Day 16 of 60 | Bonjour, Paris! 🇫🇷✨ – The Inspired Way ✨
Yesterday’s post (Day 15) was about my philosophy of living fully by experiencing different “Ways” - The Bliss Way, The Hawaiian Way, The French Way I’m savoring right now, and The Italian Way that’s calling to me next.
These “Ways” have shaped my journey over the last decade. But there’s one “Way” that has been with me since I was four years old - a way that has guided my heart, mind, and soul through every season of life. I always let it decide what comes next.
I call it “The Inspired Way.”
In my early 30s, I began writing a script - a story meant to capture the rhythms of my inner world. I wrote half of it in the first year, the rest vividly alive in my imagination. I knew the ending, and every step along the way. All I had to do was put pen to paper. Nothing has ever made me feel more alive than this project.
And then… I stopped.
It wasn’t writer’s block. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t doubt. It was heartbreak.
Around that time, I lost my best friend, my angel, my mentor Beth Lochtefeld, who was tragically murdered. In that moment, my desire to finish the script vanished. Writing it felt impossible. I cannot create something if I am not inspired to create it.
Instead, I channeled my energy into another form of expression - writing and delivering motivational speeches to inspire my University of Dreams students around the world. I spoke about discovering and pursuing dreams and never giving up!
At the end of each talk, I shared Beth’s story and my grief. It was painful to do so publicly, and in such raw, unguarded moments, but it became my way to grieve and my way to keep writing through the heartbreak. After each speech, I would return to my hotel room, utterly exhausted from lack of oxygen, often having to will myself to sleep. This went on for seven years. I delivered that speech around 100 times, from California to Europe to Asia.
After giving my speech one final time at UCLA, my grieving continued in silence for many more years. That journey temporarily cost me my joy but taught me strength beyond measure.
It turned me into a beast for my dreams. I became unstoppable once I chose a way forward. And yet, along that path, I learned that success without joy is empty. That realization led me to a different “Way” - The Bliss Way. Here, I rediscovered joy, and after 15 years, my grieving finally came to a beautiful and fitting conclusion surrounded by my new Bliss Family.
Nearly a decade later, while immersed in The Healthy Way in Miami earlier this year, I rediscovered the spark for writing my script. Fueled by a 30-day fruit-only diet and more energy than I had felt in years, I sat down and finished it. In just two days!
After 25 years, the story that began in inspiration, paused by pain, was finally completed in peace, and in pure inspiration.
Today, I’m thrilled to share that the cover design for my book, The Inspired Way, is complete. I am now working with my publisher to bring it to life in book form, just in time for this Christmas.
If you’ve followed my journey for years, the title won’t surprise you. It embodies who I am, what has inspired me for the last fifty years, ahow my soul communicates with the rest of my body and what I choose to put out in the world.
When it comes to writing, this isn’t just a project.
It’s my heart’s work.
It’s my life’s work.
It’s my legacy.
For now, I am only sharing the artwork for the cover. I want you all to be the first to see it.
