E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten
Stephenson Letting Go of the Glitz
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84590-332-9
Verlag: Crown House Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
The True Story of One Woman's Struggle to Live the Simple Life in Chelsea
E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-84590-332-9
Verlag: Crown House Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Julia Stephenson is a journalist and author. For many years she wrote the Green Goddess column in the Independent, which detailed her struggle to turn her Chelsea flat into the first carbon neutral dwelling in Sloane Square. She has since sold her flat and now lives the good life in a 27 acre wildlife sanctuary near Guildford from where she is running a dog sanctuary, primarily to rehabilitate and rehome abused Romanian dogs. She hasn't given up on the green dream and by 2015 anticipated that the sanctuary would be running mainly on renewable energy. She is particularly excited about her new methane digester which is able to transform the many tons of dog poo, currently carted off at great expense by Surrey County Council, into electricity. When life at the sanctuary becomes too much she likes to escape to her pied-a-terre in Parsons Green, leaving things in the capable hands of her boyfriend-on-a-short-fuse and her second in command, Bagdat, the Boudicca of the dog rescue
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I HADN’T been home very long when I was soon knee-deep in tantalising self-help catalogues. Although I was deeply tempted by the Landmark Forum and the Hoffman Process I was put off by having to share small carpeted bedrooms with strangers — for the prices they were charging ‘patients’ should get a luxurious bedroom, v-spring mattress and marble bathroom full of delicious unguents at the very least.
But caution flew out of the window after listening to a Tony Robbins CD called Awaken the Giant Within and I impulsively signed up for a round-the-world self-help extravaganza starting with fire walking in Frankfurt. Tony Robbins has been enormously successful — his books and DVDs sell in their millions and he attracts a huge following at his courses.
The brochure promised that the course would ‘vanquish everything that may be holding you back from utilising the force that can instantly change your life’ and that I would learn to ‘instantly place yourself in peak emotional, mental and physical states and achieve results beyond your wildest dreams!’
Truly, how could any spiritual shopper resist? Could you? But if I’d known what a nightmare it was all going to be I’d have stayed at home.
The following weekend I arrived in Frankfurt and with great trepidation crept into the enormous city auditorium, jam-packed with four thousand jostling, flag-waving Germans. As Tony swung confidently towards the stage on a rope he got stuck and was left swinging for several terrifying minutes. Members of his entourage dashed onto the stage and deposited him gingerly on the ground, from where he immediately began to boost us with positive life strategies. As he warbled on late into the night I got chatting to the chap next to me. He was called Hans and we immediately bonded through boredom — everyone was getting so much out of Tony’s bon mots, but like the emperor with no clothes, we just didn’t get it at all.
Eventually Tony ran out of steam, groovy music blared and we were encouraged to dance and hug as many people as possible. This turned into a sort of mass grope, sexual confidence being a core part of the Tony ethos. I couldn’t face it. The Germans invented the naked mixed sauna experience so they really get into this sort of thing — at similar courses in the UK everyone just shakes hands — so I stayed with Hans and snogged him instead. Not for long though — next up was the dreaded fire walking.
Fires had been lit, tribal music throbbed. Drums pounded and adrenaline surged through our terrified veins as we stood in line waiting for our turn to run over the red-hot burning coals. Terror had engendered a primal wartime lust in the participants, many of whom were locked in steamy embraces. Indeed, Hans and I had become so bored and disillusioned with the whole thing we were now similarly enmeshed. Unfortunately this meant we missed some of the pep talk teaching us how to ‘get in state’ by chanting ‘cool moss, cool moss’ (a physiological ploy to cool us down) as we ran over the sizzling coals. We did try this but we still ended up burning our feet.
As we had our feet bandaged later, along with hundreds of other positive thinking failures, I was downcast but quickly revived when Hans suggested he’d ‘had enough of this bollocks’ (his English was impressive) and did I want to come with him to the South of France where he was doing some business.
We spent a fairly chaste night at our respective hotels and the next morning he picked me up in his Vorsprung durch Technik Audi with its self-warming seats and air con. We were both dizzy with relief at escaping the day’s challenges which included jumping off a one hundred-foot telegraph pole ‘to conquer our fear of life’.
We enjoyed an epic drive through Germany, stopping off at a luxurious chateau for the night. But a shadow soon clouded our thrilling escape when the following morning his suitcase spilled open and all the towels from our hotel bathroom fell out.
I was dumbfounded — did he have no towels at home? A pall descended on our journey. At the next service station his credit card was refused. I’d assumed he was comfortably off but he admitted business was not going so well. But I found him hugely attractive so I put the towels and imminent penury out of my mind.
On the outskirts of Cannes we stopped at a service station for a snack where my bag, containing my credit card, passport, diary and phone, was snatched. I was devastated. Disconsolately we made our way to a hotel run by a friend of his, the authoress of several conspiracy theory novels. It was dark, freezing and pouring with rain when we arrived. Hans was in a foul mood and there was an unspoken feeling that my bag theft was karmic retribution for his towel thieving. The hotelier/conspiracy theorist, a dour, paranoid German woman who had some kind of crush on Hans, wasn’t happy to see me at all. Utterly exhausted we had a blistering row during which he accused me of being a spoiled rich girl who would only stay in luxury hotels and who had no conception of the real world.
‘Tell me something I don’t know!’ I scowled. ‘At least I don’t go round pinching towels!’ My outburst was so violent I couldn’t help noticing that the MDF walls juddered quite noticeably.
Hans stomped off to discuss the latest political plots with our hostess, whilst I tossed and turned in the cold hard bed. Neither of us slept a wink. The following morning we arranged for him to drop me back at the station. I was longing to return to London but was ridiculously disappointed when he agreed so readily to my departure. Strangely enough, I’d become quite keen on him again. Anyway, we both apologised and bid a teary farewell but I never heard from him again.
Before all this I’d been feeling quite cheerful, what with the new flat and the relief of being separated from Paul, but the whole Tony Robbins debacle had sunk me into a terrible gloom. I was so depressed my doctor prescribed Prozac, but in a triumph of hope over experience I decided to go on another Tony Robbins course — this time in Fiji. I’d paid for all the trips up front so I thought I may as well get on with it — and surely Tony’s positive life strategies would kick in for me soon?
Before I left I remember traipsing round the shops with my mother, too depressed to speak. She’d had a low impression of Hans ever since I’d confessed the towel pinching episode. ‘At least he’ll have plenty of towels to bag his space by the swimming pool on his next summer holiday,’ she sniffed. The thought of Hans and the rest of his country folk energetically rising at 6 a.m. to bag the best sunloungers in the Canaries and other Teutonic hotspots with their stolen towels was indeed deeply unappealing.
I could have saved my carbon emissions and stayed at home, for Fiji was no more successful than fire walking in Germany. I had expected that everyone would be staying at the luxurious Fijian resort owned by Tony Robbins, where the course was being held, but to my horror some sort of bizarre singleton apartheid was in operation and the single participants were bussed out every night while the couples stayed put in the sumptuous resort.
When I complained I was told that the selection for who slept where was random and that I had just ‘got unlucky’. Apparently it was to do with my ‘karma’. Huh, as if! My karma regarding luxurious accommodation had always been tip-top until now — what were they on about?
The singletons’ lodgings were a mosquito-infested swampy hotel forty minutes away and I found myself sharing with a beautiful but nutty American heiress who became increasingly deranged as the week went on. Every night she tried to get into my bed but she wasn’t exclusive in her favours and quickly developed a crush on Robbins, regularly throwing herself onto the stage during his monologues. The fire walking soon sent her right over the top and she threatened suicide which resulted in the Fijian National Guard having to stand sentry outside our room to stop her drowning herself. Eventually she was sedated and carted back to LA.
Although I could see that Robbins had integrity and I was impressed by his ‘can do’ ethos, his energy and the way he inspired those around him, his courses left me feeling strangely depressed. I realised I would have gained far more by just reading his boosting books and watching his inspirational DVDs in the comfort of my own home.
Ironically, on all the courses I attended, despite the fact that we were apparently being trained to be ‘leaders’, any sort of independent thought was firmly suppressed and there seemed an unhealthy focus on consumerism and money. This was symbolised by the Platinum Club. At this time it cost about US$30,000 to join and enabled the lucky member to wear a tacky platinum-coloured medallion and share meals with Tony (quite honestly, once you’d witnessed his table manners you’d pay US$30,000 not to dine with him).
The lucky medallion men were terribly libidinous and confident in their right to exercise droit de seigneur with any girl who took their fancy. Stomping around, clanging their tiny gongs, many of the girls thought they were quite a catch. During one endless seminar Robbins encouraged us to join up by outlining the amazing boundless pleasures that...
