Do nothing

"How beautiful it is to do nothing, 

and then to rest afterwards"

-Spanish proverb

116. Top Five Things I LOVED This Week:

1. The insane icing on the vegan, wheat-free chai carrot cake we shared at Santos.
2. Our new BioChef blender that I ordered through work. A little Father’s Day present to my husband from our unborn baby –gosh it’s a generous little foetus isn’t it? This blender could liquefy a brick!
3. Sitting in a chattery church waiting for the ceremony to begin, then all of a sudden a wave of Chinese whispers swept through the crowd of “She’ here!” and everyone hushed.
4. A refreshing swim in the eery tea tree lake at Lake Ainsworth.
5. Nathan’s chai, Eliza’s foot massages, the way Noa always thoughtfully sets the table with a plant, Blossom’s shy smiles and River’s belly kisses.

Emma the Naturopath xx

PS. In the words of Elizabeth Gilbert:
“Embrace the glorious mess that you are”

117. Top Five Things I LOVED This Week:

1. The new Country Road campaign featuring Gemma Ward with her baby girl. YouTube the clip.
2. Vicariously eating whatever Jamie O is cooking during his Comfort Food series. Did anyone see that lobster macaroni and cheese the other week? Or the one with the sticky date pudding? I feel as though I’ve gained 6 kilos after watching an episode!
3. The little chats I have with my newly planted seedlings. “Oh aren’t you getting big!” “Are you thirsty? Do you want a drink of water?”
4. That luxurious hour of solitude after my husband leaves for work at 7:30am til I have to leave the house at 8:30am. It’s usually spent sitting on the east side of the house which has been warmed by the sun, sipping a smoothie or green juice while scrolling through beautiful pics on Tumblr or watering my garden. Can you tell we don’t have kids yet?
5. Spending a Saturday afternoon drinking tea and making a raw vegan choc mint tart with my Mother Bear. (Recipe posted this week).

Emma the Naturopath xx

PS. I randomly pulled out one of my trusty yoga affirmation cards yesterday while in a complete fluster. It was Utkatasana Pose and the heading was ‘CONTROL’.

It read: Do not make a decision simply to end your discomfort of ambivalence. Connect to your strength. Allow the right choice to find you.

It can be incredibly tempting to take the easy way out to escape a physically or emotionally taxing situation… But it’s important to trust the timing of your life and live gracefully with patience in your heart. In the end, everything always works out for the best xx

CHOC MINT CHEESECAKE TART

The cacao nibs in the base give it an awesome crunchy choc chip texture and the minty-ness of the filling balances the sweet chocolatey-ness of the base! Now let’s not get carried away here, yes the recipe is raw and vegan with descent ingredients, but sugar is sugar so save it to have as a treat rather than for breakfast Enjoy!

Base:
1 cup almonds, ground into a meal
3/4 cup pitted, packed medjool dates
1/4 cup cacao powder
1/4 cup cacao nibs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a food processor, mix ingredients into a moist dough that presses together easily. Add a couple of teaspoons of water if needed. Press the mixture into a 6" tart pan. Set aside.

Filling:
2 1/2 cups cashews, soaked overnight in water then drained
1 cup lightly packed mint leaves
1 cup water
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons agave
8 drops mint extract or essential oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of Himalayan salt
3 tablespoons cacao butter, melted
2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

In a food processor, combine everything until smooth and creamy. Taste the mixture - add more mint extract (or mint leaves) if needed. Pour into the crust and freeze overnight. Leave in fridge for 3 hours before serving.

There was a fair bit of mint filling leftover (maybe we'll add less water next time?) so we poured it into little ramekins and popped them in the freezer then ate them like little mint mousses the next day.

Emma the Naturopath xx

*SHARE this post or TAG a friend who loves you to subtly encourage them to whip this up for you*

*MATERNAL MONDAYS*

I have been offered SO many hilarious old wives tales about how you can tell if you’re having a boy or a girl. As soon as you tell someone that you didn’t find out the sex they’ll give you a theory based on how you’re carrying, if you had morning sickness or not, etc to give you a psychic prediction. Last week someone told me the sex of the baby was determined by whether the man or woman initiated the love making that resulted in the pregnancy! You just have to laugh

What wild stories have you been told or what do you swear by?

Emma the Naturopath xx
(24 weeks –length of a cob of corn)

WANT A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP?

Every night I massage my feet with some moisturiser and a few drops of lavender oil and then pop a pair of socks on and snooze the night away.

I think its the combo of the calming aromatherapy, the reflexology points and just a little self-love ritual to say "Thanks for carrying me around all day feet!"

Also a fan of magnesium as well as turning off all technology (phones/TV/laptop) by 9pm and reading in bed.

What night time ritual gets you counting sheep?

*MATERNAL MONDAYS*

INSTINCTIVE BIRTHING

I’ve just started flicking through Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Australian doctor Sarah J. Buckley. In a nutshell, we are reminded to have faith in our ability to birth our child as it is part of our innate wisdom. She affirms that by encouraging a trust in our intuition and body knowledge, this will assist in promoting a confident and calm birth: “In these circumstances, a labouring woman can let down her guard, switching off her rational brain and opening to the ‘unreasoned impulse’ of her instincts”.

In the chapter Vision and Tools for Instinctive Birth, she speaks of several key methods to enhance the power of our instincts:

-nourishing ourselves with wholefoods for optimal nutrition
-connecting to nature
-bodywork eg. prenatal yoga
-listening to our body clock rather than our watch
-honouring our own spiritual faith and practises
-taking time to contemplate, process and digest our internal feelings that arise through journaling, artwork, meditation and communicating with our partner

“We are all creatures of the Earth, and our bodies need the Earth’s nourishment to work effectively in any instinctive behaviour. For some women, pregnancy brings an urge to garden or to go walking, to hike or just to gaze at the scenery of earth and sky. All of these activities help align us with the Earth, our great Mother, and teach us respect and love for the natural order”.

Self-nourishment on a physical, emotional and spiritual level during pregnancy is a number one priority for all of us, but especially during pregnancy. I feel like when we connect with nature, be it walking on the beach, watching the sunrise or chopping up veggies from the farmers market for a juice, we are aligning ourselves with the flow of life.

Have you read this book or another one similar?
What are your thoughts/experiences regarding “instinctive birthing”?
How did you nourish yourself during pregnancy?

Essential Health

0266 514 533

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Food as medicine

FUN WITH FERMENTS

On a rainy Sunday afternoon last week, I was at a workshop fermenting my little heart out! I’d been wanting to do the workshop for a few months now as everyone I’d talked to who had participated had raved to me about their digestion/skin/energy etc never being so good!

One of the things that really draw me to fermenting is the fact that it’s SO SIMPLE. It’s really just about adding 1 or 2 ingredients to a glass jar covering it with water and leaving it for around a week in a quiet part of your kitchen. Then you’ve got a bubbly little tonic that wants to be best friends with your digestive tract.
Good quality store bought probiotic powders/capsules still have their place for treating certain health conditions but this is a fantastic way to incorporate foods that are rich in “friendly bacteria” into your daily life.

I now have a special cupboard designated to my beet kvass, dairy kefir, red cabbage sauerkraut and wheat grain revulac all bubbling and fizzing away. Then this morning I acquired a bottle of coconut kefir and a kombucha mushroom. Like a whole other language right? Don't fret, it’s super simple.

Rosa is a wealth of knowledge and has such a calming, grounded energy. For enquiries, shoot Rosa an email at medicinewomantherapy@gmail.com or 'Organic Sauerkraut' on Facebook.





DID YOU KNOW.....?

Top Five Things I LOVED This Wk:

1. Picking up a Louise L Hay book off of the shelf this week and a black and white photo of 4 little hippies living in Byron taken exactly 10 years ago. I always hide old letters and photos in random books for myself to get a little nostalgic hit when I least expect it.
2. Read carefully: Chai chia pudding. Thanks JD
3. Watching the snowboarding GoPro footage on the plasma behind the teller’s head at the bank. I always look forward to doing the banking for a couple of minutes each Sunday afternoon so I can zone out and pretend I’m back in Japan.
4. Hearing wonderful news from one of my besties. I was so ecstatic for her that it felt like it happened to me!
5. Making a fig and mixed berry raw vegan cheesecake with a girlfriend. Half the fun was the planning. Texts flying around like “You bring the dates, I’ll bring the pistachios” and photo texts of nuts soaking (the cashews that is!). Recipe will be posted this week!

Emma the Naturopath xx

PS. “When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn't healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits - anything that kept me small.

My judgement called it disloyal.

Now I see it as self-loving.”
-Kim McMillen

FIG AND MIXED BERRY RAW VEGAN CHEESECAKE!!!

INGREDIENTS:

Base
1 cup pistachio nuts
½ cup macadamia nuts
½ cup pitted dates (around 8-9)
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp sea salt

Filling
¾ cup cashews, soaked overnight in 3/4 cup coconut cream
1 Tbsp coconut oil
¼ cup CoYo coconut yoghurt
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp cup chia seeds
1 tsp lime zest
Juice of 1 lime
½ tsp vanilla bean extract
1 ripe fig
½ cup frozen berries
To Decorate
2-3 ripe figs
¼ cup crushed pistachios
Handful of fresh or frozen berries
¼ cup coconut flakes

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Line the bottom of a spring-form tin with baking paper. In a food processor, combine all the ingredients for the base and whiz until breadcrumb sized and the mixture begins sticking together. Press into bottom of tin and place in freezer.
2. Place all the ingredients for the filling in the food processor and blend to a smooth texture.
3. Pour the mixture on top of the base and place back in freezer for at least three hours.
4. Take out of freezer half an hour before serving (if you leave it overnight, leave it out for at least an hour). It should be like a mousse-like consistency. Get creative and decorate the top and serve with some extra coconut yoga. Enjoy!!!

I made this as an early Mothers Day present to my mum on the weekend. The cheesecake was adapted from a recipe on the Frankie Magazine blog.

WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO?

A girlfriend of mine teaches gymnastics. She took a break from that for a while to do a meditation course. She returned back to the gymnastics world to realise how fiercely competitive the industry is and how much pressure is placed on the students to perform.
She sat down with her students the other day to talk to them about WHY they fell in love with gymnastics in the first place, to rekindle the passion they originally felt for the sport. She told me it was a really uplifting session as they replaced the stress they were feeling with joy.

We can all ask ourselves those sorts of questions when we’re feeling a bit lost or overwhelmed:

*At the end of a hard day, why did you decide to become a teacher/vet/mother/nurse?
*During a rough patch, what made you fall in love with your partner?
*You feel like you don’t have time for your hobbies, but why do you love surfing/dancing/sewing?

I opened my journal and asked myself: Why did I become a naturopath? 

I wrote these words…
To INSPIRE
To TEACH
To SUPPORT

I don’t run a business that does “discount days” or order products because my franchise has done a deal with that company, purely because I didn’t become a naturopath to make bucket loads of money.

I run a resilient little shop with butternut pumpkin coloured walls where I get to spend quality time with my customers and clients and have a really good chat to figure out how I can help them best. I employed Vanessa based on the fact that she genuinely cares for people as much as I do. This is why I go to work with a smile and the reason I sleep well at night; because I’m aligning with my passion. The universe loves that shit, and will reward you for your efforts.

However we all need a little reminding from time to time when life gets busy and tangled. So ask yourself WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO and gain that deeper sense of gratitude or maybe make a few improvements.

Top Five Things I LOVED This Wk: (Our 95th!!)

1. Watching the steam swirl upwards from the hot boiled oranges on the windowsill. They later turned into a beautifully moist flourless orange and almond cake. Recipe posted this week!
2. My clients all wanting afternoon appointments + midday Offspring re-runs.
3. Annihilating my lunch at Happy Frog after a two hour yoga class.
4. Experimenting with different foods to accompany the bright pink sauerkraut I made: spag bol, pumpkin soup, hummus and avo on toast, lamb roast and veggies, baked salmon and mash. However there has also been a lot of eating it straight from the jar with the fridge door open too. My digestion has been magnificent in case you were wondering.
5. Trying out new mattresses at the bed shops. Those big fluffy marshmallows sure left my poor old Ikea bed I bought at uni for dead.

Emma the Naturopath xx

PS. During a strong forward bend yesterday, my yoga teacher said “Observe if you are pushing yourself to go further… now let that go”.

Perhaps take the pressure off of yourself this week. There’s no need to be Super Man or Wonder Woman. There’ll be no one waiting for you at the end of the week grading your efforts, ready to present you with a medal. Just enjoy yourself.

WHOLEFOODS

Every time I admire my parent’s healthily stocked bookshelves (they used to own a book shop), I pick up my mum’s copy of ‘Wholefood’ by Jude Blereau. They set off on another adventure again last week and after we had the “last supper” mum handed me the book to keep.

I was reading the intro last night and felt so inspired and uplifted as the author’s philosophy towards food and nourishment totally aligns with my own. I thought I’d share some of it with you now:

“Food is not something that simply stops us feeling hungry. It is exactly the same as love –an elemental human need. Together, they sustain and nourish us, providing fuel for our bodies and hearts to grow and our lives to fulfil their potential. But for food to do these things, it must be authentic and real.

When you cook for your family or friends, you are providing more nourishment than packaged food ever could. I assure you that those meals you make contain powerful medicine –love medicine.

Never, ever accept mediocrity posing as convenience. Never, ever accept glitter over substance. Care about what you eat: absolutely insist that it be delicious and true; and never, ever accept anything less. When you sit down to a real meal, with real food, the body is fed and, having been fed and delighted, the soul is nourished. And only then are you able to become the amazing being you were born to be”.

-Jude Blereau

Emma the Naturopath xx

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