Tag Archives: optimum health

Taxing Times: On All Levels!

vegetables and juicesI’m not keeping up the promise of weekly posts at the moment but you know there are times when life takes over and you are too much ‘in’ the experience to write about it. Still there I think as it has been a big time for the love bubble of Kerry and Brendan. A 7 day juice fast which included 4 coffee enemas and as many trips into Brisbane (the closest big smoke) for my Beloved as he navigated the loss of his mum. Yes a big time indeed but this blog is primarily about sharing what goes on inside of me, my Beloved’s internal sea of shifting feelings and moods is his to share or not as he pleases. So for me the little bit of resistance that is curling up inside of me is all about finishing that last bit of work for my tax. Not actually such a lot of time required but getting to it seems especially challenging.

Rainbow Kerry and Cheryl.

This is more interesting than doing my tax!

Oh it will happen as it always does and I will wonder why I made such a fuss, until next year’s deadline comes around once again. There is also a sense of satisfaction for me in having achieved some goals that required a lot of determination and effort on my part. I think there may be a part of me that wants a holiday, don’t have holidays much so maybe I’m  being reminded that it’s time to plan a decent kind of break. I have a feeling that there are going to be some good changes in the near future that will help my Beloved and I to plan ourselves a nice holiday. In the meantime it’s onward and upward upon this amazing healing journey which encompasses the health and well being of both of us. It is a big adventure full of archetypes and different states of consciousness and we are both growing quickly which can sometimes seem tricky.

loving self to me

So it’s all about self-care at the moment and riding the balance between that and economic reality, things like veggie juice fasting for any appreciable amount of time is expensive! But totally worth it as I do have the energy to keep the commitments that are required to keep the joint venture of our bubble of love on track for the Port of Optimum Health. And so it is!

Be Kind To The Sugar Monster!

sugar-monsterSo it’s a new year and its summer and I really have been eating like crazy and the sugar monster is like totally out of the box! Not that previous phases of being naturally good have gone to waste either, I have good habits like starting every day with water and herbal teas. In fact this is an opportunity to let go of more layers of old beliefs and the coping mechanisms that used to support them. All in the grand cause of developing optimum health that doesn’t require me to feel like I’m missing out on something. I used to think herbal tea was boring, now I just adore my cup of dieters tea which contains dandelion leaf, celery leaf and fennel.

SONY DSC

So the day starts well but all too often it begins to include stuff like chocolate bars or even chips or twisties! Cakes to go with my coffee and even when it’s raw you can still have too much of a good thing, even when it is made with something other than refined sugar. I find it easy to avoid processed foods when it comes to savoury but when the sugar addict is hungering for her hit it’s the crappy food that comes to mind. It is kind of crunch time too for my Beloved and I so fears are coming up around stepping into the larger picture. These fears have big time associations with junk food as it was a very large part of the way that I coped in earlier times.

Chocolate donuts

So as I begin to feel my way into this year I promise to always be kind to myself even when I seem to be going backwards. There is no such thing as a mistake, only divine re-direction! And out of all this change and newness will come a healthier and more prosperous life for my Beloved and I here in the magic kingdom.

Aho!

To Move Is To Be Alive!

Organs-Of-The-Human-Body“Blood cells that don’t move cannot transport oxygen, lungs that don’t move can’t breathe, hearts that don’t move can’t pump blood, and spines that don’t move can’t create the motion required for proper joint nutrition, for the activities of daily living, or for the stimulation of the joint-brain pathways required for proper brain and body function.” In short, movement is what enables our bodies to operate in all their delicate, wondrous complexity.

James Chestnut, chiropractor.

Dance and movement keep popping up whenever I consider current issues in my life, particularly in relation to my shoulder injury and the urinary tract infection that won’t go away. Of course I am doing what is appropriate with the medical profession, just because there is a lot wrong with modern medicine doesn’t mean that it isn’t a wonderful method of dealing with some problems. But expecting someone else to do all the fixing isn’t a useful way of thinking, if I want to get better then I need to participate in the healing process with as much mindfulness as I can muster.

mind-fullI’ve been moving less because of my shoulder injury, still can’t do my regular yoga class and struggling to get myself to do any kind of practice at home. Sometimes I don’t even know what makes it flare up, with that kind of uncertainty I am a bit scared to do anything that might conceivably make it worse. And becoming less physically fit isn’t going to help my immune system with the infection it’s dealing with. My sugar addiction is going strong again too which doesn’t help with this overall picture, certainly doesn’t look like the optimum health that I am aiming for in this life.

Not the state I aspire to!

Not the state I aspire to!

It’s very easy in a place like this to feel like there isn’t anything I can do to change this, the mind may know it’s possible but the emotional body feels trapped. What needs to happen is an internal shift of consciousness that breaks the old patterns that are flaring up at the moment. Each time I have been in this space I have found various ways of breaking the loop and the message that keeps coming to me right now is to move my body. My Beloved and I are about to spend four weeks on five acres with dogs and cats and alpacas and not much else so a space is opening up for exploration and for play.

dance

Sometimes it will be movement to music but there will be times when I invite my body to move to its own rhythms. This can be done alone but it is even more powerful with another as witness, simply observing, not participating except to give feedback afterwards. This is one activity that can be guaranteed not to hurt my shoulder, I have learned how to move so that it can participate without trauma. And my body always feels better when it is in regular motion, even just a short walk is enough to perk everything up. So while I will continue to call upon doctors to support me in my healing I will also be taking responsibility for my own wellbeing.

body in space

And once the shift in consciousness has occurred then all the other stuff becomes so much easier! When my head is in the right place healthy choices seem simple and obvious. I need to be kind to myself and take one step at a time, after all I have done this before. And each time I do it I find myself in a better position than the last time it happened, slowly but surely I am getting healthier and healthier.

fruit and veg family

Hooray for the opportunity to create a happy and healthy life on the lovely planet known as Earth!

Pitfalls On The Path To Optimum Health.

bug warsApologies for being late with this post, the journey with antibiotics continues as I discover that I happen to have a bacteria that is resistant to the ones that I took at the end of last week. I did get some relief but then it all started hotting up again and yesterday I lay on the bed feeling the infection rising as the new antibiotic went to war along with my white blood cells. I recently watched the second Lord of the Rings movie again and as I felt this conflict going on within me I thought that it was not unlike the battles in that story. Not the way that I usually like to view health matters but sometimes you just want something to come and save you, yes it’s true, I really am very human!

Two Towers Lord of the Rings

Once the baddie is dealt with then I will have to try to get my act together on the health front. Beginning with restoring all the good bacteria that have been decimated along with the bad, the probiotic should arrive any day now! I use a certified organic product from Miessence that is very good, it isn’t the cheapest way to do it but it will do the job. And finally I may actually get around to doing the garlic cure that my Beloved and I have been talking about for at least a year. Being in love can lead to extreme happiness but it can also lead to extreme indulgence and this has led to my sugar and carb addictions being well and truly woken up.

chocolate

But each time I go through falling off the path I am not falling in the way that I used to and my centred place to be is much healthier in so many ways. Drinking lots of water is a habit for me these days and I have never tippled on as much herbal tea as I do now! So here we go again and perhaps this time I will find the perfect way to obtain optimum health so that I never ever fall off the path again. “Pigs might fly” I hear you say as you roll your eyes at me………… well you can’t blame a girl for trying now can you.

My favourite Loving Earth Raw Chocolate: Luvju.

Loving Earth Raw Chocolate: Luvju.

Good health to us all!

Reading over this meandering tale I am struck by the repeated patterns that can be discerned in our lives. Like the repetition in a fractal we radiate out energy into the world and create a space that can be anything that we want it to be. So I choose pleasure and health and doing things that are fun and meaningful. Being with my Beloved a lot and dancing! And India too, also with my Beloved, oh what fun that will be!!

Be happy……..

Imagining Kindness.

Time to talk food again, I did some naughty eating over the weekend and it’s reflected immediately upon the scales! Seems terribly unfair, but I guess I can also see it as a signpost that tells me with great clarity, that what I consumed was not particularly good for this body. Different bodies have their own responses to the fuel that we provide, and it’s important to find the food that works for your own unique and wonderful self.

I’m really feeling the craving for carbs that seems to be so easily stimulated for me, if I stray off the path even just a smidgen, the appetite wakes up and the voice of addiction begins its siren song. As I sit here and write, that voice is telling me that fish and chips is a perfectly reasonable dinner to have, it started as a piece of fish with salad that I will make, but that coaxing voice is luring me into carbohydrate overload!!

I know it’s just plain lazy on my part, but at times like this I long for a partner with the same interest in pursuing optimum health, to share the load of getting it altogether. Someone who loves to create masterpieces in the kitchen, oh what  a dream man that would be, I would happily be the kitchen hand joyfully clearing up the mess left by creativity gone wild.

In the meantime it’s up to me to create this new lifestyle for myself, and one thing that I have learned as I walk the path of life, is that self-flagellation doesn’t help when it comes to creating and manifesting change of any kind. My mother always says that kindness is one of the most underrated qualities and I heartily agree with her. But we need to remember to apply this wisdom to ourselves as well as to others, imagine a world where everybody was kind to themself.  Hard to imagine isn’t it but I am one of the dreamers, just like the amazing John Lennon with his song “Imagine” Please enjoy this classic song and really listen to the words, even though you probably know them well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRhq-yO1KN8

John Lennon.

John Lennon.

Spinach and Shekels.

Returning to the green smoothie theme, it seems I may have to do some more research beyond reading ‘The Green Smoothie Bible’, apparently variety is important when you are having all those greens every day. The plants have various substances in them that are a part of their defense system, so that they aren’t overgrazed by animals, and it isn’t a good idea to have too much of them.

My brain glazes over when I read very scientific information, and I got a bit lost in that particular chapter, what I was really hoping for was a chart telling me which ones had what, so I know what to switch to and when. If I had my way I would probably just have spinach and kale, but these both contain oxalates which I shouldn’t have too much of.

Is it just me, or do we have to take in and somehow assimilate, way too much information in this modern world. I probably need to make a confession here, I love to write, but have always hated doing research, even so I think I may be correct. Let’s face it, anyone who trusts the so called authorities that are supposed to give us guide lines for healthy living, will probably suffer a whole range of diseases in a relatively short life span, and end up dying slowly and horribly from some form of cancer.

I am determined to achieve optimum health even if it means actually having to do research! Thats how much I care!! But mostly I hope my research will be in the form of actually doing it, have the experience and learn from that. So I think the sensible thing to do is to focus on green smoothies and get that right, and from there move on to more raw food. Oh, and I also need to buy In-Liven Fermented Probiotic Superfood, not cheap but the author of my smoothie bible, Kristine Miles, swears by it.

Once again I come back to the need to bring in the shekels, the moolah, love may indeed be all you need, but until we change the basic premise of this culture the money will also have to keep rolling in.

Shekels from Carthage.

Shekels from Carthage.

Spinach.

Spinach.

I Go Green.

I had my first real green smoothie today and it was DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!! I chucked a bit of parsley into yesterday’s smoothie but today’s delight was from the Green Smoothie Bible, positively bursting with kale which is my current favourite green. This new way of eating is going to be full of yummy sensations and flavours, and to top it off, my body feels amazing when I load it up with such good food.

I have some pretty big goals in this lifetime, to heal everything and to achieve optimum health, but I am getting there slowly one step at a time. It’s the opposite of shedding layers of negative thoughts, I add in new healthy habits as I go along, and after a time they become automatic just like the bad habits that are on the way out. I need variety in most things in my life so I like to dip into different ways of doing and being, taking what works for me and weaving it into the tapestry of my existence.

Now I am perusing my raw food recipe book and getting ready to experience a much broader range of tastes, my salads usually have much the same ingredients, and even though I do like my salads it’s time to expand into broader food horizons. It may open a doorway into more entertaining, I find cooking for a dinner party fairly stressful so it doesn’t end up happening very often. Being able to come up with a raw food feast might be a lot simpler, although I will probably have to buy some new equipment, I have the blender but a food processor will also become a necessary part of my new kitchen.

It feels like the new year started for me today, I got back into my yoga practice and my body is practically falling over itself in gratitude for the feeling of well being that this engenders, an inner glow that has been sadly lacking for the last few weeks. I will of course still fall off this path from time to time but as long as I am having fun at the time and find my way back to the path, I have no complaints.

A toast to good health for all!!

green smoothie