Claire fighting her MS beast in really good knickers

The highlight of my week: “I can put my knickers on easily” says my client whilst standing up and doing me a demo.
It was funny, but it actually made me cry with joy.

This client is called Claire and is a pretty, bubbly, lovely young woman who was recently diagnosed with MS, not the one that comes and goes but the one that doesn’t stop until it’s taken everything you hold dear in your life and ravaged your body. I trained in physical disability so know only too well the effects this condition can cause.

When Claire contacted me, it wasn’t for an “out there” cure for MS, she wanted some food sensitivity testing as she had put herself on a radical diet that can possibly halt the progression of the disease. I explained that the work I do could also support her body nutritionally and emotionally and give her body the tools it needs to fight back and give the disease no reason to progress.
 
This of course comes with no guarantee but it’s better than waiting for the inevitable.

Claire had a leg that was dragging a bit and stopped her running. It would have probably gone undiagnosed had a brilliant Physio not spotted it. By the time I met her she couldn’t run, had some instability in the leg, tingly arms and a diagnosis. But she decided that wasn’t going to define her. She is throwing herself into the jaws of the beast, determined to keep her life.

Claire radically altered her life, she researched and requested an almost unknown drug, she works on positive thought programming, she is eating food which supports her body not depleting it, she is taking a lot of nutrition to give her poor nervous system the tools it needs to repair itself and more importantly we are working together as a team.

We often talk about the 80:20 rule. I can only do 20% of the work, the client has to do the other 80%. They need to take the nutrition, make mindful food choices, do their exercise and deal with their stuff. I can only offer recommendations.

In my experience the clients who get the “wow” results are the ones keep coming even if they haven’t seen a result for a session or two and keep taking nutrition and do all the weird and wonderful techniques I recommend. They keep throwing themselves at the jaws of the beast and they eventually win the prize in the end. Their health and their freedom. 

By taking responsibility for their health and not handing it over to the NHS or even to me, they are making a stand against their conditions and changing their future.  The truth is even if we are already “well” we still need to do this stuff. Supporting our bodies nutritionally, exercising, eating supportive foods, avoiding too much medication and working on the emotions that hold us back. It works and gives us the ultimate prize. A healthy life and a deeper understanding of ourselves.

So this is for Claire and for all my other amazing clients who come with IBS, bad backs, bad skin, fertility issues, M.E and everything in between.

Your courage, determination and tenacity is inspiring. I salute you. It’s a huge honour to be supporting you on your incredible journeys.

Permission to publish given by client.

Image by Genzoman

florence, my enlightened being

Tonight I am teaching my first yoga class as part of Balanced Wellness. I’ve been teaching yoga for a number of years in London but this is the first of many weekly classes I will be giving in Portsmouth and I’m excited.

I got up early this morning to get on to my yoga mat, it’s a fluffy sheepskin rug rather than a traditional yoga mat, I am a Kundalini Yoga Teacher and we prefer natural fibres to sit on which help ground and centre us.

Tonight I am teaching one of my favourite kriyas, the kriya for the immune system and thymus. Its perfect for Autumn time, has a wonderful mix of spinal flexes, backward bends and twists. I always feel marvellous afterwards. So I settle on to my yoga mat, close my eyes and come home to myself. Much of Kundalini happens with the eyes shut. So we are able to face the world within and usually the impulse to open our eyes indicates there is something we don’t want to see within ourselves. I always feel a peace on my yoga mat. I’ve been doing this for years, when I first started I used to feel fidgety but slowly and surely I have surrendered to my practice and my mind and body stills.

stolen yoga fluffy and my excellent socks

We have a new puppy. Florence. Shes a boxer and totally adorable. She comes into the room, licks my face and steps on my leg. I’m on her new bed. Yes my sacred yoga fluffy has been taken over by Flo and as far as she is concerned I’m on her mat. I push her away. She picks up a squeaky ball and starts chewing it, then drops it on my lap. I can feel the frustration. I am trying to be peaceful here, tis not the time to play. I look at her. She is now listening to my ipod stereo which is playing chants with crystal bowls and shes cocked her head to one side in total misunderstanding. She then tries to chew my stereo.

Then it dawns on me. I spend much of my yoga teaching helping people be in the present, forget the past, the future is yet to happen. There is nothing but this present moment. I also teach the importance of surrendering, dropping fears and worries, trusting in the flow of life. And here before me is this living breathing yogi. Florence doesn’t care about yesterday, she doesn’t even know about tomorrow. She is totally present. She has surrendered fully to her new home, she embraces all new experiences without fear. And she is full of love. She totally accepts who she is without hate or criticism. Very similar to a child actually. I smile. I know this is the lesson I need bring to my class tonight. I will probably leave the squeaky toy at home though.

nice bush you have there

My friend recently returned from travelling the world. He pops over for a chat and mentions he is seeing a new woman who apparently I’ll love because she does “fillers and laser hair removal”. I laughed and told him he had been away a long long time and things had changed in the world.

For a while modern grooming hadn’t been making sense to me. Waxing was really painful, shaving left me prickly and with spotty ingrown hairs and Immac  (sorry Veet if you are under 30) stopped being on my shopping list when John Major was PM so it became obvious that I needed to find another way. And then I found her. An absolute goddess I met on a retreat. Sexy, funny, wise, talented. And hairy. Oh the fullness of her lady garden and armpit hair were quite inspiring and her courage and confidence was staggering. I wanted to be her and as a bonus think of all the money I’d save on grooming.

Many of my friends are “natural women”.  My business partner Laura with her full bush, leg and armpit hair was on a date with a hot but unfortunately dim guy in the summer who was discussing the merits of bimbo type looks when she loudly said to him “Women are hairy, they smell and the bleed. Deal with it”

Part of the problem is that men often don’t know what a woman’s pudenda is supposed to look like, the choice these days is huge, playboy waxes, hollywoods, brazillians and now with a vajazzle you can get rid of the nasty hair and have pretty crystals stuck on instead, according to Jennifer Love Hewitt “they make you feel good about your privates”.
Come on ladies we don’t need shiny little stickers or pre-pubescent mounds to feel good about our pubic areas! My body has made and bore a child, it’s danced til dawn on many occasions and it’s let me trek a glacier. My woman-parts are a place where I want nice things to happen not having my hair ripped out in an agonising blur.
With hair my bush feels womanly, non-conformist, obvious and proud. Without hair it feels silky and girly and neat but I’m not that person I’m not neat – I’m like a force of nature, and I’m certainly not girly, I am a fully paid up member of the women’s brigade and damn do I have the curves, the passion, the compassion, the wisdom and the anger to prove it.

Many feminists believe it’s because men are trying to keep women down by keeping them looking like small children, maybe they aren’t able to cope with a “real” woman. Maybe I’m just lucky, husband is a fairly evolved man who doesn’t need a landing strip to find his way to the good bits and he isn’t in the slightest bit intimidated by my womanly-ness. He does sometimes refer to my “thighbeard” in jest but in all seriousness we’ve discovered a compromise. He shaves his face so I don’t get stubble rash and I shave my armpits so he can actually face having sex with me. Some may say I’m letting the feminists down in this half hearted approach but its not the feminists I want to grow old with (unless they are really hot and can take out the bins in which case husband is no longer needed). But the truth is I’ve never liked the feeling of my leg hair getting stuck on my trousers and have no strong opinion on my armpit hair so the compromise felt fair. I have always hated “dealing” with my bush. It hurt and cost money and I really identified with the story in the vagina monologues that after waxing “it felt puffy and exposed like a little girl.”

I appreciate some women don’t like their hair, and that’s cool, I am all for individual expression but I’d urge you to explore why you don’t like it. If the reason comes down to feeling prettier or because you believe it isn’t “nice” or your partner would prefer it then please remember that women died so we could get the vote, how do you think they would feel about a vagazzle?