New Address

It's not just me ... I Am Fabulous has a new home too. From Tuesday, 9 September 2008, you can get your weekly dose of fabulousness at www.chezfabulous.blogspot.com/.

It all got a bit complicated trying to ensure that I could edit the blog on AOL after I closed my account, so there's a new home and a new name to boot.

If that's just all too much to remember, just go to www.iamfabulous.co.uk as usual and from Tuesday you'll be redirected to the new site for all things fabulous.

Processing The Process

Thankfully, the house move will be done and dusted by the end of the week and life will resume some kind of normalcy. However, at the moment I’m still in the process and therefore still processing the experience. Discussing it with a friend this afternoon, we agreed that even when change is what you want, it’s still an emotional experience. Letting go can be tough and the simple act of rummaging through long-held items stirs up complex emotions. As the coach and author, Cheryl Richardson, says “When we say goodbye, we never say goodbye to one person, one event or one thing. We say goodbye to many experiences – the lessons learned, the challenges won and lost, the unfulfilled promises or the unexpected joys. This takes time, patience and a willingness to sift through and experience all our feelings.”

She also advocates fully embracing the ending to create a new beginning, acknowledging the good times as well as the difficult ones. Where we often have trouble is being willing to let ourselves surrender to the sadness that change evokes. Cheryl notes “Sadness simply means that we’re experiencing the loss of something that held significance in our lives. It’s earned the right to pull at our hearts. If you allow yourself to go through it instead of working hard to go around it, you’ll save yourself a whole lot of energy. You can’t feel joy without cultivating the strength to feel pain.”

Take a look at this Oprah clip about the world’s largest garage sale to see just how far one woman took her clutter and the emotions that were stirred up in letting it go. Makes me look like a rank amateur in the pack rat stakes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADGQOxqLKiI

Until normal service is resumed next week – when I have come out of my removal-related coma – take a look at what’s ready to change in your life and acknowledge the complex emotions surrounding it. Even when it’s a positive step, there may still be some feelings of loss around it. Allow yourself to acknowledge your feelings fully so that you can move free and unencumbered into the next phase of your life. When we pay attention to even our most uncomfortable feelings, we don’t necessarily increase them – paradoxically, once they’re acknowledged they tend to subside.

Break through your own resistance to difficult emotions like grief, sadness and loss. If you feel into them deeply you’ll break through to the hope and inspiration that lies beyond them. Remember, the only way out is through. Avoid nothing and watch how easily the shadows can be dispelled. There’s nothing to fear when you know that all feelings are temporary and that uncomfortable ones rise up for the express purpose of being released. Notice them, feel them and move on, trusting that your willingness to look within will be well-rewarded. Allow yourself to walk through the shadows to find your own lightness of being.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 25 Aug 08)

Pattern Interrupt


Sometimes you just have to shake things up. Waiting for things to change is a stuck energy from which little creativity flows. Sometimes you need a radical shake-up to get you onto the path that’s right for you. At Fab Towers, there’s a radical shake-up going on to create more flexibility – losing stuff to gain freedom. Although it’s exhausting – as all house moves are – it’s highly cathartic to choose only what you truly love and let the rest go.

This week, as I’m fully occupied with paring my life down to the barest minimum, here’s a little inspiration from Marianne Williamson to give you food for thought on your own path.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1JKFtDnucUA

If you want to join me in a little clutter-clearing catharsis, take a really good look around the house and notice how much of what surrounds you is what you genuinely love. If you don’t have a sentimental connection to something and you’re not using it, let someone else get good use of it. Sell it, donate it, recycle it or give it to a friend. If something’s broken, fix it or throw it out. Tying up loose ends and clearing clutter free up energy and psychologically open us up to new experiences. We hold on to stuff because we fear the future – we want to be prepared in case we need it, yet rarely, when we’ve let something go, do we ever need it again.

Use this opportunity to lighten up a little, even if it’s only clearing out the car or a junk drawer you randomly throw things into. Every little thing you let go of will help you to feel lighter and freer. You might even get on a roll and be excited by the process. My favourite phrase at the minute is ‘what can I get rid of today?’ – coming from a natural pack rat, that’s a complete 180 and a major achievement!

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 18 Aug 08)

Seeing Gold

Unsurprisingly, I’m not a sports fan. Even the Olympics leave me cold. Until, of course, someone like Michael Phelps goes ahead and shatters a wall of achievement that’s been in place for 36 years by crashing the seven Olympic gold medal barrier. Not only did he manage something the original record-holder, Mark Spitz, called ‘epic’, but in his winning speeches Phelps didn’t just focus on the physical aspects of what it took to become history’s greatest Olympian – he strongly endorsed the power of the psychological aspects by noting “The biggest thing I’m thankful for is that I’ve been able to use my imagination”. It was Einstein who said “imagination is more important than knowledge”, so I’m rather bemused to have seen a similar thought crop up in a sportscast.

Even when interviewers have speculated on whether it was physically possible to win eight gold medals, Phelps responded, “In my dreams I always wanted it”. This is clearly a guy with a vision – the kind of vision that gets you up in the early hours of the morning to slog through hours of training in the pool, whatever the weather, year in, year out, and makes you believe you can achieve something no-one else has been able to do for over three decades. That’s some imagination.

What Michael Phelps is demonstrating for us all is that not only do we need a strong vision of what we want to achieve, but we also need to be able to use our imagination to visualise ourselves having it. He’s been living eight gold medals for years now. His sponsors, Speedo, added further motivation by promising him $1 million if he got seven medals in either Athens or Beijing. He may have missed the target by one medal in Greece, but he racked up an extra one for good measure in China. This is someone who never gives up, no matter what anyone else says and no matter if it appears – temporarily – that he’s losing. His vision and his imagination carry him through.

Another secret ingredient for Phelps’ outstanding success is his higher vision. His victory wasn’t just personal, it served a higher goal. On hitting the eight medal target, Phelps commented “The greatest thing is proving nothing is impossible. So many people said it couldn’t be done, but all it takes is imagination. From here it is a continuation of my goal of raising the sport as high as I can in the US.” It wasn’t just about the medals or the money. It was about breaking through limitations and giving something back.

We’ve been treated to an extraordinary display of both sportsmanship and leadership by Phelps and by Spitz too, whose graciousness was glorious to behold as he passed the seven-medal mantle to Phelps. “I’m so proud of what he’s been able to do,” said Spitz. “I did what I did and it was in my day in that set of circumstances. For 36 years it stood as a benchmark. I’m just pleased that somebody was inspired by what I had done. He’s entitled to every second of what’s occurring to him now.”

This week, take a look at your over-arching vision for your life. What is it that would make it all worthwhile? What’s your seven or eight gold medal goal? What would you be disappointed not to have achieved at the end of your life? What’s your ultimate ambition? Does it have a higher perspective? Who does it help beyond yourself? When you’re clear on that, really imagine yourself achieving it. What would it be like if you actually did it? How would it feel? What would it change? How would you feel about yourself? How would it affect others? Visualise it so strongly you could taste it. Now keep this flame alive by taking a few minutes to imagine it every single day. The best time is just before you fall asleep at night, taking that vision into dreams with you, and again in the morning, just as you wake. Let a higher vision infuse your life – you never know where it might take you. After all, nothing is impossible. Michael Phelps is a fabulous walking demonstration of that.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 11 Aug 08)

Coming Unstuck


Coaching a friend over coffee the other day, we got to talking about the frustration of wanting to move forward, but finding yourself blocked at every turn. It’s an experience that we’re all going to have at some point in life when we’re being driven by necessity rather than inspiration. As human beings we naturally pursue pleasure and try to avoid pain, so we are easily distracted into paths that seem like an easy solution, even when they might not be the best ones for us. This urge to keep doing things that aren’t working out for us has been identified in Buddhism as “where your desires for satisfaction and happiness are not in sync with the methods you go about using”. Good point, Buddha. This is where you realise that your coping mechanisms are not doing you any favours.

In the instance we were discussing, in order to get out of a difficult work situation where she felt very stuck, my friend was applying for pretty much anything and everything. She was feeling very disappointed by the constant rejection, despite the fact that she didn’t really want the jobs in the first place, had no real interest in them and felt that many of them were way below her skills level. Hmm, interesting … so here she is, exhausted from trying to make something work to get away from the pain she’s in and then feeling rejected by people she didn’t want to work for anyway. What’s wrong with this picture?

As human beings, we love certainty. We don’t like something, so we immediately want to replace it with something else. We won’t let ourselves relax until we’ve filled the gap. Often, as in this case, we want to do something else entirely, but we won’t give ourselves the permission to pursue our dreams. We assume we can’t have them, so we start grasping for second best straight away. When that doesn’t work, we get frustrated and depressed, feeling like we’re being punished. Curiously, the one meting out the punishment isn’t an external force, but an internal one. If we’d let ourselves off the hook of trying to solve the problem with more and more manic activity and took some time out to think deeply about what we really do want, things could open up for us in a way they just will not do when we’re in frantic mode. Nothing good ever comes out of mindless, stressed and limited thinking.

If you think you’ve tried everything and nothing is working, maybe you’re riding the wrong horse. Maybe you’re meant to be on a different path entirely. Consider the possibility that letting go of the struggle to force something into being might be the paradoxical move that will open up a whole new approach for you. What if a dead end is exactly that – requiring something to wither and die, so that new growth can begin? If we can learn to accept where we are, without struggling with it, then a new way can emerge. The Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, says “If we just try to get rid of negative feelings, we don’t realise that those feelings are our wisdom. The transmutation comes from the willingness to hold our seat with the feeling, to let the words go, to let the justification go. We don’t have to have a resolution. We can live with a dissonant note; we don’t have to play the next key to end the tune.”

To break the cycle of running away from pain, we need to learn to be comfortable with whatever is appearing in our lives. As Chodron notes, “We’re so used to running from discomfort and we’re so predictable. If we don’t like it, we strike out at someone or beat up on ourselves. We want to have security and certainty of some kind when actually we have no ground to stand on at all. The next time there’s no ground to stand on, don’t consider it an obstacle. Consider it a remarkable stroke of luck. We have no ground to stand on and at the same time it could soften us and inspire us. Finally, after all these years, we could truly grow up.”

Learning to live joyfully when we feel like there’s no ground under our feet is no easy task, but it is an essential life skill. We cannot avoid pain – we will lose people, jobs, health and money – but we can control how much we suffer in relation to those events. The times in which we are living are tough to navigate and whether we sink or swim is going to be very much determined by our ability to stay in tune with our own inner guidance and to accept outer circumstances for what they are, staying in the present moment as much as possible. That’s not to say that we don’t try to envisage a positive future for ourselves, but that we don’t beat ourselves up for not having that experience right now. Again, Chodron is right on the money when she says “Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others.”

For my friend, part of the release from pain will come from letting go of the struggle (and unnecessary distraction activities that she thinks will help her avoid it) and part will come from getting clear on what she really wants, what she has to offer and what will be inspiring for her to pursue. There are no shortcuts. The scattergun approach doesn’t work. We’re all reading each other’s energy and attitudes all the time with amazing accuracy, so people can instinctively sense if you’re not really that interested and just chasing something for the money or as an escape from something else.

When life doesn’t seem to want to open the door for you on things you think you might want – or even those you know you don’t really want, but are chasing for convenience – it’s time for a radical shift, be it in attitude or action. Something’s gotta give. Same approach, same results. It’s not rocket science.

This week take a look at the place where you’re most stuck or most afraid of being uncertain. Be willing to really feel into it, however uncomfortable that may be. When you can do that, start to allow yourself to accept things as they are, to relax even though you don’t have a solution. Allow yourself to feel safe and secure within yourself without any firm ground under your feet. Then ask quietly, “What is this trying to tell me?”. Be open to whatever comes into your mind. If you’re feeling completely stuck, try asking “What am I afraid to see?”. Practise being comfortable with difficult feelings.

If you want a little inspiration to reconnect with your own sense of purpose, take the statement “I feel alive when …” and answer it in as many ways as you can. Don’t forget to add the small things, like sitting in the garden and having a cup of tea in the sunshine. It’s all grist for the mill when you’re trying to connect with your essential self. The smallest of things will show you what you value. When you’re done – try to rack up at least 15 or 20 things if you can – look at your list and see what each of the items have in common. It’s a fabulous exercise to start liberating your mind to think creatively about what brings you joy.

Be willing to dive deeply and bring forth what is within you. In the words of the German political thinker, Rudolf Bahro, "When an old culture is dying, the new culture is created by those people who are not afraid to be insecure".

As a final bit of brain food, here's Pema Chodron discussing the relief of suffering with Bill Moyers ...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jTfx-fm_ZzU

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 4 Aug 08)

Spiritualised


When the going gets tough, the tough get spiritualised. Or at least that’s my take on it. Collectively, we’re going through difficult times. Few of us are unaffected by the general level of stress and barely-restrained hysteria out there and many of us are experiencing straitened circumstances, perhaps for the first time in our lives. When there’s no comfort in the outer world, at least we can find some in the inner one. It really doesn’t matter what you’re going through – there’s a spiritual balm for almost any problem.

Focusing on whatever your current issue might be and worrying it to death is only going to get you even more uptight and quite probably spin you into helplessness, feeling trapped and stuck. That’s not to say you don’t do everything you need to do to deal with it but that, as Einstein said, you cannot solve a problem from the level of consciousness that created it. If you’re stuck in a headspin, the solution you’ll come up with is highly unlikely to be a useful one. So even before you take the practical steps to work with an issue, take a little time out to relax your mind and body. Your creativity and intuition cannot flow in a thought-field that’s set like concrete. When your mind is clear, take the steps that you need to take to alleviate the problem.

Once that’s done, that’s where the spiritualised part really kicks in. So far, you’ve only been in problem-solving mode. The next step is to really begin to separate yourself from the problem. Most of us specialise in feeling really bad when we have an issue, even when we’ve taken the steps we need to take to resolve it. But what if we didn’t have to, even if we didn’t have a solution? If you cannot change something, at least you can change the way you’re feeling about it. The issue will still be there, whether you sit around feeling bad about it or not. It won’t magically go away if you mope around. If anything, it’ll probably get worse.

What’s required is a little detachment, learning to dis-identify with the problem and re-identify with the truth of who you are, which is infinitely creative, talented, inspired and of course fabulous. The more you can liberate yourself from identification with the problem and cleave to your natural, authentic self, the easier it will become to see issues as passing clouds that are impermanent. They don’t need to obscure your personal joy. OK it’s a tough call to live like this, because it’s just so much easier to wallow, but I guarantee you’ll feel so much better for it.

When you find yourself able to lighten up a little and get on with the good things in life, regardless of your circumstances, try looking for a message in whatever trials you’re currently experiencing. Are you bashing your head against a brick wall, trying to make something work that quite patently won’t? Is this a call to examine your personal values and start making different choices? Could this be some personal resistance you’ve never noticed before or an old pattern that keeps rearing its ugly head?

If we consider life to be a process of refinement, then it’s constantly sending us down a path of discernment, where we get to choose what’s right for us. Often the really difficult experiences are the ones where we get to learn what – and who – we truly value. If that’s where you are right now, what might this be leading you to? Get over the concept of punishment and start thinking about course correction. What if your current circumstances were signposts trying to lead you down a different pathway? Are you hanging on for dear life to something that’s no longer right for you?

Nietzsche was right – what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger. What he didn’t say was that you can almost go mad in the process. The top tip for any personal difficulty is to find support wherever and whenever you can. Trying to go it alone and doing the old stiff upper lip trick just doesn’t cut it. Talk to your good friends and let them help in any way they can. Indulge in the things that make you feel good, however small a luxury they may be. Call upon the memory of good times and those who have loved you when you need uplifting. Tap into inner resources of peace through meditation and mindfulness. If your brain is really fried, try guided meditation, which will help you to focus when all else fails. You’ll find short audio meditations at http://www.orindaben.com/meditations/orinmeditations.php and a selection of video Wisdom Flashes at http://www.consciousone.com/wisdomflash to help you shift your mood.

Bottom line, a shift in perception is always what’s needed when we’re confronted with things we don’t like. We can stay stuck in the pain or we can choose to think and feel differently. If a relationship is driving you nuts, try a radical shift into appreciating why you love that person. If money’s the problem, use what you have for things you really enjoy and start paying attention to the things and people who bring you joy and don’t cost a penny. If it’s work that’s causing you to flip out, remember the job isn’t you. You had a life before it and you’ll have one after it. This too shall pass. For the big stuff as much as the little stuff, it serves us well to remember that change is the only certainty in life. We have to find our security within ourselves, because all things in the outer world are subject to change. That’s where having a faith and a spiritual practice are vital – you can find joy, support and hope even in the darkest hours.

This week, take whatever’s bugging you and start dis-identifying with it, remembering you can still choose to be happy, whether the problem is there or not. You can still find things to be grateful for, you can still go out and have a good time and you can still relax even if there’s no obvious solution. The quality of your inner world is what affects the quality of your outer world. We tend to think it’s the other way around, but there’s always a choice. One particular saying from A Course In Miracles comes in pretty handy whenever you’re up against it. It goes like this: “I could choose peace instead of this.” Use it like a mantra when the going gets tough. It’ll help break the cycle of repetitive, unhelpful thoughts. Be kind to yourself, let yourself off the hook, accept your circumstances as they are and choose to find peace in the midst of the maelstrom. Even a hurricane has a still point at its centre. Find yours and keep returning to it.

Here’s a little wisdom from Lao Tzu to help you on your way:

“When the chatter of our minds quiets down, we find the still point around which all life revolves. From the still point we watch everything come and go in perfect peace.

Everything that is, was, or ever will be has a common source from which it comes, in which it lives, and to which it returns.

Understanding this coming and going, we return to our source and our confusion ends. Not understanding this, we remain confused and bring about great suffering.

Living at the still point, we are open to all of life. Open to all of life, we don’t judge anything. Not judging, we see with compassion. Seeing with compassion, we discover our true nature. Discovering our true nature, we are at home and nothing in life disturbs us.”

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 28 Jul 08)

A Man For All Seasons

Dr Randy Pausch, the 47 year-old terminally-ill Carnegie Mellon professor who gave the famous ‘Last Lecture’ that became a worldwide internet hit, died last Friday. True to form, he continued to uplift and educate people as much in dying as he did in life, so his last lecture goes way beyond the usual platitudes and offers up some truly inspirational truths. Focusing on how he’d lived his childhood dreams – and setting aside the given importance of family and friends – his speech wanders lightheartedly through the lessons learned throughout his extraordinary career and the wisdom he was gifted with by others.

To set the scene, he reminds us “I was born in 1960. When you are 8 or 9 years old and you look at the TV set, men are landing on the moon, everything’s possible. And that’s something we should not lose sight of, is that the inspiration and the permission to dream is huge.”

Pausch’s childhood dream of playing in the National football dream was the one where “I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish”. Some of the real gems came from his early football coach, who showed up to teach without any footballs. When the kids asked how they could play without them, Pausch remembers his coach saying “Right, how many men are on a football field at a time? Eleven on a team, twenty-two. Coach Graham said, All right, and how many people are touching the football at any given time? One of them. And he said, Right, so we’re going to work on what those other twenty-one guys are doing. And that’s a really good story because it’s all about fundamentals … You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.” Recalling how the coach rode him hard all practice one day, criticising everything he’d done, an assistant coach told him “That’s a good thing. He said, When you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up. And that’s a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. Is that when you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore that’s a bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.”

Another coach taught Pausch the power of enthusiasm – and of the element of surprise. “He did this one thing where only for one play at a time he would put people in at like the most horrifically wrong position for them … It was just laughable. But we only went in for one play, right? And boy, the other team just never knew what hit them. Because when you’re only doing it for one play and you’re just not where you’re supposed to be, and freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, boy are you going to clean somebody’s clock for that one play.”

One of Pausch’s favourite expressions is “experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”. He describes football as “The first example of what I’m going to call a head fake, or indirect learning. We actually don’t want our kids to learn football. I mean, yeah, it’s really nice that I have a wonderful three-point stance and that I know how to do a chop block and all this kind of stuff. But we send our kids out to learn much more important things. Teamwork, sportsmanship, perseverance, etcetera, etcetera. And these kinds of head fake learning are absolutely important. And you should keep your eye out for them because they’re everywhere.”

Talking about tenacity in the face of rejection – recalling the numerous refusal letters from Walt Disney Imagineering, his dream job – he counsels “But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

Perhaps one of the most curious little pieces of wisdom came from John Snoddy, a colleague of his at Imagineering – yes, Pausch did finally manage to make that happen after all the rejection – who advised “Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you. He said, When you’re pissed off at somebody and you’re angry at them, you just haven’t given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and they’ll almost always impress you.”

Back at Carnegie Mellon, Pausch created a course called Building Virtual Worlds, which was open to all departments in the university. “And the kids said What content do we make? I said, Hell, I don’t know. You make whatever you want. Two rules: no shooting violence and no pornography. Not because I’m opposed to those in particular, but you know, that’s been done with VR, right. And you’d be amazed how many 19 year-old boys are completely out of ideas when you take those off the table.

“Anyway, so I taught the course. The first assignment, I gave it to them, they came back in two weeks and they just blew me away. I mean the work was so beyond, literally, my imagination … I had no idea what to do next. So I called up my mentor, Andy van Dam, and I said, I just gave a two-week assignment, and they came back and did stuff that if I had given them a whole semester, I would have given them all As. Sensei, what do I do? And Andy thought for a minute and he said, You go back into class tomorrow and you look them in the eye and you say ‘Guys, that was pretty good, but I know you can do better’. And that was exactly the right advice. Because what he said was, you obviously don’t know where the bar should be and you’re only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere.”

Along with the creativity came some classic education in social skills. One innovation was to include peer feedback so students would have a sense of how well they worked with others. “When you’re talking Building Virtual Worlds, every two weeks we get feedback. We put that all into a big spreadsheet and at the end of the semester, you had three teammates per project, five projects, 15 data points so that’s statistically valid. And you get a bar chart telling you on a ranking how easy you are to work with, where you stacked up against your peers. Boy, that’s hard feedback to ignore. Some still managed. But for the most part, people looked at that and went, Wow, I’ve got to take it up a notch. I better start thinking about what I’m saying to people in these meetings. And that is the best gift an educator can give, is to get somebody to become self-reflective.”

The university president urged Pausch to talk about the importance of having fun in his speech, because that was what he remembered him for, but Pausch said “I can do that, but it’s a kind of like a fish talking about the importance of water. I mean I don’t know how not to have fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there’s no other way to play it. So my next piece of advice is you just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore … Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us.”

Finally, Pausch leaves us with one for the ladies, describing how his friend Syl “gave the best piece of advice, pound-for-pound that I have ever heard. And I think all young ladies should hear this. Syl said, It took me a long time but I’ve finally figured it out. When it comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do. It’s that simple. It’s that easy. And I thought back to my bachelor days and I said damn.”

This week, you could pick any of those little pieces of wisdom and start living it in your life. Recapture your childlike wonder. Chase a lifelong dream. Remember the walls aren’t there to keep you out if you want it enough. Pay attention to how you deal with people. Set the bar high. Wait long enough for someone to surprise you. Life is a total head fake – pay attention to what you’re really learning. And if you’re dating, you’ve just heard the most fabulous piece of advice you will ever get!

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 21 Jul 08)

Judgement Day
Not quite sure where this is going this week, so bear with me while I investigate a few wandering thoughts …

For some reason, the issue of discernment v judgement has been on my mind. It’s an issue that crops up quite often as you tread a path of greater awareness, when you realise you need to drop the judgements you’ve held around people, beliefs or activities that don’t fit with your particular mindset. Compassion and judgement can’t co-exist, but open-heartedness and discernment do. It’s often a tricky call to tread the line between judgement and discernment – and to know when one might be masquerading as the other – so here’s my rough rule of thumb on that one. If you’re holding something or someone in your mind as ‘wrong’, that’s judgement. If you simply know that’s not the right choice for you, that’s discernment. The difference lies in the view you hold.

You can pick between two cupcakes with different coloured icing without making one bad for not being your particular preference, so you can just as easily choose to interact (or not) with someone or something that’s not your cup of tea, without judging them as wrong. One real pitfall on the path of more conscious awareness is that we can become so afraid of making judgements that we forget to be discerning. We think we have to be accepting of everything and everyone all the time, yet we forget that it’s not meant to be at our own expense. While we might recognise others’ freedom to pursue their own paths, that doesn’t oblige us to walk down those roads if they’re not personally right for us. Our discernment allows us to release others to their own choices without making them wrong for doing so.

Bottom line, judgement is just a control issue in another guise. When we don’t feel secure, we attack what we perceive is threatening us – anything different to our own value system – and judge it harshly. We think it makes us safe, but it only makes us more defended, insecure and wary of life. Dropping judgement is one of the first steps in loosening up, in allowing life to unfold itself for you, rather than gripping tightly to how you think it needs to be. We all know how frustrating it is to be around someone with control issues, who will never let you think or choose for yourself. It feels uncomfortable because it’s a restrictive, untrusting energy – a kind of mental concrete in which nothing can ever flower. No real creativity, intimacy or depth of connection can grow in that kind of environment.

When you can’t allow people to be who they are, you can’t sit with them and genuinely share their joy or help to alleviate their pain. Compassion springs from an empathy with others, a heartfelt sharing of common ground and a willingness to step out of your own concerns long enough to be witness to someone else’s. If you’re not judging the one you’re sitting down with, you can be as open to joy as much as pain and find beauty and wisdom in them both.

Jack Kornfield describes exactly this, watching his meditation master at work in a Thai monastery, “At one moment Ajahn Chah would be gently holding the head of a man whose young son had just died, at another laughing with a disillusioned shopkeeper at the arrogance of humanity. In the morning he might be teaching ethics to a semi-corrupt government official, in the afternoon offering a meditation on the nature of undying consciousness to a devout old nun. Even among these total strangers, there was a remarkable atmosphere of safety and trust. All were held by the compassion of the master and the teachings that guided us together in the human journey of birth and death, joy and sorrow. We sat together as one human family.”

Of course, the human family includes you, and one of the places where we hold the severest judgements is about ourselves. If we treated everyone else as judgementally as we do to ourselves with our critical inner dialogue, we’d have no friends at all! This week, try befriending yourself. If you have a habit of judging your body, your achievements, where you are in life, whatever – give it a rest. If you find yourself being critical, try to make it a dispassionate observation, rather than a full savaging. Accept where you are right now and stop trying to make it wrong. You can be discerning about making new choices to bring you what you want without attacking yourself.

Share the love with the people around you. Stop trying to control them and cut back on the judgement. Accept that their path may involve very different choices than yours. Those differences might even bring you a few benefits by pulling you into a different sphere of experience and waking you up to a new way of being.

Finally, be discerning enough to know when something’s not right for you. It’s OK to make a different choice than others around you. What works for them may not be best for you. Don’t hang in there where you’re uncomfortable just because you’re trying to be accepting. Real acceptance allows everyone – including you – to follow their own calling without being judged for it.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 14 Jul 08)

Beyond Beauty


There’s nothing I love more than a good spa. Not any old spa, I hasten to add. Uber-luxury spas with a clinical vibe leave me cold. To be truly fabulous, spas need to be both beautiful and peaceful, offering treatments with a holistic basis and creating a genuine sense of a healing space. That doesn’t mean they can’t be luxury – they just shouldn’t feel cold or medical. Spa-time is an opportunity for deep renewal, so if the environment doesn’t spell ‘relaxation’ to you, you’ve already lost half the benefit before you even start.

I’m reminded of the healing power of spas because I’m engrossed in a beautiful new book by my friend, Tara Herron, who has just written The Definitive Spa & Body Therapist’s Handbook. Although it’s oriented towards spa therapists, there’s plenty of juice in it for the rest of us. She reminds us that beauty is a bigger conversation than how you look, noting “Being seen as beautiful now stems from a deeper understanding of how being healthy and happy are visible factors in the overall vision of how we appear to ourselves. As our inner perceptions change, so does our outer vision … holistic beauty treatments are now actual rituals that embrace the principles of our psycho-physiology, the relationship between our mind and body, to reveal a deeper sense of beauty that comes from within, shining out from an inner peace of mind and a deeply relaxed, comfortable body”.

It’s a shame that the word ‘holistic’ seems to have been degraded by its association with wacky, new-agey practices. In essence it’s actually a much more powerful – and far more mainstream – concept of balance, where each aspect of life is given its appropriate due and none is sacrificed at the expense of the other.

In teaching therapists to create a healing environment – for themselves as well as the client – Tara focuses on five main principles, which we can equally integrate into our daily lives to help keep our own energy in balance. Those keys are your body, your breathing, your mind, your spirit and your space. Let’s take a walk through those, one by one, and see how you might use them to keep your personal energy vibrant, no matter what life throws at you.

Your Body – Whether your work is physical or more sedentary, keeping your body in balance helps you to stay focused, relieve stress and feel energetic. Tara’s book has some great yoga/stretching exercises that can easily be integrated into your working day, as well as stressing the importance of staying hydrated, deep relaxation techniques and bathing before bedtime to help your body purify itself from the energy of the day. Those of us who spend a lot of time working indoors have a particular need to integrate movement and body care into our day-to-day lives, to release tension and stay flexible. Making sure you have a daily stretching practice helps to keep you in tune and is more effective than a sudden burst of activity at the health club every new and then.

Your Breath – This is an interesting one, considering that we generally pay very little attention to how we breathe, yet working with the breath can be a powerful tool in managing our emotions and keeping us calm. As Tara says, “Notice how nervous, angry or anxious thoughts will speed up your breathing, whereas relaxed, pleasant or peaceful thoughts will slow your breathing down. This potent relationship between your thoughts, emotions and breath patterns is also true in reverse. When you purposefully deepen and slow your breathing down, your thoughts and feelings will begin to calm and relax. Your breath is at the pivot of your body-mind relationship”. Try Tara’s Essential Stress Release Breath by placing one hand on your abdomen and the other on your heart. As you breathe in deeply to your stomach, notice how your hand there rises. Hold that breath for the count of four. Then purse your lips and release the breath in very short puffs. Pause on empty for three counts. Repeat the cycle three to six times.

Your Mind – We all know how powerful the mind is, to both heal and to harm. Maintaining a positive focus isn’t just essential for creating the right attitude to attract opportunities in life, but also for maintaining optimum physical immunity. According to Tara, psycho-neuro-immunological research has shown that “on a psycho-physiological level, positive thoughts can and do alter our chemistry. This happens through the calming quality of positive thinking that sends relaxed signals to the hypothalamus at the brain’s stem. These signals then relay down through the central nervous system, which in turn triggers the endocrine system to release hormones and neuro-chemicals directly into the bloodstream. This process boosts the immune system and creates the physiological feelings of well-being … evidence shows that negative, anxious or unhappy thoughts aggravate the nervous system, causing the endocrine system to manufacture acidic neuro-chemicals that have a stress-inducing effect.” So, it’s not a just bunch of hippie tree-hugging stuff after all – thinking positively can help to keep you well.

Your Spirit – Ah, my favourite subject. Without addressing the needs of the spirit, we’re always going to feel that something is missing. True fulfilment comes from being true to your whole self, including the spiritual dimension. A soulful life is a life of deep connection and meaning. Tara says “Soul can be understood as the deepest inner form of your being that journeys through this world at the heart of who you are. Your soul is pure consciousness, always whole, profoundly sensitive and constantly evolving … your soul retains the essence of who you really are, your true nature, no matter what, even though you may forget yourself and go astray.” Practices she recommends that return you to soul-awareness are acceptance, gratitude, forgiveness and loving kindness. You can develop a daily practice of sitting quietly, breathing deeply and focusing on each of these qualities. Acceptance can be self-acceptance, acceptance of circumstances or acceptance of another person. Gratitude can be practiced for what you already have, as well as what you are welcoming into your life. Forgiveness can be offered to yourself as well as others, as can the blessing of loving kindness or compassion.

Your Space – Managing your space helps to manage your attitude, your creativity and your health. When you pay attention to creating an uplifting environment or even simply have something in your office that reminds you to breathe deeply or slow down, you open up to new possibilities, as well as reminding yourself that you’re in charge of your environment and your thoughts. I kept a fat, happy Buddha statue on my desk when I was at my workaholic worst to train myself to slow down and not take it all too seriously. Just having a visual reminder like that can be a really powerful tool to remind you to stay aware. Pay attention to what’s in your environment and how you feel about it. If it’s not something you love or doesn’t uplift you, get rid of it. The objects we encounter every day set up repetitive thought patterns. If you think “I hate that thing” every time you walk into a room or feel mildly depressed when you see something that needs fixing, that’s altering the quality of your thoughts and having a negative impact on your health. Spaces that are welcoming and in alignment with our personal nature make us feel more in tune with ourselves. Give yourself the gift of beautiful personal space and feel the benefits.

This week, you know what to do – take a look at the five keys and see where you can make some personal adjustments. If you’d like more info on Tara’s work and her range of skincare and body products, check out http://www.yogicsolutions.com/.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to http://www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com/ and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to http://www.fabcentral.blogspot.com/. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 7 Jul 08)

Got Any R & B?

It’s not how I usually like to spend my Sunday mornings, particularly when it’s raining, but a friend convinced me it would be fun – and she needed a car. With a 6am start involved, the jollity factor would have to be seriously high as, by my reckoning, any time before 10am on weekends is classed as the middle of the night. That’s how I came to be standing in a soggy field at a car boot sale, flogging off my household clutter and marvelling at the curiosities of human behaviour.

While it was definitely therapeutic to thin out my hoard of books and to set a few handbags free, the idea of making the effort to sell them rather than just dropping them off as a job lot at the charity shop seemed too tedious to contemplate. Yet, as the rain-clouds cleared and all of human life wandered past our stall, it was a revelation – I actually began to enjoy myself. It must be that ‘spirit of the blitz’ British influence. Somehow standing dripping wet in a field, being swarmed by people who left their charm at the door when they put on their bargain-hunting faces, turned out to be a riot.

We learned a few things along the way too. At one point, feeling a bit bored and stir crazy, we started styling the clothes on the rail with accessories and sorting them in colour ranges, while doing our best Trinny and Susannah impressions. We – and some discerning customers – found it quite entertaining, but your average punter was deterred entirely by the professional merchandising. There was barely a flicker of interest after that. Rule one of the car-boot is clearly that presentation is everything, ie if it looks like a dog’s dinner, it must be cheap.

My absolute favourite moment, though, came courtesy of our musically-inclined customers. My friend had a small basket of CDs for sale and, while she was off foraging for the necessary market stall cup of tea strong enough, as my grandfather would say, to trot a mouse on – one customer couldn’t even be bothered looking at them before asking ‘Got any R&B?’. I pointed out a couple of items, but my suggestions were met with disdain, as apparently she preferred the slower stuff. Curious behaviour, I thought, until someone else showed up half an hour later demanding to know if we had any Beatles. Did they think we were running Tower Records out of the back of the Merc? I was half tempted to say that she’d find them just behind the World Music section in the second aisle.

However, my complete admiration goes to the prankster who happened to be browsing when this exchange took place. He had a giggle with us about it and wandered off. An hour or so later, he re-appeared at the stall and, with perfect timing and a gloriously deadpan expression, uttered the immortal words, ‘Got any R&B?’. The man’s a comic genius.

This week make an effort to do something completely and utterly different – something that you’ve never previously considered. Take a chance. You might even like it. There’s a real sense of invigoration and renewal that comes from shaking up your routine. It gets you out of your rut and helps you think differently. Even if it involves a little hardship – like an early morning call and exposure to the elements – give it a try. You never know who you might meet or where it might lead. Amid the laughs, unexpectedly, there were also some interesting metaphysical conversations, by virtue of the types of books on sale, as people could see what I was interested in and wanted to chat.

Clear some clutter too. It’s very liberating – and a real eye-opener. I was mortified to see how much of my stuff had hardly been worn, if ever. As a card-carrying pack-rat, it doesn’t come naturally to let it go, but it does feel a lot better to know that someone else is making good use of things that were just junking up my house. Now I’m on a mission to get rid of the rest. Anyone for a car-boot? Bring your R&B CD’s – we could do business!

Speaking of giving things a new twist, here’s a treat for you in the shape of my friend Harriet Roberts’ new music video. It’s a fabulous new version of the classic 80’s Don Henley track, Boys Of Summer. I love it when someone takes a well-known melody, changes the tempo and creates something just as outstanding as the original. When you hear it, you’ll think it was always meant to sound like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ4DqitUSuY

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 30 Jun 08)

A Midsummer Night's Dreaming

So, Midsummer’s Day has come and gone, we’re already at the end of June and if you’re anything like me, you can’t quite grasp the concept that half the year has disappeared already. Traditionally, this would be a time for a bit of internal agonising over where all the time has gone and why haven’t we achieved what we set out to do in our New Year plans, but let’s buck with tradition, shall we? Let’s have a delicious summer full of happy daydreams of what we’re really going to bring to fruition in the rest of the year.

As a big fan of the Native American proverbial wisdom that it’s best to ride the horse in the direction that it’s going, I’m the first one to realise we need to face facts. Even if you aren’t too impressed with what you’ve managed to get up to so far this year, you’re highly unlikely to do anything much about it in the summer months. If you live in England, take that as gospel, because you won’t have even seen daylight for half the year. Now is the time to have some fun, reap the benefits of what you’ve been up to in the winter and spring, and give yourself some well-needed downtime before another big push in the autumn.

We really need to respect the cycles in our lives if we want to be happy and productive. Just recently I heard about studies by social scientists on work and productivity cycles. It should come as no surprise to learn that our efficiency vs stress curve is an almost perfect arc, ie little stress – no motivator – and we have low efficiency; moderate stress and we have high efficiency; then with excessive stress we’re back down to low efficiency again – distracted, irritable and lacking in concentration.

Equally, other studies have shown that our natural and most efficient productivity cycles are not constant, so the plodding approach of trying to keep up a steady level of output are counter-productive. Natural cycles of productivity rise and fall in clear periods of inspiration – where little appears to be done in the outside, but where the creative/intuitive/strategic skills are at work – followed by highly-efficient periods of externally-focused activity, where the creative work now comes to fruition. When we follow these natural rhythms, we become significantly more productive overall. Food for thought for manic bosses everywhere …

So, writ on a larger scale, summer is that time of the year when we appear to rest, but what we are doing is refreshing ourselves for the next cycle of activity, so that we can come to it anew with more inspiration, strategy and enthusiasm. Armed with that knowledge, hopefully any card-carrying workaholics who may be reading can give up their guilt about taking a break and learn to value the power of down-time.

When you do get the chance to enjoy some lazy days in summer, use this technique from Sandra Anne Taylor, author of Secrets of Success, to turbo-charge your daydreams for the next cycle of activity. She suggests getting into a positive frame of mind by deeply appreciating what you have already achieved or simply what you love most in your life – visualising it very clearly along with the feeling of pleasure that brings – and then imagining whatever you desire or have planned becoming a great success and really feeling into what that would bring you, just as intensely has you have for the things you already have in your life. As you focus on how great that would feel, you’re intensifying your own beliefs about how successful you can be and improving your confidence at the same time.

This week, if you’re still in the office and stressed to the max, remember to give yourself a break – no matter how short – particularly when you think you’re too busy to do so. Even a five-minute walk around the block will change your frame of mind and help you to relax. If you can, put a troublesome project away until you’ve had a chance to sleep on it and return refreshed with new eyes.

If you’re in holiday mode already, use it wisely. Forget your troubles and focus on what you’re really grateful for in your life. Daydream big and really see those dreams becoming a possibility for you, helping you to set a solid foundation for success. Or have a cocktail - even daydreaming feels like work sometimes!

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 23 Jun 08)

Original Goodness


One of the great attractions of Buddhist thought is that it functions very much like a spiritually-effective form of psychology, helping us to heal our wounds through the practice of mindfulness to return to what the spiritual writer Jack Kornfield calls ‘our original goodness’. Although Buddhism arose in the East, its approach is incredibly helpful for the uniquely Western condition of self-loathing, the malaise that lies at the heart of a lack of self-confidence.

The Buddhist writer, Pema Chodron, has spoken of being with the Dalai Lama at a conference with Western Buddhist teachers, where a meditation teacher brought up the subject of self-hatred. As Chodron recalls, “The Dalai Lama didn’t know what she was talking about. So he went around the room and asked the other Western teachers about it, and every one of them agreed with her. Self-hatred was something the Dalai Lama didn’t understand. The first noble truth of the Buddha is that people experience dukka, a feeling of dissatisfaction or suffering, a feeling that something is wrong. We feel this dissatisfaction because we’re not in tune with our true nature, our goodness. And we aren’t going to be fundamentally spiritually content until we get in tune … only in the West is this dissatisfaction articulated as ‘something is wrong with me’. It seems that thinking of oneself as flawed is more a Western phenomenon than a universal one.”

There’s comfort to be found in those words. If self-loathing is uniquely Western, it’s not part of who we are at heart, but simply a form of cultural conditioning. That makes it about as valid psychologically as a cultural preference for tea over coffee – just because it’s habitual doesn’t make it important. Part of the release from self-destructive habits comes in the form of recognition and detachment, by realising that they actually mean nothing about you. You may have a long-held story about your unworthiness or your unlikeability that you keep running in your head, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. Knowing that self-loathing isn’t a universal disease is a helpful step in uprooting the belief that it’s normal to treat yourself that way.

Another step in releasing those kinds of demons is to face them. We spend our whole lives running away from what we fear and trying to do the opposite to convince ourselves that we’re OK. If we’re afraid that we’re bad, we try so hard to be good that we overdose on people-pleasing and have trouble setting boundaries. If we’re convinced that we’re weak, we’ll knock ourselves out trying to seem strong, putting up defences in all our relationships, afraid of the vulnerability of allowing others to see us as we are, lest they see our fragility. Those coping mechanisms just make the problem worse, however, as they reinforce the need for a false persona because we believe our true nature to be flawed. To shake free of these chains, we must face what we most fear – our own pain and self-loathing.

Describing her own experience of feeling deeply into an ancient pain, Chodron says “There was a recognition that I needed to relax into the pain. Until then I had avoided going to this place where I felt bad or unacceptable or unloved. No language could express how awful that place felt. But I just started breathing into it … but as I relaxed into that feeling, it passed through me. And I didn’t die. It passed right through. That was a big moment for me. I realised that resistance to the idea that I was unlovable only made the pain worse … I realised what a source of happiness turning towards pain actually is. Our avoidance of pain keeps us locked in a cycle of suffering.”

We’ll be held in the grip of a nightmare unless we remember that we’re dreaming. Any story you tell yourself about not being good enough is just a story, and an old one at that. When you can really face your fears about how bad you think you might be, on the other side lies the truth of your original goodness.

There’s plenty of evidence for the beauty of our original nature. The Tibetan Book Of The Dead instructs us to remember “O nobly born, O you of glorious origins, remember your radiant true nature, the essence of mind. Trust it. Return to it. It is home.” Recalling a mystical experience where he was shown the truth about humanity, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote “Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the Divine. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed … I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.”

This week, live as if you remember your original goodness. Know that wherever you’re habitually attacking yourself, you’re telling yourself a lie. When you have some quiet time, step into the lie more fully. Really feel all the dreadful things you believe about yourself deep down. Feel them as deeply as you can until you pop right through to the other side. Release yourself from the bondage of an old, outdated story that never was true in the first place. When you’re no longer afraid of what you might find, you can embrace exactly who you are with love and compassion, with no need for defences. When you have nothing to defend, the paradox is that you’ll become incredibly strong, with an unshakeable depth of self-acceptance and confidence. How else could you be if you knew the fabulous truth about yourself?

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 16 Jun 08)

Summer In The City



I have a new addiction. It involves a pretentious private school girl on a student exchange, a sulky Tongan schoolboy and the campest drama teacher this side of San Francisco – all played by the same comic genius, Chris Lilley, in the Aussie mockumentary, Summer Heights High, now showing on BBC3 and HBO in the US. It’s hard to know which character to love or loathe more.

Ja’mie (pronounced Jah-may) is hideously bitchy and without an ounce of self-awareness, as she gaily patronises all the state school students around her. Jonah is the classic under-achieving, sulky teenage boy and Mr G is deeply frustrated at being a ‘theatre professional’ in a high school teacher’s job. Which is of course particularly difficult for him, given his track record in writing and producing stage productions, including such gems as Ikea The Musical and Tsunamarama, based on the Boxing Day Tsunami tragedy, set to the music of Bananarama.

Although it’s hilarious, Summer Heights High can be as uncomfortable to watch as The Office, with performances that will make you cringe with recognition as the characters play out their personal dramas and power struggles. If you want to know exactly how not to behave, these are life lessons writ large. Possibly that’s why Perez Hilton called it ‘one of our favourite shows on the planet’.

For something a little more palatable on the life lesson front, there’s always Sex & The City, now lighting up the silver screen, and the subject of commentary around the world. At Beliefnet.com, there’s even an article on 15 Love Lessons from the TV show, by Valerie Reiss. As a firm believer in finding wisdom anywhere, here are a few of the highlights for you to enjoy. To read the whole piece go to http://www.beliefnet.com/gallery/15lovelessonsfromsexandthecity.html.

“Fate Is Not Always Fate – It’s so tempting to interpret the tea-leaves of love, to decide that fate is (finally) working in our favour. When Trey saved Charlotte from being mowed down by a speeding taxi, she decided it was fate. Not just that he was a nice guy who saved her life, but that he must be the guy to live out her ‘marry tale’ with. Turns out, not so much, and I think after that divorce, Char developed a very different notion of fate, ie we don’t know how the universe works and just because it seems like synchronicity, it doesn’t mean you have to marry the dude. A lesson better remembered than re-experienced.

“Be Vulnerable – More than anyone else on the show, Samantha and her mien of steel taught us that true strength is in opening and trust. She started to get this from her girl-flame Maria (‘I’ve got monogamy, I think I caught it from you people.’) but mostly from her hot-hot boyfriend, Smith Jerrod. First he forced on her his ‘perverse’ desire to hold hands and then, most touchingly, shaved off his golden locks when she lost hers to chemo. We all have an inner Samantha – the part that feigns bravado in the face of pain and trusts no-one. Watching her set down her insecurity-as-sword reminded all us tough girls to do the same.

“Don’t Mistake Scraps For Jewels – ‘It was the singlemost encouraging moment in our relationship.’ Was Carrie talking about Big sharing his heart with her? Giving her a thoughtful present? Nope. She said this when he gave her the ‘only’ extra pink toothbrush head one night. Sure, it was the only baby step toward accepting her into his life that he was capable of. But all of us need to love ourselves enough not to mistake glitter for diamonds, scraps for a meal – exactly what that toothbrush head was.

“Love Beyond Yourself – Though ever-cynical Miranda adored her baby, she was not instantly maternal, referring to him as ‘meatloaf’ at one point. But she eventually warms to motherhood. And later on, she grows her heart an extra size when she cares for her mother-in-law with dementia, gently bathing her in one especially heart-breaking scene. The girls – and all of us – are at their best when they give and extend themselves to others.

“Always Come Home To Yourself – When Carrie is off with the Russian in Paris, (wearing that amazing tulle dress that goes on forever), she loses her signature nameplate necklace. A heavy-handed metaphor? Maybe. A key lesson in all relationships? Yes. It’s so easy for women especially to lose their identity in romantic relationships – we tend to merge with our lovers, sometimes dropping our own ‘names’ in the process. Ms Bradshaw does find her necklace, and any good shrink (or scriptwriter) would say it’s important to note that it was with her all along, fallen into the lining of a Dior purse. The series ends with these words from Carrie, after she has gone back home to New York, to herself, her friends and her Big love: ‘the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well that’s just fabulous.”

This week, take a look at what you might have learned from your favourite shows or movies. What kind of values do they embody? What do they tell you about how you’d like your life to be? Which ones inspire you to follow your own vision? Which ones show you exactly what not to do? If you had to pick a single line to encompass your philosophy, what would it be? Draw some inspiration from the screen – big or small – and let life imitate art in the most fabulous way.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 9 Jun 08)

Just Who Will You Be?

I believe it was Socrates who said “the unexamined life is not worth living”, sometime before knocking back a hefty dose of hemlock. That is rather incidental to the point, but a helpful detail nonetheless. The man was so principled, he’d rather put himself to death than go against his own ethics. Rather old-school, really. So we’ll have to take his word for it that a bit of self-examination is worth the effort.

One woman who’s found herself getting into a bit of Socratic method in mid-life is Maria Shriver, television news reporter, card-carrying Kennedy clan member and wife of the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s a rather heavyweight CV she’s dragging about, yet in a recent interview with Oprah – also no slouch in the over-achieving department – she admits to having found little satisfaction in her intensive schedule. She said “I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace. I thought it was about the job or a book or making a name for myself. So many people would come up to me and say, ‘Which Kennedy are you?’. At a very young age, I thought, You’re going to know which one I am. I decided that I was going to be the Kennedy who makes her own name and finds her own job and works like a dog. My comeuppance was when Arnold got elected – I became the Kennedy who was married to the Governor.”

Of course, that kind of driven busyness doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere, unbidden. Describing her early family life, Shriver says “It’s competitive when you walk in the door. It’s competitive at the table. It’s competitive on the playing field. It’s competitive in a boat. Even my mother is very competitive at everything – from checkers to Ping-Pong to sailing to politics … My parents’ vacations were working vacations. We visited Special Olympics events, Peace Corps volunteers, prime ministers and priests. They’d be trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Christmas.”

That drive to constantly achieve knew no bounds, as a telling interchange with Shriver’s father after she’d written her second book clearly highlights. “He said, ‘What are you doing with yourself?’ I said ‘I just wrote a book.’ ‘But you did the book already’, he said. ‘That’s over. You need to do a new thing.’”

Whoah, scary! While all that workaholism doubtless created a lot of positive change for many people, it also negated any possibility of self-enquiry. Without self-examination, we’ll never really know if we’re doing what we do because we want to do it or simply because that’s what we think we should be doing. Shriver’s hard-won ability to accept herself and find true fulfilment at a slower, more authentic pace is valuable wisdom to follow, all the more because she’s had all that money, fame and accomplishment can offer and still came up empty.

She says now, “I’m trying to live my life from my heart, being authentic to who I am. I’m trying to feel my way to my truth. I do things now that feel real to me … A friend once told me ‘As long as you keep playing the game of trying to be the right Maria for everyone, you’re never going to deliver the real Maria. You don’t even know who the real Maria is.’ She was right. So I took a long, hard look at myself and began to strip away a lot of the stuff that kept me running. The most terrifying thing of all for me was to just sit with myself. I didn’t know how to be alone. When you grow up in a huge family, you’re never alone.”

Out of that stopping still, of taking time to learn who she was and what she wanted, she’s learned that it’s not what you do that counts – it’s who you are. Discussing this in the interview, Shriver notes “We’re all worthy – not because we’ve accomplished something or because we’re part of a famous family. You’re worthy if you don’t make the team, if you get Ds and Fs, if you don’t get into the best college. That belief is the greatest gift any parent can give his or her child. You and I don’t have to do an interview or talk about a project or save the world. We can just sit with each other and with ourselves. For me that was a revelation. An awakening.”

Now that’s an awakening we could all do with. As Maya Angelou once said to Oprah, “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.” Time for some self-examination – if you believed those statements to be true, what would you stop doing? What activities, jobs, people or places are in your life because you think they should be? Do you have ‘second book syndrome’ – thinking nothing is ever good enough unless it’s a new experience? Do you even know why you’ve chosen the path that you have? When was the last time you just sat still and let it be OK to do nothing? How has the family dynamic you grew up with become a part of your life now? Are you living the way you do because that’s what your family did? How much real choice have you made in your life? How much does your life reflect the real you?

Juicy questions for you to ponder this week. Take your time with them, roll them around in your mouth and see what they taste like – the bitter pill of truth or a sweet revelation? If you need a little more inspiration, try Maria Shriver’s latest book, Just Who Will You Be?, to kick-start you into your authentic self-exploration.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 2 Jun 08)

The Allure Of Luxury

At a rather fabulous riverside party this weekend, I fell into conversation with a former luxury goods brand manager and ended up debating the issue of brand integrity. It’s fascinating to look at how brands in the luxury market tread the very fine line of mass marketing without debasing the brand – and even more fascinating to look at the ones that don’t manage to maintain that delicate balance. Luxury goods companies are in the business of creating allure and desirability, so once they spread themselves too thin, they begin to implode by destroying that very cachet that sells the products in the first place. It’s an integrity issue at heart – if you don’t adhere to your own core values, you’ll ultimately end up destroying yourself. That goes as much for people as for businesses.

We talked about one company in particular that had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of its stuffy, old-fashioned reputation to enjoy a shining moment of Cool Britannia before becoming its own antithesis as the knockoff brand of choice for Chav culture. As my fellow party-goer pointed out, that occurred not as one of the inevitable vagaries of the fashion world, but because the brand themselves had opened the door to their own undoing, by introducing low-rent products which were then easily copied. Had they kept to their core values, the misfortune of becoming a market-stall stable probably wouldn’t have befallen them.

In essence, personal confidence is just like good luxury brand management. You want to create a certain kind of allure that marks you out as unique and valuable. To do that, you need to have a clear set of values that you adhere to, so that you know when you’re stepping out of integrity with yourself. You want to build a discerning clientele who appreciate your worth and your exclusivity. You can go all out for mass market appeal, but it’s ultimately unachievable – given that you can’t please everybody – and is probably likely to cause you to spread yourself too thin. Great brands have a clearly defined identity and, when managed well, can expand without ever losing that core sense of self.

This approach, of viewing yourself as a brand, can help you to give you the sense of detachment you need to take a dispassionate view of your life. Sometimes we’re too caught up in the minutiae of day-to-day life to keep track of where we’re headed in the long term, so it’s helpful to take a little time out to pay attention to what’s really important.

A good brand knows what it stands for and can encapsulate that in a few words. If you had to name your deepest core values, could you do that easily? If not, take a few minutes to write down at least three for each major area of your life, for example career, friendships, family. Then take a look at how well your work or relationships fit with the values you hold most dear. Are you out of integrity with who you want to be? If you are, what changes do you need to make?

In terms of confidence, if you were a luxury brand, what kind of qualities would you consider that you embody? What innate talents or qualities draw people to you? When you’re clear on what you have to offer, it’s easier to define your strengths and play to them. It’s also easier to spot what’s a good fit for you – and more crucially, what’s not. Honouring your own worth and staying in integrity with your own values is what teaches people what esteem to hold you in and how to treat you. If you’re not clear about who you are and what is acceptable to you, you open the door to destructive outer forces.

This week, think of yourself as a luxury brand and only make choices that support your core values and honour your worth – that goes as much for the work you do as the people you invite into your life. Take a fresh look at how well you’re expressing the truth of who you are and what you want to create for yourself. Luxury brands are prized because those who sell them believe in their intrinsic value and are comfortable persuading others of that. Do a little marketing magic on yourself – embrace your inner allure and don’t be shy about being your fabulous self.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 26 May 08)

This Is Spinal Tap

I have just discovered quite how uninteresting ceilings can be, courtesy of a lumbar puncture this week. If you don’t know what it is, I’d say you’re probably better off not knowing. Let’s just say it’s a deeply uncomfortable medical procedure that requires you to lay flat for hours afterwards, allegedly to avoid the onset of a post-LP headache. I say ‘allegedly’ advisedly, given that I’ve been flat on my back for days now because every time I get up I get another headache and every time I lie down it goes away. Try writing without lifting your head – it’s a skill! I have a new admiration for those who are bed-ridden for years. It’s only been a few days and I’m already stir crazy.

Given that the procedure itself is not the most fun you can have with your clothes on, I’d been dreading it for some time. Luckily, though, I was accompanied by my very good friends Liberté and Egalité (names changed to protect the not-so-innocent) who managed to turn a particularly horrid hospital visit into quite a magical mystery tour – no mean feat! There is nothing more entertaining than being regaled with the finer details of other people’s dating exploits, right down to the good, the bad and the ugly. I’d have laughed more if it didn’t hurt so much to do it. A huge thank you to both of them for making that the most fun I’ve ever had – and possibly ever expect to have – in a hospital gown.

Perhaps even more comical was leaving the hospital with no real after-care instructions and perhaps even more tragically no decent drugs. If someone is going to dig a rather large needle into your spine and tap you for a bit of spinal fluid, the very least they can do is provide adequate pain-control for the after-effects. Honestly, some people have no idea of basic courtesy! I’m all for alternatives until it comes down to serious pain. Then I’m the first person with my hand in the medicine jar. I make no apologies for that. C’est la vie.

I always figure that what you need to look most is whatever’s right in front of your face. In this instance, being made immobile gave me an opportunity for a bit of a rethink about the way my life is headed, particularly my work. I’m brewing up a few new ideas, courtesy of this enforced rest. It’s always better not to fight these things, but to take advantage of what they have to offer. If you’re stuck indoors with only a blank ceiling to stare at, then that’s what you have to make the best of – fighting it, feeling miserable about it or wishing you were elsewhere is just a waste of energy.

What’s staring you in the face this week? What’s the wall you just can’t get around, whether you like it or not? Can you just accept it and use the opportunity to think differently? Can you take a stumbling block and see what advantages might be hidden within it? What if you let go of the struggle and just let it be OK? What might a recurring issue be trying to tell you? Is there a pattern you’ve not noticed before? Take a few moments to stop and check that the direction you’re headed is actually one you want to go in.

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 19 May 08)