What is the price of happiness? Stop postponing it.

What is the price of happiness?

I truly feel sorry for all the people who stop at the first obstacles. Who put their lives on standby.

Most of the time, it’s because of what we call financial issues (in the overwhelming majority of cases).

We often say we do it for our children. We use them as a shield (an alibi) not to act, to keep our heartbeat at the bare minimum for survival. How sad is that: giving our children the responsibility for the choices we make in our own lives.

And then there’s time. We never have time to take care of ourselves. We never have time to love ourselves or to accept the love of others… try saying this sentence out loud and feel its effect on your heart.

I know what I’m talking about. I did it myself at Christmas in 2007. I used all three of these killers: I told myself, “By now I have to wait 16 years.” That damned word “BY NOW” carries such a low frequency that it kills every vital cell in our body! EVERY SINGLE CELL.

Luckily, I have this personality that never lets me give up. Never. If I feel that what I’m doing isn’t good for me, I study a million different plans to CHANGE course. Even if it’s hard. Even if it takes time. And sometimes, it really does take a lot of time.

The first time I strongly changed course was in my third year of high school. I felt suffocated, I loved studying so much, I adored the subjects and even the teachers and their preparation, but tension and an atmosphere of terror never worked for me. I chose the strictest class of another school. Because I am not afraid of challenges, but I don’t like terror and those who spread it.

The second time was after already finishing my second year of University. This was a big mistake, the first great lesson. A strong lack of responsibility, of awareness. I didn’t fight enough to follow my dreams, because I WAS AFRAID OF MY DREAMS! (I wanted to be an Interior Designer, because I feel houses in my very gut). But I was afraid of not being GOOD ENOUGH. And I gave up. I accepted my father’s choice: and I enrolled in Physics. In those two years I did everything except pass the exams to move forward: I tied myself to the chair, but apart from a few small parts of some subjects, studying was violence… obviously I felt so bad that during the oral exam of Mathematical Analysis I had a breakdown and left my professor, a saint of a man, speechless…

Out of fear, I finally chose an easy path. Studying Languages and Literature was never a challenge, except for German. But I love communicating, I love literature, I like reading and writing, and I chose the small hill instead of aiming at the mountain. In four years I graduated, even though I taught in a swimming pool, took a six-month course at the Chamber of Commerce and got the title of Tourist Interpreter, did Erasmus and worked as an au pair in Munich.

I wasn’t even graduated yet when I started working in a company. Already on the first day, my Soul knew: this is not your job, little girl. I don’t like “corporate culture” as it’s called today. I told myself I’ll do it only as long as needed. MISTAKE: without putting an END date to that “as long as needed”… that “as long as needed” will sadly and asymptotically tend to infinity.

In secret I nurtured another dream: teaching German. Only my husband was afraid. He was afraid that I might get something from life that he didn’t have the courage to have.

He too was AFRAID TO FOLLOW HIS DREAM (he should have drawn comics, he would have been a genius! … instead of being an engineer … so many chains of fear… frightened parents spreading anxiety and fear onto their children). I tried to nourish that wonderful artistic side of his… but at some point I realized that not believing dreams could come true was exactly what distanced us.

In that condition I gave up again. I gave up teaching and I stayed in the company, as he wanted, but also as I wanted out of fear of my dream. Once again.

Only that every time you give up your Soul cries a little more and slowly stops inspiring you and guiding you toward YOUR TRUE LIFE. Every time you lose the feathers of your wings, every time you fly lower, out of FEAR OF CRASHING ON THE ROCKS you live a life as a chicken when you are in fact an eagle. (Anthony de Mello “Message for an Eagle Who Thought He Was a Chicken”). This remained my greatest regret until I forgave myself. I embraced myself for many months to console that wounded and sad girl, I dried those tears for years and THEN I transformed that pain into energy.

By loving myself, embracing myself, listening to myself I began again to hear the voice of my Soul.

I used that sense of constraint to resume my studies in the direction chosen by my Soul: I became an expert in Feng Shui, a holistic practitioner, a family harmonizer and someone skilled in listening relationships: a person capable of guiding others in changing course…

And above all I protected my daughters from the mechanism of fear. I freed them from the idea that one must study what parents say, or that one must live to earn a salary and, EVEN WORSE, that at 40 the only goal is retirement.

Of course I am lucky, in my nature there is the absolute unshakable certainty that in the end everything will go well (yes, I have an immense love for the “Happy Ending”). But I can teach you to walk on the clouds… it’s so soft…

I have always felt the protective presence from Above. I know for sure that Above they feel so much Love for me and protect me even in those that seem like reckless actions. And instead they are well-thought actions, long considered, calculated to obtain the best possible results.

How do you do it?

The Earth needs happy people!!! We all need happy people around us! Happiness is contagious and brings color back into our lives.

But one must choose to be happy and decide to be! What is the price of happiness?

Please don’t tell me:

I don’t have the money. How much did I spend on the Feng Shui Course? On the School of Naturopathy? On Reiki courses? On all the further training courses including Ba Zi which helps me understand if there are also karmic aspects that keep us trapped in pain? On being supported by my counsellor? Then by a couple of coaches? On Personal Growth books? Should I write the total so as not to scare anyone… over €35,000, of course spread over 13 years… (BUT note! taken from a single salary).

I don’t have the time. I did my courses on weekends when the girls were with their dad so as not to take anything away from them and to be focused myself. Yes, from 2010 to 2021! Okay, I didn’t go on many mountain walks, I didn’t go sailing… BUT what can I say: I chose to pick up the pieces of my life and rebuild it!! After all, at that stage I didn’t feel like explaining around why I felt I had a patched-up heart like an Arlecchino jacket…

I don’t have the time to cook healthy food… I hear it every time: to cook brown rice it takes 45 minutes… ohhh yessssss… but if you get home, go wash your hands, put the rice on, freshen up, put on your comfy clothes and clip in your hair, hug your children and while they set the table you chop and steam the vegetables… oops you’ve worked a little magic! For you and for them. (and the lunch for the next day is ready 😊).

By now I can’t anymore… at my age. I moved to Germany at almost 53. With a 21-year-old daughter in Rome, and an 18-year-old in Turin, who is doing everything on her own. But in this year she has grown so much that she has even improved her school results. We talk every single evening. If water is missing at home I find out before she does and help her find a solution, I help her to be independent. Because I don’t do her a favor by solving her messes, but I teach her to find solutions to problems. Yesterday evening the daughter in Rome told me “mom, I’m so happy that you are my mother, it was necessary for me to leave home, it was the right moment, I feel free, and I am grateful because you made it possible.” DISTANCES ARE ONLY PHYSICAL, never of the HEART!

I don’t do it for my children. You know? For every course I wanted to attend I always shared with my daughters my wishes. For each course I quantified: “if I do this, girls, I have to take money away from vacations or certain comforts.” You know we always went on wonderful vacations trying to spend as little as possible and live that experience to the fullest. My daughters are keeping track of our amazing holidays… and they have never been “small”!

Result: we always studied together in the evenings. Each one her subject. I was never a suffocating mother because I had my own things to do, I always cooked, I always cleaned, I always shopped (and no, not ready-made food).

And I know now you think I am Mandrake? Absolutely not: if you are organized and if you study what interests you, you don’t get tired, if you lovingly take care of your family you realize there is a team that supports you. And one day, overwhelmed by guilt—because there are many guilts—you hear a little voice on the phone: “mom you weren’t happy!!! You did well. It was YOUR DREAM! And we are fine!” And yes, because when you practice love for yourself, to your children you are immediately teaching that THEY CAN DO IT TOO, that they can choose to be happy. Do you realize the responsibility you have?

Careful, I am not saying go and mind your own business, if you read well, you saw that there has always been sharing, that I waited for the right moment for any step I took: never with recklessness. Even for this move, I was present for the move in Rome, I was present for the written exams of the High School Diploma. Sure, they are many vacation days, but they are my daughters! I didn’t spare myself and I never would because I am immensely grateful to have brought into the world these two wonderful creatures and I live with them every single moment that is given to us. BUT I DID NOT ERASE MYSELF. Every time I could I tried to honor life by celebrating it with them without fear… and I have always sought moments where I deliberately chose not to look at the price of things. There were Junk Food days when we ate on the carpet in front of the TV every possible junk food and Royal days when we appreciated freedom, treats and our company!

Therefore I tell you if I did it, you can do it too! BELIEVE ME!

Don’t give up on that trip: it might make you meet an important person.

Don’t give up on that dress: it might make you feel like who you want to become.

Don’t give up on that perfume: it might make you feel like a Queen.

Don’t give up on what you like, on what vibrates in your heart, on that course… give yourself a date by which you want to reach your dream… and it will be there. For you. Truly.

With Love