Designing a Passionate Life

Just For Fun - The Edible Food Festival

Designing a passionate life includes loving live and having fun. I was watching a TV show in which I saw people who love books enjoying the experience in a whole new way. They attended the "Edible Book Festival". I have never heard of it and thought that it was a great example of how people found a new way to expand on their passion for books.

The festival rules are simple; your creation must be edible and is a play on a book title. Some of the entries in the Seattle festival this year were: Huckleberry Flan ("Huckleberry Finn"), Troubled Sweets ("Troubled Sleep"), Much Ado about Muffin ("Much Ado about Nothing"). The designs are creative, clever, fun, and whimsical. I saw people absolutely enjoying themselves and it made me smile. I decided to do a little research and found out that the festival is held all over the globe on or around the first of April.

I am always inspired when people from all over the world find each other and share what they are passionate about. What are you passionate about? How can you connect with people who have similar passions? What would your life be like if you followed your passions?

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Take a look at some of the fun entries in the festival: The Edible Book Festival

Book Review - The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

Designing a passionate life creates an experience of freedom, joy, and fulfillment. Don Miguel Ruiz, author of "The Four Agreements" offers very simple but powerful methods for transforming your life into one of joy and love.

This book is organized in a manner that is easy to follow. There is an introductory chapter, the four agreements and then a chapter about the future. The four agreements are based on ancient toltec wisdom that is very simple and powerful. Ruiz speaks about each agreement and gives suggestions on how to live each of the agreements. The emphasis is to keep these four agreements with yourself and then with others.

I will give you a brief description of the four agreements with my own interpretation but this is simply the tip of the iceberg. To fully understand each of these agreements you have to read the words of Don Miguel Ruiz. I have summarized the agreements below.

The Four Agreements from the book are:

• Be impeccable with your word - Always speak with integrity, don't gossip, and don't speak negatively about yourself.
• Don't take anything personally - What others do or say has nothing to do with you because it is a projection of their own issues. This is a powerful lesson to learn and one that can potentially set you free. How many times have you been hurt by what you perceived as some sort of insult?
• Don't make assumptions - Ask questions to facilitate clear communications. It is so easy to make up stories when we make assumptions. Maybe you pass Sally in the hall at work and she didn't acknowledge you, so you think that you did something wrong and Sally is mad at you. Another story that could be just as true is that Sally just received some really bad news and couldn't possibly see you because she was in her own world processing the bad news. If you don't know what someone feels, then ask questions to clarify. Don't make up a story.
• Always do your best - No matter what state of mind or body you are in, do your best. What you do when you are sick will not be the same as what you can do when you are healthy and vibrant. If you always do your best, you will avoid self-judgment, regrets, and negative thoughts.

I found a lot of wisdom in each of the agreements and I absorbed the information from the book that I needed to incorporate into my life. I think the book has a lot of ancient wisdom in it and you could gain a gem or two from the book. I highly recommend it.

What would happen if you simply practiced the first agreement in terms of living a passionate life. What would your life look like?

Use the Following link to locate Ruiz's book (search by the title)
"The Four Agreements"

Taking Chances

Designing a passionate life requires taking chances. That's exactly what one women did who has a passion for singing. She believes in her talent and took a big chance by trying out for Britain's Got Talent TV show. If you haven't already heard the story then let me fill you in.

Susan Boyle is a 47 year old single woman who lives alone in her mother's home and as she says, is still looking for employment. When she walked out onto the stage you could hear people laugh, make cat calls and in general dismiss her, simply based on her appearance. She didn't seem fazed by it and was very gracious when speaking to the judges.

In the event you haven't seen it yet I will let you watch and experience her performance. What I do want to point out is that Susan Boyle is passionate about her singing and took a big chance by putting herself out there in front of the audience to be judged and possibly ridiculed.

I found her to be an inspiration and when I am feeling stuck or down, I will watch Susan Boyle's premier on the big stage and I will be inspired to follow my passions.

In the event that you have not yet seen the video, check it out and be ready to be inspired:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

When are you going to take a chance and follow your passions? Sign up for my free PDD report and find out how to get started now.

Adopting New Beliefs

Designing a passionate life includes letting go of some ideas, concepts, and beliefs that keep you on the same track you've always been on. In order to follow your passions you are going to have to let go of some old beliefs and adopt some new ones. Many times our beliefs keep us from seeing the possibilities and trying new ways of doing or seeing things.

I've given you some examples below of possible beliefs that you may have that could get in the way of living a passionate life.

Possible beliefs to let go of:
I can't follow my passions
I can be all things to all people
I can do it all perfectly
I'm too busy to take a vacation
I'm too busy to spend time with my family

Possible new beliefs to adopt:
I can follow my passions
I can only be true to myself
I do the best possible job I can at all times
I have plenty of time for vacations
I set time aside to spend with my family.

Perhaps some of these resonate with you. If not, make your own list of the beliefs that do not serve you and write new beliefs that do serve you. Work with one new belief for a week. Every day, repeat the new belief and take action towards making it your new reality. What shows up when you make new choices?

What would happen if you started living a passionate life? Sign up for my free PDD report and see what you can do now.

Book Review - The Answer is Simple...Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit

Designing a passionate life requires that you love yourself and live your Spirit. I think the author, Sonia Choquette, is right on with her title. This has been my experience and it is the same with others that I know who live passionate lives.

This book contains ten practical ways to practice living your Spirit. Her writing is easy to follow and the techniques are explained well and easy to implement. Sonia Choquette includes a number of examples throughout her book to demonstrate how her techniques have worked for herself and her clients.

I tried a number of her methods and found them easy to implement and very effective. One of my favorites is to listen to music that speaks to my heart. As Sonia says "To connect with the particular variety (of music) that moves our soul is one of the easiest self-loving choices we can make. Music is the language of Spirit, and it brings release from all that bogs our lives down."

I know this about myself, but I forgot how music can transform my mood in an instant when I play music that connects with my heart. This was a great reminder for me and now I make it a habit to play this kind of music regularly and keep me connected to Spirit.

What do you do to show self-love and to live your Spirit? Following your passions would be a great start. I highly recommend Sonia's book, it is an easy read and very practical.

Use the following link to find Sonia's book:
The Answer is Simple...Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit by Sonia Choquette
(Type 'The Answer is Simple' in the Search field)

Licensing Your Art

Designing a passionate life as an artist requires creativity in the making of the art and in selling the art. I don't consider myself an artist by any means but I have a creativity streak inside of me that very much appreciates the many ways that artists express their creativity. I'm continually amazed at the different creations done by artists.

I recently interviewed artist Tara Reed who is a dynamic person and absolutely passionate about what she does. Tara is a great example of someone who followed her passions. Tara's formal training is in marketing and sales, she is not an artist by training but she is passionate about her art. Tara was married and a stay at home Mom and then five years ago she found herself going through a divorce. She had a decision to make, go back to the corporate world and the steady paycheck or follow her passion for art and make a business out of it. She chose her art.

Five years later, she has a successful business licensing her art and teaching other artists how to do the same thing. Licensing your art means that you are giving the rights to a manufacturer to put your art on their products. Depending on how you structure the contract, you will receive a flat fee or royalties on a per piece basis.

Examples of manufactured items that contain licensed art include; fabric, paper products, dishes, coasters, bookmarks, golf balls, magnets, and shot glasses. Anything that has a piece of art on it could possibly contain licensed art.

Tara mentioned that the main concept that you need to understand about licensing your art is that it is your art's job to sell the manufacturer's product. It is not the job of the product to showcase your art. Because of the very personal nature of art, this may or may not work for you. It's important for you to understand this going in. You will have to make compromises and changes based on client feedback.

Tara is very up front about what it takes to license your art and explains it in her e-books. If you have any interest at all in licensing your art I highly encourage you to listen to the 30 minute interview I had with Tara. She gives you a lot of great information about what it takes and what you have to know to license your art. Click the button on the teleseminar page to take a look at her products.

Click here to listen to my interview with Tara Reed

How to Stay Focused on Your Passion

Designing a passionate life requires you to stay focused on your passion. After you identify what is really important to you in your life, you need to stay focused on it. On the surface, it sounds easy but as you know, stuff happens and it's easy to loose your focus. When this happens, step back, notice that your attention is focused elsewhere and bring it back to your passion. The following list contains a few things that you can do to stay focused or refocus on your passions.

How to Stay Focused

• Write down your passions
• Share your passions with others
• Build a team that supports you in pursuing your passion
• Connect to the energy of your passion
• Visualize each step in the process of pursuing your passion
• Take small steps, one at a time
• Review stories of people who inspire you when you feel stuck

In keeping with the last point of finding inspiring stories, I want to share a video of a young man who followed his passion in circumstances that many of us don't even come close to understanding. There are times when it's easy to fall into the 'poor me' syndrome. It's at times like this that having a few inspiring stories to prompt you into reconnecting to your passions helps you to move forward and take action.

Take a look at this inspiring video and decide what your next step towards living a passionate life is going to be.  When you think you can't take that next step, or it feels too hard, play this video: DJ's Story

 

Self-Mastery - The Masters

Designing a passionate life includes self-mastery. I just finished watching "The Masters' golf tournament. I'm not a big golf fan but my husband is and when he watches I often get caught up in the game. As I watched the tournament today a number of thoughts occurred to me.

• Each of the men playing is passionate about the game of golf. They eat, drink, dream, and live for golf. They are following their passions and having a great time doing it.
• Each of them has similar skill sets. However, at their level of play, it all comes down to the mental game of self-mastery.
• Each of them must be absolutely present in each moment that they are planning their next shot, when they swing the club. Any mental wandering and the shot could be doomed. They are aware of what the other players are doing but if they let themselves get caught up in what the other person is doing they could loose focus and miss a shot.

What I noticed about Tiger Woods is that he didn't play at the top of his game but he did stay focused. What he does better than many others, that we can learn from, is to stay focused when things don't go the way you want them to and to keep moving forward with mental self-mastery.

Kenny Perry was on track to win and be one of the oldest players to win the masters. In his college days he injured his neck. This set back did not stop him. In order to keep playing golf he had to create a swing unique to his body and it works.

The winner of the tournament Angel Cabrera played sporadic throughout the day but he stayed focused and kept moving forward. Letting go of each thing that went wrong and he had a number of them. He was in the woods and hit the ball off of a tree and everyone thought he was done. He wasn't.

The commentators talked about the fact that they must stay focused, visualize, and be present in each moment on the course. This is no different for you when you are designing a passionate life. It all comes down to your own mental self-mastery. Where do you place your focus when things don't go the way you planned? How present are you in each moment as you move forward?

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The Power of Words

Designing a passionate life includes an understanding of the power of words. This became very apparent to me after attending the Silence Retreat. As I mentioned in an earlier post, during the retreat we were not to make eye contact, talk, or interact with other people what so ever. When we sat down to eat or during free time, we shared space with other people but had not interaction with them.

At first, my upbringing of being polite and making eye contact with people had a real problem with this whole scenario. Then I gave it up and surrendered to the silence. What I found was that I was still present with the person next to me at a whole different level. I appreciated each person for just being who they were in that moment. I had no judgments, no need to try to impress them, we simply shared the same space and it was extremely peaceful and judgment free.

After we broke silence on the second day we were able to sit down together while we ate. What I noticed during this time, is that after people spoke and I listened that my judgments came in immediately and I created all sorts of stories about the people I was talking to. It became very clear to me about how powerful the words that we say are as well as the way we say them. This brought me to a new awareness about my judgments of myself and others, and how they interfere with being present.

What would it be like to engage with people and simply appreciate them for who they are without forming any judgments? How would designing a passionate life be like without your stories around whether it's possible or not, or what will people think if I do XYZ? Sign up for my free PDD report today and find out what you can do to start on the road to living a passionate life.

The Power of Silence and Deep Listening

Designing a passionate life is enhanced by silence and deep listening. I just returned from a two-day silence and deep listening retreat. I had never been to a silent retreat so I didn't know what to expect or how I would respond. I was a little concerned because I didn't know if I would 'get' it or be able to be silent with other people around for that long.

In our culture we are constantly bombarded with sounds. We use the sounds to distract ourselves from our thoughts or circumstances, to occupy our minds, or to zone out. What happens when you are silent, self-reflective, and listen deeply?

The rules of the retreat were simple. No talking, no eye-contact with other people, no kind of communication with anyone else at the retreat, no music, books to distract ourselves or activities that created any sound, so no hair dryers (that was a challenge for me but I made it). We were to create our own space within the space of the retreat. We were to listen to our inner-voice, inner-guide, intuition, Spirit, or whatever name you give to that part of you that provides answers when you pay attention to it and listen deeply.

The retreat included walking meditations, sitting meditations, self-reflection time, and conscious eating. There are all forms of meditation and I find walking meditations in nature to be very powerful. When I walk in nature my mind is totally present to what I'm experiencing and as a result my heart is open. I can connect with my Spirit and listen to what comes up.

I found the sitting meditations to be harder. I kept 'trying' to hear my Spirit and was getting stone-walled. I was very frustrated but kept at it. It wasn't until Sunday morning that I had a break through. What I realized was that my mind was in the way. It was so busy trying to hear my Spirit that it blocked me from hearing. When I worked through the emotions blocking me, my Spirit had lots of things to say to me and I could hardly keep up.

What does your inner-voice want to say to you? When is the last time you were silent and listened deeply? What is it you would like to ask your inner-voice? When is the last time that you totally immersed yourself in your food and ate consciously? What would your food taste like? I suggest you try a small slice of time in silence and deep listening.

For me, living a passionate life means being silent and deep listening. What does it mean to you? For additional information on how to start living a passionate life, sign up for my free PDD report.