Maureen Smith - The ABCs of Full Tilt Living. Insights from A-Z

The ABCs of Full Tilt Living is an amazingly clear, concise, and effective set of antidotes to the problems and confusion that plague us in our lives. Maureen Smith offers us simple yet effective ways to embrace our lives with joy, achieve greater serenity despite the chaos that surrounds us, and cut through those challenges we find disturbing and disorienting. This is a book well worth reading, recommending, and keeping close at hand.

-CHARLES A. GARFIELD, Ph.D.,

author of Peak Performers and Second to None

The ABCs of Full Tilt Living steps lightly from Ahhhhh to the Zone of peace and clarity where the best self is at home. It dares readers of all ages to have fun in life by creating the thoughts and actions that attract joyful, spontaneous moments on the wheel of happiness.

-LAUNA HUFFINES, author of
Healing Yourself With Light: Flow to Connect With the Angelic Healers and Bridge of Light: Tools of Light for Spiritual Transformation

Browsing through these chock-full chapters felt like looking through an assortment of luscious teas... hmmm... Could I use a little zing? Or maybe some spice? Ooooh... minty... that's it! There's something here for everyone, for every occasion, for every mood. Enjoy!

-BJ GALLAGHER, author of Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Other Women

The ABCs of Full Tilt Living gives your life a little jump start just when you need it most. The whole book seems to crackle with energy; Maureen Smith's wise words bounce off the page and climb into that suffering little corner of your psyche that most needs cheering up. A marvelous antidote to a grim, workaday world.

-SUZANNE FALTER-BARNS, author of Flow Much Joy Can You Stand? and Living Your Joy

First published in 2003 by

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

York Beach, ME

With offices at:

368 Congress Street

Boston, MA 02210

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2003 Maureen Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Maureen (Maureen J.),

The ABCs of full tilt living : insights from A-Z / Maureen Smith.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-59003-048-6

1. Conduct of life. I. Title.

BF637.C5S5449 2003

158.1--dc21

2003010536

Typeset in AGaramond by Jill Feron/Feron Design

Printed in Canada

TCP

10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.redwheelweiser.com

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My hope is that the thoughts hanging behind these twenty-six letters open the possibility for your life to go at full tilt. Throttle open, wind whipping, sky's the limit, no stopping you now!

The idea of A to Z isn't really mine. My inventive and enthusiastic publisher thought it might be fun to have an alphabet soup kind of approach to insights for full tilt living. Well, why not? So I dove in. What came out is bitesized and just as disordered as alphabet soup. It's twenty-six invitations to take good care of yourself, let go of the stuff you don't need, open doorways to having more of what you want.

Turn ordinary days into Ahhs. Live out a secret wish to be a drama queen. Get help with the times when you want to kick yourself or feel flat as a pancake. Chase down that zone thing. Take some time out to get fresh, grounded.

Feel free to pick out the letters in whatever order they speak to you. And by all means, if any of these ideas have you doing that finger-in-the-mouth gagging thing, skip them. Stick with the ones that help you get past the speed bumps and other such diversions that might break your stride and take you away from finding the delight in your life. So that life for you can be full tilt.

Know that I'm behind you all the way.

Or more to the point, Aaaaahhhh!

Not to be confused with (A), as in the correct answer, the first item to be addressed, the main but not the only reason, the opening instruction, the necessary grade.

Lifting ourselves out of the hunt for the answer, the list of problems waiting to be solved, the need to explain, to instruct, to score.

Aaaaahhhh!

The sun is so warm.

The coffee's just right.

Who could have imagined a color so rich?

This is the most perfect _____ (pen, pair of pliers, desktop, potato peeler)!

Take some Aaaaahhhs into your world today. Be astonished, delighted, undone. Let your grip on your hard-edged, sharp-witted self go slack for a few seconds and ride the waves of the absolute beauty of things at the atomic, moment-by-moment end of the spectrum. Your breathing will change. Your muscles may give up some of their tightness. Your body may realign.

The As will wait for you. And you will be more ready for them when you come back with your focus so much the clearer for the time you spent with the Aaaahhhs!

This has to be the all-time best unword. If I had exercised the wisdom to use it, there are a few times that things could have gone much smoother for me. There was that Bleep you! that I had the misfortune to not use one Thanksgiving at my parents' place. And bleep would have come in handy for my son on the playground in third grade. As it was, he faced the disgrace of suspension at a very tender age and a reputation for coming from a less than desirable family. It put a real damper on subsequent Boy Scout outings and party invitations, let me tell you.

My encounters with moments when bleep is a lifesaver have caused me to see that there are some downright incendiary phrases in the English language. And it's a bleeping good idea to clear them out.

Still, it's a shame to lose something that is so power-packed. So how about we take the oomph behind these troublemakers and give them a new life as little juicy phrases?

First, take me at my word and leave all the bleepable words out of the picture. Then find some juicy, power-packed words you like. Make up a nice set of phrases and then use them on yourself. Some of my personal favorites are:

You are truly amazing!

You do that incredibly well!