The Way Of The Peaceful Decision-Maker

Having just talked yet another person down off the ceiling, the issue of clarity and discernment is uppermost in my mind. When the world is a scary place to you, the tension is palpable and stress is making your voice rise to a pitch that only dogs can hear, call me old-fashioned, but I don’t call that a great time to make a decision.

This year is shaping up to be a bit of a challenging one for a lot of people, calling for some smart and savvy discrimination in how choices are made. That’s not to say it won’t be an easier ride for others, but even if the heavens are shining on you, you still need to be picking the options that are best for you, rather than going along for the ride.

So, for the record, here are a few pointers to enhance your decision-making prowess:

Don’t Panic

You may recall that these words were inscribed in large and friendly letters on the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Universe – just because it’s a work of fiction doesn’t mean it’s not true. No good can ever come of panicky energy, because it’s based on fear. When you’re fearful, it’s nigh on impossible to get in touch with your inner guidance and logic goes out the window as well. Not exactly an ideal scenario, is it? If you’re in panic mode, then you need to do whatever it takes to calm yourself down and change the groove of your thinking. You need to interrupt the pattern so you can approach the question again with a clear head.

Relax

So, your head’s in a spin, you’ve got a huge decision to make and you haven’t got a clue what to do – do you really think getting stressed about it is going to help the situation? The only way out of that spiral is to do something that gets physical – getting you out of your head and into your body. Walk, swim, exercise, get a massage, lie on a beach if you have time, but don’t try to cure the problem with more thinking – your best thinking got you here. If you’re under time pressure, just get outside and walk around the block, taking a few deep breaths along the way, or sit in the park at lunchtime. Getting out in nature, particularly by water, is very calming. Even in urban environments you can find fountains, rivers, parks or day spas that have very zen-like energy to give you a swift relax and re-charge.

Stay In The Present Moment

Most of the unnecessary drama in our lives could be removed just by observing the tenet to ‘be here now’. It’s that simple. When our minds are in the past, we’re usually either regretting something good now lost to us or reliving some past difficulty. When we focus on what’s to come, we have a tendency to awfulise, projectecting our current difficulties way out into the future. Both of these past and future obsessions bring enormous stress to the present day and make it extremely difficult to make wise choices. The past will not necessarily repeat itself, nor is the future certain to be a replica of current experience, so why entrap yourself in this type of thinking?

Open Your Mind

When you’re uptight about which direction to choose, it’s usually because you think you’re in an ‘either or’ situation and there’s no other option. That’s exactly when you need an open mind. Get creative and start finding other ways to think about the question. Talk to an inspiring friend, get a coach, use creativity techniques like A Whack On The Side Of The Head cards, get online or talk to others to research new options – do anything that gets you out of ricocheting between two choices. There is always another way, but you usually can’t find it either because you don’t think you have a right to ask for it or you simply haven’t opened your mind to the possibility.

Feel Into The Options

When your mind isn’t a reliable source of guidance, due to the mental spin factor, then the best way to get insight is via your feelings. Make sure you’ve done the relaxation bit first, though, or the only feelings you’ll be getting in touch with are ones of panic and fear. When you’re in a more laid-back mode, sit quietly, close your eyes and imagine the first choice ahead of you like a road. How does it feel to you to follow that road? Let your imagination give you images or a sense of how that might be. Pay attention to the sensations in your body as you visualise taking that path. Then do the same for all the other options. You should be able to get a clear sense of which choice feels better to you, as long as you remember to stay with how it feels to you rather than what you think about it.

Know Nothing Is Forever

What paralyses us most when it comes to making decisions is assuming they’re always irrevocable. When you really think about it, there are very few things in life that last forever and your decisions definitely aren’t cast in stone. These days there’s very little that can’t be undone if you really need to – for example, changing jobs is no big deal if you’ve misjudged a career choice. Sometimes it’s going far enough in the wrong direction that gives us the impetus to jump tracks to the right way, so staying flexible to what comes up for you in life is a very useful skill. If you’re completely stuck and just can’t make a decision, at times the best thing you can do is just take action. Not making a decision just keeps you stuck. At least doing something will shift the energy. When you know it’s not forever, you’re not afraid to jump.

This week, take a look at where you’re finding it difficult to make a decision about a particular direction, an opportunity, a relationship or a work issue. Use a combination of any or all the techniques, but do them in sequence. Jumping ahead without creating a calm foundation will affect the clarity of your insights and your ultimate decision. When you’ve made your decision, add a little magic by visualising success for yourself in whatever you’ve chosen. That’ll help it to become the fabulous turning point you wish it to be.

Now, I know it’s Valentine’s Day this week, so as a special treat, here’s a link some of the most direct (and occasionally profane) dating advice you’ll ever get, from Greg Behrendt, consultant on Sex & The City and author of He’s Just Not That Into You and It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken. In the Ask Greg video section of his home page at http://www.gregbehrendt.com/ you’ll find all the sage relationship advice you’ll ever need – with a hefty reality check as a bonus. Happy V-Day, everyone!

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link inthe Favourite Sites section on the rightor by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com/. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. To contact me, email mailto:coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk.All. 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 Feb 08)

The Lotus In The City

As it was hangover central at Chez Fabulous this weekend and it’s been another busy day today, we’ll be aiming for quality over quantity when it comes to I Am Fab this week. In fact, there may be mostly short dispatches from Fab Towers over the next few weeks, as I settle into a new project which is shaping up to be quite time-consuming. While I may ambitiously hold the Type A personality intention of trying to fit it all in, it’s realistic to assume that something’s got to give, at least in the short term. Writing’s my first love, though, so nothing’s going to shut me up for long!

Having been lured back into the corporate world on a full-time basis for the next few months, I’ve had to get very focused on how to sustain the practices that keep me sane and be very disciplined in keeping those commitments. For me that means plenty of time in the morning for meditation, without which I could give Lucy van Pelt from the Peanuts comic strip a good run for her money in terms of grouchiness. It’s safe to say that setting aside that time is not only a benefit to me, but also to my colleagues, who get to face someone with at least a basic sense of serenity in the morning, not the grumpy cow I would naturally be without it. Some people are morning people and I’m so not one of them.

During the day, I’m making sure I get time out for a coffee or lunch away from my desk, because pushing yourself to keep working without a break is completely counterproductive. Even a few minutes walking in the fresh air is enough to clear your head and re-energise you. When you exhaust yourself by pushing yourself without a break, your ability to concentrate is weakened and everything takes so much longer to do. The worst thing a busy person can do is assume they’re too frantic to take even a few minutes to recharge – ploughing on regardless isn’t the smart thing to do, it’s actually a risky strategy that means you’re more likely to make mistakes or overlook things because your ability to focus is impaired.

Of an evening, because my work involves a lot of strategising, meaning there’s a strong mental focus, I’m carving out a few sessions a week at the health club to do something that gets me back in my body to de-stress and switch off. Believe me, this is happening because I’ve learned that it’s essential to my well-being, not because I have any ambitions to be a gym bunny. I’m a dyed-in-the wool, card-carrying lounge lizard, but even I have to face the fact that moving your body is the best way to shake off the workaday blues.

So that’s my personal recipe for staying sane in a nine-to-five world – what’s yours? Do you have a structure that supports you to feel at your best even when you’re working flat strap? I’m all for freedom, but discipline can be your best friend when you’re trying to cope with a busy lifestyle. What are the practices (and they don’t all have to be hard work) that would make your day go a little easier? Can you promise yourself firmly that you’ll make the effort to go out for a decent coffee, rather than sit at your desk with the miserable machine version? Is there a park or even a local bookstore nearby, that you can sneak off to for a little peace and quiet on a frantic day? Do you have a health club membership that you’re not using? If so, why not use a bit of carrot and stick psychology on yourself by booking a treat like a massage or facial after a yoga class?

Pay attention, too, to what you find yourself doing impulsively, because that’ll be a clue to what needs expression in your life. This weekend, I found myself buying up big when I stumbled on a supply of brightly-coloured Antik Batik sequinned kaftan tops. You could call that shopaholism rearing its ugly head, but I realised that for me it symbolises the need for creative expression – if I’m not doing as much creative work as I’m normally accustomed to, then subconsciously I’ll find a way to express myself, even if it happens to be by filling my wardrobe with rich hippie style clothes.

The bottom line is that you’re the one in charge of your own well-being, so it’s your responsibility to pay attention to your own needs and find a way to fulfil them. If you don’t make time to take care of yourself, no-one else will. Get your priorities right and make sure that you’re taking the steps to build a lifestyle that helps you to feel fabulous, however frantic life gets. Drop the guilt if sometimes you just can’t fit everything in – a fabulous attitude is a flexible one. And if all else fails, go buy a few kaftans … it works for me!

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. To contact me, email coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 23 Apr 07)

Ageless Allure

The Oscar season has officially begun, so the movie biz is even hotter news than usual for the next month as the countdown commences to the big night. That means just about any angle will be explored to get a showbiz story, however tenuous the connection. This year, as a number of the nominees are either approaching or well past pensionable age, it’s no surprise that we’ve seen the emergence of a survey nominating the top five sexiest older women and men. What’s truly remarkable about the list is not just that the vast majority of the winning actors are in their sixties and seventies, still going strong and producing some of their best work, but that – in a youth-obsessed culture – these vibrant, intelligent people are being recognised for their enduring charisma.

Topping the women’s list is Helen Mirren, who’s still considered sexy, despite having most recently portrayed the Queen – not exactly a red hot mama! The other acclaimed women of a certain age are Sophia Loren, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench and Diane Keaton. Leading the field for the men is the perennial bad boy Jack Nicholson, with stiff competition from Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood and Danny Glover.

It’s encouraging to see a wider context for sexiness than the pursuit of eternal youth. There’s a distinctly low incidence of Botox or super-stretched facelifts in this crowd, although Robert Redford did go in for a bit of ill-advised surgery a few years ago. On the whole, what makes these people sexy is their degree of comfort with themselves, a zest for life and a willingness to continue to stretch themselves creatively. That this list exists at all is a testament to all those who have not only refused to fade away in an industry that values youth above all, but who keep finding new ways to reinvent themselves.

At 76, Clint Eastwood is Oscar-nominated again this year for both direction and best film for Letters From Iwo Jima, a controversial take on the WW2 battle, as seen from the Japanese point of view. Only a couple of years ago he not only directed and appeared in Million Dollar Baby, but also made it his first foray into composing the film score as well.

That’s the joy of a creative career – if you have the inspiration, you get to do what you enjoy for as long as you desire and still get to push the envelope. It’s an enormously liberating thought to be free of any sense of imposed retirement or a feeling that ageing will make you obsolete. That in itself must promote a youthful outlook.

There’s a hugely pervasive illusion we all fall prey to when we imagine that the ideal life would be to retire and hang about doing nothing. We only think that way because we don’t necessarily enjoy the work that we’re doing, so it’s no wonder that the idea of ditching it permanently seems like such a happy pipe-dream. However, as creative beings, to stay energised we need to keep ourselves stimulated with new challenges – however small – lest we bore ourselves to death. Hasn’t it ever struck you as odd that so many people pop their clogs shortly after retirement? It doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’m as close to a professional lounge lizard as you can get, but even I can’t bear the thought of having absolutely nothing to do ad infinitum.

Not everyone wants to pursue a creative career – or even one that gives them a vast amount of freedom – but I’d hazard a guess that we all want to stay vibrant, upbeat and interested in life for as long as we intend to hang about on the planet. For that to happen, you need to tap into your passions and find something that you’re so fascinated by that you lose track of time when you’re involved in it. Some people find their passion in sporty activities and others have more sedate ways of entertaining themselves, but whatever happens to be your ‘thing’, make sure that you commit to exploring it more fully. Sometimes we can’t easily free ourselves from the job that bores us or the commitments that feel like a burden, but you can make life a lot more interesting by focusing on even one small thing that makes your heart sing.

This week, think back to the kinds of hobbies, activities or creative pursuits that you used to enjoy, but have let fall by the wayside. In some small way, make a step towards reigniting that passion. Even if you can’t find time to get out and do something, then reading up on your favourite interest is at least a small step in the right direction. Life has become way too serious a proposition and we all seem to think we need to be great at something before we take it up. This week give yourself permission to be really crap at something and just give it a whirl. Do it because it makes you happy, not because you think you’d be good at it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it can’t pay off in the end – plenty of very successful people go on to turn a pastime into a thriving business, because their passion gives them the energy to succeed where others with less enthusiasm could not. Just give yourself a stretch this week and try something that makes you feel creative, ageless and gives you the sense that you’ve pushed the barriers of your comfort zone. That’s what will keep you feeling alive, energised and, of course, fabulous, however many candles you have on the cake.


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 © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 29 Jan 07)

Fire In The Heart

Being your whole, fabulous self in its complete entirety is not an easy job. It’s probably not escaped your notice that the handbag and prosecco obsessions in my life are quite often engaged in an indelicate skirmish with the parts of me that reflect hippie, tree-hugging values and the search for a deeper meaning in life. Attempting to package that little lot together into a cohesive personality is way too much effort, so quite frankly I’ve just stopped trying. Even the seemingly contradictory parts of yourself can happily co-exist if you’re willing to just allow that to be OK. Genuine self-acceptance begins with realising that it’s your quirks that make you interesting. To exclude any part of yourself is to create an internal civil war that will ultimately cause you to self-destruct, because you’ll have cut yourself off from your own authenticity.

Speaking of old hippies, I heard a great quote from the musician Carlos Santana recently, who said, “If you stay in your heart you will always be inspired. If you’re inspired you will always be enthusiastic and there’s nothing more contagious on this planet than enthusiasm.” Apart from being an institution on the music scene for over thirty years, Santana is also a philanthropist who quietly goes about making a contribution to the world in line with his spiritual values, including donating the entire proceeds of his Shaman tour to help combat the AIDs crisis in Africa. He’s a flesh and blood reminder to us that whatever we want to create or offer, we can do it in our own way, without compromising who we are.

We need creative, funky and vibrant people from all walks of life to mirror back to us that spirituality and a life of vitality and passion aren’t mutually exclusive. We need to remember that enthusiasm, not dry dogma, is what drives real change in our lives and keeps us on song and on purpose. I love it that Santana went on to say, “In my life, I don't want to be a victim and I don't want to be a tragedy. I want triumph—spiritual triumph—with humility and grace, beauty, elegance, and excellence. You know, I learned a lot from Duke Ellington about class, and from Nat King Cole and Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, and John Coltrane about humility. So I have crystallised all my religion into no religion – into spirituality. Religion is finely designed to divide and separate; spirituality brings unity and forgiveness and compassion.” Imagine a life of spiritual triumph – now that’s something to aspire to!

We’ve got the aim in sight – the spiritual triumph of being your total, fabulous self – but how do you stay on track day to day and keep your enthusiasm and inspiration levels high? Having a clean slate to start with is a big help, so here’s a mini-meditation to help you feel balanced and in tune with yourself. It’s a mindfulness practice, but it’s really about noticing what’s going on in your body, because that’s the fastest way to check in on your energy and deal with one of the biggest killjoys known to man – free-floating anxiety.

We’re in the midst of tough times on the planet and the fifth anniversary of September 11 is only a week away, so it’s not surprising that there’s a lot of general anxiety about. If you’re in any way sensitive, you’ll be picking that up, regardless of what else is going on in your life.

Sensitivity and intuition go hand-in-hand with empathy, which means that you can be picking up on other people’s stressful energy and not even realise it’s happening. Ever had a day when you were feeling upbeat and happy, but suddenly and unaccountably found yourself feeling flat and drained? That’s a sign that you’re picking up on other people’s stress. The trick is to notice it as it happens and learn to let it go. While you’re at it, you can release any of your own daily build-up of stress and anxiety too, with this simple practice that will only take a couple of minutes to do. We’re going to do a quick visualisation on lifting solar plexus energy into the heart. Most of us store our anxious feelings around the solar plexus, just below where the lower ribs meet, and our positive feelings are felt more strongly in the heart. This practice helps you fill your heart with positive and joyful energy that uplifts and burns off the anxious feelings stuck in the solar plexus.

Give it a try now – briefly close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing, noticing how it naturally slows down when you pay attention to it. As you feel yourself settling into a natural rhythm of deeper breathing, bring your attention to your heart and imagine it as a huge and vibrant sun. Feel it radiating light and joyfulness, growing stronger the more you pay attention to it. Do this until you can feel a great sense of expansion, warmth and lightness in your heart. Notice that as your heart energy grows and expands, it draws the energy up from the solar plexus like small flames that disappear in the powerful light of the sun. Keep allowing these flames to be drawn in and dissipated until you feel a sense of release and relaxation in your solar plexus. Finish by holding that sense of joy in your heart and returning your attention to the room, stretching a little to make sure you’re fully grounded and focused.

This is a good starter for the day if you notice you’re preoccupied with something, as an energy top-up during a coffee break, or to release your worries of an evening as you fall asleep. Your ability to stay strong in your intentions, pay attention to your intuition and maintain your enthusiasm will all radically improve if you keep your energy clear in this way. Just imagine what you could do if you weren’t being held back by fear or anxiety …

Inspiring people get other people juiced up about their own lives. Even if they did nothing else, that would be a massive contribution in itself. This week, find some role models of inspiration and, even better, be one. Here’s a little more insight from Santana to help you on your way: “My meat and potatoes is my intention, motives, and purpose, and the company that I keep … if I never got an award, that would be fine with me, because the company that I keep is very inspiring and stimulating. I love hanging around vibrant people, people who don't walk around with a tag. You can never put a tag on a Mandela or a Desmond Tutu or a Harry Belafonte. You cannot buy these people, and once they set out to do something, you can't bribe them. Those are the kinds of people that I'd like to be centre stage with.”

Spend time with the people who inspire you, embrace all that you are with humour and humility and, before you know it, you’ll be inspiring someone too …

Coach Fabulous is updated every Thursday at http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. You can also use the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right. For alert emails on new postings, send a blank emailto IAmFabulousCo@aol.com with 'Subscribe' in the title field. 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 Sep 06)

The Creative Soul

Creativity became the topic de jour in a conversation with a friend this past week and yet again we echoed that same refrain about how we’ll do almost anything to avoid getting started on creative projects, because we have so much resistance to engaging ourselves at that deeper level. Personally, I believe this is because creative work is soul work. To be creative you have no choice but to go within and wrestle with your own demons to try to forge new meaning and connections. Other kinds of work you may be able to sleepwalk through, but with creative work you have to be totally present or it shows.

It’s like the difference between the factual reporting of events or talking in depth to someone who’s experienced them. The first will give you a sense of what happened, but the second may change your life forever. To be able to connect intimately with the way another person has sensed or felt about something, and to then feel our own connectedness as souls is the real gift of art and creativity. It reminds us who we are and why we are here.

The yearning for that sense of connection lies at the heart of Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s latest book, What We Ache For. In the opening lines, she writes “We ache to touch intimately what is real, to find the marriage of meaning and matter in our lives and in the world. We ache to feel and express the fire of being fully alive. When we cultivate and refuse to separate those essential expressions of a human soul – our spirituality, sexuality and creativity – we feed the fire of our being, we find that place where the soul and the sensuous meet, we unfold. Willing to do our creative work and refusing to separate it from our sexuality and our spirituality, we add a life-sustaining breath to the world.”

What she has touched upon is so poignantly are the myriad ways in which we compromise ourselves, lose touch with our essence and deny parts of ourselves in order to do what we think will keep us functioning in the world. And yet, that self-alienation can only inevitably lead to some form of breakdown – which is really a form of breakout – where we lose exactly the things or people we’ve been trying to maintain at all costs. Failing to honour the full depth of who we are comes at a very high price.

I’m finding it hard to think of a single person I know at the minute who isn’t going through some kind of deep transformation, where the values of the past don’t seem to hold the same kind of sway or where life changes have thrown them into freefall. These times are precisely the times when we need to shift our focus from the events that are clamouring for our attention to move into a deeper sense of what is at work in our lives.

The three aspects in the passage from What We Ache For can be a pretty useful start. For sexuality read passion and life force: what do you feel passionate about and what makes you feel truly alive? For spirituality think of the need to find your own sense of the sacred, to feel that your life has purpose: what makes you feel connected to something greater than yourself? For creativity, ask yourself what is it that you came here to do, that fully expresses a deeper part of yourself – what is it that you do that makes you feel totally and completely you?

The trouble with the life of the soul is that there is no roadmap – by its nature it demands that you make it up as you go along. You have to learn to be comfortable with not-knowing and feeling your way instinctively. If you like to nail life down with a five-year plan, then the soul-infused perspective will definitely be a challenge. It calls for intuition, faith and a deep trust in meaning and purpose to all things. It’s not a blind faith, though, as spiritual guidance and support can be found along the way.

Thomas Moore, a former priest and author of Care Of The Soul, has spoken of his vision of a time when the spiritual aspects of life are so honoured that “one day, instead of going to a therapist, troubled or searching people will pay a call to their theologian to consider the mysteries that have befallen them”. Thankfully, that time is not far off. Already, here in the UK, The Interfaith Seminary ordains more than 50 new interfaith ministers and spiritual counsellors each year, to serve the needs of people of all faiths and of none. The Seminary describes its work as training “open-hearted men and women to become non-denominational ministers and counsellors, to support individuals, families and communities in living a direct, authentic spirituality that is relevant and helpful to our modern world.”

In a time when many religions are failing to keep pace with the spiritual challenges of 21st century life, spiritual counselling can be a rare lifeline to the world of the sacred that doesn’t demand adherence to any particular belief or credo. Having trained as a spiritual counsellor, I know how valuable it is to be capable of walking in both worlds, to embrace both our divinity and our humanity. That we can feel as comfortable in a cloister as in a chic boutique is by no means a contradiction, but an affirmation that life is to be lived as richly and deeply as possible.
Your life is a creative act, so how beautiful can you let it be? How many lost passions can you reclaim? How many limiting beliefs about what’s possible for you can you shake off? How much of your true self can you re-embrace? Something creative in you wants to express itself – can you get past your own resistance and set it free?

Let this week be the one where there are no rules. If you feel like you need some, just make them up. Take a walk on the wild side. Be creative. Live with soul.

Coach Fabulous is updated every Thursday at http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. You can also use the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right. For alert emails on new postings, send a blank email to IAmFabulousCo@aol.com with 'Subscribe' in the title field. All material © 2006 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 5 Jun 06)