Christina Bruni’s Future TED Talk

Giving an 18-minute TED Talk has become a phenomenon in recent years. I would talk about something specific if I had the opportunity to give a TED Talk.

Here goes:

What I write springs from my premise that people can recover from mental illnesses. So I write things as if recovery is possible. I’m confident my readers have the capability of trying to create a better life for themselves. This blueprint for living is going to be different for each of us.

I have strong views because I’m stubborn: I refused to believe I couldn’t achieve my goals. I knew that as long as I took action I would achieve what I set out to.

How come I was able to think I could do these things? I didn’t know whether I could: I decided I had to try, because as long as I tried my best, there would be no shame if I failed.

You have to fail: failure is often necessary in order to arrive at a better place in your life. A person should not be afraid to fail big and fail often.

Perfection isn’t the goal. Being certain you’ve done the right things all the time is a false security–and being certain at all times is not the goal either.

Taking action is the goal. Have you heard the 1980s term “paralysis by analysis?” Taking risks is the goal. The more risks you take, the more confidence you get.

You don’t get confident doing nothing. You don’t get confident watching TV all the time. You get confident by taking action even when you don’t have the faith that things will work out. The Zen saying tells us: “Leap, and the net will appear.”

A university professor told his class: “Everyone has an agenda.” Your purpose for being here on earth in this lifetime is your agenda. What is your vision for what you want to do in your life? What is it you want to champion for yourself and others?

Find that purpose–the spark that gives you energy to wake up in the morning. Go do and advance that and you won’t need to be certain of anything. You’ll take action regardless of the result because you believe in your vision.

You won’t always win. It might take you years and years to be successful. That’s okay.

Do what you believe in. Passion is the goal.

Beautiful Things Are Never Perfect

I bought an ocean-blue tee shirt with white letters that proclaim: Beautiful Things Are Never Perfect.

This seems to apply to life more than anything. Living your life and living in recovery is not ever perfect. You keep on walking even when the road is long.

A female singer titled her song “I’ll Take the Long Road.” Sometimes: the long road is the only road you have to go down to arrive at a better place in your life. The hardest-won victory is the sweetest.

This is ultimately why I champion getting the right help right away: as hard as life is living with schizophrenia for most people, it should not have to be exponentially harder because treatment was delayed or is non-existent.

At long last I found a therapist. In the 1990s I read that people who enter therapy go on to increase their income. I told a guy this back then. Two years later he saw me on a subway platform and told me: “You were right Chris. I had therapy sessions, and I got a higher-paying job.”

Entering therapy can help a person set and achieve goals. Talking to a therapist can help a person live through a hard time they’re experiencing.

Remember: Beautiful Things Are Never Perfect. Life isn’t perfect and neither are human beings.

It’s not a mark of shame to enter therapy. U2 titled a song: “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own.”

And hey, it’s true that you can increase your income by going into therapy.

Be Determined. Never Quit.

I was fortunate to use the services of a trainer at the gym for close to five years until he departed.

The guy now opened his own gym with the motto: “Bring strength to life.” His website tells us: Be determined. Never quit.

This is so true. You might be tempted to lose hope and you might have no faith that things can change for the better. That’s OK. Simply continuing to take action in the direction of your goals is all that matters.

If you can’t achieve what you wanted see if there’s something else you can do instead. Abandoning a goal when it turns out not to be the one that’s right for you is a sign of strength and courage.

I’m grateful I had the trainer in my life for as long as I did. I respected and admired that he had a ton of ambition and I’m glad he was able to move on to do better things.

It is possible for a person diagnosed with schizophrenia bipolar or another MI to set goals and achieve them. We’re not doomed to failure for the rest of our lives.

In this regard of not quitting I can tell you it’s possible to find a therapist after a five-month search

Be determined. Never quit is an apt motto when it comes to the life-changing goals a person has.

You can certainly quit when things turn out not to be the right thing for you to do. I learned this early in life when I had the courage to go back to school to get a job in a career that I liked and would be good at.

My self-help book I expect to publish within three years. I’ll talk about this closer to the publication date.

Bringing strength to life? I’m all for this.

Passion

I checked a book out of the library that defines Entrepreneurial Passion (EP) thus:

“A positive, intense feeling that you experience for something that is profoundly meaningful for you as an individual.”

Buy this Carmine Gallo book Talk Like Ted to be inspired to live your dream(s).

Melissa Cardon is quoted as saying that:

“Passion is something that is core to a person’s self-identity. It defines a person. They simply can’t separate their pursuit from who they are, It’s core to their being.”

Indeed. I published a blog entry just now at the Flourish blog about Colin Powell’s inspiring TED Talk 2012 that I found in Talk Like TED.

Cardon goes further:

“Passion is aroused not because some entrepreneurs are inherently disposed to such feelings but, rather, because they are engaged in something that relates to a meaningful and salient self-identity for them.”

EXIT: gray flannel insurance field. ENTER: living life Left of the Dial.

That’s the core message of my memoir Left of the Dial: acting false to yourself creates ill health. Living your passions and doing what gives you joy liberates you.

My mantra in life is now: embrace your difference. Celebrate the things that make you the one and only you in this lifetime. Be not afraid to dare to do your own thing.

Dare. Risk acting true to yourself in a world of fakes and copycats.

Each of us will only be happy if what we do meshes with and reinforces who we are.

Entrepreneurial Passion?

I’m all for it.

Normal’s Overrated

A great friend of mine gave me his tee shirt because he didn’t want it. M. chose a size S and mailed it to me about seven years ago. It’s a black short-sleeve tee with silver letters that proclaim: “Normal’s Overrated.” It was a NAMI promotion tee shirt with the TV show House.

The one time I wore it outside in the Village in New York City people zoomed up to my chest to read it. “Rock on! So true!” everyone responded.

Wearing the tee shirt caused me to create a little earthquake in and around Washington Square Park where the art festival was going on.

I write about this because it’s a tendency for individuals newly diagnosed with schizophrenia to internalize shame about having this illness. The actions we take to avoid stigma often wind up having the opposite effect: we become ill.

In my twenties I was a creative quirky gal who ran n the opposite direction to work in the insurance field.

I do wish I could help others be spared the fate of making themselves miserable trying to conform to what other people in society have designated as “normal” or “not normal.”

The link between creativity and mental illness has been proven in research studies. It should come as no surprise that not a lot of us covet becoming tax accountants or trial lawyers. Most of us ARE writers and artists and dancers and photographers and other creatives.

In recognizing this and having self-acceptance the battle is won over the diagnosis.

It’s true that normal’s overrated.

The goal is to take part in your own life by acting true to yourself.

You might not earn millions at a job yet that’s not the point.

The point is to be happy.

Torrid

Getting on and off the bus is something else. The bus arrives late–a crowd storms the exit door to leave.

I waited on a friend in a Barnes & Noble. Everyone coming through the door was beautiful. I wore a blue Sperry hat, blue cropped chinos, and my svelte Nike training shoes.

I go into Sephora before the shrink’s visit, not after. A makeup artist chose a blush for me called Torrid.

At 50 my attraction to Manhattan has worn off. It’s not the playground of my youth. I go there to shop for clothes. Like the sleeveless blouse I bought that reads: You Are My Favorite Daydream. It was my version of a mid life reinvention: a Coachella persona.

We all want another person’s eyes to light up when we enter a room. I serenaded my friend in a Brazilian restaurant.

The night ended. The Greenmarket vendors had folded up and gone away.

The moon rose like a communion wafer, host of a dream swallowed whole.

Knit Together

I’m a loyal fan of knitting ladies.

“How much?” I lifted up a green cap. “Five dollars,” the woman said so I gave her a handful of bills.

“It’s a chemo cap,” she said. “You can have it though.”

“What?” Did I hear right?

“It’s cotton, so I knit it for women who are losing their hair.”

The cap was leaf green and trendy, for a hip young woman.

I read a book about how women (and men who think like them) are taking over the world. The Athena Doctrine documented Grannies, Inc. in Britain–a collection of grandmothers who knit and sell custom-made hats, scarves, and sweaters.

The odd thing is that when I wore the green cap I could almost feel how it would feel to lose your hair.

Faith Popcorn was first with her 1990s book, She-volution, about women starting a revolution in the marketplace with female buying power.

If memory serves, Etsy has gone public.

It’s true women rule the world. Like the perfume TV commercial in the 1970s “We bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan.”

No kidding.

Loud and Proud

I wanted to revisit doing your own thing. It’s a way to be alive in the world. To express yourself and to be proud of who you are.

As true as the sun rises in the east each of us will be miserable if we’re a fish out of water floundering in the sand of an ill-fitting environment. We will be miserable allowing ourselves to be attacked when so-called friends or others insinuate we’re freaks because we don’t conform to what’s accepted in society.

First of all: I don’t think what’s accepted as normal in society IS normal. I don’t think the hate in the world is normal. I don’t think women bashing other women is normal. I don’t think people who stigmatize individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses are great prizes to covet winning in the friends and lovers game.

Can a person change? Yes: some people can change. A person can grow older and become more compassionate. A woman can decide she’s not going to attack her friends anymore.

And too each of us can decide that we don’t have to conform to what others tell us we should do and how they think we should act.

I hold this to be true above all else: treating yourself and others with dignity is the way to go.

Sadly, dignity is often times NOT accorded individuals living with mental illnesses.

It’s time to take back our dignity and get “loud and proud” about ourselves like Jennifer Lopez sang.

I want that no person living with a mental illness ever feels guilty and ashamed because he or she has a medical condition.

I want that no women is made to feel like a freak because she doesn’t want to be married with children.

Whatever your “thing” is. Whoever you are. However you express your personality:

It’s all good. God doesn’t make junk.

Kindle E-Book Available

Left of the Dial is available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book. If you use or used Amazon to buy the print copy the e-book is available to you for only 99 cents a great deal.

Just remember: it’s spring in two weeks so soon this weather will be better.

I will be doing book talks in person in New York City in the coming months.

Stay tuned for details about new book talks.

Harmony / Evensong

Left of the Dial is the title of my memoir because I champion living a life in balance with the needle on the left of the dial of the VU meter. So that everything’s balanced. No loud noisy thoughts in a bar room brawl with your feelings. No severe symptoms veering into the red on the right.

The goal is to have harmony in your head, in your body and mind and spirit.

Harmony: that’s the word that’s the ticket to having an easier time of it in our lives.

Living a life left of the dial signals you live in harmony with your values first of all, no one else’s. So if you’re a mainstream girl in a body-pierced world, that’s your way of living your life left of the dial. If everyone’s sporting tattoos, you’re the rebel if you have none.

You don’t have to worry about other people not liking you for who you are. You just have to like yourself, and be okay with your choices. You find stability and security in a home of your own and that home can be in your own skin.

Here’s to every one of us who is starting out in life on our own. Here’s hoping that when each of us nears 50 (as I am) we can view our lives in a cheer-view mirror instead of a negative rear-view mirror.

I firmly believe that right where you are is where you need to be at this moment in time. And if it’s less than ideal, take action every day to change your life for the better.

As well I champion not being afraid to do your own thing: to stand up and decide what’s right for you to do at this time in your life. I fought a brave fight to be taken seriously in my goal of living independently and obtaining a full-time job in the early 1990s when it was unheard of for a person with SZ to do this.

I will tell readers now and I will tell readers always:

Dare. Take the risk that things will be better on the other side.

Risk doing the thing that scares you. Do the thing you think you cannot do.

Pay attention to the voice that tells you “I must try no matter how hard it is.”

Find your own happy house in your head and in your neighborhood.