Top Five Things I LOVED This Wk: (Our 70th one!)
1. A domestic afternoon making zucchini slice and roast lamb, cleaning, tea drinking and eating hot spelt banana date muffins from the oven -happening right now!
2. The golf
course near our house resembling a ski slope with all the hail. Take me back to
Japan!
3. A quiet
Saturday afternoon spent watching Sex and the City on my laptop in the bath
while the house shook from the storm. It just wouldn’t be a Top 5 without me in
the bath!
4. Sitting
in our garden sketching and painting happily in the sun.
5. Lying in
bed in the dark listening to frogs “ribbit” like metronomes.
Emma the
Naturopath xx
PS.
“I believe
everything happens for a reason.
People
change so you can learn to let go.
You believe
lies so that you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself.
Things go
wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right.
And
sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together”
–Marilyn
Monroe
Can you
relate?
Effort with grace
My yoga teacher has repeatedly told us “effort with
grace” during nearly every class. I never fully understood the phrase until I
was on my Bali retreat in June and I had my ‘Ah-huh!” moment.
Effort with grace (to me) means putting positive
intention and action into achieving your goals but to also have the flexibility
to accept whatever outcome prevails.
I met a very sweet lady on the retreat. She listed all
the things she DIDN’T want to do as our driver took us around all the windy
bends on the way up the mountain. “I don’t want to do backbends. I don’t want
to do handstands or headstands. I’m not good at balancing and I don’t want to
use my knees too much”.
“I want to do THIS!” I exclaimed with great enthusiasm as
I presented her with a picture I’d brought along of a variation of dancer pose,
natarajasana. “Why would you want to do
THAT!?” she asked as her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “I want a
challenge!” I replied.
As I spoke with my teacher one night over dinner I
realised that I was the definition of too much EFFORT as I was constantly
striving to overachieve and my new friend was demonstrating too much GRACE, as
she was too flippant with her intentions.
Over the course of the week my friend really expanded
herself to new situations, expanding both physically and emotionally. On the
last day of the retreat she did the most beautiful assisted back bend and we
all stood around her cheering. “My daughter will never believe this!” she said
as one of the girls snapped a photo.
Whereas I learnt the lesson of coming to my mat each day and
just checking in with myself. “How do I feel today –physically and emotionally?”
because every day’s different. This taught me to let go my ego and any
expectations I had on myself. A big lesson in grace.
Effort with grace rings so true in any situation in life.
I tell my clients about it when they become “too healthy” –when someone wants
to be so incredibly healthy that their mindset and diet become quite restricted
and they can’t even enjoy a piece of chocolate cake once in a while in the fear
of what the sugar is doing to them. This negative impact of the stress on their
body creates more damage than what the sugar would do.
It’s applicable for a uni student who wants top grades
but studies all day and night without having a break and then burns out. Or a
parent who is putting everyone else first but neglects themself and becomes sick.
It’s a fine balance.
In other words, go with the flow J
Top Five Things I LOVED This Wk:
1. The intricate sketches of buffalos, mountains and
deer on the Nepalese paper money that my friend brought back for me from his
travels. They make handy bookmarks.
2. Texts that go for about six scrolls. They make my
day too Mrs Oldfield xx
3. Unpacking stock and looking at the tiny box it came
in and thinking how much 5 year old me would love to make it into a little
house or something for my dolls.
4. Insights that James from Bleubird Vintage has
learnt about marriage. Especially the last one. I’m going to print it out and
put it on my fridge. http://bleubirdvintage.typepad.com/blog/2013/11/two-years-ago.html
5. The labyrinth of an antique shop that I finally got
around to discovering. Moose heads, hundreds of pairs of animal themed salt and
pepper shakers, wooden dressing tables with mirrors, fox stoles, record players,
fringed lampshades, even a suit of armour! I was trying not to hyperventilate.
I’m not sure if it was from sheer excitement or the volumes of dust that I
inhaled…
Emma the
Naturopath xx
PS. My
herbalist wrote just one word on my prescription pad the last time I saw her:
PAINT. “You’re very logical and analytical Emma. I think you should paint”.
I’ve never
been a painter. I didn’t know where to begin! So I bought a sketchpad, a few
brushes and a set of acrylics. They sat on my dining table and I’d look at them
gingerly every time I walked past…
And then I
just began.
I’ve slowly begun
to view my world with a new perspective. Instead of seeing the dandelions
growing between my courtyard pavers as weeds that I needed to pull out, I
started admiring their detailed leaves as potential painting subjects. I
started painting pictures of shells that had sat on my bookshelf for years.
I realised how
much I had neglected my creative side. Painting gave me an outlet to express
myself. I find it therapeutic to sit in my garden and just mix colours and
exhale. My project this week is to paint on some smooth river stones I
collected today. I’m looking forward to it.
Get your
creative juices flowing this week!
AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
I am so surprised yet touched by all the people who have
been telling me how much they are into my Top 5. It’s a really special thing to
be commended for something you love doing.
I guess it all started when my husband and I started
living together a little over a year ago. We would each say our Top Three
things that happened that day over the dinner table or as we got into bed. It’s
easy to get caught up in the daily grind and especially in our industry where
we deal with a fair bit of sickness (he works at a private hospital). Sometimes
it’s something as simple as a delicious lunch or a sunrise or maybe it’ll be a patient
who started getting great results.
As our friends on the other side of the world are about
to celebrate Thanksgiving, I feel the urge to share with you my thoughts on
gratitude. To me, gratitude is an act of acknowledgement and appreciation. It
allows us to feel content, to live in the present moment and to savour what is
happening in our world. I truly believe that each time we say ‘thank you’ to
the universe, it sends a little more of that good stuff our way.
There is always SOMETHING to be grateful for, even if it
is learning a challenging lesson.
What are you grateful for today?
Top Five Things I LOVED This Wk:
1. Standing in the kitchen eating pickles from the
jar. My after work ritual.
2. Being utterly exhausted by the end of the week, but
it was SO productive. Finally ticked things off of my to-do list… that have
been there for three years!
3. The smell of a decadent flourless chocolate cake
permeating through the whole house.
4. Buying new basil seedling after I caught Billy –the
Persian cat from next door pooping in my pot plant. I thought we were friends
but friends don’t poop in each other’s basil.
5. Booking flights to Hawaii for 8 weeks’ time!!
Emma the Naturopath xx
PS.
“Before you speak, let your words pass through three
gates.
At the first gate, ask yourself, ‘Is it true?’
At the second gate ask,
‘Is it necessary?’
At the third gate ask,
‘Is it kind?’ ”
-Sufi saying
WHO THE HECK IS EMMA THE NATUROPATH?
So I was reading the Meet Me At Mikes blog yesterday and
saw a cool little list she wrote about what’s going on in her world at the
moment. She is an incessant list write like me… At the end of the post she left
a blank list for her readers to have a go at filling out. So I did.
Making: love. Oh, and a website!
Cooking: flourless chocolate cake
Drinking: Real Foods coconut water
Reading: Five Love Languages
Wanting: a BioChef juicer (are you listening Santa?)
Looking: at storm fronts on the horizon
Playing: Scrabble at the dinner table
Deciding: to just go with the flow and trust life
Wishing: for a sunny Christmas day
Enjoying: yoga every damn day
Waiting: impatiently for Hawaii on Jan 28th!!
Liking: my latest antique finds
Wondering: where I left my nametag 3 weeks ago
Loving: roast lamb on Sundays (no longer a vego after over 2 yrs!)
Pondering: the theory of detachment
Considering: studying medicine
Watching: my waistline with all this chocolate cake
Hoping: for a memorable 2014
Marvelling: at white lilies blooming in glass bottles around my house
Needing: more time spent without shoes
Smelling: gardenias
Wearing: Spell muscle tees
Following: Bleubird Vintage blog
Noticing: our impact on the planet
Cooking: flourless chocolate cake
Drinking: Real Foods coconut water
Reading: Five Love Languages
Wanting: a BioChef juicer (are you listening Santa?)
Looking: at storm fronts on the horizon
Playing: Scrabble at the dinner table
Deciding: to just go with the flow and trust life
Wishing: for a sunny Christmas day
Enjoying: yoga every damn day
Waiting: impatiently for Hawaii on Jan 28th!!
Liking: my latest antique finds
Wondering: where I left my nametag 3 weeks ago
Loving: roast lamb on Sundays (no longer a vego after over 2 yrs!)
Pondering: the theory of detachment
Considering: studying medicine
Watching: my waistline with all this chocolate cake
Hoping: for a memorable 2014
Marvelling: at white lilies blooming in glass bottles around my house
Needing: more time spent without shoes
Smelling: gardenias
Wearing: Spell muscle tees
Following: Bleubird Vintage blog
Noticing: our impact on the planet
Knowing: that every little thing is gonna be alright
Thinking: about dinner at breakfast time
Feeling: inspired by creative souls
Admiring: new mums
Buying: more and more paints
Getting: closer to 29… Two months today!
Bookmarking: my reads with foreign currency, old photos and boarding passes
Opening: my mind and my heart
Giggling: competitions with Vanessa at work
Feeling: excited to see my parents again this weekend after many years
Thinking: about dinner at breakfast time
Feeling: inspired by creative souls
Admiring: new mums
Buying: more and more paints
Getting: closer to 29… Two months today!
Bookmarking: my reads with foreign currency, old photos and boarding passes
Opening: my mind and my heart
Giggling: competitions with Vanessa at work
Feeling: excited to see my parents again this weekend after many years
Thanks for letting me share.
Emma the Naturopath xx
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