October 08th, 2017

What is your secret dream?  What have you always wanted to do?  What inside you wants to be expressed out in the world?  Would you paint, sing, dance, write or jump, climb, fly, race?  Or something else?
 
There is a speech form the movie, Auntie Mame: “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving!”  Not calling you a sucker.  But what about your banquet?  This doesn’t mean you have to change everything you are doing but it does mean to include the things that are inside you that want out. Even if just for a weekend or even a week.  Not because it is the answer to everything but the experience of doing something you have wanted to do can change your whole outlook on life.  And what you bring back with you can enliven everything else.
 
It’s also not just doing something and then returning back to the same routine but it means that you schedule in at certain intervals doing things that are just what you want to experience.  They don’t have to have any relevance to anything else but you and who you are.
 
When you look back on your life how has it been for you?  Have you just worked hard?  Have you struggled to earn a living? Have you done what was expected of you? Have you lived up to some script you didn’t write?
 
Time to change all that.  What do you think life is for?  I can tell you some things it’s not- it’s not to live up to someone’s expectations or to carry on a family business if it isn’t in your heart.  It’s not to be thought of as successful.  It’s to be the wealthiest one in your graduating group.
 
Life is for living.  Really living. I want to offer you a challenge:  write the story of your life so far.  Don’t edit it, just let it come out of the pen onto the paper or out of your fingers onto your lpatop.  Don’t think about it.  Just write. Don’t read it for a day and then open it up and read it.  Do you like what’s there?  If so keep it up.  If you don’t – what are you going to do about it?
 
This is your own very precious life.  Not anyone else’s.  Yours. You came with talents, gifts, abilities that were your ways of experiencing the world.  No one else came with exactly the combination that is yours.  You are unique.  Are you living that way?  No matter how entrenched you are in your life there is always a way to incorporate things that are just you.
 
If you don’t know how then just put it out into the Universe that this is something that you want just for you.  Allow it to come to you - and it will!  If you allow it.  Life is on your side.  No matter how it seems sometimes.  It is for YOU. 
 
I have a friend whose marriage is going through some huge changes.  For the first time she will have to decide for herself what she wants to do with her life. Now she has to focus on herself.  She came from a mother who, though wonderful, demanded obedience and complete attention.  My friend is not use to asking herself what she wants.  Now she realizes that this could be a lot of fun.  She could decide each day what she wants to do. She has a beautiful house, a car, money and lives in one of the most beautiful places in the country (and, no It’s not Charleston!). She is free for the first time in her life. She has choices:  she could fall apart or she could have a lot of fun and thrive. 
 
Same for you.  You could keep your head down and keep going or you could start to have fun.
 
Enjoy writing and reading your story. Enjoy living the things that make you come alive.

It’s all there right within you to be and experience what is really you.  It’s important to do that.  That’s what life is for.  It’s not a grind or a punishment for past wrongs.  Honest.  Live it your way.  Enjoy it.  These are not just empty words.  They are an invitation.
My best to you,
Dianne