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.

The fairy world by Emma

"There is nothing as magical as
gentle water full of life,
with fairies dancing in its light.
They twinkle and sparkle
with a fluttering too
like little drops of rain
on a parched land, phew.
There is no greater joy for me.
than witnessing nature playing
so soulfully.
It tickles the heart and lifts the spirit
to know that the fairy world really
does exist."

Blooming in Brighton

Well the sickness has now completely gone (queue little dance) and I’m feeling more myself again, (hoorah), I even have some energy and apparently I’m blooming a little too!  Pregnancy is a bit funny like that, or at least it has been for me; of course you’re delighted to be pregnant but initially you feel absolutely awful, like you have been turned inside out, hung upside down and had the very life drained from you so that you just feel blur and urgh and pretty yucky too and wonder what on earth you’ve done to yourself, and then slowly, slowly, you start to come back to life again.

It reminds me of the lotus flower in the dregs of the murky and dark pond, weighed down with the dirt, struggling to see the light. And yet, like the lotus flower, you grow and begin emerging from the depth of the pond, shaking off the mud so that you begin to feel a little lighter and brighter and more yourself again. And then finally you start blooming as the lotus flower does, a rebirth then, and you get this lovely pregnancy glow with shinier hair and a better complexion than you’ve ever had and you get this beautiful little bump that makes you realise, wow, you’re pregnant and you have this life growing inside you; it’s amazing!

However, what’s even more amazing is when you start feeling the movement of the growing baby so that it becomes even more real, not just an energy you can sense with your hands, but a real live moving individual with an energy system and body all of their own. I guess it was around 17-18 weeks when I started feeling the first few fluttering’s, like little air bubbles low down in my tummy, and the occasional kicking sensation. I was expecting it to be more intense, simply because my memories of Elijah in utero are of him constantly kicking, and funnily enough he is still an incredibly active non-stop little creature.

So I guess it was some relief to have the 20-week scan and be re-assured that everything looks okay well as much as they can tell at this stage. With Elijah this scan was a horrible experience, simply because it confirmed that I had full grade placenta previa, which meant that the placenta was covering the birth canal so a vaginal delivery would have resulted in the potential death of me and the baby, so that ruled out my dream of the home birth, which was incredibly upsetting after such a clinical conception. Fortunately, this time around, while the placenta is still lying low, it is just out of the 2.5cm danger zone, which is a relief, and no, we didn’t find out the sex!

The kicking really began in earnest last weekend at 21 weeks, when we were in Brighton and I was attending yoga classes at the Brighton Buddhist Centre.  As soon as I lay down in Savasana for the first class the kicking started and I couldn’t help thinking that there was something about the energy in that beautifully peaceful centre which was resonating with the little life growing inside me.  The energy was certainly resonating with me, it’s a fabulous place and I like the teaching style of the teachers with whom I took classes and would encourage you to get there if you happen to find yourself in Brighton.

One of the classes was really chilled out and made me realise how inherently tired I still felt – sadly the second trimester may be a blooming time for most women but it is also not without its challenges. Firstly, sleep has become an issue, not least due to the numerous trips to the toilet, but also because the weight of the baby makes my back ache and I can’t sort the combination of pillows needed to support this and enable sleep - It’s getting a little ridiculous really as the bed is disappearing under the weight of pillows and I hope I can sort out an effective system soon because I need all the sleep I can get ahead of the arrival of the baby!

Secondly, there are lots of little niggles in so much as the baby is obviously growing and my tummy is having to expand to accommodate this, and while it’s done it once before so the skin stretching is not as uncomfortable as it was the first time around – back then my skin was incredibly itchy and at times desperately uncomfortable as scar tissue from previous abdominal surgery had to stretch to accommodate the growing bump - it still feels that there isn’t enough room for the baby and all I want to do is leap up into a backbend and stretch it all out properly!

 And then there’s the dreaded pregnancy indigestion, which seems to be worse when I’m sitting at a desk.  I don’t remember it arriving quite so early last time around, although I do remember it being quite a bane, especially towards the end when I had to resort to Gaviscon to provide some relief from that horrible acidic feeling in my throat. And then lastly there’s the water retention, which I’ve had a few times in the office, when my legs feel like they may pop with the pressure and all I want to do is put my legs up the wall and settle into Viparita Karani, which is exactly what I do when I get home; it’s a real joy this pregnancy malarkey, blooming or no blooming!!!

 Still one of my passion’s in life is attending yoga classes with different teachers and I absolutely loved the different approaches to yoga of both Vidyadasa and Kevin at the Brighton Buddhist Centre, and felt that the classes helped to deepen my own practice – it’s so easy to fall into bad habits practicing on your own at home and attending classes with the same teacher all the time, especially if that teacher isn’t developing their own practice. I love being in a class environment too and the busier the better as far as I’m concerned as I get a kick out of the group energy – Ewan says it’s a little like I’m on drugs as I’m on a bit of a high after a good class!

I was certainly on a high much of the weekend and particularly on the Saturday as I went from a marvellous mindful class with Kevin straight to the Brighton Yoga Festival, which took place in the Brighton Dome. It’s a really marvellous building, although we didn’t get much time to appreciate it as we were on a tight schedule and it was ever so busy, yoga is certainly incredibly popular in Brighton and the festival was packed out with enthusiastic yogis and yoginis, which was all a little overwhelming for Elijah!

Still, Elijah’s Godfather, Charles, and I managed to squeeze ourselves, quite literally, into a class with Vidyadasa all about embodying principles in yoga.  It was only a thirty-minute class but it was very fascinating, offering a completely different approach to practice and encouraged us to consider what we stand up for in our life and how we literally stand up for this.  As the teacher pointed out, it’s very easy to stand up for gay rights in a city like Brighton, but do you still stand up for it in a fascist state.

It really got me thinking about how much we truly stand up for something we believe in, and whether our actions reflect our sentiments – perhaps we think we stand up for the environment and yet still travel the world increasing our carbon imprint and don’t recycle to the extent we could, or perhaps we believe in preventing cruelty to animals and yet still eat meat thathasn’t been farmed humanely or with any care for the environment.  It certainly made me question what I truly believe in and how I’m living my life and the conflicts within that. Sadly, I’m not whiter than white and I do feel that the class, and standing for a few minutes in Tadanasa (mountain pose), trying to embody what I stand up for, made me wake up a little to the way I live my life and how I embody my principles and live authentically (or not!).

It was a bit coincidental too really, as I was reading a book over that weekend called “The Soul of Money” by Lynne Twist that addressed this issue of standing up for something.  She writes, “I like to say that when we make a stand, we can move the world – the world of ideas and people who act on them. Taking a stand is a way of living and being that draws on a place within yourself that is at the very heart of who you are. When you take a stand, it gives you authenticity, power, and clarity. You find your place in the universe and you have the capacity to move the world”.

I also found it incredibly powerful to consider what we would like to receive and say “yes” to in our life and how we embody this.  Do we really stand and offer our hands out as if we really are worthy of receiving, or do we do it half-heartedly thinking that we are ready to receive, but underneath it all, on some level we’re not sure because we’re much more comfortable giving, or perhaps we don’t think we have any right to receive anything at all?  It’s interesting, certainly seeing how we embody all this, feel and represent it then, in body rather than simply in our heads.

And the same can be said of saying “no”.  What do we want to say “no” to in our life and can we say this without being aggressive, defensive and angry, can we simply say “no”, “we don’t tolerate this or that in our life” be it someone looking at your child in a not-so-normal-way or someone littering the road or whatever it may be?  Can we say “no” and truly mean it, stand up for our choice/right to say “no” and embody it neutrally, without all the emotional stuff that can accompany a “no”. 

Already crammed into the small room, Charles and I stayed on for a Loving Kindness meditation with Vidyadasa too. Metta bhavana, or loving-kindness meditation, is a method of developing compassion. It comes from the Buddhist tradition, but it can be adapted and practiced by anyone, regardless of religious affiliation; loving-kindness meditation is essentially about cultivating love.  It’s a potentially powerful practice too if practiced regularly and can really shift your relationship with yourself others.

You are encouraged to reflect on someone for whom you have unconditional loving kindness, generally not a partner, but perhaps a friend or an elder, and you may repeat some phrases for this person: “may she be safe and protected…” while breathing in and out of your heart centre. You then reflect on someone to whom you are neutral, such as someone you pass on the street each day, and then to someone you have difficulty with, or hostilities and repeat the same phrases, also breathing from the heart space. It’s really rather marvellous and I would encourage you to have a go if you get the chance.

After the classes we wandered around the festival itself and chanced upon “The Real Junk Food Project”. This is a national and international movement of cafes, projects and pop-ups with one core objective – to intercept food waste destined for landfill and use it to feed people who need it, on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis. Did you know that a third of food produced globally is wasted? And yet there’s an estimated 795 million people who do not get enough to eat. In the UK, 2 million people are estimated to be malnourished, while the UK as a whole creates an estimated 15 million tonnes of food waste each year.  That’s insane!!!

So the Project uses food that was previously thought of as ‘surplus’ to feed people who may have otherwise gone hungry. It also works on a ‘pay as you feel’ concept, so you pay depending on what you can afford and how much that food means to you. Its genius really. Sadly, the Project cannot intercept ‘surplus’ from all the supermarkets as it is not a registered charity and does not have the appropriate insurance, which would be very costly. This seems a bit crazy, that perfectly eatable food gets dumped simply because there’s no insurance in place to give it to others to turn it into yummy and healthy meals for those who go without – the world’s gone mad with business and financial gain and I long for compassion and common sense to weave its way in.

In any event, after all that practicing, meditating and introductions to knew ideas and ways of living, I did truly feel awakened, as did the life growing inside me who has been kicking and moving with renewed vigour ever since!  Ewan, Charles and I all managed to get in the sea a couple of times over the weekend, it was surprisingly warmer in Brighton than here in Guernsey albeit a little windy and messy, but this certainly helped ground all the energy, and we happened across some fabulous vegan food and some really yummy raw chocolate, so I was feeling a little inspired by all Brighton has to offer.

Heck and I haven’t even mentioned all those fabulously delightful crystal shops and the joy that is North Laine.  Oh my gosh poor little Elijah, we had a morning to ourselves, he and I, and after spending time at this brilliant outdoor paddling pool and sandpit area, I carried him into North Laine with me to do some crystal shopping.  After investing in a few crystals that called to both of us – I always ask him to choose one or two – we were about to walk into perhaps the third crystal shop when he said, “but Mummy already has a lot of crystals”. That woke me up from my crystal daze, at 2.5 years old he can be rather wise and he’s right of course, there’s only so many crystals one needs in one ‘s life!

The finale of the weekend was attending The Smugglers Trail folk festival, which was a small affair in the grounds of a country home on the outskirts of the city.  It’s an Arts Council England supported travelling eco-festival focusing on sustainability and folk and roots music. They aim to showcase radical ideas around local food and green energy in a fun and family friendly environment bringing together activists, campaigners, artists and musicians.

I loved it, it resonated with my entire being, wandering around barefoot, listening to some fabulous music, sipping chai and a little elderflower champagne, smelling the glorious frankincense and rose aromatherapy combo, connecting with two lovely Earth mothers and their sons, Forrest and Obie, and managing the resulting conflict of Elijah sharing his precious Pooh bear and dumper truck with them. I also loved being surrounded by people who are truly standing up for their beliefs, living in an authentic, gentle and grounded way.

 So you could say that I arrived home invigorated, awakened and inspired to start living my life from a more authentic, gentle and truthful perspective too. So while our inherited Bengali cat challenges me on every level with his scratching and destruction of toilet rolls and his general naughtiness, I see him now as an opportunity to truly embrace my love of all animals rather than constantly moaning at him for being a real pain…and I’m making a concerted effort to consider the manner in which my actions impacts on the environment, and whether I say no when I mean yes and yes when I mean no, and standing up for what I truly believe in and considering our wastage…

 At the end of the day I’m very aware that it starts with us. And it starts now. Not tomorrow, not after this or after that, but in this very moment. With me and with you, with each of us being awake and conscious and taking responsibility for this beautiful world we live in and yet are destroying with all our unconscious and, at times, selfish, decision making and action. And it’s not just about talking about it that will make the difference, although that can help to wake people up a little, but it’s about embodying and living it. As Gandhi said, “be the change you’d like to see in the world”. My little kicking new life is certainly kicking me into action; it’s the blooming you see, lotus coming out of the mud and all that that reveals; I’m making the most of it before the third trimester wilting!

The Sark Folk Festival and Nesting!

At sixteen weeks, just like a light switch being switched, the sickness disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and life returned to some semblance of normality again, whatever that is! Well for two weeks at least, because strangely, at eighteen weeks, that familiar nausea sensation returned, albeit not as all consuming as it had been previously, thankfully.

It coincided with us attending the Sark Folk Festival so I concluded that it was probably due to this. But sadly it has continued a little ever since.  Hormones. Or perhaps tiredness.  Because let’s face it, festival-ling is exhausting at the best of times, let alone when you’re pregnant and have a toddler in tow, and you’re cycling everywhere!

It was a strange weekend really. My parents were meant to accompany us for the first night, but they had to cancel at the last minute.  This was a real shame, although it did mean that we were kindly given their room at Stocks, one of the few hotels on Sark and a very lovely and indeed expensive one at that.  It was an absolute treat for us really, most definitely the highlight of the weekend (thank you Mum and Dad!).

Not only was it lovely to chill out at the hotel before the festival on the Friday, but it was really rather amazing to cycle back there with Elijah that early evening freezing cold and tired, and enjoy such un-expected festival luxury - a warm, clean and comfortable room, the opportunity to make endless cups of tea at the flick of a button (rather than having to boil water on the campsite!), take a shower and lie back on that huge bed, all the while knowing my poor friends were camping in a field instead (tee hee, sorry Vic!)

Waking the next morning was pretty amazing too; it’s blissfully peaceful at the hotel, not a sound in the air, well aside from our squeals as we attempted to make the most of the outdoor swimming pool, albeit the air temperature at 14 degrees at that stage! But we warmed up with a free breakfast and all in all I managed to squeeze in four showers while we were staying there, not just because I have an OCD shower thing but because I was at a festival and I could. Ha!

The weather was a little challenging over the weekend to say the least, the intense wind grew very waring and the air temperature was much cooler than you would expect at this time of year. Plus, the rain arrived, which I guess is part and parcel of festival-ling but an irritation nonetheless! Still we managed to go ahead with the pre-planned festival yoga classes and I’m very grateful to those who made the effort to attend.

The Saturday class was a particular highlight as I was joined by a number of yogis and yoginis on the bottom field, near to the hedge, which provided some relief from the incessant wind, and provided incredible views out to sea and of Guernsey in the distance. It doesn’t get much better than that, a yoga class with a view and a yoga class in the great outdoors too. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, spending time in nature is essential, in my humble opinion, for the happiness of our soul. It makes us feel alive. 

And practicing yoga in the elements like this, on uneven earth – the real earth with all its energy and earthiness – in the sunshine, with the wind blowing against our skin and the sound of the birds and the insects crawling on us, well it doesn’t get more special, more uplifting for the soul, than this. I certainly felt better for it, and it’s always lovely to share yoga outdoors like this.

The Sunday morning the weather was not so kind and I was amazed that so many braved the wet weather to join me for a class back on the earth, in the corner of the two main tents, with a lovely man playing his music and singing his songs on one of the stages and the sound guys setting up for ‘Big Sheep’ (I LOVE this band) on the other, so that voice projection was a bit of an issue. But we still managed a good forty minutes of yoga to stretch away the aches and pains from the camping and all the cycling and walking.  Nothing like yoga at a festival to make the spirit shine!

I’m not so sure that camping on the Saturday made the spirit shine though. Returning to our tent at La Valette campsite that Saturday lunchtime from Stock’s was a bit of a low point, what with the intense winds blowing across the field so that it was really rather unpleasant, and indeed cold, sitting outside! And I don’t know who I was kidding thinking that we could get Elijah to take his lunchtime nap in a tent. It was bright, hot and very noisy what with all the wind.  He looked at me, laughed and proceeded to jump around on the airbeds, what fun, Mummy and Daddy had brought a trampoline along camping with them!!

So we thought we’d get him to sleep out on the bikes, but our tractor-crazy son just laughed at us again as he pointed out all the tractors and the bumpy roads and all the tractor and bike tracks on the roads itself – this funny boy is also obsessed by tracks, utterly obsessed.  Sigh. We had a lovely cycle around the Island however, albeit the wind making it a bit of a mission and a little chilly at that so that it was actually quite a relief to return to our hot and bright tent, even with the now-hyper-child-who-was-missing-a-nap in tow!

Typically, he fell asleep on the way back to the festival that later afternoon, a massive ‘no. no’ in the world of napping, and he napped his way through the next hour or so while we sat in one of the tents, enjoying the relief of finally escaping the wind and hearing some music in the background - mind you not that the music was appreciated by my fellow festival-goers this year.  While Elijah found the music too loud the others concluded that folk music was just not their thing, which was a bit of a pity as I love it!!

So while our friends drank their way through the festival, all Elijah wanted to do was get outside and hang around the tractors parked up around the side of the field.  This was not what I had had in mind when I booked the tickets for the weekend, I had hoped for a lot more sitting around watching, and perhaps a little dancing to, music rather than standing around checking out the tractors in the freezing cold wind but one does what one does – I’m going on my own next year though!

We returned to the campsite that evening with a sense of resignation. After a night in Stock’s it was a little disappointing to say the least, although there was a positive because it was a lovely evening and we were on our own to enjoy it.  So while Elijah played with his toy tractor making tracks along, well the track, I took myself off to the bench on the edge of the cliff by the Lighthouse to enjoy the solitude and tranquillity of being all on my own and watching nature unfold before my very eyes, bliss.

All three of us were in bed before darkness had fallen, and I laugh when I reflect back on this now, because E and I were exhausted and desperate to go to sleep and just get on with it, the night in the tent that is, but Elijah was having none of it and was bouncing and jumping around having lots of fun on his ‘trampoline’ and I was desperately trying not to chuckle as E was trying to be stern with him but Elijah just ignored him and continued jumping and giggling.

Still all good things must come to an end and finally we settled Elijah down between us and there followed a rather long night for E and I, where neither of us felt like we got any sleep what with the noise of the festival revellers returning, the discomfort of the blow-up mattress (really not very comfortable at the best of times, let alone while pregnant!) and the sound of the wind and the rain, yes rain, outside the tent. Sigh.

It was with some relief to reach 6am and feel like we could get up and get on with the day – there’s nothing quite like waking in a tent to find that there is sheet rain and fog outside, and knowing that you need to take the tent down in it however, yuck!  Still there was a positive, the queue for the shower was short as a result of this so Elijah and I managed our sixth shower of the weekend and dressed in our waterproofs (well done E for making sure we had these with us!) we took down the tent – after a cup of tea boiled on the camp stove of course!

By 9.30am it was done, tent packed, rain easing and we were back at the festival site for the Sunday morning yoga class and a few hours of music before returning home.  It was a lovely Sunday actually, the festival takes on a more leisurely pace in my opinion and we very much enjoyed – even Elijah – listening to ‘The Big Sheep’.  Still, it was good to get back home and unpack from the weekend, and take a quick dip in the sea to clear the energy of a rather lumpy boat journey and then collapse – ah yes festival-going, camping and all that outdoor air certainly got the better of me!

Still, aside from the tiredness and the nausea, returning home from the Festival heralded a new beginning for me – nesting! It just happened really.  All of a sudden I had this intense desire to bake. Now don’t get me wrong, I do go through phases where I like to bake, but within one week I’d made my first ever cheesecake which was so well received at work that I never got a chance to give it a try any, a banana loaf, two batches of fairy cakes, a French chocolate cake thing which sadly looked nothing like the one my Mum makes, some disastrous healthy oatmeal cookies (what is it with healthy cookies, they never stick together!) and those wonderfully delicious energy balls – not that they are strictly baking, more so mixing!

I’ve also gotten right back into my cooking and my ‘Deliciously Ella’ cookbook is off the book shelf and back in the kitchen again. I know she’s a bit of a cliché and everyone went a little crazy for her last year but there are some yummy recipes in there.  I particularly like the lentil and butternut squash dhal and the brazil nut, avocado and basil pesto, yum, yum!  Cravings are now back to normal again, its hummus all the way and I rather like her recipe for this. My mixer doesn’t know what’s happening, for months it has been sat there doing nothing and now it’s used at least once a day.  It’s funny how pregnancy brings out these things in us.

Nesting may have taken hold of the kitchen but sadly not the rest of the cottage itself as we have some quite major building work going on.  Two of the front rooms have been dug up for damp proofing, which means we are living in one main room with stuff all over the place and the dust, oh my gosh, I had no idea dust could travel so far!  Arghhh! It’s certainly challenging my cleaning OCD, albeit easier to maintain one main room than a whole cottage, but nonetheless, I am reminded constantly to take a deep breath in and out and let it all go…

And that really was the message of my week last week really.  All the signs were pointing to the need to let go and go with the flow.  Helped a little by a healing from a cranial-sacral session, I found that there were times where there was nothing I could do but let go, chill out, make sandcastles on the beach (when the sun’s been shining), bake cakes, enjoy yoga nidra, sit in silence, enjoy nature and try and get some sleep (Elijah dependant).  Oh and the other message, loud and clear?  To put all summer camping trips on hold for the time being!

Having a rant!

Now I’m not usually one for ranting, but this week I feel like ranting.  The weather doesn’t help, it’s the 1st July and it’s raining…again. It’s so annoying!  We – well I then – spend the majority of the year longing for the summer what with its sunshine and outdoor days, only to find that this year, summer’s decided to stay away. Pants!

But I’ve got other gripes.  One thing that’s been perplexing me this week is the whole road courtesy thing. It’s something E has taught me over the years – “pay it forward” he calls it; you know when you do a good deed without expecting anything in return. When he’s driving he repeatedly let’s people out from junctions and drive-ways so that actually I used to get really annoyed with him, “we’ll be late”, I’d stress at him as he stopped to let out the twentieth person on that particular journey.

But of course we were never late and he was just trying to help people have an easier day.  I get that now, and I try to do the same when I remember, oops, but I’ve noticed how often people are on autopilot on the roads and often don’t realise how much of a difference they could make my letting the traffic flow a little easier, allowing that person to cross the road, or letting that car get out of their drive-way. It just makes you feel a bit better knowing you’re doing something kind for someone else.

But I have to say it does slightly entertain me (for want of a better word) when you do let people out of a ‘stuck’ situation and they don’t acknowledge you in any way.  I know, I know, there’s the whole karma “giving without expectation of return” and the whole “non-attachment” to outcome thing, but it’s just polite isn’t it?!  Just a gentle wave or even a smile, just something to say thank you if you don’t mind! The trouble is there is a great sense of entitlement on the roads!

It reminds me of something a Reiki Master friend of mine said to me a few years ago.  Pre-Reiki and spiritual practice, she used to be a director of a local financial institution and felt she was very important as a result of this (her words not mine). In fact, she felt that she was so important in her role that she allowed this sense of importance to affect her actions outside of the office so that she absolutely felt that she was entitled to be let out of junctions without the need to thank anyone – ‘it’s me, of course they need to let me out’!

This sense of entitlement, this feeling of being better than everyone else seeped out into all aspects of her life but she said it showed up most on the road. She was very honest about it, because she said that this is how she measured how much her life was shifting post-finance world, and it was something she became more and more conscious of as she became, well, more and more conscious. This made me laugh, because I see this all the time, I think it’s a money/power thing, certainly in terms of the cars with the drivers who seem to think they own the roads.

This leads me on to my other gripe.  Yoga teachers who think they are better than everyone else.  You know the type.  They put themselves on some spiritual/enlightened pedestal what with their mantras, nose piercings, mala beads and tales from India. Just-qualified teachers can sometimes be the worst, but even those with years of experience can be guilty too.

It shouldn’t bother me, but it does, because it gives the impression that by teaching yoga it makes you better, wiser, more enlightened than everyone else somehow.  Rubbish, that’s just the crafty spiritual ego taking hold (hee, hee that ego shows up in many guises!).  As you become more enlightened, in theory the ego drops away, it certainly shouldn’t get more pronounced, so that really the yoga teacher becomes even more ordinary. It shouldn’t be about them in any event, its about being a channel for the Divine right, and well, we’re all Divine so we’re all one of them.

I’m also struggling with all the people trying to re-invent the wheel in an effort to change the world.  Yes, change the world, I quite agree with this, but get out of your head and into your body and embody it. I don’t much care for all the spouting of research and the intellectualising of everything (and me, an intellect of sorts!), just get on and live it.  If you want to see a kinder world, then be kinder, encourage your children to be kinder, change the world that way, not by telling everyone else that they need to do this or do that to be kinder, that’s bypassing the matter at hand.

Further, I certainly don’t need research to tell me how to parent my child.  How can some person living in some other community and culture with some other child quite different to my own, know what’s best for my child, just because her or his research shows this or that?  We have an intuition, only that our culture and educational system and indeed societal conditioning does nothing to entertain or develop this. It’s a shame, a real shame, I think we’d all be much happier if we truly knew what our own body, our own wisdom was trying to tell us from moment to moment rather than constantly giving away our power to someone else who we think knows us better than we could ever know ourselves.

If you want to change the world, then you need to change yourself simple as that.  You need to get stuck into the nitty gritty and often very dark and challenging work of getting to know yourself that little bit better, bringing your shadows to the surface, acknowledging your negative tendencies and behaviour patterns and making friends with all aspects of your being.  You need to be deeply truthful and honest if you hope to live an authentic and sincere life. Talking about it is never the same.  Preaching to others is just damn right rude, you shouldn’t need to preach, its all about action, and being a living example for others should be enough – but of course you need to embody your preaching then.

And don’t get me wrong, I know there’s been times when I too have preached, and my Mum has wasted no time in pulling me up on this. I’m not proud of those moments, but I guess it is all part of the learning experience.  Just that I notice its happening more and more these days as people try to be someone, the airy fairy ego-spiritual world is rife with it, so you have to be particularly discerning and intuitive (ha) to know the real from the unreal as the Universe throws more illusion our way.

It’s a tricky one isn’t it, but the buck stops with us, only us, and I’m certainly still working on that. Not just in terms of whether I am kind on the roads, or whether I think about where that particular disposable consumer product is sourced and how I’m going to dispose of it, or the impact of my thoughts (and choice of thoughts) in terms of the negativity or positivity that they give out to the world, but my actions and how I interact with my very own flesh and blood, whether I can be as kind to them, as understanding and indeed considerate and giving as I may be of a compete stranger, that’s often where the deepest work needs to take place.

So there we go, ranting over. Sometimes it’s good isn’t it to get it all off your chest?  Makes you feel lighter somehow, well its made me feel lighter at least. And I guess its worth remembering that we’re all just human after all aren’t we, especially us yoga teachers, ha! But perhaps consider letting that car out today and giving a wave if it’s someone else letting you out instead and I’ll do the same!