What does it mean to be awake?

The sharp-eyed among you will have spotted that I changed my strap line (why does that phrase always conjure up visions of leather and dungeons?!) to ‘your friendly wake-up call’.

It’s the result of a long process of trying to explain what it is I really do. Yes, I’m a nutritional therapist; yes, I’m a life coach – but that’s just my toolbox. I wanted to describe what my primal motivation is: why I do what I do.

I wake people up.

I help you see that there is only one life and you’d better not spend it napping.

But what does it mean to be awake?

Here are a few pointers:

Beliefs: You are more likely to believe in yourself than in other people or institutions. You will develop an ability to reflect on and evaluate the ideas you were brought up to see as facts and discover whether they are still true for you; including beliefs about yourself, your abilities and the society you live in. Increasingly you will look to yourself for guidance, trusting your own feelings and intuition rather than relying on duty, rules and tradition.

Relationships: You will be seeking win-wins in all your relationships at home and at work. The positive energy created will make an enormous difference to your wellbeing and enjoyment of life. As you feel more supported and supportive you will be able to ‘be yourself’ – risking more honesty and depth with the people you choose to be with. You will find your ‘tribe’. When that happens you are likely to find extra supplies of energy that used to be buried along with your true self.

Money: You will see money as a source of energy in your life, a way of exchanging value rather than power. As you become more confident in your own value you will be less afraid of money and less defined by your financial status. You may even discover that you no longer seek distraction and compensation in material things as you find more purposeful ways to use your time. Money will regain its natural status in your life – a tool, or convenience – not a way to measure your value as a human being.

Health: You will discover that your body is in a delicate balance that you can either nurture or sabotage. When you understand that you can choose to make healthier food choices more often, from a perspective of empowerment rather than restriction. Your idea of a treat – or a good time – may shift as you widen your definition of pleasure to include nourishing rather than anaesthetising yourself. As your energy increases your need for addictive substances will probably reduce and the substances you used to use as props will become treats again.

Work: You will be clear about why you are here and what you want to achieve. That sense of purpose will be reflected in your work, creating a sense of fulfilment that in turn fosters a natural motivation to look after yourself and prolong your experience of this amazing life. You will understand that doing your work can mean more than paying the bills and keeping you off the streets. Your choice of career is a way to express your purpose; so even if you are employed you will identify strongly with the aim of the business you are working in. If self-employed you will be pursuing a personal agenda based on your own needs, the needs of your customers and society at large. There will be a sense of meaning in what you do. It matters.

When all this happens you will be you, in all your glory, alive and kicking. Awake.

Sound good?

Let’s go.

Voices in my head

Ever since I was diagnosed with breast cancer I’ve been fascinated with the voices we hear in our heads. I believe my voices saved my life and they could do the same for you. We all have a jumble of voices vying for attention; I used to ignore them, finding them indistinguishable and unhelpful. But then, in 1997, I went to the doctor, worried about a lump under my arm. She said it was just my breast tissue reacting to hormonal changes after a recent miscarriage. One of those voices disagreed. And over the next few days the voice grew stronger.

 As it happened I was attending a christening that weekend and I had tears pouring down my face for the whole service. Naturally everyone assumed they were because I had just lost the baby  – but it was no such thing. In that quiet country church the voice was stronger than ever: there was something wrong and my life was in danger.

On the Monday I phoned my GP again and, reluctantly, she referred me to a consultant. By the Thursday I had seen my tumour on the ultrasound screen; there were 2 of them, and they were big. I was 33 and my daughter was 2.

That was my first compelling experience of the voices but since then I have learned to tune in and use them as my guides. Sometimes they show up inner conflicts that relate to outward behaviour; other times they highlight outdated beliefs and inhibitions; frequently they convey harsh criticism and scorn; but the more I listen the more I hear the voice of my inner guru. I believe somehow there is a part of me that ‘knows’ things in a way that can’t be explained. I believe we all do – if we listen. It’s a voice that represents a level of awareness that we normally override. Ready to take you to a new level of self-knowledge and designed to keep you healthy and happy.

It can be quite difficult to unravel the chorus to focus on the important messages and so I’m going to share mine: the pattern of my voices might help you find yours. I hope you know what I mean. I’m slightly worried that I’m the only one with this thing going on in my head. But I’m guessing I’m not that unusual.

If you get it, please join in… start listening… sharing… let me know if it helps. It may just save your life as it saved mine.

Doing what comes naturally

For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled to know what to do with my life. From somewhere unwanted and unbidden has always come a sense that this is not a trivial question; that there is something that must be satisfied. More than a should, stronger than an ought: an imperative.

Do or die.

When I’ve hit challenges in my life, I’ve often felt it’s because I haven’t yet found the right track. The feeling was strongest when I was diagnosed with cancer and a quiet, rather pissed off, inner segment of me answered, ‘Well that’s because you haven’t done it yet.’

Done what?
I haven’t known.
I’ve never known.
At times it has felt like trying to identify a familiar object, blindfold, and through a thick woollen blanket.

Often I’ve had a frustrated sense of knowing what it is and yet not being able to articulate it. Always, the question is with me ‘What am I meant to be doing with my life?’ And I don’t even know who I’m asking.

In the last year, some glimmers.

There’s a sense of rejecting everything and working with what’s left. I’ve been up so many side roads looking for answers and it feels like they’ve all been dead ends.

From talking to other people about their life development I keep returning to the idea that we all, recognise it or not, have repeating loops in our lives: get up, get going, fall over, learn lesson and… repeat. My loops have been various: learning to listen to my intuition, learning not to work for anyone else; learning to love what and who is given me to love; learning not to worry too much about dying; learning to be kind to my body; learning to reach out to others: learning to drink enough water; learning not to hurry through life as though a pack of wolves were at my heels. At any given moment, should you bump into me, I’ll be struggling with one of these. Sometimes you’ll catch me on an up-loop. Often I’ll be picking myself up and dusting myself down, wondering what just happened. Again.

Recently, I’ve started to realise that the loops all point in one direction. They are all about allowing myself to be happy: happy now, happy as I am, happy with my lot. There is a strong sense running through them of being here, now and simply being me. Knowing that happiness lies in that direction. It is something I know with all my heart and yet, contrariwise, it’s the biggest lesson I still have to learn.

And out of this tangle of loops and thoughts and mistakes has come a thought.

Maybe the thing I’m supposed to ‘do’ is the thing I most need to learn. That wall I keep hitting my head against, the one thing in life that I can’t stop doing, is the thing I’m meant to do. For myself and for others.

And then I realise it is what I do, already. It’s what I’ve always done, in one form or another. But I’ve never articulated it properly. I help people make a habit of happiness.

It’s both my struggle and my vocation.

Ping. A breakthrough.

And then I wondered if that’s true for everyone.

Perhaps your greatest challenge is also your greatest gift?

Perhaps the thing you’re meant to be learning is also the thing you’re meant to be doing?

Have a think about it and let me know.

Recalibrating your Selfishness Barometer

I’ve lost count of the amount of clients I see who live in a constant battle zone between getting their own needs met and meeting the needs of others. And I can’t begin to estimate the amount of anger, resentment, fatigue and illness it causes.

My own battle started shortly after I’d been diagnosed with cancer, way back in 1997. I knew with visceral certainty that one of the reasons I was ill, possibly the main reason, was that I put my needs way down on the list compared with my 2-year old daughter, my husband, my parents and wider family and work mates (probably the postman too if he’d wanted to pour his heart out). I’m not simply talking about basic needs like food, sleep, water (although that was part of the picture) but also fun, workload, chores, time, money. I was a one-man-band of self-neglect disguised as caring for others. And a boiling pot of resentment and anger because I felt that everyone in my life was taking advantage of my good nature.

Apart from the obvious consequences of not looking after myself and my body, I’m fairly certain that the pent-up negative emotions created an unhealthy biochemistry too. And the results were all too clear.

My reasons for behaving like this were complex – fear of being unloveable lay at the bottom of it all – but I clearly remember a day, walking down the stairs to our basement, when I realised I was going to have to change. I was used to hearing a strong voice in my head accusing me of being selfish every time I put my needs before others; in fact every time I put my own needs onto the agenda at all. But I was desperate – I knew it was time to change or die – and I decided to risk ignoring my inner gremlin and start playing with the status quo.

For 3 months I ‘allowed’ myself to make decisions which were selfish. Really selfish. I learned to say no… wait… maybe… why don’t you…? All the phrases I hadn’t allowed myself to use before just in case I would be considered unreasonable or unlovely.

Guess what? No one noticed. Not one person came up with the expected reproach. The accusations of selfishness never materialised. It turns out they were only ever in my head. It was a fantasy that I had created to beat myself up.

In fact, my relationships improved. As I learned to prioritise my own needs my levels of resentment dissipated and my temper improved. As I stopped repressing my desires and emotions my energy levels increased. As I started to look after myself better I gave everyone around me permission to take care of themselves more. As I learned to take care of myself I planted the seeds for my own survival. And as I learned to value myself I taught everyone else to value me. Ironically I felt more loved than before, not less.

So if you’re caught in a loop of selflessness and resentment I just want to let you know that there is a way out. It might feel uncomfortable and you risk upsetting your inner critic more than anyone else – but the rewards are there to be enjoyed. Of course, if you can’t do it for yourself, you can always come and get some help from me, I’d be happy to give you a nudge in the right direction…

The only life you can save…

I don’t read a lot of poetry these days but last night I was sitting around with a couple of lovely girlfriends – taking my own advice – discussing the poetic winner of the Costa prize. As I went to be I was inspired to pull one of my favourite anthologies, Staying Alive, down from its dusty shelf.

I had bought it while still recovering from breast cancer (Who ever stops recovering from breast cancer? I ask myself.) and it became a wonderful source of peace, reflection and escapism. Here’s one of the special ones:

 

 

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

MARY OLIVER.

If you want help to be happier here are a few suggestions:

Book in to see me for a Health and Wellbeing assessment to discuss specific ways you can be happier and healthier through your diet and daily habits.

Book in to see me for a Life Purpose session where we will uncover what really motivates in life and put you on the path to do it.

Download my Help Yourself Cook Book for some good advice and great recipes and to help build a school in Ghana.

Download the Living on Purpose book that I wrote with my inspirational friend, Neil Crofts, to find out what your purpose is.

Wishing you health and happiness!