Rich, Thin and Happy

By Sharon Mitchell

Sharon Mitchell sat and looked at the man who was going to change her life. He was mesmerizing.

‘So you want to be rich, thin and happy?’ he asked.

Sharon nodded as she stared past him to look at the Buddha statue behind, and wondered how she, an ordinary mother and wife, from an ordinary suburb, had ended up sitting with a monk on the dry, hard dirt of a remote town in Southeast Asia.

‘I can help you with that,’ the monk said, ‘because your journey is actually the universal search to be healthy, wealthy and wise.’

So began Sharon’s voyage of self-discovery, which became an adventure of global proportions as the secrets of how to become healthy, wealthy and wise unfolded before her.

How to be rich, thin and happy? The answers for every woman are woven through this amazing story set against the backdrop of some of the world’s most intriguing and exotic locations.

This book is honest, entertaining and thought-provoking. You won’t just read it—you’ll experience it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Mitchell
• Release date: Jan 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9780994548030

Sharon Mitchell

Sharon Mitchell is the mistress of change. We’re not talking about changing into your favourite pair of new 3-inch stilettos here,either, we’re talking inner change. Sharon’s ordinary life as a suburban mother and wife was interrupted by a near-death predicament that spun her into a series of events that changed her forever. With these changes, Sharon found a new life that until then she had deemed unachievable. On discovering how much power she had over her own life, Sharon went on to qualify as a counselor and coach so that she could begin to pass this information on to other women. She traveled the world, not really in search of anything but just because she could. Self-empowerment does that. Surprising even herself, Sharon began to write about the lessons she had learned: about how much power every woman has over her own life and what changes every woman can make to live the life she wants. Sharon’s unique ability to write the lessons she knows into the experiences that make up her own memoirs allows women to enjoy interesting tales of travel and adventure while coming to understand the value of inner change more deeply. Sharon now lives in Queensland, Australia, and offers change inspiration to women around the world through her books, online courses and personal workshops.

Book preview

Dedication

For Josie and Jack,

who have taught me about love.

Foreword

Our skin touched for only a brief moment.

Little did I know that touch would change my life forever.

Damn, I thought, I’ve touched him.

I had been walking towards an empty chair at the Peace Café, in the Wat Bo district of Siem Reap, Cambodia. It was Saturday afternoon, and every Saturday afternoon the Peace Café offered ‘monk chat’, where laypeople such as myself could sit and talk to the local monks. I’d come along because I had a list of questions to ask the monks about life. Important stuff like ‘why are we here?’, ‘is there really a God?’, and ‘what do you have on under that robe, anyway?’

As I walked towards the empty chair, a monk was walking past me, heading to a spot under a tree. His robe was a burnt orange color, full and flowing. He was bald, mid-fifties and about my height, maybe 5′ 8″ or so. I really wanted a picture with a monk for my Facebook. I wonder if monks do selfies? I pondered, as we got closer to each other.

It was an outdoor cafe, and the tables were packed tightly in groups under each tree to make the most of the shade from the heat of the blistering Asian sun. As we passed, we both moved inwards towards each other to avoid bumping into the tables, and in the process we glided unexpectedly against each other, the bare skin on our arms touching in the process.

I jumped as if electrified, and turned immediately to begin my apology.

There was a lot I did not know or understand about this country, but one thing I already knew was that women were not supposed to touch the monks. It was like a sin or something, and I’d been told the monks had to punish themselves when it happened. I had visions of this monk having to starve himself for a day or maybe a week as a cleansing punishment, or perhaps he would have to do something similar to the thousand Hail Marys my best friend Maria had to do that time when her mom caught us smoking in high school. Or, worst of all, I thought, he might have to strip naked and whip himself with the cat-o’-nine-tails until he bled. Visions from The Da Vinci Code came flashing back as I turned to this monk ready to apologize, my face scrunched up in pain as I thought about his impending punishments.

‘Oh God, sorry,’ I said quickly, already realizing my next mistake before the words were even out of my mouth. I then said even quicker, ‘I mean, Oh Buddha, sorry.’

His eyes sparkled with amusement as his mouth broke into a broad grin that made his teeth appear positively arctic against his caramel-colored skin.

‘Your apology is graciously accepted young lady,’ he said in a gentle, melodic tone. His Cambodian accent with his English was enchanting, ‘but it is of no account. There was no intent in your actions. It was an accident on our part and therefore no punishment will be required of me today. Well, not for this, anyway,’ he said, his voice now playful and his grin even wider.

He was mesmerizing when he smiled. As I looked directly into his eyes I noticed that they were such a dark brown they were almost black. I felt immediately a little hypnotized by them.

‘My name is Sokhon. Would you like to sit with me under the tree?’ he asked as he gestured towards a large tree with no chairs under it. The shade in itself was all the comfort I would need.

We sat under the tree, his legs folded yoga-style under his body, and mine stretched out in front of me as I leaned back on my arms.

‘I’m Sharon,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry about that,’ I said again, not really knowing what else to say. ‘You’re the first monk I’ve ever talked to. You know we don’t see very many monks where I come from.’

He grinned and nodded and said, ‘I can tell from your accent that you are Australian. What brings you here to our country?’

I looked at him and opened my mouth ready to reply, but no answer came out. I closed my mouth again like a fish gulping clean water. I had a few icebreakers I’d used when anyone else had asked me that question since I’d been there. ‘I’m a hired killer and I’ve tracked down my mark here in Cambodia’ was a good one that always got a laugh; or, ‘I’m really a talented ladyboy, and I heard this was the best place to get a job as a dancer in a show.’

This same question coming from my new tangerine friend seemed to require an actual answer, so my eyes wandered away from his in thought as I looked past him to a Buddha statue that stood not far behind him to the right of the tree, and I thought about what exactly had got me to this place.

I’d left my home in Australia in the midst of what can only be described as classic mid-life crisis behavior for a recently divorced woman of affluence. I had been one of those women in the Stepford Wives’ club. My paternal twins, a boy and girl, were born early in my marriage and recently finished school. Both had now left the nest.

I’m the first to admit my money was not old money, I was definitely from new money, and a new divorcee in this group really only had three choices. Firstly, you could have an affair with the pool boy, and then marry your ex-husband’s balding, fat but insanely wealthy silent business partner. Or alternately, you could get your gay best friend to help you design some skimpy yet unoriginal little dresses and start your own wildly successful fashion label. However, my personal favorite? Disregard all of your newfound riches, put on your free-flowing hippy dress and jump on the next jet plane headed to an exotic destination to find enlightenment.

I had traveled before, but had previously been a business-class traveler. My ex-husband and I had traveled regularly once we had made our money. I was excellent at sleeping under the stars, all five of them.

However, this journey was a different kind of travel. I was ‘finding myself’, and the only true way to do that is among the locals, getting off the grid and on with the adventure. That meant traveling light, with only the essentials like my passport, malaria tablets, and my eyelash curler.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford to travel VIP all the way, but I’d been trying unsuccessfully to have a spiritual awakening in the exclusive day spas and elite yoga rooms of wealthy society for more years than the Simpsons had been on TV, so without any previous attempts at enlightenment actually working, this adventure called for a new way of doing things.

I started with South East Asia, spontaneously flying by the seat of my designer cargo pants. I slept in small family guesthouses and homestays beside rivers; I traveled on tuk-tuks and motorbikes where the terms road rules and speed limit were more a suggestion than a regulation; and I very quickly became a card-carrying member of the vegetarian society when I couldn’t decide between the fried crickets, the baked rat and the boiled tarantula.

Cambodia was my first stop and I was having a blast. I’d had more fun than a cape-costumed nerd at a comic convention. In the few weeks that I’d been there I had discovered that in the cities of developing countries there were three main things that made you feel good.

Firstly, the local people think highly of our Western educations and pale skin, so in a nutshell, every South East Asian thinks westerners are incredibly smart and outstandingly beautiful. I felt good about myself all the time. This did more for my self-esteem than every positive self-help CD I’d ever been ‘prescribed’ throughout my years in expensive therapy.

Secondly, there is an endless array—actually you could go so far as to say a plethora—of people to help. The levels of abject poverty and illness were eye-opening to say the least, and every day opportunities arose to help people in need in some small way. It was very rewarding. I hadn’t felt so good about myself since the cabbage soup and cayenne pepper diet got me into that Versace dress for my school reunion back at the turn of the century.

Thirdly, there is an abundance of fit young English, Canadian and beautiful French men, who for various reasons have also found themselves in those remote parts of Asia looking for new experiences. I was very happy to discover that there was quite the oversupply of these men willing to date, dine and debauch with this newly single Aussie in her early forties. And before you are too quick to stereotype, oh hell, stereotype to your heart’s content. Actually, I’m pretty happy with the term cougar. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. In my case, it’s a cougar. I was as surprised as anyone to discover that this label suited me well. I admit I’d stayed in shape over the years, and since I’d given up drinking about five years earlier, I could easily be thought a bit younger than I was. Not that I ever hid my age from anyone, because I remembered reading a Cosmo article around the time of my fortieth birthday that said women’s sexual drives peaked in her early forties, so it seemed to me now was a great time to be newly divorced and freely available for a banquet of provocative sexual experiences.

In summary, I was feeling beautiful and smart, I was doing interesting and rewarding work, and I was getting the best sex of my life. What wasn’t to love?

Love. Was I looking for love? Was that the answer I should give the monk as to why I had ended up sitting in the dirt with a stranger in a corrupt developing country in the middle of South East Asia?

No, unfortunately, even I did not think it was that simple.

I turned to him and gave the first straight answer since I’d arrived there. ‘I’m on a journey, I guess. You know, an emotional journey. Quite a cliché really, but I need to know the meaning of life, how to be happy, and what it’s all about. I need to know the important things in life.’ I decided now was not a good time to mention that I also wanted to know what monks had under their robes.

‘So, what do you think you need to know that you don’t already know?’ he asked me in that wise-man’s-riddle kind of a way that left you feeling like the question had a hidden meaning.

‘I know being rich doesn’t make me happy per se,’ I mused, ‘but somehow I feel better being unhappy in a pair of red Jimmy Choos.’ I turned towards him with a confident look of assurance on my face. ‘So I want to make sure I know everything I can about how to stay rich, or at least always financially secure. Money gives me the freedom I want.’

He nodded knowingly at that.

‘I also know that I’m not happy if I don’t feel great about myself, so I want to learn how everyone else around the world stays in such good shape. Oh, because of course I need to be healthy enough to live a long time to enjoy all that money,’ I said with a bold grin and wink as if inviting him to scold me for my shallowness.

He didn’t scold me.

‘And I guess I just want to know, you know, all the stuff I don’t understand about life, how to be happy, and ultimately content.’

He sat very still and very silent, like he was gently musing mindfully through the verbal wish list I had just provided to him.

‘I see,’ he said. And I knew he did.

Eventually he continued. ’So you are on a journey to find out how to be rich, thin and happy?’ He asked this with raised eyebrows, like he already knew the answer to the question he was asking.

‘Bingo!’ I shouted as my arm flew up in the air and towards him for a high five, then immediately realized my error as I would then be touching him again and we’d be back where we started. I lowered my hand but kept nodding my head. We were getting somewhere here.

‘Ahhh, you are on the ultimate journey,’ he said, so quietly it was only just above a whisper, as he leaned in a little closer to me so our noses nearly touched. ‘And many before you have taken this pilgrimage and failed.’

‘They have? They did?’ My face fell and I suddenly felt more deflated than a balloon the day after my twins’ fifth birthday party.

‘But they didn’t have me!’ he said as he broke into a loud belly laugh and rocked back and forth momentarily as he chuckled at his own humor.

‘And I do have you?’ I asked in incredulous surprise.

‘Yes. we have met here today for a reason, and I think this is it.’ I thought, maybe it was just that we both liked the soy decaf lattes at this place. But he went on to say, ’and I will help you with your journey.’

‘I’m very grateful for that, but what makes you say others have tried this?’ I asked, as I thought I didn’t know anyone who had traveled halfway around the world in search of the meaning of life.

‘Many people,’ he said, now back in the tone of a wise spiritual sage. ‘Yes, many people are on this journey, because your journey to be rich, thin and happy is actually the universal search to be healthy, wealthy and wise.’

* * *

That night, in my room at the guesthouse, I pulled out three pieces of handmade paper from my backpack. I had bought the paper at the small local market on my way back from Peace Café and my fortuitous meeting with Sokhon earlier that day.

I sat on the hard foam mattress of the small double bed, with a big black Sharpie, and wrote large headings in capital letters on the top of each page. They read:

Healthy, wealthy and wise

By the end of my journey, these three pages would hold the answers to exactly what I had been looking for.

This book is the story of how I filled these pages with the answers: how I found out how to be rich, thin and happy and why I can now say I am healthy, wealthy and wise.

Come with me on this incredible journey…

I

Bloodlust

Cambodia

1

My head made an almighty thud as it hit the hard floor.

I remember hearing the sound right before I blacked out.

I’d donated blood before. In fact, at home I was such a regular donor the nurses at my local blood bank had nicknamed me Dracula’s dinner. I could feed a vampire, I had so much blood to give away, they said.

I’d never had any problems before; it was a regular cakewalk. I had so much iron in my blood I could have been a Transformer.

But obviously, the events of the last few weeks had made a difference in my ability to successfully participate in any kind of body-fluid swapping programs.

I’d arrived in Cambodia, originally thinking I would do the standard seven-day tour-by-numbers. The bulk of tourists to Cambodia flew into the capital, Phnom Penh, checked out the Royal Palace, and learned about the country’s civil war thirty-five years ago. Then most visitors traveled up to Siem Reap, the town closest to most of the country’s ancient temples, and took a mandatory sunrise selfie in front of arguably the world’s most famous temple, Angkor Wat.

Then most people flew home.

I was not most people. I’d arrived at Siem Reap a month ago, and I hadn’t left yet.

Siem Reap is a town unlike anything I’d ever seen. A contrast of extremes, with devastating poverty and urban slums filled with sick and starving Khmer people only minutes from some of the world’s most beautiful five-star hotels.

There is a unique tourist area known as Pub Street, where restaurants, markets, massage spas, and nightclubs all live harmoniously together in an eclectic mix of local flavors and international influences. You could expect to eat just about anything you want, buy anything you wished for, and have just about anything done to you. And you could expect all of it for incredibly cheap South East Asian prices.

However, even though I enjoyed all the fun of Pub Street as much as the next person, that wasn’t what had drawn me to stay in the amazing country. During the weeks I’d already spent there, I’d met so many wonderful local people. Their spirit and zest for living showed even though life was hard and their future looked desolate.

I was also enjoying the abundance of massage choices on offer. Oh, I know where your dirty mind is going with this. No, not that kind of massage—the day-spa kind. I do believe during my early days in Cambodia I may have doubled the GDP of that impoverished country by single-handedly attempting to try every day-spa offering in the town center and surrounding province. It was a big job, but someone had to do it.

After a number of weeks having fun in Siem Reap, and days after I’d met Sokhon at the cafe, I was lucky enough to score a visit out to one of the local charities, which are all known as non-government organizations and therefore just called NGOs.

This NGO had a wonderful reputation and was run by a local Khmer man. I jumped into a tuk-tuk, which is like a small motor scooter with a carriage attached and seats in it. There are so many tuk-tuks in Cambodia; they are as common as a geek in Silicon Valley but much cheaper, since two US dollars will get you just about anywhere on a good day.

I told the driver where I wanted to go and we traveled out along the sealed road towards Angkor Wat for about ten minutes or so. Eventually it turned onto what I could see was a bumpy dirt road towards the river. Being a single woman traveling alone, I was always a bit skeptical of going too far off the beaten track with a strange driver, but it was broad daylight so I hoped for the best and held on for dear life as we juddered over the pitted mud road, which was now more holes and less road.

We arrived at a fenced compound that housed a number of large two-story buildings. I later found out that these were the school for children, the medical clinic and the training restaurant that taught young adults apprenticeship-style while offering visitors a local dining experience.

One of the local men, Khan, who was employed to get the volunteers settled in when they arrived, came out to greet me and showed me around the facility. He told me about the community and the services this NGO provided. Just about then I was beginning to feel as out of place as Dolly Parton at an Amish convention. My nail polish seemed too bright, my hair seemed too blonde, and my zebra-pattern capris seemed just plain ostentatious surrounded by such poverty.

Khan asked if I would like to take a short tuk-tuk ride to the surrounding village and meet the people who this NGO helped. ‘Of course,’ I said without hesitation. This was what it was all about. Living off the grid, meeting the locals. This was what I had come here for. I was educating myself, becoming a citizen of the world. I was more cultured than yogurt.

We jumped back in the tuk-tuk, which had been waiting out the front for me. With directions from Khan, the driver drove down alongside the river on an even smaller, bumpier, muddier road than the one I’d come in on.

Khan talked about the village as we drove, telling me how most of the residents were wives and children left there by servicemen husbands who had gone to ‘fight on the border’ and never returned.

It was assumed most of the men had actually survived the fighting but had ‘found another wife’ while they were there. Their wives did not expect them to return and in a country with no welfare system, no free education and no free healthcare, it meant that without help, these families would all starve to death or die of untreated illness. This information in itself was shocking to me. I was beginning to feel less cultured and more, well, inane, every minute.

Finally, we crossed the river on a sketchy-looking bridge and turned into the village area itself. As we drove through to the middle of the village, skeletal figures of all ages stood in their doorways and watched us pass. Their homes, once-strong traditional bamboo dwellings, now stood precariously patched together with pieces of corrugated iron, or even old rice bags, to cover holes as they had appeared in the roof and walls. Everything and everyone was covered in a gentle layer of dust as any attempt at a dirt-free existence was futile when living on, and surrounded by, so much uncovered brown earth.

As the tuk-tuk came to a stop in the middle crossroad of the village, I stepped out and looked in wonder. Some of the younger children came up to me, immediately holding my hand and smiling. Some knew the word ‘hello’ in English, and so they spoke, with excitement.

There was no running water in the homes, and with no electricity in the village there were burned-out shells of huts dotted intermittently through the streets, where live flames inside the hut had caught fire and burned down the whole dwelling and everything that family possessed.

Right then, the enormity of the world’s issues seemed to envelop me, and I knew I wanted to do something to help. It looked like I had avoided the world’s truth for a long time and the truth had avoided me.

A vision of me, dressed as a nun, feeding the starving thousands Mother Teresa style, flashed through my mind. No, that won’t work, I mused with an inward wink to myself, I don’t think celibacy is quite my style. I was going to have to do it my own way. Sharon style. Which was kind of the same way everyone else did it, but with glitter.

On the way back from the village, I spoke to Khan about how I would go about volunteering at the NGO and how I would help the people of the village I’d visited. We made an appointment for me to start volunteering the next day. With that, I had made one small step in my red diamanté-encrusted flip-flops, but it was one giant leap in my journey. I was no longer there for myself; I was there to help others.

2

That afternoon, I bought a very old, very decrepit-looking bicycle from a local seller. Bicycles were the preferred mode of transport for volunteers in this part of the world, so, when in Rome, I thought skeptically as I looked at the rusty-looking excuse for transportation sitting in front of me. A far cry from my red convertible European sports car, I thought, with the excitement of an explorer about to enter a brave new world.

The next day I was up early. I wanted to get into the NGO before the heat of the day made it impossible to function. I threw my laptop in my daypack, along with a big bottle of water, the lifeblood of anyone trying to survive in that humidity, and rode out the gates of my guesthouse and into the wild streets of this hectic town.

Traffic in Cambodia consists of more strange sights than is imaginable. Whole families travel on one motor scooter, lined up along the long seat like pins in a bowling lane.

I saw people driving motor scooters with one hand, while the other hand was carrying chickens, or pigs, or children, or even holding a clear IV bag high in the air as they scooted wildly between passing motorists. It gave a whole new meaning to the term out-patient.

As I drove through the streets, weaving my way between tuk-tuks, motor scooters and other people on their bicycles, I concentrated hard on navigating the potholes. All the roads were dirt or mud, and were so full of potholes that the front wheel of my bicycle could fall into one and I might not get out again until wet season, when I floated out with the rest of the garbage.

When I arrived at the NGO ready for work, it was still only 7am, but the buildings inside the gated compound were already buzzing with a number of local staff and some enthusiastic volunteers already hard at work in both the medical clinic building and the school building. Children had started to congregate outside the compound, mostly standing around their own bicycles, or sitting in the dirt chatting in their Khmer language, with the occasional giggle coming loudly from a group.

I looked into the room I’d been in the day before and found Khan at his desk. He smiled broadly and waved me into the chair in front of his desk. The room was bare and painted a very bright mint-green color, with chips of paint coming off the walls in patches around the