Life is just like a roller coaster ride. It’s exciting and scary, filled with ups and downs, it goes fast and slow, with twists and turns…. There are moments when we scream and moments when we take deep breaths. It’s also a lot of fun, and sometimes it’s NOT. Take this, multiply it by extremes, and you have one woman’s life that I’ll use to illustrate a few important life lessons.
This month I’m featuring Renee Linnell, author of the new memoir, “Still on Fire.” Renee grew up in South Florida and is an entrepreneur, a former surf model, professional tango dancer and hold onto your hats – a cult survivor. In 2019, she published “The Burn Zone,” a memoir about how she came to realize she was in a Buddhist cult, and how she had been severely brainwashed after graduating magna cum laude with a double degree from NYU.
I met up with her last month in Boca to talk and look at life through her eyes. She has garnered so much life experience in her 49 years that she felt compelled to share her messages in a memoir. If we are on a roller coaster of life, there’s no one who can make it easier or better for you, but it’s good to be prepared and to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.I loved our time together and could feel her presence.She was still inside and centered, and was also teeming with inspiration. Given what she’s gone through, this amazed me.
Renee knows about deep loss.Her beloved father died on Thanksgiving Day when she was 15. Then, after more than a dozen years of conflict and estrangement, she lost her mother, who went missing, and turned up drowned in a hotel bathtub. Renee knows devastation as well. When she was 33, she joined a Buddhist cult, got brainwashed, burned almost everything she owned, and nearly lost her sanity and her life. Six years later, she went into business with a guy she met in a karate dojo in New York City, and after a nasty lawsuit, lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Renee stuffed down plenty of shame. But eventually she shook it off, made peace with her flaws and failures, and got busy living her life to the fullest.“We shouldn’t be afraid of our stories,” says Renee. “And we shouldn’t see anything that happened to us as ‘wrong.’We are in these human bodies for such a brief period of time. Why hide who we are?”
We all have different milieus that influence the type of circumstances we face and the challenges we endure. “No two people have the same life path,” as Renee explains. “We are eight billion humans living on this planet, and each and every one of us has a unique perspective.” Yet one thing’s for sure, lots of people are tired of being afraid, afraid of how the world is looking, done with trying to fit in, making do, or pleasing others. We are collectively waking up and making new choices by developing new perspectives.
“The more we love and nurture ourselves, the less we will allow others to treat us badly. “Self-love is so subtle,” Renee tells us. “It’s about making healthy, self-loving, self-nurturing choices in every moment. It’s as subtle as leaving 15 minutes early so we’re not stressed and angry in traffic, or checking in with our body when it’s time to choose food, to see what our body really wants as nourishment. It’s not criticizing inside our mind – when we look in the mirror, when we make a mistake. Self-love takes constant vigilance and practice. It’s treating the child inside of us the way we wish a parent, friend, co-worker, the world, or a lover would treat us. Once we are this loving to ourselves all the time, we will notice we effortlessly attract loving people.”
Linnell continues to advise and reflect, “Stop making excuses for why mediocrity is okay for you, and take the leap into a life that you love.”Her unique definition for living happily ever after? She says it’s possible by:“Being present, grateful, kind, and loving. When we are present in the moment, we are able to notice the gifts in each moment; when we are always focused on the future we live in anxiety and fear wondering if what we want to happen will happen – telling ourselves we will be happy when some arbitrary event happens. The empowering realization that I can survive whatever life throws my way helps me relax into the present more often – and the present is where all the power and magic lies.”
Linnell says it’s healthy and makes sense to believe in magic, miracles and divine intervention, yet so many people live with doubt and disbelief.“When we pay attention to what is unfolding in front of us in each moment, we don’t miss the rainbow or the butterfly or the string of green traffic lights just when we need them most. We notice the lyrics that we most need to hear in the song playing in the store we just entered. We notice the stranger arriving just in time to give us directions when we are lost, or to open a door when we are loaded down with packages. And then we have to stop explaining away the‘coincidences.’ The more we notice, they more they will appear.”
Look at your life… is it magical? Filled with little miracles or micromoments of joy and happiness? Remember, on this roller coaster ride of life, there are many little things you can do to make it fun, exciting and sweet.
So in this month of October, take what you like from this article and use it to Live the Life you Love!
Happy Halloween! Liz
www.AskLiz.com
Liz Sterling is a writer, coach, teacher, broadcaster, advice columnist and inspirational public speaker. Meet her at: AskLiz.com
