husband was a grown man who was capable of doing his own laundry and making his own sandwiches for a little while.
So I signed on to join the small contingent of one professor, one teacher’s assistant, 17 students (including three mature married women besides myself) who took over the Earl’s Court Beaver Hotel for that glorious adventure. We held class once a week in the breakfast room and the rest of the time we were free to explore London!
How do you take center stage in your life? Going to London and standing on an
empty stage may not thrill you. What I’d like you to take away from my story is that you can rewrite your life. If there is something you’ve longed to do, one way to transform the longing into reality is to start journaling about how you could make it happen. Walt Disney didn’t dream up Disneyland one day then build it the next. It took planning and persistence. Taking center stage in your life means living in the present moment while steering your course with you starring as the leading lady.
Journaling is key to living a life unleashed. Dreaming on paper gives your subconscious a way to communicate with
your conscious self. Give yourself permission to start a
journaling practice of writing longhand for 5-15 minutes everyday and I
promise you surprising things will start happening.
|16 |
Mary E. Knippel, best selling author, your writing mentor, and inspirational speaker uses her 30-years experience as a journalist to support you to take pen in hand to unleash your story worth writing.
A Column
by Nancy Monson
04
Where do you “shrink to fit” in your life instead of expanding to be a star?
We all do it in some way or another. Conditioned by our early experiences in life, we adapt and mold ourselves to fit in and be acceptable, hiding the parts of us that are not appreciated or welcomed, even when they are our natural talents.
The problem is that we grow up, but our conditioning continues, locked in our unconscious. Without the awareness of our conditioning, we keep shrinking to fit into what we were taught so long ago was acceptable.
I know. When I was a young girl, my mother kept comparing me to my two older sisters, who were quite different than me. Thinking that she was helping me, she kept guiding me to be like them instead of supporting me to be who I was. It wasn’t her fault; growing up in a culture where women were good wives and
mothers limited her notion of what was possible for women. I didn’t want to be like my sisters, and even though I was quite smart, I wasn’t good at my sisters’ talents. I could do them, but they weren’t my natural strengths. That was my life for many years. While I did well at what I put my mind to, it eventually cost me my health and my marriage. And it kept my true talents hidden until the year I turned 40 when I became very ill from severe burnout. During my recovery, I committed to changing my life. As scary as making changes would be, I knew it couldn’t be worse than the suffering I was experiencing.
I took the leap and dramatically changed my life, finally following the deeper calling that I had felt within for many years. When later I became a spiritual guide, I realized that deeper calling had been my soul urging me to live the life I was born to live – not the life I had been conditioned to live.
So many times, we feel the deeper urge to live a more fulfilling life. How often do we ignore or drown out those urges out of fear of the change it could bring? It takes courage to be a star in your own life; we must let go of shrinking to fit into whatever version of ourselves we have deemed safe and acceptable. When we shrink, we rob ourselves of the joy and fulfillment that is our birthright—the life our soul, the essence of who we are.
You can have the life you were born to live. You can be a star in your own life. I know. I did it, and now I help others be stars in their own lives. It takes courage, commitment and action. The first step is accepting the reality of where you are in your life. The second step is getting clear that you are meant for and desire something greater. The third step is making a commitment to listen to your soul—the little voice deep inside that’s been whispering it’s time for something better. The fourth step is to get support, whether it’s a close friend, a coach, spiritual guide, your partner, or a support group to help you start to act.
It doesn’t have to be a wholesale change to be a star in your life. Sometimes it’s small changes that can make a profound difference. The key is to commit to yourself. Commit to be the star that you were born to be.
Shrink to Fit or SHINE?
Soul Purpose Advocate
RHG Magazine & TV Guide TM - Summer 2017 © All rights reserved.