Taking Care Of Business



We’ve been revisiting the basic concepts of confidence, self-worth and self-acceptance over the past few weeks. Before we wander off piste to visit whatever else pops into my mind, it’s probably timely to take a look at the concept of service and how that fits with the inner-directed process of building self-confidence.

Whether or not we later embrace any form of religion in our lives, our early conditioning by the authority figures of our childhood sets up a credo – or set of commandments – by which we are exhorted to think always of others. That in itself is fabulous. What isn’t so great is the way that is subtly translated into a belief that we should always put others first, even when that comes at great personal cost to ourselves. Then, effectively, we are in sacrifice, not service. There’s a competing voice we hear daily, too, that says ‘nice guys finish last’ – reflecting the fact that we’ve become a more or less permanent ‘me’ generation. No wonder we’re confused.

For many of us, learning to tread the fine line between service and sacrifice is a life-long challenge, as we ricochet between giving till it hurts and shutting down because we have nothing left to give. We treat taking care of ourselves as a selfish act and question if it’s OK to be successful when so many others have so little. It’s a moral and ethical debate that can paralyse us from action in the outer world and prevent us from maintaining even the most basic of personal boundaries. Until we develop clarity on our own concept of service, then we will wage this inner war with ourselves, bouncing back and forth between sacrifice and service.

Marianne Williamson – one of the greatest spiritual teachers of this age – addresses how she wrestled with these issues in her new book, The Age of Miracles, recounting “I woke up once to a late-night epiphany that shone like a neon pronouncement: that the key to human salvation lies in our living for each other … The line I heard in my head that night was not ‘give away everything you own’. It was ‘live for others’. And I’ve wondered what the world would look like if we did.

“We’ve been so thoroughly programmed to look out for number one, as though ‘me’ is so much more important than ‘we’. But the shift from living for ourselves to living for others is clearly the spiritual imperative calling humanity back to the garden. What, then, about healthy boundaries? Does living for others mean I’m going to give everyone everything – as in my time, my energy, my money, my heart? I’ve tried to do that … be the paragon of self-sacrifice … never having time for myself, making myself wrong for wanting to take care of me, always running around to please or do for others. And it got me nowhere. If anything, it left me angry, resentful, vulnerable to thieves and feeling much more stuck in a rut on my spiritual path as opposed to being sped up on it. Wrecked half the time, I rarely showed up as my best for anyone.

“Healthy boundaries are loving; they show respect both to the person who sets them and to the person who’s asked to honour them. I think it’s best to seek a balanced life, at peace with ourselves and our own loved ones; then when we do turn our attention to the world, we can bring so much more to it. We bring a higher version of ourselves. According to A Course In Miracles, sacrifice has no place in God’s universe. Taking care of ourselves in a righteous way is meaningful service to a greater task because we cannot give what we cannot be. From that space of peace and the moderate behaviour it produces, comes more than enough money and time and energy to give to the world. Service is very serious work, but co-dependency is not.”

If we have any hope of eradicating the concept that taking care of self is innately a selfish act, then what we really need to learn to do is to receive without guilt. Many of us are hard-wired to give constantly and have little experience in receiving gracefully – whether that’s the love of another, a gift or even something as simple as a compliment. What lies beneath that inability to receive is a profound lack of self-acceptance – and often a deep self-loathing – that deflects any incoming appreciation like a computer firewall bounces back spam. You might be being given plenty of love and support, but without self-acceptance, it’s impossible to take it in.

The relationship therapists, Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, were shocked to find that even when clients were given the tools to provide the support their partners had asked for, those same partners couldn’t accept the love they were being offered. As they wrote in Receiving Love, “Who wouldn’t be eager to accept the gift of love freely given? We never thought about the fact that the ability to receive love isn’t natural and inborn for everyone. We have since discovered that some lucky souls blossom and heal when they are offered what they need. But most of us have some trouble taking in affection, praise, support, compliments or gifts from others. For some reason we are not always able to swallow, digest and use this food for the soul. We can taste these morsels of love, but we can’t digest them as nourishment. Like many people with food allergies, we are left craving the very thing we cannot digest.”

Bottom line, we will have no sustainable ability to offer anything to the world until we can first learn to nourish ourselves, and the bedrock of that nourishment is self-acceptance and self-esteem. Unless we think we’re worth something, all the love in the world is wasted on us as we remain incapable of truly receiving it. Having a deep sense of self-worth is an inner process and not a function of how we appear in the world – it’s not about what you do for a living, how you look, who you know or what you have. It’s about being at peace with who you are.

Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations With God, describes meeting the extraordinary Ram Dass, who was left disabled, wheelchair-bound,and barely able to speak after a stroke. He says, “I met Ram Dass, after his stroke, in a hotel room in Denver, and I want to tell you something, I never met a healthier man. I sat in that room with a master. I said, ‘Ram Dass, how are you?’ And he sat in his wheelchair and took a long time saying the words ‘ I am wonder-ful’. That’s health … that’s peace, that’s joy. And when you have so much happiness and peace and joy that you spend your life sharing it with everyone you touch, that’s enlightenment. You have become a master. When your life is no longer about you, has nothing to do with you, but is about everyone whose life you touch, you have become a master. For in the end, that is why you came here. Not to somehow ‘get better’, not to work on yourself. Consider the possibility that all the work you will ever need to do on yourself is already done. All you have to do is know that. Then you will realise that the wonderful message from Conversations With God is true – ‘There is nothing you have to do, nowhere you have to go, and there is no one you have to be, except exactly who you are being right now’.”

This week, learn to live the paradox that seeming to be selfish can be a selfless act. Take time out to nourish yourself, choose to receive compliments gracefully, and think of yourself with love and compassion. While you’re doing that, you can begin asking yourself what you can do to live for others – what’s your special form of service? How can you share your joy with those you touch?

As a final clue, I’ll leave you with a little more guidance and wisdom from Marianne Williamson, who says “So how then do we live for others? The best I can come up with is that service is a way of being. It means I can make the person who just carried my bags into the hotel room feel how much I appreciate what he did for me. Tip him generously as well, of course, but match the tip with an attitude of honour for what he does. Both are important. It means that in any moment, as part of my spiritual practice, I can do what I can to show love and respect for the person in front of me.”

Become a master of the fabulous art of true service, not sacrifice.


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 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 Feb 08)

The Heart Of Confidence


Not sure why – perhaps it’s the whole January new start thing – but I feel moved to do a bit of a back to basics riff on the principles behind I Am Fab. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know this blog is dedicated to promoting self-confidence and ways to enjoy an authentic, meaningful life – even if that’s not entirely evident at first sight! The topics may meander around all sorts of themes, but the general principal is that being exactly who you are is just fine. There’s nothing you need do to fix yourself. In fact, it’s precisely the opposite – the limiting beliefs you hold about yourself are what stand in your way.

Confidence and authenticity are byproducts of getting comfortable with yourself, not striving to become some idealised image of perfection. If you want to be happy with yourself and your life, letting go and learning to love yourself are the major keys to success. With a little self-awareness, it’s relatively easy to take a look at your own self-imposed limitations, but most people find the ‘loving yourself’ part the hardest. As one friend complained recently, “all those books tell you to love yourself, but nobody tells you how to do it”. I’m always up for a challenge, so here goes …

Get Over The Idea That Loving Yourself Is Selfish

Let’s face it, most of us had a less-than-ideal upbringing when it came to any sense of a positive self-image. When you’ve had your parents, your teachers and any kind of religious influence coming down on you like a ton of bricks for anything that vaguely looked like it was ‘selfish’, taking care of yourself is not going to be a natural skill. The Judeo-Christian concept of ‘original sin’ reinforces the idea that we’re all somehow bad, need to be punished and have to be taught to be good.

For those reasons, accusations of ‘selfishness’ are powerful ways of shaming and manipulating, so anyone who wants or needs to control you will be ploughing that field for all they’re worth. However, what’s really selfish is not taking care of yourself. When you do that, you’re playing the burning martyr game, where you appear to be in sacrifice but are actually getting satisfaction from the pity of others or from feeling like a ‘good’ person. Genuine selflessness does not give to get.

Loving yourself and taking good care of yourself means you’ll be relaxed and generous with others, because you’ve made sure you have a well from which to give. You cannot give endlessly without draining yourself and sacrifice isn’t really giving anyway – it’s just a strategy to get attention or to shore up a poor self-image.

Watch Your Inner Dialogue

How you speak to yourself is indicative of how much love and esteem you have for yourself. What’s chattering away in your mind when you look in the mirror first thing in the morning? What do you say to yourself when something doesn’t work out for you? If you’re critical, blaming and punishing in your self-talk, that’s a clear indication that you need to work on being kind to yourself.

The first step to self-love is simple self-acceptance. Start looking kindly at yourself in the mirror. Pay yourself a compliment rather than chip away at what you don’t like about yourself. If something goes wrong, go easy on yourself. Don’t start beating yourself up or blaming yourself automatically. Maybe it’s just not the right time or even the right situation for you. Learn to grow from your mistakes, not be paralysed by them.

Celebrate Your Successes

So few of us have any kind of positive habit of celebrating our achievements – most of us move from milestone to milestone looking back at what went wrong, rather than what went right. You cannot develop a positive sense of self-worth if you constantly focus on your failings rather than your successes. Learn to make a discipline of reflecting on what you’ve achieved, rather than what you feel is lacking.

You can do that by celebrating milestones as they occur or even having a daily habit of listing three things you’re happy to have achieved at the end of each day. You might even enjoy a practice suggested by Esther Hicks and Abraham, called The Book of Positive Aspects, where you write down all your successes and positive achievements in a notebook so you can return to them on days when you’re not feeling that great about yourself.

As a starter for ten, why not just think of three things right now that you’re really proud of, that brought you the most joy or that are major achievements in your career or private life? Get in the habit of thinking positively about the way you’re living your life.

Set Clear Boundaries

This one’s an overspill from the ‘burning martyr’ syndrome. A lack of healthy boundaries will kick you into sacrifice, leaving you feeling drained, exhausted and worthless. Failing to take good care of yourself in light of the demands of others simply reinforces that you believe other people’s needs are more important than your own. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when what you need or feel simply doesn’t matter – to you or anyone else.

Boundary-setting is not about putting up fences, but of holding a strong centre and reacting appropriately in the moment. It’s about trusting that you’re the authority in your own life and that you know what’s right for you. It means saying ‘no’, even when that might feel uncomfortable, because you trust your own judgement. Strong boundaries protect you from being manipulated by the inappropriate demands of others and they reinforce to the world that you value yourself. That’s vital, because, believe me, if you don’t, no-one else is going to do that for you.

Make Positive Choices

Loving yourself isn’t just sitting around talking nicely to yourself – it’s about action and integrity. If you’ve decided you want to lose weight and you stuff your face with fast food, that’s not a positive or loving choice. You’re out of integrity with what you’ve declared you want and you’re not supporting your own physical well-being. If you’re hanging out with people who are manipulative or hyper-critical, then again you’re not making choices that say to yourself that you’re worth loving. If you’re tolerating any kind of relationship that’s destructive, that’s a massive blow to your ability to love yourself and to your self-confidence and self-worth.

Take a look at how the activities and people in your life support your total well-being. Where are you out of integrity with what you want for your life? Are you living the kind of life someone else has mapped out for you? Are you moving forward in the direction you really want to go or are you holding yourself back because of limiting self-beliefs or another person’s opinion?

Trust Yourself

People with low self-esteem are self-abandoning. They follow what others insist upon because they don’t love themselves enough to trust their own opinions and intuition. If something doesn’t feel right to you, you need to honour that. You don’t actually owe anyone an explanation for the decisions you make, so even if it’s just a hunch, value yourself enough to trust that and live by your own lights. Following your intuition is a way of loving and valuing yourself. Stop second-guessing your instinctive decisions and learn to trust yourself.

By taking action in support of your own feelings and inner guidance, you’re sending a strong message to yourself that you’re worth listening to and taking care of. When you really embody that, you’re sending that same message out to the world, loud and clear.

Just Relax – Drop The Judgement

When you love yourself, you can be OK with yourself exactly as you are. You don’t feel like you ‘should’ be anything other than your true self and you extend that generosity of spirit to others as well, making you a very easy person to be around. Learning to let go of all the judgements you hold on yourself and others is the most freeing and loving thing you can do for yourself.

That means dropping perfectionism and examining all the beliefs you have about success, so that you can develop a healthy sense of success on your own terms. Don’t strive for what looks good to others – if it’s not that important to you, forget about it. Embrace freedom and spontaneity. That allows you to open to new possibilities and creative expression you may not have considered. Let your mind open to your heart’s desire, not just what you think you can achieve or what you ‘should’ aspire to.

This week you have a seven-point plan to work on to build your self-worth and learn to love yourself. Give each one a try and see the difference. It might not be an overnight transformation, but stick to it and you’ll soon be noticing that you’re treating yourself more kindly and building a strong foundation of self-worth. What could be more fabulous than that?


Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link inthe 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 © 2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 21 Jan 08)

Scary Monsters

I love all things quirky and nobody does it better than Louis Theroux. He’s on a quest to expose the most eccentric forms of human behaviour, via his documentaries for the BBC, in his own curiously laid-back style. Last night’s programme focused on the modern plague of plastic surgery and – in the interests of understanding the addiction to going under the knife – he even had some lipo of his own. That’s above and beyond the call of duty in my book, but he does tend to do total immersion in his subject.

A woman of only 26 was a plastic surgeon’s receptionist, so she’d already had numerous procedures and was moving on to breast realignment, lipo for the love handles and a nose job only a few months after what seemed to be a completely unnecessary tummy tuck. Another woman went for a complete body makeover in the hopes of getting her astonishingly shallow boyfriend back, but the ones who scared me the most were the men.

One guy looked like he’d been stuck in a wind tunnel for years with a face that was pinned back so tight it was a wonder he could speak, but the saddest case was the man in his fifties who’d clearly had plenty of facial work, plus implants in his pecs, a tummy tuck and bicep implants to make his arm muscles look bigger. Louis’ very innocent style of interviewing lulled him into revealing that he’d been called an ‘ugly bastard’ by his stepfather for years and still saw himself that way, hence all the effort he put into sculpting his appearance. Although he’d had therapy, there was still an enormous gaping hole in his self-esteem that he thought plastic surgery could fill.

That poor man will probably spend the rest of his life – and his bank balance – trying to overcome his lack of self-worth by applying a cure that will never work. Nothing that is based solely on external appearance and approval by others will ever make a person with low self-esteem feel good for any length of time. It’s a quick fix that’s ultimately detrimental if it masks the need to address a lack of self-acceptance and self-love. Renovating the outer without taking a look at the inner is just throwing a bit of window-dressing over the problem, and the same issues will continue to erupt in your life no matter how much money you throw at them.

If you find it difficult to accept yourself as you are, by all means work on the outer issues that bother you, but never forget that the real work is done inside your own mind. It’s not always possible to forget the types of taunts that man endured as a child, but it is possible to transform the relationship you have with those kinds of memories. What matters is not what occurred, but what we make it mean about us.

We can choose to live as though unkind words are the truth about us, or we can choose to see them as thoughtless and insensitive comments from people who were incapable of acting kindly towards us. When we unhook ourselves from the belief that we were treated badly because we deserved it, we free ourselves to become self-accepting and ultimately to develop a degree of self-love. Then, what we think about ourselves becomes far more important than what others think of us.

As Phillip Moffit wrote recently in Yoga Journal, “Transform does not mean to fix or make go away whatever trauma and scars you may be carrying from childhood: instead, you slowly develop a new relationship with your difficulty, such that it is no longer a controlling factor in your life.”

There’s no denying it’s a process that can take some time, but when you liberate yourself from the stories you’ve been told about who you are – and have continued to tell yourself over and over – those emotional scars can fade away. Like all scars, they’ll still be there, but they’ll have much less power to affect you. Then you can begin the work of building your own self-worth from within and become the authentic self you were always meant to be.

The effect of this kind of confidence is best described by the Dalai Lama, who has said, “With the realisation of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world. According to my experience, self-confidence is very important. That sort of confidence is not a blind one; it is an awareness of one's own potential. On that basis, human beings can transform themselves by increasing the good qualities and reducing negative qualities.”

Not just this week, but every week, try to excavate at least one lie about who you are from the vaults of your memory and see it for what it is – someone else’s projection. So often people don’t even remember the comments that have wounded us, because they were said in anger, in passing or simply out of plain spite, yet we take them to heart and wound ourselves over and over with those words.

Especially, don’t let the words of someone you neither liked nor respected steal your sense of self-worth. Learn to let other people’s poison wash away and keep your self-esteem intact. This goes as much for the present as for the past. Make your opinion of yourself the priority and let other people’s judgements be seen for what they are – reflections of their own insecurities, projected on to you.

Be kind to yourself with what you perceive to be your failings and learn to celebrate your good qualities. Know that out of some of our most painful experiences the greatest wisdom can grow. The poet Antonio Machado knew this when he wrote, “I dreamt last night, oh marvellous error, that there were honey bees in my heart, making honey out of my old failures.”

Dream some honey bees tonight and let your heart – not your surgeon – do the work.

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 8 Oct 07)

Private Worlds


Scratch the surface on anyone and sooner or later you’ll hear a tale of insecurity and lack of self-worth that will just crack your heart wide open. In the past week I’ve heard some fabulous, vibrant, gorgeous people talk about themselves in ways that are so distant from the truth that it’s shocking to contemplate.

This is the result of a lifetime of self-abuse, of regarding themselves as fundamentally lacking in some way. We all do it and it’s just horrific. A young, slim woman full of energy and life sees herself as overweight and unattractive. A tall, good-looking man thinks he’s too fat – despite no evidence of even an ounce of flab – to risk having a relationship. Have we all gone mad?
We’re living in these private worlds that can be hell on earth unless we’re willing to open up to a new way of thinking and a willingness to accept ourselves as we are, right here, right now. There’s no point waiting for the day that you’re perfect so your life can begin. Here’s a clue – you’ll never be perfect, so you’re doomed to wait forever before you can give yourself permission to get on with an imperfect life. Enough already – be willing to be OK with who you are today or kiss your chance at happiness goodbye.

As they say in the Blues Brothers, I’m on a mission from God. My mission – and I choose to accept it – is to eradicate this absolute nonsense about the way we perceive ourselves. This week, join the crusade by letting your guard down and sneaking in a little self-admiration along the way. Pick three things you like about yourself before lunchtime. Make a list of the things you’re good at. Remember the compliments people have paid you. Look in the mirror andlike what you see.

Then pay it forward – pay a compliment to someone else. Help them to see how gorgeous, wonderful and fabulous they are. Even the tiniest bit of support could make someone’s day and help them to feel good about themselves again. We’re all in the same boat, so let’s do it together. See the truth about yourself and those around you, not the laundry list of criticisms and complaints that normally run around in your head. Be bold – promise yourself a week of nothing but unconditional love for you (and anyone else that crosses your path). Wouldn’t that be just fab?

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 14 May 07)

Do You Want To Know A Secret?


Whether we like it or not, January does compel us into a flurry of self-improvement. All the newspapers are full of ways to give up smoking, drinking, eating and basically anything else we might quite like and the magazines aren’t much better. Sandwiched between special spreads on celebrity cellulite and dress disasters, there are countless new diets and exercise programmes designed to get you down to the fighting weight of an anorexic greyhound. It’s all so bloody dreary and ultimately meaningless, so it always sends me ricocheting into a bookshop for some spiritual tome or other, just to redress the balance.

The latest cult movie and book in the metaphysical world is The Secret, based on the law of attraction. I’ll save you a few quid by simply noting that the philosophy is that what you put out you get back, ie be positive, expect good things and they’ll come to you. Sounds simple, but there are a few twists in the tale that aren’t immediately obvious, and that’s where the fun begins.

All sorts of snake-oil salesmen have been packaging up ‘get rich quick’ schemes and ‘spiritual secrets’ for millennia and that’s still going on today with equal fervour. What’s fascinating is that so many people claim to have the panacea for whatever ails us – finances, relationships, lack of opportunity – but when you take a closer look, there always seems to be something missing. In essence, we’re always trying to find a ‘one size fits all’ formula for life and I just don’t think it’s that easy. It strikes me that perhaps the most important – and most enjoyable – part of the process is finding it out for yourself.

There’s enormous wisdom in the material in The Secret, but is it the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything? I suspect not. In fact, some of the most leading-edge material I’ve come across on the law of attraction isn’t even featured in it. If you’re curious about this kind of thing, take a look at the work of Esther and Jerry Hicks, particularly Ask & It Is Given: Learning To Manifest Your Desires. They introduce a much deeper level of understanding about the nature of reality and how much our emotional self affects our ability to create what we desire in life. They also address how we need to make credible leaps in our thinking, making the transition to beliefs we can genuinely engage in, rather than sticking a band-aid of positive thought over a haemorrhage of negativity.

One of the great mysteries for me in the law of attraction has always been the question of people not receiving what they’re giving. If the law is always operates, just like any other law such as gravity, then it seemed strange to me that those who I know are consistently kind and generous to others do not necessarily receive the same treatment in return. Sandra Anne Taylor, author of Secrets Of Attraction, has demystified that particular anomaly by noting “Our magnetic attraction is based largely upon how we value and treat ourselves, not just on how we value or treat others … if we don’t base our kind treatment of others upon a healthy reverence for ourselves, then that care, as loving as it may seem, doesn’t resonate with love at all. Without self-love at its source, our charity toward others is really a manipulation, based in fear, guilt or the need to be accepted. In accordance with the law, this energy inevitably magnetises unhappiness and unloving responses, because it’s based in unhappiness at its source. So no matter how kind or loving the act may appear, if the motivating source is negative, then the consequence will be likewise.”

Just think about that one for a minute - it’s quite a revolutionary thought. We’ve all been knocking ourselves out to ‘be good’ and it probably hasn’t done us any favours at all. Scary, huh? Actually, I think it’s quite liberating. Let me say first that I value kindness above all other things. My all-time favourite quote is from the Dalai Lama, who says “my religion is kindness”. To me spirituality is thoughtfulness and generosity in action, but there is also a very deep need to honour the self. If we are always acting for others against our own well-being, then that must be a very unhealthy kind of love. Most of the people I know are on the self-sacrificing end of the spectrum and could do with a little more attention to what feels right for them, rather than what seems right for others. Let’s all drop the ‘being good’ attitude, start doing what feels right for us and see if that begins to make a difference in the attitude we’re attracting in response. People-pleasing is so last year!

This week, really take a look at why you’re doing things. Are you doing them because it’s what you really want or because you think you should? If someone asks you to do something, take some time out before responding to really feel into whether or not you’re happy to do it. Look at the plans you have for the year – are they what you’d have chosen for yourself or are you simply accommodating others? It’s not a question of never compromising, but of being very, very clear why you’re choosing to do what you do, so that you can be sure you’re honouring yourself in those choices. Dust off the word ‘no’ and use it a lot this week.

Use this as an opportunity to find out more about yourself – if you’ve been accommodating everyone else for years, you may not even remember what you like at all. Feel free to disappoint those who always expect you to go along with what they want. If you feel guilty about that, get over it. You’ll never learn to take good care of yourself and develop a solid sense of self-worth if you can’t live with a little guilt. Notice who supports you in your new choices and who doesn’t. You want people around you who love you for who you are, not what you’ll do for them.

Here’s a final thought from The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, on taking good care of yourself. She says “Unless you fill yourself first, you have nothing to give anybody. Therefore it is imperative that you tend to you first. Attend to your joy first. People are responsible for their own joy. When you tend to your joy and do what makes you feel good, you are a joy to be around and you are a shining example to every child and every person in your life. When you are feeling joy you don’t even have to think about giving. It is a natural overflow.”


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 15 Jan 07)

Truly, Madly, Deeply

The new year is here and so it’s the perfect time to remind ourselves what these chronicles are all about. I Am Fabulous is a statement that reflects the essential truth about you, when you’re willing to let go of all the ways in which you diminish and demean your talents and obscure your true nature. It’s about having the confidence to be yourself and be completely comfortable with who you are.

If you’re going to make 2007 a fabulous year, you’ll need a vision of how life could be if you cared enough to make yourself a priority. Let this quote from motivational speaker Lisa Nichols inspire you:

“You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be joyful, you deserve to be celebrative, but, in order to do that you must first fall madly in love with yourself.”

Now that’s the kind of note you really want to start a new year on – falling madly in love with yourself. That may be a highly challenging concept, as we’re barely accustomed to even liking ourselves, let alone loving ourselves, but this year don’t you think you deserve to set the bar a little higher? So what would it take for you to feel relaxed with yourself and then work your way up from there?

The first step is always going to be radical acceptance of your own humanity, ie the sure and certain knowledge that you’re bound to screw up, regardless of your best intentions. Why do we have such a hard time with that one? I suspect it’s because we’re always trying to live up to some mythical ideal of perfection, even though we’ve never actually encountered another human being who’s ever attained those lofty heights. Also we’ve internalised so many voices over the years that have told us that we’re wrong or we need to behave differently, so now we’re the ones who are so highly skilled in beating ourselves up that we no longer need any outside force to do that for us. If we’d just lighten up and grasp the concept that perfection doesn’t exist and messing up is par for the course, then learning to like ourselves wouldn’t seem so much of a chore.

Next on the agenda would be getting to grips with honouring and ultimately treasuring your own unique way of being, rather than trying to be like anyone else (or anyone else’s idea of how you should be). When we fall in love with someone, it’s their own particular quirks that we love about them. We don’t reminisce about how much our beloved is just like everyone else – we love what makes them unique. It’s not a vast leap from knowing that to surmising that your individual characteristics are what make you adorable to others and that you could learn to love those things about yourself too.

One of the biggest barriers to self-acceptance – and ultimately self-love – is that we are culturally very results-oriented rather than process-oriented. We’re always focused on the outcome, rather than how we got there or who we became in the process. As people we are never in stasis – we don’t stop growing and evolving. Our emotions, desires, thoughts and aspirations are always in flux, so assuming that we’ll reach some point where we’ll enter a static level of happiness is a childish illusion that many of us are still unconsciously pursuing. We’re ultimately creative beings, so we’re automatically drawn to want to explore and experience more. When we can really know that about ourselves, then we can relax and learn to enjoy the process of life, rather than lurching from one goal to another wondering why we don’t stay satisfied when we achieve them.

If you’re clear on the concept that you’re a work in progress and that’s the way it’s meant to be, you can start to enjoy the process of self-discovery. You’ll know that’s happened when your average screw-up becomes more fodder for self-awareness and wisdom rather than another stick to beat yourself up with. That’s when the quality of your inner dialogue becomes as kind and tolerant as it would be if you were talking to someone else, particularly someone you care about. Author James Ray has a particularly insightful take on this issue. He says “Here’s what I want you to consider – do you treat yourself the way you want other people to treat you?” Ponder that one long enough and you’ll certainly start shifting your behaviour towards yourself as you realise the ramifications of that question. If you don’t treat yourself well, how exactly can you expect other people to do that?

If you’re really serious about wanting to be juiced up about yourself and your life this year, then I have a challenge for you. We all know that to provide the best foundation for any structure we have to ensure that the ground is fully cleared before we start to build, and so it is with any plan, including learning to fall madly in love with yourself. Just a little surface cleaning won’t do the trick - it needs to be a root and branch job. Let’s use January to dust off a load of old attitudes, resentments and habitual self-attacking behaviours. If you give it a good enough shot, you could clear them out once and for all, so my suggestion is a thirty day plan of acceptance and forgiveness, starting with yourself.

To kick off, take five minutes each morning and just cop to some of the silliest, most ill-advised and just plain dumb things you’ve done in the past year. If you want to let them go, you’re going to have to accept that they happened and let that be OK. Then, to fully release each issue you’re holding against yourself, you need to find the gift in it, by asking how it’s served you and what have you learned. When you’ve acknowledged that, you’ll be free to chalk it up to experience and move on. When you’re comfortable with the process, start working on the old stuff you’ve been using to punish yourself for years. Any event where you keep going over what you ‘should’ have done is a good place to start letting yourself off the hook. If you really want to fast-track the process, get together with a good friend and have a damn good giggle at your own human frailties. Learning to laugh at your own cock-ups takes the emotional charge of shame out of them and helps you to let them go more easily.

Now that you’ve found a never-ending source of amusement in your own behaviour, you can balance the equation by using five minutes in the evening to find something about the way you acted that day that you’re pleased about, however small. In the beginning, it’s enough to be happy that maybe you’ve just stopped being so hard on yourself that day. As you progress, try looking for concrete evidence – celebrate your talents, insight, achievements or even just your ability to endure in a tough situation. This is a new skill you’re developing, so it’s not necessarily going to come naturally to look for the good stuff instead of the bad. Have patience and persevere – it takes time to create a new, positive habit.

If you commit to this process, you’re guaranteed to feel a whole lot better about yourself by the end of the month. That’s going to have a massive impact on your self-confidence and how you relate to others – as well as how others relate to you – so ten minutes a day is a small price to pay. Your results will be in direct proportion to how willing you are to stick to your daily ritual, but don’t fall into the trap of crucifying yourself if you miss a few – that’s exactly the kind of behaviour you’re trying to eradicate. Just let it be OK and pick up where you left off. Remember, the aim isn’t perfection, it’s the joy of self-discovery in the process. You’re not perfect now and you certainly won’t be at the end of it, no matter how hard you try, but you will be a lot more relaxed with yourself. That’s got to be a fabulous start to the year.


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 2 Jan 07)

Seven Keys To Self-Esteem

My one healthy addiction – apart from the recent development of a worryingly fervent devotion to yoga, pilates and stretch classes – is Hay House Radio. When they start a twelve-step programme for people who spend too much time listening to spiritual radio shows, I will be queueing up at the door. In my defence, I must say that as addictions go, this is a pretty damn good one. Every week there are talk shows on everything from medical intuition to archetypes and six-sensory awareness, so if your interests are anywhere near as quirky as mine, you’ll be in seventh heaven if you tune in to www.hayhouseradio.com.

One of my favourite show hosts is Dr Mona Lisa Schulz, who is a medical intuitive and the author of Awakening Intuition. In her latest show she spoke on the theme of over-giving and the underlying issues which drive that particular behaviour. As she discussed the question of self-worth, she used a model of seven basic areas of self-esteem. Feeling good about your capacities in each of these areas contributes to a healthy foundation of self-worth. While Dr Mona Lisa only touched very briefly on each of these areas in her show, I’m going to add a bit of I Am Fabulous philosophy to the mix, to show you how you can take a wide-ranging look at strengthening your own sense of self-esteem and confidence.

The first category is feeling good about your physical desirability. This is about feeling comfortable with how you look, not striving for an unachievable level of physical perfection. There are myriad ways to explore this one, from the obvious options of updating your wardrobe, to taking dance classes to learn to feel more relaxed and sensuous, or even something as simple as just looking in the mirror each morning and saying ‘I’m fabulous’.

Most of us would assume that there’s no downside to this one – after all, don’t we all want to look as good as we can? – but an overwhelming focus on superficial attractiveness and how much we appeal to others isn’t a healthy basis for sustainable self-worth. Like every other area we’re going to cover, none of them are effective in isolation. What you need to be aiming for is a balance, where there’s some degree of strength in each of them, so that no single thing can become a fragile basis for your self-esteem. That way, when any one area takes a dip, as inevitably it must in the normal course of life, your confidence will stay buoyant because of the strong foundations you have across the board.

Then comes financial prosperity and your capacity to make money. Being able to support yourself well brings self-empowerment and a sense of achievement. The level of prosperity you prefer is, of course, a very individual choice. Some people are happy with lesser levels of income and others find that they enjoy life more with plenty of luxury. Know what suits you and don’t apologise for it. Whatever level of income appeals to you is perfectly fine – it’s your life and your choice. The hidden trap here is over-identification with the amount of money you earn as the source of your self-esteem. I can’t emphasise this one enough: it’s not the money that’s bad, it’s reducing yourself to feeling worthless unless your bank account is overflowing that’s the problem.

The third area is your vocation and how you help people. You’ve heard plenty from me on this subject, about how important it is for your self-confidence that your work reflects the truth of who you are. It is soul-destroying to continue to show up every day trying to be something you’re not or to subject yourself to an environment that is unsupportive or destructive to you. Equally, we all want to feel that life has meaning and part of that search for meaning is to find a way to use your talents to be of service to others. The trap here is when your job or status becomes your identity, to the exclusion of all else. When that happens, burnout is just around the corner. Also, hidden within this area is the caution to remember that you’re worthwhile as a person regardless of what you do and that you do not need to earn love. We all need to develop the capacity to feel loveable even when we are not being of service.

Then there’s the very important area of your capacity to communicate and skilfully express who you are in the world. This one isn’t just about being articulate, but about making genuine connections with others and to feel heard. The most artful conversation isn’t going to be fulfilling if you aren’t expressing what you really feel to someone who is truly capable of hearing it. Ways to explore this one are to find new avenues of creative expression, deepening your friendships or opening up your social circle to include people who express themselves in ways that aren’t your usual cup of tea. The downsides to this one are obviously any sense of superiority or conceit about your capacity to express yourself, or being more concerned with your own expression than hearing others.

Hard on the heels of communication comes another intellectual concept – feeling good about your intelligence, your personality and how skilful you can be in the world. Expanding your horizons on this one can be a powerful boost to your self-esteem, particularly if you’ve felt limited in your capacity due to criticism from others. Some really pervasive beliefs about ourselves derive from early childhood criticisms and limiting statements made by people in authority in our family or school environments. If you have lingering memories of being told you’d never be good at something, surprise yourself and give it a try. Overcoming limitations strengthens your capacity to believe in yourself and your ability to face whatever may arise in the future. Again, the trap on this one can be intellectual conceit. Emotional intelligence is just as important as academic intelligence and often those who are justifiably proud of their intellectual capacity have developed it at the expense of any real emotional literacy. We’re meant to be rounded human beings, not just talking heads.

Now for my favourite topic – connection to spirituality and a capacity to handle your life purpose. This one is no surprise, as a sense of purpose and meaning can help you navigate even the darkest of circumstances. There’s so much to explore here, from learning about different faiths, to really examining what your own beliefs are and how they translate into action in the real world. The flipside to the positive aspects of spirituality is an ungroundedness and lack of connection between spiritual principles and how your life is actually lived. To feel that you are fully on purpose, you need to know that your actions are in integrity with what you believe.
The final area is your ability to nurture others. We’re not just hanging out here on the planet for our own good. Part of the journey is learning to support others in ways that are healthy for them and not detrimental to ourselves either. Suffocating someone with your attempts to help can actually hinder them in developing their own strength, confidence and individuality. Equally, over-nurturing means that you have over-identified with the giving part of your nature and need to learn to receive, to allow for a natural flow of give and take in your relationships.

Now that you’re familiar with each of the areas of self-esteem, take a look at how they’re working in your own life. Assess each individual area to see if it’s working well or if you’ve tipped into over-identification in any particular one. Give each one a mark out of ten and see how much you’re in balance overall. If you’re out of whack, come up with a couple of activities you could do in each area to redress the balance. Look for things you could let go of as well, such as beliefs or limiting behaviours. Immediate action isn’t always the answer. You might need a little more reflection to be sure that the actions you’ve chosen aren’t just a few more things on the to-do list that you’ll never get around to – that kind of behaviour just erodes your self-esteem even more.

This week, don’t just do this one on your own. Talk to a good friend, express your deepest feelings and make a plan of action together, so you’ll have support when you need it. And make it fun – part of learning to like yourself is realising that you don’t need to be fixed, you just need to relax and be OK with who you are. This is an exploration, not a chore, so be willing to laugh at your own limitations and get on with creating a joyful, balanced and more confident life for yourself.

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 21 Aug 06)

Sophie's Choice

Less is definitely more for I Am Fabulous this week, as a little too much of a good time was had by all at the opening of Soho House’s latest venture, High Road House. I would never have thought it possible to have too much champagne, but I did thoroughly enjoy the process of proving myself wrong. Even the very mention of the word has made me come over all delicate and fragile today. Clearly that won’t last for long and my love of the bubbly stuff will swiftly return, but in the meantime it’s dark glasses and comfort food to the ready as my body attempts to metabolise crates of the stuff.

I had a fine old time nosing around Chiswick’s latest media and luvvie haunt with my friend Sandra, sampling the food, checking out all the bars and even casting off our shoes to quality-test the velvet-lined chill-out room and the late-night vibe from the resident DJ. Perhaps a little less fizz as fuel might have been the wiser option, but who can be bothered with sagacity when the corks are a-popping?

Rule one for my post-party recovery routine is to be gentle with myself, so apart from the usual gallons of water and fizzy vitamins – an Australian trade secret for pesky hangovers – the order of the day is to spend it only with people you really like and then to veg out in front of some seriously rubbish TV so that nothing can even remotely tax the brain. I have to admit to going a bit upmarket with an old episode of Sex And The City today, but normally my weapon of choice for this affliction would be something as brain-numbingly appalling as Love Island.

Much as I loathe reality TV, this one is an armchair psychologist’s dream – and I’m only talking about Sophie Anderton, let alone any of the others. For the benefit of those of who have not been exposed to this show, it’s a thinly-veiled popularity contest between not particularly well-known people in the public eye – I just cannot bring myself to call them celebrities – under the guise of matching them up to see who will find love while they're cooped up together on a tropical island for a few weeks. This year’s crop is a motley crew of actors, dancers, singers and even relatives of famous people – proving that even a very tenuous link to fame is enough to get you on the box these days – with a Playboy centrefold and a nutter from Jackass thrown in for good measure.

In the self-appointed role of presiding over the madness is the model Sophie Anderton, who is the poster girl for insecurity, control issues and lack of self-esteem. Sometimes I have to watch the screen through my outstretched hands because I am wincing so painfully at what I’m witnessing. Here is an extraordinarily beautiful girl, with a very successful modelling career, who has battled addiction and come out on top, yet she is dissembling right before our eyes just because there’s a man in the picture. It’s a horrifying thing to watch someone send themselves into a complete tailspin of fear and self-doubt, especially when we can see so clearly how much of this drama is obviously a product of her own mind.

Her obsession with the former Boyzone singer, Shane, has taken on a fantasy life of its own, so much so that there’s an entire relationship going on in her head that has absolutely no foundation in reality. She analyses every action and reaction he has, to fuel her belief that the feelings are mutual, and comes up with conclusions that support that delusion. As Freud once said, “intelligence will be used in the service of the neurosis” and Sophie is demonstrating that for us in technicolour more and more each day. Watching her is cringeworthy, not because we want to judge or demean her for her behaviour, but because in our heart of hearts we all know we’ve been there at some time or another. We’ve all had a mad crush, misinterpreted a person’s signals or suddenly lost our confidence when we’ve met someone to whom we’re powerfully attracted. These circumstances are all symptomatic of a flaw in our own self-esteem, where it is based more on what others think of us than what we think of ourselves.

Sophie is reflecting back to us the truth that regardless of your accomplishments, talents or physical attractiveness, if your self-worth is based on external validation by other people’s reactions to you, then it is nothing but a house of cards that will collapse under the slightest touch. If there is a gaping hole at the heart of who you think you are, nothing from the outside will be enough to fill it and you will run around endlessly trying to get people to love you so that you can feel OK about yourself. The most painful part of this truth is the paradox that the compulsive behaviour to chase love is exactly what repels it.

You can watch that in action every night as this particular Sophie and Shane drama unfolds – the more she clutches at straws and tries to grab his attention, the more he withdraws from her. Neediness is never a good look on a man or a woman. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a gender thing either. The same attraction-repulsion dynamic was being played out at the same time by another pair, Lee and Bianca, this time with the guy playing the needy role. Needless to say, that wasn’t a match made in heaven either.

If you take responsibility for building your own self-worth, then this kind of needy behaviour will simply fall away as you learn to validate yourself from the inside and not from external sources. This means seeing yourself and others as they are, not as idealised images, and learning to have a kind and loving internal dialogue. We’ve covered a lot of techniques for how to do this in past pieces, so here’s just a quick refresher:

· You are your own harshest critic, so learn to be gentle in the way you speak to yourself about your body, your talents, your behaviour and your accomplishments.

· Self-attack is never helpful. Seeing yourself clearly and compassionately is constructive. Using every little opportunity to belittle yourself is not. If another person attacks you angrily, do you feel like taking their suggestion on board? Remember that your inner self doesn’t react well to that kind of approach either.

· Focus on what you like about yourself, embrace it and then learn to be comfortable with loving that about yourself. The more you learn to like yourself, the more others will too. People who are relaxed with themselves are fun to be around and very attractive.

· Remember your successes on both the personal and professional levels and drink them in until you’re comfortable with feeling good about yourself. It’s tougher than you think to drop the socially-endorsed self-deprecating behaviour and learn to be completely OK with thinking well about who you are, so gathering evidence of past and current success will help.

· Most importantly, cut yourself some slack. This is not about fixing yourself or needing to improve yourself, it’s about remembering that you’re perfectly fine as you are and learning to accept that. That’s all you need do. Your self-worth is not based on the size of your thighs, it’s not about what you do for a living and it isn’t even related to who fancies you. It’s utterly and completely about how much compassion and acceptance you can have for yourself and how willing you are to know that you’re lovable without having to do, be or say anything in particular. Just you. You’re enough.

Finally, the mantra of the week, in honour of Sophie’s willingness to expose her deluded view of herself and her situation to us all is “I am willing to see things as they are”. Where in your life are you not seeing yourself clearly – and, let me remind you again, do not use this as an opportunity for self-attack, but rather to look at yourself lovingly and objectively – or not seeing someone or something else clearly? Is there a situation where your desire for a particular outcome is clouding your judgement? If you were really willing to see the truth about it, what would that mean? Are you deluding yourself in some way – either by going into fantasy about someone else or not paying attention to the reality of what you have to offer?

Remember that external validation is fun and uplifting – who doesn’t love a compliment? – but that’s not a healthy foundation for your self-worth. It needs to rest on the rock of your own self-love and self-acceptance. Be compassionate with yourself as you notice how much you might be seeking approval from others and spare a kind thought for Sophie as you do. Like the rest of us, she’s doing the best she can with the self-awareness that she has, and is helping us all to see how our unhealed places of self-judgement can cause us so much pain. When we can see ourselves clearly, without attack, half the battle is already done. When awareness dawns, healing is never far behind.

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 24 Jul 06)