Change your State
Create Space
Live Fully
I didn’t write this book because I have life worked out. I wrote it because I’ve spent years getting things wrong, learning from them and trying to find a better way to live.
At eighteen I drank and drove.
I crashed my car and ended up in court knowing I could have killed myself or somebody else. I was young, but I owned what I had done.
Something changed in me that day. I knew I wanted the life ahead of me to mean something and, in some way, to be of service.
It wasn’t a straight line. I’ve drunk too much, lost my way, sat in some very dark places and, during one hard period, reached 97kg and stopped looking after myself properly.
I’ve also seen what can happen when we create enough space for something different.
I saw it in Man Club, which began with a few men in my living room and eventually became an independent registered charity across the Channel Islands.
One man spoke. Everyone else listened. No fixing. No judgement.
Sometimes the silence after somebody spoke was the most important part. If we didn’t rush to fill it, something deeper often came next.
I saw the same thing through more than fifteen years working as a massage therapist. Change the state of the body and something else becomes possible.
Through touch, breath, movement and sound, I kept seeing people soften, settle and find room where there had been tension.
I saw it in my dad too. Born in London in 1939, he survived the Blitz, built and sold a successful business and gave our family a life that took us around the world.
He could also take forever to put his shoes on. As a teenager it drove me mad. Now I realise Dad knew how to be where he was.
Years later, a client introduced me to the Japanese idea of Ma: the meaningful space between things.
Suddenly I had a word for something I had been learning all my life.
The space between what happens and what we do next.
Change your state and space can appear.
In that space, you have a choice.
That is The Way of Ma.
Over 42 practical days, across six movements, you will Wake Up, Build Your Base, Choose Your Direction, Face What Is True, Connect, and Put It Into the World.
We’ll look at your health, habits, values, boundaries, relationships, self-talk, courage, forgiveness, purpose and the way you want to spend the time you have.
This isn’t about adding 42 new habits to an already full life.
It’s about creating enough space to notice what matters, then doing something with what you notice.
Change State. Create Space. Live Fully.
