Choosing Your Perspective

We went to the fairground twice this holiday. I love the fairground. When I was a child it was a real treat to go. I'm basically a coward and don't like feeling sick, so this particular fairground isn't for me. The two adult rides are much too scary and the dodgems did my knee in last time. My current perspective on the fairground is an 'adult' one of indulging the children and taking photos. It's a 'low-key' perspective. Just right for how I feel right now.

The first time we went the fairground was empty, so we chatted to Dave, the fairground owner (seen in his cabin in the middle of the Waltzer) about his life. He is selling one of the rides for smaller children (the kind I would like to go on if I was small enough). Dave's perspective is that it's not much of a life for fairs right now because entertainment is the first thing on the shopping list to go. Judging by that night, he may well be right, but it felt like a 'no matter what I do it won't work' perspective.

The second night was busier and the children's perspective was the 'I'm going to try everything' perspective. They thought that the whole experience was enormous fun and were grateful that their heads didn't fly off as they were spinning round the Waltzer. Maybe it's a 'we've all got taller' perspective.

The week of Tuesday 1st September (we're not open on Bank Holidays) is our Choosing Your Perspective workshop. It's incredibly good fun and I frequently run it in corporates when pitching for business. You'll love it - or at least that's my perspective.

See you there,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs and author 'The Big Book of Me' and 'The Big Book of Us'
PS Do book now for my Alternatives workshop 'Live A More Creative Life' on 27th September.

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body lessons

Next week's workshop is all about re-connecting to the primal source of you - the place you live. Your body.

Speaking as a 8 month- pregnant person, I have had a bit of a journey with my relationship with my body on this ride.

• from having the 1000% cliché thought that all expectant parents have that they have created MIRACLE. (you and everyone else who was ever, um, born)
  
• to the exhaustion and weirdly flu-like,-trippy 1st trimester,
• to the blooming, strong hair and nails I Feel GREAT 2nd trimester,
• to the Wow, I Am Really Growing A Person and my belly is HUGE 3rd trimester
  
• to the final frontier of OMG, How Am I Going to Get Him Out???

Lessons galore. And I know many many more to come.

Here are a few I've been given. Trust. Rest. Balance. Slow. Extreme Care. Kindness. Belly love.

In fact we should all probably treat our body as if we are all pregnant. Eat when you are hungry. Eat frequently and really well. Sleep as much as you need. Rest. Relax. Move in ways that make you feel good. Take vitamins. Love what is happening in your body.

Brilliant for all humans!

Mostly I have discovered lot of trust in my body in a way that I never have before. IT knows what to do, even if I haven't a scoobie. For once, my clever and prone to control brain can't *do* this. It is kind of a relief.

I have a new found respect for what my wise body can do. And what a relief to finally get licence to really listen to what it needs.

And a perfect spring board for me ... I'll be going on my maternity leave after this workshop -- hopefully even more connected to the resilient place where both me and my unborn boy are living.

Won't you come and connect to your home? Find out what your body has to say. I bet it misses you.

Be well everyone!

Your Blooming Glasgow Host
Carol

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Energise your body

It's summer and my daughter and I have decided to get fit.

She's exercising a little more regularly than I am, as you can see. Even at the end of the day, her and her boyfriend are bicycling on the bed. If I manage a swim in the sea and a game of tennis I'm thrilled - and so is my body. I couldn't face a late night cycle.

So often we ignore our bodies and just huddle up on the sofa or squashed in a chair and write or sit on our computers (as I've been doing for the last six months). It feels great to pull them out and use them.

I've also been learning to think into my body. I mentioned the Enneagram a few weeks ago. I'm what is called a 'head' type. I live in my head. I go on walks thinking 'A loose stone... I might slip' or 'A muddy puddle... I might get stuck.' It means I don't ever trust my body and what it's doing. Since writing my book and that workshop, I've been trying to put my mind on hold and walk along, really feeling the ground under my feet. I know that sounds totally weird and as if it ought to be natural, but it's not.

I now go on walks noticing textures underfoot and just trusting that I'm not going to slip or slide or get stuck and it makes going for walks an adventure. I can skip and jump and not feel nervous.

This week's workshop is all about energising your body.

You can jog to your nearest workshop...

How do you energise your body?
All best,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs and author of The Big Book of Me

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Best Life Ever

This week's workshop (week of 17th August) is all about discovering your ideal life.

One of the ways to do it is to start off by thinking what a perfect day for you would be. It's a boggling exercise the first few times you do it, but I'm getting better and better at it - though of course then I change my mind and everything has to be reassessed.

Just start by noticing what you're enjoying doing and what you aren't.

For example, does the time your alarm goes off feel like a good time for you to wake up or not? What's your stomach saying it would like for breakfast? A smoothie or fry-up? Muesli and yoghurt or toast and marmalade? And would you eat it in bed or not?

And so it goes on, until you become aware of what you want from your day and what you don't. And, once you become aware, you can build some of those things in to your life so you can feel happier and happier. And then, when you've done them, it's easier to compromise and do what you know you have to do.

Two things to inspire you:
The first is my little film on creating your ideal life. You can watch the whole performance too if it fits in with your ideal day.
The second is these photos of my son feeding the mullet at our local aquarium. Such squeals of delight and happiness came from him that I knew he'd definitely want to feed those fish again.

Come and squeal with delight this week at Life Clubs and let me know your ideal day,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs
Author The Big Book of Me and, shortly to be published, The Life Book

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Finding your talents

These exquisite colours are a display of frilly knickers in a shop in Florida. They were laid on a table in the middle of the shop, just put there for us to buy them in a pick 'n mix type of way and I stood there for ages enjoying the colours and the way they were put together. I didn't want to own just one pair, I wanted to own them all and exactly in that combination. In the end I just took a photo and marvelled at the talent of it all. The talents of the designers who chose that colour palette, the talents of the store designers who decided they'd be arranged in that order and the talents of the shop assistants who kept them looking so neat.

This week's (week of 10th August) workshop, Finding Your Box of Gifts, is what I did before I started Life Clubs. I helped others discover their talents - what made them unique - so they could use those talents in the world. This workshop is the very first step to doing just that. You'll leave either knowing something new about yourself, having found one or more new talents, or being amazingly reassured that you're already on the right path.

And maybe I could revisit photography as being one of my talents and clean my camera lens.
See you this week,
Nina
Founder of Life Clubs, author of The Big Book of Me and (just handed into editor) The Life Book

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Where does your energy come from?

Anyone who knows me knows how crazy I am about a system of viewing the world called The Enneagram and next week's (3rd August) Life Clubs workshop is just a brief introduction to it. It'll get you thinking about whether you're a body, a mind or a heart person and, once you've discovered that, help you find out how to relax.

I remember the first time I was introduced to this part of The Enneagram, my friend, the wonderful Gordon Melvin, had us all walking round discovering where our attention was. Was it in our feet - noticing how our feet were solid on the ground (Body type) or was it in noticing what we were feeling and how connected we are to others (Heart Type) or were we just thinking all the time about what was going on around us and if there was any point in doing this whatsoever or not (Mind type).

Without a shadow of a doubt, I'm a skeptical mind type who likes relaxing and does it by occupying my mind. Last year it was a succession of Thomas Hardy novels, this year I'm going to wait to see what my daughter has to read for school and go for that. I like reading in company.

This week, come along and find out what relaxes you - and, if you'd like to know more about The Enneagram, on Saturday October 31st, in Central London, Gordon is going to be doing an all-day workshop on The Enneagram arranged by us. Discover what your personality type is and how it affects not only you but all the people you know and love. Contact nina@lifeclubs.co.uk to find out more.

See you now and then,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs
Author of The Big Book of Me and, in three days when it will be totally finished, The Life Book

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