Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 9

Be strong. Summon your tunnel vision.

I may as well break it to you now, before you find out on your own. There is a downside to living fearlessly. And since you're coming off a sushi, Saki, Sex and the City Girls' Night Out, you're in the right frame of mind to hear it.


So let me lay it on you: There are people you know who do not want you to live fearlessly. They do not like the changes they see in you. They feel threatened by your new-found confidence. That attractive glow you have of late has taken them off guard. As you gain control over yourself, your life, who you are, and who you're meant to be, they are losing their grip on you.

Of course, now, being of gentle southern breeding and knowing their manners, these folks won't overtly express their displeasure. They will disguise it in statements like, "What's going on with wives these day? Embracing their girlfriends instead of their husbands. Scandalous, if you ask me." Or people might say, "That's an interesting shade of red," when you arrive at the Watermelon Fest wearing a fresh fearless pedicure.


Don't get discouraged. Think like Bonnie Raitt, who sings, Let's give 'em something to talk about. And if all you've given them is a girls' night and some perky polish, then you're doing this living fearlessly thing right. (If they have more than that to discuss, then please refer back to Day 5, living fearlessly v. living foolishly.)


TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Summon your tunnel vision. Hold your course. Focus on living fearlessly and block out the nay sayers. Repeat the promise you made to yourself on Day 2. Say it OUT LOUD, LOUDLY:

Today and every day, I will live fearlessly. There is no excuse. This is my life. This is all the time I get on this earth. I will not live forever. Today is my day! I will do it now.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 8

Gather the girls. No southern belle is complete without her girlfriends. We count on them to listen to us gripe about our mother-in-law over a box of chocolate and a glass of wine, to tell us we're too old to wear a skirt that short, to stay up with us waiting for a teenager to walk in the door well past curfew, to dish on the cousin who brought her boyfriend to Grandmother's funeral and nuzzled him graveside, to hug us when the sky is falling, and to help us put all the pieces back in place when the storm is over.



So who better than our girlfriends to support, and join us, on our journey to living fearlessly? No one else will understand quite like they will.



TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Plan a Girls' Night Out. Call up the ladies for an evening of sushi, Saki and Sex and the City.



If you're turning your nose up at sushi and thinking of playing it safe with cheap Mexican and Margaritas, then you've got a ways to go until you're finished with the living fearlessly plan. Sushi - got it? Saki - for a new experience. Sex and the City - I don't think I heard one whimper on that one.