Health and Disease by Lance and Susan Schuler

This extract was written by Lance Schuler and his wife Susan. Lance taught me how to teach yoga back in 2005 in Byron Bay. It wasn’t just yoga he was teaching me, but helping to re-inforce and validate how I felt about health and healing and yet didn’t have the confidence to voice it back then, or to truly understand it. I know it a lot better now having worked with health and healing since then. I still can’t voice it as well as Lance and Susan however, which is the reason I share their words here for you, for anyone who is interested in living a life free from the fear and from dis-ease, who truly wants to come to know themselves and live in a way that is harmonious with nature and with their own innate wisdom. Lance inspired me then as he inspires me now, and I miss being in that environment where I can be surrounded by those who know and feel the same way. There is so much fear in our beautiful planet at the moment, and so many suffering, and yet to know thyself, you are free, so free. Love Emma x

“HOW OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HEALTH AND DISEASE IS ESSENTIAL TO ACCEPTING AND MOVING FORWARD THROUGH THIS PANDEMIC 
For the first time in recorded history our youngest generation of children are now expected to live shorter and sicker lives than their parents, even though medical technology continues to advance and we know more about the impact of poor diet and lack of activity than ever before.
It is as if humanity is at war with nature.
If all of us were to simultaneously jump of the Sydney Centrepoint Tower, we would each fall 10m/sec/squared and we would hit the ground at the same time at a very predictable velocity because we are all subject to Natural Laws - because we are Nature.
Disease is because of the violation of Natural Laws.
If Doctors wish to use the word Dr before their names then they should be teaching. So if teaching, they need to teach people how to stop building disease –that’s what doctors’ real roles are, otherwise they need to call themselves Physicians.
The only way Doctor’s can teach to not build disease is to know it, the only way they can know it is to live it and the only way they can live it is if they have learned it.
Doctors spend over 16,000 hours during their residency and have less than 20 hrs of nutrition instruction. 
Doctors have a nutritional deficiency in their education. 
Our exiting healthcare system is based on treatments, even though 80% of illness is preventable. Lifestyle disease needs lifestyle medicine.
Poor diet is the number one cause of death and disability. If most deaths and disability are related to nutrition, then, obviously, nutrition is the number one thing taught in medical school; right? Obviously, it’s the number one thing your doctor talks to you about at every visit; right? Drugs don’t cure dietary diseases.
Doctors mean well, but they are generally just working with methods that don’t work. (Cut, burn, poison – come on!). The body takes care of itself – it cannot do it wrong. It is always working in your best interest. It is programmed for survival. We are not talking about accidental and emergency care here – this is where medicine and surgery can have a life saving role. 
Our bodies are so complex that we will never work it out and you don’t have to. Do we have to explain it to a dog, possum, or elephant? NO! Instinctively they know. They are plugged into the wisdom of nature called instinct. Medicine as we know it has only been around for about 150yrs – instinct has been around since the beginning of time – listen to it!
All culture and “cures” take us away from nature and that’s an abomination because we are nature. That’s the beginning of the lie that leads us down the path of looking for a cure. Is it not better to stop building disease? Of course it is! Does anything else work? NO!
Why is it that those animals that have no interference from humans die from less than 10 diseases?
One out of every 2.5 people will now get cancer. There are 4,000 rare diseases and over 80 auto immune diseases alone.
Heart disease and cancer are the number one and two leading causes of death and medical error is the third!... Iatrogenic - look it up!!
So what do we use to treat these leading causes of death? We use medicine – but medicine is the third leading cause of death – does this make sense to you? This is data.
The reason this has happened is because we have strayed from nature. We live in boxes, drive around in machines and eat foods that are made by machines.
We are living in a way that we were not evolved to live.
How many of us know how to take care of our body?
Paracelsus said “anyone who is not their own physician by the age of 40 is a fool” and that “health depended on the harmony between man and nature”. To be healthy in today’s world we need to cultivate a reliance on ourselves.
Our dietary and lifestyle choices and the way we think and emote are affecting our health, our environment and the animals we share this planet with. How we think, eat and act are a choice – to either improve the world or make it less… to either sustain the conditions that are supportive to life or worsen them…..

SO WHAT IS HEALTH AND DISEASE 
Health is life in balance – disease is life out of balance.
Disease is a body instigated process for healing and repair; to re-establish homeostasis. If you treat a symptom 99.9% of the time it’s going to make the disease worse. The symptom is there as your body’s attempt to self-regulate and heal itself. Symptoms are a manifestation of something out of balance – you and your soul, you and your emotions, you and your body, and you and nature. The symptoms are the medicine.
When we take drugs for the disease we are telling the body that we are not listening. When we treat the disease we halt the body’s attempt to heal and repair. The symptoms are the body’s attempt to remove excess waste and when we treat the symptom we increase the body’s toxic load. Even though you will experience pain and uncomfortable symptoms these are signs of the body’s attempts to heal itself and restore balance.
When we treat disease we separate from ourselves.
The only way to address disease is to address the cause. Every action in the body, in disease, as in health, is towards the preservation and improvement of life. What is commonly called disease is in reality, a beneficial and remedial process. Dr Herbert Shelton (Human Life) says, “Health and disease are the same thing – vital action intended to preserve, and protect the body and there is no more reason for treating disease than there is for treating health. The body slides easily into disease when conditions warrant and glides as easily back into health when conditions justify.” 
Convincing people to alter their behaviour to remove the causes is an unprofitable business. People quite naturally, want to feel better with as little effort as possible and their natural psychology equates feeling better with getting better. However, when drugs are taken to relieve symptoms and reduce pain, feeling better does not mean getting better.

Modalities, treatments or therapies that involve drugs, herbs, supplements, manipulations etc may be useful predominantly in the short term to assist with any imbalances and allow time for the person to somewhat recover until they make the lifestyle changes necessary for true recovery to occur. However, if used continuously they really only act as a band-aid unless the underlying causes are addressed. 
When we use drugs, remedies and therapies to eliminate symptoms, and do nothing to address their cause, we do nothing to create health, nothing to motivate change, no reconnection with nature, no evolvement, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual and does nothing to protect us from further disease. Treatments and so called cures take us away from the journey of healing.
THE BEST KEPT SECRET IS THE BODY CAN HEAL ITSELF. 
The same innate wisdom that made the body, can heal the body. This is known as – vitalism. And it doesn’t make mistakes; it doesn’t mess up. Everything the body does is a wise response to a perceived stimulus – without exception.
Most acute diseases are self-limiting and resolve with the passage of time.

Now that we know about our microbiomes and viromes can we really believe that "germs" are predominantly the main cause of disease?
Or are these so called pathogenic ones just co-existing with us - whose roles are to "clean up the mess"
And just like the flies do not cause the compost - are these "pathogenic germs" inside us to restore balance?
And our jobs therefore would be as simple as to stop building disease inside and outside us. 

Address the cause, learn the tools, do the work, then live the solution yourself.
Health comes from healthful living.

The secret to recovery: Stop the repeated injuries 
Acute disease or accidents are generally from single or less frequent injuries such as food poisoning, infection, insect bites, car accident etc. Whereas chronic disease is the result of thousands of injuries - to the arteries, joints, and other tissues over prolonged periods of time. Even though the force, frequency, and means of impact differ; the mechanisms of repair are still the same, whether the injuries occur once or a million times. 
If your health is getting worse it is not because your body is failing you - efforts to heal never stop - not for a moment. Again your body is always working in your best interest. It is programmed for survival. The reason for your continued distress is because the damage is ongoing. FOR DISEASE TO PROGRESS, INJURY MUST OUTPACE HEALING. Reversing disease is simply a matter of STOPPING THE ONGOING INJURY, which is usually self-induced. Greater recovery is expected the sooner the repeated injury is stopped. (There is a point reached where disease can become irreversible, because the injury is too severe and/or the body is too worn out to recover however, even than spontaneous healing can still occur – don’t underestimate the miraculous healing powers of the body).

4 APPROACHES TO HEALTH 
(Comparison between Medical, Alternative, Natural Hygiene)
1) Does this approach teach people that they can take responsibility for their health, resulting in them feeling empowered, and in control of their lives or does it led them to feeling victims of their fate?
2) Does this approach focus on identifying and removing the cause or does it just focus on removing the symptoms?
3) Does this approach respect the fact that all physical healing can only be done by the body itself?
4) Does this approach take into consideration every aspect of an individual, including their psychological and emotional health or does it just focus on a particular organ or body part? 

SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN 
We need to educate ourselves about the causes of health not the treatment of disease.
Our bodies know what to do – we need to relearn how to listen to it and trust it. 
Health sovereignty – self responsibility, not farming out our responsibility to others. We have lost how to care for ourselves. We have been programmed that the governments and doctors can make us healthy, better and heal us. They do not know how to do this, nor are they healthy themselves. 
Doctors study disease not health. We go to doctors like priests to be absolved from our disease, not to learn about health. 
You need to know that your health is largely in your own hands and no one else’s. Especially not to those who have invested interests. Health is the natural spontaneous consequence of healthy living. Become your own doctor. The more conscious you are the less support you need. 
This doesn’t mean you don’t ask for help or accept opinions. It means that we need to be responsible for our own health, to care for our own being and that of others and the earth. 
We are constantly in healing and recovery, what if it was about living? That’s the goal. Healing now is recovery from our artificial living.
We don’t mind dying – we just don’t want to be the cause.
Our current model is outdated and disempowering. 
Dr Michael Greger calls the leading cause of disease as, “not telling the truth.”
The food and medical industries have been manipulated for profit and control. Today the masses no longer think for themselves and have lost trust in their innate and instinctive healing ability. They turn to an industry and governments that have no interest in keeping them healthy. According to independent reports by the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, a wing of the American Congress, and the World Health Organization (WHO), 85-90% of all medical procedures used by today’s medical establishment are unproved and not backed up by scientific research.

To discover and understand the cause of disease, you will first need to let go of the idea that disease is something that must be fought. Healing is accepting, allowing and supporting, not fighting or resisting. Healing can occur when the body can use its innate healing capacity and is not overrun with a fight (treat) or flight (ignore) response situation. 
There is something to be learned from every situation, including disease. A person’s willingness to face, accept and grow from the issues that dis-ease brings up turns disease into a purposeful and potentially uplifting experience. There is an underlying cause of every situation, even if it seems unrelated. You as consciousness, are the only true source of that energy and information that runs your body. Your presence in all things including your body, what you do, eat, drink, feel and think determine how well on a physical level your cells are able to control and sustain your physical existence. Disease is a provider of new life. Disease only “strikes” when a part or parts of us are not alive anymore, physically, emotionally and spiritually. 
The wound is where the light enters – means that grief, pain, suffering is where you grow. 
The Cosmic Intelligence is holding us responsible for our universal health - both body and planet. 

With loving kindness Susan and Lance”

Health Is Your Wealth

‘Health is your Wealth’ as we say in Ayurveda.  If ever there was a time for recognising this, then it is now. We cannot buy good health, it is something we have to cultivate ourselves to the best of our ability.

One of the things I love about Ayurveda, other than the fact it is from the Vedas, which makes it ancient, and it focuses on not just the body and the mind but also…ta da da…the soul...is that it helps to promote good immunity, which is fundamental to the prevention of disease.

In fact one of the main objectives of Ayurveda is the prevention of disease through strengthening the immune system, which makes the immune system a significant element of Ayurveda. As we all know, our wellbeing is dependent on the body’s resistance to dis-ease, and the immune system plays a significant role in the prevention of, and recovery from, disease. 

What we also know is that some are more prone to disease than others. For example, among persons living in infected surroundings, only some of them are found to be affected, while others are left without any effect. It shows that the pathogenic (bacterium, virus or other microorganism) causes require particular favourable conditions and susceptibility of the individual in order for disease to form. Without these conditions, they will be destroyed by themselves. Thus the stronger our immunity, the safer we are from disease.

 In Ayurveda, the focus is not on the prevention of disease, per se, but on strengthening the immune system as a whole. In this way we can maximise ‘ojas’.  Ojas is a Sanskrit term which can be translated as ‘vigor’ or ‘essence of vitality’. Essentially, ojas is the vital energy that governs our immunity, strength and happiness – three things we want in abundance. If our ojas is weak, then our health, our spirits and our energy, decrease.

Like any hereditary characteristics, immunity is also inherited and greatly influenced by several other factors such as diet, environment, way of living, age, mental state, development or growth and pathological conditions of the individuals. In Ayurveda, factors affecting the immunity are classified as follows:

Factors that lessen immunity:

·      Mental stress such as fear, anxiety, anger, grief

·      Poor diet and nutritional disturbances

·      Lack of sleep

·      Excessive physical exertion/exercise

·      Alcohol, drugs and smoking

·      Severe infection

·      Injury, accidental or surgical

·      Excessive loss of bodily fluids

·      Wasting

·      Season, environment and age

·      Severe constitution derangement 

Factors that enhance immunity

·      Balanced diet appropriate for constitution

·      Mental peace

·      Proper exercise

·      Favourable climate

·      Characteristics of race and generation in which birth took place

·      Genetics of parents

·      Constitutional characteristics (vata, pitta, kapha)

·      Adolescence

·      Proper mental stimulation

In the ancient Ayurvedic texts (of Charaka and Vaghbhata), we are told the features of a healthy person include the following:

Dosha (one of three biological energies circulating within the body) – the doshas that are present in the body and the mind (vata, pitta and kapha) must be in a balanced state in order to keep a person healthy. When the balance of the doshas is disturbed, then this can lead to a state of disease and impact on the immune system.

Agni (fire) – in order for an individual to stay healthy, their digestive fire (‘agni’) must be balanced and effective. When the digestive fire is weak, this can cause many diseases. It is well known that the health of an individual is dependent on the strength of their digestion. 

Waste products  – the excretion of faeces, urine and sweat must be balanced.

Tissues  – the seven tissues of the body must be in a balanced state and able to function properly.

Senses – the sensory and motor organs and mind must be in equilibrium and able to discharge do their duties properly.

Mind – the state of mental health is more important than physical health. Look after your mental state! 

Soul – awakened consciousness, unifying body and mind for eternal health and happiness – hoorah for that!

So how can this be achieved?

·      Eating for your constitution, being aware of the impact various foods/drinks have on your digestive capability, and resulting mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. Avoiding foods/drinks that don’t support your wellbeing on all those levels. Lots of vegetables and fruits. Avoiding cold or raw as can be difficult to digest properly unless your digestive function is brilliant! Nourishing soups using coconut milk and light spices, white rice, chicken, white fish, pulses, cereals, soft cheese, pitta bread that sort of thing. Think nourishing and warming (but not spicy).

·      Those who are pitta (fire and water) inclined, being mindful of excess heat in the body, especially if you’re suffering with stress, migraines, infections, acidity, stomach ulcers, inflammatory conditions and loose stools, tendency to anger easily, avoiding tomatoes, chilli and red wine. 

·      Those who are kapha (water and earth) inclined, being mindful of excess mucus, especially if you’re feeling sluggish, lazy, sticky, heavy and cold and digestion is slow, feeling unforgiving and avoiding dairy products and heavy foods if so.

·      Those who are vata inclined (air and ether), being mindful of feelings of anxiety, insomnia, nervousness, suffering with cold hands and feet and constipation (rabbit droppings) avoiding ‘bird’ foods such as nuts, seeds and dried fruits. 

·      By maintaining the proper functioning of your digestive system, only eating when hungry and avoiding too much snacking.

·      Yoga for promoting mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing. Practising gently to nourish and support constitution, not create imbalance or exhaust you.

·      Taking adequate rest – use Yoga Nidra where you can. 

·      Appropriate exercising such as walking and swimming.

·      Socialising with friends and family (in light of social distancing this will need to be done at a distance for now).

·      Avoid ingesting anything that depletes you such as alcohol, smoking, drugs, junk food, screen time.

·      A clean and clear environment – spring clean and get rid of the junk and clutter.

·      Getting out into nature where you can. Walking on the beach or the cliffs. Noticing the sun and moon cycle, noticing the stars at night. Listening to the birds.

·      A positive outlook. Reducing exposure to negativity from the news and social media. Mixing with positive people where you can.

·      Surrounding yourself with colour. Avoiding black, for example, which can sap energy.

·      Wearing/holding crystals.

·      Ayurvedic medicine where necessary (you can talk to me about this).

·      Doing things which make you happy such as reading, writing, art work, singing, watching happy films. 

·      Smile and laugh as much as you can.

·      Connect into your heart. 

·      Giving yourself Reiki if you are Reiki attuned.

It seems so important to me that instead of focusing on the fear and anxiety that the Coronavirus has caused for many, that we focus on the positives, and doing what we can to promote our immunity and our health and wellbeing. Every cloud has a silver lining, and taking responsibility for our health and wellbeing should be up there, with recognising the simplicity in life again. I hope this article helps, let me know if I can help through Ayurveda or otherwise! [Happy to shop for anyone who can’t get out!].

 Love Emma x

Ten years of sea swimming - the joy!

As I approach the ten year anniversary of all-year around sea swimming, I can’t help thinking how much life has changed, so that sea swimming has become normalised (as has chakras and crystals), which can only be a good thing.

Even doctors are nowadays prescribing sea swimming for depression as a friend of mine recently discovered. It was a bout of depression and anxiety that initially brought me to all-year around sea swimming. Depression was familiar, but anxiety was new to me and I was gripped by a ridiculous fear of leaving the house and was weepy and emotional, slightly paranoid too. 

I’d been overworking, teaching too much yoga and channelling too much Reiki without protecting myself properly or establishing good boundaries. It was a lesson learned. But nonetheless at the time, it was a little traumatic as I wasn’t familiar with the intensity of the feelings of anxiety and fear of leaving the house.

I stopped working, I had no choice, and took myself off to the doctor who referred me to the local mental health service for CBT. She prescribed Prozac too, but as with previous prescriptions for this drug, I knew that the pharmaceutical route was not for me, depression in my experience is a depression of the soul and this was a wake-up call; I wasn’t listening to my heart, or honouring my soul; my spirit was low.

One of my friend’s, who had a history of depression, invited me to join her sea-swimming, she said that it has really helped her when she was feeling low. I was aware by then of the healing power of nature, and E had encouraged me into the garden, and at the advice of my Ayurvedic doctor I was getting my hands in the earth and weeding – as if weeding out the weeds that were causing my depression, my inability to access the light. I was keen to try sea swimming and appreciated my friend’s support.

I’d been an avid surfer during my teenage years so was frequently in the sea all-year around, albeit in a wet suit. During my twenties, while I had stopped surfing by then, I hung out with a group of friends who were passionate about the sea and we’d frequently do the ‘weaver run’, often on our walk home late at night from the Rockmount, either at Cobo or Vazon. This involved removing our clothes and running as fast as we could into the sea at low tide, risking a weaver fish sting!

We’d also meet regularly after work during the summer months to swim at ‘Barnacle Point’ off Albecq or from the rocks near Fort Houmet, eager to connect with the sea after a day spent sat in soul-less offices. Towards the end of my twenties, I started travelling regularly, to Australia mainly, to undertake my yoga training, and I’d swim every day in the sea. Back home in Guernsey though, I might go a few times during the summer, but I didn’t make a habit of it.

So now I was keen to see how connecting with the sea might make me feel.  My friend collected me one mid-morning and drove us to Petit Bot, where we were the only people on the beach. It was this that positively affected me as much as the sea swim. I was so used to working during every hour that I had available to me, that I rarely took time to get out during the day time, and it felt odd, like a whole new reality was presenting itself to me – one where you allowed yourself to go to the beach during ‘normal’ working hours and do something for yourself, namely swim!

The swim itself was amazing. For the first time in days I wasn’t pre-occupied by the stomach churning anxiety and emotional sensitivity that this brought with it. Instead, I experienced myself very much in the present moment, of being shocked awake in the freezing cold sea! I couldn’t believe how much better I felt afterwards, as if something had literally been awoken in me; my mind calmer, my body more grounded than it had been for a long time, my energy cleansed, and my soul nourished by this interaction with Mother Nature.

I was hooked almost immediately and haven’t looked back since. I took a few months off from working, and went sea swimming daily, either with my friend, and the other ladies who swam at Petit Bot at that time, or with E watching from the beach. My mental wellbeing improved significantly during this period, and I always accredit sea swimming for this. 

Not only did the physical act of getting in cold water help to ground me in the present (and therefore ease the anxiety and depression) but it also helped me to look at my life and re-prioritise the way that I was living it, with daily sea swimming becoming an essential part of this. It created a shift in my perspective too, and I started to feel joy again, how could I not, as I took in the beach and the sea and the sky above; a true blessing and I started to feel gratitude again – my thoughts became more positive.  

It took him a while but a year later, in the following March, E started swimming regularly with me and hasn’t stopped since. This began our mutual love of Petit Bot and we have swum there regularly ever since, sometimes daily depending on our schedules and the extent of the shore break, which seems to have gotten worse over the years! 

I swam in the sea throughout both my pregnancies, swimming the day before both boys were born. I was back in the sea as soon as I was out of hospital too, albeit I wasn’t able to swim as I had to have Caesarean sections for each of them. I wasn’t meant to be submerged in water, but I just needed to cleanse my energy and stand in the sea up to my waist, feeling its coolness and hearing its sounds; grounding and soothing after the trauma of birth!

Both our boys, Elijah and Eben, have fairly much grown up at Petit Bot! I remember the first time we took Elijah, fresh out of hospital and both of us going into the sea at the same time, as we’d done so many times previously, him in his car seat sat up on the pebbles at the top of the beach. We suddenly realised that this probably wasn’t appropriate, a helpless baby left on his own on the beach. It was just such a bizarre concept for us both, and this began our tag team effort, taking it in turns to swim ever since.

We’ve many photos of the boys on Petit Bot in various stages of development, car seats to crawling, toddling to running, and now climbing the rocks! We’ve seen the beach at all stages of tide, in all weathers and all times of the year; we know it well and love it dearly, there’s something special about knowing a beach. Our favourite time of year is October, when the summer visitors have left and the dog walkers are yet to arrive; we’re pretty much guaranteed to have it to ourselves. But we do have it to ourselves a lot of the time, especially early in the morning, and we’re always grateful for this.

We were tickled last year to be gifted, quite by chance, a Guernsey calendar, and were quite surprised to find a photo of us for the month of January (the person who gave the calendar to us didn’t realise this!). I contacted the photographer and she said she had met a friend at Petit Bot the previous January and had seen us walking down the beach, me carrying Eben in a car seat, and Elijah and E walking beside me, about to go for a swim, and thought it looked a lovely family scene. She kindly gave us a copy of the photograph, which I’ve posted above.

Growing up on the West coast of Guernsey and spending much of my time on Vazon beach, knowing that beach like a second home, it has been lovely getting to know more of the South coast of this stunning Island I’m lucky to call home. More recently I’ve been swimming at Saints with a small group of ladies, perhaps three or four times a week, on the way to drop Elijah to school in the morning – he loves it as he can climb the rocks and get some fresh air before going in the classroom. 

This has added a whole new dimension to sea swimming, allowing me to connect with another beach, and one that needs to be approached on foot (or bike in our case) so is even more private than Petit Bot, attracting a couple of other sea swimming groups; the sunrise can be spectacular in the winter months. Also, it has caused me to develop a beautiful relationship with the other ladies, brought together by our love of sea swimming and spending time outdoors in nature. 

We might swim at Fermain sometimes too, especially on a full moon, where we howl at her rising ahead of us, sometimes skinny dipping, sometimes not. I have to say though, that this is my favourite way to sea swim, it doesn’t get more natural and uplifting than skinny dipping and winter is the best time for this, at least you’re less likely to bump into anyone else coming to the beach!

I should make the point though, that these days I’m rarely in the sea for long. I used to swim maybe 5-10 minutes or so in the winter months, but a few years ago I started to get really cold afterwards, not helped because I was in the midst of sleep deprivation and just found it was taking me all day to warm up, not so pleasant. These days, especially in February, I might only be in for a minute or two at most, but even this makes me feel better, and well worth the traipse down to the beach and back up.

I can’t imagine our lives without sea swimming now, it’s become a part of our life, something that we make time to do, which will often determine the rest of our schedule, especially on the weekends. It’s the first thing we do when we have been away from the Island, getting our fix of Guernsey sea on our skin, and a definite if I have been working energetically with people and need to cleanse. It’s amazing and I’m always keen to introduce others to sea swimming so they may feel the benefits for themselves.

 The benefits of sea swimming for me:

 ·     Cleansing my energy;

·     Grounding me in the moment - you don’t think about much else when you’re in the sea, other than how cold it is, how long you might stay in and whether you’ll get caught by the waves.

·     Energising me.

·     Connecting me to nature so that I notice the tides, sunrise and sunset, and seasonal and moon cycles.

·     Feeling like you’re getting away from the rest of the world.

·     Slows life down, you can’t possibly be rushing or stressed on the beach.

·     Listening to the sound of the sea and watching the waves, both of which I find soothing for the soul.

·     Shifting a bad mood!

·     Raising the spirits and easing any depression

·     Reducing anxiety by the connection of feet literally to the earth (well sand really, but you know what I mean) and the sensation of the cold water on skin, getting you out of your head and into your body.

·     Strengthening your immune system – I’m not sure how that works, but I’m pretty sure that sea swimming plays a role in me rarely being ill, I’ve not had a single cold yet this winter (touch wood!). 

·     The special relationship you create with other sea swimmers as you share this mutual love for the sea.

·     It’s free, and the very act of getting onto the beach and getting into the sea and having a little swim is good for your general fitness. 

·     It has strengthened my connection to Guernsey and helped me to feel extremely grateful for living on this beautiful Islands.

·     It makes me feel alive and happy.

Seasonal shifting

Driving on my own, on an early Sunday morning to a course I was leading, I was struck by the joy that is the changing season.

I love summer and I never want it to end, but when it does, the pitta in me is grateful for the change. This is especially now, with children, where I am lucky enough to spend a considerable part of the summer on the beach. This is wonderful, but a challenge for my pitta, which has most definitely been out of balance this summer, especially with the earlier-summer-exam-stress.

 Pitta comprises the elements of fire and water and pitta people can be aggravated by too much sun exposure and by the summer season (the pitta season). Pitta people are often athletic and driven people, competitive, hard working and ambitious. They have a tendency to like to control things and have high expectation for themselves and others. 

They like nice things and a lovely (and often luxurious) lifestyle. They like to consume hot and spicy foods, tomatoes, caffeine, alcohol and stimulants like chocolate – thinks that feed their fire! They have a tendency towards frustration and anger, and can be impulsive, jealous, envious and get really annoyed by people.

When there is too much pitta, pitta people are prone to loose stools and excess stomach acid leading to ulcers and acid reflux. They are susceptible to red skin conditions and hormonal imbalance too. This is when the rage may appear too!

If you can relate to any of this, then perhaps your pitta has been out of balance too and you will rejoice at the shift that the seasonal shift will bring to you. Already my pitta feels soothed by the cooler mornings and evenings, and I relish the calmer energy, and the changing light that is brighter and sharper than summer, and brings with it a much welcomed settling – like a breath of fresh air, which finds me almost sighing with relief (as much as I love summer!).

Autumn is the vata season. Vata comprises the elements of air and ether, and so it’s the turn of those with a tendency towards vata to be potentially aggravated by the seasonal shift. It’s worth noting here that you don’t have to have a predominantly vata constitution to be affected. We will all have an element of vata, and some of us will have a tendency for this to be aggravated (like pitta and kapha) from time to time depending on how we are living our lives. Certainly I find that my pitta imbalance brings with it a vata imbalance.

Vata people like change and movement, and like to flit around, snacking on the go, rather than taking regular meals. They like to eat bird food (think nuts and seeds) that help them to fly even more up in the air, trying to get lighter and lighter Sometimes they are living so much in the air and up in the ether that they chop and change their minds and don’t always get things done, or manifest on the ground, in this world.

When out of balance, vata people have a tendency towards nervousness, anxiety, fear, indecisiveness and worry. They can suffer with tics, tremors and twitches. They can also suffer with light and disturbed sleep, and can be prone to constipation and excess wind (too much air!). They can also feel cold and scattered and airy and their skin might flake (reflecting their flakiness).

So look out those of you who have a vata constitution or a tendency for vata imbalance, as this seasonal shift could affect you. There are simple things you can do to ease the imbalance, such as eating nourishing and warming foods, avoiding the bird food, taking warm baths and oil massage, establishing a regular and daily routine with regular times for eating, sleeping and working etc., calming and grounding yoga, yoga nidra and body scans and some light exercise like walking and swimming.

Those of you with kapha tendencies might find yourself challenged by the winter months ahead, but you should be OK during autumn, as long as you keep warm. Kapha people are cooler and slower and their digestion tends to be sluggish with excess mucus. When kapha is in excess, they can be prone to weight gain and excess sleep. They can also be prone to attachment and greediness. So you might watch out for these tendencies if you know that you have kapha in you (a combination of earth and water). 

I haven’t yet found out if I’ve passed my Ayurvedic exams (I don’t get the results until November) so I am not yet able to practice professionally as a lifestyle and diet consultant but I’m always happy to try to help on a case study basis if you feel drawn to Ayurveda. 

Ayureda uses a combination of diet, lifestyle and medicine to effect positive change, balancing the dosha (fault) and restoring harmony and balance. It sounds easy but can sometimes be a touch challenging – our diet patterns are well ingrained and we are often asked to focus on new tastes. The lifestyle changes can also be confronting because our lifestyle patterns are also well laid. The medicine can sometimes taste bitter and we have to remember to take it at the prescribed times, which can be tricky.

But all of this, all of the changes that are asked of us and our reaction to this can be both revealing and potentially healing. There is a reason that we are out of balance in the first place and that dis-ease may have appeared (mental as much as physical). So we need to start to do things differently, to unravel the imbalance.

Sometimes however we don’t need to do very much.  Sometimes the imbalance can be re-balanced just by the seasonal shift. So to all the pitta people, enjoy the cooler and clearer skies and the routine that this new season brings as the schools return and everyone catches up on the summer months of activity. 

Here, I’m back to teaching yoga and there’s a whole heap of retreats ahead which is exciting, as I do love retreating a little from the chaos of the rest of the world and especially as the light dims and we are encouraged to retreat inwardly in any case. There is a joy in seasonal shifts, another opportunity (as if we need more hey!) to let go and flow into the unknown. 

So enjoy the flow, and hope to see some of you soon, on your yoga mat or at Reiki.

Getting into nature - an antidote to anxiety?

I’m a big fan of retreating into the wild and just taking a bit of time out from the rest of the world, especially the online world.

It has become popular these days, the whole re-wilding thing, and with good reason, because there is something deeply grounding, healing and uplifting about spending time in the great outdoors.

There is this sense that the more we connect with nature, the more we recognise our own true nature, and step more fully into the more authentic version of ourselves, into the more authentic version of what it means to be alive in this world, and to be a part of this world, not separate from it.

I’m become increasingly aware recently of the number of people, students especially, who suffer with anxiety.  I’ve experienced bouts of this over the years, less so since I’ve been practicing yoga, but there have been moments, often healing crises, when I’m reminded of how debilitating it is to feel anxious.

 Anxiety manifests in so many different ways.  For some it may be that awful uncomfortable and edgy feeling in the tummy, for others it might be a racing heart and heart pain, and yet for others it can create dizziness, and that overwhelming feeling of, well overwhelm.  There will be some physical sensation, but there will also be a racing mind, too many thoughts and a sense of not being able to cope with daily life. 

 I can only all from my own experience, but I do know that the last time I had a bad bout of anxiety, quite a few years now, the thing that finally helped to heal me was not only getting my hands in the earth but was getting in the sea – basically it was getting into nature.

Often anxiety comes from feeling separate, feeling very alone, and very disconnected from everyone else, and from the land.  It can be a very isolating experience, ironically based on the feeling of being isolated. 

 The answer is often to ground, ground, ground, and being in nature provides the opportunity to ado just this

There can be much more to it and I appreciate that everyone is different and I can only talk from my own experiences. Often anxiety is underpinned by FEAR, namely False Evidence Appearing Real, and the behaviour patterns and thought processes that accompany this.  It’s all an illusion but can feel very real when our mind has decided that there is a reason to feel fear and anxiety often results from this - fear of upsetting someone, fear of messing up, fear of something bad happening to us, fear of an imagined event, fear of so anything behind our control, and on the list goes…

 Re-wilding can certainly ease the anxious feelings. We’re spoilt here in Guernsey, in that the Island is wild!  The south coast provides an incredible opportunity to connect with, and experience the elements with the cliffs and the magnificent sea crashing onto the rocks below (well when there is a swell!).

 We’re also spoilt because we have Lihou on our doorstep.  Lihou is a tiny island that is connected to Guernsey by a causeway at high tide.  You can hire the house on the island, which is a hostel and offers 2 double rooms and 5 dormitories (I think).

E and I stayed there on our own, pre-children, when the snowy owl was visiting.  It was really special as we literally walked upon him on one of our walks and all the while there were keen bird watchers with their long lenses trying to get a shot of him from the coast on Guernsey!

We’ve stayed a number of times since then with friends and family, but last weekend we stayed just the 4 of us, E, me and the 2 boys. It was great, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the tide coming up and knowing that you are cut off from Guernsey for the night, on your own little island.

 We managed a swim in the Venus pool before the tide got to high – OK perhaps it was a dip in and out, I did go in twice though! The house was cold – there is certainly some sense in visiting in the summer, but we lit the log burning stove and wrapped up in blankets. The industrial size kitchen is a challenge when you’re cooking for so few, as the stove is powerful and the saucepans etc. are huge, but I managed, and the children even ate some of their meal!

 It was a joy to wake and have the Island still to ourselves, high tide and a swim in the sea certainly woke us up.  We walked around the island a few times collecting plastic and washed up crab pots from the beaches, and watched the birds and searched for the Lihou seal – we didn’t see him sadly!

 We watched the tide drop and the causeway clear, and felt like time itself had slowed down.  There is no TV on Lihou and no WIFI, so you’re encouraged to get outside or to sit in the sun lounge and watch the sea and the birds instead. There are plenty of books in the house and a few games if you get bored.

I can hugely recommend a night in Lihou to slow life down and help you reconnect with nature.  You can’t help but leave feeling more grounded, centred and in touch with the elements.  I have a sense that if you suffered with anxiety upon arrival then this would ease by the time you left. 

There are other ways too. Practising yoga can certainly help and I’m aware that a grounding practice and conscious and calming breathing can really make a difference. But truly, getting into the nature can make a huge difference - I’m biased but swimming the sea and getting your feet on the sand, well I do wonder if that’s the reason sea swimming has become so popular, it gets you in the elements and helps you to connect more fully with your own rue nature and feel very alive in the process!

Growing on the moon!

We just returned home from the Loire in France to find that the greenhouse has exploded into magnificent abundance.  Wow!

I decided this year that I would have a go at planting from seed in accordance with the moon cycle.  This works on the age-old belief that phases of the moon affect plant growth and thus the time that you plant the seed will have a bearing on the fruits (or vegetables!) from said seed.

I have to be honest, it wasn't easy.  Eben at 18 months was a liability in the greenhouse and the planting was a little rushed to say the least, and a busy spell meant that my parents did most of the initially watering and tending.  Still, I managed to plant out most of the developing seedlings following Mum's instructions (this following my botched effort while they were in Australia and only to kill the beans with over watering - note to self, beans do not like too much water!).

So I'm pretty pleased to return from our holiday and find that the broccoli in particular has done very well, not a caterpillar in sight, and the stem and the head are strong and vibrant. I haven't tasted them yet, but I have three huge broccoli head's now sat in my fridge as I was keen to harvest before the flower petals appear, so it looks like we'll be eating broccoli all week.  Not a problem for me as it's my favourite vegetable and I am stillllllllll obsessed by turmeric curry and especially with broccoli in it.

I'm impressed with the chard too and the sweetcorn looks like it may soon be ready to harvest, but I know very little about this and await Mum's further insight and instructions.

The peas are in full flow and shall be a welcome addition to the curry with the chard too. I'm looking forward to the beans and courgettes catching up. Perfect Turmeric vegetarian curry coming up!

The fruit trees in the greenhouse are so heavy with fruit that some of the branches have dropped down to the ground with the weight. So I expect a bountiful harvest of mirabelles, greengage, plums and even nectarines.  The fig tree has gone crazy, I've never seen so many figs on it, so I guess we'll be able to sell some of these too.  I'll keep you posted as this is yummy home grown (without chemicals) fruit, tastes so much better than the stuff in the shops...

So I guess perhaps there is something in this moon-growing malarkey, another reason to bow down with humble gratitude to the wonderful moon and all her offerings!

x

Clean eating: Is it really healthy?

I could have sung with joy recently when I came across this fabulous BBC 3 documentary all about the dangers of the current clean eating trend. Finally, I had come across other people who share similar concerns to me and were questioning whether this current way of eating is a lifestyle change that we all need or another fad diet in disguise - and one with potentially damaging consequences. 

I’m sure you’re all aware of the clean eating trend; you can hardly miss it after all. There are now thousands and thousands of videos available on the internet on clean eating from the many hundreds of wellness bloggers who are all preaching the best way to live, let alone the many lifestyle coaches now offering their services. And of course social-media is full of food photos and hash-tagging and there is a plentiful supply of clean eating recipe books available on the market too.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all up for clean eating and living, I care deeply about animal welfare, the environment and conscious and wholesome eating. I also believe it is important to understand what’s what about the food you are eating and the conditions under which it has been grown/produced etc. and the resulting impact this has on others, let alone our own health and wellbeing. But these days I can’t help thinking that “clean eating” has taken on a new misguided meaning and provides yet another medium for food shaming.

While I have no doubt that initially it began with good intentions and implied eating a lot of whole and real plant based foods that have been minimally processed and packaged and have rarely seen a factory, these days clean eating seems to be yet another dieting trend and I am absolutely not a fan of dieting. The message is in the word. DIEt. I also have no doubt that for many, the current clean living trend can often be anything but healthy because a whole industry – yes an industry (enough said really) - has developed as a result of it.

You only have to visit your local health food store to realise this; even the major supermarkets are getting on board. It’s crazy really because it’s such a ridiculously expensive, elitist and middle class way of eating. It’s hardly surprising then that so many are jumping on the bandwagon; you don’t get an industry unless there’s money to be made, not only for the wellness bloggers and the many lifestyle coaches, but all the many companies making “healthy” food products to profiteer where they can.

The question is, do all these people and companies who are leading the clean eating/living industry really have your best interests at heart? Are they practicing what they preach? Is it really about being healthy and increasing your sense of wellbeing on all levels, or is it all about the physicality and losing weight and buying into (i.e. spending yet more cash on) the notion of the perfect figure (generally thin, green-juice drinking, chia-shot loving, yoga/Pilates practicing, perfect images of health) and continuously reinforcing the message that you’re not ok unless you too look like this?

As a society, does it really help us to put other people (many of whom we have never met) onto pedestals because they’ve sold us the idea that they have found the way to good health (and have the business/body to prove it)? Furthermore, is it really helping us to continuously give our power away to those who give the impression that they know more about our very own bodies than we know, as if we are all the same?  And finally is it healthy that those with very few nutritional qualifications or experience encourage others to make major changes to their way of eating and give up major food groups without truly knowing how that’s going to affect their health and indeed wellbeing in the future?

Now I’ll be honest, there are certain food groups that don’t agree with me, but I’ve learned this for myself over the years under the guidance of professional nutritionists and doctors, and through my own personal study. For example, dairy makes my fingers swell and makes me feel yucky inside, my body’s way of saying no, but this is just me, others couldn’t live without it.  I avoid sugar where I can because I know it plays havoc with my blood sugar levels, hormonal levels and resulting moods, and can make me feel depressed. But that said I absolutely adore dark chocolate and am rather partial to fresh seeded bread covered with my Mum’s homemade loganberry jam, yum yum!

I choose not to eat meat, although there have been times when I’ve needed it.  I refused a blood transfusion following the birth of my son and decided to heal myself nutritionally instead so I ate a whole heap of iron-rich foods including organic beef over the course of a few months and it worked, my iron levels eventually restored themselves to a normal level. I eat a whole heap of vegetables and fruit, nuts, pulses (I am a humus fiend!), fish and organic eggs and I like to drink black tea first thing in the morning. There are times when I eat things, which don’t make me feel brilliant so I try to avoid them next time; it’s an ongoing process of discovery, which changes over time!

Yet these days, people are making huge changes to their diets without having any idea of the impact, at least long term that it is going to have on them.  And the trouble is a lot of these wellness bloggers and lifestyle coaches who are handing out the advice are not professionally qualified.  You can obtain a diploma in nutrition in under 20 hours, and for £29 you can become a raw food nutritionist with a certificate to prove it.  But do these quick courses (such a reflection of our quick society) really provide you with the experience, knowledge and indeed wisdom to help others beyond merely losing a few pounds?

It makes me laugh really. There are wellness bloggers promoting the potato only diet and the banana diet and those recovering from eating disorders promoting the raw food vegan diet.  I mean come on.  Aren’t we stepping into dangerous territory here?  Well it seems that I am not alone in questioning this. Certainly concern has been expressed amongst nutritionists and eating disorder specialists who are witnessing an increase in orthorexia (the need to control one’s eating) and the role that the current clean eating trend is playing in this.

I know only too well how easy it is to try and mask an eating disorder behind current trends in dieting. I developed an eating disorder when I was 17 years old.  I starved myself to lose weight because I wanted greater control in my life and because I believed I was not good enough as I was, a perfectionist who was not perfect enough as it seemed (to me). My periods stopped and my parents grew increasingly concerned as I spent my days counting calories and finding ways to avoid eating, while also trying to exercise excessively.  There were a number of trips to the doctor and an appointment with a psychologist, but the damage had been done.

That same year I went away to University and lost control of starving myself and started a ridiculous binge and starve cycle instead, which went on for many years and was utterly exhausting.  I was constantly consumed with what I was eating and would exercise as much as I could, and went to ridiculous and dangerous steps to control my weight.  It was inevitably a form of self-harm now I think back, I absolutely did not like myself and the media simply served to re-inforce this with its emphasis on “skinniness equals perfection equals happiness”.

My negative relationship with food went on for far too many depressing years.  If I was seemingly in control (ha!) then I was relatively happy (or so I thought) but inevitably I would lapse and then I would be filled with utter self loathing and absolutely hate myself.  It was perhaps no surprise that I ended up with bad PMS (what with the disruption to my hormones with all the up and down blood sugar levels and the loss of connection to my natural cycle and my body’s wisdom), cysts on my ovaries (as something ate away at me from that trigger point at age 17) and depression (a complete loss of spirit).

It wasn’t until my mid twenties that I knew something had to change.  I had found my way, thankfully, out of a destructive relationship, and whilst those days were particularly dark, they helped to ease me slowly into the light.  I started running, I guess I was processing and trying to run my life forwards at the time, and it worked because I ended up running the London Marathon, which was life changing in more ways than one.

As a result of running the marathon my body was a bit of a mess, and someone suggested I try yoga.  I already knew that yoga was recommended for PMS and depression, but I just hadn’t manged to find my way to a class.  This was the prompt I needed and one evening my brother and I attended a class here in Guernsey and the rest, as they say, is history because I was hooked immediately. There was just something about yoga that made me feel better somehow and I wanted more of it.

It was through the yoga classes that I met my Reiki Master who brought Reiki into my life, which was truly life changing for me too, and gave me the courage to start addressing the issues I had been carrying around for years. I was still in denial about the eating disorder but I knew I needed to do something nutritionally, if not only to help initially with the PMS and depression. So I started seeing a local qualified and experienced nutritionist who was brilliant, I cannot recommend her enough.  She was very no nonsense and prescribed an eating plan and supplements, which made an incredible difference to how I felt, I couldn’t believe it!

Until that point, despite being a competitive sportswoman and being fed well by my Mum (when I’d eat it!), I had no idea about good nutrition. I ate what I ate depending on what I felt it would do to my weight, as opposed to what I felt it would do for my health. It was incredible really, to finally understand that much of my PMS symptoms were due to my restricted diet, and I came to realise that we are truly what we eat, and with that there was a huge shift in my relationship with food.

However, an eating disorder doesn’t just go away over night and I was still very much in denial that I even had one, or at least the degree to which I had one.  It levelled out a lot with the discovery of good nutrition, Reiki and yoga, and for the first time in many, many years my weight stabilised and I was eating well and feeling better because of it. But of course there were still trigger points and the yoga world is full of students with eating disorders – the focus on the body in Western yoga inevitably attracts those who have body issues.

A year after discovering yoga I gave up my job, sold my house, left my boyfriend and took myself off to Byron Bay in Australia to immerse myself in yoga.  I had visited Byron on a whim a few years earlier and there was something about that beautiful healing town that was calling me back.  It was one of those trips that was absolutely meant to be and within the course of 3 months I learned an awful lot about yoga and healing and knew with absolute certainty that I wanted to further my training as a teacher and share my passion of yoga and healing with others.

However, there was a downside.  I was surrounded by skinny yoginis, Byron was full of them, and I wanted to be a proper yoga practitioner which in my perfectionist head meant that I needed to be light and lean and ever so bendy and stretchy on my mat like those around me. I started practicing 6 hours of yoga a day and eating a very minimal vegan diet like so many others were eating out there.  Inevitably I lost weight and I loved the feeling of being light and the fact my clothes were hanging off me – it’s a control thing, and I got a kick out of the control, even though it was counter productive because the moment I lost control I loathed myself all over again. It is a very vicious cycle.

Back home in Guernsey it was challenging to sustain my new weight; it was winter for a start and I was back in the office working to save money to go off on my travels again so I could not indulge in 6 hours of yoga or all the exercising I had been doing with cycling around Byron and swimming in the sea.  It wasn’t easy and I began to loathe myself again as I re-developed the whole binge-starve thing. I now associated Byron and yoga with being skinny.

So it was with some joy that I returned to Byron for my 7-week teacher training course, followed by a few months of training with the same yoga school I had trained previously. I started off eating my normal diet during the training, it was incredibly demanding and intense and I was cycling backwards and forwards to the centre every day, but it didn’t take me long to be influenced by other people’s diets. One of the ladies involved in the training (who was very skinny) was a raw food expert and she was keen for us to explore this diet.

So I gave it a go. There are many benefits to a raw food diet in terms of the vibrancy of the food, but I wasn’t necessarily following it for that, I just wanted an excuse to eat less and lose weight in the process. The perfectionist in me was always looking for new ways of challenging myself to be perfect and here was one – see whether I could exist on raw food alone.  It was another trigger, another thing to obsess about.  It didn’t help that I was living with a couple who were vegans, so I had that pressure too.

The lady who introduced me to raw food was also very much into juicing and at the end of the training I joined her on a 5-day juice fast.  Well actually while I undertook a 5-day juice fast she undertook a 10-day water fast, she was very much into all this fasting for healing – it was only later I discovered that she suffered with bulimia. This was a major trigger point for me – the challenge of actually not eating. Wow, you can just imagine how great I felt about myself when I achieved this!  And actually I did feel great, you get this incredible energy if you juice beyond 3 days, but it wasn’t healthy for me, because it led to months of me not eating properly.

Following the juicing I decided to give a fruit-only diet a go and existed for a good two months or so just on a few bowls of fruit a day and an awful lot of soya chai!  I felt great, well so I thought.  Great because I was full on in the grips of controlling myself, I was the skinniest I’d ever been, I could leap around my mat really easily and I looked the part of the yoga teacher (or how I thought a yoga teacher should look, it’s nonsense by the way, a yoga teacher should look like they look, there is absolutely no requisite to be skinny!!).

The truth was, I couldn’t sleep at night and was running on some pretty crazy energy.  My adrenals were probably pushed to their limits what with all the caffeine, and then the yoga, cycling around town and swimming I was doing.  Further, my mind was utterly consumed with my weight.  It wasn’t healthy in the slightest.  Again, I was in total denial that I had an issue, I was really in the depths of it, I mean deep down I knew I had a problem, but I was a few years away from really addressing it and doing something about it.

I returned home to Guernsey after 5 months significantly depleted, totally ungrounded, and the skinniest I’d been for an awfully long time.  With this weight loss and all the rather yang yoga my periods stopped – I blamed the yoga rather than the diet, I really didn’t want to accept that I was harming myself again through a combination of the two!   I thought I was just doing what I felt other yoga teachers did – eating a simple (ha, very simple) Sattvic (pure) diet to enhance my spirituality. Silly when I reflect back, but that’s the nature of the mind, it’s tricky!

I set about trying to balance my hormones again and it was through this that I came to meet my Ayurvedic doctor, a lovely Sri Lankan lady, whose down to earth approach has always resonated with me. Ayurveda uses elemental medicine which means that they balance out earth, fire, water, air and ether in the body.  These are divided into three doshas; Vata, Pitta and Kapha, which are the basis of a person’s constitution and also the factors that can create imbalances.  Ayurveda places great emphasis on nutrition, lifestyle, yoga, meditation, massage and herbal medicines to bring a person back to health and keep them there.

The Ayurvedic doctor prescribed a nourishing and nutritionally balanced way of eating that would suit my natural constitution, which, on the whole, I still follow today. She also gave me some herbal medicine to take and I attended the clinic for some treatments, all of which were aimed at healing the root cause of the imbalance. I complemented this treatment with an awful lot of healing work and digging deep to get to the root cause of the problem, which I did.

I actually did a Brandon Bays, “The Journey” session, which took me back to age 17 and I was amazed, and yet not surprised, to discover the reason the eating disorder had taken root in the first place. This helped enormously and over time the combination of treatments certainly shifted how I felt, my periods started again, my PMS eased, my depression lifted, my cysts healed, my lifestyle changed, my heart lightened and gradually I came back to feeling whole again (I was kind and positive to myself finally), albeit mindful – as I shall no doubt always be - of trigger points.

And I can’t help thinking that this new clean eating is a trigger point for so many, a way to exert yet more false control over their busy and seemingly out of control lives, and buy into the need to be “slim to be happy” energy that pervades our culture, while masking it as “healthy”. I don’t know that there’s anything particularly healthy about eliminating main food groups from your diet unless there is a medical reason to do so.  I’m also not sure it’s particularly healthy to buy into yet another industry that promises you health and wellbeing and yet doesn’t appreciate, or make allowances, for the fact that we are all different.

The Deliciously Ella craze is a classic example of this.  It fascinated me how everyone went Deliciously-Ella-mad so I bought her book, not least because there are some interesting recipes in it, but because I was intrigued to see how it would make me feel. Well aside from it costing a small fortune to buy all the rather expensive ingredients required to eat a clean diet, after a few weeks I noticed that I wasn’t feeling very good. Not at all.

In fact, I felt sluggish and damp and my moods changed and it was perhaps not surprising that I then ended up with thrush and a general feeling of irritation. So I took myself back to my Ayurvedic doctor for some magic herbs to help to raise my digestive fire and I got stuck back into the Ayurvedic way of eating to help my body get well again. I can safely say that while the Ella diet clearly works for Ella, it is absolutely not for my body, nor for my bank balance for that matter either!

At the end of the day, I can’t help thinking that it’s all about balance and eating real foods that support your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, you know foods that have been grown in the sunshine, with water and good soil and make you feel good. I don’t believe you should eat something just because some wellness blogger or lifestyle coach has told you it’s good for you – only you will be able to tell if it has a positive effect, and you need to be truly honest with yourself here and drop right into your body’s wisdom – it’s a potentially empowering process.

I also don’t know that it is healthy to substitute one ingredient for a perceived “healthier” alternative. These days the health food shops and supermarkets are full of “free from” options, and they say that 1 in 3 are now buying these products.  But are they actually any good for your health and wellbeing or do they just make you feel like you’re eating the supposed “right” things? It’s all very well replacing refined sugar with a supposed healthier sugar substitute, but shouldn’t you just be reducing your sugar intake full stop, rather than buying expensive alternatives that have little nutritional benefit?

I mean everyone’s gone coconut oil mad but we probably shouldn’t forget that it’s still a saturated fat and then there’s cold pressed juice and the whole juicing thing, but again let us not forget that this is still a concentrated (and not very nutritious) source of sugar.  Let alone all the protein bars and fruit bars now for sale and don’t even get me started on those aimed at children. Why don’t we just eat some fruit and nuts, you know, real food that hasn’t been processed in some factory and thus contains very little life force.

But please don’t do that just because I’ve written it here.  I can assure you that I don’t know the way, I only know now what works best for me and even that changes depending on where I am at in my menstrual cycle, or whether I am pregnant or breastfeeding, busy or travelling or its summer or winter, or whatever other else is going on in my life at any given time and influences my health and wellbeing. It’s been some journey to get to this point, but it’s helped me to learn a lot in the process and I would encourage you to do your own learning from your own body for your own body.

It’s not easy I know, media constantly bombards us with images of how society thinks we should look to feel a certain way, but ultimately it’s all rubbish, it’s what’s on the inside that matters and developing a healthy relationship with yourself and your body.  That’s why body based practices like yoga can be so helpful. Over time and with practice they can help us to connect with our body on a deeper level and realise that our wellbeing is not only dependant on the physical. At the end of the day, we’re all perfect manifestations of the Divine, we just need to realise this, and eat what we need to eat to support our own health and wellbeing.

Ayurveda - removing obstacles!

So I returned home from 3 days of wonderful Ayurvedic treatments to find Elijah weaned. Just like that. No drama. No tears.  Nothing.  All that questioning I did about breastfeeding or not breastfeeding and it was done just like that.

Admittedly the first thing he said at the airport upon seeing me was "nooners", his word for Mama's milk, before showing greater interest in the "Welcome to Guernsey" booklets than at me at all!

Back home a little while later he asked again and I told him that I thought Mama's milk would not taste quite the same after Mama's treatments and he lay down to feed but must have got a sense that something had changed, or maybe I smelt different, or maybe he just decided, "nah, I'm done with this", because all of a sudden he moved away from me, no drama, no milk.

And that was that.  I put him to bed that night without feeding him to sleep easy peasy.  And he slept through until 3.30am, which is unheard of.  In fact the silly thing is I kept waking up waiting to hear him cry for me!

Things are a changing. And gently too.  As I always intended. Just not in the way I intended. But isn't that always the case! Note to self - remember to get out of your own way, stop being the obstacle. Ha! Funny really that I should have found myself practicing a whole 2 hour yoga session in honour of Ganesha with Stewart Gilchirst only a few or so ago now, see there is some benefit in sweating and surrendering in front of this deity (not that one realises it at the time!).

That Ayurveda is truly wonderful.  I can highly recommend it. I thoroughly enjoyed all 9 hours of delicious treatments with all manner of oils and pastes in a wonderfully warm and womb-like room with gentle and ambient music played in the background so that I feel clean on the inside and out and with renewed energy and clarity. And a happy weaned son!

To me, Ayurveda is truly inspiring, the most ancient and authentically recorded health system in history, over 5,000 years old, it was created by yogis who spent their lives studying nature and the human condition. 

Meaning “the science of life” it is exactly that, viewing health in four dimensions of physical, sensory, mental and spiritual and is centred on preventative medicine and bringing a person back to balance.  It shows how an imbalance in one part of a person’s being will affect them in another, i.e. if a person isn’t being true to their life path (dharma) then physical and mental illnesses can arise which cannot be effectively treated with modern medicines but can be helped by Ayurveda.

Ayurveda uses elemental medicine which means that they balance out earth, fire, water, air and ether in the body.  These are divided into three doshas, Vata, Pitta and Kapha, which are the basis of a person’s constitution and also the factors that can create imbalances. 

Ayurveda places great emphasis on diet, lifestyle, yoga, meditation, massage and herbal medicines to bring a person back to health and keep them there - and health, to quote from the Ayurvedic Health Home in Kathmandu, Nepal (where I stayed many years ago now) is “a dynamic process, an inner joyfulness, like a flow of the river or a breeze of the wind.

Dr Deepika was recommended to me about 10 years ago now from a London-based friend I met on a yoga retreat in Bali and I have seen her a number of times ever since.  I usually know when I need to see her because life has lost its flow or I am feeling a little out of sorts and usually my pitta gets deranged so that I start really pushing myself and getting angry and my skin isn't great and the thoughts are all consuming!

I have been feeling like this for a good old while, perhaps not surprising off the back of the IVF drugs, but also on some level, I suspect I was probably just exhausted by the feeding and also feeling a pressure to stop and angry at my inability to make a decision about it...the body has been trying to tell me for some time, but one can be ever so stubborn an caught in one's mind!! 

Still we get where we need to be, even if we do make it a whole heap more challenging for ourselves in the process. And actually that is where Elijah is by far my greatest teacher, so much wiser than me, because he decided he wants to stop feeding and that's it, done and dusted...whereas I have been thinking about it way too much and giving it far too much energy and holding on to it...aren't children just amazing the way they just move on..."move on Mama", I can hear him say.

I am so grateful to Dr Deepika for sharing her gift, she certainly helps me (and others I know!) to keep our feet on the ground.  And to Elijah for making me laugh at myself and my ridiculous resistance to change - despite praying for it (and more sleep in a gentle manner, no crying it out for us) on the other hand! It seems that grace works in ways beyond our control (and ability to control the process to reach an outcome), we are our own obstacle hey, thank you then Ganesha, Remover of all Obstacles. Ha!!

http://www.theayurvedicclinic.com/dr-deepika-rodrigo

Love and gratitude!

xx