Marianne Power - Help Me!: One Woman’s Quest to Find Out if Self-Help Really Can Change Her Life

Marianne Power

HELP ME!

One womans quest to find out if self-help

really can change her life

PICADOR

To G my person

Mum: About this book...

Me: Yes.

Mum: Please tell me you dont use the word journey in it.

Me: I dont.

Mum: Good.

Me: I prefer the term spiritual path.

Mum: Oh, Marianne...

Contents

The stained office chair is covered with grey, scratchy material. I try not to think about the origin of the dark splodge as I let my fluffy dressing gown drop to the floor and sit down. Naked.

The cool air of the draughty hall hits my skin. My heart pounds.

I am naked. In front of people. Naked. Under a spotlight. Naked.

My thoughts race. What if someone I know walks in? Someone I work with? Or an old teacher?

Just find a position you are comfortable in and relax, says the teacher from the back of the room. I promise you nobody will be thinking of your nudity theyll be too focused on their art.

Patronizing sod, easy for you to say in your jeans and jacket. You are one hundred per cent more dressed than me right now.

I cross my legs and put my arms in my lap, just to cover something. I look down at my mozzarella tummy and the blonde hairs on my white legs glowing under the bright lights. The noise of pencil scratching paper is the only thing to distract me from the voice inside my head. A voice thats yelling: What the hell are you doing here? Why arent you at home watching telly like a normal person? And why didnt you shave your legs? Surely thats the first thing you do when you are about to get naked in public? Some basic bloody hair removal?

Out of the corner of my eye I see movement. Someone has come in late. Its a man. He is tall. Dark curly hair. I raise my head slightly. Hes wearing a navy jumper. God, Im a sucker for a nice jumper... The reality dawns: a hot man has walked in while I am sitting with no clothes on in a village hall.

This is the stuff of nightmares.

I stare at a ball of fluff on the floor like my life depends on it.

I take a deep breath and worry that breathing makes me look fat. Fatter.

Stop it, Marianne. Think of something else... like what you will have for dinner when you get home. Maybe a chicken stir-fry? Or cheese on toast?

OK, Marianne, why dont we try a standing pose? Perhaps with your back to the room? And your arms up?

My legs shake as I turn.

I wonder how these budding Michelangelos are going to capture my cellulite. Is this something they get taught how to do? A bit like learning perspective and how to recreate the sky? I wonder what Mr Jumper is going to think of my bum? Hell hate it, Im sure. I bet all his girlfriends are perfect size eights and have bums like peaches...

I think about cheese on toast. I wonder what kind of bread we have left.

My arms burn with the effort of keeping them up. Two drops of sweat trickle down the side of my body. Then the teachers talking again.

Feel free to move to a better position, he tells his students. Move closer to the model. Find a good angle to work from.

Chairs scrape on the wooden floor. Mr Jumper is now sitting three feet away from me. Hes so close, I can smell his aftershave. It smells clean and sea-like.

I bet he thinks youre a weirdo for being naked in public on a Sunday night. I bet he thinks your hairy thighs are huge and ugly. I bet... Stop it, Marianne!

I go back to the fluff. I wonder why the floors of halls are always so dusty and whether I can get away without doing any laundry when I get home. Then the teacher is telling me to get dressed.

The minute he does, I feel even more naked. Hed told me to bring a robe conjuring up images of Parisian garrets and models in silk gowns but all I had was a fleecy dressing gown. I put it on, take a breath and move over to Mr Jumper.

Im sorry, Im a bit out of practice, he mumbles, looking at his easel. I didnt get your nose right, and the forehead is a bit big...

I look at the outline of my naked form in chaotic charcoal strokes. Sod the forehead! I want to shout. Youve made my arse the size of Australia!

I go into the toilets and try to dress quickly on the icy, chipped tiles. I struggle to get my tights back on in the confines of the cubicle. I sit on the loo.

I feel more embarrassed than empowered.

Why am I doing any of this...?

The Life-Changing Hangover

There comes a point in every womans life when she realizes that things cannot carry on the way they are. For me that point came on a hungover Sunday.

I dont remember what Id done the night before except, evidently, drink too much and pass out fully clothed, with my make-up on. When I woke my eyes were glued shut with crusty mascara and my skin was an oil slick of foundation and night sweat. My jeans were digging into my tummy. I needed the loo but was too lazy to move so I undid the zip and lay with my eyes closed.

Everything hurt.

Sometimes with a hangover, you get away with it. You awake feeling bleary but cheery, euphoric even, and you bump your way through the day until your hangover makes a soft landing around 4pm. This was not one of those hangovers. This was a full-frontal, no-ignoring-it hangover. My head felt like a bomb had gone off in it. My stomach was churning like a washing machine full of toxic waste. And my mouth, well, as the saying goes someone, or something, had died in it.

I rolled over, reaching for the glass on my bedside table. My hands shook so much the water spilt down my front and onto the sheets.

The strip of light coming through the curtains hurt my eyes. I closed them again and waited for it to come... Oh yes, there it was...

That tidal wave of anxiety and self-loathing that washes over you after a big night. That certainty that you have done something very bad, that you are a bad person and nothing but bad things are going to happen to you for the rest of your pathetic life, because this is what you deserve.

I was suffering from what my friends call The Fear but it wasnt just a hangover making me feel this way. The feelings of dread, anxiety and failure were always there, humming in the background. The hangover just turned up the volume.

It wasnt that my life was bad. Far from it.

After spending my twenties stressing my way up the career ladder in newspapers, I was now a successful freelance writer living in London. I got paid actually paid to road-test mascaras. A month before this life-defining hangover Id been sent to an Austrian spa, where I hung out with rich housewives paying thousands to eat nothing but broth and stale bread. I was given the trip for free, lost five pounds and came home with a fancy collection of miniature shampoos.

Shortly before that Id been given a masterclass in seduction from Dita Von Teese in her suite in Claridges for a newspaper article. Id even interviewed James Bond and listened for weeks to the voicemail left by the late, great Roger Moore thanking me for the bloody good piece.

Professionally, I was living the dream.

Outside of work, life looked good too. I had friends and family who cared about me. I bought over-priced jeans and drank over-priced cocktails. I went on holidays. I did a pretty good impression of someone having a good time.

But I wasnt. I was lost.

As friends re-grouted bathrooms and planned villa holidays, I spent weekends drinking, or lying in bed watching The Real Housewives or The Kardashians.

When I did go out, my social life consisted of a string of engagement drinks, weddings, housewarmings and baby christenings. I smiled and did my bit. I bought the presents. Signed the cards. Toasted their happiness. But with every celebration of somebody elses landmark I felt more left behind, alone, irrelevant. At thirty-six, my friends were ticking off the various life stages while I was stuck in the same life Id had since my twenties.