I bought some vibrant tulips recently. I know that's what they were because that's what it said on the label - "vibrant tulips".

And I thought, that's quite something to live up to, that permanent state of brightness. It's a bit like being called the world's happiest man – who of course exists (in the media at least!). His name is Matthieu Ricard. 

Trouble is, by calling him the world's happiest man, his happiness makes him one-dimensional. I picture him as a grinning statue, fixed in a single, static state of being...

But the world's happiest man isn't just happy. He's a Buddhist monk and an aide to the Dalai Lama. He's earned a doctorate in biology and he's thoughtful, kind and versatile too. 

He's a photographer and an author who wrote a book with his father, a renowned French philosopher - and he worried about it beforehand. Plus he loves football, which proves nobody's perfect.

And doesn't that description make you warm to him so much more? You could say I've just given him a series of labels instead of just one, but that's the point. Words are labels, but I've taken the time to tell you more, to give you more because he deserves to be known for more than his happiness. In reality, he's so much more.

And my vibrant tulips? Well of course they faded and drooped – one label was never going to be enough. After all, it also completely missed the bit about tight shiny buds being perfectly full of promise.

Another problem with labels is that they're sticky – once given, they can be difficult to remove. This may not be such a bad thing if they're positive, but if they're not, they become more albatross than asset.

The bottom line is that labels are often limiting – they put us in boxes and can give us a restricted view of our own potential and ability to change. They become beliefs that determine the way we think and act and have all sorts of expectations and assumptions tagging along behind.

But labelling is also part of life. We do it to keep things simple, to get the gist of things quickly and easily, to make sense of our world or make a judgement and move on. And consequently, we stick them everywhere, sometimes without even thinking about it or realising we're doing it.

So the secret is to become alive to labels and to start paying attention to the ones we use on ourselves and others. And then we need to remind ourselves that we can peel them off any time we choose. OK, so it may take a wire brush and some serious scrubbing, but we can do it – and add new ones to take their place.

So here's one final thought to play with...

Imagine a suitcase – one of those wonderful old-fashioned brown leather suitcases. It's your suitcase, full of the stories of your life so far. It may have a few scuff marks, it may be a bit battered in places, but it's covered in sticky labels that tell the world about the places you've been, the people you've met, the person you might be.

Some of those labels were attached by you, some were slapped on by other people as you went through customs... The exciting, positive, motivating ones enable you to fly; others keep you rooted in the past or in the unfriendly territories of fear, frustration, anger or sadness.

The question is: which of those labels are you happy to live with?

What do you want people to know about you – where you've been, where you are and where you're going?

What are you willing to declare about yourself to others, for others, in spite of others?

And at the end of a life that will surely have taken you on a quite incredible journey, what are the labels that you'd like to have on your suitcase to show you've been?

_It's cold out there, wild and wintery. Come inside - I'll take your coat - and sit down beside me...

It's the time of year for Togetherness - the kind of Togetherness that wraps up warm against the biting wind and walks hand in hand down festive streets. It's the Togetherness that sits in front of a roaring fire as daylight fades, the Togetherness that cradles a glass of wine, that talks late into the evening, well-fed, comfortable and safe.

_Friendships are reignited around the scarred wooden tables of cosy pubs or during dance floor medleys of happy tracks with lyrics we know from years ago. Impassioned and emboldened by seasonal spirit, new lovers disappear into dark corners. Some time later, they emerge, blinking, into office spaces, flushed with embarrassment or potential. They follow the desire for Togetherness where it leads them, for better or worse.

The year is winding down to its logical conclusion. Winding through it, through the extended TV commercials, Christmas movies and neon-lit, alcohol-fuelled merrymaking, are the signs that perhaps, in spite of all that's been, we might still allow ourselves the luxury of looking forward to what may come. There is the possibility of joy, love, pleasure, light. We might allow a sense of optimism to float to the surface as one year closes, another opens, endings and beginnings, the chance of a fresh start...

So if you have even the smallest stirrings of optimism in this prelude to Christmas, throw fuel on that fragile little flame and blaze it up into an inferno for 2012. And let some of that fuel be the idea of Togetherness - because it should be for life not just for Christmas.

And this isn't the snow white, rom-com landscape of happy movie endings. This Togetherness is much, much more than one plus one. It's about connection, unity, leaning in and listening closely, sharing a desire to create something bigger and better than all that's gone before - and to do it in every area of your life.

It means working together, collaborating, supporting each other, being an advocate, showing respect and sharing wisdom and experience with those who can truly benefit from it. It's about a sense of belonging and recognising the value of the position you hold in your many networks of friends, family and associates.

Going it alone can be tough - Togetherness means you don't have to. You can talk things through, open up, be honest about what you need and want - and let those who love you know how they can help, because they will if you tell them how. It's about allowing yourself to be held and being willing to do the same.

OK, so perhaps the season has softened my horizons a little, perhaps I still feel huge amounts of childlike pleasure at the sight of a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and perhaps, right now, I'm happy in the warm, listening to the rain outside and writing this blog for you - but I'm sure that Togetherness isn't a bad idea. I'm sure it has potential. I'm sure we all do.

I want to tell you a story – one I originally heard from the rather brilliant Ken Robinson about a little girl in a drawing class.

She was 6, at the back of the room and the kind of little girl who rarely paid attention – but in this particular lesson she did.

The teacher was fascinated and went over to her and asked, "What are you drawing?" and the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God."

"But nobody knows what God looks like."

And the girl replied, "They will in a minute."

Why am I telling you this? Because it's a beautiful example of creativity with 100% conviction - the free-ranging potential of an untethered mind. Imagine that!

For children, imagination has room to roam. As we get older, we become aware of expectations, conventions and appropriate ways of behaving. We understand the ways of the world and start to feel embarrassed, shy or try to fit in – or purposely go against the flow out of anger, defiance or frustration rather than naturally and peacefully doing things differently.

Limitations and restrictions start creeping into the picture and put imagination into a self-conscious stranglehold, squashing the creativity that Ken Robinson believes is so vital – and he echoes Einstein who said: "Knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution".

However, we start thinking, rationalising, theorising and are respected for our maturity and sensible approach. The unpredictable, inflammatory, touchy feely imagination gets shunted into second place.

Of course, the world is not devoid of awe-inspiring creativity and self-expression – there are many people writing, composing, painting, filming, dancing, designing and sculpting amazing works of art - and creativity doesn't begin and end in the world of the artist either.

It can play a vital role in business, in negotiations and problem solving, in bringing up children, building and maintaining deep and satisfying relationships and creating a life that honestly and totally fulfils you...

Time for more creativity in your life?

The imagination of a child doesn't disappear. When we're in tune with our passions, our bodies, our selves, creativity follows as a natural impulse. There's no need to force it or be something you're not.

When Michelangelo was asked how he was able to create such beautiful sculptures, he replied that the sculpture was in the block of stone from the very beginning, he just had to chisel away everything else around it.

It's the same with our creativity. So what could you chip away to let yours shine?

It might be a limiting belief you have about yourself, an assumption you're making about a situation or simply the fact that you haven't given your creativity the time and space it needs to work its magic.

So why not get curious – and imagine what would happen if you did...

Image from: http://esquaredfashion.co.za/2009/04/20/springleap-the-creative-child-of-the-power-of-imagination/

Don't play with knives I was told as a child and, even today, my mother's voice still echoes vaguely in the back of my mind whenever I start slicing vegetables: 'Careful, it's sharp!'

Of course now this is always mentally followed up by, 'Yes, yes, I know it is', with the absolute certainty of an adult who knows her way around a knife block. However, in spite of this, I recently sliced the end of my thumb off while chopping up an onion.

Nothing had to be sewn back on and it's healing now, but for the last few weeks, I've had to work around it, being careful not to knock it on anything because if I did, it really hurt...

It's reminded me how big an impact one little thing can have on the rest of your life. All the other parts of my body have been working just fine, but that thumb has caused no end of problems in its own small way.

People assume that they need a life coach when they're falling apart, when everything has gone wrong, when they're utterly broken and need fixing. 

Actually, in most cases, it's more subtle. It's about working with someone to sort out their metaphorical thumb – the one small part of themselves that's stopping them doing and being all they want to be. 

Of course they're functioning just fine with that aspect of themselves being out of whack, but - wow! How much easier life becomes when they don't need to operate in that permanent state of work around!

I believe that life coaching often involves making the little changes that can create wider  horizons, open out possibilities and allow you to notice what suddenly becomes possible that wasn't before.

Our bodies are clever – they automatically compensate for our weaknesses. When one muscle or joint is under-performing, others take over - but after a while, we tend to feel other aches and pains as a result of being out of line and off balance. 

Like a chiropracter, a life coach is about realigning, rebalancing and helping you perform in a way that reduces stress. It allows you to be more effective, to move more effortlessly, and yes, sometimes to let go of pain.

So what's your metaphorical thumb? What's holding you back and making you compensate and work around?

And one final question - if you could change one small thing about the way you do things today, what would it be? 

In a much-loved farm house, surrounded by cornfields, you'll find the Ewefields Retreat. It's a place for seeing things more clearly, a beautiful, light-full space. Swallows were scoring perfect parabolas through the air as I let myself inside.

There were six of us. Two coaches and three others like me - waiting to see what would happen.

We sat on the carpet, in a circle, in a mainly empty room designed to let the people be the focus not the furniture, and for much of the first day, we talked. We talked about where we were in life personally and professionally and what we needed and wanted. With all the doing that happens, it was a time for being and taking stock.  

I'm aware that I do a lot of rushing around and, occasionally, a casualty of this is the ability or perhaps even the willingness to think about why I'm doing what I do, what I want to get out of it and even whether I actually know. 

Sometimes we find ourselves on a trajectory, propelled into doing (at speed). It may be a trajectory initially determined by us, but often it's by circumstances or other people - and sometimes it's taking us in the wrong direction. 

The trouble is, by then we're already moving at such a pace that unless we jam the brakes on, we'll carry on until we hit the destination we didn't want. Or like a doomed rocked hurtling through space, warning lights start flashing and the body starts malfunctioning. Sometimes. 

Among these women, talking was uninhibited and honest. We had the chance to be heard and to listen. Mutual respect and consideration gave room for emotion to emerge and then cradled it gently. 

It was a contemplative space in which we shared humour and experiences and found connections through sympathy and empathy. It was a place to put the brakes on.

The second day was more about setting new trajectories, gaining a clearer idea on what we wanted and needed and looking more closely at how we could achieve some of our most important goals, dreams and desires. 

Of course you can do this kind of thing on your own - you don't need to go away on a retreat - but, for me, the guidance of two experienced coaches and a supportive, all-female group made the mental and emotional self-exploration more profound and the process of gaining focus far easier.

In my (albeit limited) experience, men seem more likely to do this kind of processing on their own - and appear much less frequently than women on retreats like this one. They may have one best mate who they talk to in depth, or a partner, but the default seems to be to go it alone - and there is a miraculous process I've observed where they will take themselves off for a pre-defined period of time and come back with THE ANSWER. I am in awe of this. 

Many of the women I know (myself included) choose to look for answers through a more collaborative process, building the networks that provide the support and feedback they need to make their own minds up. 

There is no right or wrong way to go about the process of answering questions - but I think the secret is to be open to anything and leave no stone unturned. 

I have noticed that unexpectedly amazing revelations can come from the most unusual and unlikely of people and places - and whatever leads you to them is doing it for a reason. Trust it. And yourself. We know everything we need to know about ourselves to be happy. It's just a case of stopping and listening.

Because of the kind of people and organisations I follow on Twitter and Facebook, my timeline is often a constant stream of quotes and sayings - meaningful, motivational extracts of other people's judiciously applied words. Occasionally, I'll pounce on one that I'd like to have said if I'd been witty or wise enough. 

For example, this evening: 
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there". That one caught in the net. 

I don't know exactly what Rumi meant, but to me, that says liberation, the idea of freeing yourself from judgement and finding the space to connect purely and simply, in forgiveness and acceptance. Beautiful. 

However, most of the time all these valuable thoughts just flow past me with, at most, a skim read. And I know that means there's probably a whole heap of wisdom just falling off the bottom of my screen - but this is the problem: when it comes to quotes, sometimes there are just too many of them. Line after line of mindfulness that, after a while, becomes meaningless white noise. 

And then I see dead people. That timeline is full of them. Wise, but dead. And it's a little like being in solitary confinement with a very well-written book to read.

Now don't get me wrong - I love quotes. I have a folder full of them and a good one appears like illumination in a sloeblack, crowblack sky… Mostly they're quoted by someone I admire for the powerful, seductive, expressive way they create shapes with language.

But there are times when that online deluge creates something of a feeding frenzy and gathering 'great quotes' and adding them to a collection becomes more important than taking them on board. This is when quote watching is more like waiting for a beautiful butterfly to land so you can stake it with a pin and put it in a box on the wall. 

Words need the room to breathe, to live, to fly. This takes time and space which they don't get when they become a flood. 

Simply put, the more I am told, the less I hear, but when I take the time to feel something, it lingers, unfolds and connects with something inside me. There is so much wisdom in the world, but sometimes creating space, without words, is the best way to let the knowledge you have take shape. 

However, if I had to choose between having that background noise of illumination and inspiration or not, I admit I'd take the background noise. 

There are times when those inspirational quotes appear with the frequency of fireworks on bonfire night - but I like fireworks. If ever I do something important in my life, I want there to be fireworks. And so why not have the written equivalent on an ongoing basis? 

OK, so sometimes the rocket will misfire or fail to catch, but I'd sooner have a good supply of words designed to inspire and motivate than a set put together to ridicule and belittle. I'd rather have quotes about love than headlines of frustration and anger and I'd rather have a backdrop of positivity than an ongoing moan. Really, there's no contest.

And today, as it often is, my favourite quote is this one from Anais Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom". Because it means something to me. 

But really that's all these quotes are ever about - helping us identify a little bit of ourselves that we want to acknowledge and be proud of.

I've just come back from one of The School of Life's Sunday sermons. I was greeted at the door by the Devil, who, should you ever meet him, will be instantly recognisable by his full-body, tight red lycra cat suit and prodigious height (at least 7', although I was wearing flats…)

The speaker was Sir Ken Robinson, one of the world's leading thinkers on creativity, education and innovation. With eloquence, warmth and humour, he talked to us about passion - and how important it is to find and nurture your own. 

The upshot of this entertaining and illuminating 90 minutes was that now, as I write, I feel full - alive, optimistic and more determined to bring to fruition the plans that I have been evolving over the last year. 

The laughter and inspiring words were a reminder of just how much potential there is to be grasped, how much it is possible to achieve when you tune into the things that really make you tick.

And by the way, feeling full  - in a good way - remains something special for me, something I feel privileged to experience. This is because I've spent a while trying to get it into my life (without the aid of carbohydrates). 

During my twenties and early thirties, I lacked focus, direction and clarity. I wasn't peaceful. Actually, I was full of unresolved emotional turmoil. I was looking for something, but I didn't know what - and whether you lose something or long for it, the emptiness can be just as profound and destructive. 

Nobody had ever asked me that most simple and illuminating of questions: 'What do you really want out of life?' I'd certainly never asked myself. Without a goal, I was making the best of a series of wrong situations, but it wasn't sitting comfortably. That sense of an absence persisted in the background and my life, looking back, was small and limited. 

Self-knowledge, spiritual food for thought and emotional nourishment were what filled the gap inside me and now, in the main, keep me buoyant, inspired and excited. 

For me, fullness means completeness, contentment and focus. It's a warm feeling that brings energy and the sense of being fully alive. This is just my definition. You've probably got your own.

I feel full when I am being most myself, when, in Ken's words, I have found my 'Element'.

The Element is "the place where the things you love to do and the things that you are good at come together". It's an invitation to explore potential in a different way - to invite passion into the complex equation of your life and let it solve a few things.

I've never been a great mathematician, but that adds up for me.

The New Year - it's all about resolutions and, shortly afterwards, about trashing them when the resolve wears off. Even when those changes are genuinely longed for, it's easy to be lead off course and that's just the way it goes. Or perhaps not...

In spite of my best intentions, life often runs away with me. Grabbing hold of my arm, it drags me along at such a pace that, finally, all I can do with my last remaining breath is shout Enough! This is NOT what I had in mind. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT! 

And then, like a break in the clouds, I realise how far I am from doing what I set out to do and being the person I really want to be – the balanced, calm, focused Me who has time to think and space to flow. And I stop, take a deep breath. And take control. 

Then I can ask: If not this, what do I want instead? and think about what I need to do to get it.

Now far be it from me to hold myself up as paragon of virtue, a shining example of mind control and self awareness. I'm a life coach for goodness sake. A state of divine grace, perfect equilibrium and omniscience still elude me. This process of putting the brakes on can take five minutes, an hour, a week or perhaps longer, depending on the speed at which I'm travelling away from my intended destination.

But the knowledge that those brakes are there, that I can choose to make that emergency stop means I have an alternative to worry, stress, sleepless nights and feeling like crap.

There have been times in my life when feeling bad about myself, the people around me and the world I lived in was the normal state of being. It was a familiar default. Better the devil you know, eh?

By focusing on the people and situations around me that were 'making me feel' a certain way, I allowed myself to do nothing, seemingly the path of least resistance, the least challenging option. It was their responsibility to make me feel better. If they changed, I would change.  Until then I'd sit in my pit.

However, I learnt how important it is to take responsibility for my own life – after all, nobody knows me better than me, no matter how much I may wish it to be different. 

If I tune into it, only I have the minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow update on my mental, physical and emotional state. And consequently, only I really know what will help me feel better. I can make choices. I can decide how I respond to the world. 

Even in the most dire of predicaments, there is always something, however small or seemingly insignificant, that can give just a little. And when even those tiniest of changes are made, the door opens a crack and you shed a little more light on the problem. And then what becomes possible?

Making life feel better isn't usually about taking one giant leap from A to Z. It's about the small incremental shifts that start the process of moving away from one situation and towards another – the one you want. 

With every step towards your goal, a little more of that heaviness around your heart falls away,  the grip of stress loosens its hold and you start to be in flow, moving not stagnant, taking control rather than waiting passively for something to change around you.

It's a good feeling, taking responsibility. Trust me. I know.

You can spend time and money training your brain to work more effectively, but realising your full potential is more than a mind game...

Getting clarity on what matters in life - what you believe in, your values, how you want to live, who you want to spend time with, the job you do - those kind of choices are worth thinking about... But how do you know when you've made the decisions that reflect what you're really all about? What gives you the courage of your convictions?

In absolute clarity, there's another guiding force at work - and it's physical. 

Before making important decisions, a successful CEO I know used to go for a walk - by moving the body, he was able to think more freely and creatively. He said it cleared his head.

It's true that from gut instincts that result in a decisive business strategy to knowing in your heart that you've found the person you want to spend your life with, your body's response to a situation is as much a part of the decision-making process as rationale and logic... 

Certainly, the greatest, most successful people are driven by passion - a state that is deeply felt, not carefully thought out - although a well-constructed strategy for success inevitably follows. Passion creates energy, determination, conviction and confidence. It plants the desire to succeed, whatever the obstacles, because it's part of what makes you who you are - to realise that passion is to realize an aspect of yourself, to put your potential in motion. 

This is probably why it feels good too. Whether you call it being in flow, being in the zone, feeling in your skin, or simply just being yourself, I know that when I'm in that state, I am happy. I feel strong, confident and calm. I feel alive. I feel like I'm being me.

I believe that the more we connect with our bodies and tune in to the responses they provide, the more often those amazing feelings are possible and the more powerful we become. We are better able to make the decisions that are congruent with who we are, the individual choices that work for us.

With this in mind, I've set up a series of workshops based around the notion of The Whole Self, about strengthening the mind-body balance and learning to operate from a more powerful place of personal integrity. 

These workshops offer practical skills that can transform the way you think and feel about yourself, integrating thought, emotion and action and offering you a space where you can embrace all that you are, not just a part. 

Focusing around themes such as self-confidence, self-respect and self-awareness, the Whole Self workshops are aimed at anyone who wants more out of life and is willing to explore their own potential to find it.

The first is on Sunday 12th December and it's called The Sensual Self - an afternoon out of the cold to explore what sensuality could mean for you and a starting point for greater self-respect and physical fulfilment.

More details coming soon...