Uncover how to create an Authentic Life What do you want? Such a question may seem like an innocent enquiry, yet sadly we rarely ask ourselves. Life takes us in so many different directions that we often forget to course correct when we take a wrong turn. When I ask my clients this simple question, I am often met with silence, tears or an invitation to finally let it all out. The blank look on their faces often conveys their confusion: at the fact that someone is genuinely interested, or the realisation that they actually don’t know. The fierce rush
READ MORE →Create Positive Change Not New Years Goals… Change has to be when you are ready to change, not simply because the New Year is coming. Whether you’d like to create a specific change now, or a list of things to focus on next year, the below steps will make it easier for you to define, clarify, challenge and support yourself. 1. Define what you don’t want – it’s not negative to be clear on what you don’t want. It’s necessary in weeding out the things that you simply aren’t willing to compromise on or live with, through previous experience or personal
READ MORE →Be Grateful at Christmas It’s the season of Turkey, trifle and last minute shopping. It’s also a time for giving, receiving and being thankful: a wonderful act of gratitude that I teach my students and clients to do on a daily basis; particularly for those struggling to shift negativity. When our attention is constantly focused on the annoying, unhappy, challenging, or just plain hard aspects of our lives, a low mood and feelings of helplessness can consume us – especially at Christmas time. In this state of mind it’s all too easy to forget that whatever it is, that it will pass.
READ MORE →Assess Your Needs for Better Life Balance Are you like many of my clients – struggling to have it all AND create life balance? Life balance is an interesting term that many people use, especially when they realise that they don’t have any! Defining what life balance means, individually, can be quite difficult without first knowing your own needs and where you’re lacking in fulfilling them. The more stressed out, overwhelmed, exhausted and/or frustrated you feel at not having time for yourself to slow down and re-energise, the greater the disconnect between your mind and body – and your personal needs. I don’t think
READ MORE →Self-Love, a Retreat for the Soul Recently I hosted my 4 day Women’s Wellness and Meditation Retreat for a large group of beautiful and brave women. WOW! Awesome experience I’ve waited patiently for years to be able to create and host. Most of the ladies came from the Darling Downs; however a few travelled from New South Wales, ACT and the Sunshine Coast to be with us. These ladies were of course, all different. They ranged in ages from 27 to 66 years old. They each had a story – some quite a few. They had experienced all the modern
READ MORE →My Beautiful 40 Year Old Body For those of you wondering how my knee is healing after surgery in June, it’s been slow, especially as a secondary injury was initially overlooked. Over the years my body has faced tremendous abuse; physical, emotional and self-inflicted. I’ve been hard on myself and pushed my body to breaking point many times with several broken bones, tears and surgeries. Throughout many stressful years my weight struggled to settle because of the severe restriction, starvation and binge/purge episodes I put it through for 18 years. My hormones, metabolism and digestion broke down several times. I
READ MORE →Slow Down, Do More Do you feel like you’re always on the run trying to get ‘stuff’ done? Always feeling a little behind, like there’s no time to catch up? Do you regularly feel or have thoughts that you’re overwhelmed, stressed, rushed and hurried, and never have time for yourself? In our modern fast-paced world, life balance is a major problem that we all struggle to maintain. I’m certainly no exception to this. There are just so many things I want to do, experience, create and share but there never seems enough time for all of it. I know many of
READ MORE →Creating Healthy Boundaries Imagine you KNOW that you’re the most important person in your life…. You wake up with energy and can’t wait to get going! You look in the mirror and love what you see! You make time to calm your mind, move your body and feed your soul – every day. You love yourself – and it shows with every thought you think, word you speak, and food choice you make. If you don’t immediately and whole-heartedly believe YOU are the most worthy and deserving person in your life, then time to reassess why, and where the bulk of your
READ MORE →Stress and Weight Wars A 2011/12 Queensland Health report revealed an average 57.3% of adults who are overweight or obese. On average, only 56.6% of adults reported getting sufficient physical activity, whilst 15.6% of adults reportedly drink alcohol every week. Eight in ten people with weight problems also suffer from chronic stress and some form of mental health issue. Why? Because our bodies react to stress and emotional trauma by packing on the pounds to protect us. When we experience stress of any kind – real or imagined – our thoughts contribute to the intensity of emotions we feel. If
READ MORE →Meditation Basics Last week I had the wonderful pleasure of having Dr Ian Gawler and his wife Ruth over to my home prior to his Toowoomba seminar on “The Science of Health, Healing and the Mind”. Together we recorded an interview for my YouTube channel over a cuppa and some raw chocolate, discussing some of our favourite topics: lifestyle medicine, mind-body healing, epigenetics, cancer recovery, psychoneuroimmunology, and of course, meditation. Throughout an evening of research and inspiration, I saw many people inspired to begin meditating after experiencing a taste of inner peace first hand. Often people are curious about meditation
READ MORE →My First Self-Love & Wellness Retreat Take Time Out Before You Burn Out Many of you who have met me in person or follow my writings know that I lost my Mother to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma when I was 24. Even though nearly 16 years have passed, her influence on my life still permeates each and every day. My mother was a most wonderfully warm woman, who never thought twice about helping anyone. She was generous and thoughtful, quick to laugh and smile and she was always ready with a helping hand or a soothing cuddle. As I meet more and more women throughout my work, I think of
READ MORE →Let go of Anger, Find Inner Peace When I was a teenager – angry, in denial, resentful and heavy hearted – my reality was believing I was the victim of mistreatment and neglect. I had no sense of personal responsibility, control or conviction. I simply modelled the coping skills of those who raised me. I learnt how to get angry, yell, scream, blame, over-react, sulk, lash out and quickly ignore matters that were too emotional to feel. After each blow up, things would go back to normal – quickly forgotten, as if they never happened. This frustrated me so much when I was left
READ MORE →Stress Less Now! Stress is now the number one underlying cause of all illness and disease in modern society. If you’re not sure what stress actually is or how it affects the body (physiologic responses) then check out my article on What is Stress that also includes 10 tips for promoting the Relaxation Response. Over-stimulation, achievement, demands, stimulus, finance and relationship challenges, children and lack of exercise…. the responsibilities all adds up. If we’re not stopping regularly to recharge our minds, bodies and spirits, then chronic stress hormones begin to damage the body and lead to illness and disease down the track. You
READ MORE →Create your confidence and build your self-image by these very simple yet life-changing daily practices. You don’t need anything fancy to begin. You simply need to start making yourself a priority in your own life and pay attention. 3 Ways to transform your confidence: 1. Write down five things you are currently grateful for. (Use the term, “I am grateful for…”.) Focus on the positive feelings that come up as you associate them with your gratitude. Read them aloud and look for new things throughout the day. 2. Look in the mirror and name out loud, five things you admire most about
READ MORE →I Remember, on Mother’s Day Many of you who have met me in person know that I lost my Mother to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma when I was 24. And even though nearly 16 years have passed, her influence on my life still permeates each and every day. My mother was a most wonderfully warm woman, who never thought twice about helping anyone. She was generous and thoughtful, quick to laugh and smile, and she was always ready with a helping hand, and a soothing rock-me-gently cuddle. One of her greatest disappointments was knowing she would not see her daughters mature into mothers, and her grand-children be born
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