Inspiration or Inception | Whose Dream Are You Living?

It’s not often that I agree to see a movie in the theater, but recently I trusted my intuition and went to see Inception. Loved it. I won’t go into a full-blown explanation and critique of the film; I’ll simply share
what you need to know in order to understand what I took from it.

 

Leo’s Spinning Top

Leonardo DiCaprio’s character uses a metal spinning top to determine whether he’s in his own dream or someone else’s, and also to tell if he is awake or asleep. He keeps the top in his pocket and reaches for it when he needs to do a ‘reality check’. The absence of the top indicates that he’s in someone else’s dream. When the top is present and continuously spinning (without eventually losing balance and falling), he knows that he is dreaming his own dream. If he spins the top and it falls, he’s awake.

After seeing the movie I questioned whether I was still living my own dream, or if I’d walked into someone else’s. Was it possible that I chose to be in another’s dream and lost sight of my own? Was I participating in a shared dream that would prepare me for the next phase of mine…or was this shared dream merely a tempting subconscious resistance…holding me back from my own?

Inspiration vs. Inception

True inspiration comes from within. It is an authentic idea that may be inspired by external forces, but that arises from our own unique intuitive passions. It’s so easy to adopt other people’s Inspiration (or dream) as ours, especially if we have yet to discover our own. Even when we have our own ideas, it’s still tempting to accept the Inception of another’s. External voices are typically louder than our inner voice, and therefore we listen to others and forget ourselves.

The Screaming Shoulder

Since I was apparently not listening well enough to my inner voice, I had developed an unexplained and ongoing pain in my right neck and shoulder. After multiple trips to the acupuncturist and chiropractor, still in pain, I decided to just take a day and relax. That was the day I went to see Inception. After the movie, and my subsequent reality check, I realized that I’d been ignoring my inspiration and diverting too much of my energy/focus into the success of other people’s dreams.

In the coming week, I proceeded to cancel a majority of my appointments to just sit with my ideas…and reconnected to my dream. I delicately and compassionately disengaged from the dreams that were no longer serving mine. Within 24 hours the pain in my neck and shoulder was completely gone.

My Spinning Top

Music is and has always been my centering tool. I leave you with a song by my favorite Danish artist, Bliss.

Authentically Yours, Kathleen