seeing differently

It’s January and I really want to start the New Year feeling good so for 60 days husband and I are doing a totally holistic cleanse. I like to do the odd fast and cleanse from juice fasts at the spring equinox to eating mung beans for 40 days on the yoga teacher training so this is nothing new for me but my motives are.

My plan involves the following: No gluten, dairy, wheat, sugar, starchy carbs, alcohol, caffeine or tap water. I’m then having hot water and lemon every morning and doing at least 10 minutes a day of meditation, manifesting, affirmations, shakti dancing or rebounding. Plus a bit of pampering at least twice a month. (check out groupon for amazing offers on massages)

This wasn’t a dodgy New Year’s resolution to lose weight or diet (because news flash – diets don’t work) but actually a resolution to spend more time this year honouring myself. We generally don’t spend enough time doing stuff that makes us feel good because of being busy or (in my case) being plain lazy. This also isn’t about denial, or self loathing. I’ve been on a huge journey to like myself so the last thing I want to do is punish myself. Lots of resolutions fail because the motive is to change something we don’t like about ourselves. I often hear ” if I just lost a stone/stop smoking/ change job I’d be happy” the choice is to be happy now.

I’m a Kinesiology Teacher, a Reiki Master and a Yoga Teacher with a wealth of tools at my disposal and I walk my talk but I’m not perfect (who is?) and I have my demon foods the same as everyone else. However when I combined a difficult year, a busy lifestyle and the odd glass of wine, being lazy with meditation and giving in to occasional trigger foods, the result was not feeling as sparkly and dynamic as I could. The yogic belief is that 40 days breaks a habit, I’m doing 60 because I want to really improve my commitment to myself. This is a self-love revolution.

So I’m a week in and loving it. It’s not that I can’t have foods, or a lazy lie in, it honestly feels that I don’t want to. I’ve given myself a better option – changing your mind set with your resolutions is really important. If you feel denial or misery your body will produce the stress hormone. If you feel bliss it releases the happy hormone. If you come from a place of committing to yourself with deep self love you will truly change your life. It will feel really good and you will be spreading that joy wherever you go. That’s real revolution.

I'm not going out in that hoolie

I feel like a big lump of lard. This should not be happening. I am a fabulous Kinesiologist, Nutritionist and Yoga Teacher. Surely fit and healthy, spiritually evolved people (ahem) don’t feel like giant lumps? Well apparently they do when they completely let go over the Christmas holidays, ignore all their nutrition knowledge and eat double their body weight in cheese, biscuits and Cadburys Roses.

Sigh.

And here it is. January. The month sent to punish us for our chocolate sins. When the weather is blowing a hoolie, New Years resolutions are making us miserable, the detox has begun and we’re back at work. What a bummer.

Okay so how can we cheer ourselves up? Here are my six top tips for surviving January

1.    Everyone likes to detox in January and this is all well and good, giving up the booze, bad fats, wheat, dairy and sugar is certainly something I would recommend. However don’t jump straight into a juice fast. Its cold and damp, we do not want to be putting cold and damp foods into our body at this time of year, it simply makes us… well, cold and damp. Save your juice fast for summer and stick with warming seasonal foods like soups during these winter months.

2.   More warmth a coming. This time warm up your plums, oooh err. Warm fruit makes them easier to digest this time of year and they taste better too. Make sure they are seasonal - plums, apples, nectarines, prunes, pears and rhubarb. Stick some spices such as cinnamon in there. Really tasty and not like dieting at all.

3.   Support your body with a gentle detox. Most ‘off the shelf’ detoxes are hard work and make you feel like rubbish. This healthy starter pack gently cleanses the bowel, intestinal, urinary, liver and circulation all together making you feel rather lovely.

4.   Do the exercise you love. I see so many people running miserably around a cold park. If you don’t love it you won’t stick with it. Plus your body releases chemicals depending on your emotional state. If your body is under stress, you will release adrenalin and cortisol which when circulating around the body can create fat storage, illness and sugar imbalances. Better to find something you love doing –rollerskating, trampolining on those mini trampettes or dancing like a loony in your kitchen to your favourite music. Joy is the best detoxifier there is.

5.   We work with Bach Flower Remedies in our clinic which are a wonderful way to balance emotional problems. At this time of year I can recommend

• Mustard for gloom
• Gorse for hopelessness
• Gentian for despondency

Chose the one that suits your mood and it will help lift your spirits.

6.    Every morning say this sentence ‘I am grateful for…’ and fill in the gap. Even if you are just grateful for a warm shower or finding two socks that match.

So these are my suggestions for getting through a winter of discontent. What are yours? Please share your thoughts.

My daughter turns 8 in January.

Like millions of other parents I am dutifully arranging her party and making sure she feels special on her birthday whilst trying not to spend the GDP of a small country in the process. This year is different however, this year I’m excited about the day and I’m also sad because I cannot believe how quickly my beautiful little girl is growing up. This sounds really normal and you are probably wondering why I’d bother blogging about it except for me it’s not. It’s a brand new feeling. The last seven years have passed in a blur of “going through the motions” and plastering a big fake smile on my face as I carry in her cake.

This time eight years ago I was thirty eight weeks pregnant and had that slightly desperate and fed up look of a woman about to give birth. I’d sailed through pregnancy which is an appropriate phrase as I was the size of an ocean liner but I was excited and ready for the big event. When my labour finally started I was two weeks overdue and I thought I was ready but nothing could prepare me for what lay ahead.

I won’t labour on about my labour but the crux of it was that baby disengaged her head and I stopped dilating resulting in three days of labour, hospital oxytocin drips, having my waters broken, pethidine, epidural and an emergency c-section, during which I haemorrhaged and lost a litre of blood. The horror of the labour was compounded by the fact that two weeks later I went back to a stressful job. This left me scarred emotionally and physically and I spiralled into chronic post natal depression, I spent the best part of three years swapping between manically working and lying in my bed in foetal position, totally avoiding being alone with my baby in case I tried to kill her. By The time the depression finally went away it had left me crippled with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I still have it although it is effectively managed with a very healthy supplemented diet, exercise , emotional work and regular Kinesiology.

Then only last year I realised I didn’t love my child. It wasn’t for lack of trying, I simply couldn’t because there was too much pain and panic in the place where the love was supposed to be. I couldn’t spend any time with her. The thought of it scared me so much I felt sick. An amazing clinical psychologist diagnosed me with post traumatic stress disorder and I learnt how to work through it.

I know I’m not a unique case. Millions of women suffer trauma after birth and it’s never really discussed or understood. In fact admitting you don’t love your child or dislike the job of parenting is a massive taboo. My experience profoundly changed my life. Before I was unhealthy and negative and hated my job but part of me died in that hospital and years later a new me finally broke through. I retrained, I got healthy and I worked through my stuff. My condition literally saved my life and I’m eternally grateful to it.

So in a few days time like all of you I will be celebrating Christmas and the best gift I will get is the warm glow from seeing my beautiful little girl opening her presents. And in January when I carry in that birthday cake the smile on my face will finally be real and a miniscule expression of how much I can now love her.

To end I bring you this Christmas song because for me, my real present is how I am now blessed to finally feel the love for my child.