I Have Resistance...

...the question is, does Resistance have Me?

Here's one I wrote earlier...

I've got 25 days left in which to write my latest, commissioned book. And I won't.

It's not that I can't, it's that part of me simply won't.

It's known as resistance and it's a bitch.

It will lose in the end, of course. As a radio and TV journalist used to tight deadlines, I'll get my head down just in time and work flat out to meet the deadline. Which is 25th November.

How to get round resistance? The world expert on that is Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art which is probably the Bible of all writers. If you're a writer or a potential writer, read it.

Basically, the answer is simple: 1, Give yourself a day off; complete permission not to write the book ... that annoys resistance a lot ... and 2, Just bloody well write! That's why I'm writing this blog - so that my resistance remembers that, whatever it wants to do about it, I am a writer. Just because I won't write that book doesn't mean that it gets away without writing. Resistance is in me, but it doesn't have me. It isn't driving the bus.

And, as I write, I remember why I love writing so much; I find I am enjoying myself and inspiring myself. And, heck, I might even stick my nose into chapter eight just for a moment. Just to look at it, you undestand, not to actually do anything with it.

And as I write, I sense the Muse showing up, just a courtesy call; she won't settle into me again until I've shut the door, wrapped that figurative wet towel around my head, played six games of Freecell, checked Facebook until even my resistance is bored with the same stories in the feed, updated my tunes on Spotify, downloaded another App, and got going.

And then she and I will be in love again; that incredible one-to-one synchronistic love that flows the ideas and the words and never, ever wants to stop.

I am so looking forward to that.

The EasyJet Blog, Part Ten.

Cyprus, October 2018.

We had a lovely holiday, thank you. This was the replacement holiday given to us by EasyJet after our ridiculously stupid (and funny) experiences over Harold, the lost, run-over, bomb-scare suitcase. See here for the start of the story if you missed it.

I've come to realise over the years that every thought or problem is where you last left it. So if you've got an issue with someone or something and you don't clear it up, the next time you come across a similar situation or person, it will repeat itself. That's karma for you.

For example, it looks from the outside as if I had quite a few relationships before I got married - but it was all the same relationship just with different men. I only broke my duck when I met someone on the other side of the world when I was having to live consciously every day and was unable to put up my habitual boundaries and defences. Even then, I'd probably have re-infected the marriage if God/the Universe hadn't had enough of my ridiculousness by then and given me a red-flag event to wake me up for good.

Those red flags can be large or small. When we were given our new holiday and our new suitcase, I thought it was all sorted both inside and out. But then, I managed to damage a wheel on Harriet, the new suitcase, on a weekend trip and that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was very obvious that I had a suitcase problem.

Except, of course, it wasn't about suitcases; as the wonderful Danaan Parry wrote in his Warriors of the Heart  book on conflict resolution: 'the presenting problem is never the real problem.' It just looks like it is.

It took a while to find the root issue, during which I did quite a lot of internal work about loss and betrayal (yet another layer of the onion) ... and not only did the nice man at EasyJet give me his private email address and a 24-hour one for emergencies before we left ... but our suitcases all arrived safely. Phew.

There were some of the usual annoyances: the flight out was three-and-a-half hours late and the one back an hour-and-a-half late but then, if you think about it, flight scheduled times really only mean 'this flight will not be leaving before this time.' It's all a lot more relaxing when you've worked that one out and we both had really good books to read and a picnic so it wasn't really any problem.

Technically, you're allowed a free snack and drink if your flight is delayed more than two hours but they managed to cram us onto the airoplane after an hour and 55 minutes and then we waited the rest of the time on the tarmac. It's really quite clever, that one :-)

There was one glitch when we got to our room at the Helios Bay Hotel in Paphos. Have you ever seen a more ridiculous layout for a kettle and toaster? You simply couldn't use both safely. Even if the cords had been long enough to put them on the top of the hob, it was cleverly programmed to go beep if you did that, even when the cooker was switched off.

Yes, you could push the table up against the cooker and put them both there but then you couldn't sit at it comfortably or use the cooker... We did move the table  but I got annoyed; it was pretty late at night and I was tired.

The trouble is, I'm energetically pretty powerful nowadays, so when we tried to use the toaster for a late night snack, my annoyance transfered and it blew all the electrics, plunging us into darkness.

Luckily for me, I have a Lion who had already noticed where the fuse box was in the room and who had light sorted in a minute and we began to laugh. But the toaster was dead; it wasn't just a fuse in the plug. Obviously I hadn't cleared up all that energy quite as well as I thought I had!

We work pretty well together, Lion and I. He always notes the practical things and I always locate emergency exits. That's because my ego worries in depth (Scorpio moon) and his worries in detail (Virgo moon). Between us, we can worst-case scenario pretty much any potential problem and realise that we are doing it which actually makes it easier to sort stuff out.

The next day, we got a new toaster and an extension lead from reception and proceeded to have a very happy holiday.

(Somewhere in this picture is a Lion ... it's at the amphitheatre at the Kourion Archaeological site which is well worth a visit).

So the moral of the whole EasyJet story, I think, is that when something goes wrong, do point it out politely, consistently and stubbornly until your voice has been heard.

But even more, realise that, if the problem is a repeating one, then you are a part of it. There's some deep self-fulfilling belief inside that will ensure that the situation is repeated and repeated until a true resolution is achieved.

I appear to be sorted on suitcases but I know there's plenty more resistance inside me that needs work.  But it's a joyful kind of work because the results are clear, and lovely and prosperous.

Wishing you a wonderful day.

Being Visible

Picture by Ari Fox.

Last weekend I was invited to talk on a panel about 'The Invisible (Older) (Wo)man" at the Women of the World Festival in Exeter. I love how PC that title is! Basically it was a discussion on whether/why older women are not seen.

The funniest thing about it was that every single email in the booking process - and the Power Point at the event itself spelled my name incorrectly. The spelling of my name is important to me (as many of you know!) but it's also a very useful sign of consciousness. When we are conscious, we notice unusual things like a different spelling of a name. When we are unconscious (i.e. in our ego) we don't.

It certainly gave me a big opportunity to be very visible indeed at the start, by pointing that out...

Popularity mark: minus one.

I will cheerfully put my hand up to spelling other people's names incorrectly too at times; I'm nowhere near enlightened. And yes, I do know that autocorrect is not my friend. But I will continue, politely, I hope, to correct misspellings because a person's name is a valid part of their visibility.

I've done quite a lot of panels with an audience discussion and, in my experience, they frequently descend very swiftly into mutual pity-fests where everyone swaps negative stories. It's temporarily comforting because you feel heard and understood, but it doesn't move the situation on in any way. So, I decided that, this time, I simply wasn't going to participate in any of that. I wasn't going to court popularity in any way.

I'd say that was pretty successful... :-D

The author and teacher Caroline Myss calls repeating our unhappy stories in public 'woundology' - a way of showing that we are more interested in perpetuating and sharing our wounds than we are in healing them. The wounds become our identity - and often our excuse - instead of something from which we heal and move on. Caroline has lost a few friends through that one.

So, I didn't engage in the acknowlegement of wounds, nor tell my story at the start. I just said that I was not invisible and told them what I had done in order to make sure that I was visible. I said it was entirely an inside job and I hoped they would find the information I shared useful.

Popularity mark: minus two.

To be absolutely fair, by not telling my stories of unhappiness or grief, and by instead positing solutions upfront, I did inspire three women (who kindly told me so) but I seriously pissed off most of the rest of the room (some of whom not-so-kindly told me so - which was, of course, their right).

Now, it's perfectly legitimate to tell your story - and to tell how you overcame massive odds to succeed and both my fellow panelists did that very well. But I chose to say that I am happy and empowered - and much more so since growing older and becoming silver-haired - and offering solutions that have worked for me and which are the reason why I don't nowadays repeatedly tell sad stories of my life.

I also acknowledged that I was being annoying  :-)

One questioner said she didn't have time to do that kind of work.

I suggested she got up earlier, took magnesium if she were habitually exhausted and said I certainly found that I wasted too much time on social media and she might look at that.

Popularity mark: minus three.

One questioner asked what to do about shop packaging (not sure what that had to do with the topic!)

I suggested she handed plastic back at the tills, bought when she could from a local shop, made more of her own food and grew vegetables in window boxes if she didn't have a garden.

Popularity mark: minus four.

The questioner said she didn't have time to cook.

I suggested she cooked enough food for a fortnight at the weekend and froze it (that's a lot cheaper than living on take-aways).

Popularity mark: minus five. (fair call. She might not have had a freezer...).

A questioner bemoaned the fact that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has vanished from the news and is in hiding and Brett Kavanaugh is still in the news and in public.

I suggested they wrote letters to Dr. Ford to thank her.  Her address is c/o Palo Alto University, 1791 Arastrado Road, Palo Alto, California 94304. The university will forward them.

Popularity mark: minus six.

I was also challenged for saying that I understood a situation that one of my fellow panellists spoke of as a reason why any of the Work I suggested above could not be done.

'No you don't understand!' she said with great emotion. I let her have that one because, having not told my story, she could have absolutely no reason for knowing that I did understand that situation. And I am immensely proud of myself for taking that hit and not succumbing to the temptation to dive into 'woundology' in return. That was quite a challenge...

Popularity mark: minus seven.

I was informed that I am privileged, arrogant and unsympathetic. This is a first for me and I think I might actually be rather impressed.

Byron Katie, the great teacher of The Work, says 'who would you be without your story?' and that is a  deeply profound question. Who I was, without my story was:

• Not entirely popular.
• Highly visible.
• Perfectly happy.

I can live with that.