Help Me!

by Marianne Power

  We drank our tea and sat in silence. Daisy fiddled with the vase on the table. Twisting it around, touching the petals of the roses in it.

  ‘Have you got any more trips planned?’ I asked.

  ‘I was thinking it was time to get back to work. I inherited some money when Mum died and I’ve got through most of it so I think it’s time. It might be a good thing.’

  Suddenly it all made sense. Daisy’s manic spending and manic searching, hopping from one course to the next, one yoga retreat to the next. She was grieving and lonely and looking for answers. I made another cup of tea.

  At the end of March, it was my sister’s birthday. Mum baked a cake. I went to her flat in Ascot to collect it and got the train back to Helen’s place in East London, via two trains and a bus. Mum didn’t have a Tupperware container big enough so it was on a plate and there was some strange net thing put over it, the kind of thing that you put over food on a summer’s day. Something to stop the flies.

  This made travelling challenging – I kept thinking someone was going to bump into the cake and send it flying but they didn’t. Rush hour that evening was like no other rush hour I’ve ever experienced. People smiled at me, moved out of my way, even chatted; ‘That looks nice,’ they’d say, looking at the cake. Their face would soften. The hard, tired, determined, ‘I hate life’ look that most of us adopted on Tubes melted away.

  It was like everyone became human again.

  On the last leg of the journey I was waiting at a bus stop by Highbury, next to two guys drinking Special Brew. They looked homeless and when I sat next to them I had the familiar feeling of guilt about how lucky I am and sadness for how other people’s lives can turn out. Then I felt guilty for being so patronizing; maybe they’re happy in their lives.

  ‘Is that for us?’ asked one of the guys.

  ‘I’m afraid not, it’s for my sister. It’s her birthday,’ I said.

  ‘Did you make it?’ said another.

  ‘No, I burn toast – Mum made it, I’m just taking it to the party,’ I said.

  ‘So where is your mum then?’ said one.

  ‘Oh, we don’t invite her to the parties, we just get her to make the cakes,’ I joked.

  ‘That’s charming, isn’t it?’ one said.

  ‘I know, we’re right brats,’ I said.

  ‘Does she always make you cakes, then?’

  ‘Yes, I’m thirty-seven and she still makes me cakes.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ They both beamed at the cake.

  For a second or two there was silence as we all stared at the cake under the funny net cage. I looked at the sugar roses that Mum had put on top of the cake. I’d thought they were twee but now they looked like pure love.

  I looked at my two new friends. They too were staring. There was a faraway look on their faces.

  I didn’t know if their thoughts had gone to the birthday parties they’d had or the birthday parties they’d never had. The cakes that were made for them – decorated with Smarties and candles – or the cakes that only existed in their dreams.

  I guessed the latter.

  In that moment they both looked ten years old, sitting there with their cans of lager and a battered tube of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles.

  It felt like the vast difference between our lives was represented by that cake. Having a mother who made birthday cakes seemed like the greatest thing any person could ask for.

  For half a second, I wondered if I should invite them to the party but I didn’t. Instead we talked a bit more about who was going to be there and how many sisters I had and the fact that it was getting brighter. I asked them what they were doing for the night and they said, ‘This and that.’

  My bus came and I said goodbye and they waved me off.

  I felt ashamed of myself. I had spent more than a year obsessing over what was wrong with my life – or rather what I imagined was wrong with it – but the reality was that I had a mum who made cakes, sisters I loved, friends who made me laugh, a body that worked, a brain that was more or less functioning, a roof over my head. I had it all.

  Brené Brown writes: ‘Joy comes to us in moments – ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.’

  I had been trying to chase down the extraordinary when actually I already had everything I would ever need.

  18

  You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay

  ‘Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.’

  My unwashed hair is in its usual spot – a messy bun on the top of my head. My face is bright pink and my mascara has made a bid for freedom, travelling down my cheeks. I have a spot on my chin. I smile into the mirror and repeat out loud:

  I love and approve of myself. I love and approve of myself. I love and approve of myself.

  I take off my leggings, top and sports bra. My boobs fall in a sweaty droop. I put my hands on my guts and give them a shake. It is the midriff of someone who has had a longterm relationship with cheese on toast and wine. Oh well, sod it. I look again and smile.

  I love and approve of myself. I love and approve of myself. I love and approve of myself.

  Long pale hairs stand to attention on my thighs. I half start a train of thought about how slovenly I am in the hair-removal department but can’t quite be bothered to beat myself up about it. I smile again.

  I love and approve of myself. I love and approve of myself. I love and approve of myself.

  I turn around to examine the cellulite on my bum, then turn to the side to check out the stretch marks on my hips. I stroke them and feel the raised ripples. I smile again. At myself. At life. At this constant self-examination in which we’re always found wanting. What a waste of time!

  I love and approve of myself.

  My final month. My twelfth book. The finish line.

  I decided to end my self-help adventure with a book called You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. It’s a self-help classic which has sold 35 million copies since it was published in 1985. It’s about loving yourself. Hay says that instead of beating ourselves up we must look in the mirror every day and say, ‘I love and approve of myself.’

  She believes that all our problems – from money to poor relationships – come from two things: holding on to resentment from the past and the fact that we don’t love ourselves. Hay also, controversially, believes that all physical illness has an emotional cause and that her own ovarian cancer was caused by the shame she felt about sexual abuse she suffered as a child.

  In order to ‘heal our lives’, Hay says we must forgive everyone who has done us wrong, especially our parents.

  A few years ago I would have been dismissive about the effect our childhood had on us. Unless you’d suffered abuse or lost a parent at a young age, I figured most of us had nothing to complain about – but I now see our childhood is pretty much the basis of everything. For good and bad.

  So yes, my taxi driver was right. My clever, astute therapist was making it about my family. Not because I had a terrible childhood – far from it – but because even with the best of intentions from all concerned, tiny moments can have a huge impact and it’s invaluable to start identifying these moments that have been invisibly driving us for years. And I realized I could not do this digging on my own. Since my first appointment in January my therapist had become a steadfast partner and support, helping me reach parts of myself I didn’t know existed.

  And so – with forgiveness a work in progress – it was time for self-love.

  I grew up in a house where to be told you ‘really love yourself’ was an insult. It basically meant you were a stuck-up cow. Too big for your boots. But Hay thinks that self-love has nothing to do with being arrogant or full of yourself. Self-love is about caring for yourself, being compassionate with yourself, accepting all your little quirks.

  She says: ‘When people start to love themselves more each day, it’s a
mazing how their lives get better. They feel better. They get the jobs they want. They have the money they need. Their relationships either improve, or the negative ones dissolve and new ones begin.’

  But loving yourself is not easy.

  Hay describes how many of her clients refuse to say ‘I love and approve of myself’ in front of the mirror. Some can’t even look at themselves without crying. They say they can’t love themselves because they are too ugly, too fat, too unsuccessful, too damaged. They say they’ll love themselves when they lose the weight, get the job, find the husband.

  I can relate to that. I once wrote an article about what I saw in the mirror and it wasn’t good: dodgy teeth, fat hips, chubby chops, spotty skin, wrinkles . . . I used to look in the mirror every morning and itemize my flaws, using them as reasons I would never be loved and never be good enough.

  By the middle of April, at the end of my self-help journey, that had changed.

  ‘Daisy just told me I had a bright aura!’ said Sarah, bouncing up and down in the dress that clung perfectly to her pert bump.

  ‘I’ve always said that about you,’ I said, also jumping.

  ‘She’s nuts.’ Sarah smiled, bright red plastic roses on her head. ‘But I like her!’

  ‘Good, me too!’ I shouted over the pounding base.

  We grinned and bounced some more. The floor vibrated as hundreds of ravers flung their hands in the air. Dancing like it was their last day on earth.

  Rachel appeared with a hula hoop.

  ‘Where did you get that from?’ I asked.

  ‘Some bloke just gave it to me.’

  She put it around her waist and started twirling. She was wearing a shimmering turquoise Lycra all-in-one that made her look like a space-age mermaid. Her old-fashioned just don’t eat seconds diet seemed to be working for her. God-damit.

  ‘Where’s Daisy?’ she shouted, mid-twirl.

  I pointed to the stage, where Daisy was dancing next to a man dressed as a carrot. Her eyes were closed and her arms flung into the air. She had a unicorn horn on her head. At 7am on a Wednesday.

  The morning rave was Daisy’s idea, obviously. She’d been going to these hip, hippie happenings for months, partying with the kind of people who like to get up at dawn to drink coconut water rather than beers.

  It was a whole new world: toddlers with ear-protectors ran around behind their dancing mums, twenty-somethings with cropped tops strutting their stuff on stage, while men dressed as zebras, and, stranger still, in office shirts, danced, danced, danced their hearts out. And we joined in. From 7.30 to 10am we danced and sweated like glorious partying pigs.

  ‘You look so happy!’ shouted Sarah.

  I smiled. ‘So do you!’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t need self-help, maybe you just needed to dance more!’

  ‘Maybe,’ I shouted.

  Being with other people, moving and smiling was a tonic; so much better for my soul than sitting on my own reading and analysing. In fact, throughout the year I’d almost totally ignored the magical powers of exercise, which many people believe to be as effective as antidepressants in lifting mood.

  A man with long hair and a bare chest glistening with sweat and rows of coloured beads, smiled at me. I smiled back.

  ‘Great smile!’ he said.

  ‘Thank you!’ I said as we jumped up and down in unison for a few minutes.

  ‘That’s the third one,’ said Sarah.

  ‘What?’ I shouted back.

  ‘The third guy who has come up to you.’

  ‘It’s friendly, everyone is saying hello . . .’

  ‘Nah, they’re coming up to you – you’re glowing.’

  ‘You mean I’m sweating!’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not just that . . . Your light’s on.’

  And it was. I could feel it.

  When Rachel and I got home, I ran up to the shower and stripped off and stood in front of the mirror. As I looked at myself, I could see that my eyes were gleaming and my skin shone. I kept smiling at myself, taking in the wonky teeth, chubby cheeks and wobbly thighs that used to make me so unhappy. But now, instead of seeing flaws, I saw something else.

  I saw a woman who had done crazy, brilliant things in the past sixteen months. Someone kind and strong and brave and powerful. Someone who was alive and vibrant.

  Standing in front of that bathroom mirror, I saw a force of nature.

  I was not so changed that I didn’t feel like a total idiot talking out loud to this person in the mirror, but as I carried out Louise’s instructions, I realized that I did believe what I was saying: I did love and approve of myself, no matter what my hair was doing, no matter how big the spot on my chin or how little time I spent waxing.

  In fact, at 11am on 13th April, I felt bloody brilliant.

  I was so proud of myself. Really, so so proud.

  But now I was done.

  I was done with trying to eradicate all my bad bits, done with going to war with myself for all my perceived failings. I was done with trying to be Highly Effective or to spend every second in a state of blissful zen. I was tired of the affirmations and faking happiness when I just wanted to swear and be grumpy. I was done with drinking green smoothies and feeling marginally guilty every time I ate cheese on toast. Because, the thing was, I really, really liked cheese on toast. Sometimes it was the best part of my day.

  At Christmas, when my attempts to reach perfection had nearly broken me, I had found myself crying, as I do every year, while watching Bridget Jones. It was that scene where Darcy tells Bridget that he likes her, just as she is.

  Bridget’s friends can’t believe this declaration.

  ‘Just as you are? Not thinner? Not cleverer? Not with slightly bigger breasts or slightly smaller nose?’ asks her friend Jude when Bridget tells her.

  ‘No,’ says Bridget.

  ‘Well, fuck me,’ says Shazza.

  That became the holy grail for my generation: this idea that if you could just find your Darcy, someone who loved you just the way you were, all would be well.

  But what if we could just learn to love ourselves exactly as we are? Wouldn’t that be better than waiting for someone else to tell us we’re OK?

  And so I looked at the mirror again and at my cheese-on-toast tummy and wine face and smiled. Then I said my very last affirmation:

  I love and approve of myself. Just the way I am.

  And in my head I expanded: I love and approve of myself even though my only exercise is walking around the block. I love and approve of myself even though I drink wine and love Netflix. I love and approve of myself even though I am disorganized and crap with money. I love and approve of myself even though I cry at everything . . . including Bridget Jones and ads for insurance.

  And, as if on cue, I started crying again because I realized, as I looked in the mirror, that for all the time I’d spent obsessing about my bad bits, I’d rarely given any thoughts to my good bits. And there were good bits. Lots of them.

  And so I said them out loud:

  I am kind, funny and smiley. I try to be nice to people. I give to charity. I’m a good listener. I work hard. I make my friends laugh. And I have such good friends: funny, cool, interesting friends! And they love and approve of me JUST AS I AM.

  Although they might change their mind if they saw me talking to myself in the mirror with no clothes on.

  I’d once read someone describing success as being able to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and be OK with what you see. And I had got there.

  After a long and painful sixteen months, I could look in the mirror.

  But as I dried myself and brushed my teeth, I knew with absolutely certainty that it was now time to step away from my real and metaphorical reflection. I couldn’t bear to think about myself for another minute.

  In self-help land the news is frowned upon. It’s a source of negativity and misery. It will bring you down. Better to walk around the block repeating affirmations or read about the power of posit
ive thinking than engage in the ugly, cruel world. And for more than a year I’d followed this advice. I’d gone from someone who read the papers every day to someone who read motivational posts on Facebook. And in some ways it was nice. Life felt simpler, cleaner.

  But as I neared the end of my challenge, denying the real world – in all its messiness and tragedy – no longer felt enlightened. It felt like selfishness. So after I’d showered, I went to the corner shop, bought the papers and read about a shipwreck which had killed hundreds of African and Bangladeshi migrants trying to escape war and poverty. Rescuers described a ‘cemetery in the sea’, while one of the survivors told how hundreds perished because they were locked up below deck ‘like rats in a cage’. It was hellish. Here was the story of people fighting to just stay alive, children who were dying before they’d even lived. Terrified mothers putting their babies on boats because there was no alternative . . .

  My quest to improve myself felt immoral. What on earth did I have to complain about? What was I trying to improve? I was already living a dream life compared to 99.99 per cent of the world.

  I was beyond blessed. It was time to appreciate what I had.

  Be grateful.

  Tony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle and Susan Jeffers all talk about swapping ‘expectation for appreciation’. But I hadn’t done that. Not at all. I was too busy analysing my self-created problems to see how lucky I was. That was going to change.

  ‘I’ve come to a decision,’ I told Rachel, who was tapping on her laptop while I read the papers.

  ‘OK?’ she said. Not looking up.

  ‘I’m done with self-help!’

  Now she looked up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, thank God.’ She smiled. And for the first time I realized what a nightmare I must have been to live with – between the highs, the lows and the navel gazing. I hadn’t been able to have so much as a cup of tea without analysing my feelings for it and making her do the same.

  ‘I’ve decided to do some volunteer work instead.’

  Rachel’s face froze: ‘You’re not going to try and become Mother Teresa now, are you?’