It has been a very, very strange time here in Christchurch over the last week and a half. First, my thoughts and deep sympathy to those who have lost loved ones - family and friends - and to those who have lost homes, possessions, and sense of security. We were recovering from the September earthquake; nothing could have prepared us for this.
My thoughts, too, for those for whom Christchurch has at some time been a home - I know you feel the pull of gravity back here, and this has been huge loss for you, also.
We have no sense of what is coming next for our city. What will it look like, what will it feel like, in a month, six months, a year? For me, it marks a definite change of focus, from my locally based business to the books which take me to the wider world. These will have to be my livelihood, my means of financial contribution now. That is as it should be, but the path ahead is not yet clear. One step, and then the next, and then the next, without knowing what the following will be; and that's how it is for all of us, here, in this city, at this moment.
My thoughts are with you all,
Jennifer Manson
www.jennifermanson.co.nz
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Dream Creation
I am in a new phase of life, an exhilarating, terrifying phase: that of taking my dreams and personally making them real.
The project is the publication of a novel, The Moment of Change.
I’ve known from the age of six that I wanted to write and I’ve been doing so, on and off, since then, with pauses of varying lengths, usually related to feedback it’s taken me 38 years to learn how to handle.
So here we are. The launch is scheduled for early October, at Podamo’s beautiful headquarters in Christchurch’s Bedford Row, www.podamo.com.
Chapter One follows. If you’d like a longer preview, or to pre-order your copy, email me at jennifer@jennifermanson.co.nz.
The project is the publication of a novel, The Moment of Change.
I’ve known from the age of six that I wanted to write and I’ve been doing so, on and off, since then, with pauses of varying lengths, usually related to feedback it’s taken me 38 years to learn how to handle.
So here we are. The launch is scheduled for early October, at Podamo’s beautiful headquarters in Christchurch’s Bedford Row, www.podamo.com.
Chapter One follows. If you’d like a longer preview, or to pre-order your copy, email me at jennifer@jennifermanson.co.nz.
Thanks to everyone who has supported me: friends who have read and encouraged, proof-read and passed the novels on to other friends; and to those who will sponsor the publication - your generosity is enormously appreciated. Thank you.
The Moment of Change
Chapter One
I was once in a car accident. I slipped on oil, or ice, on a corner half way up a mountain pass. My car spun off the road onto gravel, settling into a backward slide which in the calm of the moment I expected to bring me to a halt. I thought I was nearly stopped when the car began tipping backwards. In that moment I felt no fear, just a deep curiosity about what was going to happen next.
There is nothing much to say about Happily Ever After; it is what comes before that is interesting. Sometimes life throws you an element of the random. Embrace it. The only mistake you can make at this point is to try to keep life on its previous course.
And sometimes, when life doesn’t do it, you have to throw in that element of the random yourself.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Love Your Home five minute exercise
Is there a room in your home that is not the way you want it to be? What if you could do a five minute exercise to change the way you feel about it?
It may be just one room, or perhaps in the midst of a busy life, a vague general feeling about the house as a whole.
Take five minutes in a quiet place and close your eyes. How would you like to describe it once it is everything you want it to be? What words would you choose? What would it feel like? Who would be there? What would you be doing in it?
Create a visual image of what it looks like once the changes have been made and get a sense of how you feel. If no image comes to mind, that's fine, just get a sense of the feeling. Stay with that for a minute or two, enjoy it.
And that's it! Exercise complete!
Once you have done this exercise you may be inspired to make some immediate changes, or you may not feel the need to make any changes now, you may just notice in a day or two or three that you are moving things around, bringing things in, taking things out, using the room in the new way. Whether the changes are immediate or take a little while, in your heart they have already been made.
Congratulations!
I am excited to announce Home Style's new Love Your Home coaching service, a series of four telephone coaching sessions to help you create the home you want. See www.homestyle.co.nz/Home-Coaching.html for more information.
I am offering a half price introductory offer to you for following my blog, NZ$450 including GST for the series. Call me if you would like more information on what the coaching series will give you.
Telephone 03 3519369 (+64 33 51 93 69 from outside New Zealand)
Email jennifer@homestyle.co.nz
Web www.homestyle.co.nz
It may be just one room, or perhaps in the midst of a busy life, a vague general feeling about the house as a whole.
Take five minutes in a quiet place and close your eyes. How would you like to describe it once it is everything you want it to be? What words would you choose? What would it feel like? Who would be there? What would you be doing in it?
Create a visual image of what it looks like once the changes have been made and get a sense of how you feel. If no image comes to mind, that's fine, just get a sense of the feeling. Stay with that for a minute or two, enjoy it.
And that's it! Exercise complete!
Once you have done this exercise you may be inspired to make some immediate changes, or you may not feel the need to make any changes now, you may just notice in a day or two or three that you are moving things around, bringing things in, taking things out, using the room in the new way. Whether the changes are immediate or take a little while, in your heart they have already been made.
Congratulations!
I am excited to announce Home Style's new Love Your Home coaching service, a series of four telephone coaching sessions to help you create the home you want. See www.homestyle.co.nz/Home-Coaching.html for more information.
I am offering a half price introductory offer to you for following my blog, NZ$450 including GST for the series. Call me if you would like more information on what the coaching series will give you.
Telephone 03 3519369 (+64 33 51 93 69 from outside New Zealand)
Email jennifer@homestyle.co.nz
Web www.homestyle.co.nz
Friday, February 27, 2009
The Secret to Happiness
Generating passion
With thanks to Stefan Klein, PhD, author of "The Science of Happiness"
Passion for the goals we are seeking is the key to both happiness and success
Taking action is easy when we are excited about where we are heading. Our usual barriers to action: fear of failure, fear of success, and whatever other baggage we are carrying around, seem not to operate in the presence of passion.
Stefan Klein (with apologies for the very loose paraphrase) explains that this is because when we are in a state of desire the brain releases dopamine into the body and this spurs us into action - very cheerful action, action you would have to hold us back from taking.
When the passion fades . . .
This all seems great, but then the next morning we go to continue our plan and it looks scary again. Or we don't notice the passion fading and six months later we are beating ourselves up because somehow that goal slipped away.
Passion, desire and excitement only last as long as the dopamine takes to disappear from our bloodstream. If we want to experience them on an ongoing basis, we need to regenerate them again and again.
Regenerating passion is easy
The good news about this is that it's really easy. The trick is to remember this is what you need to do . . .
To read more, go to http://www.jennifermanson.co.nz/Generating-Passion-speaker-writer-podcaster.html.
For feedback email jennifer@jennifermanson.co.nz.
Have a great day!
Jennifer Manson.
www.homestyle.co.nz www.businessstyle.co.nz www.jennifermanson.co.nz
With thanks to Stefan Klein, PhD, author of "The Science of Happiness"
Passion for the goals we are seeking is the key to both happiness and success
Taking action is easy when we are excited about where we are heading. Our usual barriers to action: fear of failure, fear of success, and whatever other baggage we are carrying around, seem not to operate in the presence of passion.
Stefan Klein (with apologies for the very loose paraphrase) explains that this is because when we are in a state of desire the brain releases dopamine into the body and this spurs us into action - very cheerful action, action you would have to hold us back from taking.
When the passion fades . . .
This all seems great, but then the next morning we go to continue our plan and it looks scary again. Or we don't notice the passion fading and six months later we are beating ourselves up because somehow that goal slipped away.
Passion, desire and excitement only last as long as the dopamine takes to disappear from our bloodstream. If we want to experience them on an ongoing basis, we need to regenerate them again and again.
Regenerating passion is easy
The good news about this is that it's really easy. The trick is to remember this is what you need to do . . .
To read more, go to http://www.jennifermanson.co.nz/Generating-Passion-speaker-writer-podcaster.html.
For feedback email jennifer@jennifermanson.co.nz.
Have a great day!
Jennifer Manson.
www.homestyle.co.nz www.businessstyle.co.nz www.jennifermanson.co.nz
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Anger, Anxiety and Reaching Your Goals
If you would like to read more of Jennifer's writing see www.jennifermanson.co.nz.
We have been taught to deny anger and repress anxiety, but is this the best way?
Anger: evolving from blindness to awareness to conscious utilisation
In the course of the last year, but more consciously in the last month, I have been observing anger - in myself and in others. The first thing I noticed is how much we resist anger. We are scared of it, we have been taught that we shouldn’t be angry and we deny it. We are so unhappy in the presence of anger that we close our eyes, in the process making ourselves blind to everything else as well.
The beauty of anger
I like anger. It is powerful. Repressed and explosive it can be dangerous but in its pure form anger is an exhilarating and exciting emotion, more directed than happiness and more propelling than grief. The most useful thing is that it identifies obstacles to what we want.
It is important to keep our senses and mind functioning through anger, to stay conscious rather than switching off, so we can learn from it.
Training ourselves to harness anger
This takes practice. My process was first to practice staying conscious in the presence of other people’s anger; to call it what it is, translating those insidiously misleading words “frustration” and “annoyance.”
I would give them space to express their anger, to process rather than resisting it. People were grateful: it’s a rare thing to be at peace in the presence of anger, and they appreciated the acceptance and understanding.
Next I started to acknowledge anger in myself. Deliberately let loose and still not fully under control it would sometime rise powerfully. In those situations I removed myself from the company of those who would be scared by it. I have some wonderful friends who allowed me to express my anger and helped me explore the nature of it. Or I took myself off alone, into the countryside, to my room, felt my heart beat steady and hard.
Consciously observing
Once I was practiced at staying fully conscious and observant, I began to see detail, and then it came to me: we get angry when something gets in the way of what we want. A little more observation and enquiry in the specific situation and it is easy to identify what is happening, easy to identify a course of action. With the energy from the anger we can easily blast or brush aside the obstacle and propel ourselves on the path to our goals.
Anxiety: modifying forethought, setting deliberate goals
Next, anxiety and worry. In “Stealing Fire From the Gods” James Bonnet cites the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to human beings. Prometheus means “forethought” and it is this gift that enables us to set goals and make plans. Bonnet points out that an unpleasant side-effect of forethought is worry. (Prometheus’s story represents this in his punishment, an eagle gnawing on his liver day after day, Groundhog Day a nasty twist.)
Worry, however, is also useful. It tells us when we are foreseeing something which displeases us. Once again, staying conscious is the key: asking ourselves what we are imagining that causes the worry.
Foreseeing our goals engages our subconscious to take us towards them. If we replace the image that is troubling us with one which pleases us, anxiety reduces and again we are propelled on our path towards our goals.
Step-by-step Summary
· Work at becoming comfortable with anger, in yourself and others
· Practise staying conscious in the presence of anger
· Observe your own anger to identify what you are angry about and what it is stopping you getting
· Use the power of the anger to brush or blast aside the obstacle and move towards your goal
· Become aware of anxiety
· Observe what you are worried will happen
· Replace this future image with one that is in line with your goals
· Take action towards that positive future image
If you would like to read more of Jennifer's writing see www.jennifermanson.co.nz.
We have been taught to deny anger and repress anxiety, but is this the best way?
Anger: evolving from blindness to awareness to conscious utilisation
In the course of the last year, but more consciously in the last month, I have been observing anger - in myself and in others. The first thing I noticed is how much we resist anger. We are scared of it, we have been taught that we shouldn’t be angry and we deny it. We are so unhappy in the presence of anger that we close our eyes, in the process making ourselves blind to everything else as well.
The beauty of anger
I like anger. It is powerful. Repressed and explosive it can be dangerous but in its pure form anger is an exhilarating and exciting emotion, more directed than happiness and more propelling than grief. The most useful thing is that it identifies obstacles to what we want.
It is important to keep our senses and mind functioning through anger, to stay conscious rather than switching off, so we can learn from it.
Training ourselves to harness anger
This takes practice. My process was first to practice staying conscious in the presence of other people’s anger; to call it what it is, translating those insidiously misleading words “frustration” and “annoyance.”
I would give them space to express their anger, to process rather than resisting it. People were grateful: it’s a rare thing to be at peace in the presence of anger, and they appreciated the acceptance and understanding.
Next I started to acknowledge anger in myself. Deliberately let loose and still not fully under control it would sometime rise powerfully. In those situations I removed myself from the company of those who would be scared by it. I have some wonderful friends who allowed me to express my anger and helped me explore the nature of it. Or I took myself off alone, into the countryside, to my room, felt my heart beat steady and hard.
Consciously observing
Once I was practiced at staying fully conscious and observant, I began to see detail, and then it came to me: we get angry when something gets in the way of what we want. A little more observation and enquiry in the specific situation and it is easy to identify what is happening, easy to identify a course of action. With the energy from the anger we can easily blast or brush aside the obstacle and propel ourselves on the path to our goals.
Anxiety: modifying forethought, setting deliberate goals
Next, anxiety and worry. In “Stealing Fire From the Gods” James Bonnet cites the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to human beings. Prometheus means “forethought” and it is this gift that enables us to set goals and make plans. Bonnet points out that an unpleasant side-effect of forethought is worry. (Prometheus’s story represents this in his punishment, an eagle gnawing on his liver day after day, Groundhog Day a nasty twist.)
Worry, however, is also useful. It tells us when we are foreseeing something which displeases us. Once again, staying conscious is the key: asking ourselves what we are imagining that causes the worry.
Foreseeing our goals engages our subconscious to take us towards them. If we replace the image that is troubling us with one which pleases us, anxiety reduces and again we are propelled on our path towards our goals.
Step-by-step Summary
· Work at becoming comfortable with anger, in yourself and others
· Practise staying conscious in the presence of anger
· Observe your own anger to identify what you are angry about and what it is stopping you getting
· Use the power of the anger to brush or blast aside the obstacle and move towards your goal
· Become aware of anxiety
· Observe what you are worried will happen
· Replace this future image with one that is in line with your goals
· Take action towards that positive future image
If you would like to read more of Jennifer's writing see www.jennifermanson.co.nz.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
At Home book by David Killick (contribution by Jennifer Manson)
This week I am proud to have been one of the contributing writers to "The Press At Home - a guide to creating your perfect home" by David Killick.The book was released earlier in the week and is perfect Christmas content: beautiful pictures and down to earth advice - ideal for the bach coffee table and relaxed summer holiday reading!
David is a wonderful writer with a great heart, a jewel in the Christchurch community.
Home Style has copies of the book available at $29.95 plus $3 postage and handling. Order by clicking here
or email me at jennifer@homestyle.co.nz.
Enjoy your weekend,
Jennifer.
Monday, November 3, 2008
France and New York
This week is back to normal at Home Style after two months of variety for me - although business has been ably managed by Terri, Ged and Vicki in my absence.
First was a magical holiday in France, a 20th wedding anniversary trip providing space to think on a larger scale. Chateaux and scenery with Eddie Izzard on TomTom allowing me to put the map down and enjoy the ride.
Next came the rapid run-up to the Canterbury Home Show - Ged and I were on the stand from Friday morning to Sunday night talking to hundreds of people and selling the newly released audio CD "How to Prepare a House For Sale." The audio takes you through your home step by step to add $1,000s to the price of your home - show special price of $45 (including Postage and Handling) still applies. You can buy now by credit card through PayPal
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=896987
or email me at info@homestyle.co.nz to arrange payment.
Two days after the Home Show I left for New York to attend Robert McKee's Story course, predominantly for screen writers but the elements and principles of story apply equally to novels. The course was fabulous and New York spectacular, golden leaves and sunshine.
And now back to the office. Time to create the vision for the next 12 months and beyond!
First was a magical holiday in France, a 20th wedding anniversary trip providing space to think on a larger scale. Chateaux and scenery with Eddie Izzard on TomTom allowing me to put the map down and enjoy the ride.
Next came the rapid run-up to the Canterbury Home Show - Ged and I were on the stand from Friday morning to Sunday night talking to hundreds of people and selling the newly released audio CD "How to Prepare a House For Sale." The audio takes you through your home step by step to add $1,000s to the price of your home - show special price of $45 (including Postage and Handling) still applies. You can buy now by credit card through PayPal
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=896987
or email me at info@homestyle.co.nz to arrange payment.
Two days after the Home Show I left for New York to attend Robert McKee's Story course, predominantly for screen writers but the elements and principles of story apply equally to novels. The course was fabulous and New York spectacular, golden leaves and sunshine.
And now back to the office. Time to create the vision for the next 12 months and beyond!
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