I learned a valuable lesson this morning – don’t dwell on what’s not working in your life unless you absolutely have to. I rocked up to Marion’s monthly meditation group this morning feeling fine and dandy and left laden with fear.

Admittedly, I was feeling a bit jittery at the start of the meeting due to various niggling life problems, but when we were given a piece of paper with The Life Balance Wheel on it, things went a bit askew.

The wheel is a circle divided into segments, eight to be precise and the idea is, you label each one an area of your life and mark them out of 10 or in this instance, write down the feelings they provoke.

My fitness segment was excellent as I am really enjoying my thrice weekly ballet and runs by the river. I could do with eating a bit better, but hey, I’m only human. Marriage, tick, social life not quite as fun as I’d like, creativity, must try harder etc. All okay…the glaring problem in my life wheel was work and finances.

This whole area sparks fear in my heart, especially as I am trying to balance the PR with more writing work, which is very poorly paid and something I’ve fallen out of the habit of doing. I’ve lost my confidence and feel like a dinosaur compared to all the young bucks whose picture bylines litter the internet.

I’ve been a freelance writer since the age of 27 and fear has propelled me. I’ve regularly lain awake fretting that I will never work again and may end up destitute.

This kind of made sense when I was single, but now I am married to someone who earns a decent salary it’s a bit pointless as even if I earn nothing at all, I’ll continue to have a roof over my head.

I learned to be fiercely independent at an early age and figured that I had to look after myself and two younger sisters as my parents were just too busy running a pub to tend to us. Somewhere along the line, this translated to ‘If I don’t look after myself, nobody else will.’ I know this is true for many of us, but an inherent inability to receive exacerbates the problem.

Now I find myself in a place where I am not exactly loving my work and the costs involved mean I’m doing it for not very much. Something has to change, the trouble is, I feel a bit like a rabbit in the headlights, not sure which way to turn. At the moment, I’m lying in the road, waiting to be run over.

These feelings were not apparent when I skipped into the group this morning, but as soon as Marion asked us to allow the emotions sparked by The Life Balance Wheel to flood in, I was terrified. In the next breath, she urged everyone to imagine how they will feel when this problematic area of life is sorted. Lovely. Trouble is, I couldn’t do that. I was stuck in deep fear and was still having palpitations when we finished the session.

The good news is, I have an appointment with Marion in a wooden hut somewhere in the wilds of Surrey the week after next. It is for three hours and in that time, I can examine what’s going on with me. Those money blocks have got to go and if a mammoth session with my dogged spiritual mentor doesn’t help me shift them, there’s no hope.