Updates from Italy
Hello everyone from Turin Italy!
This is the beginning of my 3rd week here and I’m really enjoying it. Each Italian city I’ve explored is so different and Turin is no exception. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Savoy for centuries and the first capital of a united Italy from 1861-1865. Even though it’s lovely and there are lots of things to do here, it’s not on the short list for tourists when you have so many beautiful cities to choose from with tons of ancient architecture and a large percentage of the world’s art treasures on display, sometimes for FREE in churches! But, if you find yourself here, it is a lovely place to relax, there is so much to see, and as always in Italy, delicious things to eat.
Last week I visited the Egyptian Museum, which has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in a museum outside of Egypt! I saw items that spanned a time frame of at least 4,000 years old. Items that were 500 years older to Julius Caesar than he is to us!
I’m beginning my 4th week of Italian classes today (I did a week in Milan before I came here) and I’m so happy with how much I’m learning. I just had breakfast in my tiny apartment and watched a couple videos on Youtube to refresh my understanding of some grammar. I’m in a space in my life right now were I can devote my time and energy to this project and because of that I’m making lots of progress. Things that were frustrating for me the past several years are clicking. That got me thinking about how many times I beat myself up for being a “bad student”. So this week I want to talk about:
Being Kind to Ourselves:
In my book, AfterLIFE, Waking up From my American Dream, I told the story of how my coach Elli Richter gave me the advice to have my own back and to be my own best friend. Apparently I’m still learning this lesson, much like Italian pronouns and prepositions.
What do I mean? We are all busy in our lives with all our roles and responsibilities. With our jobs, our families, friends, trying to take care of ourselves, our stuff, and on top of that working towards some life goals in a host of categories. If you’ve been following me you know that past 11 years of my life have been…busy. Among all the other things I’ve been working on, I have had this goal of learning Italian. It’s something I wrote down as a goal in my 20’s and didn’t begin until years later. I went at it really hard for 2 year in 2017-2019 then life got EXTRA busy. And if you remember we had a global pandemic that impacted all our lives.
While living and working through that and my other projects, including writing my book and starting my podcast, the energy I had left for studying was just not there. I kept having “lessons” but they were really just a chance to practice speaking. My teacher Valentina did her best to encourage me, but I just had nothing left to give. AND, I felt guilty about that.
I developed an internal dialogue that I was a “bad student”. Why couldn’t I make myself study? Many friends told me what I would have said if I witnessed them beating themselves up. “Hey, you have a lot on your plate right now. You’re doing fine. Relax. When the time is right you’ll put the energy into this if it’s still important to you.”
I knew this, but I still felt guilty. I still felt frustrated that I was making the same mistakes over and over again after so many years. But, that was silly. I wasn’t studying so how could I have expected to improve?
Ways to to be kind to ourselves as we pursue our dreams:
PRIORITIZE
One thing I’ve done over the years that works really well is to have a mind map of all my goals. Take a sheet of paper, put your name right in the middle and circle it. Now draw lines from the center out and at the end of each line add a category for each type of goal in your life. I had Physical, Financial, Mental, Spiritual, Contribution Goals, and a category for my Roles as a father, brother, friend and so on. Then under each category I had all the things I wanted to accomplish that year that would put me on track to the things I wanted to accomplish over the course of my lifetime. Under financial you could put progress you want to make towards paying off a debt or building an emergency fund as an example. Under physical a work out goal or some measurable achievement related to your health.
I usually do this in November or December for the following year. It allows me to asses what what realistic and by having all the goals in one place allowed me to set goals that were complimentary and hopefully in balance. It also helps me be kind to myself in the sense that it limited what I was trying to do that year so that I didn’t feel guilty for what I didn’t do. The more you do it the better you’ll get at knowing what you can accomplish in a year and if the goals are important enough to you you’ll make time for them.
CELEBRATE AND RECOGNIZE YOUR PROGRESS
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