Take Back Your Life

Dear Lovers of Life,

I recently gave a blouse to charity that I bought six years ago, yet never wore. It was beautiful, but I kept “saving” it for a “special” occasion. Before a party or business event, I’d take it out of my closet, hold it up to myself in the mirror, feel pretty and then put it back! Never a good enough occasion.

By the time I found a “good” enough occasion, my pretty blouse no longer fit my style. I’d changed and it didn’t feel right when I put it on. It stayed in the closet for an additional few years.

Many folks do the same thing with their lives that I did with my shirt — they save it for retirement or after the kids get out of school or when they make more money or some other excuse. They want to do exciting things, yet don’t because it’s not the right time. Waiting for the right time, doesn’t make sense when most of us have no idea how long we’ll be a visitor on our beautiful planet.

Does that sound like you? Can you pinpoint why you keep putting off your life? Most of the reasons that stand in the way of you doing what you want in life are just excuses. Ask what the excuses shield you from? What will happen if you start doing some of these things?

What have you been putting off in your life and why? Or, what did you finally stop putting off and how did that change your life?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hey Awesome Folks,

About ten years ago, I tapped into my ability to see what’s awesome about a person. Something the person often can’t see in his or her self. It’s this inability to see our own awesomeness that holds us back from living an amazing life.

If we let it, life can beat us up and beat us down. When that happens you’re more likely to accept what you believe is fate – a life of mind and soul-numbing mediocrity. I’m sure you see it all the time. People at work, people on the subway, people at parties all exhibiting an overall lack of enthusiasm for life.

I’m here to tell you that you can get back your childhood enthusiasm and zest for life.

Yes, you are awesome!

Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Institutions and people treat you like you’re mediocre to keep you from breaking out of your cage because they erroneously believe that people are better off in cages.

Much of the emotional pain and suffering in the world happens because people do not understand that they have the power to leave their cages any time they want. No one can keep us in there. Way too many people only figure this out on their deathbed. I’m guessing you don’t want to wait until it’s too late or you wouldn’t be reading this.

We all have something magnificent about us, something that will make the world a better place and make our own lives worth living with gusto. Our life challenge is to figure out what it is and release it to the world.

Here’s a baby step you can take towards finding your life challenge. Make a list right now of 5 things you do well and that you love to do. How often do you do them?

I’d love to hear one awesome thing about you. Please tell the world by writing it below!

Muse thx,
Giulieta

Hello fun folks!

Wishcasters are asked today what they would like to give. I’d like to give everyone who reads my blog today a breath of fresh air (ABOFA). You can take your ABOFA and use it to change anything you want in your life. Take a moment right now and state out loud what you want to change.

Or fill in the blank right here ________________________________.

Can you feel the ABOFA breezing over you?

Close your eyes. Let go of whatever fear keeps you from making this change. Yes, just let it go. The breeze will sweep it away.

Enjoy!

Muse thx, Giulietta

At his concerts, Bruce Springsteen is famous for yelling out, “Is there anybody alive out there?” It’s also a lyric from his song “Radio Nowhere.”

I often wonder that myself. Sure, people are clinically alive, but are they emotionally, mentally and spiritually alive? Are they waking up in the morning with a zest for life? There’s a big difference between following the beaten path and following your own path, between going through robotic motions and going through your own unique motions, between sleepwalking through life and going through life wide awake.

In my twenties & early thirties, I can say with absolute certainty I was sleepwalking through life. I looked for a mate, tried feverishly to eradicate the microscopic sliver of cellulite on the back of my thighs, shopped for outfits that made me look “hot” and tried to hold onto whatever job I had. I woke up every morning thinking, “Is this all there is?”

Fortunately, something woke me up, something slapped me on the face until I came to, something broke the stupor I’d encased myself in. For me it was singing. What a difference! Now, I can’t wait to get up in the morning, to learn something new, to meet someone new, to try something new.

I met a woman once who told me she felt dead inside. I wonder how many other people feel that way. As Tony Manero said in Saturday Night Fever, “There’s ways of killing yourself without killing yourself.”

Instead of raising our next generation to be dutiful consumers, why not raise them to be alive people? Can you imagine a world where people are encouraged to go for their “it” instead of being encouraged to hold back and hold on and hold out (usually for the lowest discount price?)

I’ll leave you with more lyrics from Radio Nowhere in the hopes we can turn life into Radio Somewhere …

“I was spinnin’ around a dead dial
Just another lost number in a file
Dancin’ down a dark hole
Just searchin’ for a world with some soul”

Muse thx, Giulietta

It’s definitely in vogue these days to be busy, very busy. The assumption being it’s a good thing, a sign you are living a full life, that you are fulfilled, that you are not lonely. Socrates didn’t seem to agree. He said, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” And he lived back in 450ish BC. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing people today dash around a lot faster than they did back in his time. Thoreau also addressed the subject, “It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?”

Honestly, I try to avoid using the word busy. It’s never felt like a word I wanted to use to describe my life. It’s full, exciting and dynamic, but not overloaded with busyness. I still have time to self-reflect and think about my choices. If you look up busy in Webster’s, definition #4 says, “Full of distracting detail.” That intrigues me. Does being busy distract you from living the life you want to lead? I’ve had acquaintances who described themselves as “busy” but didn’t seem to get anything out of the busyness or do anything they really wanted to do.

Sometimes I wonder if people get addicted to being busy, to never slowing down long enough to figure out where they are going and if it’s a place they want to go to. But hey, maybe I’m off the mark here, maybe it’s good to be busy doing something all the time.

Not sure if your life is busy or satisfying?

Try following yourself for a day. Write down everything you do, why you’re doing it and what you think would happen if you didn’t do it. Kind of a mini self-evaluation. Then cross check it with things you’d like to be doing. Do the lists match?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hi thankful ones,

On occasion, I buy 9 x 4 inspirational notepads. Love the unique size. Makes it easy to tuck a quick note in with a payment, a small gift or an article. One of my favorite notepads is produced by the fabulous NJ company, “How To Live” (www.how-to-live.com). It says on the top “Life is full of gifts …” and on the bottom “be thankful.”

I first discovered this notepad 5 years ago and have sent individual sheets to many friends. It really got me thinking about life in a new way. Society has us galloping so fast through our days that we rarely have time to stop and smell the daily roses, to be thankful for all the riches we already have. We’re constantly being shuffled toward the next “best” thing to supposedly make us complete and/or happy, which makes it hard to enjoy and be thankful for what’s here right now.

I don’t want to gallop through life. It goes by fast enough on its own without helping it along. I want to savor every delicious moment — hanging out with friends, laughing with my husband, going on walks, singing at karaoke nights, writing essays. If anything I’d like to slow life down to make it last longer.

Do you feel the push or pull to gallop? When you aren’t galloping, what are you thankful for?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hi friends,

As a child, I had no problem speaking up. It came naturally. If something didn’t make sense to my little 6-year-old mind, I asked questions until it did. Now as I got older, I started to get in trouble for asking questions, for questioning the status quo. Sent to my room or sent to a classroom corner or sent to the unemployment line.

I got the message loud and clear: the best way to get along was to go along. I bit my tongue for ten long years. But this left me feeling crazy and out of sorts with myself. I decided the best way for me to get along was to not go along. In a society that values obedience, the easiest way to do this is to forget the outcome. If I dwelled on the possible outcomes – none of which might even happen – I became paralyzed with fear.

Let go of the outcome and you’ll get go of the fear. Is there something you need to say?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

There’s a great book by  rachel carson, the environmentalist, called “A Sense of Wonder.” In it, she says, “A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.”

I’ve known for about 15 years that the march toward adulthood slowly beats the sense of wonder out of us. Prior to that I walked obediently along the beaten path, not questioning where it would lead me. I believed that I’d be happy at the next bend up ahead and when that didn’t make me happy, then it would be the next one. But can I tell you something? No matter how many bends i went around, I wasn’t happy. I became happy only when I took the path less traveled by. When I started to create my own route through life.

Being on my own path also restored my sense of wonder. I can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning and learn something new. Something I want to learn; I need to learn. That’s the problem with today’s generic life blueprint, it doesn’t take into account individual interests. How can we all want the same things in life? The real secret? We don’t. Making us into “want” clones deadens desire, deadens wonder.

How about you? Do you have your sense of wonder intact? If you do, how did you keep it or get it back?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

I get a lot of e-newsletters. 97% of them want to help me make more money. While I understand we all need money, I’m starting to wonder if this obsessive focus on making money actually drives money away from us? It feels increasingly desperate to me and I’m wondering if it feels desperate to money too?

Read an article a few months ago that said we are actually less happy than we were 40 years ago, even though most of us have more things and gadgets.

One of the books that got my life moving in a new direction sometime back, Do what you love and the money will follow, downplayed the money part. It will come if you really do what you love. Are most of you doing what you really love? Do you even know what that is?

It took me awhile to figure it out, but I love challenging the status quo. And there are lots of ways to do that — in my community, in my writing, in my life shops, in my conversations. When I’m in that zone I feel unstoppable, on top of the world. And the money has started to follow. Yet when I started doing what I love, making money was not my objective.

Let me ask you this. To capture your attention does it really have to be about the money? I’d love to hear why or why not. Also, if we didn’t need money to live and learn, what would you like to learn? What classes would you sign up for? What adventures would you take?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Do any of you have ideas for something new, something daring, something outrageous? Could be for a biz. Could be for a life adventure. Could be for a better world. If you’re following my posts with any regularity, then you know that I’m all for making more life. It may or may not have anything to do with making more money. That would be your choice.

Chances are good that right now, you’re probably sitting on a great idea. We like to think that only some people come up with great ideas. It’s not true. We all do. But just a few of us act on those great ideas.

Before I learned to think milky-way bit, I’d get a great idea and lightly toss it around. I’d mention it to a few friends, get a little pumped, then talk myself out of it and climb back down into my dark rut. Poof! A few months or a few years later, I’d read in the paper that someone else came up with a similar idea and went with it. It became a hit!

Has this happened to you with some of your ideas?

Frankly, I don’t feel we are encouraged to just “go for it” with ideas. All you have to do is look at the fear mongering going on in the news day after day to see that what we are encouraged to be is frightened — of everything.

Wouldn’t it be a more energized, upbeat world if we pursued our ideas full throttle instead of holding ourselves back?

What idea do you have that you’d like to run with? What’s stopping you? Keep digging down to find your real fear …

For anyone stopping by my site, please check out my life shop, “Think Milky-Way Big …” It’s an idea I had, that I’ve decided to go full-throttle with … This life shop is just the start!

Muse thx,

Giulietta