Erin McMahon talks about hearing a ping of inspiration or guidance in your being that directs you to do something you haven’t done in a while. For her that ping directed her to listen to the soundtrack to ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’. The musical had been an important part of her childhood because she’d love it so the ping led her into memories and some spontaneous singing and dancing. Do we usually ignore those pings? What if instead we paid attention and let it open the door to magic? 

When Erin decided to follow that random moment in her mind that led to the singing and dancing, she realized it was a connection back to the joy from childhood and that following the instinct was a sign of her accessing her inner voice. These moments, these pings, happen differently for each of us but we all remember a moment like that and probably remember ignoring the impulse too. Erin explains that through the writings of Sonia Choquette she learned that one of the elements used in increasing connection to spirituality is singing and dancing. Erin explains how listening to our inner voices can unlock things we haven’t accessed in a while and guide us into a new spirituality. She encourages us to be more open to listening to the pings in our lives.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• “The God Design: Secrets of the Mind, Body and Soul” by Kelly-Marie Kerr
• Sonia Choquette

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Contact Erin McMahon: 

• Website
• Instagram

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Transcript

Erin McMahon: [00:00:03] Hello. Welcome to Seek the Magic. I had to record a session this morning because I had a magical morning. And of course, the magic of bringing my kids to school is, I love the process of engaging with them in the morning and getting excited. Sometimes drop off can be a little hard, but after I drop the kids off, I had an amazing ride back. So typically what I do on the way back from dropping kids off is listen to a podcast or an audiobook. In this case, I was listening to 'The God Design' by Kelly Marie Kerr, which is absolutely amazing. She talks about the biological processes with the body and how that relates to spirituality and different elements in the Bible, and as a religion major undergraduate and interested in spirituality and of course, now connecting with doing yoga and breathwork, it's just like the magical book that I feel like is just for me. So anyway, listening to that book all of a sudden in my mind I got this ping and it's like, listen to 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat', which was one of the first shows I ever saw when I was little. I lived in London and we went to the West End and saw Joseph with Phillip Schofield, who's now a famous TV host in England. And I was obsessed, obsessed with the musical. It was one of those I had on tape, played over and over and over again, and it brings me so much joy.

Erin McMahon: [00:01:45] But I don't listen to it a lot anymore. I probably haven't listened to it in a year. Sometimes when my best friend from England, who is also obsessed with it, will ping me, I'll turn it on for a minute. But I got the ping to listen to it, and I think it was because in this book, Kelly Marie refers to Bible quotes that align with different elements of biology and breathwork and things like that. And so one of them must have included Joseph, because then I thought in my mind, oh, I want to listen to Joseph. And I think normally I would ignore some of those sentiments or I'd be like, oh, I'll think about it later or something like that. But I immediately at that moment was like, I'm going to listen to it. I'm going to follow this random thing and stop listening to the Audible book, which I was absolutely enjoying, but switch instead to something musical and different and oh my goodness, I switched automatically. I was driving, so I asked Siri to start playing the soundtrack, and I came home and just started dancing to it. And luckily I had time before my call. So was, you know, just dancing around the room and singing my heart out. Nobody in the house.

Erin McMahon: [00:03:12] And I don't love my singing voice necessarily, but it didn't matter because I was just belting it out and had the most wonderful connection to the joy I used to feel as a child and the joy to the music, which is absolutely inspiring for me because it talks about dreams, it talks about a biblical story, it talks about going through struggles and finding your place in the world, as Joseph did. And it was the most amazing thing. And I think part of following that instinct is me getting in the mindset of listening to my inner voice and not trying to run on, you know, my mind and sort of like the I'm listening to an audiobook so that's what I'm listening to and I got to do that. And then when I get home, you know, I immediately need to prep for meetings and things like that, which, you know, it's definitely true and is definitely part of the overall day, but the amount of joy that that deviation and plan based on it, and it wasn't that long even maybe 20 minutes, half an hour,about that, the amount of joy that that deviation and plan put in my mind and in my day and now has sort of acted as a springboard is so significant. So I say that because it is hard for me and maybe hard for some minds to deviate from the norm.

Erin McMahon: [00:04:49] And if it's not, awesome, great for you, but I would encourage you to listen to those serendipitous pings or however you may think of it, and follow the path that maybe you weren't planning on for the day. You know, some days I think we can create the day and just say, you know, wander with what our mind is telling us to do based on, you know, whatever we have going on,. It's great if, you know, you're by yourself and can just go where your mind inspires you to go. If you are - not your mind, but your your being, your spirit - if you have kids and family or you know things already planned, obviously you need to work within the constraints of that and consider others when you are, you know, following these instinctual things. However, it's still quite possible to do. And then you're kind of bringing others into the magic of these pings or, you know, senses of inspiration you're getting and it can really make a difference. But for me, yes, you can designate a date to that or say, like, this is the day we're going to try it. And I think that can help you practice it and maybe get your organized mind in the sense of, okay, we're going to try this out. It's, the mind still feels like it's in control because it's, you know, agreed okay, we're going to try to be spontaneous on this day.

Erin McMahon: [00:06:13] But if you open to the possibility of listening to some of these things during your day and your daily routine, you might expose yourself to more moments of ordinary magic in your day, like I did today. So I think that's the first time that's happened in in a little while, because I'm pretty dedicated to listening to the audiobooks and listening to podcasts and getting things from them or, you know, getting sources of inspiration for them and sort of like then taking that into the day and saying, okay, this is what I need to do with my work. But music is an element that I have not incorporated as much into my daily schedule or my weekly schedule. And just connecting ...