I used to admire people who were so ‘in love’ because it must be incredible for two people to come together with such a deep connection between them. Loving someone with all your heart is brave and it takes guts. Years ago, this concept was a little too scary for me to entertain.

It reminded me of the saying by author Michael Gardner, “Falling in love is like giving someone a gun and letting them point it at your heart and trusting they won’t pull the trigger.”

It wasn’t the last part of the saying that bothered me about “trust” despite the fact that trust is such a critical cornerstone of any solid relationship. I was well aware that trust was as fragile as bone China, which could be broken or shattered at any point.

It wasn’t the part about giving someone the gun that bothered me either because I figured if you got past the hurdle of trust, surely my partner wouldn’t intentionally try to ‘shoot’ my heart or break it.

It was actually the first part that bothered me the most. I was worried I would never fall in love to begin with. For a person who was always called a ‘commitment phobe’, I was oddly the first person to cry at my childhood friend’s wedding. I was so moved by his decision to tie the knot because we were so bitterly similar.

If there were clubs for people terrified of committing in their relationships, we would have become automatic members. His marriage was a sign that there was still hope for me. I felt proud watching him walk down the aisle because he was finally doing it!

He was someone who I never thought would settle down and so rapidly. When we were teenagers, I remember asking him if he believed in “love at first sight” and he used to laugh at such a fanciful notion.

Yet, years later, when I excitedly asked him how he knew the girl he was going to marry was “the one”, he said, “I just knew, Jojo. Within a month of dating her, I was absolutely sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. There was no fear at all. It just felt right.”

I was so inspired because you read of such things happening all the time of course but somehow, seeing someone that close to me falling head over heels in love made the ‘impossible’ seem ‘possible’.

Something must be said about how a person’s life can change in the blink of an eye once they fall in love. They may even become a little ‘crazy’ and take risks they would never usually take because there are no guarantees in love.

As Actress Joan Crawford once said, “Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your heart or burn down your house, you can never tell.” In order to really love someone, we have to be prepared to be ‘vulnerable’ and to drop all the masks we usually wear in life.

Everyone has different faces for different occassions but how many people see us for who we are, right down to the apple core of our souls?

On this fascinating journey of love, I realised some time back that love and fear don’t really mix. They are like oil and water. The irony is I finally fell in love when I lost the fear that I would never find it. There were other fears that wondrously and surprisingly melted away as well. I was able to completely be myself.

It is an incredible feeling to safely know that despite all your flaws and imperfections, that someone would wholeheartedly accept and love you anyway. I realise it is better to be open rather than closed to what some would describe as the strongest emotion on Earth. When we are too preoccupied trying to protect our hearts, we are missing out on the greatest adventure of our lives, no matter how exhilirating and challenging relationships might be. It’s worth it.

Love teaches us about ourselves because our partners are like mirrors, reflecting the best and worst in us. Love can disappoint us, hurt us, uplift us and make our heads spin in confusion but they are a vital reminder that we are alive. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Valentines Day but you don’t need to wait for a special day to celebrate love in your relationship. Every day there’s love in your life is a gift in itself!

It is hard to believe that outrageous exhibitionist Lady Gaga was once described as painfully shy by her former manager, Bob Leone. What on earth happened? Well, radical results often require dramatic changes so out went ‘shyness’ and in came bizarre outfits with gravity defying platforms, going to baseball games in her underwear and producing songs that have permanently enshrined her in pop history.

Yet, if we backtracked into this superstar’s life, we would discover that she was pretty much headed for the limelight from the word go. When Lady Gaga was a little girl, she always had the same two-word answer to the question of what her goal was when she grew up. It was “world domination”. I dare say she might have got her seemingly far-fetched wish because she certainly does rule the world, well, social world to be precise.

Lady Gaga currently has more fans following her than anyone else on the planet. She has close to 18 million fans on Twitter and more than 46 million on Facebook. She has broken several Guinness World Records and made it on to the Forbes list of “100 Most Powerful Women” in the world. She was also the youngest on it, at only 25 years of age. Her biggest threat ironically, is not even legal age yet, which is a reflection of our changing times and the sheer reach and influence of social media. It’s 17-year old Justin Bieber of course who was discovered on Youtube.

Imagine this. Justin Bieber actually broke Lady Gaga’s record of being the first person to reach one billion views on YouTube. He surpassed Lady Gaga with 2 billion YouTube views, which is completely staggering when you think about the fact that the world’s population is approximately 7 billion. Whether you care for these particular stars or not, we cannot ignore the power of the very social media tools which carved t

heir paths toward mega stardom. We are using the same ones every day i.e. Google, Facebook and Twitter to interact, communicate, and share information.

According to the BBC, Twitter has hit the 100 million active users mark. Though it has fewer users than Facebook, it has become the world’s fastest growing social site averaging 230 million tweets a day and 400 million monthly unique visitors to twitter.com. Interestingly, 40% of active users don’t tweet but they use Twitter to receive newsfeeds relevant to their interests. I know football fanatics who lap up every morsel of their favourite teams without ever feeling the need to tweet themselves.

Personally, I love Twitter because of its sheer simplicity. It does not bombard me with news I have no interest in. You only follow people or brands you want to, and you are in complete control of who you decide to interact with. For example, Oprah Winfrey has about 8.8 million followers but she is only following 40 people of her choice.

Now, does Twitter have more influence than Facebook? Well, that’s a tough one. Facebook remains a solid referral for news sites for stories to be “liked”, but interestingly, according to the Guardian UK, Twitter was found to be more targeted in its referrals than links simply dumped on people’s Facebook walls. For instance, the article on “Why Wall Street Can’t Handle the Truth” by Mike Mayo generated only 795 “likes” whereas, the same story got indexed a whopping 140,000 times in Google due to only 392 tweets!

Of course the other thing Twitter has got going for it is that it’s the fastest growing service on mobile, ahead of Facebook and LinkedIn. According to CNN, most users are accessing Twitter via their mobile phones. I can definitely relate to this statistic because I’m always on the go. I’ve tweeted on the beach, the red carpet, while walking, you name it! It’s so convenient off your phone whereas Facebook has too many features in its interface to make it that “mobile friendly” in my opinion.

Twitter is also so interactive and everything happens in “real-time”. Something quite random happened to me just last week. A stranger from the Philippines tweeted that I resembled one of their local actresses called Valerie Concepcion. I had never heard of her so out of curiosity, I looked her up. After seeing her curvy bikini-clad body on the cover of Maxim magazine, I wrote back promptly saying, “She’s much sexier” and lo and behold, the actress herself tweeted me back with a smiley face saying, “No, you’re sexier!” We were total strangers but Twitter brought us together within the hour this conversation has started, over such an amusing interchange!

The incredible thing about Twitter is the sheer spectrum of people and brands on it, not forgetting politicians. CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, said 82% of the US Congress is on Twitter and most of its Senators. His Twitter vision for everyone is to ultimately have the “World in your pocket”. Well, I think both Lady Gaga and Twitter are indeed on the same path to dominate the world.

I was strolling through a shopping mall last month and feeling puzzled that Christmas carols were playing over the airwaves. The same thought always flashes across my mind, “What? It’s Christmas already? How did another year just fly by so fast?” My instinctive reaction is to reflect on the past year, the highs and the lows and whether I’ve done what I set out to do in 2011.

For instance, I had all these New Year resolutions but only a few were followed but others fell by the wayside and are still collecting dust. In any case, I have come up with my own list of things to bear in mind at the end of the year before we start planning for 2012.

1)   If you had a New Year resolution this year you did not follow, don’t beat yourself up on it. At least the intention was there and another fresh year is coming up to prove to yourself that you still can do it! For example, I made a resolution to wake up every day before 6 am, but it only happened about ten times this whole year. I’m going to give myself another shot at it next year.

Courtesy of My Background Blog

2)   Forgive yourself. Let go of all the things you wished you had done differently this year. We can’t undo the past, so no point crying over spilt milk. Just move on.

3)   Forgive others. When you are burning with resentment, you’re the one who is suffering so try to find the strength to let go of the grudges you’re carrying around. Why would you want to weigh yourself down with all this “excess baggage”?

4)   Manage your time. One of the things I’m learning more and more now that I’m running my own business is that “time is money” and I’ve learnt to say “no” to certain projects because I can’t take on everything or justify the resources it might use up. I will be looking closely at this next year and prioritizing on what makes sense to focus on in 2012.

5)   Have patience. In life and in business, we can’t always get everything ‘right’ straight away. On a personal note (excuse the pun), I’ve been learning to play the ‘erhu’, which is a two- stringed Chinese violin. It is extremely challenging because it has no frets so your fingers have to slide to find the right notes. As there are no quick results or shortcuts on this ancient instrument, it reminds me that perfection always takes time and practice.

6)   Let go of the ‘mistakes’ of 2011. We all make mistakes. Some big, and some small, because we’re only human. The important thing is to learn the lesson and stop repeating it.

7)   Bury the hatchet. If there’s something hanging over your head as unfinished business, then tend to it so you can have closure. If you’ve already done everything you can, thenpractice the motto, “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

8)   Have gratitude for all those who have helped you along your path this year. Gratitude is a highly positive emotion and is said to attract even more abundance into your life.

9)   Don’t harbour regrets. At the end of the day, nothing is a waste of time. For myself, I’m even grateful for the ‘negative business encounters’ I came across because I learnt a lot from them and what ‘not to do’ next time round. For instance, I was taken for a ride by my contractor when he was renovating my office. It has taught me to be more diligent in the future and to not take things at face value.

10)   Clear out the clutter in your house, your workspace, even your bedroom so that you can get rid of the ‘old’ to make space for the ‘new’. I’m going to do some serious spring-cleaning this December because I’ve accumulated so much junk across the year. Also, if you have clothes you cannot see yourself wearing any more, give it away to the less fortunate.

11)        Accept the decisions you have made. If you did something that failed this year, change your strategy or do something different next year.

12)        End the year on a good note. It’s just like bedtime. When you go to sleep with an angry thought, you might wake up the next day in a bad mood. So end the year on a positive note so that you can kick start 2012 in good spirits.

As the year draws to a close, I wanted to leave you with a quote from film star, James Dean who passed away at the tender age of 24. He said, “Dream as if you’ll live forever; live as if you’ll die today.” Wishing all Malaysians a Merry Christmas and smashing New Year ahead!

Now, I knew such places existed of course, completely untouched by the modern world and the pushy materialistic values of city life, but it was such a novel experience to visit such a place myself.

About five years ago, I hiked with a Frenchman and super-adventurous friend from Hong Kong into a remote stone village near Dali, China.

The first thing that struck me was how beautiful this village was, situated at the foothills of the Himalayas, seemingly perched on the edge of the world with a panoramic view money couldn’t buy. I stumbled into an old man’s home, not realising I was in his ‘living room’ as the entire village had no doors.

I apologetically shuffled out of his house mumbling, “So sorry to disturb you…” but he just stared open-mouthed, over his pipe, making me feel like my unexpected visit was as foreign and exciting as a UFO descending upon his village.

I then walked into a school and curiously poked my face into a classroom.

The teacher did not see me but the children did. As I was leaving the compound, the entire class scrambled out into the open courtyard to simply stare at all of us, until the teacher chased them back into the classroom. The truth is that I was as fascinated by them as they were about us.

For instance, I presumed no one knew the exact time of day it was because no one wore a wristwatch. By contrast, I can’t even count the number of times in a day I’m checking what time it is.

As I meandered through this charming village on foot, it occurred to me that families had to basically trust each other because their homes had no doors.

I guess there was nothing of great value to steal but nevertheless, it would be unthinkable for us city dwellers to live without a lock or reliable alarm system, let alone no door at all. Most of us were brought up not to trust any strangers yet in this village, we were invited to join the head monk for tea. This quiet and well-respected monk ruled firmly and peacefully over the entire village. With just a few friendly nods and even fewer words spoken, made for one of the most therapeutic afternoons I’ve ever spent doing such a simple task.

Life was lived at such a leisurely pace in this village and as I absorbed the incredible view of the mountains all around me, the saying, “Stop and smell the roses” came to mind because life can pass us by when we live it at a frantic pace.

This is something I’m definitely guilty of when I’m running late for a shoot with my Twitter alerts going off and my heart hammering in my chest in panic because I’m stuck in one of KL’s insane bumper-to-bumper traffic jams.

It was a real eye-opener visiting this village because it’s not every day you see people living life in such a simple fashion where having a solid roof over your head with rice in your food bowl meant you had enough to live. They did not compete for the latest gadget or crave for the new iPhone 4s because they were unaware of its existence and seemed perfectly content with their lives.

Though the thought of this humble village undergoing such drastic change makes me wince, I realise that change is inevitable. Information in this day and age is like an unstoppable force, which must be shared, not suppressed, bringing practically every ‘village’ on Earth together through the amazing invention of today’s World Wide Web.

However, I can only hope that the innocent children I met whose eyes lit up in wonder at the smallest things wouldn’t become hardened and jaded by the urban world obsessed by what it must have because it strives to be set apart from the group of “have-nots.”

MANY of us have a love-hate relationship with reality TV shows. We love to hate them and we hate to love them but the bottom line is, we are still watching them.

When the Big Brother series came to an end in 2010 after being on UK’s Channel 4 for a decade, people thought it would signify the death of the genre, but it did quite the opposite.

A plethora of other reality formats started sprouting up round the globe.

American Idol exploded on the scene in 2002 with 9.9 million viewers, which skyrocketed to almost 27 million in Season 4, making it the most watched reality series in America for six straight seasons. In the UK, reality “fever” shows no signs of abating. In fact, the viewership has grown even larger.

The opening episode of last year’s X Factor attracted a record of about 11 million viewers (which comprises almost half the entire viewing audience).

The Apprentice pulled in eight million strong viewers and the finale alone of Britain’s Got Talent reeled in a staggering audience of more than 14 million viewers.

According to the Observer, the combined viewership of all these reality shows, added up to about 41 million, which outstripped the 27 million people who voted in UK’s last general election.

So what is the attraction of reality TV? People can’t put their finger on the precise reason behind this phenomenon. There are a myriad of theories to explain why it seems to work though.

Reality TV helps people escape the conundrum of their own daily lives. Whether or not we choose to admit it, we humans are somehow fascinated watching real people we can relate to, rather than actors with a script, struggling to reach their “goals”.

We empathise with them, root for them and identify with their problems like a soap opera unfolding in real-time.
In fact, we get so involved that we even feel compelled to actively participate in their ultimate fate. Die-hard fans cannot bear to passively stand by and watch their favourite contestants being sent off so they try to “save” them with their votes.

In a world dominated by Facebook and Twitter, where decisions are made with a click of a few buttons on who to follow, who to “like” or become friends with, this type of interactivity and involvement from audiences are common amongst the new Social Media generation.

When I first found out that my production house, kyanite.tv was going to be producing Miss Malaysia Universe 2012. Beauty Camp, I was naturally excited because it was the first time this pageant has been turned into a reality format.

On the other hand, I was also worried as a producer whether Malay-sian contestants would actually bare their souls, so to speak and share their real emotions with us. I was curious as to whether the same ingredients, which make reality TV a success overseas, would apply here in Malaysia.

Well, we have already shot five episodes of the series, and as it turns out, there are some things, which are clearly universal.

You cannot possibly put a bunch of women together in a bungalow, wake them up at the crack of dawn to endure physical, mental and emotional challenges and NOT have real drama. Add in national director of Miss Universe Malaysia and the show’s host, Andrea Fonseka and you have a recipe for even more drama and brutal honesty on your hands.

Fonseka is tough as nails as a host and does not sit on the fence as a judge. If she thinks a contestant performed terribly in a challenge, then that’s what she’ll be telling her and why. On the panel of judges, actor/producer, Hans Isaac, does not hold back his opinions either. When he was judging a particular photo challenge where two contestants had to pose with an exotic bird for a fashion shoot, he bluntly commented, “I’m sorry girls but the winner in this shot is the bird!”

We’ve seen some real stories, and real tears being shed with beautiful characters as well as manipulative ones being pitted against each other in Beauty Camp.

As the show’s director, Michael Lim of Kyanite.tv says, “It’s been intense. For the girls. For the crew. For the audience. It’s been 30 days of living out of each other’s pockets where there was as much drama behind the scenes as there was on camera.”

In last week’s episode, I was personally touched by the strength of character demonstrated by a contestant called Deviyah who suddenly got eliminated but exercised her ‘wild card’ decision to at least save her fellow contestant, Suchitra from the same fate. She was already out herself, yet still able to think of someone other than herself, at her weakest moment.

It’s these real-life twists and turns, which make reality TV so addictive. I’ve experienced a whole range of emotions myself from observing the girls and how they deal with situations that get thrown at them.

Some people assumed I was the favourite child because I was the “baby” of the family.

I asked my mother when I turned six years old, “Am I your favourite?” and she set me straight from that day onwards.

Mother said sternly, “Every child of mine is special. There are no favourites. When we are gone, Mum and Dad need all of you to stick together and look out for each other. Don’t ever forget that.”

Whatever we learn from such a young, impressionable age gets carried forward as a modus operandi, embedded into our blueprint for survival. It was unspoken between my sisters and I that we had to be there for each other, no matter how much we squabbled.

When I was 14 years old, my middle sister used to drive me to my National Track and Field races and she was the one cheering harder than anyone in the stands when I won my first gold medal.

At the time, I was too young to realise how fortunate I was to have such a supportive big sister.

Even my eldest sister was no different. She would wake up at 5am, if need be, just to pick me from the airport (even if you told her not to trouble herself).

Despite the fact all three of us lead different lives and are based in different countries now, I still feel supported across the miles.

The fact they bother to read my articles online is a sign they care about what is going on in my life, and I don’t take it for granted.

I realise that the way we are perceived and treated by our own family members ends up permeating every aspect of our lives.

If you were unloved, bullied or discriminated against in your household, you could grow up thinking the world is a difficult place to find acceptance or be appreciated.

I had a friend who could never make her parents proud, no matter how hard she tried.

It was really painful to see her put so much effort into gaining their approval but they never seemed to notice or acknowledge her accomplishments. They were usually too busy fussing over her younger brother (their only son).

Years ago, when she found out her mother loved the piano, she decided to take piano lessons to impress her but this backfired when her brother started learning the piano as well. Within months, he overtook his sister and skipped a grade.

Her mother said, “Just look at your brother. He’s so much faster than you. I’ve decided to cancel your lessons because you’re wasting our money.”

Needless to say, she developed an inferiority complex over time. She became a model (which is how I met her) but her parents wanted her to become a doctor or lawyer.

The pressure of never matching up to their expectations started to take a toll on her. She never felt “good enough.”

She was always compared to her brother and she felt very ‘unattractive’, despite the fact she was posing for top fashion magazines around the region.

All these insecurities started at home. They always do. Favouritism of siblings from an early age can cause long-term repercussions on an individual’s self-esteem and sense of belonging in their working life or relationships with other people.

I know it’s easier said than done. We’re all human and everyone seems to have a favourite football team they passionately follow, or favourite food, or boss’s favourite employee who everyone loves to hate at the office but when parents dote on their ‘favourite’ child, it can have a lasting impact on everyone around them.

Favoured siblings may grow up feeling a sense of entitlement and those least favoured may suffer from feelings of inadequacy or self-worth issues.

Psychologist and author of the Connected Father, Dr Carl Pickhardt, said that children are very keenly aware of the slightest variations in their parents’ treatment of them or their siblings.

The moment these discrepancies are felt, that’s when parents hear the all too familiar, “It’s so unfair!” cry from their children.

“Every parent may have a favourite, or a preference. It is absolutely normal,” says psychologist Ellen Weber, author of The Favourite Child.

She also says that parents may even change their ‘favourites’ at times. However, if parents cannot seem to love their children equally, at least, strive to treat them fairly.

Family therapist and dynamic speaker, Stephanie Martson said, “Self-esteem is the real magic wand that can form a child’s future. A child’s self-esteem affects every area of her existence, from friends she chooses, to how well she does academically in school, to what kind of job she gets, to even the person she chooses to marry.”

They also knew we were going away when they saw us packing our suitcases in the house and they wagged their tails excitedly at the sound of the car engine when any of us were coming home.

That’s when I realised how in tune they were with our lives and our emotions. It made me wonder if they could be sad too because they were always so happy to see us.

As it turns out, something quite remarkable happened when I was about 12 years old. My mother saw our Great Dane digging up soil (something she had never seen him do before).

She rushed out into the garden to tell him off until she realised he was burying one of our other dogs, which had passed away that morning.

My mother couldn’t believe the scene she had stumbled on. The dogs were all gathered round our Great Dane in a semi-circle to witness the burial of one of their ‘family members’. Incredibly, none of them ate when she put their bowls out at the usual time.

It would be arrogant to think that only humans have the capacity to grieve because all the dogs didn’t touch their food bowls that day.

(Shot of the real-life Hachiko)

The incredible story of Japan’s most faithful dog, Hachiko, is a moving example of how loyal dogs can be. When a movie starring Richard Gere was made about Hachiko, unsurprisingly, I went through several layers of my tissue box when I watched the film.

The story was so simple, yet poignant. Hachiko’s owner was a professor in the University of Tokyo who used to take the train back every evening from work. Hachiko would be promptly waiting at the Shibuya train station to welcome him back, and the pair would walk home together.

No one is sure how Hachiko knew what time it was but he was always waiting at precisely the right time for his owner to return from work.

This routine carried on for about a year until his owner suddenly suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died at work. His dog, Hachiko was faithfully waiting for him at the train station, not knowing that his owner would never come back.

Hachiko was given away, to be looked after by another family but he kept breaking out and was showing up again and again at his old house. He realised after some time that the owner was no longer living there so he went to wait for him at the train station every evening at that precise time.

Hachiko was seen every evening without fail at the Shibuya train station for almost 10 years, until his death. No one knew where he went in the day but he would always make it to the Shibuya train station by evening, waiting for the same train his owner used to return from work on.

News of this incredible dog spread throughout the nation. The Japanese people were moved by Hachiko’s loyalty and built a bronze statue in honour of him, a year before Hachiko died. Interestingly, Hachiko himself was present during the unveiling ceremony. There was even a Japanese film made about Hachiko in 1987, years before the one made recently starring Gere.

The Shibuya train station is one of the busiest train stations not just in Japan, but the whole world and the legend of Hachiko lives on. His memory is etched forever in our hearts and minds. In fact, the exit he was always seen at is called the “Hachiko Exit”.

It is stories like this including so many of my own real-life ones, growing up with dogs, which have fostered such a deep-rooted respect for them. They give so much and demand so little because they are truly unconditional creatures.

I was telling someone just recently, that it doesn’t matter how many red carpets I’ve walked on because nothing makes me feel more accepted or more of a ‘VIP’ than being greeted by my dogs when I return home. No matter how bad your day has been, they are always there for us, with no judgment and their tails wagging, at the first sight of you.

(Shot of Aba Gayle’s daughter, Catherine)

When she returned home, she received a phone call informing her that her 19-year-old daughter had been stabbed to death.

She wrote about how she almost lost her mind. She became afraid of driving alone because she would often burst into tears at the wheel. She spent eight years of her life living in torment and lusting after revenge.

When the murderer of her daughter was finally put on death row, she thought she would be ‘healed’ but she wasn’t.

(Aba Gayle (right) with Naseem Rakha, the author of The Crying Tree)

She started learning how to meditate and she began reading books from various religions and mythologies. The principles were essentially the same. So many enlightened thinkers throughout the ages have taught about the importance of forgiveness.

When she watched a video of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, she was amazed and inspired by his story. He not only forgave the German people for what had happened to him, but the actual guards who killed every member of his family. She started to hope she could do the same to find peace in her situation.

Approximately 12 years after her daughter’s death, she did something she thought she was not capable of. She wrote a letter to the man who murdered her daughter. She detailed the events leading up to her death. She explained what she was up to and what her dreams were before she was ‘taken’.

She finished her letter by saying she had found it in her heart to forgive him as a “child of God’ and that she would also pray for him.

The act of writing this letter and mailing it was the moment she let go of all that heaviness and rage that was overtaking her life. She finally felt a sense of peace.

In the book Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav, he explains how forgiveness does not mean condoning another’s hurtful actions but it’s about releasing the negative emotions surrounding these painful events.

The problem of holding on to resentment and anger is that you end up being the ‘victim’ in life.

We lose all our power and energy by allowing those who have hurt us in the past to continue to control how we live our lives in the present. One of Buddha’s quotes was, “You will not be punished for your anger. You will be punished by your anger.”

When you are filled with hatred against someone, you are the one mentally suffering because you are not free from anger.

Personally, I’ve always believed that violence never solves problems, it simply magnifies them. Revenge can never undo damage already done or bring back a life taken from us.

This was what Aba Gayle, an ordinary mother discovered the day she did something extraordinary by mailing that letter to the man who brutally killed her daughter.

She did not require a response nor was she expecting one. She felt healed by the simple act of offering him the gift of her forgiveness.

However, he wrote back to her and in an interview on ABC News, she recalled, “I was so scared to open the letter because everyone on death row must be a monster and what kind of letter would a monster write?”

She was surprised when she read it because there was so much sorrow and remorse for his crime.

She decided to cross a final hurdle in her journey of self-healing, which she later described as “the most frightening day” of her life. She applied for visiting rights to meet him in prison face to face.

She never imagined meeting anyone on death row, much less the very man who stabbed her daughter to death.

This was how far she went to face her fears head on and “let go” of the pain she was carrying for so many years.

It worked. Choosing forgiveness changed her life for the better. Not only did she remove herself from the path of self-destruction and revenge, she channeled her energies into setting up a foundation in memory of her daughter (a non-profit organisation called the Catherine Blount Foundation) where she is dedicated to help others heal through the power of forgiveness.

We all go through pain, hurt and resentment on so many different levels but I will leave you with this vivid quote from author Lewis B Smedes, “Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind… and each time it plays, you feel the clap of pain again. Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory. Forgiving sets you free.”

If you wanted to read the whole story of what this incredible mother went through, please visit www.catherineblountfdn.org

I WOKE up with a jolt when my girlfriend called me up wailing on the phone, “Oh my God! I can’t do this anymore!”

She had spent the whole night worried sick about her boyfriend, not realising he had collapsed outside her front door from drinking too much.

By day, he was a totally different person. I found him sharply intelligent, well spoken and a really likable guy.

Once, she heard him crying in the shower and banging his fist against the wall because he was so horrified by the bruises he saw on her arms. Bruises he had inflicted but had no memory of the incident.

She threatened to break up with him many times but what held her back was the remorse he felt from drinking too much.

She held a heart-wrenching belief that he could change.

She didn’t want to believe what she read in the ‘Big Book’ from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). It states in no uncertain terms that once a person is an alcoholic, they are always an alcoholic, which is why the only “cure” is to go sober.

But, how many alcoholics from the estimated 140 million in the world (according to statistics from the World Health Organisation) have the strength and resolve to go ‘cold turkey’? Sadly, his condition went from bad to worse and she became a frantic partner, in need of professional help herself.

The reality is that we all live among alcoholics. We walk past them on the street and may rub shoulders with them at work but do we even know how debilitating the condition is?

Sustained alcohol abuse actually damages almost every organ in the body, including the central nervous system and the brain.

According to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, alcohol is also the second biggest risk factor for cancers of the mouth and throat (after smoking). That’s just physical manifestations but what about the families it ruins or the mental anguish and strain it place on everyone around the alcoholic?

If you have ever been connected to a person who’s an alcoholic, you don’t come first in their life. Period. They are slaves to the bottle.

Partners fall into the trap of trying to ‘save them’ but people have to help themselves first, not just because someone else wants them to.

The good news is that alcoholics don’t need to suffer alone. The AA organisation, for one, operates all over the world.

It is a fellowship of men and women from all walks of life who come together to share their experiences and to support each other through their drinking issues.

The only requirement for membership is the common desire to stop drinking.

In Malaysia, it has been around since the late 60s. I recently spoke to a member in Kuala Lumpur who has been sober for 18 years and he has seen so many people helped through these sharing sessions, which are available every day.

“There are so many suffering in silence but they do not have to. We are here to help each other because we have gone through it ourselves. Our doors are always open,” he said.

If you have any fears that you might have a drinking problem, you might want to try answering these 12 questions from AA:

·Have you ever decided to stop drinking for a week or so, but it only lasted for a couple of days?

·Do you wish people would mind their own business about your drinking and stop telling you what to do?

·Have you ever switched from one kind of drink to another in the hope that this would keep you from getting drunk?

·Do you need a drink to get started, or to stop shaking? If so, this is a pretty sure sign that you are not drinking “socially.”

·Do you envy people who can drink without getting into trouble? (As in have you wondered why you can’t take it or leave it like most people?)

·Have you had problems connected with drinking during the past year?

·Has your drinking caused trouble at home?

·Do you ever try to get “extra” drinks at a party because you do not get enough?

·Do you tell yourself you can stop drinking any time you want to, even though you keep getting drunk when you don’t mean to?

·Have you missed days of work or school because of drinking? (How often have you called in sick because you were too hung over?)

·Do you have memory “blackouts”?

·Have you ever felt that your life would be better if you did not drink?

According to AA, if you’ve said “yes” to four or more of these questions, you could already have a drinking issue on your hands.

For enquiries on AA Malaysia, call 017-254 0116 or visit www.aamalaysia.org

If you’re interested in buying any of the sofas the celebrities designed, head down to Macy at Ikano in June. And if you can’t make it down there this month, they will also be on sale at Macy in Wisma Minlon (opp UPM) in July.