Total Mind and Body Wellness

 I know, I did a lot of Halloween blogging last year, as I have done for many years, and each year inspire the same thoughts and disappointments, and each year I feel the urge to write it down to get it off my chest, and maybe each year someone reads a new blog and learns something from it and passes it on to the next generation? I'm hopeful anyway. Halloween, or Samhain as it is properly called has always been one of my favourite festivals of the wheel of the year, since I first really started to learn about the oldest belief systems. Me and my friend Sarah used an old book of mine about fortune telling at Halloween to try and divine our futures. It helped that her birthday was just before Halloween so we always had a double celebration. We didn't have pumpkins or trick or treating back in those early days, that was for Americans who didn't know better, and now sadly those Americanisms have been taken up by our youth and ruined yet another pagan festival and made it a comm...

 LAST week, I ran a short presentation in my local village hall, 'an introduction to wellness.' A few came, considering it was a free event I would have thought that people would be leaping at the chance to find out how to be well, naturally, but sadly, as I have found out, people don't really want to know, because that would mean a little more effort, a little less of doing the bad things, and changing habits, and we know how much people fear change. THE presentation started with a general talk about what wellness really is, and why we should strive for it. But today, because it's emotional wellness month, that's the focus. BOTH our physical and mental health affect each other, when your mind is poorly, your body deteriorates, and the same goes for poor health in your body, it affects us, lowers our mood, causes anxiety and depression, so we do have to focus on both, all of the time, but here are some tips on keeping your mind healthy. HERE is something that I sugg...

WHAT a strange blog topic I hear you say? I know, but life isn't perfect, no one has a good life every second of the day, every day, it simply doesn't happen. SO how do we cope with disappointment and disaster? And why are so many people taking anti-depressants for general anxiety when they aren't actually depressed? WHEN we experience a trauma in our lives, we are bound to become upset, reclusive, anxious, all the signs that we are not happy. This is normal, if you didn't feel bad, I'd be worrying! YOU can feel sad, you can cry, you may lose your apetite for a short while, but these things will pass with time, you don't necessarily need to go to see the doctor the moment you feel sad, give yourself time to deal with the situation, the grief, the aftermath of whatever it is, live in that moment because it's a situation that we will learn from, that information will be stored to protect us in the future. OF course, if this goes on for months, or longer, then ...

 IF you have been reading my blogs for long enough you will know that I like a challenge! IT'S been a while since I took one on, in fact, last year's 'Yoga every day' for 'MIND' charity. And I not only did yoga every day in November I carried on, and still do at least ten minutes a day every day now! THIS year, I saw yet another challenge and get to create my own team of skipping fundraisers too.  112 skips with a skipping rope every day in October! I have managed (so far) to persuade a few others to join me, so thank you to Amanda, Phoebe and Lynn who are also taking on the challenge. Over 11,200 people die from breast cancer in the UK every year, that is a shocking figure. I want to raise money for them to fund vital research, more personalised and effective treatments. Here are the facts from World cancer research....... £25 covers the cost of enrolling a patient onto a life-changing breast cancer research programme. £120 enables researchers to collect and ba...

 Through life so far, I've gone from not being able to walk, to running ultra-marathons. I couldn't read or write, and I've since published a book. I was small and unable to defend myself, I've now got 3 kickboxing black belts. I couldn't ride a bicycle, now I drive a car, motorbike and a camper van. I cried in assembly when my Mum and Dad came to watch, I now teach and lead classes of people in fitness, and sometimes they cry! I drank alcohol, felt shame, lost memory, lost dignity, now I am almost six years alcohol free and living the best life. I had no trust or faith in men, I'm now married to the perfect man, and have complete trust in him. I could go on, and on, and on, but I won't because I reckon you get the idea of what I'm saying? We, as humans are capable of pretty much anything we want to do if we are willing to try. The caption on my Whatsapp profile says, 'Everything is impossible, until it happens.' This phrase came from the wonderf...

 This week I have been inspired to write about Birthdays, because it's my husband's birthday on the 16th, and it would also have been my Dad's birthday on the 19th September. We all think about and celebrate birthdays very differently, culturally it's very different too, but just the difference between families celebrating in the UK is fascinating. As a family, we always celebrated on the actual day when I was growing up, and any birthday parties would be held on the weekend closest to the birthday. Because of this, the actual day is of great importance to me. I have even taken the day off work to celebrate with a very long run on the coastpath in the past. I believe that we should be celebrating, even more as we grow older. I hear older people say that they don't bother celebrating anymore, but that's the complete opposite of what I believe, we should be celebrating every year that we are here, it's an achievement, particularly if you have lost loved ones w...