If you enjoyed reading “Eat Pray Love”, perhaps you’d like to create your own eat pray love experience with me on my Italy Retreat for Women to live la dolce vita, the sweet life. Even though the Italy Retreat this September is filled, I encourage you to make plans for the September 2011 Italy Retreat.
How can you prepare?
4 Steps:
1.) Start saving money for the trip. Have a special jar on your shelf or a travel savings account. Each week add more to your Italy jar.
2.) Create the trip in your imagination. Visualize yourself strolling along the Mediterranean, eating gelato or enjoying a spa on the Italian island of Ischia or Capri.
3.) Jump out of the duldrums and be courageous like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love. Check out her book if you haven’t already, and read other books about Italy throughout the year. Some of my favorite books to read about Italy can be found on my Italy Retreat blog. Just scroll to the bottom of the page.
4.) Even if you don’t create your own Eat Pray Love experience in Italy, find the moments in your life to go for more than you ever dreamed possible.
The book was a huge success and I’m sure the movie will be too (opening Friday August 13) because Elizabeth captures the joy of courageously following a dream, even though it may not be supported by others. She also reminds us that we will recover from sadness in our lives.
I love this section from the book about happiness:
“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
Each day think of 3 aspects to experience happiness:
EAT: I’m not promoting eating your troubles away in order to find happiness. Far from that, but part of travel in Italy naturally includes indulging in the pleasure of eating delicious food. Again, if your eat pray love adventure does not include leaving your own town, know that eating is symbolic for experiencing life’s pleasures.
PRAY: is a daily experience whether or not you are in Italy visiting an ancient church, or enjoying art, architecture, and turquoise waters that take your breath away, you will be filled with tranquility. Even if not in Italy, daily spend time in prayer, meditation, and communing with nature. I’m visiting Boulder and walking in the mountains to connect with the beauty of creation. This can be deep prayer.
LOVE: Open heart, feel deeply. Think about self-love–you will fall in love with yourself, and the possibilities that the outer beauty of Italy offers. Self-love does not have to mean narcissism, but an appreciation of your beauty and qualities. Love yourself first to be able to love others in a more accepting way.
How do you manifest eating, praying, and loving in your life?
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Let’s start our days out like four year old Jessica and stand on your sinks, in front of the mirror, and give ourselves a pep talk. We can all do a little self life coaching to lift us over the rough spots in our days.
Gotta love this kid!
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The Pulse of Commitment
Commitment is tangible, like the beat of your heart felt in your pulse. Have you ever had the experience of being so committed to a goal that no matter how many roadblocks you encountered, you would not give up? How do you know when to continue in the same vein or take another path? Are the roadblocks a sign that you should quit?
I can’t answer that for anyone else, but I’d advise you if you want to re-examine your commitment, to do 3 things first: First, be quiet for awhile, secondly, ask yourself questions, and lastly, listen for your answer deep in your soul.
I do know that once I was committed to applying for Italian citizenship for me and my children, I jumped through all the hoops. More than four years ago, I requested information from the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. It was two years before they even looked at my request. I was told that, every day, they get 96,000 requests.
In order for me to apply for Italian citizenship, I had to prove that my paternal grandfather was still an Italian citizen when my father was born in the United States. If he had denounced his Italian citizenship, then I could not apply.
These last four years have been an emotional roller coaster while I was researching, waiting, gathering documents, having them translated into Italian, getting gold apostilles on each document from State agencies, and waiting some more. I wanted to quit so many times.
Twelve months ago, after driving five hours to the Italian Consulate in the US, to apply, I hit another major roadblock. (more…)
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Their purpose is for all of us to create a more caring nation, just through the simple act of listening.
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Many of you have asked about the personal life coaching and mentoring that I do, and why I named this blog The Happiness Zone. (In January 2010, it’s now called BeHappyLifeCoach.com) The main reason is because I believe that the glory of life on earth is to expand our possibilities. I like to discover and share possibilities that may help us to be happier. In these economic times, it becomes even more evident that our source of happiness and peace comes from within. So, to stay in the ‘happiness zone’ will give us great support and ease.
We’ve come to a time in our lives, in the United States and other developed countries, that what we depended upon or took for granted, is no longer stable, like the banking system. I guess the trust was only an illusion anyway. As people are losing their jobs, facing foreclosures, and increased prices, it’s crucial that we not be taken down by pessimism or doom and gloom. Therefore, keeping my blog alive with tips and inspiration for happiness is my way of creatinge more joy in the world.
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
With certainty know that we all have different interpretations of whatever we hear. We put different meanings on words, events, and conversations. I usually see this in the way we use our belief systems to interpret. Recently, it became so clear to me in yet another way–in my writing group.
I just started meeting with a group of women writers every Wednesday afternoon to enjoy free writing in the spirit of author Natalie Goldberg and her book Writing Down the Bones.
We have a stash of topics in a pile, or someone just makes one up in the moment. We set the timer and start writing. At the sound of the bell, we stop and read to each other, sometimes repeating the reader’s lines that were memorable or meaningful.
I find it fascinating how we can take one topic and have a different perspective, voice, and style.
One of last week’s topics was, “What’s Blooming?” There were 8 of us with 8 different perspectives, like fingerprints, each unique. It may help increase our happiness quotient if we realize that we are each writing our own memoir as we make our interpretations throughout the day. Someone else may have a whole different slant on things, and that doesn’t make them wrong.
Anyway, I thought I’d share a few of the interpretations with you from What’s Blooming?
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder.
My thought for this Thursday is about happiness, In fact, 10 thoughts to be exact, expressed in Top 10 happiness quotes I’ve chosen from my happiness archives. In my coaching and teaching experiences I find that many people use unhappiness to motivate themselves, whether they realize it or not. So often I hear, ” I don’t want to be happy, I just want to attract my perfect partner, then I can be happy.” It’s as though being happy first is not even an option. By staying unhappy, they think they will be more acutely aware, and vigilant in their search. If they were happy now, they’d forget that they wanted to find an ideal partner, and just be in lala land and alone. Why would they forget what they wanted, if they were happy?
What do you think?
We sometimes become accustomed to thinking that we have to get something from outside us in order to be happy. In truth, it works the other way. We can contact our inner Source of happiness, no matter what partner is in our life or not in the picture.
Here are 10 quotes to inspire happiness.
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
photo: Earth rising over the Moon
Thoughtful Thursday: Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of
us to ponder.
Today’s Quote is:
As soon as you trust yourself you will learn to live….
–Friedrich von Schiller
Elizabeth Gilbert is a creative writer and the author of Eat, Pray, Love and has recently spoken about creativity on TED. “As stated on their website, “TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. This TED site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.”
I’ve heard from so many individuals that they are afraid of the work they were put on this earth to do. It may be too hard, or too much work, or just unclear. What about creative ventures make us afraid? For some reason, over the years, creativity and suffering are often linked. Maybe in the creative process, we don’t believe we are “doing it right.” What do you mean by right? How would you know if it was “right?”
Elizabeth Gilbert’s suggestion is “that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line.”
If you can just trust that still small voice within, and follow your passion or impulse to create, you begin to trust ‘the process’ which is a part of ‘yourself.’ Whether it’s to create words, art, a garden, a family, or ideas, a birth is occurring within you. Revere yourself at least as the vessel through which the creativity is flowing through.
Elizabeth Gilbert ended her talk encouraging us “Don’t be afraid. Just show up for your piece of it…..it’s okay just to have the love and stubbornness to keep showing up! We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to a young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”
Listen and be inspired to hear the talk and 400 other fascinating talks on TED.
How do you use your creative process? Do you trust yourself? Is it okay to trust yourself even if you make mistakes?
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Thoughtful Thursday: Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder.
“The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” – Charles Dubois
I noticed that “Blogher of the Week” Award was given to Tangobaby2 for the article about the young mother and 3 children who were homeless on the streets of San Francisco looking for a safe place to stay, escaping from domestic violence. My questions immediately were, “Where is HER mother, grandmother, extended family? How did she end up so alone? What happened to the city shelters?” Aren’t you confounded that this happens in the United States? I am.
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
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