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What are you good at?

19th January 2009 by Helena 10 Comments  

This morning in my yoga class our focus was ‘what you are good at’. We had to go around the room, saying who we were, where we were from and what we were good at. I watched and listened to everyone else.

“I am a good mother,” said one lady. “I am good at caring for people,” said another. “I am good at loving others,” came another. The closer it got to my turn the more panicked I got. For some reason washing-up gloves kept popping into my head. “I am good at washing-up?” I don’t think so.

“I am good at multi-tasking,” I thought of saying. Or “I am very efficient.” Help that sounds too boring. “I am good at being nice to my children even when they are horrible to me,” no, that goes for every mother there is. I needed something a little more original. Suddenly it was my turn…

“Well, I guess I am…,” I began.

revolvedtriangle.jpg

“No,” said Elina smiling at me our teacher. “Don’t guess, you ARE.”

I started again. “I am good at….writing.”

I suddenly realised I had never said it. So now I have. I was a little embarrassed but got over it pretty quickly and into triangle pose.

What are you good at?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Life, blog -->

10 thoughts on What are you good at?

  • Wendy says:
    19th January 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Bossing people around? or is that called organising?

    Wendy

  • sharyn g says:
    19th January 2009 at 6:08 pm

    If you’re a woman it’s known as being efficient. IF you’re a man it’s known as being a boss. I am good at multi-tasking and sewing and reading and knitting and preparing tax returns and settling estates…… oops, that makes me a “bitchy” boss to the males and suspect to all the females.

  • Norrie says:
    20th January 2009 at 10:22 am

    Mary and I are good at making friends of all ages.

  • Arthur says:
    20th January 2009 at 10:46 am

    Now I am a little older I would be better off saying what I’m bad at. The good bits are a little thin. AB

  • Jennifer says:
    20th January 2009 at 12:02 pm

    I’m great at having really odd dreams that make me laugh the next morning.

  • helena says:
    20th January 2009 at 12:07 pm

    Norrie – Bea would agree with you, and so do I. Arthur, you are good at writing, among other things.
    Hx

  • mimi says:
    20th January 2009 at 10:32 pm

    I mainly wanted to say, Helena, that you are very good at writing, and that I’m glad you said it and, I hope, meant it. It’s amazing how hard it is to say those words. I am good at teaching and at tidying! Do they go together?? mimi

  • helena says:
    21st January 2009 at 4:40 am

    Thanks Mimi, and yes I think they do go together, I wish someone would teach my family to tidy…
    Hx

  • Natalie says:
    21st January 2009 at 5:39 pm

    Is finding this hard a very English thing do you think? Here goes – I’m good at making people feel at ease and making cakes and very good at daydreaming.

  • Aina says:
    6th February 2009 at 10:53 pm

    i find it hard to name things im good at writing poetry and stories is someting i like and can do well i guess but lately im best at being lazy, and way daydreaming too much

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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