The other night, I happened to watch a movie called, “My Life In Ruins.” Georgia, a college professor with man troubles, comes to Greece to be a tour guide when she loses her teaching job back in the states. Her tourists find her Greek history talks to be dull and boring, so they consistently give her bad evaluations. She doesn’t learn from her bad evaluations and continues to be out of touch with her tourists and herself.  She complains that all the Greeks do is dance! If their lives are going well — they dance. If their lives are going badly — they dance.

Then she gets assigned a bedraggled bus driver named Poupi who doesn’t speak English.

O.k. I saw right through that. Poupi’s clearly a major hunk waiting to reveal his ultra hotness and life lessons to her when the right moment arrives. Despite the high predictability factor, Richard Dreyfus as a crazy but wise tourist named Irv makes the entire movie worth watching. He says to Georgia right around the time she’s noticing Poupi’s physical and emotional hotness,” You’re looking for obstacles rather than magic.” I grabbed my nearby pen and scribbled his quote down.

Loved it!

This quote can be applied to love, life and everything in between. How often do we litter our own pathways with excuses not to do something we want to do instead of just going for it? Why not seek out the magic? Why not dance all the time?

I used to be the queen of looking for obstacles. (I’d open my obstacle closet and search the shelves for just the right ones.) Crazy, painful way to live. Somehow, though, I retrained myself to look for the magic instead, the magic I saw as child. And I loved to dance as a child.

Magic and dancing. Dancing and magic. Hey, they go together. I’m with the Greeks, let’s dance no matter what’s going on in our lives. Letting your body and soul go can only fill your life with magic.

How about you? Do you look for magic? Do you dance?

Muse thanks, G.

Am I crazy or are more and more of us experiencing distraction overload?

About five years ago, I was in a Whole Foods parking lot unloading my groceries. Then my mind started to drift. When I “came to” my cart with a few bags still in it had rolled down the slight grade into the hands of a twenty something young man who caught it before, presumably, it dented his car.

I have never forgotten what he said as he returned the cart to me, “You weren’t in the moment.”

Until he said that, I’d never given any thought to being in the moment. Now, I’m aware how easily we can be distracted and the consequences it has for our safety, for our emotional health, for the direction of our government and for the quality of our lives.

With the exception of mechanical failure or bewildered animals, I believe the bulk of auto accidents happen because drivers get distracted to the point they forget they’re maneuvering a 4000-pound piece of machinery in between other folks doing the same. Someone actually ran a stop sign in front of my home and smashed into my car as I was waiting to cross the street and turn into my driveway. He drew me into his distraction drama.

And all the new technology that keeps us “connected” doesn’t help.

In “Girls on the Edge,” by Leonard Sax, he talks about girls getting caught in “a cyberbubble – a hyper-connected state with peers.” Girls become so “connected” with others that they get disconnected from themselves. Although this book is about girls, it can be broadened to include girls and boys of any age.

The more we get distracted by the latest gadgetry, the 24/7 news and all the other noise filling our lives, the more we lose touch with ourselves and what we need and want.

I’m still trying to figure out why we have to be connected and/or available 24/7/365 anyway. What’s the benefit? When I go on vacation, I go on vacation. The only time I touch a computer is the night before I leave in order to download my boarding pass. I want to leave behind much of what passes as phony urgency.

So, what can we do to stop the distraction?

1) Bag multi-tasking. It’s a complete crock and anytime you see that on a job description run for the hills. Why would an employer want someone focusing on 5 things at once? It doesn’t make sense. Nothing will be done with devoted care. More indication that people copy each other to the point they don’t even know what they are copying.

2) Stop chasing goals unless they are your own. For example, there’s constant hype out there to “make six figures.” Everyone’s offering courses to make six-figures and now it’s been upped to seven figures. Is that your heartfelt goal or someone else’s?

3) Take a mindful break every day. Turn off everything and try sitting with nothing but yourself. Start with a few minutes and build mindfulness muscle. To keep my vitamin d levels up, I sit in my yard for 15 to 20 minutes at least four times a week. I do nothing but sit there soaking up sunshine. It’s like hitting the “clear distraction” button. I return to my home office calm and centered.

How about some of you mindful readers? What helps you get out of the distraction zone?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

p.s. Massachusetts/Rhode Island folks who want to build mindfulness muscle, please check out my upcoming life shop: “How to stop being so busy and start living a more meaningful life.”

It’s interesting how we come into this world adventurous. Yet, over time become fearful due to societal conditioning. What’s the point of taking pretty fearless humans and fearasizing them? How does that make the world a better place?

I spent most of my childhood exploring the world within walking/biking distance. I waded in streams, climbed mountains, danced whenever I pleased, performed back flips of the diving board, galloped my horse through the woods, wrote creative stories, paddled down rivers, laughed constantly. My life was a daring adventure. I wanted to learn about everything. I wanted to experience everything. I wanted to wake up every morning and do something new.

Then almost as suddenly, it became an undaring adventure. The invisible societal hands started to mold me with stronger and stronger Plaster of Paris until I felt so heavy I could no longer venture very far.

Still alive in my mold, I took to chipping from the inside out — (kinda like a personal Shawshank Redemption where I’m digging a tunnel out of the thick mold). With a lot of persistence, I eventually busted out of the Plaster of Paris that encased me.

Now, life seems like a daring adventure again!

I wanted to tell my fab readers about a neat on-line program I’ve put together with Tricia Dycka, the Negativity Slayer. It’s called “Dare to live your own life: You can do it! It’s for anyone who wants to bust out of his or her Plaster of Paris mold and resume seeing life as an adventure. If you want to read more about it, please click DARE. It will be a fun time for those who DARE to register.

Whether this program appeals to you or not, I’d love to hear if your life is or isn’t a daring adventure. Maybe share a memorable adventure of late?

Muse thx, Giulietta

I love the greeting cards that marry quotes and pictures. The latest one I bought showcases a woman wearing white heels sailing off the curb into a muddy, watery mess. You know her shoes will not survive this gooey “crossing” and she’ll be calf-deep in mud. Yet from the bounce in her step, I can tell she’s going to enjoy ruining those shoes. The following quote accompanied the picture, “Ever notice that ‘what the hell’ is always the right decision?” ~ Unknown Hollywood script writer.

From my own experiences, I’d have to agree with the script writer, sometimes you need to throw caution to the wind and just do it, whatever the it challenging you is. A few Sundays ago on our way home from a family gathering, Jimmy and I drove by one of those honky tonk carnival shows, the ones that breeze into town for four days and breeze out to someone else’s town. We saw the ferris wheel towering above the stores and he said, “want to stop in and take a spin?” (He knows I love ferris wheels and carousels. Am intrigued by the circles they make.)

“No, I need to get back and finish that newspaper column,” I heard myself use as an excuse. Then I thought, “It’s Sunday, I don’t have to do anything. Who is that bore speaking?”

“What the hell,” I said with a renewed sense of life vigor. “Let’s do it.”

And up in the wheel we went. Something refreshingly freeing about gliding up and down through the air. I felt invigorated yet peaceful when I got off.

How about you? Got any “what the hell” experiences you’d like to share?

Muse thx, Giulietta

Recently, a friend asked where I get my blog post ideas. Honestly? They find me. I pick up a greeting card, overhear a conversation, visit someone else’s blog, open a book. Sometimes I have more than two posts that want to be written at the same time. The one yelling “pick me” the loudest usually wins.

Two days ago, I looked out my upstairs bathroom window around 6:30 am to see three cottontail bunnies chasing each other all over the yard. (I thought it was three but it’s probably more like 33. They just look similar.) Up and over our small hill, through the giant hemlock grove, under the blue spruces. Round and round they went. It looked like they were having a grand time.

Then today I picked up a greeting card at this neat one-of-a-kind place called Karmala Boutique. The brightly painted card said “Play with Abandon,” part of a longer quote by Mary Anne Radmacher.  I knew today’s post would be about play or rather lack of it in adults.

I wonder how it came to be that adults created a world for themselves with so little time devoted to play? Even acceptable forms of adult play can seem like work. I’ve gone on several European bike trips where the goal seemed to be — bike as fast as possible and get back to the hotel. I consistently fell behind on these trips because I wanted to enjoy the journey, celebrate being out of the office, stop and take pictures, smell the vineyards and open air, drink in the landscape, smile at baby lambs, talk to folks who lived along the way.

Since we create our reality, we can change it. We can bring back a sense of play to the lives of adults. So, I’m tossing this question out to my brilliant and daring readers, “What would we need to change to reintroduce play to adults and how would that improve the world?”

I appreciate how many of you read my blog every week!

Muse thx, Giulietta

I often visit other blog sites for inspiration. I never know what gem I’m going to find. A few weeks ago, I stopped by the fabulous Expressive Hart blog. Ms. Hart’s teaching an e-course called Necessary Fire based on an idea she read in a book called Traveling with Pomegranates (by Sue Monk Kidd and Anne Kidd Taylor.) A mother and daughter travel to Greece and France together, where they discover new truths about themselves.

My husband’s Greek-American and way before I met him I had a wild and crazy time in Greece, so the Greek connection intrigued me enough to order the book. Honestly, I couldn’t put TWP down. Towards the end I stumbled on a paragraph I knew would make a great blog post. Letta, their travel guide says, “People do not come to Greece to rest. They come to gain their days.” Then a paragraph later, Anne, one of the authors, says, “I don’t want to miss out on what the Greeks call Zoe. Life. I want to live all of the whole glorious hazard.”

I fell in love with those lines. Yes, life has hazards. That’s what makes it an adventure to be cherished. I can only speak for myself here, but it’s the hazards I’ve encountered that gave my life texture and meaning. (Ironically, an unexpected hazard happened in Greece. The friend I went to visit had to leave the country the day after I got there when something unexpected came up. I faced three weeks wandering around Greece alone — it forced me to get outgoing pretty quick) Life hazard points gave me opportunities to be “all I could be and then some.”  For the longest time, the blinders I’d been wearing made it impossible to see that hazards were opportunities to start living. Once I tore off the blinders and embraced the hazards, I came alive!

(They’ve got to stop handing out blinders in childhood. Deadly practice.)

Talk again soon …

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Recently, I saw one of my favorite up and coming singer/songwriters, Kim Jennings. The city of Worcester, Massachusetts, voted her its best female vocalist for 2010. If you ever get a chance to hear her perform in person, you’ll know why. She’s dazzling, daring and dynamic. Because I look for everyone’s life theme, I couldn’t help but notice that two of her songs both contained the same line: nowhere left to hide. She’s definitely come out of her hiding place. Have you?

It’s easy to spend your life hiding out. So many places to shield you from living out in the open. You can hide behind your job titles, your college degrees, your consumer goods. You can hide behind the should’s, must’s, and have to’s. You can hide behind being busy and over-scheduled. You can hide behind your children. You can hide behind a clean house or a manicured lawn. You can hide behind shopping at the mall. You can hide behind your resume. You can hide behind sports teams. You can hide behind the need for a perfect body. You can hide behind the stories you tell about yourself that aren’t even true. You can hide behind your addictions. You can hide behind the reality shows you feel compelled to watch. You can hide behind your own fears.

But do you really want to spend your life hiding behind something or someone else? Do you really want to litter your glorious life path with excuses that make exploration impossible?

I used to hide out behind the lie: You have no right to stand up for yourself. I’d get all upset or angry or sad or depressed because I didn’t say what I wanted to say. I wasted decades not speaking up, not setting boundaries, not challenging what folks in positions of power insisted I had to do.

One day I poked a hole in the lie and saw light streaming through. I ripped open the hole wider and wider. Damn. A whole new world existed out there! One day I squeezed through. I stood on the stage of my own life and I had the lead role!

And you can too.

Do you want to stop hiding behind “fill-in-the-blank”? I’d love to know what you’re hiding behind or used to hide behind. What you share will help others.

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Life can seem like an endless slog or a magical love affair. It depends on your ability to answer the question, “What makes you get up in the morning?”

During my childhood, I couldn’t get enough of life. I raced out of bed to explore the natural landscape near my home. I scaled the face of Bald Rock (o.k. a small hill a few roads over), I climbed pine trees, I waded in brooks, I watched butterflies, I taught riding lessons in my back yards without the aid of actual horses.

That love disappeared when society shoved me onto the tracks headed toward conventional adulthood. By my late twenties, I kept asking, “Is this all there is?” I’d broken up with life. We’d gone our separate ways. I had no real reason to get up in the morning. I guess I had stumbled onto some kind of career track. Yet, the notion of a generic career never appealed to me. I always felt like a caged animal in a work zoo. If we lived in this free society I wondered, how come we can’t leave until 5:00? I began saying to colleagues, “Let’s bust out of here and sit at an outdoor cafe and drink salty margaritas.”

They’d say, “Oh, that sounds fun. Too much work today. Maybe next week?”

Those weeks turned into years and finally into a decade and still no disobedient margarita hookey.

I realized I had to help myself if I wanted to fall in love with life again. I volunteered at a theater in the next town as the curtain puller. This simple act of opening and closing an unbelievably heavy curtain led to me opening a new act on my own life.

One of the actors introduced me to karaoke and returned me to hiking and bike riding. With life once again coursing through my veins, I also reconnected with my rebellious roots.

I fell in love with life again. We’ve been going strong ever since.

Muse thx,

Giulietta

p.s. A few years ago I celebrated my birthday drinking salty margaritas at an outdoor cafe. As wonderful as I’d imagined. How about you? Have you had your margarita moment?

My purpose for Giulietta the Muse has always been to encourage my readers and clients to summon up the courage to get out of lock-step. Looked up the definition of lock-step on Merriam-Webster.com. They define it as: a standard method or procedure that is mindlessly adhered to or that minimizes individuality. Lock-step marches you in a direction not of your conscious choosing. After awhile it becomes second nature. So much so, that you may not even realize you are marching until some event in your life forces you to notice it.

Such an event might be a job loss or an illness or even something as simple as a comment a friend or stranger makes. Once you look down and notice your legs marching in a direction you don’t recall pointing them in, the real life awakening begins.

For those of you want to turn around and “skip” in a new direction, please consider checking out my newest life shop: How to stop being so busy and start living a meaningful life.

If you live in the Greater Boston area and are free on Saturday, April 24th in the am, I’d love for you to join us!

Muse thanks,

Giulietta

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