Call to Action! (#1)

Usually a call to action is to help someone out, and this time, the someone is you. I’m going to challenge myself to have a call to action here on a regular basis. How regular? Don’t know. We’ll see how it goes. Got any ideas for a cool name for my Call to Action?

I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile now. And last night, while surfing the net because I was down but didn’t want to go to sleep, I went from link to link and found this very interesting site, Learning to Love You More. It has a wide range of various assignments and people from all over the globe have participated, and reported back. Some are heavy assignments, such as “spend time with a dying person.” And others are hilarious, such as “Make a Child’s Outfit in an Adult Size” It has a picture of a baby’s all-in-one outfit with a hood and says Recreate this jumper in a size that fits you and wear it as much as possible. Try to use a very similar fabric, it should at least be pink. You will want to try very hard to make a precise enlargement, while not getting discouraged by mistakes, or daunted by lack of sewing skills. The photos of different people in their baby outfits are hysterical. The reports from the different assignments range from touching, sweet, and hilarious.

I went to bed last night feeling pretty down, and I woke up in the same funk. I get a daily “Law of Attraction Quotation” e-mail from Jerry & Esther Hicks. The quotations are excerpts from their workshops they have given over the years. The one today fit perfectly for the mood I was in. The end of the quote said, You cannot struggle to joy. Struggle and joy are not on the same channel. You joy your way to joy. You laugh your way to success. It is through your joy that good things come.

Of course I knew that was all true, but it was good to be reminded. As I walked my stubby dog Ruby, I decided that worrying about my finances and other things weren’t going to change them, so I might as well let got of the fear and bad mood and be happy.

A little later I went to work in my Art House. My mood was getting better, but I still needed a little something. Then I remembered something my pal Juliana Coles told me years ago when I was in a funk. She said to put on some music and practice my best stripper moves. She said that because we both love to dance, and dancing is cathartic.

So I turned on my iPod, and luckily a good funk song was on. I turned up the volume, and danced around my art house practicing my stripper moves and also my spastic moves. It was great. So great that I continued through the next song. By the end I was laughing and energized, and ready to get some work done knowing that through joy, good things come.

This is your call to action.
For the next week, and every time you are feeling in a funk, put on some loud funk (or any energetic music) and dance it out. And I mean DANCE like a maniac. Don’t worry about what you look like because no one will see you. Dance as crazy as you can and by the end of the song (or for however many songs it takes), you’ll be laughing and you’ll be joyful. Music is healing, and movement is healing. Combine the two and you’ve got (almost) instant joy.

Here are some musical suggestions to get you started:
Anything from Gogol Bordello
American Woman by Lenny Kravitz
Lady Marmalade from Moulin Rouge
Son of a Preacher Man by Joan Osborne
Piece of my Heart by Janis Joplin
Okay, let me know how it goes!