We have been visiting Porthleven for years now (10 to be precise). It is so stress free and although it sounds boring, I really can’t be bothered with airports, foreign languages and dodgy food. You know where you are with a good old pasty.

I have friends though who love to travel and visit areas of culture or have activities booked for each day they are away. (Lord!). But we are all different aren’t we, and that is what makes the human race so interesting.

So here I am. Raring to go with loads of ideas on my mission to motivate the nation. Spurred on by the fact that my new book  Smutty Putterhouse (all about a lovable dyslexic window cleaner, modelled on Mr Tipping, of course) is now launched in the shops and on Amazon and KTP website. It is an amazing feeling to see your book in print. Although John’s book, Go Play in the Sand, John, has been out for a while now, it is different when it is your own.

The book is about acceptance that we are all different and that we should embrace diversity.  the first story is about Smutty himself as a boy and how he realised that you don’t have to be good at the written word to be a hero. Smutty two and three have been written and are currently with Frances for editing and then we need to arrange for the illustrations to be done. Lots to do.

If you do buy a copy, please let me know what you think. xx

So Amy got off the bus at Dover and sat in the bus shelter waiting for the homeward bound bus. An hour later she was still sitting there waiting for the bus to take her home. She was quite happy. It was a pleasant evening and she was sitting listening to her IPod.

After a while a bus drew up. Wrong number on the front. Never mind. The bus driver opened the door and looked at Amy.

‘You alright love?‘

‘Yep, just waiting for the bus to take me home to Crabble’

‘There, won’t be one along now love’

‘Oh well, I ‘ll just wait here then – ’till it comes’

‘No, you don’t understand. There isn’t another one until tomorrow morning now’

‘Oh, never mind. I’ll just wait here then.’

Amy sat..waiting. The bus driver just looked at her in a bemused state.

‘Oh for goodness sake. Get in, I’ll drop you off. I can’t leave you sitting there!’

Pow! Amy just expected a bus to take her home…. and it did! That’s my girl!

I was expecting a great romance or a superb deal at work that had just come off in her favour. But no. Amy said she was just waiting for the bus outside of her house to take her to work and she just couldn’t stop grinning.

‘Mum’ she said ‘the sun was shining and it is so pretty where I live. I just love it and I was so happy to be there looking at everything and just feeling safe and lucky. It just made me grin’.

What a great uncomplicated story. Well done Ames. So many of us miss the things that should mean the most to us. The sunshine, the greenery everywhere at this time of the year and the fact that we are there, in that moment, enjoying it all.

It’s called living in the moment. But we can miss it by spending precious moments worrying and stressing over things in the past or things that ‘may’ happen in the future. The only thing that is really real is the moment we are in right now. For instance, here I am in my sunny office in my home. I can hear the TV burbling away in the lounge and I can hear someone outside mowing their lawn. I am safe, comfortable and inspired. What more could I want?

So let’s live in the moment and let’s enjoy and recognise the simple things that make life on this planet so incredible. It’s down to you!

So, I thought I would give it a go her way. I had dropped my son off at his Dad’s house and had a 20 minute drive back home. Ideal for some visualisation. I was travelling along a reasonably quiet road heading for the A2 and I thought, I know, I will visualise my car as being my Volvo C 70 – a black one!

I pictured the cream seats, the black bonnet stretching out in front of me. I could smell the leather and the new carpets. I could feel the automatic gear lever in my hand. I could feel the power as I gently accelerated along the road. I was loving it! I felt so good in my C70. I just couldn’t wait to get out onto the main road to put my foot down. I felt the sterring wheel. I could see my number plate on my wonderful new car and I imagined it sitting on my drive.

I know that my C70 is on it’s way. It’s on the production line and is waiting to be tested, finished and taken to the pick up point. I can feel it.

Imagine my surprise and delight within 3 minutes of my visualisation exercise, what do you think I saw driving towards me along this quite country road? Yep! A black Volvo C70! I screached out in delight and whooped whooped all the way home. What a feeling.

Do you belive in synchronicity? Do you look for and spot the signs? I do. And they ALWAYS work.

So keep visiting, because Jilly’s black Volvo is on it’s way…. I can feel it! Lush!

Things can then go from bad to worse. You think about it all the time, you ‘fester’ on their words until you have created a whole story surrounding the reasoning behind the outburst. That can lead to the angry onslaught of words from you in return and so the bad feelings multiply and multiply until the original cross word has actually been forgotten in the foray.

So, how do you deal with it? Well, once again I quote my mate Anthony Robbins who says ‘Ask yourself. What does he (or she) mean by that’. In other words, instead of moping around feeling hurt and victimised, get over yourself and see things from his (or her) point of view.

Ask yourself what this person that you love could be feeling in order to say those things. Is it really you he or she is lashing out at, or it is themselves. Have they had a bad experience that day which is playing on their minds. Often people act aggressively if they feel guilty about something, or awkward or perhaps vulnerable.

The next time this happens to you, and it will, stop before you retaliate. Ask yourself  ‘What does he mean by that’ and when you feel calm and in control (that usually means not talking for a few moments!) ask them if there is something bothering them and can you help. You may feel like smashing them right on the nose at that moment, but you will feel so much better for being the ‘grown up’.

If you can get an answer straight away then you will have more of an understanding. But sometimes, you just have to ‘let it be’ and walk away offering your support when they are ready to talk.  Your lack of aggression will have diffused the situation and allowed time for thought from both of you. And then other times you may have to say ’sorry’. Getting down to the root of the problem can be quite an eye opener.

Backing down when you have been hurt and taking a different route can be a relationship saver. It also keeps the stress levels down, and I don’t know about you, but ..

I’m too blessed, to be stressed!

The book is probably in the region of about 60 thousand words but the message is very simple: if you want to change your life you need to shift your thoughts and then your feelings to the place where you want to be. That way you will vibrate at a fequency that attracts the right people and events into your life.

Put it this way, if you want a wonderful relationship in your life and you go around feeling miserable and scowling or frowning all the time because you feel lonley and neglected, your dream partner is not going to hang around you that long. However, if you get your thougths and feelings into a place where you feel loved and cherished, it will radiate out from you and peple will want to be around you, so you can go from there. Bet they don’t tell you that on dating sites!

So, let’s say that you want to feel well and energised and lately you have been feeling the opposite and you just can’t work out why. Take a deep breath, feel the energy rising in your body, stand up straight and feel strong and powerful. The do something to enhance that energy – Dance madly or go for a power walk, run up and down the stairs, drink a pint of water – do anything that will keep that feeling going. Recognise what it feels like and keep that feeling. It really is that simple.

It takes practice though. But start off with small things in your life, like feeling energetic, get the habit and then manifest your whole life to how you want it to be.

Remember this important point to help you along the way. It’s all about focus. If things are not going right for you, double check where your focus is and MAKE THE SHIFT.

You deserve it, so make it happen. Don’t worry about what has gone on in the past – start from where you are now, this minute. As my favourite coach Tony Robbins would say:

‘When would NOW be a good time’

Sam has learned about health and hygeine, how to make a fantastic pizza, how to work the till, how credit/debit cards work and how to key them in.  He has learned about customer service, how to deal with awkward customers and how to say ‘I’m sorry’. He now has money so is learning how to budget his personal finances. His work colleagues are all different nationalities so Sam is learning about different cultures and languages. He is also learning how to be a dependable member of the team. His phone answering skills are now top and he has been practicing speaking clearly and coherently.

All this, and Sam has only worked 6 shifts!

What have you learned today? Don’t forget we are learning all the time – we just may not be aware of it!

I asked them how they were feeling about their lives right at this time. You may think that would be a daft question and that the answers would come back as quite negative – after all, they had been deprived of their liberty. But, once again I was amazed to get their replies. All 10 of them were in a good place and excited about the future.

Now maybe I shouldn’t have been that surprised as this had happened on my previous visits there, but this time I wanted to investigate more. So I asked them why was it that in most of my other groups outside I get replies such as ‘overwhelmed, stressed, fed up, anxious’ but with this group their responses were quite the opposite.

The answer was ‘Time’. They had time and lots of it. Doing ‘Time’ seemed really appropriate. This forced stop made them evaluate where they were going and what they were doing with their lives as a whole. They had time for discussions which each other and to learn about how different people think and act. One guy had been taught to read (actually by one of the other chaps on the course!) and he described his time at the prison as ‘at times emotional’.

I was fascinated by this eclectic group of men of all ages, race and intellect, all telling me the same thing – when you have time to think about things you start to see things differently. There are other issues though like becoming institutionalised and then becoming anxious about coming out, which are not so positive, but I learned a lot from those boys yesterday.

We MUST give ourselves time. That means stepping out of the rat race regularly. Sometimes the only time we do this is when we go on holiday and then we have other pressures. It still isn’t a state of nothingness.

So I guess if we want clarity, then we need to create space in our lives to let it in. Maybe some meditation or just some good old thinking in a quiet room or writing in a journal. It empties the brain, allows us to let go of the clutter and so let the new stuff come in. We can all use the excuse ‘ I don’t have time for that’ but that is just an excuse. In our busy lives you have to make time. Afterall, we all make time to watch the TV.

So challenge yourself in 2010 to regularly give yourself  ‘nothing’ time to reflect and then let go of anxieties and worries to let the new, good stuff come in!

My daughter works for a major high street bank. She is based at Canterbury but lives in Dover. There were no buses to get her to work today so she put her Uggs on and walked the 3 miles into the Dover Town Centre branch and did her days shift there. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best she could do in the circumstances.

I think at times like this we all have to be flexible. The booking I had on the Isle of Sheppey this evening has been postponed and so I lose my fee for today. Normally with last minute cancellations I would charge, but in this case, it really couldn’t be helped and it would be ridiculous to expect people to turn out to an evening event. You just have to take it  on the chin and be flexible.

I must admit I am finding it very difficult to focus on my work at the moment. It is kind of a surreal situation and nothing is normal. This morning I fussed around and couldn’t settle to anything. I felt fuzzy and disorientated (no – it wasn’t hangover!) and I couldn’t work out why I felt this way. John and I chatted about it and I realised that I had just about ‘burnt out’ as I had been working, selling Ben’s calendar all over Christmas and New Year and had had only Christmas and Boxing Day off.

So here I am presented with a forced ’stop’, and I have decided to use it. Time to recognise that if you keep going, going and going, eventually you burn out and then what are you fit for? Naff all!

So, the snow may be a pain, but it has just provided me with a safety net. There’s always a positive!