Right There In Front of You...

I recently heard a statistic that 43% of adults suffer adverse health effects from stress and that nearly 90% of all doctor's visits are for stress-related ailments.  There are even studies that show stress plays a major role in the incidence of some cancers!   This got me thinking...

We all experience stress in some form or another.  I can't think of anyone, anywhere who hasn't experienced stress at some point. And, if someone tells you they've never felt stress over anything, than that person's nose is probably growing like Pinocchio's!  Did I just rhyme?

Those that are good at dealing with stress, feel it when it is necessary.  They use it to their advantage and lock it away when the time comes to let go.  Part of me hates those kinds of people!  I'm NOT one of them.  For me, stress is a constant, albeit uninvited, companion. 

Ironically, it was stress that led me to a major development in my soul searching journey this week.  Doesn't irony just piss you off sometimes??

This past week has been particularly stressful in that it has been my first week working full force since my surgery.  While I am proud of the apparent motivation I have, it may have been a bit too much too soon.  Seeking to find respite from the self-imposed stress I was feeling, I poured myself a glass of wine and put on my all-time favorite show tune - Phantom of the Opera.  God love Andrew Lloyd Webber!  As I drifted off into another world, remembering the great memories that particular show has afforded me over the years, it suddenly hit me.  My greatest passion has been, and always will be, the theatre!  It is in the theatre that I have found the majority of those moments that, as Maya Angelou said, "take [my] breath away." And, for the first time in a long time, I'm not actively involved in it.

As a child, I participated in school plays and musicals.  Auditioned for the local talent shows and followed anything and everything that was ballet or Broadway. For years, I danced ballet.  Regardless of what was happening in my life, the minute the first notes on the piano began and my hand touched the cold barre on the wall, everything else melted away.  It was just me and the music.  And, even after all of these years, I can still smell the backstage of the opera house and feel the excitement that hit the instant you walked through the stage door.  Even after I stopped dancing, I fulfilled that part of me with teaching others how to dance. 

When I decided to go to work for a performing arts company as a grant writer, my passion for the theatre intertwined with the stress of it being a full-time career and this started to eat away at what had always been my sanctuary.  Even when I was an audience member at an unrelated performance, the stresses of my job were always present.  Perhaps my move to real estate was a subconscious step toward regaining that place in my life where I go to get away from everything - to finding that missing piece. 

Given my background, childhood passions and interests, I'm not in the least bit surprised that I found what I was looking for while listening to The Phantom of the Opera (my mom is probably laughing!)   And, in a strange way, I can credit the Phantom with inspiring my next move...community theatre!  A place that is just mine.  A place to let go.  A place to feel that excitement again. 

It's amazing how what we're looking for the most, is often times right there in front of us.  It just takes something (or someone) to open our eyes.

Next stop...acting & singing lessons (it's been a while)...I can't wait!  Stay tuned.  This is either going to be great or a complete disaster.  Either way, it's going to be a lot of fun!

Emily

It's Always Best To Start At The Beginning

I worry.  I worry a lot!  I'm a perfectionist, who takes everything to heart and always questions what could have been done differently.  I am the first to admit when I am wrong.  I am the last to admit defeat and I often times blame myself for things that are really beyond my control.  I am the queen of second guessing myself - professionally and personally.  And, I can tell you first-hand this is a very stressful way to live!  So, as I take on my soul searching quest, my first realization is that I must change the level of stress and pressure I exert on myself.  This could be easier said than done!  Stay tuned for further updates...this is a work in progress!

This morning, as I was sitting in the doctor's office waiting for him to tell me if my surgery was successful or not (yikes!), I started to think. Uh Oh!  What if he tells me the surgery wasn't successful.  What if I have months more of having to sit back and watch the world race by.  I slept very little last night.  Fortunately, he gave me great news and now I've been given the ok to begin life as usual.  But, this surgery has put everything into perspective for me.  "Life as usual" is not what I want.  Now that I've been cleared physically, I have an amazing chance to make a difference in my life.  But where do I start??

Glinda, the "Good Witch" once told a young girl from OZ that "it's always best to start at the beginning."  So, that's just where I'll start.  In order to find that piece of me that is missing...that passion in my life...I have to first define for myself what passion is.

Webster's Dictionary defines passion as " a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept "  Ummmm....really?  Doesn't that sound a bit cold to you?  Shouldn't passion be something warm (hot even), something deep down inside you.  Something that you can't live without.  I am passionately in love with my husband. I'm a newlywed.  But this journey is not about the passion I share with him.  That is not the missing piece in my life - it is the perfect piece in my life.  I'm looking for that passion that is mine and just mine alone.  No one else has to understand it.  No one else has to share it.  I don't have to explain it to anyone, because it is what makes me complete.  Alright, so the dictionary was no help.  I must search elsewhere - what are those moments that "take {my} breath away," to which Maya Angelou referred??  I think it is in those moments that I will find myself.

I feel like I should have the Indiana Jones theme music playing in the background.  This is turning out to be quite the quest. 

Emily

Finding Moments That Take Our Breath Away

Life, it’s a funny thing, isn’t it?  Whether you believe life comes from God or Mother Nature, it’s one of the greatest gifts we, as humans, receive.  It’s brief, but it’s amazing.  Yet, so many of us just let life happen to us.  What we should be doing is make life happen to us.  

Recently, I underwent some serious surgery that has forced me to take time off from work.  This surgery couldn’t have hit at a worse time.  I had just left a corporate 9-5 job to start my own business.  I knew it was going to be a hard transition, but I wanted the freedom to control my own success.  And then, boom!!  Out on the sidelines watching the world move on without me.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about things lately and I realized that for so long I have defined my life not by who I am, but what I do.  Whether it was corporate marketing, grant writing, real estate or being a wife to a wonderful man, I was defining me by what I did on a daily basis.  And, when I was prevented from fulfilling these roles to the full extent, I was lost.   

My life was controlling me when it should be the other way around.  So, where to begin?  How do I start making life happen to me, when for so long I have just let it happen to me?   This is going to call for some in-depth soul searching and I’m guessing I’m not the first person to which this has happened.

Maya Angelou once said “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”  Life is about finding passion.  It is in passion that we find ourselves, and it is finding that passion that this blog is about.

Please join me in this quest to find passion and those “moments that take our breath away.”  Perhaps we can find it together.

Emily