How to Live a Life You Love:
7 Things that I wish I’d known when I was your age
By Susan Biali, M.D.
I’m turning 39 this year, and am grateful for how much easier life gets as every year goes by. It’s not that there aren’t any crises or dramas anymore, I’m just so much stronger and wiser as a person that they don’t affect me like they used to. Also, I live with much less drama in general in because I’ve healed many parts of my personality that used to live to create it.
Ten years ago, I was a severely depressed Emergency Medicine resident, and life felt like a dreaded chore, something I had to somehow survive. I’d already been through a battle with an eating disorder (and another was on the way), had fought and won against crippling anxiety attacks, and had a series of unhealthy romantic relationships crash and burn (there were more on the way). And that’s just the shortlist.
Though I still had much to learn, and still do, the bottom I hit ten years ago was my turning point. Through a series of events that followed, I unearthed my long-buried passion for dancing, said no to a career that was proving to have been a mistake, and re-discovered my faith in myself and in life. Today life feels so different. It still has its challenges, but I’m doing what I love, I have a mission and tons of passion, I get to dance and laugh and play, and more things work than don’t work.
I wrote my new book, Live a Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier, More Passionate You (can you link this to www.livealifeyoulovebook.com?) after reflecting on what key elements had turned my life around. I had learned them from my studies during and after university, great books, wonderful mentors, and from experience. I wish someone had taken me under their wing and taught me all of this when I was much younger. So here are my seven steps, with some thoughts just for you:
STEP 1: ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE YOU
It wasn’t until I was 28 and ready to end my life that a chief resident in my residency program ordered me to do this: “Think about who you are and what you really want to do with your life.” Until then, I’d never given a voice to the real me - I didn’t even know who she was. All my life I had followed the advice of wiser well-meaning adults, and looked at the examples of “success” in the culture around me, in order to make critical life choices such as what to study, what to become etc.
Mentors are very important, and older people generally do know more than we do when we’re young – but no mentor or leader can tell you what your heart holds within, or what your purpose in this life is. Honor what your heart tells you and what you dream of, no matter what anyone else says.
STEP 2: LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF
In our society you’ll see lots of examples of how to “treat” yourself – delicious rich foods, expensive clothes, beautiful cars, lavish vacations, nights out partying and celebrating. We’re sold the lie that more is better, perpetuated by people who have already gotten to “more”, come up empty, and figure that the answer is that they simply haven’t gotten enough yet, and need more still.
Learn to take deep care of yourself. If you’re overweight, a double fudge sundae when you “deserve” it is not a gift to your body - it takes you farther away from your goals and dreams. If treating yourself through a spending spree on your credit card pushes you more into debt, it’s not doing you any favors and you’ll likely regret it later. I wish I could have all the money back that I spent on stupid things that I thought would make me feel good.
Think hard about what really nurtures you and moves you towards your goals, instead of focusing on what feels good in the moment (that you might regret later). That’s loving yourself.
STEP 3: HONOR YOUR BODY
As a practicing medical doctor, I constantly witness how little we respect and listen to our bodies. If they get tired, or sick, we want an instant fix so that the body can keep going and do whatever we need it to do. In my experience, when you get sick your body is trying to tell you something. Maybe you need to start saying no to something, or someone. Maybe you’re going down the wrong path. Maybe you just need some down time, or a break, or need to play more. Stop and ask yourself, when your body acts up and gets your attention. You will have the answer.
STEP 4: RESCUE AND REVITALIZE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
I truly cannot believe it when I look back at some of the men that I thought were “the one”. I expended so much energy trying to keep them around, and then mourning them when (thank goodness) they disappeared. I had this idea that if I just got into the right relationship, everything in my life would finally work, as if it was some kind of magic ingredient that would make all things right. No wonder I went after it so desperately.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally realized the great ironic truth: I would not get a relationship to work, and my life wouldn’t work, until I stopped focusing on finding Mr. Right and focused on doing what needed doing in my own life, instead. When you stop looking outside for fulfillment and begin to rely on yourself (and God, in my case), that’s when the real magic starts to happen. Usually, that’s when the guy will finally show up, or come around. Of course by that point you no longer desperately need him, so the relationship actually has a hope of success.
STEP 5: GET A LIFE
That’s a bit of a silly name for a step, I admit it, but when I say “life” I mean it differently than perhaps the average person sees it. So many of us pick a safe but unfulfilling career, crash and watch mindless TV when we get home from work, see an entertaining movie on the weekends, take a week or two of vacation a year, and on it goes. The years start to just blend into each other.
My life became what it is today when I started to play more, indulged my creative side (launched by a fantastic book, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way) and took risks by following where my heart led me. If I hadn’t followed my crazy impulse to become a professional dancer in my late twenties, and hadn’t followed another crazy impulse to move my base to Mexico, I never would lived the adventure of having my own flamenco dance company in Cabo (and teaching Pink how to salsa), and probably would never have met my husband. I wouldn’t even be writing this article, and would probably have written a much more boring book. Who would you be if you played a little more, did something wildly creative, or took a few more risks with your life?
STEP 6: MAKE ROOM FOR THE DIVINE
The main reason that I have been able to do all that I have done in the last ten years is that I learned to rely on what the delicious divine plan for my life. I have observed that every crisis holds a gift inside, and some (such as my depression, or the man who left me for a dancer ten years younger than me) even offer a priceless key to a new and extremely fulfilling chapter in life. “Everything happens for a reason” has proven to be true, and when you live life looking at it that way, absolutely everything changes. No matter how bad something seems, you will be able to find something good that comes out of it. More often than not, it will be something great.
STEP 7: MAKE SOMETHING TODAY
Life goes by so fast. I’ve sometimes procrastinated for years on a step that I’ve known all along I should take. When I finally take it, miracles start to happen. What would my life look like today, if I’d lived even more courageously and had had more faith in life, my instincts, and myself? I will never know. You, on the other hand, can start finding out, right now. Take that first step, and the next step. You know what they are. Don’t wait.
Life is just so much fun, when you live it like this. Life is still life, so it will have its tough times and its disasters. But if you live it with everything you’ve got, and allow yourself to be everything that you are, you will amazed at how different life will feel. You will love it!
Dr. Susan Biali, M.D. is a practicing medical doctor, media wellness expert, international speaker,
coach, flamenco dancer and author of Live a Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier, More
Passionate You. www.susanbiali.com www.LiveALifeYouLoveBook.com