How to Live a Charmed Life
A charmed life is not a perfect life--but a way to live with wonder, grace, and happiness, no matter your circumstance. In an excerpt from her latest book, "Living a Charmed Life," author Victoria Moran provides wise counsel on everything from indulging simply to embracing your self worth to "washing the dishes with all your heart." Her "lucky charms" can elevate your attitude, change the way you see yourself, and upgrade every aspect of your life: health, relationships, finances, and peace of mind--even in challenging times.Click here for the first step to creating a charmed life. Victoria Moran is the author of "Living a Charmed Life, "The Love-Powered Diet" and many other books. She also writes the Your Charmed Life blog for Beliefnet. For more info: VictoriaMoran.com
Know That You are Worthy
Know That You are Worthy
Most of us waste a lot of time distrusting ourselves and discounting ourselves. But the real truth is: you are an expression of the beneficence that brought you forth. Of course you have more to learn as you go along, and you’ve done things in the past that you wish you hadn’t. Even so, nothing you have done, nothing that was done to you, and nothing anyone else has ever said to you or believed about you erases the inalienable truth that God made you and you have infinite value.
Start a Serendipity Log
Start a Serendipity Log
It’s a pity when someone is living a charmed life but doesn’t know it. Preventive medicine for charmed-life blackouts is to keep a serendipity log, an ongoing list of wonders, delights, and delicious coincidences. To get started, put a little notebook in your purse or pocket and make note of the serendipities showering you throughout the day. These are little joys such as, “A coworker gave me a copy of the novel that I can’t get from the library for another six weeks,” or “I just found out that I’m going to be in Cincinnati the same weekend as my friend from Seattle.” The key is to appreciate all serendipities and not judge them by their size.
Bring Back Chivalry
Bring Back Chivalry
Because it is one tall order to live a charmed life in an uncharming culture, it’s up to each of us to bring back chivalry, updated for our times. Reduced to its fundamentals, chivalry is being the God-sent friend or stranger in a story that goes, “I don’t know what I would have done if (s)he hadn’t shown up.” How about stopping to help someone whose grocery bag breaks, or the embarrassed fellow shopper who’s just knocked over a towering display of bathroom tissue? Or talking to the bored little boy in the post office line while his mother chats on her cell phone? Or giving a hand to the stranded motorist trying to change a flat?
Wash the Dishes with All Your Heart
Wash the Dishes with All Your Heart
You virtually guarantee a charmed life when you give yourself as fully to doing the dishes, and tending to the other miscellanea of living, as to some grand adventure. You can count on the dishes. They’ll be there alongside the grand adventures, and if no adventure is immediately forthcoming, the dishes won’t let you down. Try some conscious dishwashing. Release all judgment. Just be with the process and with every plate and fork and measuring cup until the task is through. In a charmed life, the best thing going is what is happening now, even when it’s scouring a skillet.
Gather the Gurus
Gather the Gurus
The informal but venerable gurus I’m alluding to are our glorious friends. Gather them by hosting a salon, either to learn something (bring in a teacher or speaker), address an issue in the community, or simply hang out with intriguing people. Or connect with a prayer partner (make contact daily by phone or weekly in person for prayer; or a gratitude buddy: the person with whom you share what is at this moment is filling your heart with gratitude. I think of it as counting your blessings in the presence of a witness.
Love It, Then Maybe Leave It
Love It, Then Maybe Leave It
Any situation in your life that ends before you come to love it, you’ll run into again. Oh, the names and faces will change, but circumstantially you’ll be right back where you were five or ten or twenty years ago, again presented with the opportunity to learn to love. This seems counterintuitive because we think of love as the “tie that binds.” But love is also necessary when ending a relationship or leaving a position, organization, or locale. Leave some love behind and go forward free.
Claim a Café
Claim a Café
Claiming a café is not the sole province of writers and students. We all need a place to go where we can be alone with company, where the waiter or barista knows our order in advance, and where a certain corner is, more often than not, ours. At your café, you get the energy of the people around you, inspiration from a woman’s locket or a little boy’s lollypop, and heartening freedom from undone chores, a ringing doorbell, and, if you leave your cell phone at home and don’t sign up for WiFi, other people’s demands on your time.
Indulge in Your Simplest Pleasure
Indulge in Your Simplest Pleasure
Certainly you enjoy many things, but your simplest pleasure: is basic, easy to access, cheap, and not dependent on any other person. Think carefully of what your simplest pleasure is. For example, “sitting in front of a crackling fire” can be your simplest pleasure, but only if you have easy access to a wood burning hearth. What’s your simplest pleasure? Dancing maybe, or puttering in your garden. A steamy soul-soothing bath, or watching your favorite comedy shows. Reading with a cup of tea. Once you’ve named it, enjoy it every day.
Live Richly
Live Richly
People whose souls thrive on simplicity can live elegant lives on relatively little cash. They exploit the low and no-cost riches tucked away in the library, consignment shops, beauty schools, eBay, barter, matinee movies, free day at museums and galleries, and every park in town. (By the way, some of the people who live in this frugal fashion are wealthy. They simply like simplicity---and they like holding onto their money.)
Proceed Despite Detractors
Proceed Despite Detractors
Chances are there is someone close to you who is convinced that they missed out on having a charmed life and they don’t think much of your odds either. Their resignation is like a black hole in the next cubicle or on the other side of the bed. Your assignment, then, is to live a charmed life despite them, not to spite them. Claim your autonomy. You’ve been entrusted with a precious life all your own. Although you owe those around you kindness, consideration, honesty, and respect, you owe yourself, and perhaps even your Creator, a life well lived.
