Take Back Your Life!

True Love Can Never Be Erased

This weekend I watched the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Not sure how I missed it ten years ago, but my library’s DVD collection gave me a second chance to view it.

I loved it.

Creative. Clever. Complicated. Compelling.

Without giving the entire movie away, it’s a maze-like romantic tale about the staying power of true love. You can try to erase it, but true love will always try to find its way back into your life. In the case of the movie, this love was between two people. Outside of this movie, this love can also be between a person and the things in life that make his or her heart sing. I’m sure you’ve heard of Thoreau’s quote: Most men lead quiet lives of desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. And he wrote that back in the 1800’s.

If we try to repress our true loves, we end up repressing ourselves. I am convinced that much of the brawls that break out around the world happen because the people involved have been divorced from the activities that would make their hearts sing. You may have noticed that most brawls happen to younger folks in their twenties. It’s a weird decade for many. The one decade I would never want to repeat.

Somehow in my twenties I got disconnected from everything I loved in life. It didn’t happen over night, it just became more apparent when I graduated from college and had to carve my own path through life and wasn’t sure how. Young adults go from being told what to do, to being held responsible for their lives. The endless waiting and preparation to do most anything can stifle a person’s natural ability to just go for it, like I did as a young girl.

The best advice we can give the young is to say at an early age, “Just go for it.” It gets harder to do that once you’ve been told, “Don’t go for it, until you have all your ducks lined up.”  (more…)

I spent my first 25 years suppressing every emotion but humor (mirth). It took quite a few years of therapy to allow me to show love, anger, compassion, happiness, courage, etc. Not giving myself permission to express the full range of emotions turned me into a zombie-like wreck. Once I set myself emotionally free, my depression or whatever you call it lifted like a cement block off my chest. Life then became wonderful, lighter and I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning.

Because it took me so long to show emotion, I go nuts when I attend business or government events and the facilitator says, “We will check our emotions at the door.”

Huh?

Why would anyone want to suggest doing that? Golly, I think the lack of showing emotion is one of the main problems with work as we know it, with society as we know it, with the world as we know it. The boys who tend to go into a school and shoot it up are always described as quiet loners who didn’t show much emotion. It makes you feel dead inside to not be able to feel or feel you can’t express what you feel or even what you don’t feel. (more…)

Getting More Me Time.

Most of us are overloaded with responsibilities. So much so that we can feel guilty taking time out for ourselves to do something we really need, something that makes us feel connected to ourselves.

If this sounds like you, please sit yourself down in a quiet space with a cup of tea/java and take a few deep breaths. Then ask your “inner busy bee” where your hyper responsibility comes from and why you feel that someone else’s life will fall apart if you take out time for yourself. I say this, because that’s what folks have told me. “I have to do X or my “fill-in-the-blank” won’t get “fill-in-the-blank.” (more…)

As a young child, I felt powerful.

I used to speak my mind, entertain adults with my provocative personality and roam the neighborhood in search of adventures. School definitely put a lid on my power. Way too many of my teachers wanted to tame me, put me in a box, turn me into some obedient little clone. I tried to fight it and ended up in corners, in hallways, in detention, etc.

They just keep working me until I retreated into myself and went along with the mind and soul numbing program.

Why do we do this to kids and young adults and think it’s a good idea? (more…)

Hello Readers,

I’ve been doing social rather than social media. Social – to me – is just hanging out with the folks that live in your immediate area. In my case, my town. Social Media means hanging out with folks who do not live in my immediate area. Both are good. Time wise it can be tricky. I felt exhausted trying to send out two newsletters and a local email. Kind of like Simon Says touch your nose, your heels, your back, and the top of your head all it once. It’s impossible.

Making myself crazy didn’t seem like a good move, mentally, physically or emotionally. So, I stepped back here and forward in other areas.

Things I’ve been doing:

Working on my book. It’s  more than halfway done. (more…)

I watched the second season (and maybe series) finale of Enlightened. Not a big TV viewer but this HBO series feels different on every level. Deep, thoughtful writing that leaves the viewer enlightened after watching it. A call to wake up and be an agent of change like main character Amy Jellicoe. So few answer the call to be brave when it presents itself.

From the first episode, it spoke to the part of me that likes to stand up and ask, “What’s going on here?” knowing that I/you may upset people who do not want to upset the status quo apple cart.

The characters are real, rich and complex – you love and don’t love them at the same time, especially Amy who does at least one cringe-worthy act a week. Yet, when each one started to stand up for his or herself I found myself more on the love than don’t love side. For example, I didn’t find Amy’s boss Dougie attractive at all until the last two shows when he joined Amy to do the right thing and turn the sleazy company President Szidon of Abaddon into the press. Then boom, I’m thinking, “When did Dougie get that sexy?” It happened when he stood up for something that mattered to him, when he exhibited his brave “I don’t give a crap what they do to me” side.  (more…)

About two weeks ago, a few friends and I held a creative visioning session at our local library. It’s part of the creativity group I started to move my town to a new, artsy, creative, community-oriented kind of place. We sketched, shared and schemed ways to take small steps to get us there. The participants came up with some phenomenal ideas for restaurants, recycling, biking, museums, art-centers, community public spaces, etc.

How often do any of us get asked to do that? We’ve had some not-that-helpful consultant led events where you say stuff and it ends up in a giant circular file never to be seen again. Sometimes, I swear it’s just an information gathering session for developers. This was put on by the community for the community.

I’d love for some of you to share your ways to create a world driven by love and kindness rather than hate, indifference and meanness. (more…)

I didn’t realize how much time had passed since my last post! Am life-deep in trying to get a creativity (off) center up and running in my town. I’m meeting so many people! Everywhere I go I just walk up to folks and ask if they want to be involved in some way with the project, beginning with getting on my email list. Almost everyone says yes! Was going to post info about my trip to the Mark Twain Museum in Hartford, but will do that perhaps next week.

I’ve also been enthralled with the 29 Days Of Giving Challenge I started on September 15th. It’s been remarkable to say the least. Every day I need to find someone or something to be thankful for and find a way to show that. I openly compliment people more. I drop off little gifts. I show gratitude to unexpected things like the gorgeous maple tree in my yard or my legs for being strong enough to take me around the neighborhood. (more…)

I graduated 6 months early from high school and waitressed full-time at a chain restaurant before going to college. It was going to be my spending money.

What a great life experience! I often worked with single mothers trying to support their children or young women putting themselves through college. One mother was downright hilarious. We yacked it up all the time when it was slow. She had a lot of funny mother stories. I learned first hand how hard some folks have to work to bring home the bacon.

Initially, I was the worst waitress and my supervisor “Wanda” always had terse words for me. I could barely handle 1 table let alone the 6 she routinely gave me. (more…)

As a child I saw the movie Pollyanna starring Haley Mills and never forgot it, especially the scenes where prisms created rainbows on the walls. As an adult, I used to frequent antique stores looking for a lamp just like the one I saw in the movie. I wanted pretty rainbows to dance  on my walls, too.

Recently, I rented the film in the children’s section of the library. I’ve watched it twice. Even better than I remembered because the moral of the story clearly seemed directed at adults. In the film, Pollyanna Whittier’s parents die, so she goes to live in a huge Victorian with her wealthy, spinster aunt Polly Harrington in the town of Harrington. Polly treats her in a cold manner, even giving her a small, dusty room way up in the attic. But Pollyanna’s grateful for the room because she’s never had her own room. (more…)