Take Back Your Life!

Please Believe Me When I Tell You That Dreams Really Do Matter

January 9, 2019 by Giulietta Nardone

“You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.” ~ Barbara Sher

Can you imagine a world where no one ever had a dream to achieve something great?

Most of what you see wouldn’t even exist.

Recently, I rewatched Flash Dance, an 1983 movie that got panned by critics but went on to be loved by the people, making it the third highest grossing film in 1983. When I first watched it I was enamored with the dancing. This time I was enamored with Alex’s dream process.

A welder by day, dancer in a club by night, Alex had a dream to attend the prestigious Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory. But didn’t really have the guts to apply, worried by her lack of formal training. Her boss turned boyfriend reads her the riot act when she whines about not being good enough to apply to the program.

“When you give up your dreams, you die, ” he says and walks away.

That riles her up to apply and, of course, she does the most amazing emotionally pumped up audition in the history of auditions. It’s so good, I’m not sure she even needs to attend the school anymore, but as the film fades to black, I presume she gets in and does.

We all seem to have dreams as children and some later as adults, but too many of us reject our own dreams as impossible, without even trying to achieve them.

I fell into that chasm for awhile myself.

It’s easy.

You stop believing in your own dream and so do your friends. You all end up living the life of quiet desperation Henry Thoreau warned us about 1885.

However, if you are lucky, something will reactivate your dream — at any age — and you will have a second or even third chance to pursue it.

No matter what anyone tells you, it is never too late to go after your dreams.

Stan Lee created his first comic at 39. Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first little house on the Prairie book at 65. Susan Boyle won Britain’s Got Talent at 47. Vera Wang entered the fashion design industry at 40. Julia Child didn’t have her first cookbook published until 50. Charles Darwin was 50 when he published On The Origin of the Species. Ray Kroc was 59 when he bought his first MacDonald’s. Grandma Moses started painting at 78. Gladys Burrill ran her first marathon at 86.

Thankfully, they didn’t listen to the naysayers who have given up on their own lives.

If something “lights you up,” do it. I can almost guarantee it will make all the difference in your life.

Start with baby steps and keep going … It will be the best of times, it will be the worst of times. At times you will want to give up. These are the times to steel yourself and keep going. Many people give up right before they achieve their dream. That is often the darkest of times.

Want to share your dreams? I find giving them voice can be a good way to get them rolling again. Add them below!

Muse Thanks, Giulietta

Are You A Slave To The Mundane?

August 5, 2017 by Giulietta Nardone

Are You A Slave To The Mundane?

“Life is too short to spend it living for mundane things.” Topsy Gift

I run a lot of programs, on-line and off-line. Most people sign up with the best of intentions, they are going to attend every week and really learn to write or paint or whatever else the program is about.

Sometimes even though they are enjoying the program, they confide in me that they need to bow out because something in their everyday life needs more attention. It’s never because they just won a trip to Borneo.

And I usually get great reviews even from those students who had to leave early.

So, they are getting goodies out of attending but something pulls them away from this new thing they looked forward to.

What is happening here?

The call of the mundane boots out the call for the new and different. Most of the time, it is fear whispering for them to get away from that new, different thing and come back to the safety of the known. Come back to Mama Fear and be a good little girl/boy. Don’t ever grow up and do your own thing. That isn’t good for the flock …
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Live At The End Of Your Comfort Zone

May 15, 2017 by Giulietta Nardone

In May, I went to the memorial services for a fine young man who died too young in a motorcycle accident.

As grieving friends and family got up to speak about the contributions he made to the world around him, the same refrain kept coming up. He was known for saying, “Live At The End Of Your Comfort Zone” and by all accounts lived his life that way.

It is indeed a fabulous way to live your life. A way to feel alive and enjoy every morsel life has to offer.

I wish more people adopted that creed of living. Instead, most of us are terrified to leave the comfort zone we draw around us at an increasingly early age.

My grandfather came to the US from Italy at 17, to find a better life. Alone, he worked hard, saved money, opened his own company and paid for the passage of many of his family and cousins. That took courage and guts!

Today, I think he would be talked out of doing that, which would be a shame.

We are all so concerned about living safely, that we have forgotten how to live at all.

Sometimes to live a life with meaning, you have to live what others might call dangerously.

Dangerously might mean travel or it might mean challenging the status quo. Or talking to strangers. Or standing up for the defenseless. It can mean physical danger or it can mean emotional or financial danger.

The men and women who have successful companies usually put everything they owned on the line to get their business up and running. They knew that taking that risk was the only way to get where they wanted.

How often do we have the courage to tell someone what we really feel? We say, “Oh, it is nothing.” When it is anything but that. If you think about it, sharing your feelings isn’t that big of a deal, but we’ve turned it into something huge, something we should not do. And it has serious consequences down the road.

I entered life living dangerously, forging streams, climbing small hills, exploring the woods, expressing myself, telling the truth about how I saw things. Today, kids are pretty much  forbidden from doing the childhood activities I took for granted. Life has inherent risks, my husband always says, “It is the price of admission.”

There is a quote by Charles Lindbergh, “A life without risks, is a life not worth living.”

Ask yourself, do you live a safe life, do you live a dangerous life or do you live something in between?

And is that okay with you? Is there anything you long to do, but do not because you are afraid to venture out of your cozy comfort zone?

Muse thanks, Giulietta

ps, in honor of this fine young man, I have started a painting called, “Live at the end of your comfort zone.”

pps, if you want to write, please join me in July for Writing Under The Stars. If you child would love to paint whatever they wish, please have them join me for Wild Expressive Painting for Children.

 

 

 

How Do We Find Each Other And Feel?

March 27, 2017 by Giulietta Nardone
“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”   

~ James Thurber, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

Okay, I finally watched the “new” Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, recommended by a good friend three years ago. .

I loved it! From the soundtrack to the story to the acting to the scenery and most importantly, to the message — it all spoke to me.

Walter works at Life Magazine, where there is the coolest quote in the lobby.

“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

And it flashes up many times. At first, I had to rewind a few times to read it over and over. (The glory of the rewind button of second chances.)

I love all of the quote. Today, I decided to zoom into the later part, “to find each  other and to feel.”

People seem to be afraid to feel today. I remember when Princess Diana died in 1997  and everyone was crying all over the world, mainly people who had never met her — I immediately thought — it is a chance to feel something, to openly weep — things we are not encouraged to do.

In all my writing classes in person, there has always been one person who sheds a tear or even students who will not read because they fear shedding a tear. I always say the same thing, “It is okay to cry, it means something needs to come out through a tear.” (more…)

Are You True To Yourself Or Who You Think Others Want You To Be?

November 20, 2016 by Giulietta Nardone

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde

About 7 years ago, I ran a local program called, “Let Go Of Who You Aren’t: Be Your Perfectly Imperfect Self.” It had a few brave people in attendance. Honestly, like so many of my ideas it was simply ahead of its time. More and more, I’m hearing people discuss that topic. Sometimes, I’m just too early for the party.

Okay, we come into the world screaming to be ourselves and for awhile we are. Little kids tend to be honest and forthright. They speak their own little truths and its so refreshing. I worked with some children a few years ago. One of the little girls — an old soul in a young body — gave me a wonderful compliment: “You let us go wild in a good way.”

I loved that!

As for myself, I was wild for a lot longer than most because my mother did not send me to kindergarten. I went briefly to a nursery school in the bottom of our church where all we did was sit on our blankets, take naps and eat crackers. I remember doing little else and I have an excellent memory. (more…)

Do You Feel Limitless, Like You Can Do Anything?

August 23, 2016 by Giulietta Nardone

“If you tell life what it has to be, you limit it, but if you let life show you what it wants to be it will open doors you never knew existed.”

-Unknown.

Like so many people, I used to feel that I had to follow a certain life plan to be living a “good” life. Do x, y and z and your life will be marvelous.

Well, I did x, y and z and it wasn’t marvelous. It felt phony, empty and meaningless.

Fortunately, a town hall on the verge of a demolition gave me the chance to let my life show me where it wanted to go. I grabbed that opportunity to save the building and followed it – a kind of blind faith – and just like the quote above it led me to places I didn’t no existed. It also led me to parts of myself I didn’t know existed. I emerged as the kind of person, I’d always wanted to be but didn’t think I was.

Funny, how I couldn’t even recognize myself covered with the grime of conformity. I thought I was something completely different and then spent my life battling that phony version of myself. What a waste of energy!

I’m really grateful that opportunity in my town presented itself. The more I let my life lead, the more fabulous opportunities presented themselves. (more…)

Is Your Life Too Damn Safe?

July 11, 2016 by Giulietta Nardone

“To live a life of excellence, you will have to take risks. You will have to step into new territory and climb new mountains. If you’re up to something that’s as big as you are, it’s going to be scary. If it feels perfectly safe, you are probably underachieving. To leave your mark in the world, you will have to stand someplace you’ve never been willing to stand before. And you will have to have the courage to aspire to excellence.”

~ Debbie Ford

Despite all the May/June high school and college graduation speeches that encourage those graduating to go for the brass ring, doing so rarely happens in a life time.

The problem with those types of speeches is that everything leading up to them often runs counter to living such a bold and daring life. Those speeches wouldn’t be needed, if we encouraged our young to take chances. The look and feel of young life would be totally different than it is now. Thus, the inspirational speech the adults give to the young as a reminder to themselves to take risks before it is too late. (Note to self.)

Most of our lives are way too scripted and safety oriented. I read a few months ago that colleges are now looking for students who are different! They want something more off beat than the well-rounded students getting all A’s they’ve wanted for several decades. Fascinating but welcomed. Students will be able to follow their own strengths, perhaps.

If you want to always be safe, physically, emotionally, financially, your life will be driven by a lot of fear, a fear of losing instead of gaining. Most folks who make it big in business at one point risked most of the money they had. (more…)

Fun. Do You Really Have Enough Of It In Your Life?

May 24, 2016 by Giulietta Nardone


People rarely succeed unless they have fun with what they are doing.”
~ Dale Carnegie

I view every day as a chance to have fun. What is fun to me might not to be fun to you and vice versa. And that is okay. Only you can decide what passes fun muster for you.

It seems like we are having a fun shortage in the lives of many adults — and, frankly, now even children.

So many are being encouraged to follow generic lives with generic experiences and generic responses to achieve generic accolades given out by folks usually living generic, un-fun lives themselves.

Does that sound at all like you? Never? Sometimes? All the time? (more…)

Believe In The Beauty Of Your Own Dreams

January 11, 2016 by Giulietta Nardone

Believe In The Beauty of Your Own Dreams!

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”

~ Anais Nin

When we are children, we have lots of dreams. By the time we reach young adulthood, we’ve already begun saying, “It’s too late.”At 23, I looked in the mirror and thought I looked old. I felt like I was washed up and I hadn’t even started. Looking way back, I can say with all certainty I didn’t look old at all. And I hadn’t taken any real chances. And I wasn’t washed up.

How did a young woman at the beginning of adult life develop such feelings of despair?

I soon discovered I wasn’t alone in my feelings of “life has passed me by.” A lot of my friends felt that way as well.

We force folks into a life of despair by separating them from the things in life that make them feel alive. That is done during the “molding” process where we not only get molded, but become spiritually and soulfully moldy. And today’s kids are encouraged to get moldy earlier and earlier.

The wildness extraction process begins at younger and younger ages because folks of any age running around making noise makes folks who’ve been trained not to do that, “very, very nervous.”

They seem to want young children to pick their life path by the time they get out of preschool, to get serious about learning ONLY in seats, to see fun and self-expression as some personality disorder that needs to be squelched.

(Check out in The Jan/February Atlantic Monthly the article: The Preschool Trend That Is Crushing Kids.)

More and more kids are being labelled hyperactive because children are not allowed to run free anymore through the woods. First of all, it’s hard to find any woods that aren’t golf courses or wetlands. But then if you do, you don’t have time because you’ve got hours of homework every night.

Fortunately, my feelings of “too lateness” passed when I returned to my childhood love of all things creative. Writing and painting and singing. That reconnection opened up my life for me!

I can now share that I have done the greatest things in my life since the age of 40. I plan on continuing to do great things as long as I’m alive. Stereotypes about who should act like “something” at a certain age will not stop me!

You can do anything you want as long as you stick with it … and tell the folks who try to stop you to “get out of your way, thank you.”

Now, what is it that you want to do?

Best wishes for achieving your dreams,

ps please consider joining me for wild painting!

Fire Up Your Soul With Personal Writing

October 7, 2015 by Giulietta Nardone
I felt pretty lost in the world, until I reconnected with writing, something I loved from an early age. It helped me make sense of my world by forcing me to go inward to ask the big questions instead of outward to find the big answers. Before that I never even thought about asking myself questions like How Do I Want To Live My Life? Instead I searched in vain for the answers in new clothes or tv shows or other things that did not require me to get in touch with my inner self.It all started at a corporate job where four of us — all desperate to find something to keep us alive during the creativity numbing 8-hour day — formed a reading and writing group. Once a week, we met to read books and write stories. God, I looked forward to that weekly gathering.A year later, three of us got laid off or left … which sent me on a different writing trajectory as a small business owner.Looking back, though, that little group helped return me to the land of creativity.Since then I’ve written quite a bit, most recently short plays, which I find a lot of fun to do and soul fulfilling. I’ve seen three of my plays performed on stage. One a monologue performed by me. Two performed by others. They all share a serious issue told in a humorous way. What’s so cool about playwriting is that the actors and actresses take your words and add their own emotional and theatrical footprints. The results have been glorious.It’s also terrific to see my words in print – in publications I can hold in my hands or on-line – in publications I see on the Internet. It feels good to be able to share my thoughts with a large audience. I’ve had many people contact me, even from other states. They told me that my stories spoke to them, influenced them or helped them in some way. (more…)
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