YOUR LIFE A-Z:XANDU

XANADU

XANADU is a place of great beauty. XANADU is the name of Kublai Khan’s summer home in South East Mongolia.  Where is your XANADU?  In many of the previous blogs, the Twenty-Minute Coach has spoken about the need to have a special place in your home that makes you want to be in that space.  XANADU is a perfect name for that space.  XANADU goes beyond ordinary beauty and speaks of luxury.  Part of this A-Z process is to provide you with motivation to take care of yourself in very positive and enriching ways. The last “E” word was exquisite.  XANADU speaks to the luxury of EXQUISITE and is a definitive space and place.  Create your XANADU place.  Perhaps, you don’t even know how to start decorating a place of XANADU in your home and maybe you feel too overwhelmed to start.  First, make a decision you deserve XANADU.  Second, choose a space in your home (or outside garden area) that you want to transform.  Once you decide where XANADU will be created then ask, “What do I really want in that space?”  Do I want a comfy chair, where I can read and meditate?”  How about lighting?   Proper light is necessary to lift your spirit.  What colors do you want in your space?  And what art-work do you want on the walls?  Next take a look at Pin Interest, decorating magazines or websites.  Pull some pictures together that represent XANADU to you and sit with them for a couple of weeks while your ideas begin to take XANADU form.  Enjoy.

YOUR LIFE A-Z:EXQUISITE

EXQUISITE SUNSET

EXQUISITE

EXQUISITE is a word that defines something beautiful beyond the ordinary.  To have EXQUISITE taste speaks to your ability to discern what is quality and refined over ordinary and normal.  I dropped by a cancer treatment center recently and found the grounds, the water feature, the art and the ambiance to be EXQUISITE.  This setting took one out of the ordinary treatment center of all the same reception room chairs, terrible TV, ugly paint, and old magazines to a whole new level of EXQUISITE.   Everything about this place spoke to an ambiance of care, nurture, and hope.  Given this example, I invite you to take a walk through your home and choose a room or a space in a room and give yourself permission to make this space EXQUISITE.   Make this ordinary or perhaps even dingy space into one that transforms the energy into an EXQUISITE space of nurturance and hope.  Make it into a space that dazzles your senses, allows you to take a deep breath and smile when you walk into the space, by choosing paint, light, art, and design that makes this space into a space you want to be in.  If this is too much of a project for you, then take a trip through a wonderful recipe book and prepare an EXQUISITE dinner that is served with all of the ambiance of color, light, and EXQUISITE table settings.  You deserve to brighten your surroundings from the ordinary to the EXQUISITE.  Guaranteed to boost your mood. 

YOUR LIFE A-Z:RENEW

DELIGHT IN THE ART OF LIFE

RENEW

RENEW that dream you put away.  RENEW a sense of delight in life.  RENEW is a word that implies starting over with a sense of force, new energy and a sense of direction.  RENEW is a way of saying yes to life.  One can restore a piece of furniture but one can also RENEW it.  Restoring a piece of furniture would mean returning it to its original state of being.  RENEWING a piece of furniture would mean to take a piece of furniture that is dull and useless and not only restore it but to take it beyond its original use.  For instance, if you turn a bar stool into a planter then you have RENEWED it into a creative, interesting and useful piece of furniture. Now, it is time to RENEW your daily life and add a sense of spice and useful creativeness to it.  You often here of people RENEWING their wedding vows or RENEWING their baptismal vows.  By doing this each participant is acknowledging that he/she has become dull and useless and now he/she is bringing to his/her relationship or spirituality a new self, a self, filled with zest for creativity and spontaneity.  Look around your environment and find something easy like a picture in a frame and either place a new photo in the frame or buy a new frame for the photo.  Notice how that makes you feel.  Then practice that same RENEWAL with something specific in your life.