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Write Your Own Story
I was sitting in a restaurant last week surrounded by friends, and we were all laughing, eating, drinking, and toasting the guest of honor. The long table was filled with people from all over the world who I didn’t know just a few short months before moving to Italy.
As if art imitated life (or life imitated art?), I zoomed out from that table scene and thought of the film “Eat, Pray, Love.” While there are so many uncanny parallels to my own story, there is a scene where Elizabeth (who has come to Italy to start her new journey) finds herself sitting at a table with the new friends she’s made, and they are all eating, drinking wine, and laughing. I’d thought of that scene so often since first seeing the film, and I remember wishing one day to live my life just like that.
A Home of My Own
As an interior designer, I have helped countless clients create the places where they live their lives - the places they call home. Through the process, they came to understand their physical and emotional needs and gained the confidence to express their own sense of style. From there, I set about finding the fabrics, furnishings, and artwork that brought their concept of home into a physical manifestation, but they were merely the props that allowed them to align with what matched their unique frequencies.
No Regrets
When I sit down to write, I often reflect on what is happening in my own life or what is swirling around the collective. Lately, I’ve been having many conversations with friends and coaching clients who are expressing regret that they didn’t make certain decisions in life when the opportunities to do so presented themselves. These regrets can be relatively small - “I should have taken that great apartment when it became available,” “I wish I had stuck with playing the piano,” “Why did I buy that expensive dress I’ll never wear?” - and don’t impact one's life trajectory too much. But then there are the regrets that have much deeper consequences and leave us with lifelong wounds.
Beginner’s Mind…Again
Last week, I was excited to see my personal belongings being loaded on a truck and headed to NY, where they will set sail to meet me in my new home across the sea.
As the moving van pulled away, I was reminded of the first trip I took there in April. Leaving Rome and heading deeper into the countryside, I had a bit of a panic attack as I started to ascend the road leading to “the rock” upon which my hilltop city rests. Within minutes of arriving at the place where I was staying, it suddenly hit me that I had never been to this part of the country before, didn’t know a soul, and didn’t speak the language. But fear of the unknown quickly turned to excitement of the unknown as I reminded myself that I was going to have the opportunity to have beginner's mind again and to see so many new things that were waiting for me to discover.