Some days …

From time to time I experience depression. Words help me make sense of some of my emotions. Here are some words about some of those emotions. 

Some days I wake up, and all of the joy has disappeared from my world. 

Some days I wake up, and all of the beauty has disappeared from my world. 

Some days I wake up, and all of the light has disappeared from my world. 

Some days I wake up, and all of the colour has disappeared from my world. 

Some days I wake up, and all of the joy and all of the beauty and all of the light and all of the colour have disappeared from my world. 

And I get scared that I can’t keep myself safe. 

I do

A little poem I wrote recently about letting go and the challenges of that!

I do

I cannot shake you

like a Polaroid picture

I cannot

shake you.

I cannot shake you

like a towel full of sand

I cannot.

Shake you so your bones

rattle inside your head

I cannot

shake you.

I cannot

like a crab’s pincer grip

on a child’s big toe

shake you.

I cannot shake you

like a shake and vac

to put the freshness back

I cannot

shake you.

I cannot shake you

like a lettuce leaf

plucked fresh as a daisy and washed

I cannot

shake you.

like a tambourine

or an apprehensive heart beat

I can

not

shake.

And yet

as I cannot shake you

I do just that

I shake

and shake

and I shake

I cannot shake you

but I do.

Ginga Ninja – my new favourite accessory

A juice to match your hair colour? Hell yes!

As a ranga / fanta pants / ginger / redhead, my hair colour has been with me all of my life. Now this is nothing unusual you might say – everyone has hair of a certain colour. Even if you’re bald, you still have hair somewhere!

But what I mean is that other people have made it their job to make me acutely aware what colour my hair is for most of my post-pubescent life.

Remember “Remember Me” by Blue Boy (here … if you need a gentle reminder). Well Micky Polit thought it would be really good fun to follow me around at school and sing ‘ging gigiging ging gigiging’ on repeat for a good 6 months.

It’s automatically assumed that I have many personality traits (feisty, firey etc) simply because of the colour of my hair.

It’s taken me a number of years to fall in love with my mop, but head-over-heels smitten I now am and I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a ranga!!

So imagine my joy when I found a gorgeous juice that not only tastes delicious, but it matches my wig too?!!!! Introducing the Ginga Ninja!

 

 

And because it’s packed so full of awesomeness, it totally gives you super powers. So watch out Micky P … this Ninja’s on fire!!

Eat Your Lipstick!

I’m serious … would you eat your lipstick? Your blusher? Your foundation? No? Why not? You make your skin eat it every day!

Just like sweat comes out through the pores of your skin, so everything you put on your skin sinks in … your skin eats it.

So have a look at what ingredients go into your make up. Because you could be doing all the exercise and healthy eating in the world, if you’re still covering your skin with toxins and feeding it poison, it ain’t gonna do you any good!

It might be a bit more expensive to buy ‘naturally’ made products, but then that’s probably because man-made synthetics can be mass-produced much cheaper than ‘real stuff’. ‘Real stuff’ takes time to grow, develop and combine to ultimately make you look pretty. ‘Real stuff’ involves a bit more care and attention. With ‘real stuff’, you can’t just add this or that, or modify with x, y and z. You have to keep it real.

There’s plenty of options out there and more and more, these options are coming to the high street or are easily available online. But it’s a bit of a challenge at first, especially when something claims to be natural and ethical, but then you read the ingredients and it appears to be full of crap!

I’m a big fan of www.shopnaturally.com.au – they not only list make-up, but all kinds of other products too. A great place to start navigating new brands and getting to know what should and shouldn’t be on our skin and in our bodies.

Happy shopping! And happy eating!!

Why Breakfast is NOT the Most Important Meal of the Day

Eating clean often means taking a bit more time over food prep. Grabbing a bite to eat isn’t quite as straight forward as it used to be, because shops generally fill ‘convenience’ food full of crap: sugar, refined carbohydrates etc.

And I’m not really ‘into’ cooking or food prep. I don’t enjoy spending hours in the kitchen, unless I’m totally in the zone. So whenever people used to say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, to me it felt like just another meal to think about, just another thing that kept me from doing what I actually wanted to do.

Imagine my delight therefore at my mini epiphany … that breakfast, is in fact, NOT the most important meal of the day.

Really? Yes really.

Why? Because EVERY meal is important. It’s as important as the one before and the one after.

Let’s not cheat ourselves here. The fuel that we put in our bodies has a direct impact on the results we get out of our bodies; how much energy we have, how rested we feel, our mental wellbeing. Everything. So if you put crap in, expect to feel like crap, sleep like crap and perform like crap.

On the flip side, if you actually take time to think about what’s on your plate, and what goes into your body, and make sure it’s good and healthy and nourishing for your body, you’ll sleep well, exercise like a demon and feel balanced and energised.

I wasn’t one for physics at school but this is a pretty basic equation that I think most people can understand. Good stuff in = good stuff out.

Every single thing that goes into your body is important. Every meal, every snack, every drink. I’m not saying never treat yourself to some of the naughty stuff. But I am saying make sure you balance that out with shed loads of good stuff too.

And next time someone trots out the phrase ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’, feel free to challenge their wisdom with some basic physics and common sense!

Language Warning!!!!

This one’s not for the faint hearted … I recently discovered the delightful Jessie Reimers. She describes herself as … “an Activist, Writer, Researcher, Public Speaker, Blogger, Mum of Two Boys, Partner to Dan the Man, Aspie, Professional Swearer, Truth Seeker and General Badass” … and from the moment I fell onto her Get a Fresh Start website I also fell in love!

Jessie is incredibly passionate. She makes some of the technical mumbo-jumbo around nutrition really easy to digest, which for people like me who struggle to separate their polyun-whatsits from their quin-chais, is really useful! She’s all about debunking the myths around food and medicine and re-examining the motivation behind the decisions made by profit-making pharmaceutical companies, as well as including a whole section on birthing and sharing her own journey.

I find Jessie really inspirational because she clearly puts so much of herself into her blogs. She’s someone who does her research and then stands up and shouts (really blooming loudly!!) for what she believes in. And she’s not afraid to challenge huge organisations like the Heart Foundation. Why? Because she believes in better!

How often do we gag ourselves because we think we might upset the status quo? Or because others might think we’re a bit ‘out there’ for sharing ideas that don’t fit with what everyone else round the BBQ (insert UK equivalent here) is thinking? And so if we’re all doing that, to different degrees, how much amazing debate and ideas sharing are we missing out on? The world needs radical thinkers and those that challenge the norm. It keeps it turning!

If language easily offends, Jessie probably isn’t really your cup of tea. Me? I think she’s f**king awesome.

www.getafreshstart.com.au