struggle | Liz Cirelli

Daydream Believers Podcast hosted by Liz Cirelli

Overcoming fear – part 2

01/10/2017 by LizCirelli

achieve your dreams, creative mentoring, creativity, daydream believers, finding strength, help and advice, life coaching, Liz Cirelli, overcoming fear, podcast, struggle

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS

As many of you know, I came out to LA a little over a week ago to study and collaborate with my amazing music production mentor, Gary Gray – and to collaborate with a couple of incredible musicians in San Fransisco.

I love being on the move and experiencing new things in general, but being here has reminded me of a fear I had forgotten about: fear of the unknown. Whilst I love a good adventure, I’m also the sort of person who likes to plan and be organised. I feel uneasy leaving things to chance, despite knowing in my heart that’s when the magic happens.

Day by day, several times a day I’m having to remind myself to let go of my need to be in control – and to trust that things will work out the way they are meant to. It’s not easy for me to do – and it’s even harder to do it when you’re in unknown territory, far away from the comfort and safety of home. But when I do it, magic always occurs.

An example of such magic is this: I’m travelling on a pretty limited budget and am therefore relying on people offering me places to stay for free. I put myself out there and reached out to people on Couchsurfing.com. Total strangers. The result? My first 10 days in LA have been spent with 2 beautiful hosts who have now become lifelong friends. Was it scary for me to do this? Of course it was! But it serves as a great example of the magic that can occur when you push your comfort zone and venture into the unknown.

Most of us are conditioned to think small – to sit inside our little boxes and lead a life that is planned, safe and predictable. There is one major problem with this: the very nature of existence is unpredictable and random. Can we predict what is going to occur in the future? We cannot. Perhaps the unpredictability of the future has given rise to our insistence on needing to maintain so much control over what is going to occur in the future. Perhaps our fear of the unknown has been exacerbated to make us easier to control.

For the most part, we are conditioned to feel uncomfortable with surrendering to the flow and leaving things to chance – but can we realise that by attempting to fill every conceivable void in our lives with stuff or plans, we are shutting out the chance for magic and serendipity to occur?

Don’t get me wrong – a level of focus is required to achieve any endeavour – as is hard work. But do we really need to push for so much control over how the journey towards that goal unfolds? Would it not be better if we kept our eyes on the prize, but surrendered to – and trusted in the journey that gets us there?

Fear is the most paralysing of emotions we battle with. Personally, it’s a constant and daily battle that affects all areas of my life – not just my creativity. At times I feel so much fear surrounding something that it affects my health. My guts knot up and become crampy. I can’t sleep. I get pains in my liver and stomach. These all arise from the suffocating grip of fear.

I wish our society dealt with fear in healthier ways, but it seems those that pull the strings of the puppet names society need fear in order to maintain not only their control but their enormous bank accounts. I don’t have the answers as to why countless numbers of us are thrown into the pool of fear and drown there without even putting up a fight.

What I do know is this: pushing through the things that scare me the most is really uncomfortable. But whenever I do this, not only does magic occur – I also grow. I become stronger and I can then use that strength to help rescue others that might be drowning in the pool of fear. I can take my experiences and use them to help give strength to others, to help them get that twinkle of excitement back into their eyes.

I let fear control me for most of my life. Realising I could choose to take the power back was probably one of the most exciting things that I learned. I refuse to be suffocated by my fears – and I will do my best to help prevent others from being suffocated by theirs.

These posts exist to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation needed to pursue your dreams. If you’d like to have your say on what topics get covered AND have your questions answered by me and/or our expert guests, simply join our community on Patreon. We really look forward to welcoming you to the family!

The danger of comparing yourself to others

13/08/2017 by LizCirelli

Blog, Podcast

achievement, art, comparison, creativity, daydream believers, expression, goals, Liz Cirelli, mentorship, personal development, podcast, struggle

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS

This week I’d love to share with you my thoughts on the danger of comparing yourself to others.

I’d like to begin by establishing the fact that what one man or woman can do, another man or woman can do!

In life, we seem to take heros in all shapes and forms. We seem to believe that someone is better than us, stronger than us, smarter than us, more talented than us and everyone is so much better than we can ever hope to be.

This type of thinking is not only damaging, it is just not true.

The one thing that separates us from anyone else is US – it’s what goes on inside our minds! We all are the same, despite convincing ourselves that we are all so different. We all have talents, creativity, passion, gifts, traits, emotions – and all the other great things that make us unique, also make us the same!

What One Man or Woman Can Do Another Man or Woman Can Do!

Of course there are creative geniuses in the world, or are there really? Are there just people who are willing to dig just a little bit deeper within themselves to find that little piece of creativity that others miss?

Are there people that live differently because they are chosen? Or, is it just that they are willing to do what none of the rest of us are willing to do to find that one special piece of the missing puzzle that will mean the difference between success and failure?

We all have special talents. The trick is that we have to KNOW that we have those talents somewhere within us. Too often, we are constricted by drama, bad thoughts, negative thinking patterns, negative habits and all the rest of the human drama that we are too clouded in. These distractions prevent us from making a difference in our life.

What We Think Is What We Become

You may have heard all of the positive thinking gurus in life talking about being positive. You may think that is a ploy to sell yet another book. Whilst this might be the case for some, there is truth in what they are trying to sell. What we think is exactly what we will become in our life. Think good, happy, peaceful and loving thoughts – approach life with an attitude of gratitude – and guess what you will get?

Good, happy, peaceful, loving and abundant life!

I know life is not always sunshine and lollipops – I’ve been to some really dark places throughout my life, some of which I couldn’t see the way out of at the time. But – life’s challenges are sent to help us grow. If we are able to surrender to the lessons being presented to us, rather than resist them, we evolve, we learn, we grow.

There is something extraordinarily magical about the universe – and tapping into this magic can fortify our lives with an eternal flow of goodness and beauty . It is simple to do: it’s just a matter of choosing the way that we are going to think and live, and the way that we will design the fabric of our existence while here on this planet in order for it to make a positive difference. Not just to us, but to everyone around us – and to the rest of humanity.

We all have to have our heros, but do we really? We are always busy thinking that someone is so much better, stronger, braver and better able to handle this crazy wonderful thing called life. But do heros exist? Actually, they do, but only if we allow them to be visible to us. A hero is someone that we think or believe can do something that we cannot do. If you have been following this summary at all, you will know this…

What One Man or Woman Can Do, Another Man or Woman Can Do

This is not some glorified theory. This is an absolute fact. All that we have to do to be able to do this is to believe it. This is as simple, and as complicated as life is. To be able to live this way, investing every single iota of our energy into the unshakable belief in possibility, it will make a profound impact upon your life – and in how our lives are seen by others.

Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!

Henry David Thoreau, a great thinker, philosopher, evolutionary and creative mind, was a master at making statements such as this. In reality, this statement is the very core of everything that can be the deciding difference in the way that we live.

There is nothing at all complicated about life. Life simply is. We complicate life by the way that we think. Therefore, since we have already discovered that our thinking is something that we CAN control, then the trajectory of our life is something we can also control.

Simply lose the bad, the negative, the unnecessary, the drama and all the heavy stuff, and get to the very core of you. Here, you will uncover the most rare and precious of all gifts. You will discover YOU. And what a beautiful discovery that will be in your life. Finally, after all the toil, struggle, strain and drama, you will unlock the very secret that people search for, and never find.

YOU!