Practising Kindness - being nice to myself for a change

I've been implementing a few more changes recently. Some are because of my stress levels, some are because I feel gross and some are to help me keep my mind as peaceful as possible. But all of the changes have one thing in common, which is that they are all to do with my quest to de-clutter my mind, body, spirit, soul and environment. 

I'm exercising before work now and I go to yoga three times a week. I aim to do five mornings of cardio before work and this week I think I need to add two strength sessions on a Monday and Wednesday also. I don't want to do more than 75 mins each morning, so that I have enough time to shower, have breakfast and grab a coffee before I start work. 

The morning thing means that I get three evenings to myself so that I can study, I can bunk off at 5pm on Friday when the gym closes guilt-free, I don't have to deal with stressful situations in the evenings and I get the exercise out of the way so that I can come home earlier. Of course when daylight savings kicks in, I will go for a walk down the beach in the evening and when summer finally arrives, I can go for a swim after work too. Nice. 

I'm using organic vegan skincare, using less chemicals in the house for cleaning, having more chill time and getting more sleep. Last night I was in bed at 9.30pm - on a Friday night! I woke up at 6am today ready to attack the day with enthusiasm. Just as well, it's nearly daylight savings and I'll have to get up an hour earlier soon anyway. 

I'm eating more fruit, more natural products and less processed food. If something has more than four to five ingredients, I don't think I'm interested. I'm having home pamper sessions with foot spas, face masks and relaxing music. I'm drinking more water and green tea. I'm eating more vegetarian meals and less meat. I'm consuming less sugar, eating better in general and trying to nourish my body in order to undo all the years of constant food abuse it suffered. 

I still have the occasional treat, but the days of poisoning myself every meal, day in and day out are well and truly over. 

I've been making smoothies in the morning with Spinach, mint, fresh fruit and occasionally a bit of yogurt. I've been eating not burgers, veggie schnitzels, facon (that's fake bacon), making my own pumpkin soup and eating far more meat-free meals. 

Two weeks ago I made the mistake of having a bottle of soft drink on a Saturday night (i.e the night before yoga on Sunday morning). I've never sweated so much in a yoga class before. It was totally vile. I may as well just have been sweating sugary water out of my pores and onto the yoga mat. Gross!

One thing I truly appreciate about Australia is that we don't cook everything in Palm Oil. It's so gross! I hate to think what Malaysians' cholesterol levels are like and what their arteries resemble. It's vile to think of all the palm oil I would have consumed while away. Like, totally grossing me out dude. Oh yeah, we also don't add high fructose corn syrup to everything here either, which is great seeing as how I'm fructose intolerant and all!

Last night I steeped lemon slices and mint leaves in boiling water which I have been drinking in my green tea today. Another raging night at my house. LOL. 

I've ordered a Wellbeing journal from Kikki-K, which should arrive this week. I have some pretty awesome goals for my wellbeing, so this will be fun to use. 

Do you have goals for your wellbeing? Why not get in touch and tell me all about it?!

For goodness sake, I've got the hippie hippie shake

I made a few important decisions recently and have taken some action to follow through. I am no longer prepared to accept the levels of negativity that have been creeping into my life and that I have been allowing to disturb my mind. I'm simplifying my life, focusing on developing wisdom, compassion, kindness, happiness and balance. 

I'm turning into a bit of a hippie. A tree-hugging, sandal wearing, yoga-going, recycling, crystal-wearing, aura-cleansing-spray misting, happiness-journalling, eco-yoga-mat-toting, meditating, chanting, ujayyi breathing, Feng Shui studying, Dharma reading, soy melt loving, candle and dried sage burning, Nepalese wool wearing, semi-vegetarian, Tibetan Buddhist hippie with a penchant for de-cluttering my home, mind, body and soul. 

Here's how.

What I want:

I'm not going to obsess over every minor detail in life anymore, I refuse to have excess clutter and stuff around me (either physically or mentally), I need some peace, calm, focus and more gratitude in my life.  

I need to learn and grow and appreciate and smile and laugh and sing and dance and love and give and do more yoga. I need to drink more green tea, consume less sugar, get more sleep, nourish my body, be more mindful, cultivate an awareness of my environment and surroundings, read more books, learn more things, play more and have more FUN!

I'll focus on a new thing every few days so that I don't overwhelm myself with change, but here are the updates so far. 

Step 1: Be more mindful of the environment

Since returning from Malaysia, I'm recycling pretty much everything now. I saw so many plastic bottles and flotsam in the waters of the Langkawi Archipelago islands that it broke my heart. The last bastion of recycling now for me is soft plastics, which apparently the local supermarket has a recycling bin for. I must go check out what can go in it, as although it will be a pain in the posterior to lug stuff down there, it's better than it ending up in landfill or on the beach. 

I'm down to about one physical trash bag a week now, which means I can put my bin out fortnightly if I choose to. If I had a garden, I'd love a compost bin, but green things and I are not good friends and there's no space for a garden here. Maybe some window boxes...hmmm...there's an idea! A few houseplants won't go astray either, so I guess I'm off to Bunnings soon. 

I was lucky to acquire a Manduka super light travel mat before I went to Malaysia so I could take it with me, which I did. It didn't get nearly enough airtime while I was away, thanks in part to my choice of tiny little hotel rooms with no free space. It's fantastic for being really, really light. It's also fantastic for being super eco-friendly. "Manduka’s eKO Series yoga mats are produced sustainably from harvested tree rubber. Unlike other rubber yoga mats, no toxic foaming agents are used in their manufacture and no toxic chemicals are used to soften the rubber. eKO Mats are 100% biodegradable and leave behind no toxic residue. Manduka have also chosen to use a natural cotton and recycled silk reinforcing centre instead of a synthetic polyester."  

I'm showering at work five days a week after exercising in the morning before I start work. That's cutting down on my energy and water consumption at home. From 1st October the only item that needs to stay on 24/7 at home is the fridge (goodbye Foxtel box, see previous post). I've been switching stuff off routinely for over a year, a habit born out of necessity from last year when I was made redundant and went to a 30 hour casual contract job and then wasn't working after my shoulder surgery. No point paying to run stuff when you're not home to use it. 

I'm thinking of doing a challenge involving using only three hours of electricity per day (mobile phone charger excluded, but that only runs overnight anyway). I can use 2hrs 45mins at night, then save 15 mins for the morning to make my coffee and green tea!  

On yoga nights sticking to three hours of electricity will be relatively easy, as I leave for work at 8.45am and don't get home until 9pm. This means that I can ration out my 21 hours of electricity per week and maybe, just maybe, survive on three hours per day on weekends too! My laptop has a great battery, as does my iPad and my modem. I have books and movies on my iPad, real books in the house and it's almost daylight savings, so this may well force me to get outdoors, get reading, get writing and get creative. Love it. 

I'll do some more research and figure out what else I can do to be more eco-friendly. There must be a way to up the eco stakes at work too. I just need to think of it!

Green tea - the last hippie bastion has finally fallen

Hell has finally frozen over. I'm drinking green tea and I am enjoying it. 

In my search to re-create moments from my amazing Malaysian adventure, I've been seeking out Lemongrass and Ginger tea, in the vain hope that I can find one that tastes like the amazing one that I had at Alun-Alun spa in Langkawi. So far, no good.

I bought a box of Lemongrass and Ginger tea in Tesco in KL but that doesn't taste like Alun-Alun's tea which I'm sure was black tea. Apparently the one I bought was green tea. Slight fail.

Green tea always tasted like crap before. Well, maybe not crap exactly. Perhaps more like rancid soy milk with stalks of gosh-only-knows-what steeped in it. Regardless, no good. Until now.

I bought a box of green tea with Lemon and Lemongrass in it one day at Safeway here in Melbourne and thought "well, stuff your ginger then". This tea also does not taste like Alun-Alun's tea, but guess what? I'm loving it.

As I'm sitting here typing this anecdote with a glass of green tea on the desk next to me, I'm feeling rather pleased with myself. Green tea is not the evil pond scum juice I remember it being years ago. Sure, it's not coconut water or Malaysian iced coffee, but it's pretty good. And it's not coffee. It's hydrating, relaxing and good for me. It's full of antioxidants and health benefits. It will help me flush out toxins. And so on and so forth.

What has this got to do with life coaching? Well, remember my quest to just say yes, have more fun, try new stuff, get over myself and have more adventures? Yes? Good! This was a bit of an adventure and I'm glad I got over myself, just said yes, tried something new and I am now enjoying green tea.

Baby steps eventually lead to a marathon. That is all.

I can see savasana by the UV lights...

I've had a bit of quantum shift since returning from Malaysia.

The first three weeks back were filled with chaos, stress, drama and more nonsense than you can shake a stick at. I was struggling to cope with the jet lag and time difference, let alone the climatic issues of going from 34 degrees celsius to 8 degrees celsius.

I came back from my trip realising that I was tired, tired and yet more tired. Emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually tired. Actually, not just tired - freaking exhausted, in all senses of the word.

I was tired of stress and drama and other people's issues with themselves being projected at me in the form of nasty little missiles. Tired of letting my mind run off on wild tangents. Tired of being tired, stressed and exhausted. Tired of not having enough time for myself and always shunting myself and my needs into second fiddle playing position. Tired of taking on other people's crap. And finally, I was tired of letting my mind be disturbed by all kinds of external influences in addition to the internal ones!

To cut a long story short, I turned to yoga in a big way to get over myself, get away from the stress, get out of my comfort zone and get into a nice peaceful sanctuary that is mine, all mine, mwah ha ha ha!

Why yoga? Well, in the past when I've been totally stressed and over everything, I've turned to yoga and meditation. I've used yoga as a tool previously to deal with stress, manage my relaxation and generally chill the heck out after crazy weeks at a hideously stressful past job. I need discipline and structure and coaching with my yoga practice, which I've found at the local yoga school.

The local yoga school is about eight minutes walk from work and about 12 minutes walk from home. It's my sanctuary away from my home sanctuary, a place that I have just for me, where I can go and do asanas and breathe and hiss and bend and stretch and generally turn inward to focus on my breathing and on being present for about 75 minutes three to four times a week.

We do Vinyasa, which I love as it's flowing and structured and logical - which suits my need for structure (certainty); but at the same time we don't do the same things each class and I have two different teachers for the three classes I do each week - which suits my need for variety (uncertainty).

I attended my first "glow yoga" class the week I returned from Malaysia as a way to help me get over my jet lag. It was awesome - yoga in neon clothing to funky beats under UV lights. It was heavenly, peaceful, funky, fun and sedate all at once. I wore a neon yellow top that I bought in KL for about $3 AUD which has little silver metal studs all over it. Apparently it looks like a nuclear explosion under the UV lights. Oh dear.

A few days later I did a savasana workshop, which was transformative, enlightening and kicked off a journey down a yoga path I've never walked before. Savasana is that final part of every yoga class that I have lovingly referred to as "blankie time" in the past, where you loll about on the floor on your mat, for relaxation time. In the workshop, we spent a great deal of the 2.5 hours in savasana (corpse pose), getting comfortable and familiar with savasana.

At some point during the workshop, we did Yoga Nidra, which is a guided relaxation. During Yoga Nidra, the room went still, quiet and black. It was like an out of body experience. It was awesome. I have Yoga Nidra in my iTunes collection, so I'll be whacking it into a playlist if I haven't do so already.

Since then, I've been going to classes very consistently for several weeks. I started with twice a week and now I go three times a week with two evening classes and one Sunday morning class. I may look at adding in a fourth class on a Saturday morning, when time permits. I do like to have one day on the weekend to run around like a crazy woman and do stuff like shopping and laundry and hair appointments. We'll see.

This fourth week back from my adventure has been less stressful, less challenging and less taxing mentally. I've started making leaving on time for yoga a non-negotiable item on my to-do list. It's a very important medical appointment that I cannot cancel. I'm finally back on Aussie time and over the time difference and the jet lag. Yes there has been a lot of drama in my day job recently, but I believe the worst is over now.

Well, until the next full moon anyway.