Chain Male

Don’t you just hate those schmaltzy email chain letters that clog up your inbox? Usually they’re full of angels or some other mystical creature promising bountiful blessings if you forward them onto ten people in ten minutes – and everlasting bad luck if you don’t. I was dreading opening yet another one of those when a friend sent me a much more modern and entertaining version of chain mail, complete with a hunky dude sporting angel wings, presumably from a Brazilian carnival dance troupe (or gay night at a local club). The sole aim of this particular email was to brighten up women’s days with a bit of guy candy and it certainly did that. It reminded me of John Philip Law as the angel in Barbarella – terribly camp, but drop-dead gorgeous nonetheless. I’m sharing the angel pic with you today in the hope that he’ll have a similarly life-enhancing effect on you …

Speaking of life-affirming moments, I’ve been working on an article for http://www.ivillage.co.uk/, the fabulous website for women, about New Year’s resolutions, and one of the major themes was the question of emotional engagement in how we motivate ourselves. I’ll post the link for the piece when it’s up on the site later this month, so you can see how that relates to setting effective goals for the coming year, but for now the theme of the power of our emotions is still lurking in my mind and needs a little more exploration.

One way to view your general persona is to look at how you operate on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels and whether you have a reasonable balance between each of those elements. Society generally tends to place a strong value on being able to function well in the physical and intellectual realms, but puts less emphasis on emotional or spiritual awareness. Yet, the secret to having a deeply fulfilling and fabulous life is to find expression within each of those areas, so that none of them becomes the focus at the expense of the others. Also, where we fail to put awareness is where our behaviour will be at its most unconscious, so we find ourselves regularly doing things that are contrary to what we say we want on a conscious level.

To understand this a little more, take a look at your own personality and that of your friends and try to guess where their natural strengths lie. People who are athletic, sensual in nature or have a strong business sense are all adept on the physical level. Those who are in caring professions, actors or have a very sensitive nature have a natural proficiency on the emotional level. The mental level is usually characterised by those who pursue academic careers, have strong language skills or comedic wit. Those with an easy fluidity in the spiritual element may be artistic, clairvoyant or involved in organised religion. These are all very simple characterisations, but they’ll give you a feel for what each of the elements is about.

None of the elements exists in isolation – all the character elements are functioning within you, but it’s your level of fluency within that element that determines the degree to which it comes into your conscious awareness and control. Simply put, some of us are more in touch with our emotions, our mental grooves, our spiritual leanings or our physical prowess than others. Few of us are naturals at all four elements, so what we tend to do is play to our strengths and let the others slide. Usually what happens to open the door to the wider sense of self is some dramatic change of circumstances that causes us to rethink our lives. We humans are creatures of habit and don’t tend to seek change until we’re pretty much forced into it. However, we can avoid a lot of pain by choosing to look at the disowned parts of ourselves before life kicks us up the backside.

One of the most obvious ways we can see these disowned parts of the self at work is a lack emotional responsibility or what I call emotional incontinence. We all know people who are very emotionally volatile, but have absolutely no sense of how much havoc they wreak on the atmosphere around them. They share their bad temper, depression or drama queen behaviour way too generously and everyone gets caught in the wake of each little emotional explosion. Their friends and colleagues learn to walk on eggshells around them to try to avoid the little black cloud of volatility, but in reality nothing works to mitigate the effect of their indiscriminately flowing emotions.

At times we all do this, but for some people it’s a habitual way of behaving that remains a complete blindspot, because although they have plenty of access to their emotions, they’ve taken no responsibility for learning how to work with them in a way that respects those around them. It’s not enough to simply have access to your emotions, you need to learn how to harness them effectively or they can be your greatest undoing.

Emotional responsibility means learning to work with your emotions to help motivate, support and care for yourself and others. If your emotions aren’t engaged in any goal you’re trying to pursue, you just won’t be able to go the distance without unconsciously sabotaging yourself. That said, the emotional element is no more powerful or desirable than any of the others. It’s just one of the areas where we tend to have the least proficiency, because emotional literacy has only recently become recognised as being of value.

This week, in the spirit of adventure and exploration into new realms, start noticing how you, your friends and your family fit into the ‘four elements’ model. Some may be firmly grounded in a single mode, perhaps very focused on physical fitness with no real interest in other areas, and others may be quite balanced across a few elements. It’s not a question of judging personalities as being better or worse, but simply observing how different people function in varying ways on various levels. It will give you some insight into personal compatibility too, as you notice how your friends’ interests dovetail with yours and reflect back to you some of your own prowess in a particular element.

When you know what your strengths are, start paying attention to whether or not you’re making good use of them. Does your job allow you to use your natural talents? Is there a sport, hobby or artistic pursuit that you could take up that would help you express those natural skills? Are you able to share those interests with those closest to you?

If you’re feeling more adventurous, try stretching yourself a little by exploring an element that you know you’re not particularly fluent in. If it’s the emotional element, you could begin by having a deeper and more honest conversation with a supportive friend about how you really feel or go the whole hog and try an acting class. If the physical realm hasn’t been your top priority, start by doing things that get you into conscious touch with your body, like massage or yoga. If you never really challenge yourself intellectually, try stimulating your mind by going to a lecture or movie that’s out of your usual range of interest. On the spiritual level, you could dabble with taking a guided meditation, listening to devotional music or getting your nose into some inspirational books.

Make being your whole, balanced fabulous self a priority this week and watch how that can open up your life in ways you’d never have expected.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com.
For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk.
All material © 2006 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 4 Dec 06)