Bliss can be a state of profound satisfaction, happiness and joy, a constant state of mind, undisturbed by gain or loss. But bliss can also be short-lived in this fast-paced life we live. We are so consumed by having more and being more that we hardly ever stop to smell the roses. Few people have figured out that the more you learn to control your emotions, the more inclined you are to be blissful. In days gone by I was a raw exposed nerve. Nothing more, nothing less. Whatever life threw at me I’d react to, usually in the most emotional and dramatic way possible. I never knew then that learning to control my emotions was actually possible. My life was a constant roller-coaster ride and there were very few, if any, easy and relaxed days. But as I began to change and reflect on the weaknesses in my character, I began to realize that my emotional lows were actually choices. Once that penny dropped life instantly became easier to handle. When I began to practice being happy and positive, I realized that I could stay in that particular state for longer and longer moments. These moments eventually became days, then weeks, then months. For someone who suffered from “clinical depression” for most of my life, and who lived on anti-depressants and tranquilizers, I didn’t think it would ever be possible to actually do without them. I have now been off these chemicals for over 2 years and still going strong. I obviously have some low moments, sometimes even stretching to a full day (although that happens very rarely nowadays), but by and large I have come to experience what I truly believe to be a blissful state most of the time.

Bliss is only possible when you learn to love and accept yourself. In my youth I spent a considerable amount of time comparing myself to other women, and found they were always better, prettier, richer, happier and more fulfilled than I ever was. Or so I convinced myself. I carried such a deep sense of not being good enough that this filtered into my every waking thought. Looking at magazines was painful. I would agonize over beautiful, lithe bodies and wonder why I didn’t look so perfect. When I started practicing bliss, I started to boycott women’s magazines. I made a conscious decision to stop comparing myself to other people and I found I could maintain my happy states for longer and longer periods. I also started practicing conscious gratitude. Whenever I felt myself brooding over things I would immediately start to make a mental list of all the wonderful people and things in my life and really focus on feeling grateful to have such wonderful blessings. That would immediately lift my spirits and put me in a better mood. I believe that surrender is such an integral part of bliss that the two go hand-in-hand. When I learnt to go with the flow and accept things as they were presented to me, I found this increased my blissful moments dramatically. No good can ever come from swimming upstream. There is nothing there for us, except pain, frustration and anger. Learning to love yourself means learning to be good and kind to yourself. One area of self-love that becomes self-evident is how and what we feed ourselves. A diet rich in sugar and acidic foods does nothing to increase longevity or happiness. Neither does consuming large amounts of alcohol or drugs. The more I began to love myself, the purer my diet became and the more conscious I became of what I put into my body. And what thoughts I held on to. Let’s look at some ways to increase the feeling of bliss in your life:
• Improve your diet & include more raw food. Ideally we want to consume 75% raw food in our diets, and we want to cut out alcohol as far as possible. You cannot be the best person you can be when your diet is acidic and unhealthy! You simply won’t have the energy to perform at your best.
• If you haven’t done so already, quit smoking. On an emotional level smoking helps you suppress deep anger, that’s why people become so irritable once they stop smoking. Besides the actual withdrawal from nicotine and other chemicals in cigarettes, suppressed feelings of anger start to surface. If you are aware of this, you can deal with these feelings of anger in appropriate ways.
• Stop comparing yourself to others. Learn to accept yourself just the way you are. If there are things you can change, do so. Exercise more, clean up your diet, lose some weight if you need to, change your dressing style to reflect a more youthful you, if necessary. But listen to those thoughts of comparison, and when you find yourself doing that, stop and say “I love myself just the way I am.”
• Stop looking for approval from others. You don’t need anyone’s approval. You also don’t need to ask permission to be and do what you want with your life. Go out and be the best person you can be and approve of yourself. Who gives a rat’s arse if nobody else approves? The most important person in your life is you.
• Stop trying to save everyone around you. Don’t do for others what they can and should do for themselves. You are the only adult you need to take responsibility for! Don’t fight other people’s battles, don’t make them dependent on you in any way and learn to stand on your own two feet. And don’t be tempted to gather an army of supporters when you have a bone to pick with someone. Have the courage to fight your own battles, but choose your battles wisely.
• Realize an important fact of life: “What I think of you is my business and what you think of me is yours.” You don’t need to walk around telling everyone exactly what you think of them. And if someone else has the urge to dump their negative emotions on you, walk away. Everyone is entitled to their opinions of us, but we certainly don’t need to hear them, unless it’s coming from someone who loves and cares for you and what they are sharing is designed to help you become a better person!
• Spend some time every day by yourself. Meditate, read, go for a walk or soak in a hot tub. Anything where you can still your mind and reflect on things you can be grateful for. Learning to count your blessings is a great way of finding bliss.
• Learn to be honest with yourself and others. If you’ve taken a fearless moral inventory of yourself you’ll know what your weaknesses are, and so your loved ones won’t find it necessary to constantly point them out to you. We can only change things about ourselves which we can first acknowledge. My favourite saying is “Take out the mirror instead of the magnifying glass.” It’s so much easier to find fault with others than to see it in ourselves!
• Go easy on yourself. Don’t push yourself too hard. Life isn’t a race. You can reach your goals in your own time, even if it takes you longer than expected.
• The goal of life is to be happy and blissful. Everything else is secondary.

Amour Setter
www.amoursetter.com

As the New Year approaches I can’t help looking back at my development and improvement over the past three years. I’ve finally learnt to pat myself on the back for achievements, instead of kicking myself for that which I haven’t achieved yet. As a recovering Co-dependent I’ve come to appreciate how important it is to be kind to yourself and honour yourself for all milestones reached in your life, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem to others.
Three years ago, as I re-entered the treacherous world of dating, I made all the typical mistakes women in my position could make. I slept with a man on the second date, I ignored my instincts when I felt a man was lying to me (and then found out afterwards he was engaged to someone) and I got influenced by a photographer to remove my clothes and pose for artistic nudes (er, which reminds me, if those pics ever leak onto the net I’ll be forgiven as they were done before my Pre-Cog days!) All in all, as I look back at the past three years, I have to admit that I am truly proud of myself for the strength I have gained. Today it is much more difficult to pull the wool over my eyes or step over my boundaries. I’ve learned to say no with confidence and I’ve learned to trust my instincts. When I look back at the woman I was a mere three years ago I feel immense satisfaction that I am well on my way to becoming all I have the potential to be. Has the journey been easy? Definitely not! I’ve had to re-learn a lot of things and I’ve had to learn how to love myself, warts and all. I’ve also had to learn how to forgive myself for my past mistakes. As any recovering Co-dependent will tell you, forgiving yourself is one of the hardest things you will ever learn to do, because the capacity for guilt is so huge in us that it takes balls of steel (which of course we all carry in our briefcases) to overcome! My self-hatred was so overwhelming that it was no wonder nobody else could love me! My emotions completely governed me in every way. Hell, I wasn’t in control of my life back then, my emotions were! Definitely my first step to a healthier and more balanced life was to overcome the hold my out-of-control emotions had over me. In my book “The BITCH’S Guide to Dating” I outline how it is possible to gain control of your emotions, and I am a walking testament to that. There have been many opportunities since publishing my book for me to practice what I preach. Although sometimes, I must admit, it wasn’t always easy, in the end my logic prevailed and I have chosen my emotional battles very carefully. I’m not suggesting that I am incapable of making mistakes. Hell, that would be ridiculous to even consider, for all human beings make mistakes. But these days I think things through very carefully before taking action, and I certainly pay heed to my inner voice. But I also know that I will make mistakes in the future. And I also know that I will forgive myself for them and I’ll get up, dust myself off and continue on my journey.
One of the biggest achievements in my journey to a healthier existence has been learning to let go. Co-dependents are notorious for trying to manipulate and control everything and everyone in their lives. It’s the only way they feel they have any control over their own lives. I’m finally learning to tell the difference between what I’m responsible for and what other people are responsible for. That has certainly been the one thing that has brought me peace and serenity. When we take too much responsibility for other people’s lives, we become resentful and angry when they don’t respond with enough gratitude and respect we feel they should have towards us. This only serves to hurt us more in the end.
As another new year approaches I look forward to more success as I tackle more stumbling blocks that have kept me from being everything I can be and more. Self-love, self-acceptance and learning to forgive myself are things I work on every day. As each year passes I am pleasantly surprised to find myself becoming more peaceful, relaxed and serene. May the New Year bring you more clarity and a deeper willingness to face who you truly are, the strength to begin a new journey of healing and the courage to overcome the obstacles in the way of becoming all you were meant to be.

Amour Setter
www.amoursetter.com

After a long and busy week I decided to meet my friends for a drink last night and suggested we attend the local comedy night at the Southern Right Hotel in Glencairn, Cape Town. I’d read about it in the local newspaper, which advertised “a hilarious, variety experience that is a stylish, contemporary alternative to the standard 3 comics or musical cabaret.” I arrived a few minutes early to secure seating for my group and waited in anticipation for a show which I expected was going to be entertaining and stylish (as advertised). What I got, instead was toilet humour not fit for ladies ears. The comedian, one Mark Sampson was all about his penis, attempting at several points in his “show” (if you can call it that) to flash it to his audience. They should definitely have called this show “Kings of Penis” because even their amateur comedians kept referring to the penis in their acts. What blows my mind is how audiences lap up this crap! At one point I glanced around to see how many ladies were laughing at the sick humour. I asked my friend Lesley if they were laughing because they found the “jokes” funny or embarrassing, or if they were simply laughing to be polite. We never could decide. The one thing that bothered me the most was the fact that there were very young children in the audience, a group of boys aged 10 – 14. God help us all, I thought, as the egotistical and self-centered Mr Sampson (who had recently rid himself of his awful dreadlocks) actually made various references to masturbation which were directed towards these young boys. Virtually every one of his “jokes” had references to the penis! Now I don’t mind an occasional “dirty joke” thrown in for good measure in a comedy act, but when the entire show is focused on the penis, with regular humping movements and derogatory references to female anatomy I become infuriated. Especially when you consider this act was advertised as “stylish family entertainment”. Stylish? As in chic, smart, elegant, tasteful and classy? I think not. If this is what is being sold as stylish, then girls, we are in very, very deep trouble indeed! Why not call a spade a bloody spade? Advertise this smut for exactly what it is: smutty, toilet humour with key reference to the penis and derogatory reference to female anatomy. But for God’s sake, don’t refer to it as stylish family entertainment! The “hilarious” Mark Sampson made a few references to his children, and I cringed to think what kind of “stylish” schooling they were getting at home. I couldn’t help thinking that unintelligent so-called comedians felt it necessary to behave like sheep and give audiences a plateful of toilet humour because they simply couldn’t come up with any intelligent humour. When side-act Rob van Vuuren came on stage I sat back waiting for a funny moment to break my boredom. But sadly it never came. The man looked like a biker who had escaped from his gang, took refuge in the bar, and been dared by his beer-sucking mates to attempt to get a laugh out of the audience. All that he managed to squeeze out was more smut designed for male ears.
Was I disappointed? You bet! Not only was the service appalling (we got our cold food an hour after placing our order, and one of my friends didn’t even get what he ordered) but the show didn’t deliver what it promised. The hotel had advertised this show as its “opportunity to showcase the valley’s top talent alongside Cape Town’s hottest comedians”. My God, if this excuse for a comedian was our city’s hottest comedian, then God help us all! I couldn’t help wondering, if that was a female comedian standing up on stage, trying to flash her lady bits every 5 minutes, making humping movements and referring to her vagina all the time, plus making derogatory references to men, I have no doubt that she would have been booed off the stage by all the men in the audience and branded a low-class, trashy tart! Sadly I think I was the only female who walked out of that appalling show. What concerns me is how female audiences sit back and accept this low-class humour which masquerades as stylish entertainment! How can we possibly insist on respect in society when we permit such trash on stage? My advice? Stay away from Mark Sampson’s so-called comedy acts and take a stand. If we insist on being treated with respect in society, how can we possibly support shows that are designed for exclusively male audiences with accompanying toilet humour not fit for ladies ears? Come on, girls! Silence is consent.
Amour Setter
www.amoursetter.com