Blog Recommendation: Inspiration Peak

“It rains here so people know to rest.” Our landlord was discussing our plans for the next few days, as clouds and rain have rolled in. I am also slowed by two large blisters, one on the side of each foot. While they haven’t stopped my hiking because of their location, they woke me in the night a few times. Today we have an easy schedule with no hiking involved, to give my feet a chance to rest and heal.

Many of us have been forced to rest and heal at this point in our lives. I’ve met a number of women recently who have shared stories of how they started writing at midlife. In many cases, illness forced them to slow down and reassess their lives, causing them to change priorities to those which mattered more. This happened to me as well, though my moment of truth occurred at age 37 when I temporarily lost my ability to think, let alone write. As I look back on those years of chronic illness, I am grateful for the gift I received: I learned that to speed up in my life, I needed to slow down.

Having learned from this experience, though, I not only have committed to my writing but also to keeping myself healthy and strong. This includes taking needed downtime to relax and rejuvenate.

As children, we were taught the story of The Tortoise and the Hare. We learned that “slow and steady wins the race.” Unfortunately, we have sped up as a society and embraced “no pain, no gain,” and “just do it.”

As we enter September, we’re going to examine silence and stillness as tools for helping us manifest our dreams. It may feel counter-intuitive at first, but when we learn to spend time, even a little bit of time, quieting our minds and bodies, we somehow get more done with less effort. I almost hesitate to write that, because the goal is not to achieve — the goal is to relax and delve into deeper parts of ourselves. The achievement is more of a side benefit.

Let’s start with something easy. By reading inspirational words daily, we give ourselves time to nurture our spirits, which are often parched from day-to-day pressures and stresses. For today, I thought I would recommend Inspiration Peak, a place to find quotes, stories, and poetry. Spend five our ten minutes on this site. Instead of refreshing the web page, the page refreshes you!

I hope you enjoy visiting this lovely site and that you find inspiration there. I’ll be back on Monday with new blog posts. Have a great weekend!