Every Trick In The (Self Help) Book

New philosophies weekly.

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This is the end.

This is it, my super-late final post to wrap up Every Trick In The Self Help Book year.

So what have we learned? At this point I've been home for two weeks and my sister is the least of my worries. My Dad's new wife doesn't know how to talk to me and makes me feel awkward through her awkwardness. I suffered bad jetlag when I first arrived and haven't really had a lot of energy to throw behind anything. I'm ok. It's difficult, I'm dealing. I'm taking on each impossible situation one at a time. When you come back home you have to face a lot of truths that you can easily ignore in your normal day to day life away from home. We all do what we have to do to survive. Invariably I always think I unquestionably have a better quality of life here, so why don't I move back?

But is it really that simple? Maybe the only reason my sister went crazy and I didn't is that I had an out. Maybe all I need for peace of mind is the ability to leave a situation whenever I need to. Probably why I was so wound up when I got here and there was no car and no internet, I  was stranded.

A few months ago I had the idea to discontinue this blog after the year was done and instead make one about vintage/recycled fashion/diy costumes sort of thing, which I still might do, but now that Every Trick In The Self Help Book year is over, I may have come up with another theme. I spoke to my best friend and we tossed around an idea of us each giving the other a challenge for the year, something that would require a bit of bravery or effort but that would, ultimately, be really good for us. Then we went for drinks at another friends house and she SUPER got on board, she expanded the idea that we should each have a list of personalised challenges, one for every month, and that if we failed to complete a monthly task we would have a punishment task. This soon snowballed into the Box of Mystery, a box filled with “forfeits” things like; film a clip of you dancing in a supermarket, performing an 80's power ballad at a crowded karaoke bar, taking a selfie with a stranger, and other random tasks that would hopefully inspire you to try harder the next month.

So that's this year, my plan is to have a plan. I'm going to do my personal list of challenges, take the several trips to foreign countries I have booked , I'm going to be better when I know I haven't been my best and I'm going to try to somehow create a life I can actually be proud of.

Wish me luck, Heroes.

Xx  HG

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How To Be A Good Person If You Don’t Really Care That Much (Baddass Week Pt 1)

A few weeks ago I was looking for my next self help trial run, ignoring the fact that I already had a perfectly good self help book sitting at home unread (above pictured). I was reluctant to pick it up, firstly because it looks a whole like this other one from earlier in the year;

thusly I was sceptical that it would have anything new or interesting to say, and secondly because it was given to me by my sister who hates me. I should explain...

My sister hasn't always acted like she hates me, that's the sad part, there was a time when we got along quite well, but over the past few years, every time I've been back to visit my family, things with her seemed to get worse and worse. Recently, I saw My Sister Who Hates Me along with other sisters and members of my family as they came for a trip to London around the time of my birthday. On the day of my birthday, she didn't say happy birthday, she didn't give me a gift or a card in fact she spent the whole evening being surly and hostile, this is unfortunately not unusual for her, since the death of our mother she has become increasingly hostile towards me and to be fair, towards most humans. But she's nice to our older sister so unfortunately I find it impossible not to take her behaviour personally, I found her attitude during that trip very upsetting, as I invariably do whenever our paths cross. This is just an example (and it's probably not a great one), but on the day of my actual birthday we all went out to see a show. Afterwards my Dad offered to take us all for ice cream at a place near by, I would have liked to have gone, but one glance at my sister, who was shooting me a death glare, made me change my mind. I lied and said I was tired and didn't want to go. I took the tube home by myself and cried the whole way, trying to fathom how so much love had been lost between us, how disappointed my mother would be if she could see it. Several days later, after she had been out shopping with a friend, my sister handed me this book; You Are A Baddass by Jen Sincero. I got the impression she grabbed it on impulse as she was looking around the clothes shops, it still had the sticker on it from Urban Outfitters. At this point, considering her behaviour, I found it strange that she had decided to get me a present at all, and I had half a mind to tell her so, but of course, I kept it inside, I said thank you and promptly forgot about it.

Cut to a few weeks later, the family is gone, life has returned to normal and I'm looking for my next self help philosophy and wanting to do something to do with fears, getting over your fears ect. So there I was, making vague plans, looking at books on Amazon, and even starting to try to make an honest list of all my fears,

(this is like, page one of three) 

 when two things happened that changed my course somewhat. 1. Winter came. The temperature suddenly dropped and so did my mood, this is not unusual for me during winter here in the UK, my mood (and my health) usually suffer a lot when the days become very short and cold 2. I was reminded, totally innocuously, by a friend, of a time in the not too distant past when I ...hadn't been my best. I had been in a bad mood and snapped at someone, which is out of character for me and I felt badly about it at the time (though I never said sorry), but a whole lot worse when it was mentioned in passing by my friend. I think it's because I realised that she remembered this incident. The other people who were there probably remembered it too. I realised that I'd behaved badly (well, that I already knew), that I'd made myself look like an asshole, and that I could never take it back. That incident, of me being shitty, is IN people's memories and and I can't make it go away, its there forever. Something about this dragged my mood down more and more and I started to think.

How do you live with yourself?

That is, how do you live with yourself if you want to be a good person but you suspect you only really want to be above reproach. What was wrong with me? Was there really something on the inside that was wrong, bad and ugly? It that why my sister hated me and sometimes I hated me and I found myself wrecked with regret from some simple little thing that I had done? Is that why I changed cities, changed habits, changed my name? Was it all in an effort to find a version of myself that I could actually live with?

Around this time i wrote an email to a friend back home and tried to explain it thusly;

I can’t sleep, I stay awake and question my self worth, think about times when I wish I had behaved differently. Maybe its that at this time of year all the regrets from the past 12 months  catch up with me. I always feel if i was a truly good person I wouldn't act in a bad way. I suddenly remembered some advice today that I gave a friend months ago and i really wish I had taken myself; "if you don't want people to think you're an asshole then maybe don't act like one.".

My thoughts went very deep and very dark and then, feeling I couldn't wait for my fear books to arrive off of Amazon to begin my next self help endeavour, I picked up the book that was given to me by my sister.

Once I figured out which one was which. 

Friends, I was shocked and amazed. The book almost immediately started to speak to how I was feeling. It talked about regret and about tormenting yourselves; 

I’m not trying to say that this book’s The One, in fact I know a lot of the fact that I felt really affected by this one has to do with timing, it’s like a star sign, if you really want to you can relate anything to what’s going on in your life. But timing, as ever, is everything. So I’m proceeding with this book in the most serious way I know how, by making crazy notes; 

and honestly trying to absorb at least most of the lessons. I’ll get back to you with part 2 of this endeavour when I finish the book. Speak to you soon,

xx Hero Girl.

PS I’m totally meditating though, this book advocates it and so far I have actually managed to day-dream through the mandatory 5 minutes per day, every day. 

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Self Help Book Of The Week: The Richest Man In Babylon, (for those of us who ARE impressed by antiquity)

I am a SUCKER for a truly old self help book. There's something so eye opening about discovering that “New Age” isn't actually new at all, that people have been struggling with the same basic issues and anxieties for generations. The first self help book that I ever owned was called The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy. It was given to me by my Mum when I was 17 and I've still never read it all the way through but I remember being SHOCKED at that time, to realise that it was first published in 1962. WHAT. I really thought that was impossible. Positive thinking, affirmations, the notion that we create our own realities by the way we think, people knew this in the FUCKING SIXTIES??? Get RIGHT out of town. I was shocked then, but now I'm blaze about it, this week's book was written in 1926.  

The Richest Man In Babylon was written by George Samuel Clason and was originally a series of pamphlets distributed by insurance companies and banks. It uses a series of short stories, almost like fables, set in ancient Babylon to explain various principles relating to saving, increasing wealth and getting out of debt.

I found some of these lessons to be too obvious, like, spend less, always save something, don't live beyond your means ect. Other times there were things that I already knew but wasn't actually practising, like I know I should probably invest the money I have saved up so it can grow but I really don't know how, and Ancient Babylon can't help me with that. But by and large I would really recommend this book and here's why; it's completely honest that these things take time. In the stories, when people are getting out of debt it takes them YEARS, when characters are telling how they amassed a great fortune their story spans highs and lows, mistakes and learning and if you (like me) have spent your 2016 wishing, praying, visualising, being hypnotized and occasionally casting spells all so that something will arrive in your life spontaneously, you will understand how much of a relief this was. It will take time. That fact is at the core of every lesson in The Richest Man In Babylon. It's the opposite of this one phrase I remember from Secret Week that kept ringing in my ears “the universe likes speed” which made me nervous that if what I was Secret-ing for didn't show up quickly that I was obviously doing it wrong, or it just didn't work.

This book is less on the hippy-dippy side of self help. I'd say the only two vaguely new-age parts were 1) Fortune favours the brave, or as they put it “The Goddess of Luck favours those who take action” and 2) You will magically be able to live off of 9/10 of what you earn, you won't even miss it if you put 1/10 aside.

What We'll Take Away is:

1. The book advocates putting aside 10% of what you earn every single week, so you can save up to invest in something later. My earnings vary greatly from week to week but I've set up a direct debit all the same. 

2. I realised that up until this point in my life I've had a strong aversion to making long term plans. On the one hand you can call this living in the moment, on the other; intolerance for anything other than instant gratification, which is kind of the hallmark of my generation. Take acting school for instance, after I graduated from high school my parents wanted me to go get a real degree before pursuing acting and they had a point. But I couldn't conceive of waiting, of delaying what I wanted to do even if it might serve me better in the long run, so I left for acting school as soon as I got into one. I was always in a rush. I'm not saying those choices were right or wrong it's just a pattern with me. But for me, this book actually legitimises the idea that it's ok for these things to take time.

So that's a wrap on The Richest Man In Babylon. At this point I realise that I'm rapidly running out of year, but I still have a fair few items and ideas on my reading list including;

How to Win Friends and Influence People

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

How To Use Your Enemies

You Are A Badass (Got this one for my birthday so there’s no excuse not to do it really) 

Something about fears (I keep saying this) 

And something possibly addressing my seasonal affective disorder...

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Homelessness in style; sitting on a park bench with champagne and strawberries down the road from the youth hostel I was staying in while I waited to be allowed to move into my new flat. The book the glasses are sitting on? The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A Fuck by Sarah Knight.

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Self Help Book Trial Run: The Life Changing Magic Of Not Giving A F**k

So once upon a time there was a rich white woman in America with too much time on her hands. Ok, I'm not being fair, let me start over. Once upon a time this chick read a book called The Life Changing Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo, and, being the savvy writer-editor that she was, decided to apply the concept to mental clutter, write her own book, give it a memorable name and watch the dollah roll in. I don't know why I got up SO far on the cynical side of the bed this morning. 

Maybe its because I know I myself gave far too few fucks about writing these entries over the last month and now I'm annoyed at how much work I have to do to catch up. Sigh, ok lets recap.

This book was handed to me just in time for me to become homeless, nothing too concerning about that, it's an inconvenience that happens to me roughly once a year, usually in September. Having this book at that time was appropriate as during annual homeless week I had to give WAY fewer fucks about just about everything. Side note, I've found it's times like these when any and all existential crisis disappear completely, it seems that when your biggest concern is where you're going to sleep that night and how on earth you're going to drag your worldly possessions there, the larger questions of what you're doing with your life necessarily take a back seat.

Anyway, Not Giving a Fuck, basically it's a two step method that she calls the NotSorry Method. One: Decide not to give a fuck and Two: Don't give that fuck. (Are you wondering how a whole book was written on this subject yet?). But it is also mentioned that before you even start, for any of this to work, you MUST, stop caring what other people think. Ah. Right. Look, I'm personally of the opinion that if that was as easy to do as it is to say then we'd all be sociopaths. But we can't all be sociopaths, so we're gonna have to leave that to Sherlock Holmes and that one manager at work and deal with what we have here in the real world.  

I did try to use these lessons, when I was homeless I stayed in a youth hostel but of course was still working. In the morning I was reluctant to go down to the kitchen to eat breakfast in my work clothes, even though that would be simplest considering my room was three floors up and in a Georgian building that's a SHIT TONNE of stairs. I knew that if I was observed in my work clothes then I would really stand out from the other people, who were travellers and backpackers, and I'd obviously be a local who just couldn't keep their shit together. It was at times like this over the coming weeks that I tried to stop and think, what's the option that's most convenient, least stressful and makes the most sense? And tried to make myself care about that more than saving face. This probably seems simple but you'd be alarmed at how infrequently I'd take these factors into account. After all, I lied to my co-workers about where I was moving to, my friends about where I was staying, my family about how long I'd be out of a house, all to save face, all because I can't stand people to see me struggle.

I feel I’ve gotten slightly off topic here...Points of interest!

1. The word “fuck” is used so many times in this book that it will cease to hold any meaning for you

2. The author advocates having many and varied “personal policies” against, well, just about anything that you don’t want to do, so you can have a reason to tell people you’re not going to do something. This is supposed to help you draw lines WITHOUT sounding like an asshole but honestly, if you say you have a personal policies against, karaoke, crowdfunding or helping your friends move I can guarantee you you’re gonna sound like an asshole.  

3. She kind of over-sells her genius throughout the book, there’s a lot of talk about how she’s changed her life, her husband’s life, the lives of anyone who will listen to her..

4. This passage made me burst into crazy laughter right inthe middle of my quiet hostel dorm:

Probably because my Dad had recently been putting the pressure on for me to travel to Australia for his wedding next year, and on the list of thing I don’t give a fuck about...

Closing thoughts, this book was not by any means a waste of time. Is is as revolutionary as the author seems to think? Absolutely not. But it encourages a sensical, practical, energy-saving mode of thinking. Which is applicable to me insofar as I go out of my way not to appear incapable to other people. I was recently watching a documentary called Dragon Girls which is about a Kung Fu school in China (there’s a connection here, wait for it) and was surprised to hear an elderly taoist monk have this to say about it: 

I’m more inclined to believe him than the American lady, but that’s just me. He looks so wise...

Stay tuned for our next installment which includes wealth-building secrets from Ancient Babylon. See you soon,

xx Hero Girl 

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When I Find Myself In Times Of Trouble: Totes Catholic Week

Catholic Week, because yes I am that blasphemous. After visiting a beautiful church in Paris, I was inspired to devote myself to my technical on-paper religion of Catholicism for a week. It was confirmed to me that this was a good idea when, in the style of the previously discussed Buddha head, Jesus appeared in my front yard;

and I took it to be a sign.

A bit of history; me and my many sisters were all raised Catholic, we went to catholic school and were dragged kicking and screaming to mass every Sunday, every week of every year until we were old enough to vote. I think its a uniquely Australian experience that despite this, religion didn't really factor into our day to day lives, at all. We take it all with a grain of salt, down under. I was an adult before I ever met anyone who was what I'd call a true believer. And she wasn't even Australian. The priest in our church growing up  was extremely old and impossible for us to understand. So as soon as we entered the mass, we were waiting for it to end. I think it wasn't until after he died that someone told me that the priest was apparently Irish, I only knew we couldn't understand a word that came out of his mouth. To give you an idea of how much our catholic upbringing inspired us to be good Christians, I present to you the story of Polish Express Mass. Our parents (but lets be honest, it was mostly mum) required that we go to church every weekend, but by the time we were teenagers we didn't have to go all together. The church was within walking distance so if we wanted to go on Saturday night on our own and sleep in Sunday morning, we were allowed. Now, the average Catholic mass runs for about an hour to an hour 15, depending on how long the priest speaks for, and how many people are present to take communion. When we were in our late teens we discovered that there was a polish priest at a church one suburb over who spoke for a grand total of about 5 minutes on the gospel, which meant his Saturday night mass ran at a record breaking 35 minutes long. By this point in time, my older sister had her driving license so every Saturday she was free, we'd all bundle into her tiny Toyota echo and speed across to the “express” mass, all for the sake of sparing ourselves an extra 20 odd minutes inside the house of the lord.  

I completed Catholic week a few weeks ago and it ties into the reason why my posts are so late right now, the housing crisis. During Catholic week I prayed daily that I would be able to find a place to live, my notice-to-quit had come through a month before and I was rapidly running out of time to find somewhere appropriate. I also attended mass which had several interesting points to it. Some things have changed since I last attended, and not just the prayers (which have an updated english translation to what I'm used to) but I think it’s a sign of the times that at this mass, after we'd done the “let's all shake hands with each other as a sign of peace” thing, everyone immediately either pulled out hand sanitiser or proceeded to the back of the church where they had huge pump bottles of it waiting for your post-peace sterilisation. Weirdly they still do the shared cup of wine thing though at communion, which is counter intuitive not to mention gross. Imagine drinking wine first thing on a Sunday morning. You don't think about that stuff when you're a child. Anyway, as I sat (and stood, and kneeled) in the mass, getting the words wrong and forgetting that you have to make the sign of the cross with your RIGHT hand (I was holding my bag when I came in so I messed that up) I started to remember the last time I had willingly spent time praying in a church, and all sorts of things I haven't thought about in ages. For example;

After I finished high school and was about to take my first big trip to Europe, I discovered that I had underestimated the amount of time that was necessary for my visa to be granted and my passport to be returned to me. Thusly there was a chance that the day of my flight would come, and I wouldn't have a passport to leave on. At this point in time I was working at a local cafe to save up money for the trip and every day, for about 2 weeks, on my way home I would stop in the church and pray a rosary for my passport to be returned to me in time. Being such a basic catholic, praying a rosary was pretty much my catch-all solution to anything, not knowing any of the more specific or complicated prayers. But low and behold, my passport was turned to me in record time and I got what I wanted. So for me it's another case of “well if it worked, why don't you use it all the time?”. And I think it's fear, honestly. I think it's fear that it wouldn't work out the second or third time, and then all hope would be lost. Anyhow, as I said, I applied my prayers to trying to find a new place to live, and eventually I did, although I will say that the move in date is not for several weeks, and the landlord hasn't been available for me to sign the contract yet. So I'm temporarily homeless. Again. Which I swore to myself that I'd NEVER be. Sometimes London makes you do all sorts of things you thought you'd never do. Sometimes London makes you feel like it's trying to push you out, and maybe you should just let it. And sometimes, London makes you leave your home, once a year, every year and always in Autumn for some reason. I know because I stayed with the exact same friends I'm staying with now, for the exact same reason, exactly a year ago. It's like the universe is trying to remind me that I'm a gypsy and that I should give up all pretence and hope of ever having a permanent lifestyle.

So that's where we're at. Perhaps the most disappointing thing is that I had thought that right about now I'd be able to put so much time and effort into really growing my online shop, but instead I've had to suspend it completely because  all my stuff is in storage. It's really bad timing, especially with Halloween coming up. So going forward, what new life philosophy can we adhere to to help us in our times of trouble? Eat Pray Love ? (I just remembered that exists lol) Tarot? Voodoo? Oprahism? Stay tuned, an answer will present itself as usual I suspect...

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Le Week En France (Lifestyle Trial Run)

Well, first of all, it was delicious. To recap, I went to a friends wedding in France and ended up staying there about a week. Before I left a friend gave me this book:

Which she had stumbled upon, and I decided, having really enjoyed my time in France, that I would extend my holiday by using the lessons of the book, and what I had actually observed about my time there to make this week’s life philosophy; Being French.

The Background: I have actually spent a good bit of time in France over the years, it’s probably the country, after Australia and England that I've spent the most time in, in my teen years I achieved quite a high level of speaking French and even worked in France, before I decided that the French were all arrogant and snobbish and I wanted nothing to do with them and wished I'd spent my time learning Japanese instead. I'm over that now. Anyway, in French week I focussed on;

Food.

 Feeding yourself consistently and appropriately. I have never eaten so much bread and cheese in my life. I also ate raw radishes (which I saw my French friends doing, I don't know if I've ever seen a radish in real life before) and drank red wine. I realised that I never usually spent half what I was spending on groceries, which kind of made me go, wow. I'm not really taking care of myself am I? I don't really care about food. I care about being skinny and somewhat healthy and not being hungry. In that order.

Comme Il Faut. This is a phrase that you may or may not have heard of but it also appeared in the above pictured book and I can tell you first hand that in France, it’s a Thing. It basically means “correct” in behaviour or methods, that there's a place and a way and a time for everything. My French friends never seem to worry that there’s not enough time to do things, It’s like they believe in the notion of “a thing should be done properly or not at all” but then also believe that there’s always time to do the thing properly. My French friends run late a lot. And so do I, but it’s less because I do things properly and more because I’m a master procrastinator and I always want more time for me and less for my employers. Through French week I tried to chill out and not be overwhelmed by the various demands on my time. Tried to take things more one-at-a-time style.

Unwavering Belief In Your Own Self Importance.

Yeah I struggle with this on a good day. But I tried to apply this when I was dealing with difficult people at work. Most of the people that I work with are kind of...interesting? They're not people that I would find myself making friends with in the real world, can we say that? We're just not alike. But if you have unwavering belief  in your own self importance you tend to be bothered by other people less. You tend to care about other people less, I suppose, because you are planted firmly in the centre of your own universe. So when my colleagues were being petty or snobbish, as they have a tendency to do, I just reminded myself that I am above it all and I'm just there to earn my money and go home. This job, like everything in my life, is temporary.

In closing; French week was nice, it was relaxing in a way, and I think there's something to be said for the comforts of routine and tradition. Eating the same types of foods, waking up at the same time, knowing exactly what you're going to do and the way you're going to do it, every day. The French have no time for guesswork or “maybes”. There's a right way to do everything and everything shall be done in the right way. If nothing else I can take away that. And the 3 kilos I've gained from eating all that food....

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Where have I been? House hunting. On a tight budget and an even tighter deadline like...

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The last (French) supper. There was also wine. French week is done! Wrap up to follow soon x

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Spot the landmark. If you're wondering where I've been, the answer is France, I had a wedding to go to and dropped in on some friends in Paris too (also went thrift shopping for my online store because I LITERALLY do not know how to stop working. I don't take holidays these days, I take business trips). It's inspired me to do French week this week, French food, French attitude. I'll let you know how that pans out soon xx

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As promised, sigils from Girlboss week.

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Life Philosophy This Week? BOSS! (Michelle Obama!)

Purse so heavy getting Oprah dollahs! 

It’s #GIRLBOSS in point of fact, this week, following a recommendation from a friend we read #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso. Sophia started an online vintage store which became very successful and famous in the US, and now does business worldwide. She didn't finish high school or get a uni degree and when she stared selling vintage (on ebay) she was broke and had terrible credit, so she couldn't borrow any money. Now she's CEO of a multimillion dollar company. The process took about 7 years. As I also sell vintage on the internet in my spare time (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThriftShopPrincess) , I found this a really inspiring book and it got me really enthused about what I could potentially accomplish, although I will say that it kind of got me over-thinking the things I buy to sell which is never a good thing. An interesting point about #Girlboss is that it actually directly references the practices I was using in last week's life philosophy, The Secret: 

And then goes on to discount it completely;

Yeah, she's comically missed the point there. BUT practices we will be using from #Girlboss going forward; “Who cares if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it? It still falls.” I (usually) put a lot of effort into my shop's instagram for example (thriftshop.princess) , but I can get frustrated and disheartened when it seems like its having no effect, which is pretty much all the time. Sophia says that if you truly believe that what you're doing will have positive results then it will, just give it time. She also said that she believes part of her success is due to the fact that she never set out for her online shop to be a huge business, but she didn't half-ass it either. She dealt with all her customers and potential customers as she would her friends. I could probably take a lesson from that cause I every time I get a message from an American shopper saying something like “How come the shipping's so much?” or “I've bought this but I only actually want it if it'll arrive by Friday”  I want to scream at them “I'M NOT IN AMERICA! I'm not IN America! There are other countries on the internet!” I could probably afford to chill out about that a little. The last thing I'm going to try is probably the fruitiest; sigils. That is;

It really appeals to my sense of witchcraft. I’ll post mine here but I'm not going to tell you what is is, I'm just going to leave it here, this'll be my safe place for it to manifest its destiny. 

For the next life philosophy I'd like to find something on fears, specifically, and I don't know if anyone else feels this way sometimes, but like, being afraid to get what you want. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I feel like I'm almost afraid to get what I want. Sometimes I think I know what would make me happy but then the very next day my mood's changed and I don't want it anymore, or at least, that day dream scenario of what my life would be like doesn't bring me any joy any more. One thing that #girlboss did teach me though is that I think what I really want is to work for myself. To make my own money. I mentioned in a post last year that I was always winning incentives at work for who could sell the most. In the bar-specific training we did before starting my last job we did a speed test where you were given a big long drink order which you had to make, and they tested your speed, accuracy and amount wasted to figure out how much money you could potentially make in an hour of a busy shift. I was worth over £1000, the clear winner, I tested higher than even our manager did. I'm at the point now where I feel completely over making money for other people. I know I'm good at making money for companies, why shouldn't I do that for myself? So those are my thoughts for this week. Write in if you know any conquer-your-fears type self-help regimes for me, and I'll see you soon! xx  

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Life Philosophy Trial Run #8: ...It’s a Secret

Not that kind of secret.

Welcome to Secret Week! For those of you unfamiliar, The Secret is a self help book by Rhonda Byrne first published in 2006. This week (I'm using the term “week” very loosely here) I rewatched the low-budget DVD version, also entitled The Secret, which came out in the same year and features;

Word Art!

Special Effects!

Local-news-program-worthy Re-enactments!

And! This Dude! For some reason!

History: I have watched the Secret DVD before, it was one of the countless new age schools of thought me and my sisters were incidentally exposed to almost 10 years ago when my Mother's disease started progressing. The Secret preaches that your thoughts shape your reality, nothing new for us if you've been following the blog this year, but I think the biggest difference between the Secret and just about every other new age school of thought that says essentially the same thing is its popularity. The Secret, in its heyday, became part of mainstream pop culture. Consequently it was made fun of mercilessly by several comedy shows I can remember at the time and I think this helped it slowly slip our of the public consciousness. I certainly can't remember the last time I tried to use it, I definitely had vision boards as a young person so maybe that was it, but when I think about the Secret there's one particular thing that sticks out, a memory from around the time I was first made aware of it. *Sigh*. I don't generally like to think about this.

When I was 14 I was being harassed by a man. I won't say “stalked” because that's perhaps too strong a word, I didn't get phone calls or death threats, but without going too deep into it, it was enough to make me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe. I tried to communicate this to my parents and other adults but they either didn't see (or didn't want to see) the reality of what was happening, or just had no idea how to help me. It's not illegal to talk to people, it's not illegal to show up in certain places, so what can you do? I spent every spare second worrying about it. At school my mind would be occupied with lessons or talking to friends but as soon as my mind had time to wander it came back to that. “What am I going to do? How can I escape him? When is he going to approach me next?” I made myself sick with worry and then, I did the only thing I could think of, I tried to Secret my way out of it. I think I've mentioned before that I tend to use meditation as a last resort when things go badly wrong? This was like that. Instead of spending every spare second with my heart beating out of my chest from stress, I spent it focussing on peace, visualising and affirming that there was nothing to bother me at all, nothing upsetting to be seen, and telling myself I'd only see friendly faces that day. And things changed. Gradually at first, then I wouldn't see him for a day, then two days,then maybe once a week, then not at all. It was unfathomable how a person who had been so consistently present was quite suddenly, just not there. Especially since I was pretty sure he lived in the neighbourhood considering how much I saw him around my work and home. I was so relieved I cried. On a lighter note, around the same time my sister used it successfully to be spontaneously offered a ticket to the concert she wanted to attend, and my Mother to win the lottery. She won like $20, but still.

The Practicalities: I started this experiment by re-watching the Oprah special on The Secret, because the whole thing was on youtube and I thought it'd be a good refresher course. A couple of ideas were discussed that I thought I could start with. One was to write out a detailed description of how you want your life to be, except you write it present tense and allow that to help you really feel the way you would if it were true. That's a big part of The Secret; feel the way you would if you had all of your desires. But for a first step, they advocate forgiveness. They said that no matter what problem you're having, you have to forgive someone before it's going to really go away. Maybe its your own fault and you have to forgive yourself. Maybe it is someone else, but you don't actually have to call them or go up to them and say “I forgive you for messing me up”, you can do this in your consciousness, in your mind just forgive them, and acknowledge that they no longer have any bearing on your life or your choices. This idea resonated with me, perhaps because at the time I had been having recurring dreams of righteous anger, so I thought maybe some forgiveness was in order. I wrote it all down as writing helps me focus my thoughts. And I forgave EVERYONE who has ever laid a metaphorical finger on me. Friends, parents, employers, public service people, guys in clubs who's names I can't even remember, anyone who's ever let me down, insulted me or intentionally or unintentionally made me feel like I was worthless. And myself. 100 times over for so many different mistakes and bad choices. I wrote for pages and pages. There may have been dramatic tears. But after I was finished, and I made the conscious decision to let it all go, I legitimately felt better. And I think it makes space. The Secret, and a lot of other schools of thought, talk about the impossibility of getting anything new in your life until you've let go of something else. Last week I was doing Pink Bubble Technique to try sort out my work situation and it didn't work. This week after the forgiveness thing I immediately started getting calls and emails. I got invited to interview for a box office job, I got a call from another job I interviewed for back in February who straight up offered me a casual job with them, and I got a call from the Royal Opera House who I had applied to for their apprenticeship program about a month prior, and all but given up on, inviting me to attend a skills test at their workshop.

Long story short, since then I've worked out my work situation somewhat thanks to taking up one of those offers, and I attended the skills test for the apprenticeship but didn't progress beyond that. I also went back and watched The Secret DVD in its entirety and tried to “start small” as they say, by manifesting myself a pound tip at work. That did not eventuate. But it got me thinking; “how much do you want what you want?”  Say for arguments sake that it was really was The Secret that saved me when I was 14, at that time I truly felt, in my mind and in my body, that my life depended on it. There was no alternative, I needed that person gone from my life or I could not continue living mine. I'm not saying that the universe responds to ultimatums, I'm saying, if I want, I don't know, financial abundance for example, and if I literally dedicated ALL my spare time, every waking moment to putting the mental effort into attaining that, would it come true? If I make it THAT important, could I really have the kind of life I would like to have in an ideal world? And should it be that important? Life and death; the kind of life you'd love vs one that's just ok? The Secret would probably argue yes. But I don't know, I've always had the sense that I am inherently much more fortunate than many others (because I am). On the flip side I also have the sense that because I am SO adaptable, I often lack the fire under my ass to strive for anything better. So here's what we'll do; the Every Waking Moment approach. When I'm walking to the tube station, waiting for the audience to come order drinks from me, brushing my teeth, whatever, I'll be thanking the universe for my fame and fortune, for my success and achievement. And I'll try do the visualisation too. The feeling-the-feelings bit. I want to see if I can make my happiness and fulfilment as important to me now as my life was to me at 14. And why not? What have you got to lose, right?

Bonus Thought: Cause this post wasn't long enough already. I would actually recommend everyone to watch The Secret DVD. Say what you want about the philosophy but the majority of the people who's talking heads make up the film are professional motivational speakers for good reason; they're very motivational. And everyone can use a bit of that from time to time.

[searchforherogirl]

Life Philosophy No. 7 (approx) for 2016 – Pink Bubble Technique

The “Pink Bubble Technique” guided visualisation by Shakti Gawain is probably the track I've listened to most out of the various new age recordings I inherited from my mother and that now live on my ipod. Mainly because it's also shortest, at about 5 minutes in length, but we'll get to that. For those of you unfamiliar with American new age minds of the 20th century, Shakti Gawain  is a New Age and personal development author whose books have sold over 10 million copies. Her best known book is Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Life (1978), which has been a bestselling book for nearly 40 years. I didn't know any of that when I started listening to it, I only knew that here was a 5 minute, easy way to supposedly solve all your problems in life so I was on board. The technique is simple;

Pick one thing to focus on, something you want, or something you want to change

Visualise it as clearly as possible, put yourself in your mental picture and try to feel as if it's actually happening

Imagine your image bathed in pink light, surrounded by a pink bubble, as it were

Let go, picture the bubble floating off into the universe, free to attract the energy it needs for its manifestation.

According to Shakti, pink is the colour that is most in tune with your heart frequencies (or something) so if you visualise with pink light, you will attract only that which is most in tune with your desires. I think I have that right, I certainly remember from previous experience with reiki therapy that pink is the colour of your heart chakra, so that lines up. 

I decided to focus this past week on my work situation, which could definitely stand to be improved. I'm not sure how to feel about my new job, other than sore. I had no idea the amount of carrying heavy boxes up and down stairs that would come with this new job, and it's already aggravated an existing condition I have with my back, so I've basically got the strength and flexibility of a woman nine months pregnant at the moment. The lower back pain too. Visualising an ideal situation for work is very difficult though, in the short term I just need a job that's paid enough that I don't have to do it full time hours, and I don't hate. It's difficult to visualise that. For half the week I was just pink-bubbling chatting with my friends, telling them I'd found the perfect job, where I had enough money that I didn't have to worry, and enough free time to work on my own stuff. For the second part of the week I'd kind of decided that a good-enough job I maybe could aim for would be a backstage job, assisting with costumes, dressing or even chaperoning, which is like a really highly paid baby sitter for the child actors of the west end. Matilda the musical, for example, employs a whole team of chaperones. So I visualised working back stage.

Results? Well, I'm writing this sat on my bedroom floor with a heat bag on my back and dreading my shift which starts in an hours time. So no, a week of daily visualisation hasn't done it. But I did get the idea of what to aim for, and I did join up with two websites for job hunters, one for film and tv jobs and one for theatre, which I can use for costume-related job hunting for the next month. They're websites for professionals really, and you're expected to pay but the first month is free, so.

Other Unrelated Thoughts From This Week

This thing about being in a job you hate and in a house you're about to be evicted from, is it forces you to re-examine your fucking life. Ok, I'm exaggerating, I don't hate my job but its not ideal. And once again, because I have the worst luck in the universe, we've been told the person who owns the house we let out doesn't want to let it out anymore, we have to be out first week of September. It's another opportunity to jump ship honestly, though that would be slightly awkward timing wise considering I have family visiting in late September. My latest thought is I could quit my job and travel around, I could go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August and my friend's wedding in France and visit another friend in Lake Como and then go back to Australia as it starts to get cold. I don't know if I'd return or not, all told I just don't have a good reason to right now do I? Today, it seems like there's just not that much that I love about my life here. But today I'm hung over and exhausted, so.

I also thought about going back to Sydney towards the end of this year/beginning of next to take some short course at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, that way I could miss the winter here, and then come back with a bit more skill-age. My last thought is, I wonder how feasible and/or sensible it would be for one of these trial run weeks, for me to actually get some anxiety meds. Too hard to do? Too hazardous? Not sure, we'll see.

[searchforherogirl]

There is no try.

[maybelline]

LOL through the day.

[searchforherogirl]

Lol is all you need.