I'm the dickhead

a new spiritual path

I’ve lost track of how many weird workshops I’ve been to at this point. I’ve held my own funeral in a muddy field next to a golf course in Sussex, lying on a black bin bag, holding a single rose and wondering when Ruby Wax would appear with a camera crew.

I’ve partaken in Victim Idol, where we had to stand up in front of a group of twenty five people and share all our poor me stories to see who was the most pathetic. (I didn’t even get in the top three, despite my ‘it’s so hard to write a book’ sob story ).

Most recently, I went to a Radical Honesty workshop in a house in Tooting while suffering from one of the worst hangovers of my life. I don’t recommend that.

But there is one workshop moment in particular that is replaying in my mind a lot these days.

It was on a workshop held by the wonderful Jan Day and we were learning a fundamental truth about relationships.

Are you ready for it?

Ninety nine per cent of the time, when we don’t like someone, it’s not them who is the problem, it’s us.

Jan explained that when people push our buttons there is usually one of two things going on:

• that person is doing something that reminds you of you - but a bit of you that you don’t like.

• OR that person is doing something you wish you had the guts to do but don’t. Jan called this the ‘disowned’ parts of us.

Jan gave the example that it could be that someone who talks a lot drives you mad because you also talk a lot and feel a bit embarrassed about it. When you see the way they dominate conversations or talk over people you cringe because you have the icky feeling that you do that too.

Or, on the flip side, it could be that you are very quiet. Maybe you were told that children should be seen and not heard and never quite shook that off. Or you think you are boring, or that other people’s views are more important, or are very shy… whatever the reason, you resent the fact that this person can do what you don’t feel able to do.*

‘Yes, but can’t someone just be annoying?’ asked one of the women on the workshop. Sometimes yes, but generally no. Someone who drives me crazy won’t bother you at all. And vice versa. Their behaviour is the same, our reaction is very different.

We were then invited to think about people who annoyed us in the room. Two immediately came to mind.

There was a woman who really irritated me. She seemed so vulnerable, so needy… I wanted to come out of my skin just being near her. I wanted to tell her to pull herself together. Toughen up, woman!!

There was a hot guy that I fancied but I couldn’t bear to be around him because he was handsome and it made me feel ugly. So I’d made up a story that he was arrogant and mean.

We were then invited to do the UNIMAGINABLE.

We could go up to the people who annoyed us and tell them why. We were to position it in a way that made it clear the problem was with us, not them. We were given a specific way to say it but I can’t remember how now.

It didn’t matter. There was no way I was going to do that. No way.

But just as I was about to leave the room to hide in the loo, the weak, annoying, vulnerable needy woman seemed to be walking my way.

She sat opposite me, plopping down on a cushion.

‘Um,’ she said, looking at me with big watery eyes. ‘Um. I find you quite hard to be around… Because, I suppose I see a lot of vulnerability in you and I find that hard. I find you to be quite…. um…. needy, I suppose.’

What the hell was she talking about? I wasn’t vulnerable! Or needy! I’d spent my whole life trying not to be needy! My sister says I despise needy people! Miss Independent, that’s me!!

She was wrong! I was nothing like her! AT ALL.

Except of course I was. I am.

I went back to the room I was sharing with another woman. She was sitting on her bed.

‘So basically, I’m the dickhead…’ she said, a hundred pennies dropping.

That line stayed with me.

I’M THE DICKHEAD.

It’s in my head all the time right now when my dick-headedness becomes more apparent with every day. (A perk of middle age, I think… when you’ve been in the same shit situations enough times to finally realise YOU are the common denominator.)

I was at a cafe that was not my cafe the other day and a woman swanned in like she owned the place, doing the rounds and saying hello to everyone. She annoyed me… full of herself. Cocky. Parading her popularity.

Then I realised that’s what I’m like when I’m in my local coffee shop.

I’M THE DICKHEAD.

Then there was the friend whose need to plan and book things months in advance stresses me out…. she is uptight! A control freak! Why can’t she just relax? Go with the flow?

With the I’m the dickhead theory, I can see that she bugs me so much because she takes control of her life in a way that I envy. I lurch from day to day and pretend it makes me a free spirit but often I’m lost and scared of making decisions. I wish I was more like her.

I’M THE DICKHEAD.

The bad news with this theory is that it takes all the fun out of being pissed off with people.

The good news is that when people piss you off, it might be a teeny tiny clue as to something you might want to look at.

So when people with savings and plans and structure press my buttons, I can carry on resenting them or I can remind myself that this is a sign of stuff I need to work on.

If someone annoys me for being needy, I can probably try to be more accepting of the part of me that wants reassurance from others. Then I won’t feel so angered by others who seem needy.

As for hot guys, maybe I need to work on owning my own hotness so that I don’t feel so inadequate in their company?!!

xx

What I’m reading

Banking on It - by Anne Boden. The best book I’ve ever read… about banking. Ha. I read it before interviewing Boden, who is the only woman in the UK to have ever started her own bank. She is extraordinary and the book is brilliant - a proper page turner with plot twists galore.

Boden spent her career working in traditional banks and could see so many things they were doing wrong so at 54 she quits her job to start her own bank. She set up shop in a cafe and emailed the world telling them her plan. People laughed.

Two years and hundreds of rejections later, thanks to the appearance of a mysterious billionaire who invited her to his yacht in the Bahamas (prompting a clothes crisis - what does one wear to meet a billionaire on a yacht?) she started Starling bank.

It’s now worth £1.2billion and wins awards for being the best bank. I was blown away by her. What a woman. So inspiring and at the same time so normal and chatty. She spent half the interview asking me about me. (Well, I am fascinating…)

The piece will be in the Telegraph at some point, and her story runs alongside other people who found success later in life. I’ll share the link when it’s done. I loved doing it. Such a privilege to talk to people like this. Well, all people really. I love doing journalism again. And am very grateful for it.

Animal by Lisa Taddeo, of Three Women fame. Not sure if you read Three Women but it was a non-fiction book about three women’s sex lives. It was brilliant and also upsetting. Animal is fiction about a woman who moves across America after her married lover kills himself. It’s gripping and shocking and the writing is so so good.

What I’m watching

Nothing! Let’s see how long this lasts but I’m taking a little break from telly. The aliens told me to.

Back story: I was driving back from a weekend of camping (well, a yurt with a pine bed and a floral duvet) and my friend started talking about recordings on YouTube where aliens give us messages. Have you heard of this? I hadn’t.

I think it’s like Esther Hicks who claims to channel ‘Abraham’ - a ‘group consciousness from the non-physical dimension’ - but these voices come channeled from different planets. I mean, sounds completely nuts but what do I know about anything?! Who knows what’s true and what isn’t these days?

So, anyway, we were bombing down the M4 listening to a robotic voice that claimed to be channeling wisdom from the planet Plaiedes and amongst other things the voice was telling us Earthlings that we are watching too much television and that we will look back on this time in human evolution and see that we were walking around like dazed zombies. Just why these aliens aren’t too busy looking after their own planet to be poking their nose into our TV habits, I don’t know - but it struck a chord and I haven’t watched much Netflix since.**

Oh except the Wim Hoff thing on BBC - I LOVE THEM ALL!! And have been doing the cold shower thing… speaking of which…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVID. (My brother/friend and Wim devotee)

and

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NELLY (the best neighbour in the whole wide world)

here’s a little song to play us out…

Love

xx

*And on the flip flip side the super talker might be looking at the silent person and resenting them for their rudeness, or the lack of effort they are making. The super talker might even envy the quiet one for having the confidence to not do nervous chatter.

**My friend was telling me there is also a concept called ‘Starseeds’ which is when people believe their soul is from another planet. I’d never heard of that before. Again, sounds nuts but who knows?! To quote Hamlet - cos, why not? - ‘There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy’.