Feeling good in your body

My husband is a cross between the water rat in The Wind in the Willows and a character from Three Men in a Boat, so I know to expect a weekly 'let's go rowing'. I quite often find some sort of excuse, but as the clouds were nowhere to be seen and this week's workshop is called Energise Your Body and is all about finding out what makes your body feel good, I thought 'why not' and got ready for a bit of gentle exercise.

It was beautiful on the river. A little choppy, but one of those windy, sunny days which I love. After a disastrous start, in which we almost collided with Richmond bridge, I was off and very much at one with my oars.

We speeded along admiring the coots, grebes, gulls, cormorants and herons, swapping every now and again to take it in turn to row. We were having a lovely time, smiling at all the other passing boats, and I was glad I'd come.

Then, disaster struck. Nearing the boatyard my husband suggested he row the final stretch so that he could 'park' the boat. We got ready to swap sides.

Now, this boat is very narrow, very shallow and a little bit tippy anyway and I had one of those feelings that something was going to happen. As we did our crawling on your hands and knees dance to swap over, the boat toppled over onto its side and I, almost in slow motion, fell out and into the Thames.

I was pleasantly surprised at how warm the water was and I got some swimming in - so even more exercise than I'd anticipated - but once I got back into the boat I began to feel extremely cold and a little shivery.

Luckily my husband had a spare jumper and pair of shorts, so I could get out of my wet clothes and into his dry ones, but I couldn't wait to get home and have a hot shower.

Now, tucked up in bed with a sweet cup of tea I'm feeling much better. I wouldn't say 'good' in my body, but almost.

Roll on next weekend. Can't wait to go rowing again.

See you this week for our inspiring workshop on your body. Great for anyone who doesn't think they like exercise and wonderful for anyone who does

Love,
Nina

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Que Sera Sera

I remember vividly my mother and I singing Doris Day's Que Sera Sera as we were waltzing around the kitchen.... Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.

It's a great way of feeling you can relax and passively allow someone/something else to be in charge of you and your life.

In many ways it's true - we're not in charge. A friend of mine has just got pneumonia out of the blue, another is moving to Singapore for two years as her husband has been relocated. Both of them feel tossed around by fate and are making the best of their situation.

At Life Clubs we like you to feel you have at least a modicum of control in your life. We like you to feel inspired by a big Plan A - a future you're planning.

As you'll be tackling your Plan A one week at the time you can be flexible if things change, but without that Plan A, we believe you'll not be motivated. You'll be reactively moving along to whatever gets thrown in your way.

This week's workshop, *Life Circles, is about intuitively creating a future you want. You'll leave with a Plan A for the next two years tucked under your arm and a spring in your step.

In fact you'll probably be dancing around the kitchen singing I Want It All (High School Musical)... I want it all, imagine having everything you ever dreamed...

Now won't that be fun!!!

See you this week to create our Plan A.
Looking forward,
Nina
*This workshop was run to much acclaim in January - it's our only workshop to be repeated twice!

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What's in a shape?

Our image comes today courtesy of Lime Cube Marketing, whose logo intrigues me and is particularly relevant to this week's workshop, What Shape Am I In?.

Although I can see it's a lime and my mouth puckers and salivates all at the same time looking at it, the shape confuses me.

A cubed lime, apart from needing a different kind of squeezer, looks so much more organised and deliberate. This lime seems functional rather than warm and decorative. This is a lime that means business.

Look around you. Almost everything you can see is associated with a particular shape. Windows and doors are rectangular (except for portholes and hobbit-hole windows), pictures are rectangular as are books and on and on. Shapes are a shorthand for what things are and suddenly seeing them expressed differently makes us reassess them.

Our workshop this week is all about using the metaphor of shape to discover ourselves and what's important to us. It's one of our identity workshops and not only good fun, but incredibly revealing.

What shape are you in right now? Are you an oval or a square lime?

See you this week - can't wait.
Best wishes,
Nina

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Do you like what you see when you look in the mirror?

There's a fun magazine series out at the moment about what people see when they look in the mirror and this haunting graphic*, by the German painter, Otto Dix, illustrates the way we can so often see ourselves. Note the smooth, sensuous back which has changed into the chest of an ugly hag by the time she sees herself in the mirror.

Otto Dix is famous for his dark and often erotic imagery, but to me this picture brings home a point. We so often look for the worst in ourselves.

This week's workshop, From The Outside In, is about our bodies and self-image.

I find it easy to look at myself in the mirror and notice my middle-age spread, the bags under my eyes, my unruly hair. But what if I looked in the mirror and saw instead my Rubens-like curves, the twinkle in my eyes, my thick, unique hair? Wouldn't that be better.

Or, better still, what if each time I looked in the mirror and asked if I liked what I see, back came the reply: 'Yes I do....I know I can rely on her anytime.'

Ignore Otto Dix (and the mirror) and come along this week and discover your inner (and outer) strengths. It's a powerful workshop.

Looking forward,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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We are all lottery winners

How lucky for Mr & Mrs Weir that they won their £161 million just before our Life Clubs workshop this week on money, Want or Need? I thoroughly suggest they jump into their new car (if she’s allowed to buy one) and come on over.

Posh and Becks (only a few million wealthier) have had years in which to accumulate their money, working hard and persistently to get it. They’ve had time to work out what they wanted, time to make mistakes with it, time to row over it.

Mr & Mrs Weir sound like a thoroughly grounded, together couple, but to survive that much money arriving in one fell swoop will call on skills greater than those they have previously needed. Skills that Posh and Becks have been honing for the last seventeen years.

No doubt when Mr & Mrs Weir bought their first ticket all those years ago they had in their mind that the odd million would come in useful. And now they’ve been overwhelmed.

What do you want money for? And how much do you really need – or want? If only Mr & Mrs Weir had come to our money workshop last year they might have saved themselves all the angst they’re about to go through.

Don’t make the same mistake as them!

See you at Life Clubs.
Best wishes,
Nina

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I'm such a worrier

I worry about everything, especially the weather.

For some reason I can never imagine the weather being any different to the way it is right this minute. So I'm sure you can sympathise that for me, packing to go on holiday somewhere hot, for example, is really difficult. I just can't believe that anywhere will be a different temperature from the London I'm in as I'm packing.

Yesterday I decided I'd go to the market with my husband. He loves shopping so goes off every Saturday to buy salamis, cheeses and anything else he fancies and, as I don't like shopping, I leave him to it. But yesterday I said I'd keep him company and he suggested cycling.

As we got to the Boris bikes it was seriously grey skies and quite clearly about to start raining. I looked up and said I'd rather go by car. "It's going to keep being like this" I told him "and I don't want to get wet with all our shopping."

So, kind and patient man that he is, he listened to my moans and we went in the car.

How foolish I was. The moment we got to the market the skies were blue and the sun was shining. It would have been a wonderful bike ride and, here we were, stuck in the car.

In honour of this week's workshop, Never Again, I made a pledge. I was never going to let the weather put me off doing what I want to again.

We're going rowing on the river today. It's looking grey, but I'm up for it!

See you at this week's workshop. It's inspirational!
Best wishes,
Nina

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Sometimes I don't feel like being creative

This week's Life Clubs workshop, Getting Out Of The Box, is all about being creative. It's an enormously fun and innovative workshop and I can promise that you'll learn a lot of simple tricks that will have you feeling creative even though (on a bad day) you might say you're not really a creative person.

I don't believe anyone isn't creative, although I certainly know what it's like to feel leaden and uncreative.

This week I've been fluctuating between moments of high creativity and 'I'm not creative' thoughts, started off by the wonderful Treasure website. It invites anyone to send in their favourite treasures and then it displays them - it's a fun site for looking at.

But, over the last two weeks, thinking about what my favourite treasure is plus what I'd say about it, has made me feel very inadequate. I'm not much of a hoarder of knick-knacks and couldn't really decide on which piece in my small collection was most important to me - if any. I was bought up by refugee parents who (for obvious reasons) never put too much store by possessions and have inherited the belief that it's people, not things, that are important.

So, I've gone from one piece to another wondering which one best represents me and, then, just yesterday, thinking of nothing in particular, I realised that the only really important treasure for me is my set of coloured pencils.

What makes you feel creative?

See you next week.
Best wishes,
Nina

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