Preparing for Mr. Darcy

Almost two years ago, for my birthday, I made a wish, a deep, heartfelt wish from my soul to the Universe, that I was ready for my Mr. Darcy. I hadn't made a real wish on my birthday since I was a child, but that year, having just returned from a trip to London, where I felt I was leaving a part of my soul behind me,  I knew the time had come to stop hiding, postponing, and fearing a happily ever after. I thought "I'm ready now," but the Universe's response wasn't to send me a man. No, instead it sent me a woman named Oprah (yes, that Oprah) and a show on her then new network called Oprah'sLifeclass (that people on my Twitter feed were buzzing about).  

Lifeclass was a revelation. All of those life lessons that I had ignored, missed, or been completely blind to in the past came rushing toward me, a torrent of wisdom flowing into my brain. I always thought I had above-average wisdom to begin with. I was intuitive, empathetic, and observant, a student of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and history; I understood human nature fairly well. But I didn’t really understand myself. All those self-help books I started were left unfinished (bookmarks still in many of them). I hadn’t been ready to receive the wisdom they imparted, but suddenly, after making that wish, I was ready.

This new wisdom was coming from everywhere now. Twitter friends led me to Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra which led me to the Tao Te Ching. Oprah’s other big wisdom-imparting show Super Soul Sunday introduced me to dozens of writers and teachers I had never heard of before (like Iyanla Vanzant, Eckhart Tolle, Marrianne Williamson, Brene Brown). Somehow I heard about TheDailyLove.com and its Twitter feed (a daily dose of wisdom about health, relationships, spiritual healing, being more successful, etc.) and that introduced me to even more teachers, writers & gurus (like the Art of Love series, which was a two week online program on finding a life partner, and what to do once you got him – e.g. how to communicate or to have better sex, etc.).

I’ve read so many books, watched hours of uplifting television and listened to hours of podcasts, and I can’t stop yet. I’ve got so many books sitting in my Kindle waiting to be read (I’m alternating between self-help, relationship & Richard III right now – haha). The really interesting thing to me is that each link in this chain seems to be progressive. Each time I learn something new, I’m guided to the next level of wisdom. I don’t feel like I’m learning anything out of order (but if something does go over my head, it’s brought back around to me in a different manner once I’m ready to learn it).

I truly feel like when I meet my Mr. Darcy now, I will be fully baked, ready to be savored for the long term. I’ll know how to attract him, how to keep him interested, how to communicate with him, how to be the example of happiness for my whole family for the rest of my days. I know now to trust the timing of the Universe. When I meet him I will be ready. There may be more for me to learn, but I will learn it with him. There’s no reason for me to doubt my readiness or my perfection when I meet him, because I can tell that the Universe is trying to set me up for THE ONE, the life-long love, not the transitional guy. It makes me kind of giddy sometimes. :-)

Before I wrap this up, I want to share some of the books (with links) that I’ve found most helpful/profound/wise/enjoyable (that are good for those of you who are just starting your own journeys).

The Tao of Dating There is a reason this book was Amazon’s top relationship guide last year (there is a version for men and one for women). It mixes advice from the Tao Te Ching (perhaps the wisest book ever written IMHO) and advice for attracting a member of the opposite sex. No ‘rules’ or silly guides to flirting here, just honest observations and the knowledge that confident women who know they are sexy and lovable, will be seen by others as sexy and lovable too (same with men).

Wishes Fulfilled Forget The Secret. If you want to manifest a great future, here’s your guide. I like Wayne Dyer. He has a youthful spirit and is easy to mentally digest. I’ve read several of his books and loved them all. His PBS specials are really great as well. (I still love watching his special on Inspiration where he tells the story of Jack the Butterfly. You will never look at a butterfly in the same way again. See for yourself Here, the story starts about 1:32:35)

The Five Love Languages I admit, I only skimmed this one after seeing him talk about this with Oprah last month (it’s currently number two in the relationship books queue, and number six in my overall Kindle queue on books to read fully – lol), but since learning about these five love languages, I’ve been applying them to all of my relationships. I have found that I prefer to receive love via Physical Touch and Quality Time, but that I tend to feel most comfortable giving love via Words of Affirmation and Acts of Service (no doubt because these were my mother’s two primary languages of love), but if I never Receive Gifts again I will be ok (a girl can only have so much stuff – just more to have to keep clean or store) so I’m lousy at giving or receiving gifts. (Amazon gift cards for all!) P.S. It’s fun to assign love languages to your favorite characters from literature.

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus Snicker if you must, but twenty years later this book is still a relevant, if not basic, guide to communication between the sexes. 

Once you’ve read Five Languages and Mars/Venus if you are ready to get even deeper, go next to Harville Hendrix’s Getting the Love You Want (I’ve skimmed this too, but it’s a bit further down my queue because it’s more intense).  Next up in my queue in the self-help category are Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly. After I saw her on Super Soul Sunday I knew I needed to tackle her next (she’s alternating with Richard III bios right now).

Enjoy!

Namaste

 

 

"An Hypocrite, a Crook Back and Buried in a Ditch Like a Dog"

John Payntour is cited as having said this in 1491 about the late King Richard III (one of the earliest 'negative' descriptions of Richard, written off by Ricardians as the first of the Tudor myth spinners). But now we know it wasn't spin. Richard did have a crooked back, and he was buried, not in a ditch as we would think of one, but in a hastily dug grave with no proper coffin or shroud or markings, not even large enough for him to fit in properly. And by all accounts, he was a bit of a hypocrite.

 

 

I'm a history nerd. Especially for British history and even more specifically for Tudor history. I lurve the Tudors (but not The Tudors the TV series, as it was unnecessarily historically inaccurate and dumbed down), so I was fairly familiar with the basics on the War of the Roses time period, although I hadn't studied it in depth. I also love Shakespeare's Richard III. I find him to be one of the funniest villains in theater (I suspect Shakespeare intended it to be that way).  So naturally when the bones of Richard were found last summer, I perked up.  September 2012 press conference 

I was too busy over most of the fall to dig into the history of the late king, although I did notice my Twitter friends' discussions of both the history of Richard III and the book The Sunne In Splendour (which is waiting for me on my Kindle, along with a dozen other historical fictions and historical biographies of the time period - I want to read the 'non-fiction' histories first). But the confirmation of the find in February of this year followed by the TV special Richard III - The King in the Car Park made it impossible for me to stall my historical curiosity any longer, and my surgery last month gave me the excuse to take some time to start my research. Also check out Richard III The Unseen Story. 

I began with David Starkey’s Monarchy. Then the general history books on English royalty that I had at hand: The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England by Antonia Frasier (who, although mostly impartial, does tend to believe the Tudors made Richard out to be worse than he was), and The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes which is a compilation of quotes, letters, and accounts from primarily contemporary sources, presented in a mostly neutral manner. Next was Shakespeare's King Richard III (including re-watching both Olivier's and McKellen's Richards). Followed by Shakespeare's primary source material: The History of King Richard the Third By Sir Thomas More.

I must admit, More's Richard made me laugh (not so much history as historical fiction - some historical facts mixed in with beautifully descriptive scenes and emotional monologues - the man would have been a bestselling novelist if he were writing today). Ricardians have written off most of what More has said about Richard; claiming either that he was writing to please Richard's enemies; or because his primary source was Morton, who hated Richard and slandered him; or by pointing out that many of More's facts are incorrect, and thus the whole should be ignored.

But the discovery of Richard III's remains last summer prove that More wasn't lying about everything he'd said about Richard, "...little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right...." Now that we know this was a fairly accurate description of the man, it does make one wonder whether More's sources on the man were a bit more accurate than we might like to think.

Also, much of what More relates as fact is very similar to accounts reported in The Croyland Chronicles (most likely written by someone who knew Richard well, probably John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln), Dominic Mancini an Italian monk and visiting 'diplomat' (spy) for the French (making him not the most impartial reporter) who was in London during the summer of 1483. (I'm not going to include Polydore Vergil's corroboration of More, as some historians do, as a reason to believe More, since they were buddies.) I've been researching the accounts of these men, as well as Commines, Rous, Fabyan and the various London Chronicles, and all of the other contemporary sources the various historians use to back up their claims, as I come across them.

Next I read Alison Weir's The Princes in the Tower (I had it sitting on my book shelf, unread, for years). Weir is not a Ricardian. She's also not the best historian. I did find she made some very compelling arguments for the timeline of the princes' murders, and for how only Richard could have given the order for their deaths. But she tends to leave out any facts that confuse or contradict her arguments and she has a bad habit of quoting sources without telling the reader where the quote came from. I did learn a few things reading Weir, however, that I'd not considered after reading the other sources: Elizabeth Woodville/Wydville was by ALL accounts a grasping, power-hungry woman who often acted before she thought things through - no one seems to have liked her, not even her son-in-law Henry VII; if Elizabeth Woodville was the Wicked Witch of the East, then Margaret Beaufort was the Wicked Witch of the West - if you told me that she had plotted to kill the princes, I'd totally buy it, in fact.... Another thing I had never considered until reading Weir was that Elizabeth of York and Richard might actually have been in love, or at least were having an affair. I knew about the letter from Elizabeth to the Duke of Norfolk and her 'crush' on Richard, and how the nobles squashed any possibility of them marrying after Anne died, but I'd never thought they might have already been having an affair (spurred on by Momma Woodville), or that one of the reasons it took so long for Henry VII to get around to marrying Elizabeth might have been that he was waiting to make sure she wasn't having Richard's baby.

The last book I've read so far is Horace Walpole's Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third. Walpole sets out to prove that Richard wasn't as bad as previous writers claimed. He begins by saying that Richard didn't have motives to kill Henry VI or his 'son' Edward, Prince of Wales (aside, if you believe that Edward was actually the son of Henry, then you are living in Lollipop Town of the Land of Denial - even Henry said the father must have been the Holy Ghost - haha), and that if they died by his hand it was solely on Edward IV's orders (that's true enough). Walpole also acquits Richard of being complicit in Clarence's death (I agree with him on this). On Rivers, Grey, Vaughn, their deaths were political necessities (here I have questions, because I wonder why Richard would order their deaths so quickly and not use them to ransom the treasury back from their relatives), and Hastings was a political necessity as well (here I have a huge question mark which I'll discuss later). But the majority of Walpole's arguments in favor of Richard come from his belief that little Richard of York was smuggled out of the country by Richard III, that Momma Woodville and Elizabeth of York knew it and that is why Elizabeth fell in love with him, and that the pretender Perkin Warbeck was Richard of York, and Henry VII killed him and spread the false rumor of a murder confession by Tyrell, made on the eve of his execution. I must admit Walpole has a very good argument on these theories (if it wasn't for those skeletons they found in the tower in the late 1600s).

It is this theory that Richard of York was spared that really makes me want to petition the Queen to have the alleged skeletons of the princes exhumed and re-examined. (They know where mom, dad and sister are buried, so it's not like they can't grab a few teeth and do a triangulated DNA comparison. They could also compare the DNA of Edward IV's to Richard's and possibly put to rest that rumor of Edward being a bastard due to his mother's alleged adultery.) Walpole argues that Henry VII behaved like he was uncertain that the princes were murdered, which is strange considering he was married to one of the people most likely to know the truth. I can't deny Walpole makes me question whether those skeletons could possibly be legit, and I want more information on this.

I have so many questions on which I want more information. Hastings leaves me with huge question marks. I can't reconcile my mind to the idea that Richard just ordered his execution on a whim, or that Hastings would align himself with the Woodvilles. I want more info on the timeline of events the summer of 1483. I don't believe Richard intended to take the throne for himself when he started out. Something happened in June that made him hasten the execution of Rivers, Grey, et al; turn on Hastings, and choose to take the throne instead of act as Protector.

Morton is another one who makes my Spidey senses tingle. What was his relationship to Margaret Beaufort? I think Richard made a big mistake not sticking a dagger in this guy's blackened heart. And then there is Buckingham. Historians have completely distorted his motivations. There is nothing you could say to convince me he'd ever support Henry Tudor's claim to the throne over his own. So what the heck was going on with him?

So I will continue with my research. Next up is Clement Markham's Richard III: His Life & Character. I also want to read Paul Murray Kendall's Richard the Third - he sounds more neutral than some other historians - and then see who else I can find in the 'non-fiction' category before I move on to Sunne and the other fictions. When I'm done, I'm sure I'll blog my own version of Richard's history. I already have some theories. If you have suggestions for non-fiction books I should read, please tweet them to me @MrsFitzwilliamD (leaving comments is unreliable right now, I'm not sure I'm getting them all).

The game's afoot!

I’m Back!

Hello Dear Readers. After a year’s absence, I’ve realized I can’t stay away from blogging any longer. I missed having an outlet to share my thoughts, being able to talk about what’s on my mind, and occasionally discussing my search for my very own Mr. Darcy (that allusive, nearly perfect man to be my life partner and the father of my adorable, future babies).

So far, Mr. Darcy has eluded me. I have, however, been on several lovely dates with a few Mr. Bingleys and a Col. Fitzwilliam. Lovely men all, but no Darcy spark from any of them. Over the last few months, I’ve been studying the arts of flirting, dating, getting a man, keeping a man when you’ve got him, making a relationship strong enough to last, and the Kama Sutra. When I find Mr. Darcy, he will find nothing lacking. *wink* I intend to share what I have learned from these books and websites with you all over the next few months.

Past readers may recall I was part of a weight loss challenge last spring. Team Downton Abbey wiped the floor with the other teams. We lost a combined 21% of our body weight. The second place team lost only about 5%. I lost 25 pounds total, half way to my goal Marilyn Monroe weight (although I gained 5 pounds or so back during the holidays). I’m always better at losing weight in the spring and summer and gaining it back when it is cold outside. I’m slowly getting back on the program. This year I started doing yoga in the mornings. I love it. I’ll share some of my favorite yoga videos and programs with you later.

I had surgery recently (nothing serious or scary, more on that later), so I’ve had to do very light, modified yoga, and no weights or cardio for the last few weeks. I’m looking forward to being completely healed so I can get back to work on reaching a healthy, swimsuit-ready body. I’ve made a lot of changes in the last year to improve my health. I discovered I had gluten intolerance and since cutting it from my diet, I’ve had far less reflux and skin breakouts. I’m also eating mostly organic foods, which makes my body very happy, but my pocket book is a little on the thin side because of it.

I’ve also been on a spiritual journey this past year (actually for the last two years). I’m a big fan of Oprah’s Lifeclass and Super Soul Sunday on OWN, and these shows have been introducing me to a number of wonderful writers and thinkers and self-help gurus. Be warned, you’ll be reading about a few of them here. I’m also a fan of TheDailyLove.com  If you are looking for inspiration, suggestions for how to make your life better, or a little pick me up when you are feeling down, you need to follow them (@TheDailyLove ).

Finally, some of you may be wondering why I stopped blogging for a year, or why some of my old blog posts are missing or altered. When I first created this blog, my intention was to focus on my personal journey (as narcissistic as that may sound). It was not my intention for the blog to focus on celebrities. I let myself get swept up into a particular fandom, and finding most of my readers coming from that fandom, I felt a bit pressured to blog about what they would find interesting. I’m certainly not blaming the fandom for my own actions, but I was not happy with the direction the blog was heading.

My intention moving on is to focus on my journey to becoming healthier in body, mind and spirit, achieving career success, and finding a partner to share my life with. I may also talk about current news topics that interest me, or about interesting celebs who inspire me, but I will try to remember that my blog is not about them but about me. The celebrity men I feature in this blog are not an obsession for me, but are meant to be inspiration, a template for the qualities I’m looking for in my nearly perfect Mr. Darcy (see the first few posts of the blog from Jan 2012).

My other intention is to be as honest and vulnerable as I can be about what is going on in my life (without divulging my true identity for professional reasons). I have gained a lot of wisdom over the last couple of years on this journey, and continue to gain more. I believe it is my duty to share what I’ve learned with others, as it was shared with me, to help them, and that can only happen if I am fully open about what’s going on in my life. So who knows what you’ll learn about me over the course of this blog.

Let the adventure begin. See you soon. :-D

Weighty Wednesdays – The Fourth



It’s my fourth Weighty Wednesday post where I update you with my progress in losing weight and getting bikini ready. Team Downton Abbey is still in the lead, no thanks to me. I’ve not been able yet to get number results on the scales at weigh-ins, which is very frustrating since I’ve dropped a clothing size and lost up to two inches in key areas so far, so I know I’m losing fat. But I also have some awesome bicep muscles forming, so it must be that I’ve added muscle weight, which is countering the fat weight loss. Still, I want to win that prize money, so I want to start seeing results on the scales too.

I’m up to two workouts a day, five days a week, and I continue to up my intensity each week. I’m also trying to stick to only 1200 calories a day, but I usually hit about 1225 because I can’t resist having a tiny piece of chocolate at the end of the evening. I’ve also begun a rather crazy experiment.

I’ve read that if you really want to make a significant body shape change, in addition to diet and exercise, you’ve got to visualize what you want your body to look like, and trick it into thinking and feeling that it does look like that, so that it will work extra hard to actually look like what it thinks it looks like. I’ve been trying to do this each night before I go to bed and each morning when I get up. The problem I’m having is once I get up, and see myself in the full length mirror, or weigh myself on the scales and I don’t see the change I’m visualizing, I get frustrated. I’m sending my body and brain too many mixed signals and need to stop that.

So to remedy the situation, I’ve covered up my mirror and hidden my scales. For the next two weeks, until the next official weigh-in, I’m going to rely strictly on how my body feels, and not on what I see. I’m going to strengthen my visualizations, (in other words lie to myself about my true shape), without any contradictions. I’m going to focus on my body’s signals during workouts; does it feel like it’s burning fat? Hopefully, without the frustration of not seeing results, my body will respond to all the other stimuli and drop about ten pounds. Think light, feel light, be light.  I’ll let you know how the experiment goes in two weeks. (By the way, I do have a small mirror for makeup, etc., so I won’t be going out in public looking scary or anything.)

*Visualizes lying on a beach in a bikini with a hottie* Eye on the Prize!!!!

TTFN!

Is there anyone he won’t flirt with?

Have you ever noticed that when Colin Firth gets on a red carpet, he becomes the biggest flirt on the planet? And occasionally with the people you would least expect?

Not sure why seeing him with George should surprise anyone. We know he's an equal opportunity flirter.

He must be tons of fun to work with for all his co-stars to like to cuddle up to him so often.