To Begin Again (On Renaissances and Changing Lives)
May 28, 2008 | Get Inspired!, How to Change Your Life
I’ve been working up to this blog post for a few days now. One day last week on my way into the store I was telling myself that I needed to blog, that I wanted (I really did) to blog - I just didn’t know what to blog about. Then, right there, while driving through the green light: I knew what to blog about.
Not just one blog entry - but something that would become a series (for as long as it takes me to feel it’s finished). You see, driving through that intersection it became very real to me that in the last year or so I had successfully accomplished what so many of us want to do: I had changed my life.
My life today - in every single way - is totally different than my life (than even my world) just over a year ago. And if I had managed to change my life, well then… so could you!
Not only that, but because I had succeeded in the change (not to say my journey is complete) if I sifted through the last year and a half of my life I should be able to put my finger on those very things that had been pivotal in helping me to successfully experience a shifting of worlds.
I could teach you how to change your life!
Or, well, I could - in a more specific way - come alongside you as you journey and share my insights and experiences in a way that would help you move forward.
For the last week or so I’ve been letting this idea and possibility grow. I’ve been recording blog post ideas and basically rolling the idea around my head to see if I still like it. Until finally, it just became about beginning - and finding time to begin. So, here I am. Words on page. Doing what always needs to be done: Beginning.
Which reminds me…
Have I ever explained my obsession with the word “Renaissance” to you before? I mean, my coaching business is called Everyday Renaissance and my blog is called Flaming Renaissance (I get a lot of search engine results on searches for information about the Renaissance (all those school essay writers disappointed to find I have nothing to say about the historical time period despite my misleading title)), but I don’t think I’ve ever really told you why I picked it.
It’s all thanks to Ellen Langer who, in her book On Becoming An Artist, talked about the personal renaissance we all go through as we grow and expand in life. I loved the idea of being able to have a personal renaissance - of being expected to have my own private reawaken, a rebirth of sorts.
And that’s really the thing about the word. It means:
French, from Middle French, rebirth, from Old French renaistre to be born again, from Latin renasci, from re- + nasci to be born (Merriam-Webster Online)
(emphasis mine)
Finally, I had found a term that totally encompassed what I had been longing for in my life, and what I was bound and determined to help create in the lives of other women. Everyday Renaissance is, of course, nothing more than an allusion to the secret of your own personal renaissance: it happens slowly, one day at a time. And Flaming Renaissance is a discreet reference to myself (I’m fiery don’t you know) and the fact that this is a log on my own renaissance and growth.
And that, I think, is where all the changing of lives begins: at the moment where you realize that Flaming Renaissance is all about YOU (not me), because you are ready - finally - to be Reborn and to be born once more into your new, Real Life.
WELCOME, to your Personal Renaissance! (I can’t wait to see how it goes.)
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On May 29th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Cynthia Says:
and my life now is completely different than a year ago and I am on the edge, preparing to leap off into a great adventure. Read my post:
http://cynthiaclack.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/sacred-life-sunday-2/