Archive for June, 2010

It’s officially the height of summer today, woo! The longest day and the shortest night – and I’m looking forward to an evening celebration in Penarth with candles and lemon cake and glorious dusk. (I want to see fireflies again, I’ve only ever seen them once in my life.)

Tonight I’m celebrating the solstice with my Homesouls group. After Lindsay Halton’s Homesouls workshop last year, we started meeting up every 6 to 8 weeks to share progress and support. Homesouls is broadly speaking like Feng Shui in that it is about looking at your living environment and your home, but it is much less about applying rules and much more about looking at what story is being played out in every area. Your home reflects your life, which reflects your soul. Just as your mental, emotional and spiritual vibrations translate into the well-being and health of your physical body, so they carry over into the patterns that manifest in the space you live in.

Homesouls also follows the Chinese five elements system, which cycle through the year. Today we move from Wood into Fire! Fire is all about long warm days, human connections, community, better relationships, freedom and fun. The emotion of Fire is joy, the sound is laughter, the colour is red. It’s about giving and receiving equally, in balance.

In Chinese astrology, I’m a Fire Horse. Fire is “my” element so I felt drawn to lead the group tonight. When I was preparing for it earlier, the attributes for Fire that stood out to me from Lyndsay’s book were: light, clarity, radiance, expansion, truth, self-expression, spirit, authentic.  Now, where it gets really interesting for me… (tell me if I’m boring you!)… is that in the past couple of weeks I have been working through Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte’s Style Statement book. Finding out what your style statement is involves a process of self-exploration, into who you are, what your values are, what you believe in, what you hold dear, what you dislike. Your style applies from your clothes and accessories, to the kitchen units you choose, right through to how you communicate and what your hobbies are. Where do you feel at home? What makes your heart sing? What situations do you shine and sparkle in, and which ones make you want to run away? Completing this process was important to me, because I can achieve greater self-expression if I have a clearer awareness of who I am. But until yesterday I had a bunch of concepts on post-its, grouped by theme on a flipchart, and try as I might they were *not* coming together into my 80% and 20% words.

“…the 80/20 Style Statement Principle can help create balance and integration. (…) The first word of your Style Statement reflects your inner foundation, your 80%. The second word is your creative edge, your 20%. This combination of energy, ideals, and aesthetics is a powerful equation for creating ease and results in life.” (Carrie McCarthy & Danielle LaPorte ~ Style Statement: live by your own design)

So it just wasn’t gelling for me. That is, until I started looking at the Homesouls Fire element. Then, in a blinding flash of light, the clouds parted and a chorus of celestial beings… no, not really. I did have a lightbulb moment though – the words jumped off the page at me and I thought, “This is it! This is ME. This is who I am, in two words. This is why I react the way I do, why I like clean lines, tidiness, books, bright colours and high heel shoes, why I dislike bitchiness, and why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, I give you… (drumroll): Authentic Radiance.

<Sigh.>

It’s been a long process of inquiry. Now I feel like I’m resting contentedly in this deeper clarity. This morning I baked an almond and polenta lemon loaf for the group tonight; it is based on an American recipe I hadn’t tried before so I had fun converting cups to weights and it was all a bit experimental – the result took about 2 hours of baking before the knife came out clean!! I will report back in a subsequent post about how I’m finding living in my authentic radiance. And also whether my newfound recipe is worth sharing.

Happy solstice everyone, from one contented smiley bunny.

I’m keeping my head down at the moment people – I’m too lazy to take myself and my laptop and my water and my cushion and my cardi (for when there’s a breeze) and everything else into the garden to follow the sun, so I’m occasionally gazing out of the window at the wondrous sunny world beyond. But mostly I’m far, far away in my head, planning and shaping and artfully crafting a whole set of goodies and fantastic products for the beamazingtoday website. (I’m also working on the 2011 Moon Diary, for a change, like, in between “amazing” stuff).

Yes, I am excited! No, I am not cackling to myself and rubbing my hands in glee (yet?). Earlier this week, my interactions with the world for the *whole* day were so web-based that when I had to exchange brief pleasantries with some random in the street, as we passed each other on a narrow pavement (“sorry”,”cheers”) – it actually felt weird talking with my mouth to someone there for real.

That was a sign to take a break from the laptop and talk to people, IRL! Coincidentally, I had to go to my bank to open an ISA for my soon-to-be-born godchild (who I am convinced is a girl), sort out various accounts, and basically have a tidy up. I had an appointment with a bank manager who I’d never met before. She was lovely. She listened, and we had a bit of laugh, and she made good suggestions in light of what I was planning, which I decided to go for, and we sorted out everything that needed to be sorted out, all in one fell swoop. It was perfectly delivered customer service.

She took the trouble to ring me later on that afternoon to confirm that a couple of the setups that were pending had gone through ok. Like I said, great customer service; we tend to whinge when it’s below par and really don’t mention it often enough when it’s good. But wait, there’s more!

She also said she’d put a form in the post for me so I didn’t have to pop into the branch again. When it arrived, it had a post-it stuck on it, which made me giggle, and I saved it (until just now when I photographed it to post about it). Now that’s just above and beyond the call of duty, surely.

What do I like more, her calling me “chick” or the smiley face? Hmmm.

Seth Godin would point out that being nice costs nothing and does a lot. Indeed. Bad customer service = grumble. Good customer service = remember to say so. Exceptional customer service = blog about it! It is the internet age after all. But to keep things IRL, I am also sending her a thank you card. (I don’t think she reads this blog.)

Video for Time To Wander by Gypsy and the Cat: a feast for the eyes.

Tomorrow’s the 12th June and it’s new moon again (my, how these 4 weeks have gone by quick.)

You may have missed my previous post about the new moon abundance ritual, or maybe you did do it? In any case, tomorrow or within 24 hours, give it (another) shot! And do report back any unexpected bun dances, premium bond wins, cheques, free chiropractor sessions, or free venue bookings you may experience. We had all of those last time!

Well… Maybe not the dancing buns. But I live in hope. And I look forward to hearing what else turns up for you. x

I’m about to go slightly hibernat-ey (yes, even though it’s pretty much the high of summer) and not do very much on the socialising/hanging out/sitting in the sun in the park front, for the next few months. Until I go to New York in mid-August for the Focusing Institute summer school to be precise.

Until then, I have much to do. My current projects are:

• putting together a framework and basic information for the 2011 Moon Diary, which I’m working on with Emma Jones, Nicola Pledger and Nadia Ansari
• preparing a bunch of workshops for the Welsh Training Academy
• and (biggest and most exciting of all!) completely reworking my marketing strategy and product offering. Sounds technical and horrible, but that’s only words. In practice, I’ll be putting together a bunch of creative fun activities that I think people will really enjoy!

The rationale behind this last point came from reading Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid. (If you are self-employed or an entrepreneur with a small company, read it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.) It has been a total revelation and changed my outlook on marketing and selling my knowledge/expertise/products/offering – from “I know I *have* to but… – ick!” to seeing it as something simple and natural, which isn’t offensive like cold-calling can be, and which only requires a bit of thought, planning and a big burst of creativity. Which is what I’m getting ready to do over the next few weeks. Expect many amazing, beauteous and fantastical new things by the end of the summer: at least one free e-book, the Ping! ideas exchange, a happiness course and a mentoring programme, and a workshop or two. These are all bubbling away happily in my head and it’s time for me to make them happen.

While I’m exercising my creativity and having this period of intense cerebral activity, it will do me good to do things that keep me grounded – particularly bodywork, as I enjoy it so much, and especially as I’ve perfected an amazing multi-sensory massage and since my reflexology sessions totally rock.

So, you can help keep me in rice and dal (and weekly hula-hooping) over this summer by:

• telling everyone about my sessions. Please spread the word as widely as you can and much good karma will come back to you! Here’s the link: http://www.beamazingtoday.co.uk/bodywork/ ready for you to share on Facebook, tweet, email, snail mail, etc. My sessions are amazing. No-one else does them quite like me. That’s worth talking about.
• treating yourself to a massage or a reflexology session. This is the option I recommend most highly. It’s good to do something amazing for yourself. You’ll thank yourself, I kid you not.
• treating someone you know to a session: your nan, mum, sister, wife, fiancee, girlfriend, or BFF; a sensitive man you know who doesn’t think massage or reflexology is only for girlies (cause it’s not!); your boss, even, if that’s the way you rock.

And I will dance my massage dance and smile at people’s feet (maybe even yours?) and work my magic and the world will be a happier place. And while I’m not doing this I will be pouring my heart and soul and sizzling synapses onto the flipchart / the page / the screen and smiling all the while and giving thanks.

So muchos thanks. Ta muchly. Much appreciated. You rock. Keep being wonderful. xoxoxo

Tonight I went to the opening of Cardiff’s first Illustration Degree show (i.e. the collection of work by the first lot of fresh new graduates on the UWIC Illustration degree course) – it’s being held from today (4th June) till 12th June, in an empty shop at 22-24 Morgan Arcade (the last one last but one at the bottom of Saint Mary’s Street, nearest to the train station).

I have come away from it buzzing and so impressed. I did put a postcard in the box that said I thought it was most excellent, but I didn’t really have time to ponder quite why I was so blown away (so I wrote something like, “yeah, really good, ta” ;-p).

First of all the venue is beautiful. The show is on 3 levels in a space which is clear, bright and peaceful (even with loads of excited students and lecturers milling around for the opening, which is saying a lot!) – and if you go see the show make sure you check out the floor in the basement!

But mainly I came away from the show totally elated and inspired, because it’s amazing and heart-warming that young artists show so much imagination and inspiration, and also a great depth of reflection about who they are as people, as artists, what their place is in the world – a process which was evident in the work, and not only just the work presented but also in the cards/business cards/branding and accompanying marketing.

I wrote on my postcard that they make the world a better place, and they totally do. It is exciting to live in a world (and a city!) where graduates of that calibre will be putting that creativity, passion and awareness into play in people’s lives.

Hats off too to the academic team; the first show has set a very high standard indeed.

Links:

BA(Hons) Illustration: http://www.csad.uwic.ac.uk/illustration/index.htm

Cardiff Illustration graduate showcase 2010: http://www.cardiffillustration2010.co.uk

Why? Hmmm… let’s see. Because you can. Because (here in Cardiff anyway) it’s grey and rainy outside and it makes people grumpy – so buck the trend. Because epic doesn’t necessarily have to be huge. Because to have an epic life, do epic things! (I want an epic life.)

Ok – so I like the word epic. It tickles me. It means “very imposing or impressive” as well as “surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale)” – but note: especially, but not necessarily, in size or scale. It’s all about surpassing the ordinary, baby. Brush your teeth with your “wrong” hand and be present in the experience, enjoy it even – that in itself is epic.

I’m off to cycle happily into the rain instead of grumping about it. That’s my epicness for now.

What epic shit are you going to do today?