Coach Fabulous

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-09-24T16:41:00.001Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

After having been made redundant a little over 3 weeks ago and throwing myself into the job market with gay abandon I have been offered two dream jobs. One offers security and good consistent work. The other is a bit of a maverick and offers the chance to develop the work I would really in my heart like to do.After a long period of instability in both my personal life and relationships I thought what I really wanted was just to settle. But out of the blue came this new offer which to be frank would be a risk at first but promises 100% payback - if it works.My partner who is a solid sort can't understand the appeal of the esoteric and whilst he is my rock, in that he never changes, that never changing can also be stifling. I am under pressure to make the decision but feel that he will deeply disapprove if I take the job I really want.

Help!

Defeated

Dear Defeated

I’d prefer to think of you as temporarily daunted, rather than defeated. It’s not surprising that you’re drawn to security after a long period of uncertainty – and it’s very important to make sound, practical choices – but what I’m hearing underneath your words is a real calling to pursue your dreams, even if that involves risks that challenge your sense of comfort.

While you’re willing to do what it takes to make those dreams a reality, you’re very concerned that your partner will not only find it difficult, but will disapprove of your choices. This is not so much a career question, but an issue within your relationship – you fear that you’ll lose your partner’s approval (and love) if you follow your heart.

The only way to overcome that fear is to confront it and to have a very honest conversation with your partner, expressed in a way that honours their good qualities and asks for their support in this new venture. Make sure that you keep your dialogue focused on how you feel about taking the risk, how much you value them, and how you want to find a solution that works for both of you. Keep away from anything that might sound accusative, such as ‘you always …’ or ‘you won’t let me …’. The point of the discussion is to open up the underlying issues in a safe way, to take your relationship to a greater level of trust and openness.

Whichever choice you make, you cannot leave this unsaid. You may avoid the issue by taking the option your partner is most likely to approve of, but this will lead to resentment down the line that could become a much greater threat to the relationship than a bit of short-term discomfort over a job choice. Sacrificing your own personal development for the sake of a partnership is not a viable option – it will only come back to haunt you.

Remember, too, that it’s never all or nothing. You might feel that you’re torn between two options right now, but you may find that there’s a way to pursue your dreams that doesn’t involve as much risk as the current offer presents. Try using some creative thinking, rather than just assuming that these are the only two choices available to you.

Finally, a big life change like redundancy is usually a clue that something needs to change. Treat it like a wake-up call to refocus on what’s important to you. Don’t assume you should just carry on regardless – a shake-up is on the menu, so go with the flow and take a good look at your life. Be honest with yourself about what’s working and what’s not. Make choices that resonate with who you are and who you want to be – not just ones that are simply convenient. Convenient choices will only delay the opportunities for growth that are trying to show up in your life right now.

Coach Fabulous

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

2007-05-28T17:39:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

My partner and I have had a very turbulent past relationship but we have managed to come through an awful lot and become closer. Our relationship continues to deepen, to my amazement, in so many different ways. There’s always something new to learn, new places within it to go. Recently we undertook some counselling and it was helpful in that it opened up a lot of dialogue between us and I learned to see things from his point of view a lot more.

The problem now is that due to our differences in the past we now have jobs in separate towns an hour apart and as part of a “space required” exercise we now live separately during the week and get together at weekends.

My partner would like me to relocate back to his house, and I do understand the reasons why this would be a better idea - and I know I am at base happiest when we are together - but a part of me remembers the bad old days and is hesitant, another part of me so loves my current place of work and location and would be loath to give it up. It’s a bit like being a weekly boarder.

I know that at this point in our relationship it is crunch time we simply can’t go on in limbo but yet my partner does not appear to be willing to take the step of a full commitment such as marriage or civil partnership.

Any advice?

Standing At The Crossroads

Dear Standing At The Crossroads

There are a few red flags in your question, so let’s take them one at a time. It’s great that you’ve taken the step of getting counselling, but it’s slightly concerning that the result is that you’ve ‘learned to see things from his point of view more’. Ideally, you’d have learned to see each other’s point of view and find a compromise that works for both of you. It might just be the way you’ve expressed it, but from the rest of your question I’m getting the impression that the compromise is pretty much all down to you.

You like where you live and work, but your partner wants you to move to where he is. You clearly would like a greater level of commitment, but your partner is not willing to think in terms of civil partnership or marriage. From the small glimpse you’ve given me of your life, it doesn’t sound like you have a common vision of a future together, which is an essential if you want to build a life with someone. I’m reminded of the Antoine de Saint-Exupery quote, “Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.”

Before you take any kind of step to change the structure of your life, you absolutely must be certain that choice will take you in the direction you want to go, not just where your partner would like you to go. The ‘bad old days’ will resurface if you don’t stand your ground and ensure that you’re happy with how things are unfolding within your relationship. A major commitment issue can be a dealbreaker. You need to decide if you can be happy with less of a commitment or if it’s a hurdle you just can’t get over. Do not try to postpone the decision until after you’ve relocated – that’s just asking for trouble. Moving to a new area and letting go of your own happy situation will be challenging and you want to know that you’re doing it because you’re secure in your relationship and have a shared vision of how you want your lives to unfold together.

With a lot of honest communication, even turbulent relationships can evolve into strong partnerships and it seems as though you’ve been doing a lot of work to try to make that happen. Don’t give up on that good work when it comes to ensuring that you’re both clear on how you see your future. If it’s really what you want, it won’t feel like a sacrifice. I’m suspecting it currently does because the commitment issue means more to you than you’ve been willing to admit. Stand your ground and make the choices that feel right to you. A strong partnership is one where you’re both willing to stand up for what’s right for you and to work together to find a solution that works for each of you.

Coach Fabulous

What Lies Beneath

2007-05-07T14:07:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I have just come across your website and I must be a prime candidate for no confidence. The worst thing is I used to have loads when I was younger and now I can barely look at myself in the mirror. I have four children, my last being only 4 months ago. I’ve had 3 bouts of post natal depression and trying desperately to avoid a fourth. I have still got pregnancy fat that I’m actively trying to get rid of by nearly killing myself doing a Davina and going to the gym. Before I got pregnant I was going to the gym 3 times a week! I think my weight is probably my biggest problem even though I’m probably only a stone and a half over. But my confidence is way below zero!!!!!!!!!! Help if you can!! Huge challenge I know. :)

Weighing In The Balance

Dear Weighing In The Balance

Confidence is never a constant and it’s particularly susceptible to taking a hit when our bodies change. That doesn’t mean it’s out for the count – your confidence is just having a momentary wobble and if you want it to come out fighting, you’ll need to be kind to yourself. First of all, having 4 children and one of them only 4 months old is a big load, not to mention the post-natal depression. If you’re facing up to another bout of that, don’t try and beat it alone. Get help – medical support, alternative medicine, counselling, getting a break from the kids – whatever it takes. Make sure you talk to your good friends about how you really feel. Nothing is more isolating than trying to handle something that overwhelming without help. For general tips on finding a bit of space for yourself as a new mum, try my iVillage article: http://www.ivillage.co.uk/pregnancyandbaby/childcare/worklife/articles/0,,170040_705014,00.html.

To be realistic, carrying another stone and a half after 4 kids (and only months after the last one) isn’t that much of a deal as far as weight goes, so I suspect this is more about disconnection from your body and loss of a sense of self. Let’s take a look at the bod first. I’m going to recommend an online article I’ve written on body confidence to get you started: http://www.ivillage.co.uk/dietandfitness/getfit/bodyshape/articles/0,,259_709239,00.html. The most important thing you need to know is that you cannot sort out weight issues while you’re treating your body like an enemy – you have to start to get comfortable being in your body and then learn to love it. The tips in the piece will help you, but my best clue is using exercise to get in tune with your body, rather than to punish it into submission. Classes like yoga, pilates and tai chi teach you to attune to your body by focusing on how it feels, so that you’re partnering with your body, not beating it up. This is the fastest way to learn how to enjoy your body again, along with going strictly cold turkey on criticising it. Absolutely do not say nasty things to yourself about your body – if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all!

Still on the weight issue, forget dieting. We all know it doesn’t work. As you get more in tune with your body, your food choices will change. Try reading Paul McKenna’s I Can Make You Thin, which comes with a CD of guided visualisations. He’s had significantly more statistical success with weight loss than any other diet and it’s all about learning to eat well, not starving yourself. No-one wants to be a miserable dieter for the rest of their lives and this book seems to give a sound alternative. Get a makeover too – vanity gets a bad rep, but a new look can put you on top of the world. Enlist the help of a stylist if you can afford it. Very few of us know how to dress our body shape well and if yours has changed, chances are you’re not wearing the styles that show your body off to its best advantage.

The rest of the ‘be kind to yourself’ advice includes things like getting regular massages, taking time out to meet your good friends (even if you can only fit in a coffee) and finding some time for you that’s just sacred. Whatever you do in that time is up to you – it’s about remembering what your interests are and making time for them. Read a good book, crash out on the sofa if you need it, go see an art exhibition, write in a journal, meditate, get smashed every once in a while – it’s totally guilt-free, because it’s about remembering who you are, even if that means being a couch potato one day or a gym bunny the next. Carving out small slices of time for yourself will boost your confidence because you’re claiming your space, standing up for what’s important to you and making it non-negotiable.

If you’ve lost sight of who you were before the kids came along, sign up for an online course or a weekend workshop in something you’ve always wanted to do. Doing new things is always a little scary at first, but stretching your sense of accomplishment is a great builder of self-worth. It may be difficult to fit in, but you have to take care of your own needs and decide what’s important to you. I’d suggest listening to Debbie Ford or Cheryl Richardson, who are coaches broadcasting shows on http://www.hayhouseradio.com/, for a bit of daily upliftment. You can listen to the shows via live streaming or download them to your iPod. Also take a look at
the host of free podcasts available via iTunes – there’s something on almost any imaginable subject, so you’re bound to find something to stimulate your mind. Debbie Ford also has a Best Year Of Your Life kit, with a confidence-building theme to work on every week, which you might enjoy, as well as guided visualisations on loving your body.

I’ve suggested a lot of outer stuff to do, but confidence is really an inside job. You have to get comfortable with being who you are, right here, right now. You have to know that a few extra pounds cannot stand in the way of you being happy, loveable and proud of the person you are. Start loving the small stuff, like how kindly you treat your children or support your friends, how well you manage with a big family or celebrating even just getting through the day in a fairly good mood. Do that every morning and night – find three things you can love about yourself when you’re brushing your teeth in the morning and three more when your head hits the pillow at night. The weight is just a smokescreen – if you can get happy with who you are, you’ll feel confident and enjoy your life no matter what your bathroom scales say. Take the pressure off and don’t give yourself a timescale – just the aim to be happy being you.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2007 Alison Porter

Bringing Sexy Back

2007-01-22T19:06:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous,

I have lost my mojo! I have no interest in men and zero sex drive.

I have, within the last year or two, got over depression and am fine and happy generally. The thing is, I haven’t had a sniff of a man in so long it’s beginning to worry me, mostly because I don’t miss it! I’ve had a few bad experiences with men and I suppose that might have put me off.

I used to feel a bit more confident and make more of an effort to look nice, but I have become a bit lazy now so I go out knowing I look a bit rough and thinking that all attractive men are out of my league.

I used to feel quite sexy and would happily flirt, but now I shy away from situations where I may have to interact with men and I cannot handle sexy conversations – I think I have become a bit of a prude, which is the last thing anyone would have said about me before.

My feeling is that I have attitude problems rather than sexual ones and I would love to hear if you have any ideas on how to change my outlook on this subject – I don’t want to end up an old spinster.

Please help!

Soon-To-Be Old Maid

Dear Soon-To-Be Old Maid

You’re right on the money with your own diagnosis – this is an attitude issue, rather than a sexual one. If you’ve watched enough of those dating makeover shows, you’ll know that people with far worse problems than yours can be turned into hunks of burning love almost overnight, simply by taking on board a new set of attitudes, with only the merest dash of re-styling. Let that inspire you to do your own little mojo makeover at home, knowing it can be a fabulous success. You’re just in the habit of thinking badly of yourself and that habit can be changed.

First, you’ve got to get into your body - you’re way too much in your head. That’s probably partially a result of having suffered from depression. The fastest way to start to reconnect is through massage or any form of slow exercise that requires you to put your attention firmly into your body, such as yoga, pilates or tai chi. What you need to be doing is reconnecting to your sensuality as a step to reconnecting to your sexuality. Make sure your senses are stimulated by massage, movement, aromatic bubble baths and sensual textures in clothing. If you’re not already a foodie, start feeding yourself very good quality meals and luxuriate in the tastes. Use every opportunity to notice and enjoy the sensual aspects of life – pay attention to the little things like how the wind feels on your face and how great it feels to be in front of a fire on a cold and rainy day. If this were summer, I’d be recommending that you get out on the grass in your bare feet, but given that we’re in the middle of winter, I’ll let you off on that one. Try noticing the texture of the carpet on your bare feet instead.

When you are in your head, make your thoughts work for you. Try doing an ‘inner smile’ meditation before you get out of bed in the morning, smiling and sending love to all the parts of your body, working from head to toe. If you find this hard to visualise, start off by getting a picture in your mind of something or someone you love and feel that love until you have a smile on your face, then imagine that love spreading throughout your own body. Walking meditation helps too – when your mind is spinning with unhelpful thoughts, place your attention on each step and how it feels in your body as your feet make contact with the ground. Soon you’ll be absorbed in that movement and whatever’s bothering you will fall away.

Now it’s time for some fresh material for that mind of yours. You’re already in the habit of using mantras – you just don’t call them that – but the problem is they’re all bad news. You keep reinforcing thoughts of unattractiveness, which creates a lack of self-confidence, which unsurprisingly results in a lack of interest from the opposite sex. Do you think you’d be attracted to a man who looked like he didn’t like himself that much? Absolutely not.

This is the fun bit – it doesn’t have to be hard work. You just need to come up with a mantra that you can say to yourself over and over, particularly when those negative thoughts of self-attack pop up. If you want your mojo back, you’re going to have to suspend disbelief on this one and just go for it. Try something like “I’m a hot, sexy, lovable babe – men adore me and want to be with me”. If that’s too much of a stretch initially, start with something like “I love being me and people love to be with me”. Make it your own – there are no magic words, just the ones that work for you.

While you’re restyling your mind, restyle your wardrobe while you’re at it. Super-comfy is out and girlie is in. Don’t make yourself feel awkward, but scrub up a bit, wherever you’re going, even if it’s just to the shops. The better you feel about yourself, the more attractive you become. Treat yourself well – buy flattering clothes, refresh your makeup, and get a new hairdo or colour. You don’t have to splash the cash too much – funky accessories can make even the most simple of outfits look individual and interesting. Try swapping clothes with a friend or getting their opinion on a new style that might suit you. If you have the wad to throw at it, get a personal stylist to revamp your wardrobe and a whole new you may well emerge.

It’s hard to create something you can’t even imagine, so when you daydream, start putting that to good work by seeing yourself feeling sexy, lovable and in a relationship. If athletes can use visualisation to improve their game, you can use the same techniques for the game of love – see yourself looking good and feeling relaxed in the company of men.

Now, in the immortal words of the Doobie Brothers, we need to be taking it to the streets. All that practicing on your own is setting the foundation, but you won’t know it’s working until you test it out. Start simply by inviting mixed company over for dinner or going out with a group of friends that includes men, not just women. Make an effort to talk to the guys in the office a bit more. Do a class in something you’re interested in that’s guaranteed to have some male participants. The aim of the game is not to hurl yourself into a dating situation, but to familiarise yourself with the company of men again.

You can up the ante a bit when you have more confidence and feel relaxed when socialising – that’s the time to consider all the new dating options, such as organised dinner parties for singles or online dating, but it’s too much pressure initially. Besides, you may not need a formal dating situation anyway – the better you feel about yourself, the more approachable you’ll be and the more likely you are to just run into someone in the normal course of your life. I once met a man in a road block in Spain – and another one in the Jacuzzi at the health club – so I figure you can meet someone pretty much anywhere if you’re open to it.

You’ve got quite a bit to be getting on with, but I want to leave you with a few resources to keep you fired up. You might want to consider taking St John’s Wort as a supplement, if you aren’t already. Apart from its anti-depressant aspects, it’s also reputed to boost the libido. To keep you feeling that sexy vibe, try listening to the self-hypnosis CD called Man Magnet from http://www.shootfromthehyp.com/. It’s a little over the top, so it might take some getting used to, but at the very least it’ll give you a laugh while you’re reprogramming your mind. To help you release issues from past relationships, a great book on the subject is Calling In The One, by Katherine Woodward Thomas. It’s a 7-week programme of exercises that will help you shift your attitudes and release painful feelings. Another excellent book to help you understand the power of positive self-regard in relationships is Secrets Of Attraction by Sandra Anne Taylor. Also http://www.therelationshipgym.com/ has a regular newsletter on relationships, as well as plenty of other free resources for dating advice, such as pre-recorded classes.

All of this has been a very long-winded way of saying that when you learn to love yourself, you open the door to allowing someone else to love you. Just work on liking who you are, feeling confident about your talents and gifts, getting comfortable in your body and enjoying life - your mojo will be back before you know it!

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2007 Alison Porter

Where Did The Fun Go?

2007-01-13T18:45:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I need your help! I am 27 years old and am in a total rut. My boyfriend and I have been together for four years now and bought a house a year ago. Ever since then I've felt trapped and like my life is all laid out for me – my family keep expecting a wedding announcement any day now! I love my boyfriend dearly but sometimes he winds me up so much! He's so negative about everything (not us, but just the world in general) whereas I try to see the good in everything. We've almost totally stopped having sex (3 times in the year since we bought the house!) and I feel like we're drifting apart. I don't want to leave him as I do still love him very much, but I feel like something’s got to give! On top of this he may be out of work next month (he's a junior doctor) and I think that will put a huge strain on our relationship. I keep blaming myself and trying to change things about me (losing weight, taking up exercise etc) but I give up on these things after a couple of weeks as they seem pointless. The lethargy that's infected our relationship is eating into my professional life too and I find it hard to concentrate for more than a couple of hours.Please help!

Bored Stiff

Dear Bored Stiff

Well, the first flush of love has definitely worn thin, but all is not lost. The big issue here is that the intimacy has gone out of your relationship – and I don’t just mean the sex. I mean that depth of interest that keeps you fascinated, loving their quirky ways and wanting to do thoughtful, caring things for each other. It’s natural that the heady days of new love turn into something more mundane, but that doesn’t mean you have to live without fun, thoughtfulness, affection or intimacy. You and your partner seem to have slipped into a habitual way of relating that’s sucked the fun and excitement out of your relationship. The good news, of course, is that a habit can always be changed. Sometimes, when the purpose of your being together has been exhausted, there may not be enough will on either side to resurrect the love you had, but in your case it sounds like there’s still plenty of love left, but it’s just getting lost in the dull details of how you’re living your life together day-to-day.

First of all, drop the habit of blame – it’s really not doing you any favours. You’re ricocheting between blaming him for being annoying – which just frustrates you as well as making it harder to see him in a loving light – and blaming yourself for not being able to fix it, which simply erodes your self-esteem. What’s going to help you heal this is an attitude of taking responsibility that doesn’t apportion blame. It’s about saying to yourself, “OK, I’m not happy with the way things are, so how can I do things differently?”

Take a look at what happened when you bought the house. If you’ve been feeling trapped since then, it’s probably an unconscious issue around marriage and long-term relationships that’s been triggered. Is there a part of you that’s afraid of either repeating the pattern of your parents’ marriage if it was a difficult one, or not living up to the same standard, if it was an enduring, happy partnership? Plenty of couples manage to sail along very happily until they make a form of commitment that triggers those unconscious patterns. Patterns like these wreak havoc in your life when they’re unconscious, so the best thing you can do is start paying attention to how you really feel about commitment, marriage and relationships. Be honest with yourself about what you’re afraid of, what you think making a commitment might mean for your own independence and what you really want from a relationship or marriage. Look into your beliefs about your parents’ marriage – did you want the same type of relationship or something completely different? However much you think you moved on, your parents’ way of relating with each other is your earliest model of a relationship and the most deeply ingrained, so you will find yourself repeating many of those behaviours unconsciously. When you bring them to light, you can start to act differently.

The next step is going to work equally well on your partner as it does on you – reward behaviour you like and ignore what you don’t. Let’s start with him: let’s say he’s annoying you by being very negative about something, so instead of getting annoyed with him, withdraw your attention. As soon as he moves on to something more positive, engage with him again. Don’t nag or tell him to do anything differently, just reward the things you like about him. At the same time, start remembering the things you liked about him when you fell in love with him and start noticing those more than the annoying stuff. Put your attention where it’s going to pay off – on the good stuff.

You really need to be doing this with yourself as well. You’ve been trying to fix yourself and your relationship by criticising and blaming yourself. That’s a very, very bad habit that’s only going to make you feel worse. So start using the same positive reinforcement on yourself: when self-attacking thoughts arise, focus on something good about you and when you’re feeling judgemental about how the relationship’s going, start focusing on what is working. It’ll be tough at first, but once you’ve cut a new groove it’s going to feel natural to think that way.

If you think your partner would be open to it, talk to him about how you want your relationship to be. Be gentle in your approach, because no-one reacts positively when they feel like they’re being taken to task. Maybe you could remind him how much you used to love doing something together that you’ve fallen out of the habit of doing, and suggest you make more time for each other. Whatever it is that you’d like to have happen, make sure he knows that it’s because you care for him and want to be closer to him. That can gently open the door to more intimate conversations where you can both safely express how you feel without anger or blame.

Even if your partner doesn’t seem to want to work on the relationship, you can still shake things up by changing your own attitude. By dropping the blame and appreciating small, positive things, your relationship will change. It might not seem fair that you’re doing all the work initially, but someone’s got to get the ball rolling. If you sit around hoping for things to get better of their own accord, you’re going to be in for a very long wait. To get some excitement into your life, start doing more spontaneous things. Get away somewhere different even for one day, try a different restaurant or a type of food that’s new, change your style of clothes – just shake it up a little. The changes you make individually will make you interesting to each other and the changes you try together will give you new things to share.

As for the sex life, that will re-ignite when you become more intimate with each other, sharing your thoughts, interests, hopes and dreams. It’s all gone a bit dull, but when you both begin to feel that you’re appreciated and desired, the passion will kick in again. Sex is never just about sex – it’s as much about feeling supported and cared for as it is about physical desire. Without the fuel of real intimacy, sexual attraction can’t be maintained over time.

You’ve got the love and the will to make this work, so don’t be discouraged. Be kind to yourself, notice how you’re relating to each other and make different choices. Honour the good things about yourself and your partner and forget the rest. Even just that is enough to bring about a miracle in your relationship and give you the strength of partnership to handle whatever life throws at you as a couple.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2007 Alison Porter

Broken Promises

2006-11-29T21:33:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I am wracked between sympathy and self-pity... some say selfishness. I was supposed to be getting married on 23rd December.

To cut a long story short, his father, aged 81, has been in and out of hospital for the last 30 years. In September I got a gut instinct that something was going to happen and talked it over with my fiancée. He gave me a huge bear hug and said that, no matter what, he promised he would be at my side at the wedding.

On 28th October, his dad was admitted to hospital with breathing problems. That night a cousin of my fiancée’s phoned him and asked 'what about the wedding?' to which my fiancée said 'cancelled’. On 5th November his dad passed away.

I have been left to phone/write letters/pay off deposits/loss adjustor/solicitor for the wedding on my own, whilst he, understandably, with brothers and cousins has dealt with his father's death. I was asked to cater for the family do after the funeral, and quite a few others I was asked to do along the way.

Now I am told that there is to be a big 'family' Christmas to which I am not invited ... as apparently I am not family. Yet I still have a date, 23rd December, to try and get through on my own. My fiancée just tells me to stop brooding and get over it. I can't – I hurt. Am I really being selfish?

Confused

Dear Confused

The short answer is no, you are not being selfish. An enormously important and symbolic day for you and your partner is now on hold, despite earlier assurances that it would go ahead, no matter what. But it’s not even really about the day, is it? It’s a step into a deeper level of commitment within your relationship that has now been thrown into limbo. While you’re struggling to deal with your own disappointment and confusion about what this might mean for your future together, you’re busy supporting everyone else, and there seems to be precious little recognition of how much you’ve had to cope with. To top it off, being excluded from the family Christmas celebration must seem like adding insult to injury.

What is so difficult about the circumstances you’re faced with is that you’re dealing with a partner and a family who are grieving. People express grief in so many different ways and some of them are far more intense and difficult to navigate than you may have expected. Often those who are grieving can become very angry or difficult to deal with and generally even those who are normally very thoughtful people can find bereavement so all-consuming that they can’t see beyond their own pain to notice what is going on with anyone else.

Also, the death of a loved one – even when expected – still takes us by surprise in ways we cannot have comprehended. Your partner may have thought that his father’s long illness would have prepared him for the inevitable, but having to face his death in reality – and all the emotions that that raises – will still have come as an enormous shock, from which he is no doubt still reeling. That may go some way to helping you understand why he could have said to you beforehand, quite logically, that the wedding would go ahead regardless, but once he had become enmeshed in grief then his feelings changed about what was appropriate.

I feel for you tremendously, because you’re going through your own grieving process about the cancellation of your wedding and yet it’s as though you’re not even allowed to express how you feel, because everyone else’s grief is taking precedence. I imagine that the comments about ‘selfishness’ are coming from the family, who cannot currently see beyond their own experience of pain, and they are in effect invalidating your feelings. Even though you might logically comprehend why they seem incapable of understanding your disappointment, that doesn’t stop the further feelings of isolation and hurt caused by their failure to recognise that you have your own, valid grief. The one person you would have expected to be supportive – your partner – is so lost in his own pain that he’s just telling you to get on with it as though it were no big deal. The most important thing for you to remember right now is that his unsupportive behaviour is probably more a reflection of his grieving process than a true indication of how he feels about you and your relationship.

You have a tricky road to travel in the coming months, as you try to juggle your own feelings with his grief and presumably unintentional insensitivity. I’m not saying you can’t ask for his support, but I do think that you probably can’t expect a lot in the way of understanding from him for the minute, as the grief is still very fresh. If it continues this way in the long run, then you will need to face up to whether you want to be in a relationship (and a family) where your feelings are not considered valid, but hopefully this is temporary glitch.

If you can’t be honest about how you feel and get support at home, then make sure you are able to talk deeply about your very real disappointment and pain with a close and trusted friend, who will give you the support and validation you need. It’s not selfish to be sad about losing out on a wedding you’d obviously planned for some time or to be feeling let down by a partner who can’t or won’t see that you’re suffering too in your own way.

Then, of course, there’s the wedding date to be faced. For this, firstly make sure that you’ve had a good chance to unload about how you feel with a good friend. None of your feelings are unacceptable, selfish or wrong – they’re just normal under the circumstances, but they’ve been shoved aside in favour of everyone else’s grief over the loss of your partner’s father and you’ve been made to feel that it’s not OK to have them. When you’re feeling a bit less emotionally strained, talk to your partner about how you’d like to take that day to do something special together. Remind him how much you love him and that your wedding date is always going to be special to you, whether there’s a ceremony or not, so you’d like to honour that in some way. Try to find a way to mark the day with some time to yourselves, perhaps get away if you can, to reconnect more deeply. You might even want to consider doing a little something that honours his father too, so that you’re drawing more closely together in this period of grieving.

At some point you will quite reasonably want to know when you’ll be setting a new date for the wedding, but now may not be the time. While the grieving in the family is still so intense, you’re being called upon to be the strong one, even though that may feel terribly hard to handle. Pick your moment, too, to have a discussion about the family Christmas. It’s not only hurtful to be excluded in that way, but this would have been your first Christmas together as a married couple, so to be separated from your partner over the festive season will be even harder to handle. Again, when you’ve had a chance to talk to a supportive friend about your feelings, try raising it gently with your partner about how much you would like to spend Christmas together and see if you can create a compromise that honours your relationship and his need to be with his family.

You’ve coped amazingly well so far, so don’t undermine yourself by thinking that you’re selfish for feeling the way that you do. Anyone would be disappointed and hurt under the circumstances and just because someone else is grieving, it doesn’t mean that your feelings don’t count. Find support where you can with your own friends and family in the meantime and work gently with your partner to start building your future together again.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

A Nice Cup of Tea & A Sit Down

2006-09-28T18:41:00.000Z

Coach Fabulous is taking a bit of a rest - on a velvet chaise longue of course. Normal service will be resumed shortly. In the meantime, send in your questions and I'll spring, cat-like, into action - well, a bit like a lazy cat really ... I shall rouse myself gently from my slumber and amble back to the keyboard at a genteel pace.

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email cmailto:Coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Tainted Love

2006-09-13T17:18:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I wondered if you might be able to help me. Eleven months ago on a boys’ trip to Las Vegas to attend a motorbike event my husband of 20 years, and of previously good character, paid $250 for sex with a prostitute. He didn't manage full sex (nerves, drink, overawed by the presence of a twenty-something in his bed, whatever it may have been) but I can't get over it. I'm heartbroken that he should want to risk our relationship for 10 minutes with her. I feel weak that I didn't just throw him out but can't think of life without him.

He's a completely changed person now. He worships the ground I walk on and I know he hated the experience so much there's no way he'd go down a similar path again, but I can't move on. Any advice?

All Shook Up

Dear All Shook Up

It’s completely understandable that you’re finding it difficult to move beyond the betrayal and disappointment, so don’t put undue pressure on yourself to have ‘handled’ this by now. It’s a very tough and complex emotional issue to deal with. For some people, the mere fact that this had occurred would have been reason enough to terminate the marriage, but we all know that human relationships are a lot more complicated than that and nothing is ever really that straightforward.

I’m not so sure that this is an issue of low self-esteem for you as much as it is for him. More on that later, but for now, just let it be OK that you valued your 20-year relationship enough to want to salvage something out of a very tricky situation. If you’d told me that this was a recurring pattern, then I’d probably take a different view, but as he seems genuinely remorseful and there is obviously a lot of love between you still, the question seems to be more about how to forgive him, let go of the pain and move on in your marriage.

Rule one would be don’t judge yourself as weak for choosing to see beyond this aberration to hopefully move to a deeper and more honest relationship. If you’re staying simply because you can’t imagine a life without him in it, then that wouldn’t be a healthy choice, but to have the courage to move beyond such a profound tear in the fabric of your marriage is a bold statement of the strength of feeling between you. It’s not clear how you found out about this, but you seem to have enough details to have heard it from the horse’s mouth, so at least there appears to some degree of honesty from your partner.

Hear me correctly – I am in no way condoning his behaviour, but what I am saying to you is that this is not a black and white issue, so the choice is yours whether to continue in the marriage and there is no absolute right or wrong choice. There’s just the choice that feels most deeply and authentically the right one for you. If you feel that there’s enough love and trust to be able to rebuild the relationship, then that’s equally as valid as deciding that it’s just too much for you to overlook.

If you decide that you want to find a way to forgive and move forward, then you’ll need to get a clearer perspective on what actually occurred. What we do when these kinds of betrayals of trust occur is to make them mean something about us and our relationships, when in fact they’re often just thoughtless acts of gross stupidity. That by no means excuses the behaviour, but it does allow you to see that when this occurred, he wasn’t thinking about your marriage – he just wasn’t thinking, period. The story smacks of a typical male mid-life crisis, when he sees his life passing him by, but doesn’t deal well with those emotions, and ends up acting out and doing something as teenage as this idiotic encounter.

I don’t know what was going on for him at the time, but if you want to move forward towards forgiveness, you need to have a very honest discussion with him about the events that led up to that particular evening. If whatever produced that behaviour isn’t dealt with now, it will continue to fester. For your own sake, he needs to be willing to hear just how painful this whole experience has been for you. If you don’t feel heard and try to put this behind you without fully expressing your hurt, then that will just fester too. You don’t even have to be sure of what outcome you want from this discussion – it just needs to be honest, no holds barred and absolutely from the heart. It will help you to decide if the marriage is worth saving, because without a willingness to really address the cause, not just the incident, then it’s just going to implode at some point in the future anyway.

If you choose to go forward together, then you’re going to have to draw a line under the past. You can’t keep harking back to it and he can’t keep walking on eggshells around you – that’s just a tenuous truce, not a real agreement to move forward in honesty and trust.

Within yourself, you will have to be willing to see that his actions do not necessarily invalidate your long-term relationship. Yes, he betrayed your trust and that will take some time to return, but it doesn’t mean that all those years of love and support are suddenly worth nothing. They’re still there, even if they’re tarnished by the pain you’re currently experiencing. If you continue to dwell on this one incident as meaning that he doesn’t love you and that your whole 20-year marriage was a sham, then you’ll never get over it.

Forgiveness is never easy, but it can be made easier to contemplate if you are willing to see that forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning what he’s done. It means being willing to overlook that single event in order to see a higher truth about him and your partnership, to recognise the love that is still there, regardless of what has happened. If you want to make a go of it, this is what you need to do. Your priority must be to look to the future and the creation of a much stronger, healthier marriage that is open and honest for the both of you. Air your old resentments, any skeletons in the closet, any wish to make him suffer for what he’s done and then make a choice to move beyond that.

I genuinely believe that there’s a gift in even the darkest of circumstances. For you, this might be a marriage made stronger through adversity or a choice to move on to a whole other life for yourself. Either way, the choice is yours to make and it’s best made from a standpoint of complete honesty. Anything less would be cheating both yourself and your husband out of the opportunity to face this problem fully and deal with the underlying issues it has brought up for the two of you. If you face them now, they do not need to repeat themselves.

It’s going to take a while, but you obviously have the courage to do this. Just be kind to yourself in the process of discovering what’s right for you from hereon in. Taking him back doesn’t make you any less of a person than leaving him would have made you a better one. Just make sure that if you stay, you’re doing it because there’s a genuine foundation for a better marriage to come out of this.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Reasons To Be Cheerful

2006-09-06T16:29:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I’m trying to stay positive, but the recent breakup with my boyfriend is getting me down. I know that it was for the best, but a part of me is still finding it hard to let go and I’m always thinking about it. Why is this happening and how do I get him off my mind?

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Dear Crazy Little Thing Called Love

It goes with the territory that when a relationship ends you’re going to be a bit obsessive about it, so give yourself a break on that one. Trying to work out why it happens is probably one of the biggest mind-traps going. Forget about that and concentrate on what to do when it happens.

When you’re having a bad ex day – which is rather like a bad hair day, but more annoying – what’s happening is that the pull of the past (or your current sadness) is stronger than the vision you hold for your future. First of all, it's fine to have them, so don't dishonour your feelings. Feel them as they come up – however sad and lonely they may be – then when they've been acknowledged, you can get on with creating your future, not looking back at over your shoulder at your past.

When the obsession feels really addictive, one way to shake the grip is to focus on remembering what didn't work for you in the relationship, rather than looking wistfully back at what did. Then put some energy into visualising the kind of relationship and life you'd actually like to have. Think of the qualities you want to find in your new partner and make sure you're already creating them in your own life, eg creativity, success, vision, focus, playfulness, kindness etc. Put some energy into being grateful for the good things and people that are here in your life right now that offer you support, love and friendship.

And just be kind to yourself. Everyone has bad hair (or bad ex) days. None of us is immune. As my friend Lothar – a barman, and therefore a font of wisdom (and profanity) – always used to say in a very droll manner, C'est la f****ing vie! If you don’t take it too seriously, your mood will lift and your cares will fade away. I recommend that particular mantra to be taken on an hourly basis when things are tough. It’s true radical acceptance in action, even if it’s not something for polite company!

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Summer Holiday

2006-08-03T17:38:00.000Z

Coach Fabulous has come over all European and taken the month of August off. The next update will be on 7 September. Have a fabulous summer.

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Cold Comfort

2006-07-28T05:56:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I'm in the throes of a break up and one of my close girlfriends virtually refuses to talk about it. We will be with friends and she'll hardly even ask how I'm feeling or coping. I think it could be because I've always been the 'mum' in the group, there to support everyone else, but I feel let down by her. I just can’t understand her behaviour and would like to have some support.

Somewhat Slightly Disappointed

Dear Somewhat Slightly Disappointed

The sad fact is that once we have been cast in a role in any kind of relationship – friendship, family or love – then it can be difficult to change that perception. It sounds like you have become the one to whom everyone else runs when they have problems, which in itself is a problem for you. When you’re in this role, a couple of things can happen: people will see you as the strong one and assume you don’t need help or it frightens them that you do, because you’re meant to be the one who has it all together. Either way, that leaves you without any real support when things get tough.

To shift this one, you need to take a look at the quality of your friendships and how much they are reflecting your life as it is now. If things were carrying on as normal, then you’d probably be happy with your appointed role, but as you’ve been going through changes, you’re realising that the status quo is not doing you any favours. Relationships are meant to be a fluid balance of give and take, with both parties giving and receiving support at various times. What you’re seeing now is that this particular friendship – and probably quite a few others – functions more like a one-way street, where you are locked into the role of the one who provides the support but doesn’t necessarily get any in return. This is a deeply disappointing kind of relationship to be in, especially when – as you have just learned – you finally look for some kind of support and it’s not there for you when you need it.

There’s a part of you that’s colluded with this arrangement, so the most helpful thing to do is not to blame your friend for her lack of support, but to look at why you would find yourself in relationships like this in the first place. Part of your identity is tied up with helping others, but another part of you isn’t comfortable receiving that same support in return. So, as ever, this comes down to your self-worth – how much do you think you deserve to be listened to and comforted? You’re well-practiced at giving but you’re not good at all when it comes to receiving.

In an ideal world, people would instinctively give us the help and comfort we need, but we are by no means living in an ideal world. So, in order for you to shift out of this role and into more balanced relationships, it’s time for you to take responsibility for getting the support you need and learn to ask for it. Start in small ways, asking for help with practical things or making sure that you express how you feel, so that conversations aren’t always just about everyone else. Expect some resistance, as people won’t be expecting you to be taking centre stage a little more, but persevere. Every time you stand up for what you need, you are sending a powerful message to yourself that you are worth people’s time, love and support. Every time you let someone help you, you are learning the art of receiving and giving them the gift of letting them be the strong one for a change.

With this particular friend, try talking to her about it, but not in a challenging way. If she deflects the conversation away from what you want to talk about, then gently bring it back to that issue. If it keeps happening, you might want to ask her why she seems to be uncomfortable talking about it – you never know, it may be because it brings up feelings of a painful breakup for her, rather than because she doesn’t want to support you. This is really about you learning to create equitable relationships, which is going to require you to claim a little airtime for yourself in relationships where you’re accustomed to being the listener. This may be awkward for a while, as your friends adjust, and there is a possibility that some never will. It’s at that point you need to ask yourself if you’re willing to be stuck in the listening role or if you’re going to find yourself some friendships where there’s mutual support.

This is a new voyage of discovery for you. You’ve seen that some of your patterns of relating aren’t helpful to you, so the fun part is now learning to create ones that are. You’re on a mission to notice what’s working and what’s not, in a dispassionate way. When you’re aware of what doesn’t work for you, you then have the power to change it. This is an opportunity for you to learn to create much more fulfilling relationships for yourself and a stronger sense of self-worth. Forget the disappointment, get inspired to make some changes and get ready to enjoy the adventure.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

The Enemy Within

2006-07-20T21:09:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I've been making a series of major changes in my life - work, love life, friendships - and I've finally figured out what it is I really want to be and do. I've started on the path but sometimes feel overwhelmed by the changes that I still have to make. I know life would be easier to stay stuck but I just can't - my body and mind just won’t let me. It’s like I know I want to do this but I just can't seem to believe that I can or that I'll be successful. I think that I'm still afraid of failing and who I am kidding that I can do this?! I think a bit of it is, if I don't do it then I still have the hope of doing it, but if I do and fail then I have nothing left. How do I get out of this cycle?

Frozen

Dear Frozen

You’ve pretty much diagnosed yourself, so there’s not a great deal for me to add here, apart from a few techniques. We can be as afraid of succeeding as we are of failure and you’re caught between a rock and a hard place because you’re clearly afraid of both. But, believe me, you are not alone. What you’ve described is a fairly succinct description of the human condition – being as fearful of getting something we want as not getting it – for we are all a mass of contradictions.

This is never more evident than when we’re about to stretch ourselves outside our familiar little comfort zone. That’s the time when, despite all our optimism for change, all our insecurities will rise to the surface. They might not be true, but they do feel very real. When this happens, you really need to employ some good old-fashioned zen-like detachment and simply observe the rubbish that pops up in your head without engaging with it on an emotional level. It’s one thing to notice that an insecure thought is popping up and it’s another to identify with it so closely that you start to think it’s real. When you’re about to go into a downer about yourself, pay attention to what’s coming up and ask yourself ‘Is this the truth about me?’. Stay detached and simply observe what comes up. Keep asking that same question until you can honestly answer ‘no’. If it helps, gather evidence in your mind about why it’s not so, remembering positive instances in your life where that particular nasty brand of thought was so not true, it’s laughable. Keep going with this and you’ll be able to work it through and come out feeling much brighter.

When you can get beyond the negative thoughts, start making a note of all the evidence that points to why you will succeed. Make a list of past successes, ways you’ve grown, people you can count on for support and talents or resources that you possess. Just seeing that all down on paper should give you a confidence boost. We so rarely take the time to celebrate our achievements, yet that’s what gives us the confidence to go forward in life. Know that you’ve made big changes before and you’ll do it again. Don’t forget the power of visualisation either – make sure you see yourself achieving your goal and notice how you will feel when you do that. The more you can tap into positive emotions, the more powerful your will to succeed will be. When you can master your emotions, you will have defeated the enemy within. The next step is to harness that power to create exactly what you want.

If you’re willing to devote some time every day to imagining yourself totally successful in what you want to achieve and allowing yourself to fully feel all of those positive emotions as though they’re happening now, you will power through your current resistance. The sheer impetus of that increase in positive emotion will push you forward with confidence. Of course you still have to take the actions necessary to support your plan, but the emotional mastery is the fuel in your tank that will overcome any inertia. What stops us in our tracks is rarely an outside obstacle, but usually an inside job of lack of self-confidence and an inability to fully embrace a vision of ourselves as successful. Make an investment in yourself by seeing yourself happily making all the changes you’ve envisioned and more. Then keep affirming to yourself that it’s true. Have a zero-tolerance policy towards undermining yourself with self-doubt. When you’re about to go down that road, just stop and reaffirm your choice to believe in yourself and your future success.

When your confidence dips, don’t be hard on yourself about feeling the way you do. No-one feels great about themselves 24/7 – that’s a completely unrealistic expectation. Know that it’s perfectly OK for your feelings of self-esteem to fluctuate. What’s important is that you get back on track as quickly as you can and don’t wallow in the mire of negative self-talk.

One practical way of working on your self-image is through A Course In Miracles, which is a system of spiritual psychology that includes a workbook of exercises to do each day for a year. It can be an acquired taste, as the wisdom is couched in quite strongly Christian terms, but the best user-friendly introduction to it is A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson. The core of the Course’s teachings is that we are all good and innocent at heart. When you can really know that this is absolutely the truth about you, then letting all the rubbish drop away becomes so much easier. I’d recommend reading A Return To Love as a primer, then doing the exercises from the Course as a daily ritual to support you in having the confidence to make new choices for yourself.

Change is always risky, but it’s infinitely preferable to staying stuck. As Baz Lurhmann so quaintly noted in his film Strictly Ballroom, vivir con miedo es vivir a medias – a life lived in fear is a life half-lived. So don’t keep yourself on half rations – take courage and go for the Full Monty, however scary that might be.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Six Characters In Search Of An Author

2006-07-13T10:08:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I'm a recently-divorced, 40 year-old woman who is living in temporary rented accommodation with no friends or family nearby and feeling very isolated. I handed in my notice at work yesterday after 13 years with the same company (this was a rather rash thing for me to do). I just feel the need to get away, anywhere, and start a new life because I can't stop thinking about my failed marriage and previous relationships. My ex-husband is now living with someone else! I feel a failure: single at 40, no children, no real family or support network to speak of and then I feel guilty for feeling so self-pitying! Help...where do I go from here, I'm lost!

Cast Adrift

Dear Cast Adrift

You may feel lost at sea right now, but you are in a sea of endless possibilities - it’s up to you whether you focus on what you don’t have or where you want to go from here. As in the Pirandello play, Six Characters In Search Of An Author, you must accept that life is full of absurdities that don’t need to appear plausible simply because they are true. Yes, you are 40, on your own, feeling isolated and probably more than a little scared at starting again on the work front, but that doesn’t make you a failure. It may not be the circumstance that you might have expected for yourself at this time in your life, but there are unlived parts of yourself that are crying out for attention and are more than capable of turning this particular sow’s ear into a silk purse.

The real issue is that it’s time for you to be the author of your own life. That’s a monstrously terrifying prospect for most of us, yet your soul has thrown you into a circumstance where you have no choice but to paint yourself a new picture and write yourself a new story. You can spend a lot of time stuck in regret, beating yourself up about how this came to be, or you can roll your sleeves up and shout ‘bring it on!’. However you choose to approach this, you always have a choice. If you’re determined to suffer, you will. Equally, if you’re willing to embrace this opportunity, you’ll rise phoenix-like from the ashes. Will it be easy? No. Is it what you’re meant to do? Yes.

I salute your bravery in handing in your notice after 13 years in the midst of all these other huge changes. That speaks volumes about your courage, even if now you are wondering if you’ve made a mistake. It was a gutsy move – a part of you is clearly ready for a clean slate and you’ve just cleared the board in one fell swoop.

So where do you go from here? Well, this is going to take a bit of time for reflection, so you can get clear on how you want to live your life from now on. You’ve expressed a desire to get away and that’s a very good thing as long as you’re using it for the purposes of self-knowledge rather than escape. Getting into a new environment for a short period will help you to put a bit of psychological distance between you and the past, but I wouldn’t recommend relocating right now. That’s just geography – you may move, but your problems will go with you, so while you might feel better for a little while, anything unresolved will still rear its ugly head, even if you’re in a fabulous new place. Equally, you could head off somewhere on a whim, only to find it’s not the right place for you when the dust has settled and you’re clearer on your purpose. That can be an expensive mistake to make, so for now just focus on finding somewhere peaceful that you can spend some time in contemplation, rather than making any permanent moves.

First, you need to grieve the breakdown of your marriage. Whether it was good or bad, there’s still a heartbreak around not being able to make it work that will take some time to pass. There’s healthy grieving and there’s unhealthy grieving, so be aware of how you’re thinking about it. Healthy grieving acknowledges the loss, but also acknowledges the truth about the relationship and takes on board any lessons you need to learn. Unhealthy grieving is where you blame yourself for the relationship coming to an end and dwell on all the things you think you could have done to save it. You need to come to an acceptance that the relationship is over because it needs to be, that there is a purpose in you moving on with your life and that your future can be better than your past. If you cannot learn to hold those thoughts as your main focus, you’re in for a world of unnecessary pain. Be kind to yourself right now – you’ve found yourself separated from most of the things that we take refuge in, yet you’re still coping and I guarantee that you wouldn’t have written in for a dose of Coach Fabulous unless you believed, deep in your heart, that life holds something better for you.

You are literally at Year Zero of your new life, so what do you want to create? Right now, the best focus for your attention is finding work that makes your heart sing. It’s a pretty safe bet to guess that you’ve not exactly been over-stimulated by a job you’ve held for 13 years – there might have been changes in role in that time, but you’ve been in the same environment, so you are way overdue for a little thrill of the unknown. The best hunting ground for inspiration on what to do next is to look at what you love doing – the things you enjoy, what you do for leisure, the conversations you love to have and the books and magazines that you love to read are all clues. Think back to childhood too – are there any forgotten dreams lurking about that you always thought you’d get to someday? Well, ‘someday’ just rolled around.

Try out the ‘ideal day’ scenario. Get a pen and paper and start daydreaming about your perfect day. Go for broke and imagine what you want without limitations. If you want to ski in the morning, have lunch in Rome and then swim in the afternoon, go for it – it’s your fantasy. As wild as it gets, there will still be some kernel of truth in it, some clue to what you need to be doing. Go through the whole day, from the time you wake up, noticing who you’d like to have with you, what you’d like to be doing and where you’d like to be doing it. Pay attention to how many hours you’d like to be working and at what time of the day. Don’t assume that an ideal day is just leisure – if you’re on song, doing what you love, it won’t feel like work anyway.

Once you have that scenario mapped out, start analysing it, armed with the other clues you’ve found in the things you love to do. How could you be creative in turning fun into an occupation? For example, people who love clothes could be anything from fashion journalists, to stylists, textile designers, salespeople or window-dressers. These are all different expressions of the same core interest. When you know what you love, then you can find a way to live your purpose. As the philosopher Aristotle said, “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation."

Really embrace the power of endless possibility. You’re not shackled by any limitation of relationship, job or responsibilities right now, so make the most of it. Make bold choices, try new things, meet new people, go to new places and say a big ‘yes’ to what life has to offer. You are in explorer mode – exploring yourself, what you like, what you want and how you’d like your world to look. Be open to enjoying that journey and don’t treat it like a punishment. It’s all going to come down to the attitude you have about the choices that face you. This can be one big joyful adventure of a future or a wistful, tearful look in the rear-view mirror at your past life. The choice is yours.

A book you might like to take a look at is the delightfully-named It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now: How To Create Your Second Life After40, by the New York Times bestselling author, Barbara Sher. It’s packed full of exercises for self-enquiry that will help you shift your perspective from one of loss to one of positive expectancy.

One final thought: find support where you can. Change is scary, even when we’re loving it, so nurture your friendships and find new ones. Treat yourself kindly, because no-one feels brave every day. If you need to have a weep, have one. Then wipe off the endangered species panda-style mascara stains from under your eyes and get out there and give yourself a treat. A massage will get you out of your head and into your body, a luxe beauty treatment will lift your spirits (and leave you looking better into the bargain) and trying a new therapy like crystal healing will help to keep body and soul in tune. When the going gets tough, the tough go spa-ing - that’s my motto and I hope it works for you too.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves

2006-07-06T17:06:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

How can we, as women, enter into spiritual growth wholeheartedly when a part of that process means serving others and letting go of our ego?

This seems to be a major contradiction to the way we have been fighting to live our lives over the past few decades.

How can we retain our self-worth as individuals, or do we need it at all? Is our natural spiritual state to serve others?

Feminista

Dear Feminista

This is big territory we’re in here, so this will be a wide-ranging discussion. First of all, let’s not imagine a war between spirituality and feminism (or even femininity). If anything, the emerging spirituality of our times values the feminine spirit far more than traditional religion has done for millennia, so that’s progress. Secondly, we have an opportunity now to redefine our feminine power. Having spent decades trying to be like men in the workplace, suddenly the workplace is now beginning to value what are called the ‘softer’ skills of empathy, teamwork and emotional intelligence. It’s time for us to embrace our natural qualities and strengths, in order to redress the imbalance and inequalities in our society without having to disown who we are in the process. It’s not about male or female being better than each other, but learning to come into balance with the masculine and feminine qualities within ourselves.

All men have a female aspect to their personality, as all women have a male aspect to theirs. We fail to acknowledge the totality of ourselves when we limit our understanding to the perceptions and behaviour of a single gender. The optimum way to function in the world is to maintain the delicate balance between the qualities of the feminine and the masculine, as depicted by the yin/yang symbol of the Tao. What this implies is that we will honour our talents for inspiration and empathy as much as we do the ability to take action and achieve in the world. Yin and yang qualities – passive and active – may be attributed to the feminine and the masculine, but that doesn’t mean all women are exclusively passive and receptive, nor that all men are exclusively active and assertive. These may be natural tendencies, but they are only part of the story.

Having clarified that our challenge in life is not a battle but a balance of the sexes, let’s look at service – what it is and what it is not. Pure service is open-hearted giving to others, without agenda or seeking a specific return. Service comes from being the true expression of who you are, which naturally flows with open-heartedness and compassion. However, we often confuse service with sacrifice, as though we must lose or give away a part of ourselves in order to serve another. This is a distortion of service where the giving is done with an underlying intention of getting something in return, even if it doesn’t look like it on the surface.

To grasp a healthier concept of service, drink in this statement by the Dalai Lama, defining his spiritual beliefs: “My religion is kindness”. Service is not servitude. It is kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit. When we are giving from the wellspring of our authentic selves, service is as natural to us as breathing. It is not – and does not feel like – punishment, suffering or being made to feel less than another. There is no master and slave in true service, only sharing.

Now, back to the feminist dilemma – if we let go of ego, will we let go of our self-worth and the ground we have gained in creating a society of equality? The answer is: only if you have a poor definition of ego. The common perception of ego is that it is the bedrock of our self-worth and our self-esteem and what protects us from becoming downtrodden by others. In a spiritual sense, the real definition of ego is that it is just a personality construct that we have built around our true selves, that – rather than protecting us – actually holds us back.

When you are aligned with the truth of who you are, you don’t need an elaborate ego structure to take care of you because you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself without the need to be defensive. You know that there’s a divine spark within you and you can see that in others. Your natural instinct is to be kind and compassionate – you’re not doing it because you think you should, but because it’s just who you are. That is the embodiment of true service. The spiritual paradox is that by letting go of the false (ego) self, you enter the realm of the true self, where flow, abundance and real joy are found. We tend to think that by being of service we will somehow end up worse off, yet the opposite is true. That dynamic of suffering only applies when you are in servitude and sacrifice, not service.

To conclude, genuine self-worth comes from knowing who you really are and living authentically. When you do that, you enter the flow of life where there is no conflict between spirituality, service and the power of being a woman. How could there be? Your life is a spiritual journey towards remembering the truth of who you are as a soul and knowing that each and every one of us holds that beauty and divine spark within us, whether we’re from Venus or from Mars.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Through A Glass Darkly

2006-06-30T15:28:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

My partner has a tendency to go on binge drinking bouts. It happens about once every 10 days. We had gone through a period when he seemed to be trying to stop doing it and was getting advice on life generally but now things seem to have gotten worse again.

He has on occasions left the shopping outside the house and the front door wide open. When he does oo this he just disappears and returns circa 1 or 2 am and then talks for hours keeping me awake. I have a stressful job and have had to rent a separate apartment so that I have somewhere to go when this happens.

I realise that he has an illness but he won't hear of it. My gut feeling is just to hang around and be there for him when he is trying because when he is not drinking we have a comfortable and loving relationship, despite all this. But he is making it impossible for me to continue, as he resents my income going on a rental accommodation when there is so much he wants to do with his house and he wants me to come in with him. I have told him that whilst the drinking continues I cannot do this.

This morning I arrived home to find a half empty bottle of vodka in the kitchen and him flat out when he should have been getting ready to go to work. I fear that he will lose his job is he continues in this way but it seems that nothing can stop him when he gets that call. I know some people stay with drunks and see them through. I also know that no one can really help him but himself. I just don't know what to do anymore as he will not hear me on this subject. There is also the dog to consider, as if I am not there he leaves the dog cooped up in one room sometimes for days on end, with disastrous results in the house. Despite all this he is an intelligent and loving person.

Baffled and Confused

Dear Baffled and Confused

My heart really goes out to you – this is a terrible way to live. You’ve gone to such extreme lengths to try to function in an impossible situation, but you’re going to have to face up to the fact that this is not going to change without some radical action on your part. Your partner clearly does not have the will to clean up his act either for himself or for you and your continued participation in the partnership is simply enabling him to stay stuck. Standing by him and allowing him to perpetuate the same destructive behaviour is not helping him and it’s certainly not helping you. Unless you are willing to admit this to yourself now, you are condemning yourself to a future filled with more of the same (and probably worse).

Your partner needs the kind of professional help that you are not qualified to give. If he will not seek it, then you need to take a stand for yourself and remove yourself from the situation, even if it is only temporarily. You already have a separate apartment, so this would not be difficult to arrange. If you’re worried about the dog, take it with you. Do not use any excuse to avoid taking this crucial step. The behaviour you are being subjected to is abusive and you need to start asking yourself why you are willing to put up with that. Loving someone is not a good enough reason to put yourself through this kind of torment.

The bonds of love between you are obviously very strong, or you wouldn’t have willingly subjected yourself to this kind of ordeal, but somehow that love has morphed into an inappropriate sense of responsibility for your partner. It might look like love, but it isn’t. Healthy love doesn’t require you to sacrifice your life for someone or put up with abusive behaviour. Somewhere along the line, taking care of your own needs has completely dropped off the radar. Right now, the best thing you can do for yourself is to take a look at why you feel so much responsibility for him and so little for your own wellbeing.

Here’s the deal – if you carry on the way you are, it’s all downhill from here and he will have no incentive to change. If you step back and start to take care of yourself, he will either get his act together or carry on regardless. Either way, the only person you can guarantee to save is yourself. If he is determined to trash his own life, he’ll do it whether you’re there or not. Do you really want to be collateral damage in his own private game of crash and burn?

I know all of your friends have told you he’s bad for you and I’m going to sound just like that broken record, but if you really care for him, you need to know that the only thing that is going to shock him into action is if you withdraw and start to introduce consequences for his behaviour. Currently, he knows full well he can do what he likes and you’ll still be there. He has to know that you’re serious about building a life for yourself that includes a healthy relationship and he can be a part of that only if he’s willing to do the work on himself.

It will be hard for you to do this, but this is the only way to shift what is now a very ingrained situation. Make sure that you get all the help you possibly can, including some professional advice from an addiction support group like Al-Anon. I would also recommend that you find yourself a counsellor that you feel very comfortable with, who can support you in making the changes at your own pace, help you to unravel the complex emotional ties in this relationship and assist you in rebuilding your self-confidence and self-esteem. Friends can be helpful, but they are no substitute for a non-judgemental professional who can help you to see the situation with real clarity, while encouraging you to take the steps you need to take.

The good news is that you have already stood up for yourself by maintaining your separate apartment and refusing to invest in his property while he continues to drink. You’ve done it before and you can do it again. Take heart – this will get better if you’re willing to do what needs to be done. As well as helping your partner, you’ll be learning to make yourself a priority in your own life. Start the process by taking very good care of yourself in even the smallest of ways. Treat yourself, take time out to do what you want to do instead of what you think you should do, and be kind to yourself. These small acts of self-care are the foundation for strong self-worth. Small choices lead to larger choices and then it won’t be long before you’ll be wondering how you could have put up with a situation like this for so long.

Even if you make changes now because you know it’s the right thing for him, I hope that very soon you’ll be making those changes because you know it’s the right thing for you and that you have become the priority in your own life.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Women On The Verge Of A Friendship Breakdown

2006-06-22T15:53:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

Sometimes I feel that one of my close girlfriends puts me down. Just recently she really hurt my feelings when I needed her support. Usually, I'll take the comment and feel bad about myself, but is this what friendship is about?

Somewhat Slightly Dazed

Dear Somewhat Slightly Dazed

I’m pretty much taking this as a rhetorical question. Let’s face it, we all know that’s not what friendship is about. However, it is indicative of the little flare-ups we encounter in friendships and so the question you need to ask yourself is whether this is a temporary glitch or part of an ongoing downward spiral. If you look dispassionately at your friendship, is this an occasional lapse in an otherwise supportive relationship or is it symptomatic of how you have come to relate to each other?

No friendship is immune from the odd bout of ruffled feathers. Our beliefs, opinions, attitudes and standards are all so different that it’s unrealistic to expect to always remain in total agreement. Quite frankly, if anyone thinks they are perpetually in blissful harmony with their friends, then someone somewhere is suppressing how they truly feel in order to keep the peace. As a society – particularly here in England – we are conflict-averse and tend to let all manner of disagreements pass without comment, rather than face up to a discussion about them. While things might look OK on the surface, that leads to a lot of simmering tensions.

In your case, the things you’ve been willing to overlook in the past are starting to become more frequent or more obvious. That’s nature’s way of telling you that you need to look more deeply at what’s going on here and decide to set boundaries about what you find acceptable. Unless it’s something huge that you just can’t get past, I wouldn’t recommend taking your friend to task over the last incident, as there’s been a bit of a time lag since it occurred and it’s best to deal with these things when they are fresh.

From now on, really pay attention to how your friend interacts with you and, if a similar issue crops up, nip it in the bud. Simply say how you feel in the moment and ask her not to do it again. If you feel uncomfortable confronting her, you can soften the challenge by saying something like “It’s probably not what you intended, but when you said …, I felt …”. A good friendship can withstand plenty of these kinds of skirmishes, because we all have off days and moments of thoughtlessness. Having said that, if the same issue keeps recurring, despite having made your feelings known, it’s time to start looking for other friends.

Be prepared for the fact that your friend might be a little defensive when you raise the issue. That’s normal, as none of us are particularly adept at conflict resolution, but if she tries to invalidate your feelings by telling you that you’re wrong to feel that way, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. A healthy friendship can withstand a difference of opinion, but it will buckle under the strain of one person belittling the other.

Your friendships should be safe havens, places where you go to give and receive support. There are plenty of people in the world who are more than willing to make you feel lousy about yourself, so you certainly don’t need your friends to do that for you. A good friend sees you in all your glory, despite the fact that she knows all of your shortcomings, and yet she isn’t averse to letting you have the unvarnished truth if she knows it will be truly helpful. Even if she has to tell you a home truth, it will be done with kindness. Take that as a litmus test: if your friend is not being kind, then she’s not really being a friend.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

It's A Family Affair

2006-06-15T11:34:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I'm trying to take care of some unfinished business before I move into a new phase of my life and one of those tasks which keeps popping up is to forgive my cousin.

Last summer her boyfriend really insulted and threatened my mother in front of me and my partner. We were all very upset but have managed to forgive him, even though it made things very uncomfortable in the family, especially as he had told my cousin and Auntie that it was my mother's fault.

My cousin called me up shortly afterwards and asked me for 'my version' of the events. I told her that my version was exactly how it was – there was no other version! Anyway, I eventually told her to grow up and put the phone down on her. So, I'm finding it hard to forgive her for thinking that it was OK for him to insult my mother because he said it was her fault.

It was easier to forgive him, as I could see exactly why he would deny it. He doesn't know any better and he had a lot to lose, ie respect within the family, particularly my cousin’s parents. Now my cousin will not have anything to do with us. I haven’t tried to mend any fences, but my mother has sent Christmas and birthday gifts to her that have met with no acknowledgement or thanks.

How can I go about healing this particular wound and forgive my cousin wholeheartedly?

Harmony Hopeful

Dear Harmony Hopeful

I am going to take a wild guess and say that there was trouble in the camp long before the boyfriend took a verbal swipe at your mother. Family issues are so multilayered, it’s often difficult to ascertain when the hostilities really started, so a relatively minor incident can set off a powder keg of emotions. That’s not to say that what happened with your mother was minor, but the fact that you are finding it easier to forgive the perpetrator than your cousin shows that something deeper is at work here.

On a very basic level, it is a clear injustice and it is insulting to both you and your mother that your cousin will not accept your account of the events. In effect, she is calling you a liar by choosing to accept what her boyfriend is telling her. This, accompanied by your desire to protect your mother, is where the root of the issue lies. If you look back, there are probably quite a few instances where your relationship with your cousin has led you to feel unappreciated or disrespected, as storms don’t rise up out of clear blue sky. The clouds have been gathering for a while, but you’ve probably been ignoring them in an attempt to keep the relationship on an even keel.

When we settle for less than we are comfortable with in terms of respect within any kind of relationship, this sets up an internal dynamic of resentment that will explode at some point, no matter how hard we try to keep a lid on it. The relationship with your cousin is not an independent one like a friendship – where the emotions are more easily identified – as it is affected by the way your parents relate to each other too, so it is easier for resentments to build without you having much awareness of them. Also, if this is occurring within a family relationship, it’s also happening in other areas of your life, so it’s an issue you’ll want to take a long, hard look at.

Now that you’ve had a chance to reflect on the root cause of the issue, the task of forgiveness can become a little easier. As you realise that it’s not about forgiving a particular incident, but establishing a new pattern of relationship, then it becomes more comfortable to feel that you’re willing to overlook an incident in favour of developing that relationship.

First, don’t ask yourself to condone what occurred. Forgiveness is about choosing to look beyond behaviour in order to free yourself from the distress you still carry and to step into a new way of being with that person (if you so choose). In order to do this, it will help if you can see your cousin’s position with some compassion. For example, I suspect that she is very insecure in her relationship with her boyfriend or she would have been able to challenge him about the incident, rather than just accepting his version of events. You probably won’t have been the first person this insecurity has affected in a detrimental way and you probably won’t be the last. If her boyfriend behaves appallingly and she is always siding with him, she will be becoming increasingly isolated from her friends and family.

Second, decide what you want from now on. Do you simply want to choose to be released from the pain or go on to have a relationship with her? Forgiveness doesn’t have to mean that we go on to recontact that person. Just because we have forgiven a behaviour doesn’t mean we necessarily want that person back in our lives. Think carefully about what you really want here.

One of the most simple and practical compassion practices is the Buddhist Metta meditation. Sit quietly and imagine your heart connecting to the vast heart of universal love. See an image of yourself sitting before you, think of all the qualities you appreciate about yourself and send that image a steady stream of love from your heart. Then bring into your mind an image of someone you really love and do the same. Follow that same process for someone you don’t know well at all. Then call up the image of a person you have difficulty with and offer the same love. Finish by sending love to all beings. The incantation that goes with each stage of the meditation is “May you dwell in the heart, may you be free from suffering, may you be healed, may you be whole, may you be at peace, may you be happy.” It is enough to simply use the imagery if you find that works for you.

When you feel at peace with the situation with your cousin and thinking of her brings no resentment, then that will be the time to contact her, if you choose to do so. I would recommend writing a letter that is totally free of blame, does not ask her to do anything and that simply says that you miss her and would love to have her back in your life again. You need to be detached from the outcome on this, as she may feel she has to choose her boyfriend over a renewed relationship with you, but it is also entirely possible that as you change your perspective about her, then miraculously so may she about you.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

The Guilt Trip

2006-06-08T08:43:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I have a bit of a dilemma with a friend of mine, who desperately wants me to accompany her to an expensive event so that she can use the opportunity to meet up with a man she fancies. Unfortunately, it’s not something I really want to go to and it will take days out of my schedule. I’ve tried saying that I couldn’t afford it – which is true – but now she’s bought me a ticket and I feel honour-bound to go. Even worse, I now feel like I should reimburse her for the cost of the ticket, especially as she’s been a very good friend to me lately in some troubled times. I don’t want to let her down, but this is now making me feel very uncomfortable. What should I do?

Girl Scout’s Honour

Dear Girl Scout’s Honour

First of all, this one’s a boundary issue and that’s probably an ongoing theme for you. At the very least, this particular problem will highlight an area that you need to put some attention on, to help you avoid putting yourself in even more of these kinds of situations. If a good friend asks you to do something you’re not interested in or not comfortable with from a financial point of view, it’s perfectly reasonable to say no. The fundamental issue here is that you have put your friend’s needs way ahead of your own, so much so that you are going to spend days doing something you don’t like and pay through the nose for the privilege. There’s something wrong with that picture, don’t you think?

She may be a close and supportive friend, but it still doesn’t give her the right to overstep your boundaries and push you into doing something you’re clearly not happy with. The support that we give to others needs to fall within our own personal comfort zone of what we’re willing to offer or it becomes sacrifice. When you’re in sacrifice mode, anything you do will eventually engender resentment because you’re compromising yourself as part of the bargain. That’s never going to feel good.

You could do with some practice saying ‘no’. Start small and, where necessary, take time out before agreeing anything. It’s much harder to do when you’re caught on the hop, so – as a rule of thumb – try not to say yes to anything without allowing yourself time to think about it. This will get you more in touch with your own feelings about what you’re being asked to do and move you out of automatic people-pleaser mode. There’s a fine line between offering heartfelt support and the disease to please that comes at your own expense, so this should help you to err on the side of caution. Ultimately sacrificial behaviour helps no-one, as it erodes your self-esteem, builds resentment, doesn’t set clear boundaries and allows others to continue to perpetrate selfish or thoughtless behaviour. Most importantly, you need to ask yourself why your friend’s priorities are more important than your own. You’re obviously a giving person, so rest assured that it’s not unkind to be clear about the kind of support you’re willing to give and the kind you’re not.

For this particular problem, you are in a bit of a bind. You will need to honour the commitment of attending, as you had said you would – even though you were railroaded into it. Just take it as a useful lesson in how unclear boundaries can get you into hot water and commit yourself to saying ‘no’ sooner and more forcefully in future. Being browbeaten into doing something is not acceptable, regardless of the support you have received from your friend. Friendship is not a licence to manipulate others. If you recall just how much support you have offered to that same friend in the past, I’m sure the balance would be pretty much equal (if not way in your favour as the giving one). On a practical note, although you have agreed to attend, you can certainly re-negotiate the period of time you actually spend at the event. There’s only so much time she can spend flirting with this guy, so be the companion who enables her to do a bit of that and then move on. Don’t just stick it out feeling miserable and resentful. Reclaim some personal power in this situation and do only as much as feels appropriate to fulfil your agreement.

Finally, on the financial aspect, just drop the guilt. You’ve been manipulated into doing something you don’t want to do and can’t afford, that will take several days out of your life and leave you feeling like a gooseberry while your friend flirts for Britain, so why exactly do you feel you have to add insult to injury and pay for it as well? You’re doing her a favour, not the other way around. Don’t even go there!

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

All By Myself

2006-06-01T17:24:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I'm on the verge of a major emotional breakthrough. I have a deep fear of abandonment and am in the middle of my worst nightmare. Everyone seems to have abandoned me in my hour of need (the ending of a 7-year relationship) and those that haven't, I'm pushing away.

In spite of the pain, I feel quite detached and feel as I am watching from a distance. I know I am the only player in this game the universe has thrown at me but I'm not sure of the rules!

How do I play?

Solitaire

Dear Solitaire

I’m going to have to go with the wise words of the Rolling Stones on this one. As they memorably sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need”. While it may be feeling so hard to face this on your own, try to trust that this dark night of the soul has a purpose. As you have said, you’re sensing that a breakthrough is imminent and so it will hopefully be easier for you to understand that we sometimes find ourselves isolated from others with the express purpose of learning to get in touch with our own emotions and wisdom. It’s obviously a watershed time for you, bringing enormous change. Rest assured that the changes you are going through, while painful, are going to bring you a level of emotional freedom and self-mastery that you cannot currently envisage. On the other side of this crisis lies a whole new life that is far more expressive of who you really are.

Your fear of abandonment will have kept you in circumstances that were no longer good for you for far longer than was necessary or even bearable. This period of enforced solitude is allowing you to see more deeply into your own fearful patterns of behaviour and recognise how much they can undermine your self-confidence, making it nigh on impossible to move forward and create the life you would wish for yourself. Yet, here you are, learning to face the loss and changes that you most fear, now that life has conspired to give you that push. Take a deep breath and gather your courage, because now is the time to face those fears head on. You can’t avoid them, so the only way out is through.

What will get you through this is a sense of purpose. You cannot change the outcome of the breakdown of your relationship, but you can choose to believe that there is a new life awaiting you when you’ve worked through the emotional pain. In the midst of crisis, we tend to assume it will go on forever, and develop the habit of ‘awful-ising’, ie projecting a negative circumstance way out into the future. This is one habit you simply cannot afford to indulge, at any cost. Instead, trust the understanding of the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, who said, “What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.” When you begin to go down the road of terrifying yourself with horror stories that you’re creating about your future, hold on to the image of that butterfly.

To work through the emotional pain, try to use that detachment that you’re cultivating to notice what is real pain and what is blame or self-attack. The real pain is the true sadness and grief that you need to feel and that is totally appropriate for your circumstances. The false pain is what you tell yourself those circumstances mean about you, for example beating yourself up about things that you could not possibly have changed or believing that the breakdown of the relationship means you’re not worth loving. Be very clear about giving airtime only to real pain and not the false pain that has no basis in reality.

While solitude is a powerful place in which to work through emotional issues, it isn’t meant to be a full-time job. Even if you can’t get the kind of emotional support from people that you may have wanted, you can still get together with friends or family for a bit of light relief. The tough times show us that life is bitter-sweet and that sadness and joy can – and do – co-exist. With detachment it is possible to be truly present with your pain without allowing it to blight your entire life. It won’t always be easy to remember that, but give yourself the gift of a day off every now and then.

You will come out of this stronger and happier. Hold fast to that thought and don’t try to fight where you are right now. When you’re having a bad day, be accepting of that. When you need some comfort, make sure you treat yourself kindly. Don’t forget to ask for help, as sometimes people just don’t know what to say or do in the presence of someone else’s pain, but will happily be there for you if you are clear about the kind of support that you need.

Keep trusting in a deeper purpose and brighter future to help you find your way through the darker days. This is your chance to build your life anew, so don’t let fear hold you back from making bold choices. You’ve lost your safety net anyway, so you might as well just leap!

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Mad About The Boy

2006-05-25T09:06:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I’m newly single and a little nervous at being back on the dating scene. What’s bothering me most is that I find myself obsessing about almost every man I date, wondering if he’s going to be ‘the one’. When it doesn’t turn out that way, I’m deeply disappointed and become quite depressed. How can I stop myself from reacting so intensely and learn to give new relationships the breathing space to develop at their own pace?

Coming On Strong

Dear Coming On Strong

First of all, the big clue is that you are newly single. This is a part of your life that you can really enjoy, if you’re willing to see it as a period of self-discovery, rather than a fast-track race to hitch yourself up with another partner in the shortest possible time-frame. It sounds like your sense of self probably took a bit of a knock in your last relationship, which is why you’re in kind of a hurry to find some stability again, but leaping into another serious relationship is exactly what you don’t need right now.

You’re only going to pick the right partner for yourself if you know who you are. The fact that you’re imagining yourself into probable futures with people you hardly know just shows that your frame of questioning is out of kilter. The main issue isn’t whether or not they want to be with you, but are they the right fit for you and your life? You weaken your own sense of self-worth when you base your happiness on other people’s acceptance or rejection. This is why you become depressed when relationships don’t work out, because you are placing yourself at the mercy of someone else’s choice, feeling validated if they choose you and not if they don’t. That’s a very exposed place to be, so it’s no wonder you’re feeling vulnerable.

Of course you want to be excited about the prospect of another relationship, but when you cross the line from natural anticipation to being totally invested in every date turning into something more serious, then you have created your own personal cross to bear. You’ll need to cultivate a little detachment that will allow you to feel the excitement without being utterly invested in the outcome. Catch yourself when you’re starting to imagine potential futures and draw your attention back to the present moment, where it’s all still very much an unknown quantity. Learn to enjoy the anticipation without trying to nail it all down right away.

My best advice to you right now would be to date up a storm. Forget trying to secure a relationship, just get on with the business of having fun and noticing what each particular person brings out in you – treat it like a graduate course in self-knowledge that just happens to have lots of hunky dudes on the curriculum. Each person will show you something different about yourself, so make an effort to go out with men who are a real change from previous partners and not necessarily your first, automatic choice. This could be such an exciting and joyful time for you, as you get to know what’s important to you, what makes your heart sing and what makes you feel good about yourself.

If you find yourself going down the obsessive and insecure ‘Does he want me?’ route, then just learn to notice it, laugh at it and move swiftly on to the more pertinent question of ‘Do I want him?’. Nothing is more attractive than self-confidence and there is absolutely nothing in the universe more repellent than neediness. We’re all very intuitive beings, whether we choose to admit it or not. We can sense another’s neediness and – because we know it is a form of desperation that has very little to do with desiring us in particular – we will all run a mile when we sense that blip on the radar. So, an intense desire to find a relationship is a literally repulsive energy, pushing away the person you are trying to attract.

If you keep your intention on having a good time, learning about yourself and getting to know some interesting new people, a healthy relationship will naturally evolve from that as a by-product. If you focus on getting a relationship with an intense and needy energy, all you’ll get is heartache and a persistently worsening sense of self-worth. So, from now on, pay a lot of attention to how you feel when you’re around different prospective partners. Do you feel relaxed around them, supported, challenged, or inspired? Notice the qualities that you most admire in them and pay as much attention to what they admire in you. When you can see your own value, you can make wise choices and genuinely enjoy the process of finding the right partner.

Get your glad rags on and get out there and have fun. Let them see how fabulous you are and how lucky they’d be to have you. Make dating the kind of game you like to play because it’s an adventure, not a sprint to the finish line. Bonne chasse … happy hunting!

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Time Out

2006-05-12T18:49:00.000Z

Coach Fabulous is taking a well-earned break to soak up the sun, indulge in a little sangria and generally lounge about on the fabulous island of Ibiza. The next update will be on Thursday May 25. In the meantime, if you're looking for a little inspiration, the Coach Fabulous holiday reading selection will include Cheryl Richardson's The Unmistakeable Touch of Grace, Caroline Myss' Invisible Acts of Power and What We Ache For by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Hasta Pronto fabulistas.

Too Much, Too Little, Too Late

2006-05-04T09:45:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I have been doing some work on what I should do next with my life and find myself in the position where I know what the next step should be, but every time I try to take it something happens. I have been in a relationship for the past 3 years with someone who on the surface appears to be sweet, if a little set in his ways, sociable, intelligent and having a lot in common with myself. There is however another side to him which I have discovered over time which is an addiction to sex on the internet, and hard drinking which leaves him disabled for days and creates havoc in his life - as he does and says things which are plain nasty. I had hoped that over time, his stated intention to move into a new way of life would prevail and indeed he has recently taken some steps in a better direction but the same problems continue and I find I am personally sickened by the internet stuff in particular. We have discussed counselling but he has agreed and then reneged on that, now he is putting pressure on me to get involved with him financially which given the circumstances I cannot even consider.I think practically I should move away from him, but there is a fear of what he will do to himself if I do that. Part of me feels that in the end he will motivate himself to move forward, part of me fears he will end up in a mental hospital.People advise me that I should leave him, and indeed it is the most sensible thing to do, but what has kept me going through all of this is the belief that there is something more to him. However the recent things I have discovered (which are not run of the mill at all) have left me too cold sexually to be able to continue with a part of our lives which always, despite other problems, had worked in the past. I wonder if this is the final nail in the coffin. I have suggested sex counselling but he is so embarrassed when found out that he won't or if he agrees then he changes his mind the next day. I know he is also depressed - but again, he prefers alcohol as medication - against medical advice. Where do I begin?

Stuck on Him

Dear Stuck on Him

How bad does it have to get? The first thing you have to ask yourself is: Why am I willing to stay stuck in a relationship that gives me so little and disrespects me in so many ways? Interestingly, the opening sentence of your question was about you and the next step you want to take, but the rest is all about him. You barely get a look-in.

If a friend told this story to you, you know what your advice would be – and it wouldn’t include signing up for more of this, for sure. I’m hoping that seeing it all in black and white will give you a bit of a wake-up call, to help you see how little you are invested in your own life. Your partner is not the issue here – you are.

Relationships are very complex and it’s always easy for an outsider to say, as your friends have done, that it’s time to go. But you’re the one who has to get it. You’re the one who has to realise that your life is worth more than just caretaking someone who is out of control and has no wish or will to remedy that. Two themes are bubbling up here: one is that you are in love with the potential of your partner, not the reality, and the other is that you are practising some form of rescuing. A part of you clearly enjoys taking care of the bird with the broken wing, but this is at the expense of your own life.

When these themes are at work in our lives, we are essentially preventing ourselves from having healthier relationships, because we’ve cast ourselves in a particular role. You are getting some of your self-worth and self-esteem from helping this man in a martyr-like role and from seeing him as he could be, rather than how he is. It’s a wonderful gift to be able to hold a vision of someone else’s potential when they can’t see it for themselves, but if it means tolerating destructive behaviour in reality, then you are simply enabling them to stay stuck. You aren’t actually helping.

How you move forward from here is all about you and very little about him. You need to make some deep inner inquiry into your past relationships and look at the kinds of themes that emerge. Underneath these kinds of experiences lies a deep-seated form of self-loathing, a part of you that doesn’t believe you deserve anything better. You may consciously think that you do, but on an emotional level you don’t believe it to be true. Really be honest about how much you like yourself and how genuine your commitment is to making a better life for yourself.

There is plenty of material on I Am Fabulous to help you learn to like and ultimately love yourself for who you are, but in addition I would recommend the work of Chuck Spezzano, particularly If It Hurts, It Isn’t Love, to help you begin to understand the kind of role you have cast yourself in and to unravel those complex emotions.

What you need to take from this is that you are not responsible for anyone other than yourself. Your partner makes the choices he makes and you decide if you are willing to be around someone who behaves like that. If you’re not, you need to instigate consequences for his behaviour or his lack of action and be willing to carry them through. You need to know what your limits are, what you’re willing to tolerate and where you’re going to draw the line. This is not about controlling him or forcing him to change, but making a statement to yourself that you are committed to a better life. If he is not willing to accommodate the changes you’re making in your own life, then get out of the line of fire. You do not need to put up with his self-destruction or to try to prevent him from doing it. That’s his choice and you should be a lot more interested in what’s going on in your life than in his.

When you’re getting dragged off course by other people’s dramas it may look like it’s someone else’s fault that you’re not getting on with your own life, but that’s a total smokescreen. It’s really your own fear of striking out on your own, masquerading as rescuing, that’s at work here. Getting so tied up in your partner’s life gives you the perfect excuse not to move forward, and – even better – gives you someone else to blame for it. Don’t use this awareness to beat yourself up, just to recognise how true it might be for you and to take the steps necessary to get your focus off other people and into your own life. From a full life of your own, you will have so much more to offer others than sacrifice and guilt. You can be an inspiration to them to get on with their own.

Coach Fabulous

To Let Or Not To Let

2006-04-28T15:12:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I am having difficulty in deciding on one of two choices about how to run my finances and life following an imminent house move. I am selling my house to release capital, re-schedule all my finances finally – after a marital separation – and set off, hopefully on a new path. I cannot choose whether to buy one home for myself and live mortgage-free or to invest in property and let it, whilst renting something for myself in the meantime. I do not know which way to go and I cannot seem to make the decision. One day I feel one way and quite certain, and the next I am back to square one. I need to stabilise financially and live according to my own values, having released my attachment to someone else's. I need to sell my house. That is not in question. I need to be able to choose one way or the other about how to live going forward. I would appreciate any help you can give.

Turning Point

Dear Turning Point

The answer lies in clarifying what your values are and having the courage to live according to your own lights. You are at a really powerful juncture in your life, about to set off on the adventure of creating a new life on your own, which can also be incredibly scary. I suspect that you already know the option that you would prefer, but that you are terrified of making a mistake.

First of all, let’s take some pressure off, by saying that none of the choices available to you are mistakes – they’re just options. Also, you haven’t explored all your options either. For example, rather than the dilemma of having one paid-up house that you live in versus a buy-to-let property and renting elsewhere yourself, there’s also the option that you could purchase two smaller properties, to live in one and rent the other. The way to break the stranglehold a dilemma has on your mind is to open up to new possibilities. It’s the either/or scenario that keeps your head spinning.

Now that you can see beyond the two possibilities you have been considering, ask yourself what is really important to you - the day-to-day security of knowing your house is mortgage-free or the expanded investment potential of having additional or buy-to-let property? As you are coming out of a marriage where you seem to have had to adapt your values to suit your partner’s way of life, there may be a little work involved in uncovering exactly how you feel. If you’re in the process of reclaiming your own life and restoring your true values, these are some of the questions that will help you to get clear: Am I more naturally inclined to have everything secure and nailed down or am I happy to take a risk? How did I approach my finances before I got married? If I dropped my fear of making a mistake, what would be my first-choice option? What’s really in my heart – relaxing into being safely free of debt or optimism about investing in the future?

Then look at the business issues: How skilled am I at property investment and where could I get unbiased professional advice? Am I certain of where I want to live and am I ready to commit to buying property in that location? Have I done the research to satisfy me that rental property in that location is a sound investment?

To get completely clear on what’s the best choice for you, really feel into how each option would fit into the life you’re planning for yourself. Can you see yourself being happy and having all the flexibility or security you need? Property may be the biggest purchase you ever make, but it’s not the biggest factor in your happiness. Make your property choices serve the life you want to lead. Don’t let the tail wag the dog.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

One Way Or Another

2006-04-19T16:42:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I have the feeling that whatever I do I will have to hurt someone. I feel that for me personally I need to relocate back to my home town where my family lives, however I have had a longstanding relationship for some three years now and although it is not all bad I cannot shed my desire to be back home. I have tried to talk to my partner but he has never been able to talk about this with me. There have been ultimatums, threats, partings but we never get around to any kind of a solution. Now he is recovering from a major illness and isn't actually able to discuss anything. I feel my time is running out - I am so unhappy because I feel that I am putting everyone's needs before my own. I want to see him through this bad patch and then go home. We did agree to go for counselling but again, this is something that was agreed to and then not arranged and I guess that would reflect my own ambivalence as much as his.I am so stuck. I feel I really need space to make this decision, unfortunately with him so ill I don't see how I can right now.

Isolated and Increasingly Depressed

Dear Isolated and Increasingly Depressed

What’s coming through strongly in your question is that you feel that you only have two choices – and both of them involve some form of sacrifice. The good news is that there’s always another way to look at any situation, however limited you feel your choices may be.

Firstly, it will help you to look at the deeper reasons why you feel the strong pull to return to your home town. It’s not just about your family – there are qualities that you’re seeking such as more support, familiarity or a new start that the move home represents. This is a time to be very honest with yourself about what that move really means to you. You also might want to look at whether moving could be a form of escape from the problems you’re encountering in your relationship, rather than a real need to return.

Because you’ve been feeling depressed, just thinking about it isn’t enough, as that will just follow the tracks your mind has already established. Get creative with some coloured pens and a journal and make this a fun opportunity to gain clarity. Make lists, draw pictures or use colour to illustrate how you feel about being where you are now and what you think you’d get from moving home. Do not skip this step – writing it down will help you to clear your thoughts and get out of your ingrained thought patterns.

When you’re clear about what you really need, then it’s time to take a look at how well (or badly) those needs are being met in your relationship, your work and in the friendships you currently have. While doing this, make it a ruthless inventory – be very honest with yourself and forget about being charitable – and be very clear on what’s working and what’s not.

Then take a fresh look at how you might make changes right where you are now. What opportunities exist for you to connect more deeply with the people around you and find more support? What else could you bring into your life to help you feel more fulfilled? This will require some creative thinking and a willingness to see possibilities you’ve previously ignored or felt weren’t possible. Challenge yourself to find ways to improve your life in the smallest of ways. Find immediate opportunities to lift your mood: walk outdoors, get a massage, go dancing, see a fun film with friends. Get time away if you can. Your best thinking cannot be done in a flat, uninspired state of mind.

When you’re feeling a little more uplifted, get your journal out again and look at what’s really going on in your relationship. It’s clear that you don’t feel heard and that you feel that you have to sacrifice your needs in the relationship as it stands, even to the point where you feel you don’t have the right to discuss your feelings about wanting to move away because your partner is ill. You need to make the choice to make yourself and your wellbeing a priority and stay focused on your commitment to building a life that you enjoy, with all the support you need. Forget ultimatums and try a much more open and engaging tactic with your partner. Be honest about how you feel and let him know that you don’t have all the answers. Enlist his support in exploring options that would benefit the both of you, either where you are or back in your home town. Let him know how much you care and that you want to make it work, but that cannot come at the expense of your own life.

Of course, your own inner enquiries may show you that perhaps this relationship is not enough to hold you where you are, but at least give yourself the gift of knowing that you have tried to honour yourself and give fully to the relationship at the same time. If that can’t be done, then you can move on with a clear conscience, knowing you are making the right decision.

When you get down to the nitty-gritty of ultimate decision-making, use the visualisation of walking down each of the paths as described in the earlier Coach Fabulous dialogue, Spoiled For Choice. It will help you to feel into each option, giving you a stronger sense of the impact the choice will have. You can also use it to gauge timing too, by asking yourself how it would feel to make the decision or move now or in a few months’ time and so on.

That you’re feeling depressed is a sign that you’ve lost hope of finding an answer to a dilemma, but its underlying purpose is to make your life so uncomfortable that you will be forced to take a stand. It’s time to believe that your life counts, that what you feel and need is important and that you can be supported in making that a reality. It’s time to believe in yourself and to reach out and connect more fully in all your relationships. If you’re willing to make that commitment to yourself, then this situation could resolve itself peacefully in ways you’d never imagined.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Standing At The Crossroads

2006-04-15T18:59:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I’m a bit mixed up about the course I should be following just now. My sense is that I’m at something of a crossroads, but there are no signposts. How do I work out where I should go from here? Looking within doesn’t seem to give me any pointers and the range of things I’m looking at feels overwhelming. I’m also unwell with a bout of shingles and I wonder if I shouldn’t do too much until that goes or is that me just drifting along, ignoring what I should be doing?

Dazed and Confused

Dear Dazed and Confused

The best thing for you to do right now is to accept that you are in overwhelm on a lot of different levels - physically, mentally, emotionally and quite probably spiritually - and let that be OK. This is not the time to take on dealing with all the issues in your life, but a time to deal with just what is in front of you right now. Your first priority has to be your health. When you give yourself proper rest, rather than stressing out wanting things to be different, then as your body recuperates your clarity of mind will start to return too.

Shingles affects the nervous system, so quality of rest is vital for you now. That includes resting the mind and the emotions. Try to be mindful about how you're going to achieve that rest, by scheduling time into your day for meditation or simply being quiet and unstimulated by TV, radio, internet, phones etc. Let other people deal with their own problems and keep well away from anyone who drains your energy. Keep your focus on the present moment - how you're feeling and what your body needs in terms of light, food, rest and relaxation. That doesn't mean 24/7 beansprouts and tofu either - this is not about rigidity, but making sure that you're taking care of yourself and enjoying yourself too.

When your body is rested, your mind will naturally calm down and become clearer. You can speed that process by making sure that the forms of meditation or relaxation you do are simple and joyful for you. Give up trying hard to work it all out and focus on simply being rested. The paradox is that if you stop trying to get answers, I guarantee you they will appear as a byproduct of committing to your wellness. Use this time to feel into simple, basic guidance from your body on what you need and build up from there. Make sure that your first questions of the day are 'What would I like to do today? What would feel good? I appreciate that you're going to have to juggle other commitments, but it's your willingness to commit to yourself that's going to get you out of the doldrums.

Really watch your mental patterns around worrying. The nervous system aspect of your illness indicates a burnout from chronic anxiety or stress, so your body is trying to tell you something. Treat your illness like a shamanic test - it's come to shed light on behaviour patterns or beliefs that are no longer helpful to you, so honour it and let it do its job. Notice where your thoughts go. If you find yourself worrying, be creative and find a way to distract your mind or put it to good use imagining something fun you want to bring into your life. You could come out of this hiatus with a level of inner peace that you may never have imagined.

There are two simple messages here - accept and rest. You really don't need to do anything else for the minute. Don't worry about drifting along and not dealing with things, as there's not a lot you can achieve when your energy is low and it's certainly not the best time to make decisions. If you get very in touch with your own energy, you'll know when it's time to move into the next phase of getting clear on what you want from your life. Just keep choosing things to do and people to see that make you happy and your joie de vivre will return.

Finally, crossroads are really powerful places to be. From here you could create the kind of life you really want, as opposed to the one you think you could have. Make sure you build the kind of energy that can open you to clear guidance and bring out what's really in your heart. Don't forget, even if it looks like you're doing nothing right now, there's still a lot going on. Trust the process and let yourself off the hook.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

In My Mind's Eye

2006-04-06T19:29:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

For some reason I can’t visualise things with my eyes closed. I have very vivid dreams in colour and sound and in exceptional circumstances, say when massaging someone that I have a connection with, a spontaneous colourful beautiful image comes to me.

I can visualise things with my eyes open and can translate it to paper but I cannot create an image in my minds eye. I feel I am missing out on a whole dimension of my inner world.

Do you think I can learn to visualise or do I have to stay in my dark world?

Blind Spot

Dear Blind Spot

You don’t say why you feel the need to create images with your eyes closed, so I am guessing it’s something to with positive visualisation in meditation. This technique is a very powerful way of building confidence and creating uplifting emotional states, so it’s worth a bit of perseverance.

The good news is that you clearly already have some facility in this arena, given that you can visualise with your eyes open and that spontaneous images do come to you at times. That means this is really just a question of refining that skill, rather than starting from scratch.

When you close your eyes, try first to visualise a blank screen in front of you, rather like a movie screen. This is where all the action will take place. It might help to imagine that you are sitting in a cinema watching it all from a distance. Feel how comfortable you are in the seat, imagine the temperature in the room, sense if there’s any noise around you and see if you can notice any particular scent (like popcorn!). What is really going to make this work is your ability to tap in to as many of your senses as possible.

Then, choose a scenario to visualise that brings pleasant memories and engages all of your senses. For a lot of people, one of the easiest things to visualise is food. Think of something that’s juicy, full of flavour and scent, that you love to eat, perhaps a piece of fruit like a very ripe mango. Draw on a real memory of tasting it, to get your emotions engaged, remembering who you were with and how you felt at the time. First imagine holding it in your hand, noticing the colour, how soft it feels and what it smells like. Then take a big bite and really notice the taste, the feeling of the juice running down your chin – I defy anyone to eat a mango without that happening – and how sticky it makes your fingers feel. Notice if it’s sunny, if there’s a breeze and what’s going on around you.

When you feel comfortable with the sensations of your particular scenario, try projecting that up onto the screen, seeing the action take place in your mind’s eye. Keep re-running it and filling it with colour and light until you can be totally absorbed in it, as if it were real. Let the screen get bigger until it takes over your whole inner vision and you’re no longer watching it, but actually in the action as it’s taking place.

The more you practice with simple scenes like this, the stronger your powers of visualisation will be. Then you can build up to more complex stories of seeing yourself healthy, successful, happy, relaxed, enjoying a relationship – basically anything you want to draw into your life. Remember that the subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between real and imagined events, so your body will respond to visualisation as though it’s actually happening and release all the relaxation or happy hormones that it would in a real occurrence. So, if you can’t afford a holiday, at least get some of the benefit by visualising having one!

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Drowning In The Sea Of Love

2006-03-30T15:44:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

At the beginning of a relationship the guy is always more into me than I’m into him but then suddenly the balance changes and I feel like I am having to chase him around? How can keep a healthy balance?

Incurable Romantic

Dear Incurable Romantic

I suspect the change is not as sudden as you might think. I know that you find it bewildering, but the truth is that when you enter a new relationship you are often at your most vulnerable in terms of your self-worth. On the surface, it’s all rose-coloured glasses and loved-up bliss, but underneath, the parts of you that have experienced rejection and pain before are keeping a careful watch to ensure it doesn’t happen again or trying to maintain the relationship at all costs. This hyper-vigilance can lead to a couple of approaches that may result in your partner withdrawing from you: guardedness and neediness. Either way, these are both issues of self-worth.

In the guarded approach, you’re not trusting your own judgement enough to relax fully into the relationship, so you keep a tight rein on your emotions, making it difficult for your new amour to get to know you. He may pull back from you if he senses this, as his own fear of rejection rises up. What you then have is a stalemate between two people who are both frightened of being hurt. Only you can know if you are pushing someone away through a fear of what might happen if you really connect. If this feels like your situation, the way forward is through intimacy and communication. Be willing to be just a little more vulnerable and take a risk to let your lover know how you really feel.

The other – and quite probably more likely – scenario is that as soon as the relationship gets beyond the early stages, your unresolved lack of self-worth arises in the form of neediness. It goes something like this: in the beginning, the balance of power seems equal, but as you begin to invest yourself more into it, you plunge in headlong, desperately wanting to hold on to the relationship. Neediness is a deeply unattractive energy, as we all know. Think back to any relationship you’ve had where the other person wanted it much more than you did and remember just how off-putting that was. It’s repellent to us because, deep down, we all know that neediness is not genuinely about someone wanting us as a partner, but it’s about them using us to fill a gaping emotional hole in themselves.

People are incredibly intuitive, whether they acknowledge it or not. If the men in your life are pulling away from you, there’s more than likely a neediness-inspired ‘push-pull’ dynamic at work. The more you push towards them, the more they withdraw. That you feel you have to do the chasing is in itself an issue. Genuinely healthy self-esteem is about accepting yourself, knowing that you’re fine (alone or in relationship) and only wanting to develop relationships with people who can love and appreciate you. Neediness is always going to arise, because we all have unresolved painful issues in life, but it’s a matter of catching it when it does and being aware of what you’re doing. With that awareness, you can choose to work on your own self-worth until the question becomes ‘Is he the right person for me’, rather than ‘Why doesn’t he want me?’

There may also be something you need to look at around a pattern of choosing men who are emotionally unavailable. We tend to replicate the emotional patterns we encountered in our early years. If we have not had a lot of emotional support or closeness, that feels familiar to us, which explains the pull of attraction when another emotionally-closed partner shows up. Again, the way forward comes through being really honest with yourself about what’s going on and refraining from self-attack. Forget fretting about why he doesn’t want to be close to you and start asking yourself ‘Why would I want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me?’

It may feel like there’s a sudden turnaround from both being equally enamoured to you feeling unwanted, but believe me the signs are there from day one. Pay attention to the feelings that are coming up for you. Don’t push down or deny the uncomfortable ones and don’t fall into the ‘all men are bastards’ trap of parcelling out the blame. We are complicit in how we let people treat us. If there’s a pattern going on, you’re the common factor in each of those cases. Don’t use that to attack yourself, but to realise that you have the power of choice here. A loving, balanced relationship is what you want and is absolutely what you will have if you are willing to do the inner work necessary to build up your own sense of self-esteem. There is nothing more attractive than a woman who knows her own value.

Finally, I am going to admit a guilty secret. As much as I truly and whole-heartedly loathe the game-playing inherent in dating strategies like The Rules, I have to admit that they have hit upon a fundamental truth – it is never good to chase a man. It just doesn’t work. Decades of feminism and equality have not eroded the historic basic tenet of male-female relationships: they like to be the ones to do the chasing. We may not like it, but that's the way it is. So, get smart and remember that it’s allure that is most attractive, not total availability.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Still Waters Run Deep

2006-03-26T15:48:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I've been trying to meditate for about 20 years now but I just cannot settle down to do it - still! I really need to do it now for the sake of my health. How do I begin and how do I stop that awful feeling of 'I should be doing something else'?

Good Intentions ‘GI’ Jane

Dear GI Jane

Being named after an action movie heroine is probably quite a strong clue as to why you’re encountering so much difficulty with simply sitting still. In Western society we have a mad obsession with doing and getting, that tends to make us believe that any form of inaction is inherently valueless. Take that one step further into your own psyche and you will see that if you equate your self-worth solely with your achievements, then it will diminish if you’re not engaged in activity. To break that pattern, it will help to be clear on the value and purpose of meditation for you and also not to treat it as a ‘should’. If it’s just another item on the to-do list, then it’ll simply be yet another activity that will be hard to approach with any sense of joy.

Most people come to meditation to learn to quieten their minds and find a sense of inner peace, but there are also profound restorative health benefits that a regular practice will bring. There is a delicate ebb and flow between the alertness and vigilance of your sympathetic nervous system, which deals with stressful situations by tensing up muscles and speeding up thought processes, and your parasympathetic nervous system, which takes over when the danger has passed, decreasing your heartbeat, relaxing blood vessels and clearing away toxins. When the parasympathetic is allowed to take over, healing and restoration can take place, but if the sympathetic or ‘active’ state remains hyper-vigilant, there is no space for recuperation. Chronic stress and illness are the likely outcomes. Meditation will not only calm your mind, but it will allow your body to return to its natural self-healing state of balance.

Meditation also creates a state of relaxation where you have free-flowing access to your emotions and your intuition. If your mind is over-active, constantly dwelling on a particular problem, it can be extremely difficult to know how you truly feel about it with any real sense of clarity. As your mind is stilled through meditation, you can break through those repetitive thought patterns into the underlying emotions that can be a far more accurate guide to what is in your heart, rather than what you think you should do.

A clear mind is also a creative mind. As you develop your own powers of focus, insights and inspirations will naturally come to you. The meditative state is one of the most powerfully creative states of mind you can access. You can use it to inspire your work, your relationships or any area of life that could do with a boost. So, Ms Activity Addict, there’s no need to feel guilty about ‘not doing’ when you’re meditating, because there’s a power of good going on, even if it looks like you’re just sitting still.

To get a regular practice going, you’re going to have to walk the fine line between being disciplined and not trying too hard. If you can set aside a regular time and place, that will help, as your body responds to routine. If you give it the same cues every time, for example sitting in a certain place or a particular posture, then it will begin to relax as soon as you sit down. Using a scented candle is also a great anchor: pick a relaxing scent that you only use when meditating and your brain will respond to the aroma and begin to calm the mind through its association with the scent. Make it easy on yourself and use every trick in the book to get your body and mind into the habit of relaxation.

The easiest times of day for regular practice are morning, immediately upon wakening, and at night, just before you go to sleep. Morning works well because you’re already relaxed and your mind is still calm and unstimulated. Evening practice allows some pre-bedtime quieting down and prepares you to slip gently into sleep. Use these times for your deeper meditations and then take advantage of random ‘down-time’ moments during the day for quick sessions of mindfulness meditation. For example, you can use the time you spend in the supermarket or bank queues to focus on slowing your breath and repeat a simple, positive phrase such as ‘I am at peace’, ‘I have all the time I need’ or the classic ‘I Am Fabulous’ mantra. The trick is to slow the pace of your breathing and your mind will naturally follow by calming down.

If you’re just starting out in meditation, don’t try to force yourself to sit for extended periods. If your mind is not used to focusing, even a couple of minutes can feel difficult. Start out by simply concentrating on your breath, noticing the air pass over your upper lip as you breathe in and out through your nose. When thoughts occur – as they will – just let them pass away and return your focus to your breathing. This is the simplest form of meditation and even just five minutes will make a difference to your sense of well-being and inner poise. Build up your stamina over time and vary your practice to keep a sense of adventure in your approach to meditation. There are walking meditations, chants and guided meditations, as well as healing and blessing practices. All the great spiritual traditions have contemplative practices that you can explore and enjoy. Find the ones that touch your heart and meditation will no longer feel like an obligation and become something you love to do.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Stuck In The Middle

2006-03-16T13:16:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I am trying to shed my family role as mediator and all things to all people. I realise I enjoy the role, but I’m compromising my relationship and my energy. I fight everyone else's corner, usually without them even knowing, but no-one fights mine.

I am finding it hard to find my parameters here. How much should I let go of this worthy role? Should I let them all fend for themselves once and for all and let them feel the full force of each other's (usually unjust) wrath?

Persephone

Dear Persephone

It’s appropriate that you chose that pseudonym, as Persephone herself was trapped in a cycle of dysfunctional family dynamics. If you recall the Greek myth, she was abducted by the God of the Underworld and forced to remain there in the darkness for part of the year, mourned by her mother the harvest goddess Demeter, who refuses to let anything grow in the winter months when Persephone is with Hades. It’s the perfect metaphor for how we lose our own vitality when we are trapped in a role that no longer serves us.

Your own story is one of service and sacrifice and learning how to be truly helpful, not only to others, but to yourself. When you are in service, giving assistance freely and joyfully, then that energy is multiplied and you will feel uplifted by your interactions with others. When you are in sacrifice, acting out of duty or guilt, then equally that energy expands and you find yourself feeling exhausted and depleted. Apart from the effect on you, in a sacrificial role you aren’t actually helping others, you’re simply enabling them to carry on in the same vein. Without your intervention to keep the peace, your family members would have to find their own equilibrium with each other.

This dynamic undoubtedly extends beyond your family and must be affecting other areas of your life. It seems that quite early on you have taken on the role of mediator and placator, which will make it hard for you to define your own boundaries and be willing to stand up for yourself. So much of your energy is going into supporting others that there is very little available for you. Contrary to the messages many of us have internalised from early on in life, taking care of yourself is not selfish. If you fail to nourish yourself, you won’t be well enough or have enough energy to help anyone else anyway. The sooner you overcome an over-developed sense of “it’s better to give than receive” and begin to take care of your own energy, the sooner you will have the vitality and the awareness to be truly helpful to others, rather than giving in to that knee-jerk reaction to save them from themselves. That’s called rescuing, not helping.

Breaking this cycle will take some getting used to, so be gentle with yourself as you do. Your intentions have been good, wanting to care for others, but in doing so you have undermined yourself. Part of your identity is now wrapped up in your ability to keep the peace. That’s a great talent to have, being able to defuse difficult circumstances, but it doesn’t need to be a habit, especially at your own expense. Use it wisely and become aware of how you naturally slip into this role.

To change the habit of a lifetime, sometimes you need to exchange one way of behaving for another, until the triggers cease to set you off. I’d suggest thinking of some new habit you could cultivate, that is beneficial to you, to be used whenever the same old dynamics arise. That might be as simple as going for a walk, changing the subject or taking some quiet time to yourself. There’s no need to make it hard for yourself and stay in the line of fire in the early days. Over time you will learn to be in the same circumstance and simply let it pass by without affecting you, but initially getting out of the way will be the easiest way to effect a change.

This doesn’t mean avoiding standing up for yourself, but simply not engaging in other people’s hostilities unnecessarily. A good rule of thumb to check your own motivation when facing this issue is to notice how you feel when the circumstance arises. If you feel positive about intervening and that stepping in can be truly helpful, go ahead, but if the emotions are all about duty and guilt and feeling like you have to, then step well away. Chances are that you are just helping to perpetuate a cycle of dysfunctional relating and that you are in sacrifice.

A final thought – your worthiness is not tied up with doing worthy things. Who you are is enough. You’re fabulous in your own right and you don’t need to earn other people’s love and approval. If you fill your life with a commitment to being the real you and treating yourself with respect, your good will naturally overflow to others. You won’t need to try to make that happen. And you’ll be full of energy and happy to use your mediation skills where they can be truly useful.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter

Spoiled for Choice

2006-03-11T19:35:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

I’ve got some serious life-changing decisions to make right now and I don’t know whether to go with my head or my heart. I seem to swing between the two and always worry that I’ll be making the wrong choice. Help!

Wild at Heart

Dear Wild at Heart

Rule one is never to make a decision when you’re in a mental tornado of stress. You can pretty much guarantee that will result in a fiasco. As the great sage, Van Wilder, of Party Liaison film fame, says “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” Get calm, take the pressure off yourself and get ready for some relaxed, creative thinking.

In the head/heart decision-making dilemma, the answer is never either/or, but both. What’s in your heart is your passion, what you love to do, and an instinct for becoming the kind of person you want to be. What’s in your head is a goldmine of strategies and creative techniques for making things happen, but it can also include a lot of limiting thoughts about what’s possible for you. If the heart is exclusively in charge, the kinds of choices you make can tend to be impulsive, ungrounded and quite probably ill-judged. If the head rules, you may be paralysed by fear and indecision or pursue a dream that is more important to others than to you.

The key to making choices that reflect who you really are is the order in which you approach the head and the heart. The secret is to let the heart be the driver and let your head use its navigating talents – a creative tension that allows you to be all you can be, but also makes sure you take the necessary steps to make your dream a reality.

If you’re doing the thought tornado tailspin of mental activity, you’re unlikely to be able to access any deep inner feelings or intuition about the issue until you calm your mind down. This applies to any kind of choice, big or small, and is helpful for regaining clarity in the middle of a busy working day.

So how do you transform inner turmoil into inner peace, to help you get some clarity on your choices? First of all, break the pattern. Sitting there doing the same thing and expecting a different result clearly won’t work. The trick to calming the mind is to get into your body. Any form of gentle exercise or massage will do it. Get outside, go for a walk or do some deep breathing, which will instantly take the edge off your frazzled nerves. The slower the breath, the slower your thought patterns will tend to be.

When you’re relaxed, try looking at what your heart and your head are telling you independently. First the heart: ask yourself what you would do if you had total freedom (ie no financial constraints, no-one else’s opinion, no limits) – would this be your ideal choice? If it’s not, look further into what you’d really like to do, by imagining your ideal scenario (how you’d live, what you’d be doing, who you’d be with). If that’s hard to imagine, conjure up some dreams from childhood or adolescence – remember what was important to you then and who your role models were. How does that resonate with the choice you’re about to make – is that option taking you closer to what you want or further away?

Next, let your mind run riot. What is it telling you to do? Do a pros and cons list if that helps. Now look at what seem to be the practical choices and ask if they’re really true or are they based on fear (of rejection, failure, risk)? Do the recommendations sound like the real you or are they the kinds of advice you’ve heard from friends, family or colleagues?

To get the head and the heart working in sync, let your heart define the dream and let your head create the blueprint for how that dream can be achieved. The more closely you are in tune with your own values and passions, the more effective your decision-making will be in helping you to create a life that is meaningful for you.

The tricky part can be knowing when there’s a real constraint or if you just need to push yourself beyond a comfort zone. I would cite most American Idol or X-Factor contestants as proof positive that having a dream is not enough - you have to have talent as well. Some helpful questions can be: do I have all the resources (talent, finance, support) to make this possible and if not, where might I find them? Another killer question can be: is this the right time? As the old adage goes, nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Equally, nothing is a greater disaster than an idea past its prime.

Finally, the benchmark test when faced with making a decision between two clear choices is to get quiet, close your eyes and imagine walking down a path until you meet a fork in the road. Follow the signpost for the first choice and notice how it feels and what the landscape looks like. Does it feel light and joyful or heavier and less comfortable? Do the same for the second choice and see how it measures up. Your imagination and feelings can give you a clear signal when all else fails.

You Shall Go To The Ball

2006-03-04T17:53:00.000Z

Dear Coach Fabulous

People say nice things to me and give me positive feedback but somehow the good stuff just doesn't stick. Before I know it I am back to seeing the inadequacies and negative things in myself. Why does the negative stuff stick and the positive disappear all too quickly?

Cinderella

Dear Cinderella

It’s about learning to treat yourself in a kinder way. Compliments and appreciation from others will just disappear in an overwhelming tide of self-criticism if you’re not paying attention to making your internal dialogue a positive one.

From our earliest years we make decisions about life and how to take care of ourselves based on the responses we get from others. Unfortunately very few of the authority figures we encounter (parents, teachers, managers) know how to help us learn through positive feedback, so the kinds of voices that we tend to internalise are punitive ones. As we take on board their responses to us and develop coping strategies for life, we create an internalised voice or ‘inner judge’ that aims to protect us and keep us on the straight and narrow. Before you know it, this inner voice of self-correction runs riot and you become your own harshest critic. Your internal voice is the Ugly Stepsister of self-attack, always telling you that you’re wrong, unattractive and definitely not good enough to go to the ball.

So how do you shut her up? It’s easier than you think. The Ugly Stepsister is empowered by attention. She’s a part of your personality, so fighting her and telling her that she’s wrong is just going to lead to more self-attack and make that sense of inadequacy even stronger. This is one you have to love into submission. When that voice rises up, thank it for sharing and get on with something else, like reminding yourself of a recent success or compliment. Try having a laugh at just how ludicrous those critical thoughts can be if you imagine them being voiced by an Ugly Stepsister who looks like a pantomime dame – this will take the charge out of them and help you to see that it’s not reality, just an old way of coping that no longer serves you.

Most importantly, just get in the habit of observing the quality of your internal dialogue. How you talk to yourself affects how you feel and how others feel about you. Nothing destroys your self-confidence faster than the voice of self-attack.

To do some deeper work on transforming the ‘inner judge’, you can also do a simple meditation to open a dialogue with this sub-personality. Try getting quiet for a few minutes, close your eyes, breathe deeply and imagine that it’s sitting in front of you, ready for a chat. Just let it appear in whatever form first arises. For some people it will appear as a person, for others it can be an animal or a cartoon character. Go with whatever works for you – if you like the Ugly Stepsister imagery, use that. Start talking to it and ask what it’s trying to do for you. When you know what it thinks its job is, thank it for all its effort and ask if it’s willing to help you in another way. Tell it what you’d like to create in your life and ask if it would like to be a part of that. Give it a new job that will assist you in a positive way.

This could be anything that appeals to the vigilant nature of this sub-personality and helps you in achieving your goal, for example letting you know when you’re overdoing it and need to take a break. When you’re done, thank it for its help and gently return your attention to the room. It sounds deceptively simple, but this sub-personality work can be very powerful. The more lovingly you treat yourself (and your sub-personalities), the happier and more confident you will be.

Coach Fabulous

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent). All material © 2006 Alison Porter.

Ready For A Walk On The Wild Side?

2006-03-02T22:51:00.000Z

If you have an issue you’d like guidance on, need some help finding direction or could just do with a bit of inspiration, email CoachFabulousCo@aol.com and a little cyber-coaching will appear, as if by magic. Of course, the names will be changed to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent).

Keep your question short and sweet, choose your pseudonym and fire in an email. You can be frank or funny, serious or silly, just get writing. That’s all you need to do. Coach Fabulous will take care of the rest.