Open Different Doors, You May Find A You There that You Never Knew Was Yours. Anything Can Happen. ~Mary Poppins.
The first time I got laid off from a job, I felt a bit frightened. I had been conditioned to think I would never work again due to a resume gap and I was just 30.
It is a bit sad that we train people to think their lives have to go in a rigid straight path, when the zig zagged path is not only possible but also the most memorable one because it deviates from the beaten path.
Eventually, I got over my fear of job loss and began to notice doors all around me, ones I had never needed to see before. The good news was that I never forgot how to see these doors and have been opening new ones ever since.
Like Mary Poppins said in the quote above, “anything can happen.” I opened doors to take acting classes, travel alone, perform a one woman play, do things I didn’t think I could like bike across Italy, open my own business, design a line of greeting cards, speak up at meetings, get in touch with my inner extrovert, paint whatever I wanted, even hike on a tiny little path with a 200-foot or more drop off when I have an issue with heights. I did it!
Once I got into the groove of living more boldly I never went back.
And if you don’t notice any open doors, you can create your own and then open them. A variation on a theme of opening doors. If you like to do exercises, take some paper and draw doors, cut open a door, then glue it to the front of another piece of paper and write where the doors take you on the space behind the open door. You can also make a list of doors and number them — then write next to them where these doors might take you.
Plus, you can also open magical doors for others who may not be able to see their own. Pay it forward by opening doors for everyone around you who appears to want or need one. They can choose to wander through or stay where they are. But you did something for someone else and that always feels good.
I have met many marvelous people on the other side of new doors, I might not have met if I didn’t have the curiosity to see what was on the other side.
Be curious and it will take you far and through a lot of doors …
Feel More Alive,
Giulietta