Review by Jo Gillibrand, Director of SMART ? Marketing the Arts Around Surrey e: jo@smartonline.org.uk
(Azure 2002, ISBN 1 902694 19 8, £7.99 [£10.56 inc. p&p*])
How are you going to spend the rest of your 4,000 weeks (a generous ?average? life-span)? Doing whatever it is you?re doing now, refining it, or drastically altering it? ?Becoming Yourself? provides a brief guided tour through ways of getting your life on-track (if it?s become seriously derailed) or more balanced (if it?s just slightly off-kilter). Its stated aim is to help you become your ?best or truest self?, through chapters, round-ups and exercises covering body, mind and spirit. Drawing on various aspects of her life (management consultancy, family, friendships, 30 years of yoga practice and 20 years of Tae Kwon Do) plus Western/Christian and Eastern texts, Paddy offers simple exercises that require little more than yourself, peace and quiet, or pen and paper.
Her tour guides readers through the application of management techniques to themselves ? mission statement, stakeholder analysis, time lines ? to prayer, spirituality and death, via singing, laughing and feminist psychology, sharing much of her own story along the way. Some highlights on the journey? ?Basic assertiveness? (pp 40-47) is a great starting point or succinct reminder, depending on where you?re at now, on this fundamental skill. ?Mini-missions? (as a supplement to a personal life mission statement) could help with slight wobbles, when things feel just a little bit wrong.
Paddy?s down-to-earth approach is summed up in ?How Does It All Work on a Wet Wednesday Afternoon?? ? this injection of reality is an important acknowledgement that life changes aren?t plain sailing. And the exhortation to ?celebrate endurance? could be a reminder to all over-worked arts professionals that small acts of everyday courage and staying the course can be something to be proud of.
*For further information and invoicing, contact SAM?s Books, Chaldon Court, Church Lane, Chaldon, Caterham, CR3 5AL t/f: 01883 345011 e: books@sam-arts.demon.co.uk w: http://www.sam-arts.demon.co.uk