Friday, 20 August 2010
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Sorority Sisterhood & The Round Table
With the launch of The Sorority Club, this week has been a celebration of women. It’s been a reminder of the powerful and inspirational impact women can have in this world and what happens when we join hands to collaborate for positive change. Whether it’s in business, relationships or unions to tackle the greater issues facing our modern world, women it seems, are standing stronger than ever before and are in our light feminine way creating pathways that are shaping a bright future. It is an age of transition, sharing, nurturing and communication. We all know how much women love to talk! The tap has been opened, the loudspeaker has been turned up and our voices are been heard far and wide. Tea party chitchat has turned to boardroom brainwaves and wise worldly words that are making big things happen in every arena of life imaginable.
The brainchild of Lisa Tse, award-winning designer and sought-after brand guru, The Sorority Club is an exclusive members-only club for inspiring professional women. Celebrating style and femininity, The Sorority held its official launch this week when a fine group of inspiring women gathered for the first time in a secret location in London.
Guests had received a hand delivered VIP Invitation sealed with the Sorority insignia. There was no red carpet, guest list or fanfare. Just a magic word passed onto guests, to be uttered when entering the unassuming doorway flanked by gentlemen in bowler hats.
The evening was not only to celebrate the launch of The Sorority, but also included the Founding Members Inauguration.The Founding Members that evening, which included Gurinder Chadha OBE, Katie Derham, Beatrix Ong, Paula Pryke, and Ching He Huang, were each presented with a silver Sorority Insignia by HRH Sultanah of Pahang. These insignia's mark the entry into The Sorority and were handcrafted in London by the same silversmiths who created artist Marc Quinn's Kate Moss sculptures.
The members spent the evening enjoying cocktails created by Mews of Mayfair including the Snow Leopard Feline Fatale, vintage champagne tasting courtesy of French Bubbles, whilst nibbling on Lobster shots and Lavender Macaroons with guests including Britt Ekland and Princess Yasmien Abbasi. Over £17,000 of gifts were provided to the lucky guests who each took home a luxurious goody bag, including an exclusive Matches Boutique Privilege card for the first 100 Sorority members entitling members 15% off all future fashion purchases.
As each lady was called up to receive their silver sorority sister pin, placed over their heart by honorary member, the Queen of Malaysia, their story was told. The sense of awe built as the tale of each woman’s life journey, successes and visions for the future were revealed. I felt a mixture of amazement and pride at the combined achievements. To some it may have been intimidating but personality it made me want to whip out my laptop, charge my blackberry, take out the colorful crayons and get cracking! The key to The Sorority is to unlock our wealth of knowledge, share ideas and put systems in place so that we may all place a step on the ladder that will help us collectively reach for the stars.
Recently on my travels I was watching the tribute to Michael Jackson and his life. We all know that feeling when a particular song seems to follow you around. You hear it in the car, in the shopping mall, the man next to you on the street is humming its tune. It steps up from the ether time and time again as if to say “Hello! This is your message! This is your theme song for now!”
The song that has been following me and making my heart sing is Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” Elation and joy spring to my heart when I hear the words “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change!” Watching the documentary of his world tour made me take note of the fact that Michael embodied the message of love in everything he did. Famous for his “I love you’s” to his fans and the world, he captured themes of racial integration, world-love and environmental issues in his songs. Just think of “heal the world, make it a better place”. He was at the forefront of positive change. He had a message of universal love that he spread throughout the world through the medium of music. It’s a tune to which we can all sing - a universal melody. He is a testament to how one person can make enormous change, how one person can change the world. It does seem like a rather clichéd example but he really is one of the people we all know and love… and let’s face it, we’ve all tried the moon walk or secretly wanted to!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgtWIx2zLtk
I have just come back from a supper with five women in Fez, Morocco. Gathered around the table were three generations of women from my family and my dear friend Estelle Bingham, a deeply intuitive connecter. The discussion led to the reasons behind the fascinatingly low depression rate in Fez. What, despite their poverty and daily problems, made these people so intrinsically happy?
Tomato and olive salad was passed around. The answer seemed to lie in the close community where families live in communal spaces and feel a sense of shared experience and belonging. They may have modest homes but they are always immaculately kept, their clothes are clean, they are thoughtful and kind and there is an abundance of deliciously prepared food on the table. Every member of the family is valued and needed, each with a role to play in the daily functioning of the family. New neighbours are always invited inside and welcomed. Food is served on a round table where there is no hierarchy; we are all equals sharing from a central dish. We dip our bread into the rich broth and nourish our souls from the same source of life. We connect and communicate in a shared moment. This is a form of love. This is happiness.
All of the women sitting around The Sorority table have their own unique talents and skills, each woman has a totally unique path and purpose in life that cannot be replicated. It is exciting to think about the greatness our combined talents will bring to the world. The challenge is to hold the mirror up to oneself: who am I and what do I want in life? Many of us will spend our whole lives navigating this question. The important thing is that you recognise yourself in the mirror and get a sense of what makes you happy. You don’t need to see one hundred steps ahead. As long as you see the first step, the rest will follow. It is the people around us: our family, community, partners and colleagues that help us find our reflection. Happiness is finding a common table to sit around and share the delicious splendor's of life.
Launching later this month, The Sorority House is a private online community for Members. This platform has been created with a focus to facilitate connection and allow our members to interact with each other in a private space.
Further to this, The Sorority Wisdom will be an online knowledge base for Sorority members to share and promote their insight and knowledge. Features, articles and interviews will be published publicaly online to create an opportunity for our members to share their knowledge.
If you would like to join The Sorority, this can be done by making a pledge for membership on the sorority website at:
http://www.thesorority.org/membership.asp
Full details of Membership Benefits and Fees are available on our website www.thesorority.org
BBC NEWS LONDON
There is lovely two minute feature on The Sorority which was broadcasted on BBC London News. The piece can be viewed online at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8730000/8730993.stm
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Sunday, 9 May 2010
The Ubuntu Charity Gala Dinner
An Evening with Hugh Masekela was a tremendous success and raised over £650,000! This was an impressive mile stone in Ubuntu Education Fund's 11 years of groundbreaking work assisting orphaned and vulnerable children in the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Auction Highlights
- Lunch with the Archbishop: An exclusive private lunch with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
- Sundance 2011: Two 10-day passes for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. To include opening and closing ceremony, entrance to all films PLUS accommodation throughout.
- Lights, Camera, Fashion!: Two tickets to the 2010 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York. To include an exciting weekend getaway.
- Inside the Dragons’ Den: Lunch with James Caan from the hit television show, Dragons’ Den.
- South African Adventure: A 10-day trip through South Africa including a 5* safari, indulgence in Cape Town’s finest hotels and a visit to Ubuntu’s headquarters in Port Elizabeth.
- 007 - Licence to Chill: One-week luxurious retreat at the exclusive Ian Fleming Villa of the Goldeneye Resort in Jamaica, where he wrote the James Bond novels.
The Ubuntu Gala Dinner has been a shining light, a goal, a mile stone and a beacon to which I have measured my life over the past 8 months. Everything either falls into pre or post gala evening. Now that the event is over the only solution is to create and look forward to many more beacons of light, many more fund raisers, gala dinners and educational projects lie ahead of us.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/arts_entertainment/masekela+rails+against+music+and+the+world+cup/3638492
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid62612474001?bctid=83388539001
Host Committee
· Farah and Hassan Alaghband
· Fabiola and Andrew Rolfe
· Bonnie and R Derek Bandeen
· Karen and David Brush
· Linda Grosse
· Donna Karan
· Gareth Knight
· Bertrand Lipworth
· Sir Sidney Lipworth
· Alexandra and William Roedy
· Stephen Schaffer
· Katherine Scott
· Kathleen and Scott Simpson
· Tony Tabatznik
· Tracy and Jacques Tredoux
Jami and Bill Voge
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Thoughts for your heart: Guests in your house
I recently went to a poetry reading in Notting Hill. It was, in fact, held in the utterly idealistic and charming setting of the real travel book store where Anna Scott, the movie star, met Hugh Grant, the book seller in our favourite romantic comedy, Notting Hill. I have to confess, I have always felt a longing affinity with Anna Scott. She is the movie star, who underneath all the glamour is just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.... okay seriously mushy stuff... but that line has been immortalized and is actually very sweet indeed. There is a beauty in being vulnerable. Anna you may notice, also has the same Surname as me and we both spend a lot of time in Notting Hill with intellectual types. All I need to do now is become a movie star and fall in love with an Englishman.
Poetry is something I haven't done in years. It brought me back to that feeling of being in high school, nervous of how people may perceive you, heart pounding with a mixture of fear and excitement, questioning whether your choice in poem would reflect who you are, questioning again whether that matters and again whether I could possibly be reading too much into things. Surely poetry is about expression! whether the topic is big or small, profound or frivolous, serious or silly; it all makes up elements of our world and who we are. Every word is welcomed like a house guest. Every speaker a catalyst for a new concept, a new energy, a new thought.
When I first left Cape Town two years ago. I had a flame in my heart, a thirst for adventure and all I knew is that I wanted to make something of myself. I wanted to be independent. The one nagging problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to do and so I embarked on my quest to find my purpose in life. I knew there must be something for me out there. Like all young people it was essential that I took time out to "find myself" and what better place to do it other than my mother's Guest House in Fes, Morocco.
Darling, the body is a guest house;
every morning someone new arrives.
Don't say, "O, another weight around my neck!"
or your guest will fly back to nothingness.
Whatever enters your heart is a guest
from the invisible world: entertain it well.
Every day and every moment a thought comes
like an honoured guest into your heart.
My soul regard each thought as a person,
for every person's value is the thought they hold.
If a sorrowful thought stands in the way,
it is also preparing the way for joy.
It furiously sweeps your house clean,
in order that some new joy may appear from the Source.
It scatters the withered leaves from the bough of the heart,
in order that fresh leaves might grow.
It uproots the old joy so that
a new joy may enter from Beyond.
Sorrow pulls up the rotten root
that was veiled form sight.
Whatever sorrow takes away or causes teh heart to shed,
it puts something better in its place-
especially for one who is certain
that sorrow is the servant of the intuitive.
Without the frown of teh clouds and lightning,
the vines would be burnied by the smiling sun.
both good and bad luck become guests in your heart:
like planets traveling from sign to sign.
When something transits your sign, adapt yourself,
and be as harmonious as its ruling sign,
so that when it rejoins the Moon,
It will speak kindly to the Lord of the heart.
Whenever sorrow comes again,
meet it with smiles and laughter,
saying, "O my creator, save me from its harm,
and do not deprive me of its good.
Lord remind me to be thankful,
let me feel no regret if it's benefit passes away."
And if the pearl is not in sorrow's hand,
let it go and still be pleased.
Increase your sweet practice.
Your Practice will benefit you at another time;
someday your need will be suddenly fulfilled.
- "Mathnawi V"
I love the concept that every thought we have is a guest in our own body; our body is merely the guest house. Our bodies may grow old but our thoughts are new everyday. We are as young as our thoughts, we are as happy as our thoughts, as busy, as sad, as our thoughts. We are the sum of our thoughts. I love the idea that a collection of thoughts are like seasons and as our thoughts change so do the seasons in our mind. Much like the seasons in Notting Hill and the Cherry Blossom poem from the poetry reading. Each season has its place in our heart so even when it is winter and our thoughts are sad, what Rumi's poem reminds us of is that without winter we cannot have spring. We need to go through sorrow so that we may feel true joy- to shed our old leaves so that new fresh buds can grow. Now it is spring and the Cherry trees are in blossom.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Balancing the Brain: Finding Happiness
The past year has been a joyous crazy roller coaster with an action packed calendar including; starting a new business, international travel, networking, relationships, business ventures, it’s all very exciting but can at times seem overwhelming. Last year I had a feeling like I wanted to press a giant pause button on life and just take a moment to breath, a moment to calibrate all this new information and be still with my emotions. Often life happens so quickly that our brains literally don’t have enough time to file everything neatly away into the right mental sock drawer, colour coding appropriately so we can find that thought easily the next time we reach for it.
While in Cape Town over December I had the privilege of discovering something that helped me sift through the mental sock drawer of my mind, do a bit of cleaning, find the lost socks and pair them up with their rightful partners ultimately balancing my thoughts and bringing me mental harmony. This process liberated me from old residual stress and anxieties, enabling me to be free from mental agitations and feel completely tranquil and deeply happy for the first time in many years. This incredible and fascinating process is called Brain Training.
Now some people might be asking… what on earth is that? And what do socks have to do with anything? My mother discovered Brain Training through a family friend who is a top psychiatrist specializing in the care of traumatized children. She had done brain training herself and found it so life-changing that she now sends the children she looks after to have the training as a part of their recovery treatment and rehabilitation.
So how does it work? Firstly, while sitting comfortably in a very large reclining chair (you will spend a lot of time in this chair!), electromagnetic pads are placed at strategic points on your brain then pulses are fed through the brain to receive a map of your brains activity. This map then serves as a guide for the practitioner to assess where your brain has stored trauma and how these agitations affect your daily life. The reading is so accurate it can process all your brains activity from the day that you were born, feeding back a record that can tell you at what age you experienced certain traumas and how your brain processed these experiences.
The map shows clearly whether your brain stored that information in the left or right hand cortex, whether you have a tendency to experience flight of freeze or if you are prone to depression, anxiety, sleep disorders or addictive behavior. It is a strangely wonderful and curious process that leaves you eager to learn more. The door to the surreal world of your inner most workings is opened. How fascinating to get a glimpse of the cogs working and also know you can get the mechanic in to grease the engine where needed!
It is recommended that one does at least 16 hours (although some will see results after 5 others may need up to 30 sessions). This would normally be broken down into 8 sessions of two hours each, done over a 3 week period as close together as possible, ideally doing 8 days of 2 hour sessions in a row. When committing to the process it is important not to take any stimulants such as coffee, alcohol or prescription drugs as this could alter the effectiveness of the training. Giving yourself this period of “clean living” makes it the ultimate time to consider doing an overall detox. My homage to the process was a daily vegetable juice and sauna. The body is the temple to the mind!
The way I like to describe Brain Training to my friends is to imagine that you were a humming bird sitting in a tree singing your humming bird song… merrily singing. As a happy humming bird you instinctively know what your own tune is. If, for instance you started tweeting like a nightingale or clucking like a chicken, you would immediately notice that something was wrong and you would re-harmonize until your tune sounded more like your normal humming-bird song.
This is the basic principal of Brain Training. While you are hooked up with electrodes, your brain activity creates electromagnetic energy - captured and observed as brain waves with EEG amplifiers and computers. The computers then process the brain wave information and translate the brain waves into an optimized pattern in the form of sound waves which are then played back to you through earphones. Then for the first time ever, you brain gets the chance to listen to its own tune. It’s like the humming bird listening to its song for the first time and realizing where it is out of tune. Your brain then starts to instinctively re tune itself, balancing brain waves to achieve an ultimate state of harmony. Storing the files where they should be and ironing out agitations. This is the state we all search for in life. That quiet still inner place that sits close to your soul.
I found the experience to be life-changing and am still seeing on going changes three months down the line. My brain maps showed that I had a VERY busy mind, prone to anxiety and sleeplessness. This was true. I had come to Brain Training in the hopes of relieving my anxiety and depression and freeing me from compulsive over-thinking. A virtue if one wants to get a lot done but also a suffocating prison that can take the joy out of spontaneous living. During my first session they made me close my eyes and visualize happy moments in my life. As I listened to my brain waves I could feel ripples of powerful emotion come over me. It felt as though my brain was letting go of old energy, releasing sad emotion without actually having to relive or remember the event that caused the pain.
They told me that I may feel very tired during the first week due to all the information and new neurological connections being made, however, I actually felt unbelievably energetic, waking up at 5h30am, wide-eyed with the sudden urge to spring from my bed, tidy my room and hop onto my bicycle 2 hour cycle rides up the coast (if only this was every day!). Eventually after 5 days of this insanely energetic thirst for life I pleaded that they stimulate my sleep neurons. This did the trick.
After day six I was so very tired I literally could not even get out of my pajamas. I proceeded to shuffled around the house wrapped in a big blanket for three days. CSI crime scene investigations and medical detective re-runs were mercilessly watched for hours. Chocolate was eaten. Thank god it was the Christmas holidays or I may have felt very guilty for my unproductive behavior. We even had a house guest who had met me one day one of my sleepy grumpy blanket shuffling behavior and jokingly named me “blanket girl”. I like to think of this time as the period where my body was cocooning like a caterpillar, resting, nourishing and transforming into a butterfly.
Brain balance and harmony is the first step to well being and optimization. Balance in the brain, is subsequently followed by balance in the body. The condition of balance and harmony for the brain is known as homeostasis. It is a “level playing field” for your brain to respond to thinking, feeling, and healing your body in an optimized state. Your brain acts as the hub of the wheel, your nervous system the spokes and your body the rim. When the hub is out of balance everything else suffers.
“Brainwave Optimization with Real Time Balancing – is based on brain observance. It is based on a Quantum Physics vs.a Newtonian Physics understanding of the individual, and this philosophical difference cannot be too heavily stressed. Brainwave Optimization with RTB seeks to show the brain itself – be a mirror for the brain in its ever more optimized state. The client is not trained with learned behavior. In fact, while not optimal, a client may sleep through a session and still realize results because the brain can view itself without direct client participation.”
On the last day of my training I cried and smiled and then fell asleep in the chair. I drove home from the last session with my radio on full blast and remember staring out the window at these beautiful birds gliding in the blue sky… wow… those birds are so amazing… I couldn’t believe how beautiful being alive felt; like suddenly I was plugged into life. I drove to the sea and sat on a bench staring at the ocean… light glittering off the waves… birds flying in the horizon. I smiled for four hours non-stop. My cheeks hurt and strangers probably thought “what on earth is she so happy about?”. I felt an over whelming joy and ecstasy for no particular reason. This is the best part. Why do we have to have a reason to feel this happy? It occurred to me that this was how we are suppose to feel all the time! It is my wish that every one get to experience this feeling. I hope that as many people as possible discover Braining Training and through the process find their own inner balance and joy.
There is a great link on the BBC website with Matthew Stadlen's, Five Minutes With... philosopher AC Grayling on free will and happiness: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8599728.stm
Anxiety • Depression • Panic Attacks • Lack of focus • Memory Problems Addictions • ADD/ADHD • Sleep Issues • Stress • Anger • PTSD • Brain Injury • Learning Disorders • Pain Mitigation • Dementia • Sexual Function • Sports Performance and more Brain State Technology is currently being used by practitioners in over 17 countries, helping their clients restore balance and harmony for a more effective life.
Isle of Wight: LIFE'S PaLEtt: +44 (0)1983 531424
Info@BrainStateTech.com
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
The Good Life- evening celebrations!
With the clinking of merry glasses, The Glamorous Good life has started the year successfully with the first gathering of our glamorous good-living team!
On Tuesday 16th Feb, we all braved the London rain to get together for our first evening of chit chat, networking and general introductions at the very charming Truc Vert restaurant in Mayfair. It’s important to lay the foundations by getting the right people connected and it’s so rewarding to see how collaborations then grow organically and develop lives of their own.
2010 brings the exciting arrival of five new experts to the panel:
1. Lisa Bathurst- Wardrobe & Style Coach
2. Dannii Johns- Exclusive Personal Assistant
3. Nicky Weston- Massage Therapist
4. Antonia Harman- Energy Healer
5. John Best- Personal Trainer
Our clients will certainly not be short for choice with The Glamorous Good Life’s impressive spectrum of tailored services.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome, the Life Organizer Queen, Dannii Johns to our platform. Danni will be bringing over 10 years Personal Assistant and networking experience to The Glamorous Good Life and will assist us in cross-referring therapists and looking after special clients supporting a multitude of their lifestyle needs.
An expert in image and style, Lisa is one of the country’s leading image consultants. She helps brand clients to achieve specific goals in both their personal and professional lives. Using a holistic approach, Lisa believes that inner confidence and outer style is the key to achieving potential. Following a prosperous modeling career, traveling and working with the worlds most prestigious brands and fashion houses, Lisa experienced first hand what differentiates the ordinary from the extraordinary. Armed with NLP, psychology and coaching qualifications, she began to enjoy helping people to motivate themselves to better things. Ironically, despite trying desperately to get away from the world of image, it soon became apparent that people had to be happy with their outer image to let their inner well-being shine through.
Consequently she set about to design a service that combined her impeccable eye for style with her instinctive desire to help people reach their potential. In 2007, Lisa founded Urbanity London, UK’s only image consultancy for men. With a loyal clientele that includes city executives, media and sports persons around the globe, Urbanity creates distinctive images, giving clients a magnetic presence, whilst staying true to their goals and personalities.
Lisa’s insider trend up-date:
'Brash and Flash' is out; styling with 'insider know-how' is in!
“Yes, in today's modern world, it seems that being able to identify designer details is far more important than blatant logos, which quite frankly, have become common place and a bit cheap. Take Burberry for example, who's easily recognised 'plaid' used to be the pinnacle of British class and sophistication; now its more likely to be associated with chav culture than the lavish well-heeled. Understated details, worn more discreetly, such as furs on the inside or diamonds on the underside of rings and watches, would only be appreciated by those connoisseurs in the know, and that's the bonafide benchmark of affluence.”- Lisa Bathurst
The range of services offered by Lisa include:
• Image analysis
• First impression enhancement
• Personal branding
• Image styling
• Wardrobe design
• Dedicated private shopping
• On-going image management
http://www.urbanitylondon.com/