Inspiration Gold Mine! - How To Use The Positive Side Of Change

When we're looking for inspiration, we can search high and low and yet easily overlook what is already nearby. Change is all around us and often presented as a problem to overcome or a challenge to be tackled. Yet within change there is a fantastic opportunity to become inspired.

As an example, take the arrival of spring. Like each of the seasons, spring is about change. It brings new experiences after the depths of winter: snowdrops clustered bravely in verges and tucked under hedges; hazel catkins open and full of pollen and birds singing louder and longer as the days lengthen.

Many people find this freshness and the increasing signs of life to be very inspiring. As such, spring is new but it is also familiar; twelve months before we lived through a previous spring. We know what is likely to follow, so we can also be inspired by the anticipation of even better things to come.

As well as re-connecting with the seasons as they reappear each year, we can re-connect with earlier passions in our own lives. There is a man who lives in Darjeeling, high in the mountains of India. He is a father of a small family and many years ago he took a job on the railway which he still holds to provide for his wife and children. But his real passion was playing the harmonica; he loved the traditional Nepalese tunes. Because he never had the time he wanted to devote to his music, his enthusiasm almost died.

However, the eldest son also has a gift for music. When he was young, his father bought him a keyboard and encouraged him to develop his talent. Now the son is in a band and submitting video promotions to media companies. The best bit is that through the son's emerging success, the father has re-ignited his own passion and now plays harmonica whenever he can.

A similar experience of my own was triggered by a TV programme about the craft of working with green wood (wood freshly cut from the tree). For the whole hour I was completely drawn in, almost as if the programme had been made just for me! Much of the content was new but it connected with something familiar too. Some almost-forgotten enthusiasm was stirring.

I have always loved trees and making things with wood, although the wood itself has come from the DIY store. But when I think back, I did once carve a spoon from a piece of newly cut lime. Then there was the bird table I made from woven birch trimmings. And when I pruned the holly tree, there was a little voice asking me: what could I make from the logs? There is something alluring about using skills that are grounded in such natural simplicity.

All three examples - the springtime, the railwayman and the green woodwork - are about becoming inspired through change. In each case, the change is about re-connecting with something precious.

In the past, most of us have had enthusiasm and delight in particular interests, hobbies, passions or callings which, for a whole pile of reasons, become submerged under everyday living. Sometimes we are aware of this and promise ourselves that 'one day' we will return to them. More often, the submerging happens unconsciously and the ache of the absence is the only sign.

So there is a rich mine for opportunities to be inspired - you can re-connect with what you once knew was important. Ask yourself the following questions and see what comes to light:

1. What are your past loves?

2. What did you promise yourself that you would return to?

3. What passion lies sleeping that needs to awake?

Listen to the part of you that already knows the answers!