Heart Couture

How do you dress your heart each day? How do you address yourself in other words? With love or dissatisfaction?

I slept late this morning, later than usual.  I am normally awake by 4.00am and am ready to start my mediation by 5.00am.  Mr. Delicious left to play golf before work early this morning giving me a gentle goodbye kiss that woke me.   I looked at the clock; it was 4.30am but my body was still very tired, so I went back to sleep.  Before I knew it, it was 8.30am.

I am going through early menopause at the moment aged 47 and choose to see this new phase of life as the birthing of my Eldership years.  The reverse of puberty for a woman, I believe, is a sacred time that can she can either choose to look at fearfully and see as a curse,  or lovingly and see it as blessing and introduction to a new realm of womanhood.  My choice is to see it as a rite of passage, offering deeper wisdom if I travel gently and slowly, a day at a time, with love and respect for myself and this new phase of life.

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is often recommended for women going through menopause like me.  However for me, the best type of HRT translates to a natural approach I am trialing with great success thus far which I call Heart Responsibility Therapy (a whole chapter on this in my forthcoming book).  It includes regular doses of laughter, tears, bravery, honesty, chocolate, deep kisses, hand holding and private time with the sisterhood.   It is my experience that sometimes it’s in the best interests of all concerned if males willingly go on pause (men-o-pause) a little more during this phase and leave us be more often.  

For many women the past decades of our lives have been about taking care of everyone else's heart sometimes at their own expense.  We now need to take time, slow down and prioritize so we can evolve into truly Grand Women and for some of us even, Grand Mothers. One of the most important components of my Heart Responsibility Therapy includes rest, and sleep.  Otherwise I just don’t function at my best.  So I let myself sleep in this morning.

When I finally woke up, my hand could not write quick enough, inspiration was pumping through me as the water rushes down gutters after a heavy rain.  I could not stop the flow.  Like the exhilaration a child has after a heavy rain storm racing to kick off their shoes to stand in the cool flowing gutter and float boat leaves and ice cream sticks down the mini river.  I just relish mornings like this.  Words and ideas flooded my heart, what joy.

As I bite into the chocolate heart Mr. Delicious bought me, a “just because” present; the best kind of present. I need to stop and take stock of how wonderful life is.  The chocolate heart sits next to my laptop, in ruby red foil, like a partially disrobed, divine nude model.  What a delight to just look at.  It is unlike me to save chocolate, but when Mr. Delicious came home from the shops before Christmas and gave it to me with a gentle cheek kiss; I placed it on my sacred bedside chest of drawers where all my hearts treasures are kept.  My daily journal lives there along with my faithful notepads that I scrawl on in the dark when inspiration hits me in my sleep.  Also stashed in these drawers are cherished words of love my sons have written to me on cards over the years.  Of course, an essential supply of tissues in case my heart needs to have a good cry, are in the top drawer.  I knew this little chocolate heart needed to be saved to be eaten on a special occasion.  Yes I am proud to say I can exercise delayed gratification these days, a miracle in itself!

I am excited to sit here and write to you this morning about the wonderful world of ‘Heart Couture’, my favourite world, and eat my chocolate heart as I type away to celebrate for this is a special occasion for me.

The world my heart woke up to this morning was more colourful and exquisite than usual.  It was like I was in the middle of word fashion week in the heart of Paris.  What a feast for the senses.

Ideas for future blogs, chapters for my next book child, television and magazine interview angles, ideas for a new TV series, it just went on and on.  I couldn’t get out of the shower quick enough or blow dry my hair without the words dancing around me in such breathtaking beauty that before I sat at my laptop this morning I had pages, and pages of notes, like divine new silk fabrics from foreign lands that I can design and make some divine Haute Couture pieces with when the time is right.

I recalled whilst in the shower this morning, explaining to a group of clients attending one of my Emotional Fitness Workshops a few years ago how when they speak to me about their problems and challenges I listen for their heart to talk to me and show me what it is wearing.

People gutsy enough to go to a rehab or a recovery group are honouring a contract they have with themselves to become healers themselves, I believe.  Current statistics quoted in recovery circles state that only 3 – 5% of addicts ever sustain a quality life clean and sober.  So people who show up to do this work are already high achievers as far as I am concerned.  But recovery is not for the fainthearted.  Those who have survived the internal violent war of addiction and heart traumas are no pussies;  Often their hearts are in a state of absolute fatigue but they can and do recover if they find a recovery formula that makes sense to their heart, and are stronger than they give themselves credit.

When people first start to recover what they are really recovering from, I believe, is not only an addiction or a heart trauma, but a lack of self respect and self love.  That is what they need to recover.  The ability to firstly see themselves beneath their fear, then come to know themselves, like themselves, commit to themselves, then eventually as night follows days they gradually fall in love with themselves.  It’s a beautiful thing, and a privilige to observe.

The language of love is what they need to learn to speak fluently to themselves replacing the foul mouthed, fear fuelled, dialogue they have been addressing themselves with, or cloaking their heart in.  Colourless word rags that smell, are torn, dirty and don’t even fit them nor belong to them.  Usually word hand me downs from someone else.

The word haute couture is French and translates as haute, feminine of haut, high, elegant and couture, sewing.  It is explained as the creation of exclusive fashions.

Heart Couture is now, I have decided, a new Australian term.  It translates as Heart which in my world is the home of love, and couture is to sew.  Heart Couture is to create exclusive and quality relationships with self and those we choose to have close to our hearts, so that they don’t tear or fall apart when we move and grow.

Samuel Butler made the insightful statement which is one of my most treasured phrases ‘Words are clothes that thoughts wear.” I was sharing his words of wisdom in an Emotional Fitness workshop and explained that when people ask me to work with them, their words tell me about the clothes their heart is wearing.  How they address themselves when they share their stories is my focus.

I have watched those TV series where stylists tell their guests what to wear and what not to wear.  The focus is to help, with aid of a choice of better fitting clothes, their make over guests feel and look their best.

My life’s work is as a word stylist or seamstress, a personal word couturier who creates (to the best of my ability as I am still an apprentice) exclusive heart fashions.  Truth is to Heart Couture what Colour is to Haute Couture.  It is a language that is powerful.  I aim to help people love and respect themselves more whilst embracing their truth.  Until they can do this they cannot fully receive love and respect from others.

It is fascinating to watch people in recovery, change their external wardrobe colour choices as they change their internal heart language.

I study and am in awe of some of history’s true Heart Couture Masters, the elite in their field.  Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Wilson are my masculine favourites.  To me they are the Valentino, Dior and Louis Vuitton of the world of Heart Couture.   Marianne Williamson is my Coco Chanel.  The way she writes about the simplicity of Love and Fear to me echoes how Ms Chanel made Black and White her timeless and elegant fashion signature.

It is universally understood that Paris is the undisputed city of love.  And so I liken learning the language of the heart to learning the language from the city of love.  It takes time, commitment and repetition to learn a new language.  In the beginning it seems awkward, but it is like anything, what we hope to do one day with ease we must first do with diligence.

Mr. Delicious took me to Paris on our honeymoon in 2008.  I had never been there.  I had hitchhiked my way through Europe aged 19 but purposefully did not go to Paris.  I did not want to visit this city unless it was with the love of my life.  It took me another 27 years to find him, but I did.  And we were there in Fashion Week.  What a feast for the heart.  We were married on Valentine’s Day, the one day of the year that celebrates love.

As an apprentice Heart Couturier I have been fortunate to have two Australian shows featuring the launch of my first published word collections.  These early word creations designs, still sell today.  I am a long way from being a Valentino or Coco Chanel, but they say a professional is only an amateur that never gave up.

I write every day as a gift to myself, and have done so for the past fourteen years.  I remember watching an episode of Sex and The City and Carrie Bradshaw made a statement about buying an issue of Vogue Magazine when she was really broke instead of groceries, as it nourished her more than food.  I call the written word designs of great Heart Couturiers like Shakespeare and Williamson, Word Vitamins because they have nourished me in my hearts hungriest hours like Vogue did for Carrie, when nothing else could.

I dream of one day being as useful as a writer, as my Heart Couturier Masters are to me, in the lives of my readers.   Until now I have never shared this dream with anyone, because it is one of those too good to be true dreams.   As I lead up to write it for the first time and share it with you, I feel the lump in my throat grow and tears in my eyes appear.  Here it goes.  When I put it in words it makes it real forever.

I hope that one day I can be in the presence of Marianne Williamson my Coco Chanel. A true Queen of Love, and touch her on the hand and say thank you.  Thank you for holding my hearts hand every time I felt alone and lost.  Your words never failed to help me find the way back home to my own loving heart .

Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Wilson are no longer alive, but I thank them also.

When I watched Dianne Keaton in the movie “Something’s Got to Give” I watched it six times.  Her character writes like I do.  She sits at her laptop and cries, and laughs.  I do the same.  I have tears of gratitude running down my cheeks now.  Thank you with all my heart for being here for me today.  Have a lovely weekend; I hope to meet you here on Monday.

These Word Vitamins for today touched my heart in a way words never have before when I first read them.  It is like my heart lost its virginity to these words.  They are exclusive vintage design hand beaded by my Coco Chanel, Marianne Williamson. These words were read out by Nelson Mandela in one of his speeches.   They are nothing short of divinely inspired.

“"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."