Dragon slayers.....or tamers?

The dragon in question being that big, nasty STRESS DRAGON - NOT a cutesy Eragon-y type one. The STRESS DRAGON is a troublesome beastie, but thankfully there are groups of people out there trying to slay him. Consider the teams:

The Red Team: Personal trainers - helping clients get de-stressed through exercise. These guys 'n' gals have mega-strong hamstrings and quads, so they're able to kick the livin' daylights out of the critter.

The Green Team: (Hey - Irish, remember?) Massage Therapists. Our metaphorical swords are our hands, employing the use of a hec of a lot of tapotement.

And last, but not least, The Earth Colored Team: Yoga Instructors. They can get away with wearing the earth colors since they all look like runway models. These peeps have the dragon balance on it's tail, with it's back legs wrapped around it's neck 5 times.

We're all out there, surrounding the stress dragon, doing our thing.

This is how I have previously viewed stress in my head. However, recently I've began to think I need to change that. Here's why......

I'm sure most of you have heard the story of Mother Teresa and the anti-war rally. If not, the basic story is that when Mother Teresa was asked to join an anti-war rally she graciously declined, then said something along the lines of "When you have a peace rally, let me know, and I'll go to that". I've read this in a couple of books, and many of the writers on self-development say that we shouldn't be "against" or "anti" anything, instead we should be "for" the opposite.

So my picture of the dragon slaying must change. Instead of us fighting it, we'll pet it, give it copious cups of tea (maybe the odd scone) and have it purring, mellow and tamed!

Gaelic lesson #3 "Cad e mar ata tu?", pronounced: "Kadjay marr a-taa too?", meaning "How are you?"

The Pursuit of a Biel-butt and a little business promotion

I did it.
I crawled out of bed and got over to the gym early.

In normal circumstances I look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards when I go to the gym, but I thought I'd better put a little effort into this since there is a possibility that my personal trainer client MIGHT just put in a good word for me and I envisioned myself shaking hands with other gym-goers etc. I ALSO HAD A BIT OF INSPIRATION. Rather than putting on the most wrinkled t-shirt on the planet (my usual attire for the gym) I decided to put on a t- shirt that I made a while back that has the domain name of my massage business on the back of it. When I say "made", I mean that I just got a plain t-shirt and did an iron transfer thingy from a .jpeg that I created on the computer.

So off I traipsed with referral cards and some other promotional stuff to give to the trainer, ready to shake everybody's hand and do a lot of business card dispensing.

Only to find the personal trainer wasn't there!

No worries - I got my butt onto the precor machine and did a cardio session. As I'm turning myself into a sweat-ladened drowned rat I'm thinking:

"Wonder if those peeps behind me are looking at my domain name? Or are they thinking "I don't think I want that sweaty mass touching me" ?"

Whatever.......Biel-butt making AND ingraining my domain name into the heads of gym-goers all at the same time? Well, there's nothing like killing 2 birds with the same stone (I actually don't like that phrase since I feel sorry for the birdies.....)


Gaelic lesson #2: "Dia is Muire duit" pronunciation: "Djeeah iss murrah ditch", translation: "God AND MARY be with you" - it's the usual reply to "Dia duit" and just shows that one upmanship is prevalent wherever you go in the world!