I had hoped to come off the phone from my spiritual mentor Marion feeling like less of a failure this morning, but instead, she has urged me to wallow in it. I am to sit there, feel the full force of failure and ask myself ‘Where does this come from?’

To be honest, it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. Neither are the Morning Pages, which she has asked me to do every day. They make my hand ache, nothing seems to be happening and it eats up precious time.

As I’d already confessed that I seek instant gratification and rarely give things time to work their magic, she has suggested I break the pattern and continue on with this task. The idea is that it serves as an emptying out process. Once I’ve got all the muck out of my mind, I should feel a whole lot closer to my inner holiness.

I long for the day when Marion calls up to say ‘Right, you’re to go to the pub this instant, have two gin & tonics and eat as many chips as you can cram into your mouth, oh and have dessert if you fancy it.’

But no, that wouldn’t be doing the ‘work’. Have you noticed how spiritual teachers, gurus, experts etc call this stuff ‘work’? That’s just it you see, you can’t simply float off on a cloud and expect magic to happen, it takes discipline, dedication and courage. It is not a great deal of fun, it really isn’t.

That’s to come apparently. Marion tells me that this spiritual mentoring year works in three phases and this first one is where stuff comes bubbling up to the surface. Once the shit has risen, I can dredge through it.

Her top tips for staying sane were:

• Upon waking, I must think of the words I say to myself, such as ‘I’m rubbish’ and replace them with a positive ‘I Am’ phrase. It has to be believable – ‘I am a super model’ for example will not work. I have suggested ‘I am doing my best’, which I think will do nicely.
• I need to make sure I look after myself while I am tending to my dad who is quite poorly. After all, I won’t be much use to him if I am in bed with flu, will I?
• I must forget positive affirmations and just be what I am. If I am pissed of, then so be it. If I want to tell my inner child to fuck off, then I must do exactly that.
• I am to be reassured that this is part of a ‘process’. I must go through it to get to the other side – where the rainbows and unicorns are waiting for me.
• I must continue to be open to receiving – and that applies to compliments as well as cash, gifts, help etc.
• I am to remember that the goal is to not look for recognition, love or approval outside. It has to come from within (really?!?).
• Finally, I have to stop trying. Apparently, I don’t have to do anything, I just have to allow things to happen.

This is all going to be a huge challenge in the next week or so as Dad is coming out of hospital on Thursday, even though his care package doesn’t start until Sunday at 10am. At the moment, we have no idea if he can cope at home alone and somehow, I need to do something about the piece of rope that masquerades as a bannister along his steep stair case. Alas, it seems that handymen are as elusive as inner peace right now.