It must be a sign! (Literally)

Sometimes the Universe is really obscure, sometimes it is blindingly, laughingly obvious. Today I experienced the latter.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my project for the year is to improve my debilitating low self-esteem. I’m only a few weeks in, but already I’m feeling lighter and more powerful. To magnify the effect, I’ve assimilated these two mantras into my morning meditations, and I also utter them at random points during the day when I feel like self-doubt is gathering momentum:

* I have the ability to change

* I have the power to change 

On my lunchtime walk today I was reflecting on a situation I’m in at the moment, and started to feel that doubt was taking over, leading me down a familiar dead-end street – Giving Up Avenue. I interrupted this train of thought and asked the Universe to tell me what to do next. Within five minutes I’d seen a truck boasting the words 'ABLE' barrelling past. I put that down to coincidence (note to self: there is no such thing as coincidence). Then I looked up and saw this street sign: Power Ave. I LOLed.

It doesn’t get much more obvious than that. The Universe was giving me a sign – literally – that I have the power to change this situation.

Wish me luck! Actually don’t – I won’t need it (OK, possibly a little TOO confident now, lol). 

Dear Mercury retrograde. You suck. (un)Kind regards, me.

Mercury, you are killing me right now. Yes, I know you love to screw with transport systems when you go into retrograde (Jan 21 through to Feb 11, and again later this year – boo!), and I know to expect that, but… seriously?! Yesterday I had FOUR buses not show up. They weren’t late, they just didn’t show up. They vanished into thin air, like they were cast in a Harry Potter storyline, despite my online app telling me they would be here in two minutes. And that made my day a giant poopy mess. Also, my vacuum cleaner died a quiet death (RIP), which I’m really pissed about because I’ll have to replace it, and who wants to spend large sums of money on a vacuum cleaner? Sooo boring and adult.

You guys are feeling this too, right? The Mercury retrograde is incredibly frustrating. And besides allowing extra time for travel hiccups – which I clearly failed to do, d’oh! – there is only one thing you can do. Surrender. Stop checking your unhelpful bus timetable obsessively and pull out a magazine to read while you wait. Breathe deeply. Smile at strangers. Listen to Uptown Funk on repeat. (OK, that’s more than one thing... pretty sure my shoddy arithmetic skills are not Mercury’s fault.)

This is an important lesson for me in just about every area of my life, so instead of getting angry at planetary forces beyond my control, I’m choosing to see Mercury as my teacher. It’s not easy. And sure, letting go of my frustration at having to wait half an hour for a bus is not quite the same as letting go of my attachments to the bigger-scale things I could really benefit from letting go of (habitual self-criticism, regrets over failed relationships, ideas about how my future *should* look, just to name a few) but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. It reminds me that while I don’t have the power to change what life throws at me, I always have the power to choose how I respond to it, which is an extremely powerful concept. If nothing else, it reminds me how good it feels to be at peace with the world (even for short bursts of time) – that’s the place where wisdom starts to flow.

There are just over 10 days left of this hot mess, and I’m declaring right now that I’m not going to let it turn ME into a mess. Obviously I’ll be avoiding potential problem areas (hint: do not go signing any contracts or making large financial outlays at this time) but beyond that, just surrendering to whatever happens. And allowing extra time for travel.

Good luck out there everyone!

BTW, for an excellent reference on how the mercury retrograde nightmare affects us (causing communication breakdowns and technology fails), check out this helpful post by sparkly blogger Gala Darling. 

Rocking my body. How meditation can affect your health on a deep level

A weird thing happened to me when I gave blood recently. This isn’t, by the way, a story to encourage you all to donate blood (although you absolutely should). This is about how I discovered that I have the power to control my body in a really powerful way.

Because I once fainted while giving blood, I’m aware of the need to keep my body calm during this important process. In a bid to avoid a repeat performance of the losing-consciousness-then-needing-emergency-intervention-and-vomiting-everywhere situation, I had a genius idea: meditation! What better way to keep my body calm and well out of shock territory?

This was not a good idea, as it turns out. What happened was, my heart rate dropped so low that alarm bells started going off – literally! – and the staff rushed over to check that I was not on the verge of fainting. (I wasn’t.) That’s when I realised it might be a good idea to keep my heart rate fairly fast so it can pump blood effectively.

Guys, I slowed down my own heart rate! This is an incredibly empowering realisation. There’s plenty of scientific research out there to prove that meditation can calm your entire body but it’s something else to actually see that happen. Not only did this confirm to me that meditation is a wonderful tool (when used in the right setting; ie not in a blood-donation situation), it’s also a reminder that my heart responds directly to what my brain tells it.

So maybe I should be telling it to open up more. To trust. To dance. To take risks. To light the way forward.

This reminds me of a beautiful passage from Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist – a book I adore so much that it would be a desert-island item for me – about talking to your heart: "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself."

I think I’m going to do that more often now.

The Self-Appreciation Project

I want to tell you about a little project I’m working on. Actually that was a lie – I don’t want to tell you about it at all. But my angels told me I had to, that it would help me to write about it… and, just like the husband who had warned you earlier in the evening that those stilettos would hurt your feet, they are always right (it’s very annoying). So here goes.

My self-esteem is ridiculously low. Not just I-hate-trying-on-bathing-suits low, or even I’m-too-chicken-to-ask-my-boss-for-a-raise low, but cruelly self-sabotaging-on-the-reg low – without even realising it. It’s only now, in my mid-30s, that I’ve decided I’m not willing to live like this anymore. 

I'm not looking to achieve Kanye-level self-love status, just a way of maybe being my own best friend. I’m no longer willing to avoid eye contact at parties from a belief that no one would find me interesting. I’m not willing to bail out of dates because of a belief that I’m lovable. I’m not willing to avoid pitching work projects out of a belief that they aren’t good enough (which really means: a belief that I’M not good enough).

It’s not easy to turn around decades of negative self-talk – especially when you hadn’t been aware you’d been treating yourself so shabbily. I’m not exactly sure it’s entirely possible, but I know that I have to try, with everything I’ve got. If I don’t, I will continue to push people away and live a lacklustre life. I want to live in the light now. 

That’s why I’ve embarked on something called the Self-Appreciation Project. Every night, I reflect on the day just passed and write down two things I loved about myself. Here’s the thing: it’s REALLY hard. Initially I wanted to list five things but I couldn’t. Even getting to two is a struggle. And in the spirit of absolute frankness I can tell you there have been days when I could not find a single thing. Not one. (I’m trying not to beat myself up when that happens, because self-compassion is another attribute I really want to foster. I’m also determined not to use those days as an excuse to give up.)

The Self-Appreciation Project, which shall henceforth be known as SAP, is bringing up a lot of dark stuff that’s been buried in my subconscious, which is unpleasant at best and downright terrifying at worst. But I know that I need to go through all that to get to the other side. Like Louise Hay once declared: “Honey, if you want to clean your house, you’ve gotta see where the dirt is.” (That woman is always slaying me with her wisdom.)

I hope that telling you about SAP will help keep me honest, and committed. I don’t know whether it will actually change anything, but I know that I have to do it. This may be the most important thing I do in my entire life. I can’t fail at it – it’s too important. I am too important. And I hope one day to truly believe that with every fibre of my being.

Ctrl-Alt-Delete your poor life choices

If you can call on an IT department for help with your work difficulties, why can’t you have a life department on standby to resolve your life difficulties. I mean, those IT peeps are so damn useful, and patient too (bow down to the geeks!) and I really think there’s a place for a team that can give you expertise on far-reaching snafus on a daily basis. Like these:

“Hello, this is the Helpdesk. How can I assist you?”

“I can’t find my car keys!”

“Hold the line, I’ll run a search… OK, they’re on your desktop.”

“Thank you so much!”

“Hello, Helpdesk. What is your issue today?”

“My wardrobe has reached maximum capacity.”

“No problem, I’ll delete some expired items and create new storage facilities.”

“Amazing! Thank you!”

“Hello, Helpdesk. What do you need help with?”

“My relationship has crashed and I can’t recover it.”

“Let me restore it from the back-up for you.”

“Perfect – thanks guys!”

“Welcome to the Helpdesk. What is your situation?”

“My boyfriend has denied me access, so I need to get my permissions changed.”

“I see. [Silence.] Have you tried turning him off and turning him on again?”

What do you think, guys? Could we get a kick-starter campaign going for the Life Department? I’m pretty sure they’d never run out of customers…