What is your inspiration?

I have had the amazing opportunity to be a medical facilitator volunteer with an incredible national organization called “Casting for Recovery.” This organization takes 14 Breast cancer survivors, from our geographical region of northern Idaho and eastern Washington, on a 3 day experiential fly fishing trip to facilitate healing of not only the body, but the mind. Participants apply online, and are randomly selected to attend. Each year it is held in a different area. Last year we were at the Flying B Ranch in Kamiah, and this year we will be on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

A few weekends ago we had our training weekend preparing for our upcoming retreat in June at N-Sid-Sen Camp. As my mind usually has a natural curiosity, I wondered about the meaning of their name. It was not a name I had ever heard before so I figured it stood for something significant. As we toured the retreat camp, the director of the camp told the story of how the family who owned the camp wanted to give their land to something as a way of service and then they asked the native Americans if their land had any special significance in this region. He told us that the land did hold importance, and that the Indians would often hike to the top of the ridge and look out over Lake Coeur d’Alene and that it became their “Point of Inspiration.”

For days I have pondered this idea. What is my “Point of Inspiration”? Does everyone have one? Do they need to get one, if they don’t have one? Do you multiple points of inspiration? What does Inspiration mean?

Inspiration is the “process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.” When I thought of this, I thought of my brother-in-law. He told me once that he knew he wanted to be a veterinarian since he was 8 years old. How is that possible, I asked him. He told me, he just knew. Well he did really know, as he was a talented, brilliant and kind man that served as a veterinarian in our community for years.

In my profession of physical therapy I have had many people who cared enough to inspire me professionally and personally. The first ones were my parents. They told me there was nothing a woman couldn’t do and I believed them. The next one was a woman who owned her own PT practice and I interviewed her when I was a junior in high school working on my career project. She was enlightening and she planted a seed in a young girls heart about what it meant to serve others and care for their physical losses so they could have a better life. Then in my junior year of PT school my Professor Bob, became my next inspiration and mentor. He believed in me and motivated me to always do my best to care for the needs of my patients.

There have been countless others and I could go on and on about the people who have inspired me in my life, but I think it’s important to remember that it’s in relationship with others and in nature that often our meaning comes to us.

Something happens when we are vulnerable, care deeply and see the world as a canvas to have our own adventure on. There is only one you. You are special. You are made for this. You can do it, you just have to choose it.

I am lucky to have had time with the innovative and remarkable volunteers that run “Casting for Recovery” at N-Sid-Sen Camp. We will, I am sure, have a memorable retreat there in June with our Breast Cancer Survivors. There will be many “Points of Inspiration” that will happen that weekend, as they always do. My hope is that each of you will look at your points of inspiration in your life and that they will lead you to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the plan for your life is worthy and divine and our hope is that you will never give up on the dreams you are dreaming.

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Sheree DiBiase, PT, is the owner of Lake City Physical Therapy and she and her amazing staff believe that life is full of things to inspire us and they hope you will take a chance and live boldly, because your health matters. Reach us in Coeur d’Alene at (208) 667-1988, in Hayden at (208) 762-2100 and in Spokane Valley at (509) 891-2623.