The Gift & The Servant

I seem to spend my life talking about the need for inner-directedness amidst a world that constantly demands outer attention and activity. There are so many distractions, so many ways in which we fall into old patterns of behaviour – whether they work or not – just because they’re easier or generally more culturally acceptable. Tapping into your own inner wisdom may not appear to be the path of greatest ease, but then again repeatedly banging your head up against a brick wall isn’t exactly a laugh a minute either, is it? There surely must be some cosmic joke in the fact that we seem hell-bent on persevering with our ineffective coping strategies and self-defeating behaviours long after it becomes blindingly obvious that they’re not getting the desired result. Clearly the triumph of hope over experience is the definition of the human condition.

Now, I’m all for an easy life, rather than having things be a constant struggle. That’s not to say I don’t have my own issues – ‘slow learner’ would probably be written on my spiritual report card – but I am finally grasping the concept that the creative, inner-driven approach is always the one that spells ease. Too much effort means you’re not allowing things to come to you.

The intuitive approach taps first into the power of the inner world, harnessing the creative spirit, before action is taken. It allows for synchronicity to get to work on your behalf, so you don’t have to do so much legwork in the outer world. Why do it the hard way by chasing something, when a little inner work could draw it towards you so much more easily? However, this does require you to honour and trust the inklings of the inner world above the seeming certainties of the outer world and its logical approach. If you’re uncomfortable living with a little mystery, this one’s going to be a tough call for you.

Interestingly enough, the man who brought us E=MC2, Albert Einstein, expressed a similar opinion, when he said “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind its faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Way to go, Albert. Let’s not forget this is history’s leading scientist telling us to trust the mystery first and the logic second. He wasn’t dismissing either, simply placing them in their correct order. As one of our most inspired thinkers, it strikes me that it’s a pretty safe bet to follow a path he’s already laid out for us if we want to live fabulous lives of inspiration ourselves.
That said, he also cautioned that “Intuition does not come to an unprepared mind”.

You need to put in the groundwork so you can be gifted with the power of inspiration. Vision requires dedication and three distinct qualities – receptivity, trust and surrender. Your intuition is constantly flowing, but it’s like a radio frequency you must actively tune into. The act of receptivity is the willingness to know that creative inspiration is available to you. The element of trust is not only to believe that it’s there for you, but to take action upon the information you’re given. The art of surrender is the willingness to be open to pursuing a course of action even when you don’t know why you have the impulse to follow it or what purpose it may serve.

When the rational mind – the servant – is ruling the roost, it misses opportunities because it won’t take action without a logical reason being in place beforehand. When intuition is in charge, action taken on a seemingly illogical impulse can lead to extraordinary turns of events that your rational mind may never have been able to contemplate.

Underlying this process is a force that’s deeper than how the law of attraction is currently portrayed via The Secret and other material of its ilk. To me, it’s the law of magnetism. It’s more profound than intent and attraction. It rests in a knowing that you are a spark of the divine and that when you tap into that knowledge you are tapping into an enormous well-spring of creativity, abundance and joy. It’s not an energy that strives. It’s a deeply feminine knowing that allows you to be receptive, to trust and to be peacefully confident without needing to control the outcome.

In her recent book, The Answer is Simple – Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit, Sonia Choquette writes elegantly of the essential spiritual truth about us all, saying “You’re Divine. You’re made of light, love and grace. You’re holy and your body and personality are the caretakers of this sacred presence. To house this Divinity in your being, in your physical self, is a gift and should be a pleasure. To accept your true nature is a huge, undeniable step toward self-love.”

Again, we hear echoes of Einstein, as Sonia Choquette reminds us that the gift lies in our essence, not our body or personality. And before any of us decide to come over all austere and self-denying on the basis of that little quote, let’s remember that the issue is not about denying ourselves the pleasures of life, but in getting our priorities right.

So, this week, let’s see if we can get the law of magnetism up and running in your life. If there’s something you really want to make happen, but clarity or achievement seem to be eluding you, go back to basics. The magic happens when you’re clear from the outset. Set aside some time to sit quietly and really sense how it feels to know that your true essence is divine. Imagine yourself sitting quietly in the centre of all the maelstrom the world can offer, simply allowing what is right for you to fall into your lap. Ponder on what you think you need and let it go, trusting that the right solution will find its way to you. Surrender your concepts of needing to know how it will happen. Just see it being brought to you elegantly and easily.

Then, whatever happens, just keep trusting. Maybe what you’re asking for is no longer what’s right for you. Maybe there’s a better option that can’t come through until you let go of the one you’ve set your sights on. If you find yourself stressed about it, take some time out to settle your energy back into peace and trust. If an impulse to take action arises and it feels right, go for it whether or not you know where it will lead. Have some faith in mystery. If it’s good enough for Einstein, it should be good enough for you!

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. The I Am Fabulous archives can be found at http://journals.aol.co.uk/iamfabulousco/IAmFabulous. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author.

State Of The Nation

When you have to talk just about everyone down off the ceiling, you know things aren’t good. We appear to be in a collective mental spin about the state of the economy, due in large part to the prevalent media hype that’s the communications equivalent of putting out the fire with gasoline. Yes, it’s tough out there and in all probability we’re not in for the easiest of times, but dwelling constantly on the worst that could possibly happen is not a healthy approach. Fear drives recession – that’s how runs on banks start, which can throw even prosperous institutions into terminal decline. By all means protect your position, but don’t live in a perpetual cloud of gloom. Well-known millionaires and billionaires have made money in recessions and depressions. For every person who takes a loss, there’s someone out there profiting from it. Don’t assume the worst – it won’t help. And, actually, you’d be missing the point of the turmoil we’re currently experiencing.

On a timely note, an email newsletter from the rather prescient intuitive astrologer, Robert Ohotto, dropped into my inbox today, in which he notes “as the US/world economy crashes and the Earth’s climate changes, it’s becoming painfully obvious that we are at a Fate/Destiny point collectively and individually; which means we are in a Dark Night Of The Ego together at this time and must therefore tend to our collective soul.” If we cannot change the circumstances we are exposed to, we must then seek to discover what changes those circumstances might be trying to provoke.

Discussing the movement of Pluto – the planet of transformation – into Capricorn as an indicator of massive change in our cultural structures as it highlights their murky underbelly, he interprets this as a marker for the need to make a reconciliation with the “shadow of capitalism, corporate business structures, governments, policies and bureaucracies – especially as more earthly resources become limited … Now we must urgently adopt a new approach infused with ethics, holistic thinking and a new model of economy based on renewable resources.” Collectively we’re burning down the house so we can build a better one.

It’s not all bad news as Jupiter, the great benefic, is acting “as an intuitive guiding grace”. However, to take advantage of that grace, we need to be not only receptive to the intuitive inklings we are given, but to take action upon them. He asks “But as with all intuitive guidance, are we ready to listen and take action based on its promptings – which demand risking change – or will we once again become seduced by the cultural spells we’ve been fed and become vulnerable because of our fear?”

For all of our sakes, I hope it’s the former. My deepest intuitive hit on the difficulties we are facing has been for, some time, that those of us who will negotiate them most comfortably will be those who become inner-directed and willing to ignore the prevailing hysteria to live by their own inner wisdom. And by ‘live’, I mean put it into practice and refuse to be swayed by other people’s opinions and be open to allowing your life to be re-shaped in ways you might never have expected. Those of us who hold on tight to the way things used to be could be in for a very rocky ride.

As Ohotto explains, the planets are not causing this economic downturn, they are simply reflections of the archetypal experiences affecting us all. To take it to an individual level, he explains how these archetypes are likely to express themselves in our personal lives, saying “Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn asks us to re-evaluate all of our ambitions in the world and connect them with the concept of service to the whole – the ultimate expression of Capricorn achievement and duty which requires a more meaningful reason to commit our life force to the goals we pursue.”

“I’ve seen many people having to look to developing more confidence (Jupiter) and stamina (Capricorn) to pursue the next phase of their destiny. This includes the development of better boundaries (Capricorn) so that they can expand the possibilities of what they could be meaningfully doing in this life (Jupiter). It also means being willing to face our Fate and call on inner strength to persevere up our mountains. As the old saying goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. Nor was your destiny.”

“I’ve also seen a lot of businesses collapse (as have we all with the economy) because they were based on faulty, worn-out ideas or corrupt ethics … And I’m sure there’s more to come, which will absolutely affect us all. But we must not get caught up in the hype and mistake the symptoms for the cause. It’s our shadow that has brought us to this point and needs more interrogation and subsequent integration. To resent and focus on the teacher is to lose the lesson.”

This week, if you’re in danger of losing the lesson due to generalised anxiety and panic, your first step is simply to calm down. Secondly, be very honest with yourself about changes that you need to make and insights or intuitive hunches you might have been ignoring. Be willing to let go of what no longer fits or is preventing future growth. Comfort zones are an endangered species, so be prepared for change. It needn’t be difficult if you’re not holding on for dear life to something you’ve probably already outgrown.

Engage your intuition as much as possible. That means calming mental panic and stormy emotions by allowing yourself as much peaceful, unstimulated time as you can make available to yourself. Do simple things that make you feel uplifted – buy fresh flowers, take a walk by the river, soak in a hot bath. Water is great for facilitating intuitive thought – it’s instantly calming, whether you’re walking by it or soaking in it.

Kick the addiction to fretting about the worst that could happen. Do all you need to do on a practical level and then have some faith in yourself and your future. If you spent as much time thinking creatively about what you want to happen as you do fretting about things that might never come to pass, you’d be amazed at what you could achieve.

Learn to rest comfortably in not knowing. Yes, times are tricky, but you have a better chance of having them work out for you if you can learn to have faith in a positive future. You might not know exactly how that’s going to come about, but you don’t need to. Trust, follow your intuition and pay serious attention to where your soul is guiding you – not where your personality wants to stay stuck – and you’ll be excited by change, not terrified by it. Let this week be the one where you get in touch with the deeper impulses in your life, not just the superficial ones.

To read the full newsletter by Robert Ohotto, go to http://www.ohotto.com/.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. The I Am Fabulous archives can be found at http://journals.aol.co.uk/iamfabulousco/IAmFabulous. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author.

Yoga School Dropout

Now that the hurly-burly of relocating the chaise-longue is over, I’ve retreated into my number one coping strategy for getting my groove back, ie doing nothing. Of course nothing can be experienced in myriad ways, although it does require high standards in lack of planning. No schedule must be adhered to, no dates booked in the diary and only spontaneous activities are allowed. Everything must be light in tone – conversations, movies, books or wine – and completely without effort. Unadulterated pleasure – or leisure – is restorative to the soul and I must say my total lack of effort in that direction is coming along quite nicely.

Apparently I am in good company with this approach, as Oprah has recently written about overcoming overwhelm by simply stopping for a day in the middle of a frantic period looking for key executives for her school in South Africa and her new television network, OWN. Feeling frantic and overwhelmed, she decided on the radical approach of stillness. As she notes “So I stopped. Everything. For one day, I just stopped. Didn’t interview anybody. Or take any phone calls. Or return any emails. I stopped doing in order to return to the being of myself.”

“I pulled out my gratitude journal, in which I’d been too tired to write even a sentence for months. I went to my favourite place on earth, the place where twelve oaks form a canopy on the side of my front yard; I call them the apostles. I watched the sunlight filter between the branches and enhance every leaf. I listened to the birds and tried to decipher how many different ones were singing – or were they just talking at the same time? I let myself absorb the sacredness and the dignity of the oaks. I let those trees remind me how to be: still. I took a few deep breaths. I said ‘thank you’ out loud. I felt like I’d come home.”

Her day continued in blissful freedom, as she revelled in having no particular place to go and nothing she had to do, but plenty that called to her. Remembering the spaciousness of the time she’d carved out for herself, Oprah wrote “I sat in silence. I prayed. I meditated. I napped. I filled three more pages with praise and gratitude for all that’s gone right. And I stopped giving my attention to what wasn’t working. I watched the sun move across the sky. I went inside and filled a bowl with lemon sorbet and fresh strawberries purchased at the farmers’ market that morning. I savoured every spoonful, then licked the spoon. I went for a run with the dogs. I sat in a tub of bubbles until I got crinkly. I put on a new pair of PJs I’d been saving for a special … what? I read myself to sleep with Mary Oliver poems.”

Then, of course, as it somehow always does, taking the time for herself paid dividends in spades, as the two thorny issues she’d been dealing with suddenly resolved themselves. “The next day, I found the new head of school. Two days later, a president for OWN.” We shouldn’t be surprised, really, because we all know that feeling rested and centred can be a medium for seeming miracles, as much as feeling frantic and frazzled is an energetic accident waiting to happen.

One of my delicious pleasures of the past few days has been reading the exploits of the soi-disant yoga school dropout, Lucy Edge. She has a light touch with language, a keen eye for the absurd and a self-deprecating tone that makes her writing charmingly entertaining. In her first book she tells the story of how – after a decade in advertising with highlights like working on a margarine account – she set off to India “on a yoga school pilgrimage, in search of life’s greater meaning.”

Lucy’s aspirations for the journey were perhaps a tad ambitious, when you consider they included returning as “a Yoga Goddess – the embodiment of feminine perfection – peaceful, happy, loving, wise and endlessly compassionate to a suffering world – and a magnetic babe attracting strong and sweaty, yet emotionally vulnerable men. Not only would my purpose in life be revealed, but also a pretzel-like body – light on fat, flexible yet strong. I would sit in the lotus position, or stand on my head, effortlessly performing advanced postures in designer clothes for a Sunday Telegraph feature on Yoga Babes. Vogue would photograph me in my favourite organic juice bar and designer friends would choose me to model their size eight scented knickers. In these dreams the lack of money didn’t matter because I was beyond materialism, and anyway I got free holidays when Sting invited me to his Italian villa to give him personal tuition. Of course I knew it might not turn out this way, but it had to be better than looking for meaning in a tub of marge.”

It’s a bit of a no-brainer to work out that the path to smooth abs did not run smoothly, but the journey was definitely worth it. Lucy concludes “OK, so I wasn’t going home a Yoga Goddess wearing a shiny ‘new and improved’ sticker. To all intents and purposes I’d failed on my quest – but I didn’t feel like a failure. I actually felt happy and optimistic. Failure had set me free. I’d given up on perfection and I didn’t feel beholden to the demands of my ego any more. If I lay very still in my hammock I thought I could detect once more the vague whisperings of that ancient Eternal Self – telling me that in breaking free of the self-imposed goal, or gaol, without the ego’s fear of failure, I would find the world to be a bigger place … was I finally getting in touch with my own inner guru? The one that says be happy with what you have. The one that says happiness is always available to us, we just have to look inside ourselves. The one that says there is perfection in imperfection. The one that says talk to men on trains. The one that says eat M&S chocolate peanuts and be blissful. The one that says possess only what is necessary – and necessary may include pretty dresses, though they don’t always need to be labelled Joseph. The one that says life is a delicate balancing act: one part mugs of Maharishi Ayur-Ved Calming Vata Tea and standing on one leg yoga tree poses; one part bottles of Pinot Grigio and falling over.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, except I’d have probably gone for the Prosecco.

This week, just stop. Yeah, really. Don’t pay lip service to it – genuinely, actually and totally give yourself a day off. Take a day off from anything you think you should be doing and face the vast white space of an empty diary with an attitude of curiosity. Don’t plan anything. Get up in the morning and do what you feel like. Don’t get talked into doing anything anyone else wants to do. Use up things you’ve been saving for some special day. Above all, don’t fret about the things that need to get done – worrying is verboten.

Giving yourself some space can have miraculous effects. Just feeling rested will make you more effective and resourceful. Have a juicy, delicious, guilt-free ‘nothing’ day. Make it as empty or as full of activity as it occurs to you in the moment. There’s no right or wrong, just so long as you’re doing things you find pleasurable and you’re not in a hurry. Stand back and let the chips fall where they may. I suspect you’ll find things will stack up pretty well when you have the courage to simply let go – even for just one day.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@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.

Reclaiming Inner Wisdom

It’s a new home for everyone – not just me – as I Am Fabulous relocates to its new address at Chez Fabulous. With Fab Towers becoming a bit of a moveable feast, it made sense to have a one-stop shop for all things fabulous. Now that the move is over, it’s possible to apply 20/20 hindsight and detail a few of the major insights the relocation process has highlighted, just to round off the whole experience.

· Today’s bargain is tomorrow’s clutter – embarrassingly, quite a few items discovered in the move still had price tags on or had never been worn. Not exactly a bargain if you never use it, is it?

· Have just enough to know exactly what you’ve got – as the not-so-proud owner of two pairs of precisely the same Fendi shoes bought in Cannes a year apart because I’d forgotten I’d bought the first pair, a clearer set of cupboards might have brought that to light.

· Experiences are more valuable than stuff – when I’m thinking about what’s important to me, it’s not multiple-purchases of Fendi mules that cross my mind. It’s always experiences with people or places (in the inner worlds and outer ones).

· Call on your friends and share the load – when it all seems too much, good friends will listen, make you laugh and help out if needs be. That team effort will get you through just about anything.

· Do things when you get the first inkling – the entire process of clearing out would have been so much easier if I’d started when I first got the intuition a move was on the cards, instead of in a mad rush on a deadline.

· Take things one step at a time – if you want to avoid overwhelm, do a project in bite-sized chunks. Of course I tore the house apart until it looked like New Orleans after Katrina, then had to live in chaos for weeks. If I’d tackled a room at a time, it would have been a much more pleasant experience. Do what I say, not what I did!

· Change will show you where you’re weakest – I found myself slipping into feelings of overwhelm far more often than I would have expected. It showed me that overwhelm and helplessness are instinctive stress responses of mine. The antidote was telling myself to put one foot in front of the other and deal with what was right in front of me. It got me through and it all got done in the end.

· Have faith that it’ll all be OK and somehow it will be – despite scaring myself countless times with ‘what if’ scenarios, it all worked out as most things invariably do. There’s less stress if you stay relaxed and don’t terrify yourself with all the things that could go wrong.

· Not everyone’s going to understand your reasons – radical change makes people uncomfortable, so don’t expect everyone to think you’re doing the right thing. As long as you do, that’s the vote that counts!

· Lightening up equals freedom – the less you have, the more flexible you become and the more open to new experiences and options. That goes for stuff as much as for rules about living, judgements and set patterns of behaviour. Less is always more.

· Movement shifts energy and you never know where that might lead – when you make a radical change in one area, there’s always a knock-on effect in another. Watch for an upturn in new insights and opportunities when you’ve taken a leap of faith.

· Your security lies in who you are, not your stuff – we know that intellectually, but we don’t really know it viscerally until we loosen the bonds with our possessions. What makes us happy is the quality of our relationship with ourselves and others. Stuff is a bonus, but it’s no substitute for inner peace.

Apropos of our relationship with ourselves, I’ve come across a memoir by Gail Straub called Returning To My Mother’s House: Taking Back The Wisdom Of The Feminine, which she describes as “the story of how I returned to my mother’s house and reclaimed my own female wisdom, taking back what both Mom and I had betrayed”. Straub adds, “I see now how my story is so many of our stories. It is the story of both men and women who have abandoned their inner lives, leaving behind their hearts where deep, dark feelings reside; putting aside their intuitive imagination where dreams flourish; ignoring the invisible worlds where the irrational and the mysterious offer their incomparable gifts; and disowning the realms of silence, simplicity and solitude where the interior matures. Modern life rarely acknowledges or even allows space for such things. But we ignore these things at our peril, both as individual human beings and as an earth family.”

Recalling her travels in Bali, Straub describes a world where the feminine, right-brained intuitive and creative skills are dominant, in stark contrast to our masculine Western world. She reminisces “Unlike the Western world’s constant emphasis on the rational left brain, the Balinese culture was a celebration of the instinctual right brain. We were immersed in a vital process of dance, theatre, music, painting, wood carving and mask-making, not just as art forms but as interpretations of life. We learned that creativity is so natural and widespread in Bali that there is no actual word in their language for art or artist. Rather creativity is the natural means of honouring the gods and serving the community. Many women came home from Bali to take up forgotten passions of dance, piano, singing, painting, or poetry. I vowed to return to my love of writing.”

Through her writing she has detailed the journey to recovery of her inner wisdom and vital creativity, as well as the story of her mother’s lost authenticity. Remembering her mother’s gradual decline from vibrancy to conservatism, Straub says “I realised that those we love never really die. But what surely did die, long before my mother did, were her dreams and her connection to her innate female wisdom. A gifted and successful artist, with a passionate spirit and a wildly colourful bohemian wardrobe, my mother gradually gave up her vivid individuality as she grew into her roles as wife, working mother and aspiring member of an upscale conservative society. Then, wrestling with a fatal illness, she died too soon. The spiritual loss, more than the physical loss, of my mother has haunted me.”

“This loss of my mother’s authentic self has shaped my life, propelling me around the globe to reclaim what she left behind, to retrace the series of small deaths she suffered each time she abandoned more of her instinctual wisdom. I, too, betrayed my feminine, paying blind allegiance to the flag of the masculine, with its bold stripes of workaholism, speed and overdrive. Luckier than my mother, I realised that my feminine was dying before it was too late, before there was no turning back, before the spiritual dying entered my body and made me sick. With the consciousness and resources of my generation, I came to understand why I had sacrificed my interior life – the rich realm of feelings and moods, intuition and creativity, stillness and contemplation – to the overwhelming seduction of our dominant cultural values. I came to see why I had fallen under the spell of a culture that pays tribute to rational thought and exterior accomplishment, and at all costs, on all levels, encourages and rewards the principles of bigger, more and faster.”

This week, give some space to the reclaiming of your own authentic self with the principles of smaller, less and slower. Choose small goals, activities or treats that remind you of who you are at heart. Remember what inspired you or made you laugh when you were small. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by obligations or stuff, let things go until you feel the sense of freedom and creativity that comes from empty space. Do things slowly and deliberately, taking time to feel the sunshine on your face, the smell of fresh herbs, the calmness that comes from having no particular place to go and nothing to be or do. Do only what makes you feel authentically yourself and say no to everything else. Choosing what feels right to you – regardless of the cultural imperative – is the first step to reclaiming your inner wisdom.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@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.

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