On What I've Been Up To

I'm getting far too sporadic with this blog. I keep doing interesting things and meeting interesting people, and each time I do I think "ooh, I must blog about that" and then I'm on to the next interesting thing and the moment has passed. So I think this will have to be a round up of various interesting things I've been up to of late. OK, so, where to start...

March 5th - I recorded my first ever teleseminar! I'm dead proud of this, I must say. I coped with the technology, having been helped over my intitial panic that nothing appeared to be working by the ever wise Sharon Gaskin, and once I got into it I really enjoyed it. I did make it easy on myself by making sure no-one could interrupt, so next time I shall be bolder and make it an interactive session, which will be fun. I had some really generous and positive comments from listeners which bucked me up no end. If you didn't get a chance to listen to it at the time, I've now saved it and loaded it up as a podcast, so you can listen to it any time by just clicking on this link.

March 8th - I went to the Women Unlimited Conference held at the British Library Conference Centre. A very tiring but excellent day, with some fabulous, inspiring speakers and lots of lovely entrepreneuses. I never knew all this sort of stuff went on before! What a fabulous way to spend International Women's Day!

March 9th - went to my first 4N event as a paid up member. I've been looking for a networking group that felt right for me, and I went to my first ever 4N on March 2nd. I'd seen lots of references to it on Twitter, and then had it recommended to me by a member, so I thought I'd give it a try. I felt immediately at home on my first visit, so much so that I joined the minute I got home, parting with cash and everything! I really like the unstuffy atmosphere, the lack of rules and the fact that you can go to 4N meetings wherever you happen to be. I've met some really nice people and have booked myself in to attend an average of 2 meetings a week from now on.
From there, I went to the launch of the 30:30 Big Wig's Challenge in aid of the Sue Ryder Care Hospice in Leckhampton, Cheltenham. This is a fund-raising venture which aims to raise £30,000 between now and the end of July. You can see what I'm doing to help out here - please give generously!
And that evening, I had a fantastic session with a client, who has uncovered what she really wants to do with her life as a direct result of the work we've been doing together - we both left the session on a real high as a result.

March 10th - to Surrey to visit another client - it was a beautiful (if flipping cold) day and I took advantage of the fact that I had no other appointments that day to take the scenic route and enjoy the drive. The coaching session went really well again, and I went home thrilled that I'm able to spend my time doing something so fulfilling and rewarding. I'm contiunually struck by what a privilege it is to be allowed to listen as people explore their deepest fears and feelings.

March 11th was a Birthday in our house, so not much work was done, but there was a lot of feasting and celebrating. I did have a lovely long chat with Kate Griffiths, who I've met on Twitter, and as a result we've decided to provide a sort of mentoring service for each other, so that's good!

March 12th - my first ever interview with the press! I met a lovely lady called Caroline Fisher, who writes for the Gloucestershire Echo amongst others. I think the interview went well, and we seemed to get on like a house on fire, so now I'm waiting to see the result in print. I took advantage of the opportunity to slip her a copy of my book wot I wrote - I've had some lovely reactions to it so far, and I'm hoping she'll think it's worth a mention.

And in amongst all that I've been tweeting, facebooking, collectring new subscribers for my newsletter, writing articles for various magazines, and being a wife, a daughter and a mother. Blimey. It's no wonder I'm tired!

On My Adventures In The Big City

Yesterday I went to London for the day. I had 3 meetings arranged: one chemistry meeting with a prospective client, one coaching session with an existing client, and one catch up with a dear friend who was going to give me a tour of her husband's art exhibition. I had arranged the first and last meetings around the middle one, to make the most of the day, and decided to let National Express take the strain.

So, up early to catch the 0810 coach, we left the house at 0730 on the basis that it would take half an hour to walk to the coach stop and I don't like to be late. My lovely husband accompanied me as it was on his way to work. We walked so fast it took all of 10 minutes to get to the bust stop, which left me with a half hour wait for the coach! And boy, was it cold yesterday morning! Still, never mind, I was wrapped up in coat and gloves, and it would only be half an hour.

Or would it? 0810 came and went with no sign of a coach. Then at 0817 I spied it, a big, white National Express coach zooming round the roundabout, approaching the bus stop ..... and zooming straight past with the driver looking fixedly ahead, CLEARLY ignoring my frantic attempts to flag her down. I was dumbfounded. Clearly she was late, but that was no excuse for failing to stop.

Luckily a local bus was right behind, and I thought if I hopped on that I could catch up with the coach at the next stop in town. But look! I have no money on me!! How sensible am I?!

So I rang my lovely husband and asked him to come out and meet me at the gates to his work, and bring me some money. Which he did, bless him. Then he walked me to the nearest bus stop where, as luck would have it, a bus was just about to pull in. As lovely husband turned away, railing at the uselessness of National Express and exhorting me to ring them and complain, what did I espy but a National Express coach creeping up behind the local bus. And, would you believe it, when I checked my ticket, this one actually had the right service number on it, unlike (I now realised) the one that had zoomed past me....

I was now at the wrong bus stop, but I leapt out into the road waving my ticket and holding up traffic while trying to get the coach driver to let me on board. Which he did, very grumpily and probably against the rules, but boy was I grateful!! What a good job he was half an hour late, or I'd never have caught him!!

Once I'd settled in I rang my husband to let him know, but his phone was engaged, so I checked my emails instead. There was one cancelling my first meeting, for a very good reason it has to be said. Just then my husband rang to tell me about the argument he'd just had with someone at National Express's head office and what a shower they were and how angry he was at their poor service. How he laughed when I told him about my mix up with the coaches, and how I was now on the right one! Ha!

The journey was largely uneventful, apart from the WiFi not working and the electrical socket that I'd plugged my laptop into not having any power. As we sat in a traffic jam outside Buckingham Palace I reflected on how lucky it was that my morning meeting had been cancelled, as we were so late that I wouldn't have made it anyhow.

We finally made it to Victoria and I had plenty of time to get my Oyster card, buy some lunch and saunter on to the underground to get to my next appointment. I would even have time for a cup of tea somewhere when I go to my destination. I was buoyed up by having taken a call from a journalist wanting to interview me for a feature article next week - it was a lovely day, I wasn't in a rush, all was good.

A few stops from my destination, the phone rang. My client said "I don't know how to tell me this, but..." he had a family emergency that required his immediate attention. I managed to hold off with the hysterical laughter till I got off the phone, convincing him that he didn't need to feel guilty and it wasn't a problem. I rang my lovely husband and we had a chortle together - and then I noticed we were pulling into what had been my destination and if I didn't get off there, I'd end up who knows where.

Off I got, crossed the footbridge over to the other platform and ate my lunch while freezing my bits off waiting 20 minutes for a train back in the other direction. While there I had a sudden panic - was I meeting my friend in Kingston or Richmond? Was she going to cancel on me too? How did one get to Kingston or Richmond from where I was?

Thankfully she texted me right back - I was going to Kingston, she wasn't going to cancel, and she could meet me earlier than planned. Apart from then passing through various stations 3 times because I got confused about which route to take, the journey to Kingston was uneventful. I had a lovely time with my friend, including copious amounts of tea, wine and ribaldry. To our delight, our guru, the man who taught us to be coaches, happened to wander past the window of Carluccio's as we were ribalding, so I ran outside like a thing possessed, bear-hugged him and woman-handled him in to join us. Once he'd got over the shock (I'm quite hefty, and apparently he doesn't often find himself being charged at by overweight middle-aged women dressed in all the colours of the rainbow!) he was as delighted to see us as we were to see him, so we had a lovely catch-up before we let him go free again.

I made my leisurely way back to Victoria, picking up some supper from M&S on the way, and arriving at the Coach Station with plenty of time to spare. Got on the coach, no problems, settled down, no problems, plugged in my laptop and WiFi, no problems. Went to eat my supper - a nice healthy couscous salad with roasted veg and spicy chicken. Which I had to eat with my fingers, cos I hadn't picked up a fork.

I had a lovely day out, and I hope my next trip to London will be as much fun!

On Having One Of Those Days

I'm having One Of Those Days. I get them every now and again and it's almost as if my body is trying to give me a not-so-subtle reminder of what it's like to be in the midst of a depressive phase. I wake up, and the black dog is sitting on my chest, panting at me. He proceeds to spend the rest of the day following me around and oozing gloom at me, until I give up and go to bed. Usually when this happens, I recognise that it's only going to last for a day and give in to it, in the knowledge that I'll wake up tomorrow to a new day and all will be well again.

But today I've been driving myself potty by trying to work out what's brought it on. My lovely son (see photo, taken by the splendid Mr Rhys Jones, aka Photo Maestro ) has even tried to coach me through it, bless him. But still the dog remains. So I'm going to use today's blog to tune in to my inner voice, to find out what's going on.

Here are the first things I notice that my inner voice is saying to me:

• Eat chocolate and you'll feel better
• Go back to bed and you'll feel better
• You've let yourself down by not doing your yoga this morning, and even when you tried to make up for it a while ago it was only a half-hearted attempt so you let yourself down again then
• Everything's too difficult today, so don't bother doing anything
• There's too much to do and no-one else is going to do it
• Just sit very still and very quiet and try to stop thinking
• It's too much effort to talk to anyone in the flesh so don't go anywhere and then you'll be safe
  

Blimey, it's no wonder I feel like crap!

Well, I know that eating chocolate and going back to bed won't make me feel better in the long run, so I can discount them, tempting as they are. I guess really they are attempts to soothe my inner child - here, have a magic sweetie and it'll all be all right - my attempts to kiss it better. So, I may be doing it in an unhelpful way, but at least part of me is trying to look after me and at least I've learned that these options aren't actually all that helpful. Now that I think about it, I can see that going for a walk would do me far more good - although that would involve getting dressed first....told you it was a bad day!

The 3rd one, about the yoga, is interesting. I've been having irregular yoga lessons since before Christmas, and when I went on my NLP course last weekend, one of the things I decided I wanted to have different in my life was to practice yoga more regularly. We were learning about swishing and I volunteered to have the technique demonstrated on me, so that I would replace my previous, slug-like approach to the mornings with a desire to leap out of bed and go through my yoga routine every other day. And you know what? It worked! Last week I ached more than I've ached in a very long time, because of all the unaccustomed exercise. I felt fantastic and I was eager to keep doing it, and to banish the slug version of me.

And then this morning, I allowed the slug to take over. It was a conscious choice and as I'm typing this, I'm wondering which came first, the Slug or the Black Dog? Because I'm very aware that my inner voice has been telling me off ever since I decided to stay in bed and finish my book this morning. And actually, I'm now aware that I finished my book, rather than just reading a couple of chapters and then getting up, almost as an act of defiance. It was as if somewhere inside my head my teenage self was saying "The more you keep on nagging, the longer I'm going to lie here reading, just to piss you off!"

How interesting - I've sabotaged myself. And I feel much brighter for having that realisation. I can also see that the rest of the list of things the Inner Voice has been telling me today are further acts of self-sabotage.

I wonder why we sabotage ourselves? I read a fascinating article by Oliver Burkeman in Saturday's Guardian, all about how we are drawn towards the easiest option all the time, and I recognised myself in what he described. And that's what I did this morning - instead of making the effort to get up and get on with the day, I gave in to the easiest option and have spent the day simultaneously punishing myself and stopping myself from making any further effort.

I am fully aware that one of my Gremlins (the things that hold us back or stop us from doing things) is the voice that says "it's all to too much effort, I can't be arsed". These days I'm pretty adept at spotting when it's happening, and I've learnt to ask it what it's trying to protect me from. So, assuming that Mr Can't B. Arsed the Gremlin was around this morning, what was he trying to protect me from when I allowed him to talk me into staying in bed? I suspect that he, and his cronies, are all too aware that a significant change in lifestyle is creeping up on them, and this was an attempt to hold it at bay. If I derail my attempts to change, I can slip back into my old, familiar, comfortable ways of being and doing, and I'd be lying if I said that that's not at least partly attractive.

All change involves effort, and all change involves a certain degree of discomfort. I've been through a monumental amount of change over the past year and I've promised myself that there's a lot more to come. I suspect that at least a part of my self is begging for mercy and just wants to be allowed to go back to sleep again, and that part came to the fore this morning.

But I can't let it have its way otherwise all my hard work up to now will have been for nothing. I'll revisit my NLP notes and make sure that my Swish is brought back to life, so that I can be a better support to myself tomorrow morning.

And for today, I'm going to forgive myself. I am, after all, only human, and everyone's allowed a little stumble now and again. And that's all today has been - a little stumble. My goals are all still as they were and I KNOW that I will achieve them.

So - I'm off to get dressed and do the grocery shopping. And I may just allow myself a very small bar of Green & Blacks as a treat....

On Defeating the Elephant of Death

I had a fantastic yoga session last week. Adam, my lovely instructor, knows I like words so he always tells me both the Sanskrit and the Hindi(?) names for the poses, and the Latin names for various muscles. And he helpfully translates the Sanskrit/Hindi for me as well, my Sanskrit being ever so slightly rusty these days....

Anyway, last Friday I learnt about the Lion that Defeats the Elephant of Death which, as I'm sure you all know, is all to do with strengthening your core abdominal muscles.

After we'd had a giggle at the name, and Adam had suggested what a splendid title it would make for a blog post, we fell to wondering how it had come about its name. Adam reckoned that it was because, when you do it properly, you pull all of your internal organs back up into place, lift your diaphragm and stand up straight - that's what strengthens your core and must make you healthier because your insides aren't all being squished against each other.

I think that's part of it, but I think it goes deeper than that. As part of the work I do helping people to become more confident I use some of what I've learned from Adam. First off, we talk about the effect your posture can have on your mood, and then I ask them to show me the posture that they associate with shy people. We get a lot of demonstrations of arm folding, leg twisting and staring at the carpet, which generally leads on to a discussion about what messages that posture sends out to other people - and it's "keep away because I'm not worthy".

So then I channel Adam and show them how to stand straight and strong as I have been taught. This involves Defeating the Elephant of Death and I've seen it have a very profound effect on people.

When we move from a posture that tells the world that we think we have no place in it (a closed body, looking down, arms folded - the classic "I'm shy, don't notice me") to one of strength and confidence (standing straight, shoulders back, head up, making eye contact) we ourselves feel differently. I will never forget the (very shy) lady who said, in wonderment, "It's so much easier being like this! I feel like I belong in this space and I have a right to be here". All because I had encouraged her to think about her posture.

I wonder whether the Elephant of Death is a metaphor for the fears that keep us small and looking down? After all, what's keeping us down is usually the fear that we are not worthy, or that we somehow don't belong, or that other people won't want to hear from us, or any other of the millions of reasons that we hide our true colours from the world. Once you realise that the only thing stopping you is your fear, it becomes easier to handle it. And standing up straight, grounding yourself and finding the core of strength inside you makes physiological changes that result in altered brain chemistry, so that you automatically start to FEEL braver and stronger.

And that's how you conquer the Elephant of Death - by looking him squarely in the eye and challenging him to a duel of wits. And I guarantee, if you do that, you'll win every time.

An update: adam has now read my blog, and has sent me the following:

"We probably need to amend something though, as clearly in the intensity of our semi-nirvana I've mis-stated or you've mis-heard or some mutual combination.

Uddiyana Bandha is 'The elephant that conquers death'; elephants are sacred / lucky divine in Indian thought (think Ganesha) and wouldn't be a representative of death.

So more accurately, mastering this exercise is getting Nellie on your side. There is another layer of symbolism here because of cause elephants enjoy relative longevity compared to humans.

Good practice of uddiyana lifts us up; makes us strong and foursquare under life's weight - an indefatigable pachyderm, who won't be pushed down and compressed by the burdens of daily life."

I apologise unreservedly for misrepresenting him - I have no doubt whatsoever that I misheard what he said!

On Valuing Yourself

Let's start with some rhetorical questions:

1) If you're a parent, what kind of life do you believe your children deserve? How do you whow them how much you value them?

Most loving parents desperately want their children to be happy, healthy and fulfilled, and do their utmost to make that happen. When they are little, we try to ensure they eat a good, healthy diet and get plenty of exercise. We cuddle them and read to them and play with them; we kiss it better when it hurts and we keep them safe while also giving them room to learn about risks and danger in a healthy way. As they get older, we gradually step back until they have enough space to stretch their wings and fly safely from the nest.

And as parents we know that Philip Larkin was right - despite all of our best intentions we still manage to get some stuff wrong and there will always be things that our children will hold against us. But if we've done our very best, our children will be secure in the knowledge that we value them above all else.

2) If you have a partner, what kind of life do you believe they deserve, and how do you show them how much you value them?

I believe that loving partners want only the best for each other. It's easy for that basic want to get lost in amongst the dishwashing, laundry, last-minute business trips and school holidays that make up family life, but a loving couple will still find the time somehow to look out for each other and do whatever they can to show each other they care. In my marriage, one of the ways this manifests itself is in my lovely husband bringing me tea and breakfast in bed every morning without fail (unless he's too ill to get up, which is very rare). It's only a little thing, but every morning I wake up to a reminder of how loved and valued I am - and that's not a little thing at all.

Now here comes the killer quesion: What kind of life do you think you deserve? And how do you show yourself how much you value yourself?

Do you make sure that you're happy, healthy and fulfilled? Or do your needs come at the bottom of the list, only to be tended to when you've made sure everyone else is OK? I'm not advocating becoming selfish and putting yourself first at all times, but if you always put yourself last you'll never have the energy or the time left to do yourself justice. Don't you deserve to treat yourself to the same care and compassion you give to others?

What kind of messages do you send out about yourself? If you show the world that you don't value yourself then the world will learn that you are of no value and treat you accordingly. So if your family see you always outting yourself last and not respecting yoursel, then they will learn to do the same. If you make it clear that you think your feelings and opinions are worthless, then that's what your children will learn about you - and what will they learn about themselves as a consequence?

What little things could you do, every day, to show yourself that you love and value yourself? Maybe a walk in the fresh air, with the sun on your face would do it for you. Maybe some quiet time to yourself doing exactly what you want. Here's an idea:

Take a piece of paper and write on the top "If I were to live my life as if I really valued myself, I would..."

Now make a list of all the things you would do if that were true. Make it a list of positive things, so rather than saying "I would stop doing x", say "I would start doing y".

Once you've finished your list, pick 3 things on it that are easy to achieve and commit to incorporating them into your life - starting today. Next week pick 3 more and add them in. The week after that, pick 3 more and add them in, and so on.

In a month's time, you'll be living as if you really valued yourself - and you'll be astonished by how easy it was and what a difference it's made to you and those around you. I'd love to know how you get on...

On Visualising Success

Blimey what a week it's been!

Last time I had time to blog I was recovering from an attack of the wobbles, and since then it's been nothing but positive (despite spending what felt like most of last weekend taking various members of the family to A&E!)

On Saturday I held the pilot of Day 1 of my True Colours Foundation Workshop, ably assisted by a group of 6 lovely people who all volunteered to be my guinea pigs for the occasion. They were incredibly generous with their feedback and evaluation and I'm reassured that, with a few very minor tweaks, I have a really strong product to offer - one of my guinea pigs referred to the workshop as a "detox for the soul" and another said it was the best personal development workshop they've ever been on - so they've even written some of my marketing for me!!

Then yesterday I spent the afternoon with an amazing young lady called Catherine Robinson. She's only 21 and already she's lived in loads of different countries and is now running her own business, Objektum Venues. Catherine's passion and values drive her business - she sets exemplary standards for herself and her clients and you know from the minute you start to talk to her that she won't let you down.

I hired Catherine to find the perfect location for my True Colours workshops. The brief I gave her was that I want my workshops to feel like a spa treatment for your insides (but without the colonic irrigation aspect!) - so if you come along to a True Colours workshop, every aspect of it should feel like a treat but one that's doing you some life-long good. To me that means discreet luxury, gorgeous surroundings, peaceful beautiful surroundings, exquisite food and, most importantly, home-made cupcakes. You should know the minute you walk through the door that you're going to be looked after and cared for, and that if the course takes you on an emotional jouney, you're in a safe place.

The venue Catherine found me is exquisite, and I knew the minute I walked through the door that it was the one for me. If you want to be one of the first to know where it is, when the workshops will run and how you can be one of the first to experience them, you'll need to subscribe to my website so that you get a copy of my newsletter - it's due out on Feb 1st...

We finished our afternoon with tea and cakes in a lovely little tea shop in Winchcombe, and Catherine so inspired me that I'm developing some of her ideas for inclusion in my work. If ever you're looking for an event manager or venue finder, do give her a go, she's fabulous and a really nice person to boot.

On Calming The Inner Voice

I had a bit of a wobble over the weekend.

I started finding it really difficult to switch off at nght, and found myself waking up at 4 in the morning with my head spinning with all the "stuff" I had to do, which led to getting up at silly o'clock to get work done and then fretting when I couldn't think clearly. By Monday morning I was in a bit of a state, and by Monday teatime all I wanted to do was sit in a corner and cry.

Instead of doing that, I took myself off to bed for some quiet time to think, drink tea and calm down.

I listened very hard to what was going on in my head and realised that my inner voice was chuntering away along these lines:

"You've got to think about marketing and you need a PR strategy and there's that workshop you're running on Saturday and you need to be ready for that and have you contacted the people that are coming yet and you're nearly out of business cards and you need to learn how to hold a teleseminar and it's about time you recorded another podcast and when are you going to find somewhere for your workshops and if you held a seminar would anyone come and what kind of cupcakes are you going to make and...and...and..."

It's no wonder I couldn't sleep! Once I started to pay attention to what my inner voice was saying, I immediately realised that I was stressing myself out because I had fallen into one of my usual self-inflicted bear-traps - I had got so swept up with the excitement of new things, that I'd stopped planning and prioritising, and now I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

So, instead of just letting the inner voice keep going and driving me mad, I decided to pay it some attention, and I wrote down all the things it was telling me I needed to do. This immediately helped me to feel calmer. It's like paying attention to a small child - if you ignore it it just gets more and more persistent and insistent, tugging at your sleeve, getting louder, climbing all over you until you get completely exasperated with it. If you listen to what it's saying (provided you're not in the middle of something critical) and acknowledge what it's trying to tell you, it's happy and will wander off to do something else, leaving you to concentrate on what you were doing.

So I acknowledged my inner voice, recognising that, in this instance, it was trying to help me. Once I'd written down all the things it was reminding me about, I was able to prioritise them and recognise that actually only a very few need my attention this week, and the rest could wait. Another huge weight off my shoulders, and a lessening of my stress.

And then, of course, I acknowledged that what I need is to draw up a plan and stick to it, rather than getting carried away with things and wanting to do it all now. And how those of you that used to work with me will be laughing now, famous as I was for chafing against the need to be tied down by plans!

Well, you live and learn. I don't want to allow myself to get panicky and anxious in my new life - I know it's inevitable that there will be some stress, but I'm not going to let it take over as I have before. I've done pretty well so far, and I think this weekend was the first time I've felt anything other than exhilarated since I gave my notice in back in October. Maybe I was due for a reminder that you can't expect to run on exhilaration without getting exhausted, and that I need to take some time to relax every once in a while?

I