Your Wish is My Command

Almost two weeks ago, my family and I flew half way across the world in the hope of experiencing snow. As we have lived in hot and humid South East Asia for 10 years, my 3 daughters did not know what real snow was like.

I told them that if we all wish for snow, it will happen. Although I said this confidently to my children, I knew deep down that the UK does not usually have snow for Christmas and that it's not the best strategy to wish for the unpredictable British weather to be on our side.

And just like a scene from Aladdin, our wish was our command. It snowed! We were out walking the dog when thick,white flakes started to fall silently around until the fields, lanes and roof tops were carpeted in a thick, white blanket of pure, fresh snow. The scene was magical. Like magic what we wished for had come true.


As the challenges of the snow and the cold set in, I was reminded of the well-known proverb 'be careful what you wish for as it may surely be yours'. I used to work with a colleague who wished he didn't have to go to work every day.When his job was made redundant he laughed nervously and said "I've wished for this for years and now the day has finally arrived, I'm not sure whether I want it."

As Mother Theresa said "More tears are shed over answerered prayers than unanswered ones."

Know with certainty what you wish for in 2010 and let it be a great year.

Let it Snow

We took the family to see Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol in 3D. My four year old daughter reached out her hands to catch the snowflakes falling from the sky in the film and couldn't understand why they weren't in her hand. I explained to her that the snowflakes were not real and felt disappointed to tell her this. I admired her for having such a wonderful sense of imagination, which all young children seem to so easily have.

When we become adults, we tend to lose sight of our imagination and become more aware of what 'reality' is. And yet what is reality?

As Einstein said "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

Our perceptions of 'reality' can get in the way of our imagination. As Ken Robinson, internationally acclaimed leader in creativity and innovation pointed out in his book called 'The Element', "People will pride themselves on being 'down to earth', 'realistic' and 'no-nonsense' and deride those who 'have their heads in the clouds' and yet far more than any other power, imagination is what sets human beings apart from every other species on earth."

The power of our imagination is what has created all that we have around us. When we use our imagination and let our ideas stick together, the end result can be an avalanche:

"Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together." Source unknown.

 

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ...............

Follow Your Heart

I started this week ending on an emotional high. What a great way to start the week as it has continued in this way for the rest of the week.On Monday I completed running our NoLimits 7 day NLP Business Practitioner certification at a beautiful, lush tropical retreat among the green rice paddies of Ubud. The perfect setting for personal reflection, inspiration and transformation.

At the end of the programme, we celebrated our successes of completing this highly intensive, accelerated learning and sometimes gruelling NLP certification. My husband and I treated the group of participants to a tasty dinner at Nomads in Ubud which serves a colourful array of both Indonesian and international food to  high culinary standards.

To my surprise at the end of the dinner, the participants handed over a  'thank you' card and two presents. The one present was a funky, red, pinky and yellow tie-dyed v-necked tee-shirt that had a big tie-dye white outline of a heart and on the back of the tee-shirt were the signatures of all the participants. The words inscribed above the shape of the heart were: FOLLOW YOUR ........

On several occasions during the programme, I had been referring and agreeing to what one of the participants said "I believe in the saying 'follow your bliss' so this is what I do in my work and life." By following her bliss, this participant has moved from Hungary to London and now works in a beautiful estate in the hills of Ubud and goodness knows what other magical places and experiences she will continue to encounter because of this empowering belief.

The second present I received was a beautiful beaded, hand sewn, rectangular shaped purse. I had been admiring one of the participant's exact purse all week and couldn't resist feeling and admiring the small beads, only the size of a pin head that were carefully sewn into gold, cream and warm brown circular patterns. As I had admired the purse so much the participant went out to find the same purse for me but she couldn't find one so she kindly gave me her purse as a gift instead!

I was heartened by these kind acts and noticed when I got home that the participants had inscribed the words 'FOLLOW YOUR' in their own handwriting!  I will treasure and follow these words and kind acts forever.

Follow your bliss and your heart will sure to be there too.

Help! I've lost my brain.....

I’ve Lost My Brain....

My emotional levels hit a high and it all starts so innocently.

My 4 year old daughter is off sick from school. She decides to join me and amuse herself in my bedroom while I work at my writing desk. As I look over to check what Emelia is doing, I notice that half of my model, foam brain is missing. I walk over to check whether the other half has fallen on the floor.

“Have you seen the other half of my brain?” I innocently enquire.

“No Mummy, I haven’t seen your brain.” My four year old looks up at me perplexed and starts to help me to look for my brain.

“It looks like this.”  I show my daughter the other half of the grey, foam brain so that she knows what she’s looking for. She looks under the bed and around the room, but can’t find my brain. I can’t find my brain either and start to panic.

“Have you been playing with my brain? I need my brain for my workshop next week” I raise my voice as I start to get agitated and my emotions start rising, like a kettle full of water that is just about to boil. As my mind desperately scans for an answer, I think of the two puppies. Where are the puppies? They are remarkably quiet and nowhere to be seen.

By now my emotions are at boiling point, as I frantically search my room, behind the curtains, under the bedroom furniture, in the closed wardrobe and still no sign of the other half of my brain. I run out onto the open landing and shout down to my office assistant who is beavering away quietly at her desk.

“Have you seen my brain anywhere?”

She looks confused as she literally translates what brain means to her. She looks up at me as if to say, isn’t it in your head like any other normal human being.

“My brain, my brain, I’ve lost my brain.” I grimace and gesture with my hands questioningly to show my feelings of angst, dismay and sheer annoyance.

My office assistant quietly ponders as she politely figures out what on earth I'm going on about.

“I need my brain for my NLP programme next week.”  I exclaim my hands up in the air in total disillusionment. She still has no clear understanding what I'm on about. I run into the bedroom and back out onto the landing again to show her the other half of the brain. "The other half looks exactly like this." I demonstrate vividly and hold my brain as though I've just lost a twin baby.

My office assistant's eyes perk up.Without saying a word, she assertively stands up, turns around and talks rapid Indonesian in her very quiet and calm tone to Wayan, my staff who maintains the villa. After an intense whispered conversation, my office assistant walks out of my view and I'm left peering over the wooden bannister, like Juliet looking for Romeo. My suspense is quickly cut short when she returns guiltily to show me a half chewed, half foam brain. Instinctively I run down the stairs and pick up my twin soggy, half chewed, discoloured brain. As I hold it, I look in silent dismay.There's no way this will fit neatly with the other half of the brain. There's no way I can artfully glue it back together again as the chewed bits must already be digesting and expanding in the puppies' tummies. 

I start laughing. My office assistant and Wayan smile politely, not sure whether they should be relieved.


There's nothing I can do about my half eaten brain. Rather than think “some day I’ll be able to laugh about this” and fester for the rest of the day, I choose to see the funny side now. There are so many other possibilities I can use to explain the brain, including using only one half.

Confusion is the Doorway to Understanding

Have you ever experienced a trigger that has set off an unexpected set of emotions?  This week I’ve been working in my Singapore office and I’ve loved every moment of it as I can so easily slot back into my corporate lifestyle of business suits, meetings and office discussions.

I was busily organising myself for my next NLP certification in Bali and opened my favourite, black, Chinese style DVD cabinet when I saw my girls’ little blue pencil case in the bottom right hand corner. I used to keep this pencil case specifically for my girls’ homework, to avoid the excuse “I can’t find a pencil to do my homework.”  I picked up the pencil case and immediately experienced a choking feeling in my throat as my eyes started watering. I was sad that my girls were no longer at their ‘old’ school.

I’ve experienced a week of confusing emotions. On the one hand I want to live out my dream of living, building our own place and running high powered executive and personal development retreats in Bali. On the other hand I’m happy to be back in the busy, consumer driven urban lifestyle. Although I grew up in the green mountains and countryside of Wales, maybe the 20 years of my corporate career in London, Hong Kong and Singapore have made me addicted to the fast paced and busy, stressful lifestyle that comes with urban living.
I am confused and yet I know that this confusion is good for me. It allows me to figure out who I want to be. I want to spend time in the countryside of Bali writing, reflecting and running retreats. I also want to spend time in the fast pace of urban living.

My confusion is allowing me to understand that I can choose to do both. Rather than treat confusion as a frustration, treat it as a gift.  Confusion allows us to ask questions and within these questions lie the answers to understanding.

Patience is a Virtue

It’s been one of those weeks where my patience has been tested. I sometimes wonder whether it was just me who decided to move to Bali or whether the powers of the universe conspired to get me into this situation so that I learn to be more patient and tolerant. There’s the old clichéd saying ‘Patience is a virtue’ and yet how many of us do follow this or appreciate it? Nowadays with the speed of technology do we even need to be patient anymore? If I have a burning question about absolutely anything, I can ‘google’ it and have the information instantly available at my fingertips.

So what has triggered my thoughts about patience? I have been without an internet connection at home for two weeks and it feels like I’ve had my right hand chopped off. To top it all, Bali is having a number of powercuts for 3 months while the electricity lines are enhanced from a power station in Java. We’ve had 3 powercuts in the last week and a half and they last 5 hours at a time. I can’t connect with the outer cyber world from home and after 1 hour, I can’t use my laptop when the battery runs out. Having worked in executive coaching, training, career management and Human Resources for the last 20 years, I do recognise that I so easily fit the corporate mould of being impatient for results. I also recognise that I can learn so much from these new challenges that are presented to me.

Instead of getting frustrated and impatient, a skill which I can so easily do, I am learning the wonders of being patient. It makes me a better person. Rather than getting worked up into a frenzy, another skill which I can easily turn on, I am learning to be more resourceful. Rather than wearing myself out with a whole bunch of unnecessary emotions, I am able to channel my energies into positive and resourceful solutions.

Living Your Dream

I was sent an email by a coachee this week who congratulated me on living my dream. She wrote "I am so envious of you, I wish I could live my dream." The magical, tropical, paradise island of Bali may seem like a dream to many people and there are times when I have to remind myself of the leap of faith it took to follow one of my dreams to live here. It doesn't mean to say though that dreams come without frustrations.

How often do we dream about all the frustrations that go with living our dream? I hear you say,  'how can you possibly have frustrations when you live your dream?' Our mind is very good about fantasising how wonderful life will be when we finally live our dream. So much so that we sometimes forget to 'be'. We pin alll our hopes on how wonderful life could be, rather than being grateful for what we have now and enjoying the moment.

So how has it been living my dream? Rather like being pinged around on a pin ball machine. There are the highs which create wonderful feelings of happiness and then there are the frustrations. Those moments when I feel I'm being pinged around in circles and not getting anywhere. I keep on going, enjoying the highs and the lows and living in the moment. Just by 'being', keeps my mind free of distractions and makes me appreciate the 'now', rather than dreaming I wish life could be .......

"He stands like a statue
Becomes part of the machine ....
...How do you think he does it?
(I don't know)
What makes him so good?

He ain't got no distractions
Can't hear those buzzers and bells
Don't see lights a flashin'
Plays by sense of smell
Always gets a replay

..That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball
"  Lyrics

My response to my coachee was "you don't have to wait to live your dream to enjoy life. Start enjoying and living in the now. The frustrations are just part of the journey."

Our Adventure Begins

Green seems to be the theme for me right now.

Two months ago, my family and I moved from urban, comsumer driven Singapore to live ‘A Green Life’ in a villa surrounded by the green, lush, rice paddy fields of Bali. Our three girls aged 10, 9 and 4 are going to the Green School, a totally untraditional, non conventional school compared to the traditional conventional British school they attended in Singapore.
The Green School’s vision is green:   ‘Delivering a generation of global citizens who are knowledgeable about and inspired to take responsibility for the sustainability of the world’.

Our children study in open bamboo classrooms in the middle of the green Balinese jungle and they’ve started talking in a green, environment friendly, global awareness way. “Mummy do you realise that our toilets are not environment friendly?” I hear them say.  I’m green about how to respond, as I know that suggesting to get a green toilet seat or even paint the toilets green will not be the right environmentally ‘green’ answer.

Besides being environmentally green, my husband and I are even greener about living in a developing country while running our own company in another developed one. Can we live in a developing country, let alone work in another? To top it all, we’re even greener about fulfilling our dream of ‘one day’ building our own villa in Bali, which we’ve heard from other horror stories is not for the faint hearted.


Is the grass greener on the other side?  Are we being naïve green? Will we prefer ‘A Green Life’ to our urban, consumer driven lifestyle that made us want to reach out for something greener?  Do I want to go the whole ‘green’ hog or do I still enjoy the conveniences of flushable toilets and modern life to ever change? Can I really cope with my mid-life change to a slower, less efficient, more peaceful lifestyle that Bali brings or am I addicted to the perils and conveniences of modern city living?

The jury is still out on this one. I will keep you posted of my green journey.