Review

Melanie Allen

'So, are you going?' asked Chris.

I'd told him I was one of the Charisma definition competition winners on Businessballs.com and the prize was a place on ‘An Audience with Charisma’ in London (we live in Yorkshire).

'Yeah, of course!'

'Why?'

'Because it’s different and I’ll enjoy it.'

I went. It was different. I did enjoy it. Here are some of my personal highlights.

I arrived at The Globe and climbed the stairs to a warm welcome from Nikki and a cup of coffee. It’s a great venue, très smart, right on the river. I had been wondering who my fellow delegates might be, and we were a varied group – all sorts of interesting people of all ages and from a wide range of professions. We drank coffee and introduced ourselves informally as, one by one, we went into a booth to have our handprints electro-photographed by Nigel Garion-Hutchings of Fulspectrum Presentations Ltd. to show our energy fields – the first surprise of many. He interpreted the prints for us in the lunch break, then repeated the process the next day. I was gratified to see a marked improvement in my reserves of energy from one day to the next.

Then we went upstairs to a room with views over the river to start the day. Nikki is an excellent communicator: expressive, full of energy and committed to her subject. Over the packed two days, Nikki held the group together and gave us her all. I was impressed by the mix of activities and the way they were balanced between action and reflection. We were kept on our toes as we moved from pair work to whole group discussions, then to small group work, then into trios. It was well thought out.

Also on hand was Les Greve, an energy therapist who complemented Nikki, providing one-to-one support and reassurance discreetly for anyone who might want it. Some aspects of personal growth and development can bring up unexpected emotions that are normally suppressed. I was caught off-guard myself on the second day, when I had to think about my parents – rather a conflicted issue for me and I hadn't expected to meet them there! No big deal – it touched a nerve and I went quiet, emotionally absenting myself for a moment as I processed it. Generally this can only be detected by close friends and some family members, but Les picked up on it straight away. I know that other people in the group also benefitted from his presence.

I had a number of short conversations with him over the two days about grounded-ness and energy. As a coach, I tend to come at topics like this from a Gestalt therapy/existential perspective, so hearing a spiritual point of view was stimulating. I remain sceptical, not of the 'what', as he and I (not exclusively!) experience and observe similar phenomena, but of the 'why'. In the end, people find different ways of understanding and finding meaning in what goes on, and it's good to have another dimension to mull over.

The content itself was varied, fun and got me thinking. We discussed our ideas on aspects of charisma, we were introduced to new ways of seeing and we focused on elements of our own presence. Good, useful activities about things like our work values were combined with off-the-wall ones like dowsing for auras – a fun, hands-on demonstration of a world that can't be explained rationally. I'd never done it before and it works! You can feel the rods moving on their own. Magic fantastic!

That activity in itself would have been enough to convince me, had I wanted it, that there's more in this world that we can explain. I didn't need the 'science bits' that backed up the importance and effect of vision and intent, which I go along with anyway, as did most people in my discussion group.

So what did I come away with? What did I learn about myself, aside from the fact that my well-intentioned parents can still give me emotional gyp at 54? I discovered that I still had my childhood pride in being true to myself and my determination to go my own way and protect my independence (translated in my teens as 'don't let the bastards grind you down'). I haven't and I'm glad, notwithstanding improvidence, hand-to-mouth living and hard times. I hadn't seen that before. I realised that I felt all that determination in my spine – see the metaphor? I also bumped up against an old friend – the ongoing inner tension between being strongly myself (backbone) and being accommodating (heart), and that sometimes being accommodating is just a soft option (easy). I saw the shape of my inner coward. Not a new insight, and not that nice, but one I sometimes forget and need to remember.

A new – and rather less portentous - insight was that I 'tut'! We were doing a very good exercise about expressing ourselves in a more impactful way. We had to give each other feedback on our non-verbal communication and how it affects the receiver. I was talking about a topic that bored me (my accounts) and being watched as I did it. 'You tut' said Charlotte. 'What do you mean?' I said, and she showed me what I did so that I could see what she meant. I had no idea I'd developed that prissy little mannerism! 'You'd better get rid of that' she said. Too right. I'm working on it.