How to Keep Your Training Mojo Going

How do you keep your training mojo going?

1.  Find A Training Method That You Love

Let us delve into your psyche.  Having you ever been taught something like art, singing, violin, hockey, football etc., and the teacher keeps on making you do drills that bore the ass off you. Even better, have you ever taken a subject at school and there is no way on this planet you can learn it as it just does not interest you?

This is similar to how your training mojo gets stood against a wall and shot.  You want to get fit. You want to lose weight or whatever it is.  You see a training method that millions of people profess to be the best.  It works, there are photos and proof, plus all the reviews say so.  Week one you love it, week two you stop doing it every other day, week three you avoid a couple of days by week four you dread it.  Why?  Because it is freaking boring as hell.  It is not what you actually want to do.

You started running but 'everyone' tells you running doesn't build muscle and you should be building muscle. You stopped.

You started weight training, but 'everyone' told you to lift heavier until you actually dreaded failing. You stopped.

You started a system like P90Xor any other programme and it was mind blowingly hard.  You can't do the moves and feel defeated.

Stop looking to other people to tell you what is best for you.  Only you can decide this.  If you like running . . RUN.  It is a wonderful thing to do.  Running is a great cardio exercise.  Not only does it get you out and moving, but you do it at your own pace and after a while it becomes not only training but can also be meditative.  If you want to build bigger muscles learn to sprint train.  Research it all it isn't as if there aren't a gozillion articles and books on how to run/sprint/do marathons etc.

Find something you actually love doing and allow yourself all the time you need to become the best you possibly can at it.  People stick to what they love.

2. Learn Your Limit

Always go at a pace that suits you. For instance, if you are, let's say, lifting as heavy as you can, even though it is KG's/LB's behind what you perceive as the weight you should be lifting KNOW YOUR LIMITS.  It is great to push yourself to progress. It is a fool who tries to push themselves beyond what they are capable of too soon. This can lead to serious body damage.


Leave your ego locked away before you start your training.

3.  Stop Trying To Keep Up With The Experts

If you have started any form of training program do not try and keep up with the instructor/pro's.  Learn what you can do with your body and what areas of training you need to progress in.  Use assistance when you train, if needed, such as resistance bands for pullups/dips, blocks in yoga etc.  Any professional athlete/trainer that is good will tell you that you only get good by starting at the beginning and working your body to get better.

4. Beware of Workouts Routines

Ever seen those workouts on-line like this:  

Warrior Workout

400 pushups 

200 lunges 

100 pullups  

300 dips

 40 burpees 

repeat 5 times.  

If you have problems doing 10 pushups then these are not for you!  I have noticed a lot of these type of routines especially in  calisthenics and they are HARD.  As a beginner doing 15 pullups is torturous if not impossible and these routines can leave you feeling like you have failed.  You haven't, you have just taken on too much too soon.

If you want to learn calisthenics make up your own basic routine which should incorporate pushups, squats, pull-ups and dips.  Begin by doing small number sets ie 5 reps of each exercise and repeat for 15 minutes, then you can up your game by competing with yourself.

5. Is This Exercise Helping Or Harming?

There are many exercises out there that are pretty much of no plausible good for your body, they may be popular and may even be practised at some gyms but you may end up injured or cause your body imbalances through ignorance.  If you want to aid your fitness find out about functional movements.  We as humans naturally climb, run, pick up heavy things, swim, walk, dip down, jump, squat but there are certain training methods out there that are very questionable.   As stated above do your research on whether a certain exercise will harm of help.  

6.  Stop Feeding Yourself Mojo Assassination Thoughts

Stop "believing" you can do this and start KNOWING.  Belief is what people have for fairies, unicorns and Santa.  Knowledge is solid.  Know you are getting fitter.  Know that you are getting slimmer.  

Desist with the assassination talk of things are too hard, results are not happening fast enough, you are not good enough or, the worst of all "I can't . . . . ".  You can, you will, you know it.

7. No Pay, Still Gain

Many people stop training as they find a myriad of excuses not to go to the gym ie too expensive, too crowded, too far away, too full of know-it-alls, no parking (really you drive.  Get a bike) etc.  The answer is ludicrously simple.  Train at home in your garden, bedroom, garage, spare room, the choice is yours.   You DO NOT need equipment to start training.  You may progress to building up a home gym, but all you need for now is your body and a maybe a timer. Heck, you don't even need training gear.  You can build your body strength and shape through calisthenic and can do that butt naked if you so chose. 
Push ups, squats, burpees, jumping jacks, plank, yoga need no equipment.

8. Am I There Yet?

When you were a kid on a journey with your parents, did you keep asking "are we there yet?".  Only to be told "NO, WE ARE STILL NOT THERE" and the journey would seem to last a lifetime.  Can you guess what could possibly be stopping you from seeing the results in your body you want?  IMPATIENCE!  

If you have read in a brochure/seen a commercial /noticed a "latest thing" on line that doing XYZ training will get the results YOU want  in 30 days and you truly believe you can drop 15 kgs, get six pack abs and a contoured body and be able to maintain this all from scratch, within that sort of timeline then click your heels 6 times Dorothy as you are no longer in Kansas.  Meanwhile, back in the real world, you have to teach yourself that gentle progress, no matter how slow, is how to keep your body beautiful.  We have to work and enjoy working, at making our bodies our temples.  If you don't like the work, go back to paragraph #1.

9. Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

Unless you are Dana Linn Bailey, Larissa Reis, Matus Valent, Vinn Diesel then you will NOT have their bodies and, if you do, keep an eye on your front window as the police will be there to question you soon.  You keep your mojo ignited by loving your body no matter what stage of the game you are at.  This body you own, in its present condition, is the body that is going to get you to the body destination you are aiming for.  There is no problem in being inspired by what others have achieved, in fact nodding your head and thinking how awesome they have enabled themselves to be can add fuel to your stoked mojo furnace.  Just don't wish to be them and have their bodies.  Know that you are you and are capable of making your fitness, health and body supreme.

10. No One Is Judging you

You are the only person that has any true sway on what you do.  This applies to your body, your education, your career, your happiness etc.  Sure, you can blame others taking away from yourself any power over yourself or your life, but, you are not going to do that as you have an inner strength that is way more dominant than any of this petty stuff.  

If you are hurt or upset by what someone says about you that is your choice.  Yes, you have a choice in all.  Only you allow yourself to be hurt.  Only you allow your mind to dwell on irrelevancies like what someone else may be thinking.  As the saying goes, what others think of you is none of your business.  The sooner you learn you are a supremely powerful person, you are in control of your own thoughts, your own deeds and the only judgement you care about is the one you give yourself.



.. . . . and if you think you are too old, too ill etc just click this link!

To keep your mojo going.  Do what you love, love what you do, allow yourself to enjoy the journey, know you are an amazing capable being and you will get so much out of this.

ENJOY!

Love and hugs

Cathi

How Do I Deal With All The Pain And Suffering in Paris?

“Mum, I'm feeling really sad. After the attacks in Paris, I just feel so upset. All these attacks are just getting closer . . . What can I do?”

This was my daughter Emily phoning the other night as she wanted me to help her quieten her mind in what she felt was an increasingly dangerous world. What is the answer? All those poor people who have had their lives ripped apart through violence. We should do something. What should we do?

People''s thoughts go out to those affected, they feel outrage, anger, sadness, pity, hopelessness, fear, revulsion . . . feel free to add any feeling you think is just in this sentence. Emily felt exactly this. She was saying how awful for the people involved and to her it felt as if the threat of terrorist violence was ever encroaching on her life to the point she felt frightened.

The following was my solution to her. You are more than free to totally dismiss it, but I would advise you to allow your mind to open about this a little more, totally up to you. This is either a resonating truth or complete BS, your choice!

The world we inhabit and all encapsulated in it live emitting and receiving frequencies. The PRF (Prime Resonant Frequency) of standard human is between 7 – 10 Hz, which is the same as the frequency of the earth we live on the "Schumann resonance". It has long been agreed in quantum physics that our different moods emit different frequencies. The happier we are the higher we resonate at. When we are in a room with happy people we seem to be “infected” by their laughter. The truth is our body's frequencies become raised by those being emitted around us.

What does this have to do with my daughter's question? EVERYTHING! It is all very natural and normal to feel empathy toward others who are experiencing pain, terror, panic etc. If you want to help you own an instant and powerful means to help those suffering.

Logically, sitting and feeling pity and sadness will only create more pity and sadness as you will be emitting a low energy frequency. Instead, take a moment to fill your mind with positive thoughts of love and compassion. Helping those in dire need of peace in their hearts and minds is easily accomplished if you sit and quietly meditate sending all the love and healing you can.

If you know the people involved personally then being a rock in their time of need will be much more appreciated than dragging them lower with your additional dialogue of pain, terror etc. We are here to help heal our loved ones not elongate their time in sadness.

The only healer of loss of a loved one is time and enabling ourselves to be thankful for the time they were in our lives.

Here is an example of how I dealt with the most painful event I have ever experienced. My mother was the closest person to me in my life. We talked pretty much daily no matter where we were. We went on walks, days out, lunches, I would be at her house or she would pop round to mine. We spoke freely of our feelings, events in life etc. If she was living abroad, then we would write. My mother was one of the only people who held me together the one time when my world seemed to crash around me.

When she died I made a supreme effort to honor her. I did not want to sit in a room full of people crying and wailing, talking of how ill she had been, how sad her days had been whilst suffering through all her illnesses . . . she very, very rarely sat and complained of her lot, was nearly permanently happy and so what right did anyone else have in brooding and perpetuating all her pain in her absence? I even told my mum when she was alive that going to her funeral was something I would not do and explained why. We agreed on this on one proviso, I had to go if there was no-one else going! She was a well loved being and trust me, plenty of people turned up. I instead went to a place me and Mum loved and walked and thought of what a wonderful person she was, how happy she makes me, how much love I have for her. She may have died, but it did and will never stop me from thinking and feeling all the positive things that she made me feel when she was alive. All her love, happiness, help, advice are still very much alive within me. It would have been a tremendous insult to her memory for me to sit and be miserable. When people are truly heartbroken they do not want someone to sit next to them and fill their already overflowing vessel of pain with more misery and hurting, they want succor. People want to be gently lead and be able to see a light at the end of the dark times.

My Mum . . . c'mon she just makes you feel happy too!  It was her magically quality

Emily also expressed a fear of imminent disaster as in her mind the terrorist attacks seemed to be getting closer. This comment actually made me giggle as she was an unborn baby, I was 8 months pregnant with her, working in Arkwright House, Parsonage Gardens, Manchester in December 1992 going up to my office when the IRA bombed Parsonage Gardens!!! So, it's not getting closer, it is just all still going on. 

There are various solutions to all these attacks.  Sadly most of them are to answer the attacks by attacking . . . yeah like that has helped over the hundreds of years you have all tried that!  Now what was it Einstein said?

I am not here to condemn or agree with any person's way of acting. I was not put on this planet to judge, there are plenty of other people who do that (and with some of the most horrific ideas of how to retaliate). As a species, we spend too much time invested in wanting what someone else has, in hating what someone else does, in being repelled by what someone else thinks. We have a the ability to wake up and change our thought processes. 

Instead of being so heavily invested in what someone else is thinking/doing, we should invest more time into making sure our own thoughts and actions are ones that come from a place of inner calm.  All of us should try living in the now rather than dwelling in the past or inventing the future.   I heard a great quote today from Keven “Da Hulk” Washington on YouTube  (I have put the video below as his story is a strong one . . excuse the pun):

“Do not let yesterday make your tomorrow”

also whilst talking on bad times and hard situations

“If you feel you will never get away . . you will never get away”.

There is a simple truth that keeps being repeated around the world. . . 

We are creators of our own reality and therefore if you are constantly in a state of panic, sadness, fear or any other low vibrational feeling and spend your time reminiscing on instances that gave or may give you panic, sadness fear, then you will never get away from them.  It's like talking to yourself in a mirror and expecting the other person to say something different. 

Instead, start teaching yourself to leave these situations behind. A great lesson (among very many) I learned from Andy Shaw's book "A Bug-Free Mind" was to take small steps away from the "what ifs..." and "what may be's..." by introducing positive thoughts and holding them for 15 seconds. If you find this hard just think of one thing that makes you smile and hold that thought for a few seconds. Each day build on those seconds until you can hold positive thoughts on numerous things for 5 minutes, 15 minutes and so on.  I have a really simple thought that starts this process off and works every time . . . it was the day I bought a red microwave with my partner. It was so red and gorgeous and it made us both happy, then I will go through all the things that make me happy and how much appreciate them. This can start my positive thinking off and keep going for over an hour. Just fill in each moment with all the things you love, that make you happy.  You will see the changes in yourself and your life in a lightning speed.

So in essence, the simple steps to easing your and other's suffering, simply sit quietly and think positive, high vibrational thoughts.  Your body will feel it, the earth will absorb it and remember, frequencies travel very fast.  You are literally changing lives by your positive thoughts.

Do You Really Look Great?

This morning as I awoke a recollection of someone's post on my Facebook wall sprang at me like an angry leopard. I managed to get so wound up about it that I had to sit down and blog it all out. 




Lets start with this one.  How many of you out there have an illness that can be traced back to bad diet and lack of exercise (these are more numerous than you can possibly imagine)?  You have piled on weight, maybe even having trouble walking far as you get out of breath, and, when you state that you think a chocolate bar would make you feel better especially with some ice cream, the 'loved ones' and 'friends are there cooing at you, saying "yeah, it will cheer you up" or even going so far as to give you some ideas of how to stuff more crap into your body the way they do it? 

If you are a drinker, just a normal person who maybe goes out once a week for a few drinks; how many of you out there have gone through a really rough patch and your alcohol consumption has managed to up its game considerably? Even to the point where you are drinking a bottle of wine or more a night. Now, how many people in your life, that claim to love you, have told you its OK, heck it's not that much in the scheme of things, or even better, they do just the same so nothing to worry about. 

Maybe your joints are aching a bit, and, you have faced the fact that your life has never been a particularly active or healthy one. Someone may suggest that you start learning a few simple easy bodyweight exercises . . . then the same 'caring people' who are telling you your alcohol intake is fine, your high fat diet is a great way to cheer yourself up will also turn round and tell you the person who said do exercise is a fucking idiot, you just take it easy, eat cake with a glass of wine and put your feet up. 

BEWARE THE SYCOPHANT!  They are a very dangerous breed

Now you have to ask yourself, those nights when you were going out and you looked in the mirror and didn't think you looked too good in that outfit so you asked one of these 'friends' what they thought and they said "You look great" . . . did you really? These 'friends' who are telling you to ignore your problems, eat crap, destroy your body and keep well away from change. You are seriously putting trust in these folk? 

Let me be honest with you here . . . 


I have been that drinker, I have been the person with depression eating crap, I have been the one sifting through people to find the right ones that will tell me the good things about my bad habits . . . and do you know what happened? I asked myself one simple question which was:

ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID? 

The answer was a resounding YES. With this very useful piece of information in hand I set out to change my health and happiness and reap the rather fabulous rewards as I journey, as for me, this journey only stops when I run out of the ability to draw breath.

Now ask yourself are you surrounded by friends and loved ones or sycophants who are creeping round you telling you what you want to hear rather than what you NEED to hear? 

Here's the truth for you, here is what, maybe,  you don't want to hear but seriously need to. 

NO, drinking too much is not good for you, in fact its ridiculously harmful and can lead to a myriad of health and mental health problems.

NO, eating crap will not make you feel better.  The truth is it will make any illness worse, depression deeper and joint ache more severe. 

NO, healthy food is not tasteless crap, all green leaves and no joy.  It is an abundance of flavours in a glorious myriad of taste, texture and delight. 

YES, the only way to address your problems are by eliminating the crap from your life and I'm not just talking about the food, booze, drugs and laziness, but all the sorry arse lame excuses and all the sycophants.  You have to look for the cause, which is more likely to be some deep seated issue, be it lack of self worth, a bad experience in the past, relationship problems . . what ever, you need to start looking and dealing.

YES, you can really do this and you can do it, for the most part, on your own . . . in fact I would urge you NOT to find a gym/training/diet etc partner as they invariably let you down at some point. To be a success you have to stand on your own without the fake support of others. However, if you are drowning and not waving, go to the professionals for help be it a psychiatrist, trainer or one hell of a lot of research in the library.

YES, it does take time.  It's glorious self realising, revitalising, educational, time and it is something you should see as a pleasure not a chore. You can't do a little happy celebration dance at each goal you achieve if you are perfect! This is the wonderful part about being superbly imperfect, we get to celebrate all through our journey!

YES, you will reap the benefits of changing your life around 

YES, people will drop out of your life, the ones that hold you back, drag you down, do not want to see you succeed, but the ones that pick you up, love you unconditionally and motivate you along will appear in it. 

Most importantly 

YES IT IS WORTH IT 

Next time you look in a mirror and ask "do I look great" remember the only person who can answer that one is you.

Now go forth and become even MORE fabulous.

Love & Hugs

Are You In Control Or Are Your Demons Controlling You?

WHO CONTROLS YOU?

As I sat at my computer yesterday reading posts on the brain fart encyclopedia that is Facebook, I realised I was becoming very angry, wound up by what someone was typing about. I was getting really riled by their ignorance and how they were spouting bull to the nation, so . . I turned off my computer, went out with my dog and carried on being annoyed, to the point of having an imaginary sit down debate with the person.  As the evening wore on I went to do my meditation, only to have my mind fill with all the things 'I could have said/should have said'.

Demons in my head by akairisu deviantart

This morning I sat and thought to myself 'Cathi, you are an arse!'  Am I so arrogant that my opinions and beliefs are more valid than theirs? Has that person who you are slowly winding yourself up like coiled cobra about, had half a day of head turmoil thinking 'I bet this annoyed Cathi' . . no, they didn't. 

I allowed myself to find something annoying, I told my head to get into a real rumpus about it.  In other words I had a sleeping demon, who, rather than letting  her sleep, I prodded her with a pointy stick and woke her.  As we know anyone woken by being poiked with a pointy stick isn't going to wake up happy!

I allowed my ego a trip out, and by hell had I given her all the arms and ammunition to start a war in my own noggin.

As I sat and pondered this, I thought about all the posts I read that are annoyed with the government, annoyed by pop singers behaviour, annoyed by an argument from the past, annoyed by how someone trains, what diet someone is on, annoyed, angry, angry, negative, negative.  My question is

"How is this all serving me?  How is reading this stuff making my life better or my desires come to fruition?"

Answer:  it isn't.  I can not control other people's thoughts, emotions, actions, beliefs, doctrines, opinions and moreover why on earth would I want to?

I normally live a life of 'live and let live'.  One afternoon not living by MY OWN doctrine I totally stuffed up more than half a day of MY LIFE.  The person that typed it didn't do that, they are completely blameless in all this.  The only victim and perpetrator was me.

We, as a world, have a propensity to allow ourselves anger over peace.  Think about it.  How

many times have you become enraged at the words that have come out of someone else's mouth?  If I was walking  past you and sneered under my breath said "Jeesh, you are one hideous pig" . .how would you react?  Punch me? Shout at me?  Swear at me?  Spend AT LEAST half a day coming up with brilliant retorts in your head? Cry?  Look for a place that does plastic surgery? Or would you just carry on and not let it bother you?

Now ask yourself which way of reacting would make your life a healthier, happier, more positive place?  Dragging round a bag of anger or allowing others to be.

by DoiDuh

If you keep dragging round your bag of anger it is because you are not a peace with yourself.  You have not accepted yourself.  You have issues around certain parts of your being, whether it be your weight, your size, you features, your intelligence, your beliefs etc.  So many wars about religion, about land that people believe to be theirs.  If we all just took a deep breath, and started allowing people to be, what does it matter where a border is, why not completely dissolve all borders, allow anyone on this planet to go where ever they want?  If they want to believe that all carrots are gods and sacred, what business is it of yours to tell them otherwise?  I know, it's my Utopian dream, and so many people will already be putting up mind barriers, arguing how it can't be rather than smiling thinking 'that would be lovely'.

It is time for each and every one of us to learn self acceptance, to pay more attention to how WE behave, how WE think, what makes US happy and leave everyone else the fuck alone.  We all have sleeping demons, very few of us have managed to slay them and like anything within us, it is up to us to learn how we work, what makes us tick and figure out what is holding us back, then to don our coats of armour go out there and slay our demons.

How To Survive Divorce

How to survive divorce with your sanity intact and your happiness beast mode on, is the subject de jour (ooh hark at me and my french ways).

Well I have been there and done that so thought it only polite to share the "how to" bit.

THE BLAME GAME

The issue that first hits the stumps is the

"Who's fault is it"

No matter what you would love to say on this one, whether it be a cheating husband/wife, one half saying the other "just doesn't understand" the answer is very, very simple and the sooner you get this the quicker your happiness and life status quo will return.

THERE IS NO BLAME, PEOPLE JUST CHANGE!

Now, to the spurned lover this will sound incredibly harsh and even somewhat unfair, but it is, and always will be, the truth.

We as humans are ever evolving creatures, I shall put myself in the petri dish here for analysis.   I am a lover of this thing we call life, I enjoy it and think it there to be enjoyed, however my idea of enjoyment and my ex-husbands were quite different.  He loved playing on gaming devices, going to the pub and basically not being very near me.  I on the other hand am a tactile person and had a rosy picture in my head of family days out at the weekend, walking together, cycling together, getting fit together . . . . it took me 18 years to realise my dream would never come true.

The main turning point was realizing the vast chunk of my life had been spent in a pretty much exercise free zone.  Yes, I walked the dog and went pootling with my daughter's on the bike but never even realised our local swimming pool had a gym, and, even if I did would have considered it a Men Only zone.  Skip on a few years to 38 and suddenly I realise I am so unfit it is ridiculous and have spent way too much of my life wishing to be a different shape.  I start looking into fitness . . very cautiously you understand, this was an alien planet as far as I was concerned.  Skip to 39 I made a promise to myself to be fit for 40, this is when my whole world suddenly got turned on its head.  I trained hard, very hard, in retrospect TOO hard I lost ALL of my excess body weight, but in doing so a new passion had arisen, another crack in the ice of an already globally warmed iceberg in the marriage, I adored training, I was hooked.  I wanted more knowledge about it and here lay another issue for this was yet another passion that was NOT shared with my husband.  He was a construction worker and considered lugging plaster boards up and down the place good enough exercise for him.  So, the petri dish develops more globs in it as my changes kick in.  I am no more the happy little round house wife that cooks meals and hopes her hubby will be back before 8pm, I am now a very happy woman realising a passion and realising that her husband is not and never has been the man she actually wanted.  I realise I just don't love him.

Who is to blame here?  Me for wanting more out of life or him for not providing it?  Answer neither of us, we were just different beings with different needs and passions.  No one was to blame, life just happens and we have to deal with that.

 The man I married was not my soul mate, no matter how hard I tried to bully him into it.  As you can see we are both at fault as we were a) not living the life we truly wanted and even worse b) trying just to "tick along" as society says married people with children should stay together for the children's sake.  I say STUFF THAT!!

WE HAVE TO STAY TOGETHER FOR THE CHILDREN 

NO YOU DON'T!!

Ahh the ego such a pampered lover.  It tells both you and your partner the best thing you can do, even though your marriage/relationship is in tatters, is to stay together for children as this is what society dictates.  Yes, of course it is the best thing.  Just like if a child is growing up on the Gaza Strip it may as well stay there in times of non bombing and violence as that is what it is used to!  Sod moving the child to Barbados where there is a chance of peace, tranquility and somewhere to relax, readjust and focus on THEIR little lives.  Let's keep them in the purgatory of being pulled from one parent to the other, constantly seeing or hearing the two people they love rip each other to pieces and having to deal with all the whispered slurs from one, or boths parent about the other.  Let them have their whole childhood focussed, not on their study, their passions or their future but on your messed up relationship with each other . . . anybody seeing a problem yet?

The best thing for you is just the same as the best thing for your child.   MOVE ON.  Yes a divorce is hard on all parties involved there is just no getting around that, it hurts, but here is the readjustment point . . EVERYONE HEALS!  Your children will get through the mess quicker if they are not being used as weapons ie "I'll take the children away from you if you [insert random demand]".  Why not put on your big grown up pants and sit with your child and find out how they feel.  It is worth noting your ego may take the biggest kicking of its life at this point.  Let them tell you who they want to live with for now.

 . . . back to me, my children wanted to stay with their father because he had the big house and a better job.  Fair enough!  I got to see my youngest daughter a few times a week.  Don't get me wrong it hurt like a red hot knife through my soul, but, after precisely 3 months my eldest daughter had moved out to live on her own and my youngest daughter was pleading to live with me, which I grabbed with both hands it has to be said.  It turns out a big house and wallet don't provide the things they truly wanted.  I now live very happily in the smallest house you can imagine with my new partner (who really IS my soul mate) and my youngest daughter.  I never asked for a penny in child maintenance, told my solicitor I did not want any of my husbands earning, I even gave my husband the house we had built, (later found out he had not been paying the mortgage so had to sell it).  The point here is, your marriage is defunct, you have to move on for the sake of your sanity and, if you have children, for the sake of their future.  If you are using your partner's income as your own then it is time for you to stand on your own two feet or at least come to a FAIR decision, but, I guess that bit should be left to the solicitor. Remember the more money you get through the divorce the chances are the richer your solicitor will be!  If you are in the UK and using Legal Aid and get some settlement in the end from a sale of house or whatever, between the solicitor and Legal Aid they will rip as much of their losses back from you as they can in my case £7,000+!  

The moral of today's little literary outpouring is;

We have to learn to move on with our lives.  Stagnating in any situation that makes you unhappy will turn to depression, which in turn will end in illness, it is how our bodies and minds symphonically work.  Surely it is better to take responsibility for your own life, to live by design not by default, to stop waiting for others to pick up your slack and to realise the best money to have in your pocket is not that gleaned from someone else by a solicitor, but that you have made by yourself.  Divorce is as hard or as easy as you want it to be, the trick is not to push so hard at each other but learn to bend without breaking.  Life is full of lessons and we just have to be aware enough to realise they are being taught.

Right, I am off now to hug my soul mate and make my daughter (who has just passed her triple science exam with 100% allowing her to take it as her GCSE triple option, which in turn allows her to further her life into becoming a vet) her dinner before I cycle into town to teach a fitness class.

Be happy, lose the ego, love life.

When Did We Start Blaming Everyone For Our Own Fuck Ups?

When did we start blaming everyone for our own fuck ups?  From education right through to what we eat, we have turned into a world that just does not take responsibility for its own actions.  We also have turned into a world that has to sue everyone, for everything.

"It's the fast food companies fault we are fat"

"It's the education system that is failing us all"

"Society has made my child an ignorant prat"

"My marriage fell to pieces because it was his/her fault"

"I tripped over a pavement, I'm going to sue the council"

"He said I was an ignorant pig, I'm going to sue him for deformation character"

"They get paid more than me, I'm going to sue"

Someone actually sued (and won!!) McDonalds as she had scalded her lap with coffee whilst driving!!!

. . . . the list goes on, and on . . and on

The point that has to be made here is, at 43 I have realised one HUGE thing.  I am responsible for everything that happens to me in my life.  When I put on weight, it is not due to the pressure placed on my by advertising, I have never been quietly sitting at my computer when a Ronald McDonald employer of the week has stormed my house, grabbed me by the hair, stuffed me in the back of a van and force fed me a Deli Special of the Week, neither has any supermarket employee forced me into the dreaded "middle" of the shop, where apparently all the bad shit happens and you get sucker punched into buying all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

Now I do understand there are some quite legitimate reasons for taking someone to court/suing them such as gross malpractice, health and safety neglect etc but it is the daft stuff that is mentioned above, people just seem to want to find things to sue people for and, you get what you wish for I am afraid folks.

A story to learn by here is, friends of my partner played the suing game, suing for accidents they had at work to the point where he would DELIBERATELY hurt himself, they actually bought and paid for their house through all the claims they made.  Now I am a firm believer in you get what you bring to you, so if you are constantly telling people how poor you are, you will remain poor, if you are constantly telling people about your fear of being attacked, you will get attacked and so on.   Then what they had been focusing on came to pass, the man who had even gone to the lengths of severing a finger to sue, ended up having a serious motorbike accident and becoming paralyzed at which point, his wife left him.  So be careful what you wish for people!

So, to sum up.  When you realise you are responsible for everything that happens in your life, you will then be able to start making a more positive step to creating your dream life.  If you want to be slender, take a look at what YOU are shoving in YOUR face.  If you are in an unhappy relationship LEAVE IT and please don't do the "but how will I survive without the house, the money, the car (insert appropriate high end item)", the truth for you people is, easily.  I left my husband with £70 to my name and I survived very happily, yes you have to go through some pretty gritty times, but as long as you keep your ego in check, let the past stay in the past and look to making you a brand new happy future, you will, without doubt succeed.

Becoming responsible for yourself is the most empowering thing you can possibly do.

Now, off and empower yourself