If you’re a regular reader, click HERE for my SHE-POWER Birthday post.

If you’ve come from Liz Strauss’ Blog to Show showcase then

Welcome to SHE-POWER.

My name’s Kelly and you’ve come at the perfect time because I’m celebrating my 1 Year Blogging Anniversary, so read on to see where all the kooky and cool kids hang out.

SHE-POWER offers inspiration, everyday wisdom, personality and humor. There’s original fiction and the popular SHE-POWER Interview Series, which puts other bloggers under the microscope and tortures them with questions until they tell us their secrets.

This anniversary post also offers you the chance to score a $30 Gift Voucher from AMAZON if you can give me a fitting tagline for this blog. And if you want to see which articles have proved the most popular with readers, make sure you check out My Top 12 Posts.

Don’t be shy. Say hello. If you’re a blogger, let me know who you are and where you live and I’ll stop by so we can get to know each other better. The more friends in the blogasphere, the better!

Happy Birthday to SHE-POWER

Roughly this time last year SHE-POWER was born. It was not a birth that was accompanied by much fanfare and to be honest I didn’t blog regularly or do any promotion of SHE-POWER until January, 2008.

When I checked through my stats this week (something I never do), I found that I only had 285 unique visits to this blog in 2007. Then in January after I joined StumbleUpon and started commenting on blogs like ZenHabits I jumped to 16,037 uniques, which was a huge thrill at the time. It’s amazing what happens when you actually tell people you exist.

So despite the fact that no one else was reading until 2008, I am going to be literal and celebrate the end of my first year in this particular creative journey. As of July last year I was here toiling away, building my first blog, learning basic code and generally pushing myself into unknown terrain. And that’s always something to celebrate.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank my readers, many of you who have been with me for some months. I may blog in a haphazard fashion with three posts one week, then only one the week after, but SHE-POWER has become a very important part of my life.

YOU have become a very important part of my life.

I have made some wonderful friends here and I find it liberating to share my journey through life and my stories - the words from my heart - with all of you.

Thank you for showing up each and every post. You make the work, the writers block and the time away from my family worth it.

What is SHE-POWER?

I was very excited when I first thought up the name for this site. Not only is SHE-POWER catchy and memorable, but it’s in line with my feminist creed and belief that you must claim your own power in life.

The problem has always been that as much as I love the name SHE-POWER, I have never been entirely sure what this blog is about.

I originally had a vague idea of an empowerment and personal development site geared towards women, but I hit a stumbling block when I discovered I don’t enjoy writing about serious feminist issues and doling out advice bores me.

I didn’t want this blog to feel like work. I wasn’t planning on retiring from its proceeds. I just wanted to kick the promotional copywriter’s voice I’ve lived with for years into the back seat and explore my natural writer’s voice. Get creative. Free up. Throw some of my fiction out there. Have some fun.

Many articles later I am still not sure what I write is worthy of a name like SHE-POWER. I don’t fit clearly into the Feminist, Women or Mommyblogger niches because I blog about pretty much anything.

Love, women, family, travel, music, my obsessions with certain reality TV shows, love of books, finances and goals, my quirky sense of humor, my assorted neuroses and even the embarrassing details of my personal life.

If there is a common theme for this blog, it is:

SHE-POWER is about the search for personal truth, inspiration, and wisdom. It’s about making the most of this adventure called life and having lots of laughs along the way.

The reason my lack of a niche bothers me is I want to re-design my site, but I need a proper tagline first and I can’t think of anything that fits. With my years of marketing experience, you’d think I could come up with a tagline for my own blog, but no. My talents came in handy for Chris at WatDaWat and Mary at GoodLifeZen, but when it comes to helping myself, I come up with NOTHING. Now, I need your help.

If anyone can give me a tagline for this blog that I like, I will give them a $30 Gift Voucher from AMAZON

I realise that’s not a kings ransom, but I have to be tight with my spending now that I’ve spent my son’s university education on a European vacation. So please, if you think you’ve got a catchy line to help explain and sell this blog, give me a shout. I am completely open to suggestions.

SHE-POWER Achievements

As I said earlier, I’m not one for stats. I did have the usual subscriber checking obsession in January, but this soon petered out when I saw how neurotic I was getting. Back then, losing even one subscriber (it’s always a weekend - have you noticed that?) was the end of the world. I’d be sobbing over the keyboard, sculling bottles of wine and generally feeling like I was a shitty writer. I took this to mean stats were not for me.

That said, a 1 Year Anniversary is a good time to check some stats and share some of SHE-POWER’s achievements. So here they are:

I’ve made the Top 10 Posts of StumbleUpon twice, and Reddit once.

According to my WordPress stats, April was my highest traffic month with almost 50,000 unique visitors. I have no idea whether this is ‘good’, but I think I get a lot of traffic for a blog that is only updated 1-3 times a week.

I made the list for the Top 100 Australian Female Blogs.

I went from an Alexa ranking of around 937,000 in February to a high of 197,000 in May.

Leo from ZenHabits approached me to write him a guest post after discovering my blog and reading How To Be A Super Mom. The article that he published, The Users Guide to Fabulous Friendships, was a big profile boost for me and brought in lots of new subscribers. The funny thing was I lost almost half of them within a month, probably because people were disappointed that I don’t write productivity and how-to articles here.

My post on Spirituality and Faith was controversial enough that it lost me 30 subscribers overnight. I take this as an achievement because I very quickly attracted new subscribers to replace them, and if you can’t make people think and feel then why write?

My fiction has been well received and I owe a big thanks to all of you who have emailed me and commented on my creative works. Many of you have been wonderfully supportive and have even linked to my fiction, recommending it, so thank you for that. It is very encouraging.

Despite my one month European vacation and a slack posting schedule either side, I have managed to maintain my subscriber numbers, though obviously my traffic did drop back quite a bit with all that inactivity.

There might be other achievements of note, but that’s all I can think of for now. My subscriber numbers in themselves are nothing to write home about. Except for a brief spike with ZenHabits, I have never hit over 200 subscribers. I’m not sure why, and it does seem strange when you consider 8,000 - 10,000 visitors in a week is not uncommon for me, but then again there’s nothing wrong with a small and loyal following.

12 Most Popular SHE-POWER Posts

Because Top 10 is such a cliche…

The 12 SHE-POWER Posts which received the most traffic, and in some cases the most comments, were:

25 Fast Facts About Women Around the World

A Little Funny - 9 Words Women Use

How to be a Babe at Any Age

Britney Spears is Toxic

How I Lost 9kgs and Still Ate Chocolate Cake Parts 1,2 and 3

What Makes a Good Husband and Father

Do We Need Religion If We Have Faith?

Why I Love Dr. Seuss

SHE-POWER Fiction: Dinner Time Blues

SHE-POWER Women: Vered from MomGrind

My Love Affair With EAT, PRAY, LOVE

Our First SHE-POWER Man Clay Collins from The Growing Life

My post about The Users Guide to Fabulous Friendships would have made the middle of this list, but I didn’t count it because the article was on Leo’s site, not mine. When I put this list together there were definitely some surprises. Shows how unreliable our memory can be. I thought my interview with Jemi had done very well, and it did in comments and on StumbleUpon, but the total traffic for other articles was much higher.

On the other hand, my Dr. Seuss article making the number 8 spot was a total shock. I think it ended up being a slow burner and got increasing page views over time. And of course, I was very happy to see one of my fiction pieces and two of my SHE-POWER interviews in the Top 12 as these are personally very special to me.

I think I have rambled on enough now. For the millionth time, thank you. I’ll be back with my next post in a few days. Hope to see you there.

Kelly

Photo by cleverboy68

I really don’t feel like myself since I got home. At first I thought it was jet lag because I couldn’t sleep and had an attention span that could be counted in seconds, rather than minutes or hours.

Then the days moved on and now I’ve been home over a week, but still I lie awake at night with my mind racing and my legs twitching from nervous energy and it seems obvious that there might be a bit more to it.

Is it just post holiday blues or something more?

I don’t feel depressed and I was actually glad to come home. Routine is a vital part of life with young children and it was definitely tiring having to entertain Bunny all day every day. In Europe he had no pre-school, no mates, hardly any toys and little predictability. Usually Bunny is a child who thrives on predictability (so unlike me), but overseas he coped amazingly well and adapted to everything we threw at him. Even so, it’s nice to be home where there’s more support and a bedroom I can send him to when he’s throwing a wobbly.

But back to me - it’s ALL ABOUT ME, people!

If it was a welcome comfort to get home, why do I feel so disinterested in doing anything?

I started back up on my novel overseas, but am now dragging my feet. I have a few draft posts written that I can’t seem to finish. A client who wants me to start on a project, but I’m avoiding him. And I find myself mentally blank for long periods of the day with a physical restlessness which is keeping me up ’till all hours.

People are supposed to come home from holidays recharged, not drained!

I have to admit, this has happened before. Last year when I returned from Thailand, I wrote about my intuition that change was in the air. It made a lot of sense then because I’d been feeling very burned out before I went away, and when I came home I re-prioritized my life to stop copy writing for a few months and concentrate on my family.

This time the problem isn’t burn out, and maybe it’s not post holiday blues either. Maybe those over-active instincts of mine sense new challenges on the horizon for me and my poor little brain (it’s not what it once was - thanks Bunny) is struggling to keep up.

I did start to jot down some notes for a new creative project while I was away, the novel has spluttered back to life, and I’ve been mulling over some minor changes I want to make here at SHE-POWER. So, maybe I’m being too hard on myself.

Maybe just getting on with everyday life for a week or two is just what I need. Time for my ideas to germinate and bloom into something beautiful. Maybe it’s that old dilemma again about it being okay to do nothing. Sit, wait and create.

What do you think?

And it goes by the name of Cadaques.

This charming fishing town is nestled between the Pyranees Mountain range and the Mediterranean Sea and is just a short drive from the border of France and Spain. It was the home of Salvador Dali for over half his life and I can see why a man who could live anywhere in the world would choose to keep his home base here.

We actually stayed in the historic Hotel La Residencia, the first hotel in the town and a shrine to Dali. It’s a quirky place, full of art and history and with an elegance that is hard to replicate. Our room had a small juliet balcony and a sea view, and it was a wonderful spot for a beer and a bit of people watching.

I’m not sure if it’s the barren landscape hugging the cobbled streets and white adobe buildings, or the glare of the sun against the sparkling sea and brightly painted row boats, but there is magic and mystery in Cadaques. A sense that you have slipped back in time and you find yourself reveling in the salty air as you spend hours wandering through the rocky, rabbit warren streets and strolling around the bays. The reason it takes so long is due to the many seats along the promenade and dotted throughout the town which encourage you to rest your languid limbs and enjoy the view and soothing atmosphere.

Bunny had a ball with the pebble beach at Cadaques. Better than an amusement park in his eyes. All those rocks of different shapes and sizes, washed smooth by the sea and laid out decoratively for him to pick through and then toss vigorously into the water. The only way we could entice him away without a screaming tantrum was by promising him ice blocks. Never underestimate the power of a well placed bribe.

Musicman and I just couldn’t get enough of Cadaques. This is where we really got into living la vida Espana. Coffee solo and chocolate croissants for breakfast, cerveza and boccadillos or tapas for lunch, and paella and vino tinto for dinner around 9pm. Remember how I said I lost 10kgs? Well, I think I found 3 of them in Spain and it’s only been 7 days! Lord help me by the time I get home. I’m going to be living on bread and water and running every day just to get back to my pre-holiday weight. I think my dreams of sashaying down la playa on the Costa del Sol in a bikini have already been dashed.

We were only supposed to spend a night here, but ended up staying for two. In a week full of highlights, Cadaques has been the unexpected gem.

The rest of the trip has also been fabulous and I will post some more photos in the next day or two. It has been a revelation for Musicman and I to see Spain through Bunny’s eyes and we have both been surprised at how well he has adapted to the language and the change of food, culture and normal routines. He’s totally got into the late nights and half the time it’s Musicman and I who are falling asleep from our busy days while the boy is rearing for more. I should send him out clubbing with the locals - he’d probably love it! He’s also been busy charming all the women with his “Hola” and “Gracias”. There’s a lot of “Mui guapo” being thrown about and I don’t think Musicman is the handsome one they’re cooing over.

Bunny especially loved being spoiled by our amazing host, Anna in Barcelona. We stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast called Anita’s on Mount Tribidabo above Barcelona. Spectacular views, comfortable rooms, mouth watering breakfasts which are practically two meals in one, and the kind of family style hospitality you can’t buy. And all for 80 Euros, which is great value here. Spain is definitely more expensive than we thought; I don’t know how the locals survive as apparently the wages are crap. I envy the English who get to travel with pounds.

Anyway, have to get to bed so will try and post again soon.

The time has come. In about 15 hours I will be getting on a plane to Barcelona, Spain. Excuse me while I let out a high pitched squeal of excitement. But I can’t believe after weeks of planning and waiting that this holiday has finally arrived.

I don’t think I talked about it at the time, but this trip really did come out of nowhere. My husband had to have some business meetings in London and Paris and when I found out I was like “You can’t go all the way to Europe for a week!” Of course what I really meant was “You can’t go to Europe without me.”

In a matter of days the decision was made and we were booked on flights. Overnight we went from talking about the minor house renovations we’re doing, to a European holiday that hadn’t even been on the agenda, but was now only 7 weeks away. It was crazy exciting, especially for a die-hard traveller like me whose pack has been hung up for the past few years while I’ve raised a son and bought a house. But for a few days there, I was back where I love to be, floating around on a warm cloud of anticipation and joy. That was until I saw the cost of the airfares on our credit card and I started going through the Spain Lonely Planet and the reality sank in that we did not have the savings to pay for an unexpected jaunt to Europe.

And so the pre-holiday tension hit. The heart said “Go, this will be worth it. You need this” while the head said, “Are you f*cking insane? You’re going to end up in piles of debt!” The struggle between the two of course led my husband and I to struggle with each other. I think the first two weeks of our trip planning were spent arguing over money as I panicked and Musicman took the opposite tack of saying “We’ll work it out.” I would look at him hopefully, sure he must have a divine answer and ask “How?” And he would look back at me blankly and then say “I don’t know.” I would then resume panicking.

The reason I’m telling you this is because there is a lot of advice out there about managing our money responsibly, living frugally, and saving for our retirement (I still can’t get my head around thinking that far ahead), and it’s good, sensible advice. But when all is said and done, there are not many of us who are happy to be sensible all the time.

Sometimes when you REALLY REALLY want something you have to take a leap of faith, commit and then work your buns off to try and make it happen

About two weeks into our planning, after another exhausting fight, we gave up. We realised that we were just struggling against something we had already made a decision on. The airfares were paid for. We WANTED TO GO and it was time to commit to doing whatever it took to make sure we not only went on the holiday, but we could enjoy ourselves and be at peace with whatever the financial consequences were once we got home. We talked about it and we knew it was likely we’d come home to more debt and some post-trip scrimping and saving to get our equilibrium back, but we acknowledged that to us it was worth it.

Let me make it clear that this is not for everyone. Musicman has a very secure and well-paid job and though I work part-time as a freelance copy writer, if I HAD TO I could teach and work a lot more hours and earn a lot more money. It’s just not how I want to spend my time while my son is still so young.

Funny enough, because we were then so focused on going to Spain and HAVING THE MONEY (rather than thinking “We don’t have the money), that much talked about friend, the Law of Attraction kicked in and things started to fall into place that supported our plans.

• We experienced a small rise in income and will receive another larger one in the new financial year
• Some well-paid work basically fell in my lap, increasing my projected earnings
• We re-jigged our debts and expenses to save some money
• Our second car died and we decided to try and live without it to save costs. This has been so successful we’re not going to replace it once we return home
• And lastly we embraced cost cutting so much over the past 7 weeks we have saved a lot more money than we probably expected

All this means I await tomorrow with the excitement of a child at Christmas. Not only are Musicman and I fulfilling a long held dream of going to Spain, but we’re taking out son, showing him new people, a new language and another culture. And I can sleep well knowing this is a dream we MADE HAPPEN with a strong vision, faith, determination, and sacrifice.

If you always wait until you know HOW you’re going to achieve a goal before you take action, then maybe its time to shake things up. What dreams are you putting off? Where could you take a leap and do something bold in your life?

Photo1 by xip
Photo2 by no prawns

When I started SHE-POWER Women with the beautiful Jemi, I always had in mind that I would do a partner interview series of SHE-POWER Men.

Like the women’s interview series, SHE-POWER Men is about celebrating ordinary men who live their lives in extraordinary, yet simple ways. Men who like and respect women. Men who strive to live with integrity and honesty.

Clay Collins was always my first choice to kick off SHE-POWER Men. His alternative productivity blog, The Growing Life is somewhat of a blogging phenomenon - over 1000 subscribers by the end of its second month. Then there’s his guest articles at blogs such as Dumb Little Man, Zenhabits, Write to Done and Copyblogger, making Clay one of blogging’s new rising stars.

But most of all I chose Clay Collins because he’s a smart and interesting man with a lot to say and a gifted writer with a truly fresh approach. He’s also been a great blogging buddy of mine and has an easy charm and sincerity that I really wanted to capture for SHE-POWER Men. And if you’ve ever read the Dedication to his Grandparents on The Growing Life then you’ll know why I’m voting him Blogging Bachelor of the Year.

Here is Clay Collins talking life, women, blogs, politics and more.

My idea of the perfect weekend is…

Waking up next to someone awesome, going for a run in the arboretum (or a long bike ride), having a picnic outside with friends, listening to some NPR, and doing some writing.

My mother always told me…

My mother is amazing. My mom always tells me to “be good.” The dialogue goes something like this:

———
Me: talk to you later, mom.

Mom: OK, Clay. Be good.

Me: [Sigh]. I’ll be good mom.

Mom: And you know what that means, Clay.

Me: Yeah, mom, I know what that means.

Mom: It means take care of yourself.

Me: I know. Thanks mom. I love you.

———
In this day and age, so many parents coerce their children into getting good grades, obtaining a respectable career, etc. Parents too frequently convey the notion that “being good” means towing the societal line. So I’m eternally grateful that my mom taught me that being good simply means doing what’s right for me and taking care of myself (physically, intellectually, emotionally, etc.). Taking care of myself, of course, also means taking care of others, because doing our part to lift each other up is a basic human need.

My mom also tried to brainwash me into thinking that I could do whatever I wanted to do. She always told me that “you can do whatever you want if you really want it.” For better or worse, the brainwashing attempts were successful.

What’s your favorite blog to read? Which is most overrated?

Melissa Pierce’s blog is damn cool. And my friend Laurie also has a pretty awesome blog as well. This blog is also pretty fantastic. I also really like 1000 Cuts by Monk Mojo.

The productivity/self-development blogosphere has its share of approval-seeking and overly sensitive writers, and it’s nice to see someone having fun with the whole genre. (Yes, it’s true that Monk Mojo’s made me look like a badass but his blog would probably be a favorite regardless). Rolf Potts vagabonding blog is also damn cool. That man’s my hero.

The problem I have with most self-help/productivity blogs is that they flood us with tips (we’ve hit the TIP tipping point and things have gone WAY too far). If I need to acquire a new skill, or am looking for a list of 100 motivation hacks, then I’ll go to Google.

What I want in my feed reader is (1) good & artful writing, and (2) perspective. I’m looking for creative non-fiction.

My most defining moment was…

When I discovered life and my adult self in Ghana, and when I returned from Ghana to Minneapolis and built a new reality. Like Ethan Zukerman, my heart’s in Accra. I want to go back.

Where do you hope to be in 10 years time?

Writing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Like so many others, I love writing. I could do it all day. I don’t have issues with writers block, or passion. I just don’t have the time to write 24/7 and a man’s got to make a living. So my dream is to have enough money to feed my family and children, enough time to write, and to be somewhat well-received as an author. It’s nice to know that your work is being read.

What makes you angry and/or sad?

Oh god. HP technical support in Bangalore really pisses me off. President Bush. Military solutions to non-military problems. Hunger really makes me sad because it’s a problem that doesn’t have to exist. Xenophobia, water boarding, and human rights violations also get me worked up.

Do you think men are more likely to be unfaithful than women?

No I don’t. I’d recommend taking a look at two great books: Sperm Wars and The Red Queen.

Do you vote?

Absolutely. If you don’t then you’re partially responsible for this mess we’re in.

If YES, is there anything (eg. a scandal) that would change your mind about your preferred candidate?

Oh sure. If I found out about several covered-up connections between Barack Obama and big business then I’d have to reassess my preference.

Do you regard yourself as a “good catch”? Why or why not?

As always, it depends. I like trying new things so dating me usually involves trying out different camp sites, making new recipes, swimming in new bodies of water, going on impromptu road trips, and good substantive conversations combined with a healthy dose of nonsense.

That said, I’m meeting more and more women these days who are looking to start a family and want a guy to be (in part) infrastructure for their lives (or an enabler for a laundry list of goals). I’m not that guy right now. Someday I’ll want to be a father and when that day comes I’ll probably embrace a more conventional approach to relationships, but until that day comes I’m unlikely to be infrastructure for someone else’s life. I’ll welcome certain things when I’m ready but I’m not there yet.

I really hope that this doesn’t sound misogynistic.

At what point will you feel that you and The Growing Life are a success?

I think it’s already a success and I’m happy with who I am as a person. TGL’s a success because my readers and I are on the same page. When I write something that really resonates with me it also tends to resonate with them. I really didn’t know what to think when I started TGL, but I ended up with 200 subscribers the first month and 800 the second. Everything else feels like gravy. Life is good.

And a Few Questions From The Readers…

What is the biggest change you plan to make in your life this year?

Question courtesy of Cath Lawson

I really don’t know. I honestly haven’t thought about it very much. I’m really not very goal oriented. I’d like to buy a condo and Minneapolis and start laying down very deep roots there, so maybe that’s it.

Settling down, family, marriage: looking forward to, or scared of?

Question courtesy of Vered@MomGrind

Children are great and I’ll happily commit to someone when I’m ready to have children. Probably not earlier. Getting married prematurely, however, scares me sh*tless.

Do you think men remember romantic/relationship events like women do? Eg. First kiss

Question courtesy of Charlotte@CharmedLife

I actually think guys are far more sentimental than women. Guys savor deep emotional connections because they happen much less frequently. So while guys seem to be FAR TOO LOGICAL most of the time, those intense emotional moments are driven much deeper into our psyches because they’re peak experiences.

Was there ever a time when you considered giving up on your blog?

Question courtesy of Chris@WatdaWat

Not really. The whole experience has been great. Sometimes I think I should be spending more time on my book proposal and less time on blog entries, but I don’t think The Growing Life will be going away anytime soon. It’s too much fun, and growing far too fast, for me to put down.

Thanks

Clay

Photo 1 of Clay and friend
Photo 2 provided by StewieD
Photo 3 provided by hjl

Today is a great day for me because Zen Habits has published an article I wrote called The User’s Guide to Fabulous Friendships.I’m a big fan of Leo’s and am quite chuffed he asked me to guest post. Zen Habits not only has great articles, it has a very involved community of readers and there’s always interesting discussions going on. Hopefully, I can help contribute to that with this article, so why not go over and check out The User’s Guide to Fabulous Friendships.

I’d also like to add a personal note that this article truly comes from my heart and is dedicated to all the wonderful women I call friends. Some of you have been with me a very long time and have helped pick me up when I was broken and down. I thank you for your undying love and support, and please know that my life is brighter and bigger for your presence in it.

Kelly

PS. And thank you to all my online friends and readers who have sent their well wishes as I have slogged through two weeks of ill health. I’m on the mend and I appreciate you thinking of me.

Photo by riza

Mary at Goodlife Zen has a great post up at the moment: 7 Strategies for Good Luck. In it, she talks about the recent findings of an English University Professor, who did a study find out why some people are lucky, while others are not.

Richard Wiseman even ran a project called Luck School to see if participants could learn to be luckier, and what he found was that they could. His results show that people are not born lucky, some just know how to bring luck to them.

The article and the following commentary got me thinking: What is luck anyway? Whether I call myself lucky or not really comes down to perception; how I choose to see myself and others. And these views are not universal.

Some people might look at celebrities and think everyone would agree they’re lucky, but we don’t know what goes on in these people’s private lives. Just look at the recent trials of Britney Spears, and there’s a strong case that luck in one area may be a double edged sword in others.

Let me illustrate the importance of perception with three examples. Who do you think is the luckiest?

1. a man whose wife of 10 years has left him and taken their children, but the day after the divorce he wins $20,000
2. a 40 year old female lawyer, who earns $150,00 a year, would love a family, but can’t find Mr Right
3. a woman who has a loving family and is financially stable, but is overweight with diabetes and a heart condition
4. a happily married man with 4 children, an average job, good friends, but who always struggles to pay the bills

It’s not so easy to judge, is it?

If you asked me a year ago if I was lucky, I would have said “No”. I’ve had my fair share of misfortune in my life, and I’ve never been one to win lotteries or competitions. However, in the last year I’ve had an attitude adjustment. I’ve started practising conscious gratitude, and have found that focusing on what I already have in my life makes me feel happier AND luckier. Here are just a few things I am grateful for:

• I live in a peaceful country with a very hospitable climate (Australia)
• I have been married to a wonderful man for almost 10 years
• I have had the privilege of education and a chosen career (or three)
• I have a healthy son who grows and changes before my eyes every day
• I am able bodied, healthy and still relatively young
• I have friends and family who love me
• I have a sun-filled home and garden, which acts as my sanctuary from the world
• I have loved passionately and fully, knowing both the joy of a blooming heart and the despair of a broken one
• I am able to write and correspond with all of you, which makes my heart sing
• I have traveled the world, had many adventures, and know there are lots more to come

I could go on, but I hope my point is clear. If we really look at our lives, there is much to be grateful for, so I think I’ll skip the Luck School.

Tell me, how lucky are you?

Have you ever done something bold? Something exhilarating, terrifying. Something that required a courage and a determination you never dreamed possible? Maybe it was parachuting, or starting a new business, or getting married to someone you met a month ago. It doesn’t matter whether anyone else would think it’s daring, it’s only important that it was challenging for you.

In celebration of the weekend barreling towards us, I have decided to follow Kailani’s Aloha Friday philosophy (check out An Island Life) and throw a BIG question out to you, my dear readers.

 

What is the Most Daring Thing You Have Ever Done?

For me, it would have to be my solo backpacking trip to Mexico and Guatemala in 2002. Five months away from my husband, alone in a undeveloped part of the world with basic Spanish and a pack for company.

This trip was truly the making of me as an individual, and while it was very difficult to leave my husband of four years (he didn’t want to go), I knew in my heart that you can’t put your life and your dreams on hold to stand beside someone else while they live theirs.

My husband was passionate about his business, and I had changed careers from Marketing to English Language Teaching in order to pursue my passion for travel. Of course we always thought our dreams would somehow coincide, but at this time it just wasn’t happening. We weren’t ready to buy a home or have a family, and our goals were taking us in opposite directions with a slowly winding path to divorce.

The fact that we are still in love and together six years later, with a son and our own home, is thanks in large part to me taking the reins of my own life. By eschewing the doomsdayers, by being true to myself and pushing through my fears, I had an opportunity to take myself out of my world, to see who I was when there was no one to advise me and back me up.

What I found was a strength and a confidence that I never knew existed. I met new people, had amazing experiences, suffered terrifying ordeals (robbed at gunpoint) and through it all I not only carried on, I thrived. The woman my husband welcomed home five months later had a maturity that never would have existed if I had not dared to take a chance on myself.

Strip everything away and all you have is yourself. I have done this and I can honestly say I am proud of the woman that stares back at me from the mirror. She’s a little nuts, not so predictable, but she has guts and she’s alright.

So dear reader, has any one event been the making of you?

Photo by zackschnepf

EAT PRAY LOVE is a book I find very hard to review. The whole point of reviewing a book is to be able to judge it from a distance. I cannot do this with EAT PRAY LOVE. I am obsessed with the magic that is this book and the enormous talent that is Elizabeth Gilbert. I want to meet this woman. Okay, I’ll be honest, I want to BE this woman.

EAT PRAY LOVE is the memoir of award winning writer, Elizabeth Gilbert’s one year sabbatical from a life that seems to be collapsing around her. She’s coming out of a nasty divorce, her husband wants to take her for everything she’s worth, her new lover is infatuated one day, distant the next, and she’s on a cocktail of pills for her chronic depression and anxiety.

Like many of us at times like this, Elizabeth wants to get away, but unlike the majority of us, she actually does it, embarking on a trip to ITALY, INDIA and BALI She does what so many of us dream of doing - escaping the mundane of our daily troubles, breaking out of our comfort zone and reshaping our lives in a fundamental way.

And so begins the journey that is EAT PRAY LOVE. She finds pleasure in food and language in Italy, spirituality through meditation and prayer in an Indian ashram, and ends up falling in love with herself, life and her future husband in Bali. However, the most important journey of all is the one that is within, and this is where Elizabeth Gilbert has laid herself bare. She writes with an honesty that is at times uncomfortable, publicly revealing her fears, neuroses and regular bouts of self pity so we can share her often pot-holed, roundabout road to self-acceptance.

The book starts with her sobbing on the bathroom floor night after night as she slowly comes to the realization that her marriage and her life does not reflect what she wants for her future. She is married, financially comfortable, trying to have a baby, basically she knows she SHOULD feel blessed, but she doesn’t. She is tortured by the sense that her life has gone terribly off-track somewhere. She loves her husband and doesn’t want to leave him, but then she also doesn’t want to be with him. So she stays trapped in her misery, unable to move forward in any direction .

I think any woman who has had a committed relationship break down can relate to her struggles here. Relationships end for many reasons, which are often too complicated to articulate, and I respected the fact that Elizabeth Gilbert refused to get into the whys and wherefores of her divorce. The details of her relationship with her ex-husband are not our business, and more importantly not what this book is about.

EAT PRAY LOVE is not about how to survive divorce, or how to find love, or how to travel the world paid for by a publisher (though I wish she gave us tips on that because I’d be very interested). EAT PRAY LOVE is not even a travelogue.

This book is a memoir of self-discovery and a spiritual quest. A story of how one controlling, high strung woman crosses the world in search of inner peace and happiness. What she finds is the love, acceptance and serenity she’d been looking for were never missing. They were always inside of her, and have been found in the silence of meditation, the warmth of a smile, a gratitude for life, an open heart and an acceptance and honoring of self.

The fact that this book is so much about Elizabeth Gilbert - how she feels, what she is scared of, obsessed with, raging against - is the most common criticism of the book on Amazon. People complain that she is narcissistic and shallow, and the book doesn’t give enough of a feel for the countries she is in. But, I think these reviewers are missing the point of the book. The bi-line of EAT PRAY LOVE says One Woman’s Search for Everything. Hello - if that doesn’t say memoir, then I don’t know what does.

So many women in this day and age, I believe, can relate to this book. It is not just a book for divorcees, or those on a spiritual quest. This book is for anyone who has questioned where their life is going, what it’s all about and how can they be happy with themselves.

At the beginning of the book, Elizabeth Gilbert cannot be alone. She cannot let life be. She must control, achieve, and obsess over her lovers and her failures. She describes herself in relationships as a cross between “a golden retriever and a barnacle”, and says she could “make friends with the dead”, anything so she is not left alone with her own thoughts.

How many of us are like this today? In a world where we can effectively do something all the time, many people fill their lives with one meaningless activity after another., Busy busy busy. That’s the name of the game. And if a part of us starts to suspect that this isn’t all life was meant to be, well we shut that voice up by going shopping.

I could go on and on about this book, but I think ultimately you need to read it for yourself. So read EAT PRAY LOVE. It’s a life changing kind of book. It’s written with humor and empathy and great insight. I love this book. I wish I had written this book.

Photo by momma a

I found this on YOU-TUBE while killing time trying not to do any work. It completely made me laugh and shows sometimes procrastination can be a good thing. I wish I had been at this wedding; these people sure know how to have fun. If this couple approach the rest of their life with such humor and enthusiasm, I predict they’ll have a long and happy marriage.I’ll be back tomorrow with a review of my latest obsession, Elizabeth Gilbert’s EAT, PRAY, LOVE. Until then