If you have mixed feelings about the holiday season, you’re not alone. It can be elevating, exciting, and inspiring, and it can also be stressful, exhausting, and bewildering. Fear not. You just need a bit of cinematherapy in the comfort of your home. That and my favorite essential oil blends, Lift-me-up and Merry Christmas!
What are your favorite holiday movies and series? Happy viewing, and wishing you all good things!!
Fear. Uncertainty. Stress. Sometimes it feels like we’re in one of those movies when the monster has finally been defeated–and then gets up and starts attacking again. It’s enough to make you want to dive under the duvet.
While the following list won’t make you queen of the world, it will help you be queen of YOUR world.
1. Turn off the newsfeeds. It’s an abyss and no good can come from it.
2. Give your social media a time out. Do you really want to read someone else’s rant? Isn’t your own bad enough? Hint: If you can’t stay away, just do a quick drop-in to post a picture of a puppy, kitten, or baby condor.
3. Make haste to Netflix and watch (or re-watch) something uplifting. And sexy. Like Bridgerton and Home for Christmas. Or We Can Be Heroes (amazing kids’ movie). Another one of my favorite kids’ movies is The Last Mimzy. Or break out your collection of Austen adaptations. Enjoy.
4. Read something uplifting. Something with a happily ever after. Any or all of Jane Austen’s six major novels comes to mind. Or Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I (the basis for season one of Bridgerton). Tina Turner’s new book about how she found happiness. Or something you loved in childhood. Even better if it makes you cry a bit. Like The Velveteen Rabbit. Sometimes tears can be very refreshing.
5. Listen to music that lifts your spirits. You know, your Girl Power playlist, your dance playlist, this get-on-your-feet-and-feel-great playlist from Tina Turner, or the soundtrack from whichever Pride and Prejudice adaptation is your fave.
6. Diffuse some essential oils. Two of my go-to blends: Lift-Me-Up and Kid’s Delight. I also have them in spray form for a very quick fix. I just close my eyes and spray my face. Mmmmm!
7. Say a silent (or not) thank you for what you still have but probably take for granted. This one’s really magic.
8. Text, email, or call someone who might be feeling as much in need of a kind word as you are right now.
BONUS. Get dressed. In something that makes you feel good. Even if (especially if) you’re the only one you’re dressing for!
Feel better. Repeat daily. Wishing you lots of happiness!
You’ve found the perfect certain someone for your friend, neighbor, colleague, or other unsuspecting acquaintance. There’s just one small problem: Said friend has told you that no way, no how is he/she interested in that perfect certain someone. And yet, you know better–just as you always do. Just as Emma, the eponymous heroine of Austen’s novel, always did.
Hold on a minute. Did Jane Austen write two versions of Emma? Or could it be that you, like Emma, are turning into the queen of know-it-all? Heaven forbid. After all, look what happened to Emma. She very nearly totally screwed up her life. But never fear. We’ve got a little game for you to play. It’s called “Emma, Reformed Matchmaker.” All you need to do is follow the rules:
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It’s called Bride and Prejudice, the life-affirming, Bollywood-meets-Hollywood tribute to Pride and Prejudice. 
Not only is it a clever, spirited, heart-opening adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but there are also two other very important reasons for you to watch:
1. Nathan Riggs from Grey’s Anatomy. That’s right, Martin Henderson plays Darcy. 
2. Naveen Andrews from Lost. He plays the Bingley role. 
Need I say more? I needn’t but I will: There’s the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai in the Elizabeth role; Ellaria Sand, that is, Indira Varma, in the Caroline Bingley role; and the most hilarious portrayal of Mr. Collins (by Nitin Ganatra) since David Bamber’s brilliant work in the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle P&P.
Just watch the trailer and see if you can resist. Come on, grumpypants—I dare you.
Welcome to the Persuasion Happiness Program. Persuasion, like all of Jane Austen’s novels, is more than a book: it’s a roadmap to happiness. Here are lots of ways to lift yourself up with Persuasion!
1.Read Persuasion, and discover that there is always a second chance at happiness. Heroine Anne Elliot goes from lonely resignation to triumphant empowerment. It’s impossible to turn the last page without feeling a little spark inside that says, “that could be me.” Yes, it could, and it will!
2.Read Persuasion, and renew (or form) your faith in men. If you’ve ever wished and hoped that men could be as loyal and as romantic as women, Persuasion will grant your wish. Persuasion has what is perhaps the most romantic declaration of love in all of English literature. 
But don’t just wish and hope: Believe. Which leads us to:
3. Read Persuasion, and learn that faith in the good is rewarded. Always. As the heroine, Anne Elliot, says to a male friend, “I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman.”
4. Read Persuasion, and develop discernment. Anne Elliot was persuaded at the tender age of 19 to give up her engagement to the man she truly loved; she spent the next eight years regretting it. Not only did she learn to trust her intuition about love, she also learned to rely on her own inner voice at other critical moments. Observe her closely, and follow her example.
who could resist clicking on that?
Welcome to the first of a multi-part series of posts on how to lift yourself out of the blues, Austen style.
Perhaps it’s just that kind of day. Or year. Bottom line: you feel like crap. Friends, there is a cure to what ails you, and her name is Austen. Her magic comes in many forms, and this series of posts will illuminate, in no particular order, what you can do, with almost no effort, to feel light and bright and fabulous! 
Today we’re feeling the fairy dust from Northanger Abbey.
What? You’ve heard it’s frivolous? Not as polished as Austen’s later works? Balderdash. But wait—didn’t its original publisher accept it and then couldn’t be bothered to publish it? Just means that dude was an idiot. And anyhow, you’re too wise to waste time caring about what other people think. Because if you did care, you wouldn’t be dressing in Regency-era costumes (or wondering what it would be like to do it). You wouldn’t be going to (or imagining) fun things like the Jane Austen Festival in Bath or your local ECD get-togethers (not OCD, ECD, and that stands for English Country Dance). And you definitely wouldn’t be saving up for (or wondering what it would be like to go to) ComicCon. I could do a whole series of posts on the cross-pollination between Austen fans and sci-fi fans, but I digress…
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Just watched the first episode of The Cate Morland Chronicles, and looking forward to more. It’s a reimagining of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey with a Catherine Morland as the ultimate fangirl. Sweet.
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This is from what is perhaps the greatest Austen adaptation of all, Sense and Sensibility, with screenplay by Emma Thompson (her book that includes the screenplay and her diaries is a must-read), direction by the brilliant Ang Lee, and stellar acting by Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, and many more.
May fortune smile upon you as it did upon Edward and Elinor.
