Fire The Soul
Written April 20, 2021
Fire The Soul
Hair down but under layers sticking to her skin due to the sweat. Her upper arms glistened as the camera spans into her mental ward cell. It is gray, all gray, cement gray. The light let in from the small window illuminates sweat glistening on her shoulders and upper arms. You hear her passion, it’s not effort, there is NO strain in her breath, it’s pure purpose, controlled and focused. There is no force. There is pattern and safety felt in the solid puffs of air exhaled, their rhythm, a strength. The camera zooms out, you see zero movement in her body except for the up and down movement as she lifts and lowers above and below the metal bed frame. Since I watched that scene in 1991, it has stayed with me vividly. I recall saying to myself - “I WANT THAT!”
I wasn’t looking to have some AI infused robot trying to kill me or my son to find intense motivation. I wasn’t looking to have my soldier husband travel through time in his attempt to save me. (No princess here, I ride the white horse and slay the dragons in my life.)
That scene, it inspires me. Linda Hamilton emulates Sara Connor’s fire in her soul perfectly. She gets the shit beat out of her in the next scene, as two mental ward guards force her to medicate. She simmers, that fire in her soul exists no matter what comes her way in this movie. Each take down, each attempt to destroy her, is an opportunity for her to sit down and shut up OR stand up, surrounded by uncertainty, ready to reach for creativity. She stands.
I geek out on the science behind what drives people, especially toward change. I have lived a life curious about health, fulfillment, and finding passion in the day to day. The kind of passion that consumes, where obstacles dissolve and the end game will be sought at all costs because there is clarity internally around what one is optimizing toward.
Empirical data related to inspiration (appreciation, evolution and motivation) , perspiration (effort), and creativity (novelty and usefulness) are now available for consideration. A number of studies conclude inspiration is a robust predictor of creativity. When one is inspired, a motivational state is evoked, taking a seminal idea toward an actual product.
Sara Connor is locked inside a mental ward.
No gym.
No trainer.
No well laid out plan of progression. Her energy is raw and electric.
Her soul is lit.
She illuminates in me, the desire to flip my bed on its side and begin pulling down. Damn. I haven’t even watched that move in the last 20+ years and it still rings true, my bad-assness stirs.
Tuesday is the day I run track. My carb-heavier-than-normal day yesterday saturated my body’s tissues with insulin. My routine 4am habit to dial back my insulin before exercise was not sufficient to keep my glucose sustained. In other words, my glucose plummeted this morning after my 3 mile warm up. Today I walked the track in reverse as my glucose rebounded from the plummet. I observed and offered encouragement to my friends getting it done at sunrise.
Each group that passed had their own music of exhales. Some athletes enjoying the experience more than others. Arms swinging, legs pumping, each of them operating in the framework of effort set by our coach, 8x600m. A waltz of fast, faster and fastest.
It was just a Tuesday morning track workout but each runner showed up this morning for reasons only they know fully. They decide how that experience fires their soul.
My early morning shifted in unexpected ways. I expected a solid track session helping me work toward my physical goals. Instead, I was inspired by watching each runner remain committed to the workout, together. I was inspired to exhale with purpose today and deliberately create my life. Operating as I am, where I am with compassion and curiosity. Finding the moments and focusing on that feeling of who I am in my fullness.
When my clients come to me in overwhelm, we often begin with getting curious about their exhale. In breath work, this small shift, a focus on putting carbon dioxide back into the world, it regularly brings lightness into one’s life and illuminates, for the smallest moment, our connection to that which is beyond us and our problems. It extends beyond what you can take by pulling in toward you and provides how we can give. We go general in our perspective until they begin to feel and possibly see their lightness, fueling the fire always inside them. We release resistance and allow who they are and what they want to float to the top.
In your desires toward health, fulfillment, and love - one suggestion is to get curious about what you are inspired to do from that place of fire inside you.
Perhaps exhale, meditate there. As you give CO2 back to this world, what begins to be pulled back in illuminating you? It’s weightless, it gives capacity, it layers abundance, it’s creative and only you know it.
For those science geeks like me, this study was read to affirm certain perspectives I hold.
Thrash T. M., Maruskin L. A., Cassidy S. E., Fryer J. W., Ryan R. M. (2010b). Mediating between the muse and the masses: inspiration and the actualization of creative ideas. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 98
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