The spiritual and the material

So I spent yesterday getting in touch with my ‘inner self’. Went to the Global Retreat Centre of the Brahma Kumaris which possibly sounds a lot weirder than it actually was.

The centre is the most amazing 18th century Palladian villa which - given that the organisation is funded entirely by donations - is an incredible feat. The ethos is that volunteers will take better care of a property than ‘paid’ workers and from seeing the theory in action, it’s hard to disagree.

To stick to the physical, our lunch was amazing. At the beginning of the day, we were given a little speech about the ethos of the house and the facts that waste is not tolerated and our lunch would be cooked with love. Well love is very tasty (as was the chickpea soup, super proper chapattis and apple pie).

The meditation was very relaxing and the content was extremely interesting. I think I may have to assimilate it all a little more to really understand and/or decide whether I can really believe it all. Certainly the second session on spirituality freaked me out somewhat but that possibly has something to do with my rather unformed views of life, the universe and everything.

Came away feeling positive and determined to meditate (every day), hmmm…haven’t managed it today which is fairly poor. Need to reschedule and make that extra time in my day which is - in theory - easier because at least it gets light earlier (on dark mornings you have the scenario of 15 extra minutes in bed or dragging your carcass out of the duvet and trying to concentrate on your inner being - guess which one wins?). Well the spirit is willing, I just have to get the flesh co-operating.

So to the material…

Stayed in a really nice hotel last night. No matter what the star rating,  it’s the little things in a hotel which make me feel warm and cosy, for example Molton Brown toiletries (always a winner), saying you have forgotten your toothpaste (therefore asking where is the nearest supermarket/chemist?) and being given a little dental kit; cotton wool balls and cotton buds in the bathroom (much under-rated and always appreciated); a free bottle of water (because you know you can’t really drink the water out of the bathroom taps). Just those little things that make you smile (or - if you’re me - make you squeal entirely unnecessarily but quite joyfully). However, on the down side, the room was far too hot which made it stuffy and has not entirely helped ye olde cold.

And then to the realms of ridiculous in the material world. A house two doors down and exactly the same (in terms of layout) to ours has just been put up for sale for the most ridiculous amount of cash. I am actually quite scared about it. In theory it’s a good thing but in practise I am concerned that this house turns into £ signs rather than what I consider  its primary focus: my home. I swore when we moved here three and a half years ago that I never wanted to move again and that still holds true. I wonder if that has contributed/is contributing to some rather inappropriate behaviour on my part.

Smile

I have decided to try and be happy and have a generally more positive attitude. Of course this doesn’t mean that crap stuff doesn’t happen and you don’t worry about decidedly random and unpleasant things (especially at 4 in the morning when there’s no chance you can realistically do anything about them), but at least if I try to wake up, get out of the house and get to work in a happy frame of mind then things don’t seem quite as grim.

As part of this venture I am trying to be more committed to my morning meditation which has taken something of a backseat on these dark days when most of the time I just want to stay in the duvet and get jolly annoyed when the first song after the 7 o’clock news finishes (this is my cue to haul myself out of bed). I am actually a morning person but find getting up in the dark deeply disturbing. Anyway, because I still can’t bring myself to get out of bed before the 7 o’clock news, I thought I would give meditating on the tube a whirl.

Now I know what you’re thinking…how can you possibly mediate on the tube? Well I’ve done it twice - this morning in the relative peace and comfort of an emptyish carriage and a seat (from Kennington - most happy) and yesterday I even managed despite my battery chicken status. Okay this isn’t super duper transcendental meditation (leave that for the weekends) but I think this is actually better. This actually allows me to feel centred, calm and positive even though I am squished on a tube being breathed on people with poor oral hygiene and battered by their bags and briefcases. Hmmm…perhaps I should go and knit a nut roast as I am worrying myself!

Serenity and forgiveness

On Friday I went to the Inner Space lecture off St Martin’s Lane. I’d been to one of their lectures before which was attended by 15-20 people so I was a little overwhelmed when I walked into the room and there were about 70 people there. I thought “how on earth am I going to be able to concentrate, let alone meditate with this many people around me?”.

The speaker was Nikki de Carteret, who is big in the world of spirituality (I’m new to this okay). The subject was the power of forgiveness (let’s face it I need to learn how to do this in my life) and, at first, I was a bit frustrated. We didn’t seem to get on to the subject matter very quickly (plus there was a very noisy man behind me rustling a plastic bag which was doing nothing for my serenity) but soon I was being blown away about once every two minutes. Not only did Nikki share her extremely credible and highly useful “prescription for forgiveness”, but she got us meditating: not once or twice but about four times within the hour and a half. I was not the only person in the room who found these meditations so powerful that tears were flowing.

I can’t believe these lectures are free. Everyone should go. Well no they shouldn’t because then it would be even noisier and more daunting.

The tinterweb and all its glories!

I sometimes wonder what we did before the internet.

I often wonder what we did before mobile phones and - frankly - think that 80% of the time I was happier back then. People made dates and stuck to them, people weren’t late and you didn’t have to be available ALL THE TIME.

Anyway, I have - in the past couple of years - rediscovered some people I thought had disappeared out of my life forever. The first was through Friends Reunited, old university friend tracked me down and we now have a very nice ‘keep in touch by email relationship’ (we did meet as well, that was very odd - although not entirely unpleasant). The most recent was from the same era, in fact these two people used to live together at university…

To cut a long story short I am now back in touch (via the glories of myspace) with my ex-boyfriend. We’ve sent each other a few messages and I have to say it is very odd. At first I was all enthusiastic but I’ve been having some serious second thoughts this weekend. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed the exchange of messages, it’s just it’s brought up some really painful thoughts and memories (it ended very badly) and now is potentially not the time to be examining all these things.

I know it’s been 13 years so I probably should have “got over it” but I don’t think I ever really processed the information/dealt with it at the time - he buggered off to the States (for a 3 month holiday allegedly - he’s still there!). Hmmm…that makes me sound really bad that people actually leave the country to get away from me!

Having enthusiastically exchanged messages, I think I may just have to back off a little bit whilst I get my head together. After all I’m still working on putting my current relationship back together so I really think trying to process an old relationship and its associated pain is too much of an ask.

Inner Space

I have been doing a meditation course at Inner Space in Covent Garden this week. I cannot recommend it highly enough. What’s more it’s free. If you want to learn more about being in touch with yourself then give it a go.

Laptop trauma

I know I haven’t blogged for ages, this is largely due to a lack of hardware. My laptop had developed an audio card problem so I phoned up PC World as it’s only six months old and was really annoying me. “No worries,” they said, “we’ll come and pick it up and the repair is likely to take five days.” So I thought that sounded all rather reasonable and sent it off. BIG MISTAKE.

Three weeks later there is no sign of my laptop, they are still waiting for a part and I have been struggling along with internet cafes and now - thank Crunchie - a borrowed laptop. Mysteriously when I have phoned up about the missing computer, the ‘average’ length of time for a repair has gone from 5-7 days to 7-10 days and is now a whopping 10-14 days. We are now on working day 15 and I am fairly livid. Annoyed at not having my laptop and REALLY annoyed at their crappy customer service.

So apart from frequenting many an internet cafe, what else have I been up to?

Went to Antibes for the weekend which was jolly nice except for the resulting sprained ankle - I still have black toes two and a half weeks later.

Have been trying to find some short term work and failing rather miserably. This is very annoying as there is loads of stuff out there but it’s all for at least three months and I’m off to Africa in less than two.

So I’ve been doing my TEFL course - although to be honest that’s been scuppered by the laptop situation - so I’ve only been able to do a bit this week. Got 91% for one module though so quite pleased.

Been doing tons of recovery work with varying degrees of success. On the whole it’s been okay but spent a lot of Sunday in the bath, in tears and on the phone to the Samaritans (not necessarily all at the same time) so probably a fair bit of room for improvement.

Day time TV has been a dominant feature. Not exactly thrillsville although Dallas remains gripping as it’s building up to the whole “who shot JR?” thing which was jolly exciting back in the day so (I’m hoping) will be equally gripping second time around.

I have also tried, and failed, to avoid Big Brother. Having convinced myself that I will not be in the country for the final few weeks, I was looking forward to a housemate free summer but no, some gremlin has got into the scheduling and, more often than not, BB fills that programme gap. My current thoughts on all the housemates are: Twins - surely not fair to lump them together all the time but they are pretty lightweight and pink so not much else to recommend them; Carol - heart’s in the right place but not everyone enjoys mothering, likely she’ll go this week; Chanelle - ah bless, a girl with issues and amusing hysterical outbursts (a la Nicki 2006), but her heart’s in the right place; Charley - annoying, self-absorbed, irritating, please remove her; Laura - annoying trouble-maker; Nicky - needs to lighten up, will her slight interest in Liam be her saving grace?; Tracy - seems a laugh but bit too remote from the rest of the group. As for the boys: Ziggy - takes himself a bit too seriously; Jerry - he’s growing on me, can’t quite decide if that’s because he’s increasingly appealing or because he’s like the vine weed that is the bain of my garden; Seany - see Charley, please get him out soon and someone also tell him cultivating the Mick Hucknall look os not to be recommended. Brian seems fun, he’s good-looking and seems to have a genuinely pleasant air about him; Jonathan - met far too many people like him and don’t like him; Liam seems a little dull although I think the target audience of BB will think he’s good looking and want to keep him in the house. Billy - can’t quite work him out yet but the Zoolander look is interesting. That is really sad, I have just spent ages writing about people in a house on a television, the phrase: “get a life” springs to mind.

Scream

I have to vent as I am being driven mad by my workplace. Thank crunchie I’m finishing here tomorrow as I think I am about to blow a fuse. There was a time when “no challenge” work was exactly what I needed but I’m definitely ready for more of a stretch. Hopefully I’ll find some freelance work which will be just the right amount of demanding. I’d also like to work for someone who is a little less of a control freak although obviously PR and control freakery are very common bedfellows.

Life update

Most of my blogs have been about football recently. This is largely because it’s the end of the season, but it’s also because going to watch football in pubs has made up a large chunk of my social life in the past couple of weeks.

So thought I would do a general round up of “other stuff that is happening”.

On the work front I think I may have been rather rash as I have decided not to extend my contract at this current job. Considering this started out as a three week job back in January I haven’t done too badly. I’ve even been offered a full time job here but it’s just not stretching me and I have got to the point where I’m really not enjoying it, in fact it was starting to make me miserable and I don’t really need any more miserable-making things in my life at the moment. So I’m back on the PR scrap heap in a couple of weeks - oh joy! Hopefully something will come along soon.

I’ve also been thinking about a bit of a change in direction but it’s just a germ of an idea at the moment and requires some fairly major changes in terms of lifestyle, location, finance, relationships etc…potentially terrifying but potentially very rewarding. I have to try to make some time to think about it but I seem to be lacking time at the moment (imminent unemployment should solve that). It’s not that I’ve been hugely busy doing anything very exciting but I’m going to two or three recovery type meetings a week and I’m trying to have a social life and trying to see people I should see etc etc. I know I’m whingeing but I haven’t actually eaten anything in my own house for 11 days…I’m aiming to correct that tonight with some asparagus from my parents’ garden, the cooker won’t know what’s hit it.

I now have no pregnant friends which is a complete relief (pregnant friends are largely obsessed by icky body things and they’re useless in the “sharing a bottle of wine” department). I’ve yet to meet the two most recent babies (both boys - apparently something to do with high testosterone levels in working women in London) but hope to rectify this quite soon - hurrah an excuse to buy cute small clothes! Actually babies terrify me slightly as they’re extremely floppy, will insist on depositing half-digested milk all over you and have a habit of crying for no apparent reason which makes you feel crap and that you would never make a good parent so it’s probably just as well you’re not (for the word “you” read “me” - yes the recovery’s going very well thank you!).