Life Design Action: Break Your Groove Grr

Requires: A Groove Marathon (see below the below bit)

Does not require: 1960s Flower power.

(Why is it that sometimes Doing What You Should Do is so easy? And why is it that other times Doing What You Know You Should Do is so hard? Sometimes you are frolicking and splashing in a beautiful pool of chlorinated Doingness shouting “woo-hoo! I’m doing it!”, then other times you are sitting on the edge of the pool wishing you could jump in yet are glued to the side getting goose-bumps. What is this annoying Not Doing What We Want To thing? And how can we break it?)  

***

The Groove Marathon Idea

Two nights ago I was sunken in the bathtub, contemplating the nature of Groove.

By Groove I don’t mean the 1960’s hip shaking wiggle that my dad used to do around the living room when I was a kid. This sort of groove is that ambiguous space where you Miraculously Get Into Doing Something and are funnelled through the experience. (I’m thinking like a grain of salt in the groove of a McCoy or Walker Deep Ridge).

My familiar Groove often revolves around health and chi/energy building. Such as …

* Running/exercising regularly

* Meditation/visualisation

* Drinking peppermint tea instead of double shot expressos

* Buying vegetables, then juicing them as opposed to buying vegetables then forgetting about them until they turn to juice in their celephane wrapper

And you do it all at the same time, with no apparent effort. It just flows.

This all then led me onto further Groove thoughts, such as …

The Groove is different to a habit.

With a habit you subconsciously do the thing. It becomes automatic. You are confident in your repetitive behaviour and no longer even think about it after a while. You just do.

The Groove can be fragile.

Unlike a habit, whilst in the Groove you are acutely aware of the fact that SOMEHOW you’ve got lucky and managed to get out the door in your running trainers for the last three weeks. There is a breathless, “just don’t look down” quality, mixed with pleasant surprise. You know that by some bizarre coincidence you are managing to be a successful, self determining human and whilst you could fall out of the healthy groove at any time, the best thing to do is count your blessings, try not to think too much and keep on grooving.

It’s easier to fall out of a health Groove than it is to fall into one.

Falling out of a good Groove is possibly one of the most annoying experiences in humanity’s Encyclopaedia of Annoying Shit. It is such a disappointing time that the only true comfort is found inside the wrapper of a Bueno Kinder.

Strange.

Or a packet of Doritos.

Hmm.

Hence the MSG and Vegetable Fat Groove begins. And you know you are helpless to fight it. Grooves are too strong. Too compelling. So you sadly wave goodbye to the good Groove and surrender to the currents of horrible familiar “need to sort my Chi-Building out but before I do I will just have another Dorito” time. (That’s sort of where I’ve been recently.)

There are as many Grooves as there are people on this planet.

It isn’t just me struggling with my Groove. So, ever since The Night Of The Bad Ideas (in which the skull and the gnome hat were completely irresponsible and Naughty N was dreadfully told off by Spouser) she has become determined to be good. She is actively trying to cultivate an Angelic N Groove. However, for Naughty N being good is torturous. Her willpower and energy has been twisted in the same way you might wring out a wet flannel. As her friend, it is quite uncomfortable to watch.

How can a good Groove be established and maintained?

By the time I had this thought, my bath had grown luke warm but I didn’t notice. A sudden idea threw everything else from the water. This was the bloodybloodybloody most marvellous idea of astronomical proportions. It was an idea that would help me get back onto the Chi-Building Groove, help Naughty N get into the Angelic N Groove. It was an idea that could also involve Jols and Golden Curly, who doubtlessly had Desired Grooves of their own.

Exhilarated with the rapture of such idea genius, I leapt out of the bath, ran dripping to the laptop and quickly swooshed out this email:

Hello everyone!!   This is our first Secret Club email. If you have received this email, then you are officially invited to be in The Club and as it is very exclusive, you can’t back out. The Club Members are (ahem) as follows:    Golden Curly Jol Naughty Angelic N  Me   (Spouser, you aren’t in the club, I have sent this email to you in case I have Naughty Angelic N’s one wrong.)    REASON FOR CREATING THE CLUB   a) Helping four women to be good  b) Helping four women to get onto a dedicated path of righteous health, where we do not flick an eyelash at chocolate and we swish past wine with the air of blissful un-attachment c) Helping four women to feel surprisingly comfortable in a public leotard display    d) Helping four women who’ve each had more than one baby ride in their tum, to love their bodies, experience their gorgeousness more than they ever thought humanly imaginable   e) Helping four women have a pig-snortingly, thighs crossed-ingly hilarious 6 weeks of fun   WHAT BEING IN THE CLUB INVOLVES   You are committing to a 6 (or maybe) 8 week challenge. Each week we meet up and decide what our goal for the next 7 day is. All of the activities revolve around somehow amplifying health, improving the body and at the raising self esteem. We all have to stick to the week’s activities and then regroup after 7 days. If you have fallen off the wagon, you fail the week.    Bonuses could be available on certain weeks, ie: Extra star if you eat a fuck load of celery.   WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END    Well … four women feel amazing, have laughed a lot, challenged themselves and are ready to wear a leotard whenever the opportunity arises.   WHAT IS THE PRIZE AT THE END?   As we all know, a bit of healthy competition is always good. Initially The House of Bethan considered that everyone could go on a spa break and that the winner (she who did not fall off the wagon once) gets her break paid for. HOWEVER that didn’t seem quite painful enough to engage us. So perhaps this should be fear driven. We have to think of something reallyreallyreally horrible to do … like, everyone has to do a bungee jump or sky dive and the winner DOESN’T HAVE TO DO IT (although she may change her mind).   IF YOU ARE UP FOR IT ….   We are going to meet on Friday at 1.00 to discuss starting times and first challenge and painful ending. We can do this at my house or wherever. We could do it at the PUB?? Ideas welcome. Please reply to this email with any extra ideas that you may have and if you reply with ideas, I will consider you UP FOR IT.

Friday was on Friday.

It is now Sunday.

We didn’t meet in the pub, but in Ads’ deli. Here we huddled in the corner to discuss and as in all good Clubs, we argued about stuff.

* Angelic N was NOT up for doing enemas or positive affirmations whilst eating raw beetroot. However she was up for running and cycling.

* Jol was NOT amused by the Running Week or cycling but was up for Super Food Vegetable Power Up Week and meditation.

* I was up for Enema Week, Super Powered Vegetable Week, Raw Food and Juicing Week, 5am Dance Lessons In Secret Location Week, Surf Lesson Week and well, All Of It Week. As long as it built my chi and meant I didn’t have to think too much.

* Golden Curly was up for everything and more.

So that’s what we are going to do to get into our Grooves. Hurrah!

Having said that, last night whilst myself and Angelic N waitressed at a gay stag do (purely to help out Ads and nothing to do with the promised naked butlers in aprons) Angelic N said she might not take part.

This is worrying.

I think she’s just frightened.

It can be a frightening thing being good.

I will keep you informed.

(I am uncertain whether a true Groove can be manufactured, but I am determined to try it. Even if Angelic N, Jol and Golden Curly decide not to do it, I am ferociously fixed on my commitment. If you were to name the Groove that you are happiest in, what would it be?)