Take Back Your Life

Hey friends!

It seems like we’re constantly being told to fix this or fix that about our relationships, our personalities, and our businesses. E-newsletters ask me if I’m procrastinating, if I’m afraid to sell, if I playing small, if I’m holding back, etc.

Maybe it makes more sense to concentrate on what’s really working in our lives and continue to do more of whatever that is. Expanding our greatest strengths forms the core of the burgeoning strengths movement. To keep this movement going, we’ll need to wean ourselves off of measuring everything in our lives to “see how we’re doing” or “how we compare to others.”

The problem with most metrics is that they keep you focused on the negative. Based on the results (often seemingly arbitrary), your boss, your teacher, your doctor or some other person of supposed authority in your life directs you to shore up your alleged weaknesses.

I say alleged because our society tends to fixate on weaknesses. I don’t believe in trying to fix weaknesses. Instead, I prefer to encourage and grow a person’s natural interests and inclinations. It’s pretty futile to force someone to get “good” at something they don’t care for.

Take math. I never liked math. It didn’t interest me. I wasn’t “good” at it. Yet, I spent a lot of time taking all kinds of math classes thinking I needed to be good in math. I even got a job that required me to do quite a bit of math. It started to eat me up alive because I didn’t want to do it.

Looking in life’s rear view mirror I can see now that the time I spent taking math classes kept me from taking more English classes and writing classes or just plain writing.

I loved writing and ended up doing math. Now that I’ve been back writing for about ten years, I feel like I’m where I want to be, where I was meant to be, where I got detoured from.

Our visits to Earth seem increasingly short to me, why not spend most of your precious time on this beautiful planet doing what you enjoy.

I’d love to hear what’s working in your life. What do you want more of in your life?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hi fellow wishcasters and other adventurous folks!

I wish for you to see your life not as a chore or something to get through, but rather as an Alice In Wonderland type of adventure.

Will you wake up and feel like you fell down a rabbit hole? Yes. Will strange things happen to you? Yes. Will you meet strange people? Yes. Will you be strange? Yes. Will any of it make sense? Probably not.

Yet, that’s the real beauty of our precious lives. They are not meant to be controlled, to be figured out, to be made 100% safe. They are meant to be wild and crazy journeys where anything can happen because it’s all unscripted.

Forget following other people’s scripts. They have no right to tell you how to live your journey at the bottom of the rabbit hole because there is no right, there is only what is. Remember these folks don’t know any more than you do. It’s all posturing. You know more about you and your life than anyone. Please don’t forget that when they bust into your life screaming and madly waiving their script, accusing you of not following it!

I can almost guarantee that if you start to look at your life as an adventure that you own, you will wake up every morning feeling braver and more powerful!

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hey rebels!

I work with a lot of people who want to start a business, make a life change or take up a new creative pursuit. The greatest obstacle they face?

Themselves.

Yup! The hardest person to convince of your worthiness is you. Until you believe a) you can do it and b) you have a right to do it, not much will happen.

I’ve said this before on this blog and I’ll say it again, our society does a terrible job growing people who believe in themselves. We all come into the world feeling “pumped.” By Junior High, you can already see a lot of shut down pumps.

Yeah, people run around getting all excited about collecting careers and titles and credentials. Why? Because we’ve been told those external “things” will make us worthy to others. So, you spend your life jumping through hoops to scavenge all the things on your societal worthiness list. In middle age, you proudly hold up your list for the world to see.

Yet, you may not feel good. In fact, you may feel worse than when you started the list pre-junior high.

Why?

Because it’s a wild human-goose chase. If we “grow” people who believe in themselves, they will follow their own hearts and create their own lists.

I’ve got my custom-designed list. Have you got yours?

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hey rebellious ones and fellow wishcasters,

Starting off 2010 with a big dream sounds good to me. This year I’m going to explore and promote “lifeness.” I define “lifeness” as being one self, a seamless merging of the play self and the business self and the classroom self. Why we’ve been taught to put on a different face for work or school makes no sense to me. All it does is promote human misery and unsavory methods to self-anesthetize from the emotional pain it invariably causes.

Being who we are is our natural state or we wouldn’t be born into natural lifeness.

The best way for me to be myself and for you to be yourself is to stop buying into the ridiculous myth that we need to divide and conquer our own personalities to be “successful.” So, I’m supposed to work with and be impressed with the phony you? Conversely, you are supposed to work with and be impressed with the phony me?

Complete garbage!

Here’s to achieving lifeness …

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hey bad girls and boys & wednesday wishcasters,

In 2010, I wish for folks to disobey more. That’s right.

• Stand up and be counted, even if you’re the only one doing so.
• Make a scene.
• Say, “no” to anything that goes against your values.
• Catch all the shoulds flying at you and dump them in the trash can.
• Stop going along with programs you don’t believe in.
• Start being the change you want to see in the world.

People love to use, “I can’t make a difference” as an excuse for not standing up for what they really believe. That’s a big fat lie. You can make a difference – in your own life, in your neighborhood, in your country. The real question becomes, “Do you want to make a difference?”

If your life has no spark, if you feel like a dead-zone inside, if you complain about your situation, if you feel taken advantage of, if you keep asking yourself, “is this all there is to life?” chances are good you’re still that obedient little boy or girl who didn’t make your parents mad.

Perhaps, it’s time to …

Muse thx,

Giulietta

Hi rebellious readers,

I spent part of Sunday cleaning out my bureau drawers. For the first time in years, I now have enough room inside for the things I actually use, the stuff that’s usually sprawled on top.

I tossed out buttons for sweaters I no longer own, holiday cards from the last 7 years, airline/hotel info from a trip taken 4 years ago, yellowed shopping receipts, old lipsticks, empty plastic checkbook covers, broken earrings, random pieces of scribble, a 2 foot piece of rope, a ripped swim cap, medals from 20 years ago, broken jewelry, nail files, stretch bands for exercises I’m never going to do, old cat toys and dust.

There’s even more that I’ve heaped together for my first ever yard sale in the spring.

What was I saving this stuff for? What are you saving your stuff for? And why do we have so much stuff to begin with?

For a good chuckle, here’s a link to Comedian George Carlin’s timeless routine about stuff.

CARLIN ON STUFF

Way too much of life is spent managing stuff, protecting stuff, dragging around stuff, hiding stuff, crying over stuff, comparing stuff, worrying about stuff. If we can get out from underneath the weight of all this stuff, maybe we can lead the lives we desire?

How about you? Do you control your stuff or does it control you?

Happy 2010! The year of less stuff.

Muse thx,

Giulietta

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

Hey daring ones,

Jamie Ridler’s wishcasting circle prompt asks readers, “What does your spirit wish for?” I wish for more folks to realize they are in charge of their own lives. Yes, it can seem like others call your shots, but only if you let them. Much of the malaise out there stems from false feelings of being out of control, of not having a say in your daily life.

What a magical, energetic world we’d have if people did more of what they wanted instead of what others wanted. Who started this silliness anyway? It’s clearly not working. Why not stop it?

Here’s an idea. Try listing all the things you believe you have to do, why you do them and what would happen if you didn’t do them. I know it can be scary to hold the power of your own life course in your hands. But wouldn’t that be better than the way you feel now?

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

Hey wishcasters and others,

I really enjoy Jamie Ridler’s Wednesday Wishcasting circles. The questions send me in new directions. Today’s question: What step do you wish to take? This is an easy one for me. I want to start a huge movement to save open space, to help people see that saving open space is long-term economic development. If land is finite, how can we keep turning it into asphalt fields and not ultimately harm ourselves? Again, the powers that be have us galloping so fast that we don’t even know why we are galloping and where we are galloping. But I can guarantee that is we don’t stop and figure that out, we’re going to be in trouble as a civilization.

There is a huge tract of land behind my home that is home to animals, birds, flowers, plants, sunlight, air, wildness, freedom, rocks, soil, water, history, life. It’s for sale because open space is not valued. If it were, there would be grants available or companies & governments rushing to save it from destruction. I believe that open space saves money in the long run, saves our health in the long run, saves our food supply in the long run, saves our wildness in the long run, saves our creativity in the long run, saves our humanity in the long run.

Did you ever run through fields as a child? Or lay down on your back in a  meadow for a summer nap? Or run through cornfields? The more we lose open space, the more we lose our connection to the Earth and ultimately our connection to each other.

Psst. We need to save open space. Pass it on …

Muse thx, Giulietta

p.s. Here is a local non-profit trying to do the above too! LCA Trust. Stop by …