love | rebekahjmarshall

Today’s assignment is to commit to 30 days of doing something without breaking the chain. After 30 days I get a prize of my choosing. I am going to commit to actually doing these exercises and blogging them daily for 30 days. As for my prize…I’ll have to think about that. I can pick anything!!!

Today’s assignment is to Write a Fan Letter.

Dear Dr. Martha Beck,

Thank you for all the help and guidance you have given to me in my life. I have read every one of your books and every article written in O the Oprah magazine. At night before I go to sleep, I read a few pages of Finding Your Way in a Wild New World. I call you my guru when quoting you to others.

Part of my connection to your writing is the religious element. I read your book Leaving The Saints about your strict religious background that you broke away from to create the life you have now. Only someone who has survived such an experience can understand. Knowing you have come from that place makes me trust your advice all the more and makes it more relevant to my own experience.

I have become more open to the spiritual element in my life thanks to meditation exercises, written exercises, and insightful quotes that you have shared in your books. I’ve begun writing as a future career path thanks to reading Finding Your Own North Star. And the monthly articles in O give great, useful, life advice that I have shared with many a friend in crisis. I hope someday I can afford to hire you as a Life Coach or attend a retreat, but in the meantime I’ll garner all the wisdom I can from your writing.

The fact that you love and quote Mary Oliver is the icing on the cake. You spur me to heroic adventures that “break my heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.”

Thank you for your loving help through your heartfelt writing,

Rebekah Marshall

Today in summer school I am teaching Romeo and Juliet to a group of teenage girls. My presentation is not the romantic drivel most of them have heard before. We examine the play through different lenses and it becomes a fabulous cautionary tale. Each scene is analyzed for thinking errors on the part of the characters: Romeo’s impulsivity, all-or-nothing thinking, keeping score, and catastrophising; Tybalt’s overgeneralizations, one-upmanship, and uniqueness (thinking he is better than everyone else); Friar Lawrence’s magical thinking, grandiosity, sneakiness; etc.

The girls open to a whole new perspective when looking at these characters’ flaws and seeing their own behaviors in comparison. This is a school in a residential treatment center, so the young ladies I am working with have seen some stuff in their lifetimes. Many of them have attempted suicide (often over a lost love), have run away from their parents or their problems, have had numerous sexual encounters in over their heads and unprepared for the emotional fall-out at such a young age, and have been betrayed or misled by the adults in their lives who should have been better role models.

My favorite discussions with them involve re-imagining the scenes using healthy thinking, coping skills, support from trusted people, accessing available resources, etc. If just one person had done something different in this play, something productive, something thoughtful and helpful, it might not have ended in such tragedy. There are always more options. “To be or not to be” (to quote Hamlet) could be a much longer list. To be healthy, to be at peace, to understand, to be open…not to be afraid, not to be alone, not to be abused, not to be so hard on yourself.

Juliet was 13 for goodness sake. So much more happens in life after 13. I’m in my 40’s, have been through a marriage, divorce, children, grandchildren, and have just now found my Romeo. Building a good life takes time, learning from experiences, and resilience. I wish for each of my students today a new critical perspective that makes each of them a “master of her own fate.” *

*from Invictus by William Ernest Henley

#from Gnomeo & Juliet (Juliet kicking ass)

rebekahjmarshall

Tag Archives: love

30-Day Challenge: Day 1 – Write a Fan Letter

Romeo & Juliet