Nouvelles

News and Opinion from Anne Barone to Keep You Chic & Slim

7 June 2015

Blasé Works: True Story

A bonus. Along with advice for your wardrobe, relaxation, food and smart thinking, in Armoire Boudoir Cuisine & Savvy I add a blasé bonus. I advise that a blasé, that is, nonchalant, attitude can often bring success when trying too hard fails — when stress and tension sabotage your efforts.

Today, a true story.

About a year after I published the original Chic & Slim, I received an email from a woman in the Chicago area. She wrote that as she completed her medical studies, she was stress eating. Looking around for a book to combat this problem, she found Chic & Slim. My advice had been great help.

As each new Chic & Slim book appeared, I received another complimentary email from her. Then in 2006 I published the original edition of ABC&S.

This time the email from Madame the Doctor was filled with anger and anguish — specifically about my blasé advice. Particularly the example I had given about how frequently I had observed that once a couple who had failed to conceive a child gave up and adopted, very soon afterward, with the stress and tension gone, the woman became pregnant.

Madame the Doctor wanted me to know that not once, but twice, she had undergone extremely painful medical procedures to try to conceive a child and they had not worked. When the best of modern medicine had failed her, how dare I suggest that all she needed to do was relax and not try so hard?

Several more years passed. Then, I received still another email from Madame the Doctor. She thought I would be interested to know that not long after she sent me that email about blasé, it had been her birthday. To celebrate, her husband had taken her to a lovely French restaurant and they had this marvelous French meal with a wonderful French wine. . . . And not too long afterward (surprise — surprise?) she had discovered she was pregnant.

With her medical practice and the first pregnancy, and then with the baby and another pregnancy and another baby, she had not previously had time to write. But she wanted me to know that she and her husband now had two lovely children. And that blasé works.

be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone