Way to go!

Change was last week's Life Clubs topic and it's a huge one. We change every second of every day - whether we want to or not - and we can make changes too.

An obvious change is when you travel. These photos are of the first lovely Canadian Life Clubs Hosts in Toronto. You can see them all working hard learning what it takes to run a club. In a way being around that table in Toronto could have been being around my table in London and yet I'd changed time zone, changed temperature, changed language (up to a point) and changed families (swapping mine for Eva Marie's for the week).

At Life Clubs this week, we were talking about what can help one with change. One of my clubbers had as her Lightbulb Moment that her reaction to change was what was key. How right she was.

We can take change very badly and we can enjoy it. Often all it depends on is the frame of mind we're in when the change happens. If we're feeling good about ourselves and our lives, it can help us react positively. Conversely if everything is going wrong around us and we're feeling overwhelmed we can react negatively to yet another change. The question is how to keep your frame of mind positive so you can be open to change.

In order to enjoy Canada I spent some time on my own, showered twice a day and kept in touch with home. I also determined to stay open to my new experiences and the people I met.

What can I tell you - I loved every minute of it.

Eva-Marie, Monica, Sue, Debbie and Sonia... all I can say is 'Way to go!'

See you all for my last week of Life Clubs in 2009.
Nina
Founder Life Clubs
PS If you feel you'd like hints around change (or any of our other 50 topics), sign up to my bulletin via our website www.lifeclubs.com.

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How do you work things out?

I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of my time living in the future. I enjoy the present (and would suggest living there), but to me it hasn't got the excitement of the future.

Of course, the present has loads to recommend it - one can feel connected in the present... absorbed in the present... still in the present and much, much more. But the future - that's my spiritual home.

Living in the future makes it easy to visualise. This week's workshop was about Holding Your Dreams and I can dream far into the future. In my mind leaping forwards 20 years feels like nothing and, doing so, helps me work backwards and work out the minute detail of how I'm going to get there.

I'm in Canada right now and dreaming of Life Clubs all over Canada. We're starting small, training 4 new Hosts this week to run clubs in and around Toronto, but the fantasies are starting. I'm imagining clubs in every available venue, retreats in the woods and by the lakes. In my mind I can see Life Clubs posters on the backs of the local trams and Life Clubs pencils in everyone's pockets. I'm imagining smiling faces and happy people.

Allow me my dreams... they're what keep me going.

What do you dream about?

Hope you have a great weekend and that next week I'll see you at Life Clubs
Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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Oh gosh... travel

Last week at Life Clubs we took one of the thoughts that stops us in our lives and shook it on its head.

My current limiting belief (because I'm going to Canada on Sunday) is that I'm hopeless at travel. I'm dreading the journey, the jet lag, the disruption to my life... everything.

Now, I know I'm actually a total traveller at heart. I travelled like mad all my life, especially in my twenties and am still desperate to visit Easter Island which, my husband keeps reminding me, is as far away as it gets.

Nonetheless I panic. But, remembering the lesson learnt at the Life Club, I decided to kick through my fear, teach my limiting belief a lesson, and go to Exeter to see the play a very good friend had directed. I thought it would be a good thing to do - to have a three hour travel before my big travel on Sunday.

Believe it or not, I was petrified about Exeter too. Just being out of my own home. I called my friend numerous times to ask him if I'd be cold in the bedroom at night, if I needed to bring a towel, would we eat after the play or should I bring sandwiches... and on and on.

Everything went wrong that could go wrong. I booked the train tickets to leave from the wrong station, then I left them at home. I asked for seats going forwards and was given ones going backwards and, worst of all, I was in a silent carriage on the way back when I'd specifically asked for a noisy one.

But... I managed. I'm back home (good to be back home) and I travelled. And I loved my travel. So, yes, Life Clubs was good. Just do something you're worried about and you'll be OK.

As my friend, Lowri says, 'Jump and the net will appear'. Is that what you do too?

See you next week,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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Pass the dynamite...

Dynamite would come in handy when you feel like you're talking to a brick wall. You just want to blow that wall up and say 'listen to me... I'm saying something that's important to me.'

This week's workshop was great fun. Listening is the key to life... the key to relationships... and we don't do it often enough. Really stopping everything and listening to someone makes you feel as special and privileged as it does them. And the person who is talking can work through their issue just by being listened to.

Someone came to the club saying he never felt listened to. By the end of the workshop he'd worked out that maybe the people who never listened to him were people who never listened to anyone... unless there was some dynamite right next to them.

Enjoy listening this week... or do I need to get out my dynamite?

Nina
Founder Life Clubs, starting in Canada this week!!!

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I can breathe again

I promised you ages ago that I'd show you a photo of the lovely Canadians (Pat - holding Life Clubs sign, then clockwise, Eva-Marie, Jeannette, Michelle, Colleen and Greg) that Carol (Glasgow Host) and I trained in March and the photo has been sitting on my screen for about a month waiting for me to do just that.

This week at Life Clubs we're decluttering - and that's clearing everything from our minds to our stomachs and our computers and I thought I'd start with my computer and put everything where I want it to go.

There's something so satisfying about putting things in the places you want them. It's almost like playing with those posting boxes we had as children. You put the triangle in the triangle hole, the circle in the circle hole and the square in the square hole and they fit and they're gone and nicely tucked away and you can breathe again. It's so nice and calm.

If only real life was that easy. I've put this one photo here and have 'only' another 21 items left to sort. But at least I've got started... hooray.

See you this week,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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From now on...

I'm not the kind of person who puts pictures of herself in a swimsuit on her blog, but this was exciting... Near Toronto, minus 5 degrees, 6.00pm at night (so, getting dark), pink champagne and the hottest of hot tubs with Pat who'd just bought a two-year licence to run Life Clubs in Shalom Village, her care home, and the wonderful Carol (who runs Glasgow Life Club) keeping me company. Just to let you know how cold it was outside, Carol had to go indoors after the photo. Oh the magic of hot tubs and how wonderful the Canadians are - working hard and playing hard. And, for those of you who, like me, had never had wine in a hot tub before, let me tell you - it goes straight to your head.

When I work out my other photos I'll show you who else I was working with, but until then, enjoy the delights of Canadian hospitality from afar.

From now on I'd like to live like that.
All best,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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