21/11/2010

What a Journey…

The Phone Has Rung…

Photo Courtesy of Ben Heine

I love how life guides us through pockets of mysterious encounters and interesting situations. The people we meet change us.  The ups and the downs of daily existence shape us, mold us, and define our perspective of life as we know it.  Everything happens for a reason, right?

A close friend of mine would say, Everything happens for God’s reason.

A few months ago, I would have nodded at this statement, and would have followed with an uncomfortable smile and a quick change of subject.

But today, I understand God’s plan for me is way better than any materialistic, humanly plan I could possibly dream for myself.  I don’t know why it suddenly came clear to me.  But it is so clear. The muddy windshield has finally been wiped clean.  I believe the clarity of my mind and my heart is due to His call.  God called, and I chose to answer.

Turning 24 years old a few weeks ago, for me, means more than sleeping off the previous night’s hangover, partying with friends, and lacking productiveness.  Hey, I mean, if this is where you are in life, awesome.  I’m all for it.  I’m all for your journey to emotional, mental, and spiritual wellness.  However you get there is your story.  It’s worth the dedicated exploration, because you are worth more than words can say!

If you’ve been reading my blog for the past year and a half, you will have experienced my journey from then up until now: one filled with doubts, fears, joys, tears, insecurities, and a constant desire to understand happiness.  It was through writing this blog and keeping my private journals that God reached out to me.  After four years of Art School, studying Drama and Music, and a year of working on “me”, God has filled my heart and soul with His Love and His Plan.  His call is one that asks me to stop living for me and to start living for God.  My purpose is to serve others.  My last name is quite fitting: Servedio. In Italian, this literally translates to he who serves God. I don’t think I’ll ever change it (unless if my future husband insists…hehe…I guess I’m willing to negotiate!)  After 24 years of mindlessly hearing, Jesus loves me, my eyes, my ears, and my heart are opened to the truth, and I couldn’t be happier.

God’s love is happiness.  Accepting God’s love into my heart has filled me with a happiness I can’t quite describe just yet.  It’s peaceful, thankful, compassionate, forgiving, kind, patient, and unwavering in confidence. Okay, so I’m working on the patient part, but with God, we can overcome all of our hardships, fears, and anxieties.

Knowing how awesome I feel everyday, I wonder, Oh man…how did I ever live before? I believe the answer to be this: we can choose to live in fear and despair in order to satisfy our human companions here on earth.  Or we can choose to live in God’s glorious goodness, and focus on building a solid relationship with God for the rest of eternity by answering His call.

Our life on Earth has a beginning and an end.  This is out of our control.  It’s God who put you on this Earth.  Just like the Sun has a very specific purpose, and everyday, it lives up to this call, God put you in this world to fulfill His very specific purpose for you.  His plan for all of us is designed to be filled with love and happiness.  It’s definitely not easy.  Everyday is a struggle.  But I would do anything for love, and God’s love is the best kind there is!

When I’m not feeling too hot, I say this: God, you know everything about me.  You made every hair on my head, and you know every thought that comes to my mind.  You’re the best friend who I have always dreamed of knowing!  How can I know you better?  I want to know you as well as you know me.  Help me to know your love, so that I can share it with everyone I know!

This is where I am right now.  Simply in love with Jesus, and dedicated to becoming everything He has called me to be.  I used to be afraid of offending others.  I used to fear guys wouldn’t like me if I loved God.  Now I know: God’s love is amazing, and enlightens, not offends.  Now I’m only attracted to men who love God.  If he can love God, he will know how to love me, too.  My heart is filled with an endless amount of trust for the One who will protect me in the darkness and guide me in the light.  I am moved by His Grace, and can’t get enough!

My name is Bryana Servedio, and this is My Journey to the Quarter Life.

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23/10/2010

The Heart

Photo Courtesy of gbrummett

The Heart is such a funny instrument.

I picture a harp.  Harps have a sweet, angelic essence.  Plus, their sound is to die for.  The strings vary in size, and each sings its unique sound.  In my mind, I entertain the idea of a mystical melody, and the hypothetical strings of my Heart ring clear and sweet.  Ah, but then I am asked to press play on what seems to have become this computer-engineered, robotic-like Heart of mine, and the tune of Reality is revealed.  The tone is slightly darker and a bit more aggressive than that of my Fantasy Heart.  I can see the bright future and all of its amazing gifts.  In my pursuit of this future, I blind myself to the current. My Jaded Heart simply manages the time while my Hopeful Heart of the future yearns to bring all of my dreams to fruition.

But…

Yesterday, one woman changed all of this.  Her name is Dallas Travers, the author of the award winning how-to book, The Tao of Show Business: How to Pursue Your Dream Without Losing Your Mind.  Tao means the way.  Can it be true?  Someone wants to show me the way?  In a practical, understandable fashion?

Sign me up!

Please allow me to preface by saying that for the past week, I have been cooped up with 23 other talented actors in the Sierra Suite at the Hilton Hotel in Hollywood, all of whom have been trying to eye the attention of prominent LA casting directors, agents, and managers.  This week has been quite informative, especially for me, as I am constantly on the fence with exactly what I want to do in my life.  I think I know, then I don’t.  When I don’t know, I realize I do.  I’m here, I’m there, I’m EVERYWHERE…and I cannot STAND IT!  Focus, Bryana.  (See what I mean?)

As life continues to reveal itself, in the most delicious, unexpected ways that it does, I have realized some pretty valuable things about myself.  If you don’t mind, I’d like to make a list:

  1. It’s not productive to try to make others like me.  Plus, I don’t care.
  2. I have no desire to impress other people.
  3. I’m happy for the therapeutic practice of Acting.  Otherwise, it (as in Acting) doesn’t really make me happy.
  4. Soap Operas are like dark chocolate to me: sensuous, naughty, and deeply gratifying.  A guilty pleasure, if you will.
  5. I am overwhelmed by the egos, and I need to separate myself.
  6. All I want to do is help others find happiness.
  7. I have found my happiness.

Dallas opened her extremely motivating speech with the question, How many of you just want to act?  You don’t care where… You just want to act… Nearly the entire room raised their hands, whereas I sat there with the decision I had made just the evening before: the only acting I care to pursue is Soap Opera acting for exposure and fun, and commercials for money to go to grad school.  Otherwise, the work that Dallas does, which is solely based on inspiring you to discover your truth and your purpose, and then providing the tools to motivate you to pursue this purpose, is exactly who I am and what I want.

3 years ago, I sat in Studio 3 at 890 Broadway in New York City.  I was studying a scene from King Richard III at the Classical Studio at NYU with Louis Scheeder, the man who implanted the happiness bug within me.  I played a murderer.  Louis asked me, Who are you?  What do you want?

Of course, he asked me this question so I could develop a deeper understanding of the character.

Today, everyday, I spark the conversation with myself, Who am I?  And what do I want?

Perhaps my consistent talking to myself is beginning to pay off, despite the insanity of the circumstance.

I know who I am.  I know what I want.  What’s there to fear?  The only way to move now is forward.

My name is Bryana Servedio, and this is My Journey to the Quarter Life.

Photo Courtesy of Dallas Travers

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17/10/2010

Time to Slow Down

Every now and then my body gets mad at me for being on constant overdrive.  It says, Bryana, relax for 2.5 seconds or else I’m going to bombard you with sickness, soreness, and extreme fatigue. I, of course, ignore the warning, and like clockwork, hack up a lung nearly twice a year.  It tends to happen at the most inconvenient of times, like when work is demanding a lot of my time and friends are wanting to see me.  Maybe I should listen to the warning signs for once.

I once made a list of warning signs regarding Men.  I called it, Red Flags for Guys.  Creative, I know.  This was in 2008.  You may not know that I pay great attention to detail, and for almost 8 years, I have been recording insights and observations in my collection of private journals.  Very little of my diaries have actually made it on the web, but I have decided to go virtual with my list of Things to Remember:

  • If he’s had a bad childhood, boot.
  • History of drug use, boot.
  • No job, no desire, boot.
  • No roof over his head, boot.
  • Possessiveness and jealousy, boot.
  • Promiscuous, boot.
  • Doesn’t eat, boot.
  • Disapproval of my body, boot.
  • No money, boot.
  • No God, boot.
  • No knowledge of Love, Stability, and Commitment, boot.
  • Physically and emotionally abusive, boot.
  • Advice from friends to give him the boot, boot.

I wrote this list with a specific person in mind about two years ago, and yet everything still rings true today.  Lists are a great way to put your needs and desires into perspective.  What’s good about this specific list?  I know exactly what I don’t want. What’s bad about this list?  I have no idea what I do want…

I’m on My Journey to the Quarter Life, and I feel like I’m racing against the clock.  But who’s to say that my clock ticks at the same pace as my sister?  My mother?  My friends?  My clock will tick-tock in whatever way it wants.  Do I have a say in how often it ticks?  From where exactly did this metaphorical clock come?  And is there a reset button?  Just a simple question: can my clock be a metronome?  I don’t need to know the time…I just need to know the pace.  Time flashing before my eyes scares me, but rhythm and beat don’t intimidate me at all.

Let the truth be told: I don’t know much.  Right now, all I can testify to knowing is it is time to slow down. When the body shuts down, the clock can’t keep ticking at the same speed, or else I foresee a terrible collision of mind versus body.

Clock.  Metronome.  Time.  Click.  Clack.  Tick.  Tock.  However it is viewed, it must be viewed with Faith.  Faith that even as time passes, I am still working to the beat.  Faith that the rhythm does not set me, that I set the rhythm.  Faith that every step, be it forward or back, is all within the tick-tock of the clock.

My name is Bryana Servedio, and this is My Journey to the Quarter Life.

 

 

Setting the pace.

 

Image Courtesy of Paco Villa

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15/10/2010

Focus In

Focusing…

Propose something I love and I can hyperfocus like you won’t believe.  But in general, my day-to-day life can be rather spontaneous and often confusing.  It’s as if I have too many thoughts, images, ideas, and responsibilities racing through my mind.  The thought of processing each and every one sends me into an immediate slumber.  Seriously.  I can barely keep my eyes open right now.  I began writing Live Your Life Today over a year ago as a way to keep focused, since my anxious tendencies have often pushed me away from the people, places, and activities that make me happy.  This blog has also served as a therapeutic outlet for myself, where I could write inspirational and motivational messages to all of you who actually read what I have to say.  A BIG THANKS to all of you who do read.  You have no idea how happy you make me feel.

Lately, I’ve experienced a lot of change.  A change of pace.  A change of scenery.  A change of friends.  A change of career.  With all of this change, how can I possibly stay focused on rediscovering all of those special gifts in life that really make me happy? By nature, I am a joyologist.  I want to make everyone else happy, but can I effectively do this without truly knowing what makes me happy?

I dreamed last night that my mother and sisters were imitating how my eyes look when I listen to them tell a story.  In the dream, my eyes became two blank white balls, swirling around the inside of my head, unable to process anything around me.  This is symbolic of how I currently feel.  I know the guidance is somewhere, I just need to focus so I can recognize it.

I want to write books and help people beat depression and conquer their fears, but I’m not positive where the starting line begins.  Maybe I’m already there… Or maybe I’m one hundred yards away.  I don’t know.  It doesn’t matter where I am but rather, where I am going. The moment is now.  Tomorrow is not guaranteed.  Even a small step today will make a big difference tomorrow.

As long as I’m moving forward, I’m moving somewhere, right?  I guess I just have to trust that the light I see inside is leading me to wherever God needs me to be.

If I just Focus In on the Light, maybe – just maybe – I will find the unidentified object for which I seek.

My name is Bryana Servedio, and this is My Journey to the Quarter Life.


All Rights Reserved by Remy

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09/10/2010

The Nice Guy Song

This is an anthem for women.  Thank you all for the continued support.

Love Bry

The Nice Guy Song

I’m not gonna tell you once.
I’m not gonna tell you twice.
If you wanna get with me, baby…
All you gotta be is nice.

I’m not gonna play those games.
I won’t be on my knees.
If you wanna get with me, baby…
All you gotta say is please.
Oh, I want a nice guy.

A guy I can bring to my daddy, oh.
A guy who won’t cry when he’s sad…oh no.
A lover, not a fighter, not a loser, he’s a winner.
A nice guy…
I want a nice guy.

I’m not gonna pay for lunch;
Don’t you dare ask me to.
If you wanna get with me, baby…
All you gotta do: pursue.
Oh, I want a nice guy.

A guy who my mom could be proud of, oh.
A guy who my bro would be jellin’ of.
A lover, not a fighter, not a loser, he’s a winner.
A nice guy.
Oh, I want a nice guy.

If he’s out there,
And if he’s listenin’ in:
My profile on Match.com
is Angelican.
I want the guy who brings
The sweet
To my Home Sweet Home.
I want a nice guy.

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15/09/2010

A New Start…

The time has come where my independent soul has led me to new opportunities.

As things are beginning to settle here in sunny California, I can’t help but to express how grateful I am for every single person in my life, and for every single experience.  You hear it said all the time, but truly,

everything does happen for a reason.

Although you may not understand the reasoning at first, eventually God will pull through for you.  Faith is necessary. 

Believe in yourself, believe in your choices, and someday, it will all make sense.

At least this is what I keep telling myself…

Despite how stressful moving may be, I am a huge fan of change.  It’s refreshing and exciting.  The possibilities seem endless.  I followed my heart and my intuition, and I have found the sun’s glorious light, both literally and figuratively.

I have learned from this experience that it doesn’t take a “special” person, or an “extraordinary” person, to start what I have started.

A new beginning is within the reach of every single person.

If you are able to read this, whether the vice be your smart phone, your laptop, or even a public computer,

you are blessed with the knowledge that your life is in your hands,

including that new start of which you have dreamed for months or even years.  Trust me, the confidence you need to nail that interview is within you.  The courage you need to submit your portfolio is within you.  Your happiness is within you.

Bryism #25:

Big Shoe, BIG SOUL. Walk WITH it, not ON it!

When that intuitive phone rings,

pick up and answer the call!


Don’t put your caller on hold.  He may hang up and never try you again.  Don’t ask for a number to call him back.  You may not have enough gas to light your back burner; or, even worse, you may have too many pots and pans piled up that you may never get to it.  If you’re going to do what makes you happy, you might as well do it with absolute abandon and full commitment.

If things don’t turn out how you planned –
and most of the time, if you’re really focused, things turn out BETTER than you had planned -

at least you know you gave it your all.  Your all is all you are expected to give. Your soul is the gift that keeps on giving.  And remember…

you will never find your sole soul in your shoe.

So stop kickin’ the dust, and start runnin’ with the wind.

Stay Blessed,

Bry


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07/09/2010

Fall In Love with Your Life!

September Challenge:

Fall in Love with Your Life!

How to Fall In Love with Your Life.

Your environment matters.

Your relationships matter.

YOU matter.

Make the difference you need THIS FALL by having the courage to MAKE A CHANGE. No need to blame others. Understanding of other’s faults comes with an acceptance and love for your own mistakes.

PEACE LOVE AND POWER TO YOU!
FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR LIFE!

Music Courtesy of John Mayer Trio

Love Bryana

Bryana Servedio is an affordable Life Coach in the Los Angeles area.
E-mail her at bryanaservedio@gmail.com
Call her at (424) 234 – 9255
Find her on Skype at life.coach.bryana
Find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bryanaservedio

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