, of soul growth, and we accept the idea that the heart is where…

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The Top 10 Things I’ve Learned From Richard Branson

Today's Brilliance is a bit different from other days. I had the honor of spending a few hours with Sir Richard Branson at his home on Necker Island, in the British Virgin Islands. As I walked into his home, I found him lying in a hammock in an alcove of the great room, open to the warm tropical breezes, overlooking the multi-colored turquoise Caribbean Sea. Bliss. Barefoot and dressed in swim shorts and a tee shirt, he looked more like a Jimmy Buffett fan rather than the founder of the Virgin Group, best known as the only person in the…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Get Over Shyness?

"How can I stop being shy? I have had this problem since my early childhood and I can't get rid of it. Every time I try to make a change and finally become sociable and be comfortable with talking to new people or to stop blushing, something embarrassing happens and I fail. I feel like I'm stuck in this endless nightmare for the rest of my life. I always think my particular situation can't be solved because I BLUSH a lot and I can't control this. Please help me overcome this shyness and perhaps stop blushing and becoming more comfortable…

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Embracing the Whole Person Concept

Philosopher Dr. Mortimer J. Adler was the first to introduce the Whole Person Concept, which challenges us to strive for a proper balance in all aspects of our lives—spending meaningful time with family and friends, maintaining our health, enriching our lives, becoming all that we can be, giving back to our communities, learning to manage our financial affairs, and growing in our spiritual lives. At its core, the Whole Person Concept is learning to balance our work, our lives, and our successes. The Whole Person Concept encourages us to remember the importance of growing and learning, and it reminds me…

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