Category Archives: Inspiration

Oprah and Marianne Williamson

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

In 1992, Marianne Williamson released A Return to Love, a reflection on the principles in A Course of Miracles. The book resonated with Oprah who bought one thousand copies and invited Marianne to appear on her popular talk show. That year, A Return to Love became the fifth highest best-selling book in the United States. Since then, she  has written nine other books, among them The Age of Miracles, A Woman’s Worth and Everyday Grace. In 2006, a Newsweek magazine poll named Marianne Williamson one of the fifty most influential baby boomers.

Yesterday, the popular spiritual teacher appeared on Super Soul Sunday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the publication of A Return to Love. A long-time fan, I enjoyed the telecast and couldn’t stop taking notes. Throughout the program, Marianne  radiated peace and joy while dispensing her many pearls of wisdom. I agree with Oprah’s final comment: “You are the best prayer I have ever known.”

So many wonderful quotations…

Love is a radical idea.

No religion has the monopoly on truth.

We are either walking in the direction of love or the direction of fear.

Every life is a platform.

The spotlight isn’t pointed at you; it radiates within you.

For every person, there is a highly individualized curriculum.

You can have a grievance or a miracle, but not both.

A miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love.

As long as you keep your heart open, the miracle will find you.

The key to happiness is the decision to be happy.

I can choose to learn the lesson through joy or pain.

If you know what changes a heart, you know what changes the world.

Is Your Writing Muse in a Snit?

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

When Guelph writer Linda Johnston informed everyone on her Twitter feed that she had written 17,000 words in three weeks, we all congratulated her and wanted to know the secret of her success. I enjoyed following her tweets regarding this sudden burst of creativity.

June 26

My writing muse has returned from her snit and is in full swing. She has fused me to the computer.

July 13

My muse dictates how much I write. I just do her bidding.

I imagined one of the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne visiting Linda each morning, taking her hand and guiding her to the computer. There, she remains offering words of encouragement until Linda produces her daily quota. Later, I discovered that Linda received inspiration from a more concrete source: Sarah Domet’s book, 90 Days to Your Novel.

Patricia Anderson, another Guelph writer, found a muse that enables her to write prolifically and enjoy a vacation at the same time. At the end of June, she sets off for her trailer in Algonquin Park where she spends the summer working on her novel (without distractions).

While researching several famous writers, I discovered some unusual muses.

Alexander Dumas color coordinated his paper. He used blue paper for novels, yellow paper for poetry and rose-colored pages for nonfiction.

Mark Twain and Truman Capote write lying down.

Ernest Hemingway sharpened dozens of pencils before starting to write.

Willa Cather read the Bible before writing each day.

Before picking up his pen, John Donne liked to lie in an open coffin. (I wonder about this one!)

In my case, I like to stick to my morning ritual of easing into the writing. After breakfast, I linger over coffee as I check my emails, Twitter and other social media. Once I finish drinking  two cups of coffee, I start writing. When I hit a writer’s block, I follow Julia Cameron‘s advice from her inspirational books—The Artist’s Way, Walking In the Wind, The Prosperous Heart—and get myself back on track. I  enjoy the morning pages, twenty-minute walks and artist’s dates.

Any other muses out there? I’d love to hear about the eccentric ones.

Oprah and Cheryl Strayed

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

After reading Cheryl Strayed’s powerful memoir, Wild, Oprah was so inspired that she decided to reinvent her book club. As part of Super Soul Sunday, Oprah invited the author to her house in Santa Barbara where they sat beneath the redwoods in her front yard. For almost ninety minutes, the two women discussed the novel and Cheryl’s need to spend three months traveling the 1100 mile Pacific Crest Trail by herself.

The Backstory

At age 22, Cheryl’s life took a downward turn. After her 45-year-old mother died of cancer, Cheryl’s wild love turned into wild sorrow and then she went wild into her life. Hungry for affirmation, she sought the company of other men and did heroin.

Three years later, Cheryl’s car broke down on a snowy night. She went into a camping store to buy a shovel to literally dig herself out. While waiting to pay, she glanced at a guidebook about the Pacific Crest Trail. The next day, she returned to buy the book. Six months later, she started her hike from the Mojave Desert to Oregon.

The Challenges

While Cheryl was not a stranger to the wilderness, she had no experience as a long distance hiker. Throughout the interview, Oprah commented that she would have given up at many points along the trail.

Cheryl’s backpack was more than half her weight and she could barely stand up on the first day of the trek.

Her boots were too small and a constant source of pain. She lost six toenails. At one point, Cheryl threw away the boots, wrapped her feet in duct tape and continued.

Cheryl ran out of water several times.

One evening, Cheryl spent the night under the stars. In the morning, she woke up and felt cool, wet hands on her body. She was entirely covered in black frogs.

While she wasn’t afraid of the animals, she experienced fear when encountering several male hunters who made suggestive comments.

She had only twenty cents left at the end of the hike.

The Lessons

God is not a grantor of wishes.

I needed to carry the weight I couldn’t bear.

The universe will take whatever it takes and not give anything back.

I found solace in trail magic–unexpected sweet happenings that stand out in relation to the challenges of the trail (e.g. sunsets).

Big things happened because I was not going to let fear hold me back.

Oprah and Dr. Wayne Dyer

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I enjoyed watching Dr. Wayne Dyer on Super Soul Sunday with Oprah. Often called the father of motivation, Dr. Dyer has inspired us with his many books and appearances on PBS.

I’ve been a fan of Dr. Dyer since the publication of his first book, The Erroneous Zones. I was surprised to learn that he wrote this book after a profound awakening moment in his life.

At the age of thirty-four, Dyer’s life was out of control. He was involved in bad relationships, overweight, not eating properly, and experiencing difficulty launching his writing career. He decided to visit his father’s grave. Having grown up hating the man who had abandoned his family and forced him to endure many obstacles, Dyer was ready to spew out all his rage. Instead, he felt an inner shift and forgave his father. He then rented a cottage in Fort Lauderdale and spent fourteen days writing The Erroneous Zones, the first of many books that would impact millions of people around the world.

At age 71, Dyer speaks and acts like a much younger man. There are no traces of leukemia and, for all intents and purposes, he was cured by John of God. He spoke at length about his experience with the Brazilian health healer.

His speech with peppered with so many wonderful insights and quotes from other writers and spiritual teachers, among them Mark Twain, Hafiz, William Blake, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Quotable Quotes…

All of us are connected. All of us are individualized expressions of God.

My prayer is to be in the space of God and have the peace of God live and breathe through me.

If we can truly see ourselves in everyone, then we are motivated to hurt no one.

EGO=Edging God Out

Mantra of the higher self: How can I serve?

Put into your imagination what you wish to manifest and act as if it were manifested.

Many Winding Roads to Success

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I love Canadian success stories!!

It took three years of revisions and rejections by major Canadian publishers before Nino Ricci’s book, Lives of the Saints, was picked up by Cormorant, a small publishing house. The initial print run was only 1,500 copies and many of his readings were sparsely attended. In an interview, Ricci admitted that he had very low expectations for the novel.

While in Winnipeg during that debut year, Ricci had a reading with only six people in attendance. Two of the attendees were authors Sandra Birdsell and Carol Shields. Birdsell was on the jury for that year’s $10,000 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction.  She recommended Ricci and he received the 1990 award. Lives of the Saints became a bestselling novel in nearly twenty countries. In 2004, the novel was adapted into a television miniseries starring Sophia Loren.

Shadonna Richards has been penning stories since she was a little girl. But she did not start submitting her manuscripts until five years ago. After receiving over 200 rejection letters from agents and publishers, she decided to pursue a different path.

Inspired by Amanda Hocking’s success, Richards decided to self-publish her books through Amazon. Her motivational books did not do well so she decided to sell her romance novels. She sold seven copies of An Unexpected Bride on the first day and then went on to sell 43,000 copies in six months time.   She credits word of mouth and book bloggers for her success. She is currently earning about $6,000 a month from her writing.

Shadonna’s advice to aspiring writers…

• Hire a professional editor.
• Get a great cover.
• Write a great blurb.

Richards’ blurb for An Unexpected Bride: “Emma Wiggins is about to marry her heart-stopping, gorgeous boss, CEO Evan Fletcher, in seven days—too bad he doesn’t know it yet!”

Movie Review: Monsieur Lazhar

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

The film opens with a hanging. A Grade 6 pupil walks into a classroom and finds his teacher’s body  dangling from a light fixture. The principal played by Danielle Proulx immediately springs into action. She hires a grief counsellor and orders the classroom stripped and repainted.

Finding a substitute teacher for the stricken class is more challenging. Her only option is Bachir Lazhar, the Algerian immigrant (Mohammed Fellag)  who  gatecrashes the school in the wake of this tragedy. His formal demeanor and tentative grasp of the Quebec curriculum set him apart from the school’s mostly female staff. But his intelligence and genuine warmth gradually win over the students and staff.

As we learn more about his own personal tragedy, we realize that he is well equipped to help these children deal with their grief. He does not hesitate to question the psychologist’s methods and interfere with the school’s healing process.

It is not surprising that Monsieur Lazhar received an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film.


The Beauty of a Woman

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

The following poem was written by the late educator-humorist Sam Levinson for his grandchild and read by Audrey Hepburn on Christmas Eve, 1992. It was also used by Ms. Hepburn on occasion when she was asked for beauty tips.





For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.

Many Winding Roads to Success

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

John Grisham‘s first novel, A Time to Kill, was rejected 28 times before he found an unknown publisher who was willing to print a short run. Without the benefit of a major publisher’s marketing, Grisham went directly to booksellers encouraging them to stock his book. Since that time, he has written 25 best-selling novels, among them The Firm, The Brethren, and The Summons.

A publisher forwarded The Spy Who Came In From the Cold to a colleague with a note that read, “You’re welcome to leCarre. He hasn’t got any future.” John le Carre‘s book went on to become a bestseller and Publisher’s Weekly named it “best spy novel of all time.”

The first Harry Potter book was turned down by eight agents, and when J.K. Rowling finally got a deal, she was warned by the publisher, “You’ll never make any money with children’s books.” Since that time, the Potter books have won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films.

After a five-year legal career, Lisa Scottoline decided to stay home, raise her daughter, and write part-time. It took five years to get published. In the meantime, she lived off her credit cards and was “broker than broke.” One of her early rejections is permanently etched in memory. The agent informed her that they didn’t have time to take on any more clients, and even if they did, they wouldn’t take her. She persisted and has written 22 best-sellers which are available in 25 countries.