Tag: living your dreams

YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

An unlikely celebrity caught my attention the other night during the Icon Generation Award at the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards Monday night. He offered a bit of information that I give out every week.

“Here’s the thing that I want to share with you guys – Because there’s another side to being your authentic self, your true self – and that’s the side that the magic is on. That’s the side that’s gold. While yes, it’s important to be yourself – you’ve got to recognize the joy and the responsibility of bringing everybody with you. And you do that by being kind, by being compassionate, by being inclusive and straight up just being good to people because that matters.” The Rock

Truer words were never spoken. Being your authentic self and being proud of that self. That’s where the magic lies. That is what has always been the most important. So many of us women over sixty sometimes lose our way once the children leave the nest or we retire from our careers. We can feel lost at sea without a rudder.

The beauty industry hasn’t helped. It has capitalized on selling us dreams of products that will keep us young. Fortifying that if we don’t look young we are worthless and undesirable. Not a word about the most important part of who we genuinely are – our inner selves. That is exactly where our beauty has always come from.

Years ago my husband kept talking about a famous race car friend of his who constantly had so many women running after him. In my mind, I envisioned a wildly handsome man. Instead, when I finally met him, my initial reaction was shock in how unattractive I thought he was.

At the time, I was guilty of only superficially reacting to his outer appeal. As I got to know him better, he became more and more attractive and actually quite sexy. His inner beauty was so strong, it radiated and translated into one very handsome and successful man.

That is how strong our inner authentic self – our true self is. We have to believe we are worthy and that we deserve all that life will bring us. Once you find that pot of gold within yourself it’s your responsibility to share it with others. We should not leave anyone behind.

I have often been asked why at my age would I want to be a life coach, or take the time and responsibility of sharing my years of living on Youtube. My answer was given by Dwayne Johnson, I don’t want to leave anyone behind. Everyone deserves to live the best possible life over sixty.

Copyright©️Sandra Hart 2019

All Rights Reserved

Lipstick On His Glass

My husband keeps complaining that I leave lipstick on our glasses. He’s ninety-two and I keep reminding him he is a lucky duck at his age to still have a hot woman around to mess up his glassware with a Chanel shade named after him – Arthur.

For Arthur’s ninetieth the children and I took him on a transatlantic round trip on Cunard’s Queen Mary. I found ‘Arthur’ in the Chanel section at the boutique and decided why not. I spent $20,000 on this party for him, why not $50 on me. I love Arthur, but I also love lipstick.

There is something to be said about growing older. Arthur reminds everyone when he gets in and out of trouble with the etiquette police , “Im an old guy.” He can do ‘head scratching’ things and get away with it. Because he is old.

We just had a phone call from friends who have been together for 30 years. She has never been married and he has. She is over 80 and he is younger. She is afraid to fly so they have traveled the world together for thirty years by tramp steamers, cruise ships, trains and car. Now, on his part, that’s love if I have ever heard of it. Arthur would have left me years ago if he for thirty years had to take freighters to get from point A to B when traveling.

For our friends, everything for thirty years seemed just fine. They were both in the together groove without strings attached. They lived in her Manhattan apartment and vacationed in his Pocono house and traveled the world in between. Well, that phone call, they are getting married and we are invited to the wedding. True. We are going to a wedding in July. There is something to be said about growing older and not giving a hoot what others think.

I guess you could think of it as sometimes it takes couples longer than others to realize that they are in love. Forever love.

Hummmm? I wonder. She probably never leaves her lipstick on the drinking glasses. She finally got her man.

Copyright©️ Sandra Hart

WHO ARE YOU?

FIVE STEPS TO BUILDING THE LIFE YOU WANT | QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ASKING NOW | WHO ARE YOU

Women over sixty. Who are we? WHO AM I? Who are you?

The Five Ws, Five Ws and one H, or the 5 W’s are questions whose answers are considered basic in information-gathering. They are often mentioned in journalism (news style), research, and police investigations. They constitute a formula for getting the complete story on a subject.

•Who was involved?

•What happened?

•Where did it take place?

•When did it take place?

•Why did that happen?

Some authors add a sixth question, how, to the list.

I was thinking the other day that we can take those important fact finding W’s and use them in relation to our lives.

1) Who are you? Who do your friends think you are?

2) What do you want out of life right now?

3) Where do you want to be a year from now?

4) When is a good time to start?

5) Why do I think this is important?

6) How am I going to achieve this?

These are important questions we should be asking ourselves no matter how young or old we are. The sooner we find our direction and who we really are and what we want from life, the more fulfilled we will be. It is never too early or late to begin your personal fact finding journey.

https://youtu.be/8yZQNgA37nU

Copyright Sandra Hart 2919©️

All Rights Reserved

NASHVILLE NIGHTS | MEET MY SON EMERSON HART

When we have children we hope for the best for them, but truly, even with a crystal ball, we don’t know what lies ahead for them.

Once they leave the nest, they are on their own to chart their own path. We, as parents, just hope their journey is smooth without too many downdrafts and that their flight will lead them to a fulfilling life.

In this blog I am sharing with you a recent conversation I had with my singer/ songwriter son, Emerson Hart, lead singer of the 2x nominated and Platinum awarded alternative rock band, Tonic.

His first album, LEMON PARADE, had 5 top ten BILLBOARD HITS, one of which stayed on the top of the charts and became the most played song on rock radio that year, “If You Could Only See The Way She Loves Me.”

We talk about his beginnings and what it is like to be a a songwriter/singer and musician. I can’t use his music in my videos because of publishing and record company rights shared with him. I have posted below the video he speak’s about and that he filmed in London when Princess Diana died.

Join my conversation with a singer and songwriter on his creative process, his solo career vs Tonic and what is in store for 2019.

Copyright Sandra Hart ©️2018

All Rights Reserved

Dreams Aren’t Accidental

I can be alone at a table of one. I can be alone in a crowded room.  It’s all good.

If anything has taught me the biggest life lesson, it’s aging.  I am finally comfortable with who I am.  It took me so long to get here, maybe longer than most, but I have arrived at that place  where it’s okay to be the imperfect me. 

Although our culture encourages otherwise,  as a woman, it is not all about the outside. Cosmetics, surgery, hair extensions and designer clothes are not the answers to becoming visible again.  How we live our lives is the answer to keeping and growing your beauty. 

If we have the joy of waking up each morning with gratitude, if we actually look around us and drink in our surroundings, if we live our lives with wonder, if we live with purpose we remain beautiful and forever young.  

My view is that living life to the fullest hands down beats  all the man-made  beauty treatments.  Immerse yourself into life doing what makes you passionately happy, whether it is growing by educating, writing, creating, giving to others,  

Dreams are not planted by accident. They are there to be nurtured and realized. If we don’t feed them, instead of blossoming into reality,  they wither and die a torourous death. 

Today start living your beautiful life. It is never too late to make your dreams come true. 

Copyright ©Sandra Hart 2017

All Rights Reserved 

Home Is Where The Heart Is

  

I was born with an extra chamber in my heart. OK. That’s not exactly the truth. I just have love for three places where I can hang my hat and call home. Period. 

Some of us are happy wanders with a pack on our backs and home is our wanderlust. Some of us are gypsies at heart who pick up and can only live for a short time in one particular place. Then there are those like me and maybe you. We are nesters. I am a nester.

 When I am living on the water it’s the sea inside of me that makes my heart beat. When I am living in the tropical sun it’s the white sandy beaches and swaying palms that warms my heart. Then there is Chelsea. Chelsea makes my creative heart crave to do just that. Every time I’m in Chelsea I long to be back in the theater and back into acting. 

Many mornings in Chelsea I awakened at 4 o’clock to be on the set by six. Night after night, I have taken cab rides home at 1 o’clock in the morning from the theater district, both exhilarated and tired to the bone. The indoor sets for Law and Order were just three blocks away at the Chelsea Piers and many streets shoots were right here in our Chelsea neighborhood where producer, Dick Wolfe lived. It was a good time in my life. It’s not a big revelation nor secret to anyone that it always is better when you’re doing what you love.  

  

I have often had script reads here in our Chelsea apartment with fellow actors. Back in 1999, I wrote my memoir, BEHIND THE MAGIC MIRROR, on a word processor. I did it right here, warmed by the light streaming through our ivy covered windows overlooking the gardens of London Terrace.  All the while unknowingly inspired by the ghosts of numerous Chelsea authors. 
  

The Chelsea Hotel is just a block away going east from here. One must take a deep breath before diving into this list of Chelsea Hotel writers: Mark Twain, Arthur C. Clarke, William S. Burroughs, Leonard Cohen, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Wolfe, Arthur Miller, Edgar Lee Masters, Brendan Behan and so many others, not to mention all of the musicians who have lived and died there. 

I think most of us are a little schizophrenic in our likes and wants. Sometimes to survive economically we have to have a 9-to-5 existence that is not exactly us and we have dreams of another life we would like to live. Take it from this over-fifty woman,  “Don’t let those dreams die.” There are hours in your life away from the mundane where you can pursue your dreams if you just do it. It is up to you to make it happen.

Martin Luther said, “I have a dream.” He was not alone. Of course as individuals we each have our own dreams. Both you and I may have different dreams. Right now I’ve added a return to acting to my bucket list for next summer, but while we are still here we should each work hard to see our bucket lists fulfilled. Let your dreams awaken. Don’t let them die with life-long regrets. It is never to late.
Copyright Sandra Hart©. All Rights Reserved. 

Understanding Your Talents: Finding The Life You Want

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Photo credit Mary Cloutier Angel Trail

When I was a young girl I lived on a hill above the town. Usually I took the bus, but sometimes we walked downtown by a long trail of steps called Angel Trail. The trail was surrounded by hemlock and woods and was sometimes scary, but an easy way to get downtown. The hard part was going back home up those many steps through the woods. It took energy and determination knowing the climb was worth the goal-getting home quickly with the pleasure of bus change still in our pockets.

Through my life’s journey beyond those trips up and down Angel trail, I have found no matter how old you are, or at what point you are in your life and career, one of the hardest things is taking our talents and their worth up those difficult steps beyond the personal pleasure we get using them.

“She’s a square peg in a round hole.” Being creative sometimes, I think, is similar to being cursed with the tentacles of an octopus. Why? Because there are so many directions that we can go and in reality so few career outlets where we can fit and earn a decent living.

Understanding your talents to find the life that you want is sometimes very difficult, isn’t it?

Recently I’ve had several discussions with each of my very creative children about this. How can we grow creatively in alternative directions without neglecting our mainstream talent and know which creative companion path will be the best for us?

“I think she’s a control freak.” Believe it or not, I have always found that if I let go and I don’t try so hard to figure it out, the answer usually comes when I am most still and really not expecting it. When I quit worrying about right and wrong choices or directions. If I work mentally to create my own reality through positive thinking and if I am able to evaporate the self-induced stress caused by fear and doubt, I find I can hear more clearly my inner subconscious voice showing me the way. It has always been when I let go of trying to force my own agenda, that doors open to show me the answers in both my life and career.

“That’s a crazy idea!” Quit giving power to others over your life. Easy to say I know. This was and still is the hardest hurdle for me. Don’t be afraid of what ‘they’ think. I have always been most successful when I ignore those who say it is impossible. We all want to be winners and don’t want to be ridiculed by failure, but if we don’t risk how we ever going to be successful? In anything.

“She is the oldest one here!” I began a life in television in my late twenties because I took the chance of auditioning for a job for which I practically had no qualifications. I overcame my fear of rejection, took a risk, and got the job that began my career in television. It would turn out that brave audition allowed me to support my family years later as a widowed single mother.

“Is she kidding!” When I became fifty, I didn’t listen to the naysayers and began my film and theater career. At an age when most of my friends were getting ready to retire with cocktails in one hand and a golf club in the other, I was going against the mainstream of thought at that time for women in film-I was intent to embark on a new career. And succeeded.

“I think she is becoming a recluse.” When I was sixty I sat down in front of my word processor (remember those) and I wrote my first book, checking off another from my Bucket List and adding a fulfilling creative path down which I continue to merrily walk.

“You are extraordinary.” You within yourself have the ability to do this, too. We all have many layers that make up who we are. It’s just that we have to take a risk to find those layers within ourselves and not be afraid to develop them. I never wanted to be famous. I never wanted to do anything except be able to be creative in my own way. This is something that anybody can do. Doctor, lawyer, chef, engineer. It doesn’t matter. If you are willing to work for your dreams and willing to let go of the exact direction you think you have to walk to find that dream. Let your inner subconscious, sixth sense, show you the time and way.

“Start today”. If you drop the ‘fear of change’ mindset and create your own reality through belief in your dreams, letting go of the stress related to your present discontent, you can move forward and open another door. There is nothing wrong with taking those first baby steps, testing the waters, before you jump in with both feet. Take control of your life and you may be surprised how good it feels. You have something to say, a unique talent to bring. Don’t wait. A fulfilling life awaits when you utilize all of these tools to find the life that you want now. Find your silver lining, your sense of purpose and self.

Personally, for me, the worst nightmare at my end would be to say ‘I wish I had done that.’

Sandra Hart Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.

IMG_0261.PNGGarner Ray Flener Angel Trail