Post 13: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

Last night, mentalist Doug Segal read my mind. We're currently flatmates in Edinburgh (along with a gorgeous motley crew) and Doug, his partner Sophie and I had been chatting about his current show “I Can Make You Feel Good” (7.50pm Voodoo Rooms).

Anyway, we were having a chat about mentalism as opposed to NLP and magic and he gave me an active example. My initial response was to fire questions at him about how he'd managed to guess the very complex word - it was 5 syllables! But then I abruptly stopped asking because I realised that I didn't want to know. It's more fun to leave the magic hovering there.

Reading people is a very specific skill and vital for deepening relationships. Being sensitive to others and how they are really feeling makes a huge impact on the way we engage with friends, partners, our family, our colleagues and the world at large. And it's as important to recognise when someone feels good as it is to spot when they are keeping up appearances.

I've recently been teaching a bat mitzvah girl who loves animals and one of the things I've learned from her is that many animals express themselves emotionally without using their faces. We all know that dogs wag their tales and cats arched their backs but the twitching of a horse's ears tells the rider how it feels.

Of course this probably seems completely obvious but I'd honestly never given it any thought. I've run numerous seminars on body language but generally focused on humans.

The way we interact is magical and our relationships are full of possibilities. There's a chance of real connection and truth if we dare to pull that curtain - from either side.