Help Me!

by Marianne Power

  I got out of the car and stood for a minute, taking in the long terrace and a turquoise pool whose water seemed to spill into the green hills surrounding it. It was so much more beautiful than anything I’d been expecting.

  I was taken to my room, which was in a stone cottage in the gardens, overlooking a small church. I jumped up and down and squealed in delight at the huge bed, flat-screen television and marble wet room . . .

  I thought of Sarah and of Mum. I felt a pang of guilt that I did not deserve to be here in paradise when I had a neglected friend and an ageing mother slaving away at work but then I heard a splash of water and shrieks from the pool and I quickly got over it.

  F**k It. F**k It all . . .

  I took off my clothes and lay on the crisp white sheets in my underwear. I closed my eyes . . .

  When I woke up the Italian sun was casting a deep orange glow though the shutters. It was 7.10pm. I’d slept for two hours and was due to meet the others. I threw on a blue jersey dress, scraped my hair up into a bun and walked to the terrace where a dozen or so people were sipping drinks.

  I spotted the good-looking couple from the airport.

  ‘Are you a fellow Fuckiteer?’ asked a smiley woman with a brown bob.

  ‘I suppose I am!’ I said.

  ‘Join us.’

  There was one seat free, next to Mr Airport, who was wearing shorts and a blue t-shirt that both looked box-fresh. His girlfriend was at the other table.

  ‘I’m Geoff,’ he said, with a Northern Irish accent and brown eyes. He stood up as he held out his hand. He was so tall. Up close he looked like something out of a Gillette ad. My tummy flipped. I took his hand and worried that I’d gone too hard on the handshake and that my hands were sweaty.

  ‘God, this is stunning,’ I said, looking at the pool.

  ‘It is. I was expecting shared dorms and mung beans,’ joked Geoff.

  ‘Me too, that’s exactly what I was thinking!’ I said, too loudly.

  ‘So you haven’t been here before?’ he asked.

  ‘No, but I’ve read the book . . .’

  I always know when I like a guy because one of two things happens. I either go mute or I start to talk much more loudly than I usually would, aware of every sentence and the need for it to be funny or impressive. And so I put on a show.

  He looked a bit worried for me as I did my one-woman self-help act and I felt disloyal for transferring my affections so quickly after meeting The Greek.

  Before I could dig my hole any deeper a man in trendy dark-rimmed specs, floral shirt and Birkenstocks walked out onto the terrace. I recognized his face from his book cover. It was John, our guru for the week. Except he didn’t look like a guru. There were no flowing robes or wooden beads. Not even a sarong. Instead he looked exactly like a middle-aged man who used to work in advertising.

  Behind him a tall, stern woman cast her gaze over the group as if she was scanning our souls. She looked like a fierce German yoga teacher.

  Once John had said hello, he introduced this woman as his wife, Gaia. She smiled and, as she did, her eyes crinkled shut and her whole face lit up. She was no longer a fierce yoga teacher, she was a beautiful wise lady!

  ‘We don’t have a set plan, each week we do is different, depending on what feels right for the group,’ said John. ‘There’ll be no 5am chanting or meditation. We believe everything is spiritual – drinking, laughing, scoffing chocolate cake . . . we meet around 10 most mornings, although Gaia is always late, and then we go through till about 1pm, when we break for lunch, and then you can lie around by the pool or do whatever you want.’

  Over dinner we drank wine and began to swap stories.

  The next morning the stories continued in earnest, when we sat on cushions arranged in a circle on the floor of a sunlit room. John asked us to share our names and why we’d come. My nerves started to build as I listened to the others.

  There was a combination of divorces, deaths in the family, illness and a lot of work stress. People were disarmingly honest.

  As my turn approached, my heart pounded. I felt like an imposter. My parents hadn’t died. I wasn’t getting a divorce. I didn’t want to tell everyone about my self-help challenge in case they thought I was a bit nuts, and so I said: ‘I spent all of my twenties working like a crazy person and I always thought that my problem was work stress. I thought if I could just work less I’d be OK but then I quit to go freelance and I realized that it wasn’t work that’s the problem, it’s me . . .’

  I looked at the floor while the person next to me started talking.

  ‘Every time we do a retreat, a different theme emerges,’ said John. ‘This week it seems that we have a lot of burnout – you are like good soldiers, you keep going no matter what and this is a positive thing in a lot of ways but it can end up in exhaustion and unhappiness. This week we can look at what it would be like if you let go and stopped trying so hard.’

  There was a collective release of breath.

  At lunch I sat next to Geoff.

  ‘That was intense,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s like AA or something,’ I said. I looked around for the girl with curly hair but could not see her.

  ‘Where’s your girlfriend?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Aren’t you with the girl with curly hair? I saw you together at the airport.’

  ‘Oh yeah – no, we just got talking on the flight. I’d never met her before.’

  I tried to suppress the grin breaking out on my face.

  Play it cool, Marianne.

  That afternoon we all lay on loungers by the pool. I had the F**k It book with me, but it lay unopened next to my sunscreen. I fell asleep the minute I lay down.

  The next morning we learned how to say F**k It, with the help of a Werther’s Original.

  We were told to get into pairs and hold one arm out while our partner grabbed hold of it. We then had to try our hardest to get our hand in our pockets (to grab an imaginary sweet) while our partner tried to pull our arm in the opposite direction.

  I partnered up with Janet, a Glaswegian nurse. She was about five foot with a childlike nervous energy and a huge smile. Turned out she was a reformed party girl who was now addicted to the spiritual stuff. ‘I see them all,’ she said, ‘healers, psychics, shamans, channellers . . . I do chi gong, meditation, Buddhism. I’m exhausting myself trying them all! I need to chill out from trying to chill out!’

  She was surprisingly strong. The harder I tried to get to my pocket, the harder she gripped against me. After several minutes of wrangling, I got nowhere near my imaginary sweet. Then we were told to take a different approach. The sweet was still in our pocket and we still wanted it but we weren’t that bothered if we did or didn’t get to it. We were told not to force the issue, just relax our arms and see what happened. I wiggled and twisted my arm, as if I was just shaking it out for fun and it got to my pocket straight away. Janet, who was trying to stop me, looked confused. ‘I was really trying,’ she said.

  John explained that F**k It doesn’t mean doing nothing – it just means not caring so much about the outcome. You can go for the sweet (or the job, or the man, or the house) but you do it with a relaxed attitude and accept that what will be will be. And in fact, if you’re too tired to go for the sweet (or the job, or the man, or the house), then sod it – don’t. Have a nap. Take a year off. Take your life off.

  All easier said than done, of course. Most of us have been brought up with the message that we have to work hard, push ourselves and never give up. No pain, no gain. We wear the exhaustion of our twelve-hour days in the office like a badge of honour. But why does life have to be so hard? Really, why? Should life be punishing? Or should it be enjoyed? And why did the thought of enjoying life feel so naughty? So bold?

  John believes, ‘If we find the courage to loosen up our hold on things . . . to stop wanting so much . . . to stop working and striving so much . . . something magical happens . . . we naturally start getting what we origina
lly wanted but without the effort . . .’

  He admits that it’s confusing to get your head around the fact that to get what you want you must give up wanting it, but he describes it like this: ‘Any form of desire and striving involves some form of tension. When you let go of the desire, the tension goes. And the relaxation that replaces it tends to attract good things to your life.’

  I have no idea why that is true – but it is, isn’t it? It’s why the guys you don’t like like you – because you are relaxed and being yourself. It’s why people fall pregnant after years of trying just when they give up. It’s why when you decide to quit your job you actually start enjoying it. You just take the tension out of everything and it goes much better.

  John reckons that ‘When you say F**k It, you carry out a spiritual act . . . because you give up, let go, stop resisting and relax back into the natural flow of life itself . . .’

  After the sweet exercise we went for lunch and settled in for another afternoon of spiritual pool lolling. I fell asleep again. I seemed to slip into a mild coma every time I was horizontal. Back in the room, I saw that The Greek had texted. ‘Just saying hello,’ he wrote. ‘Hope you are having a nice time in the sun ☺☺☺.’ His keenness was putting me off. I replied quickly, ‘Having great time!’ before running to dinner.

  I was late and the only seat left was next to a woman who I’d so far managed to avoid. She had a conspicuously good posture. Look at me good. I-got-up-at-6am-to-do-yoga good. And she talked too loudly, as if everyone in the room was her audience. She flaunted her happiness. And she was wearing her hair in plaits. I mean, please. Who does that over thirty?

  I sat down with a fake smile – and she mega-watted me back.

  ‘I’m Daisy,’ she said. Loudly.

  ‘I’m Marianne.’

  ‘I know! I overheard you talking on the first night about your project and I’ve really wanted to talk to you!’ she said. ‘I’ve read a lot of self-help . . . Have you read Women who Love Too Much? Or what about I’m OK, You’re OK?’

  ‘No, but I’ve heard of them,’ I said.

  ‘What about Esther and Jerry Hicks and The Law of Attraction?’

  ‘No, but I did read The Secret and it did my head in.’

  ‘You really want to read Hicks – that’s the real thing. Then you’ll get it. I have manifested so many things into my life!’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, so many things!’ She swept her arms like she didn’t have the time to go into details.

  Then she smiled at me. One of those smug and enlightened ‘you don’t understand the higher powers of this universe in the way that I do’ smiles. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to punch her or be her.

  On the third day we learned how pretending to like things you don’t makes you feel sick and tired.

  We were told to hold out our arms and say out loud something we really liked. So I held out my arm and said, ‘I like pasta, I like pasta, I like pasta . . .’ Janet tried to push my arm down with all her strength while I tried to keep it up. She pushed for a couple of minutes but got nowhere. Conclusion: ‘Aye, you really like pasta.’

  Then we had to hold our arms out and tell a lie. I held mine out and said, ‘I like mushrooms, I like mushrooms, I like mushrooms.’ I really don’t. When I was younger I was given a mushroom vol-au-vent at a friend’s house. I’d never seen a vol-au-vent in my life and I didn’t yet know that I hated mushrooms. The second the small puff of pastry hit my mouth I started to gag. I coughed up the brown mush into my hand, which then went in my pocket, where it sat, getting wetter and colder as the day went on . . .

  While I declared my love of mushrooms, Janet easily pushed down my hand. ‘Aye, you really dinnae like mushrooms,’ she concluded.

  The idea was that when we’re telling the truth – in a broad sense, being true to ourselves – we are strong. When we’re pretending to be something we’re not, to like things we don’t – we become weaker. Physically weaker.

  Along the same theme we did another exercise. We were each led to a random spot in the room by our partner, who then had to try to move one of our legs off the ground. Janet had me face a wall and was able to pick up my leg easily, even though I was trying very hard to keep it on the ground.

  Then I was to choose my own spot. I moved to a place in front of the big glass doors facing the garden. I stood still. I looked out of the window at the trees and soft hills which rolled into a deep blue sky. A tractor tootled around a field. A bird danced in the sky. Swooping, dipping, rising. Janet could not budge me. I felt like I was being pulled down by roots. I wasn’t trying. I wasn’t doing anything. The world wanted me to be in just that spot and it was keeping me there.

  Conclusion: if you’re in the right place, doing the right thing, you have amazing strength. If you’re somewhere you don’t want to be, somewhere that someone else has chosen for you (a job, a relationship, etc.) it will make you sick and tired and weak. This is how most of us spend our lives.

  And so the days went on with funny revelations about life, love and everything – based on fictional sweets and where we were standing in a room. I continued to sleep and to eat everything in sight, including the cake on offer at breakfast – not cake pretending to be muffins, or croissants but actual cake. We were living in Eden, cut off from the rest of the world, cut off from the bullshit.

  With each day that passed we started to look lighter and softer. We settled into a soothing routine: group work in the morning and sleeping by the pool in the afternoon, while evenings were spent eating prawn linguine, cheesy gnocchi and pizza washed down with wine . . . On the third night I found myself sitting next to Geoff, who it turned out was a film director.

  ‘What kind of thing?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, a few shorts, nothing big – but I’m hoping to get my first feature off the ground in the autumn.’

  ‘Sounds cool.’

  ‘I have to do some corporate stuff I don’t like to pay the bills but yeah, it’s cool.’

  I listened to him talk about a job he was doing that summer, following an Indie band around the States. He might have talked about ‘creativity’ a bit too much – and used the phrase ‘seminal artist’ more than is ideal – but I liked him.

  After dinner we sat on the veranda under fairy lights and stars and shared our life stories.

  The Greek was fading into a distant memory.

  On the fourth day we were told to lie on the floor and breathe for an hour. We would each pick a partner who would sit next to us and watch us as we breathed, holding us if we felt we needed it. It sounded boring but there was something in John’s voice that made me nervous: ‘This can bring up a lot of emotions for people,’ he warned. ‘But that’s OK. Just surrender and go with it.’

  The air became heavy with nerves. We all sensed something big was about to occur. I started to panic. I didn’t want to surrender! And I didn’t want to bring up emotions!

  I was sitting between Janet and Geoff. So far I had done all my exercises with Janet, but maybe it would be good to Feel the Fear, embrace the potential rejection and ask this handsome man with immaculately ironed shorts if he would watch me breathe for an hour?

  ‘Shall we?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure, OK,’ he said.

  ‘I’m scared,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ll be OK,’ he said.

  I lay down. I closed my eyes and tried to look beautiful and peaceful, as if I had deep thoughts flowing through my mind, deep thoughts that he would desperately want to understand . . . I was pleased that I’d left my hair down that morning and hoped that it was creating a flattering fan around my head. The effect I was going for was Ophelia, but, you know, less dead.

  The music started – it was loud and tribal. John told us to breathe deeply so that our tummies went up and down; we were to feel the oxygen and energy travelling around our body . . . then he was telling us to breathe fa
ster and faster with no pause between the inhale and the exhale. . . it wasn’t long before my hands, feet and legs started to tingle. The music got louder. I kept breathing – faster and deeper. I felt like my whole body was being pressed into the ground.

  I knew I had to just go with it – to let go – but I didn’t want to. I was scared of falling down a black hole – that was the image I had, that if I let go I’d fall down a black hole. I realized, as I lay on the floor doing nothing more than breathing, that this was a feeling I had through all of my life – that if I just relaxed for half a second I’d fall into a black hole and . . . then what? I didn’t know but I just knew the black hole was bad. And it was always there. But why did I feel like this? Why did I always feel something bad was going to happen – that I would be punished if I relaxed in any way and maybe let myself feel happy for a moment?

  The tears came thick and fast. They ran down my cheeks and then down my neck. Geoff put his hands on my arm and shook me gently. This made me cry more. I was not used to a man being nice to me and I was not used to letting my guard down in front of one. Why did I spend my life terrified of men? Terrified of everything?

  The music changed from deep and pounding to something higher. It felt like light was being showered down on me, each note a warm, golden drop.

  But I was still standing by the black hole. I was scared of falling into it but I was also scared of leaving it. It was familiar.

  You have a choice, you have a choice. It’s not your black hole. You don’t have to go down it. Move away. Move away, said a voice from deep within me – the same voice that came at me at 3am, asking me what I was doing with my life.

  Then another voice joined in. This one was real. It was Gaia, whispering into my ear.

  ‘You are powerful,’ she hissed with urgency, her hot breath on my skin. ‘More powerful than you know. You are an animal . . . Be in your body, feel your body, enjoy your body . . . you spend all your time in the mind but you have a body too, a body of sensations . . . you are an animal, a tigress. Feel it, feel the power.’

  My cheeks burnt. I felt embarrassed at this discussion of my dormant animal nature while Geoff was in earshot. Gaia moved away and then it was over. The weird trip into my self had ended. I felt like I’d just taken a load of drugs but all I’d done was lie down and breathe.