Walking, Healthy Habits, Caffeine, and My Day

Today I went for the longest walk, and did the most walking, I have done in months. And I mean months. This morning I walked to the tram stop, approx 1.2kms. Then navigated my way through various shops and errands to get where i was going in town. Unsure of the actual distance but at a guess a little over 1 km. Then I walked hom from a different tram stop which was 1.5 kms. The 1.5 is my longest single walk, and the amount of walking I did in total is the most in a day. Since forever ago.

I feel great. My legs are tired though. They are not used to it. This morning the Achilles was tight and sore. But considering it was 0.7 degrees in Adelaide this morning, I am guessing the cold had a lot to do with that. Once it warmed up it felt good. Now I am sitting with my leg up and it is a bit tired and achey, but not sore. This is a good thing. I won't walk again tomorrow, but I will jump on the trainer. Should be a bit less pressure on it.

My week of healthy habits has gone better than last week, but not brilliant. I had breakfast on the go a couple of times. And had some chips. My water and exercise were good. I have one more day left of the week, and even though I did not nail it, I am going to add to it this week. Just need to decide what I will add.

I am still off the caffeine. I just wanted to report in on my little experiment I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. A few weeks back I had some Diet Coke at a party. 48 hours later I was hit with a wave of anxiety that lasted several hours. I was unsure if it was the caffeine, or the chemicals. To test it I decided to have a coffee one day and see how I felt 48 hours later. I have now done this. The result? It is the chemicals. I had absolutely no reaction to the caffeine in the coffee and no anxiety within the next week. So for me this means I can have the occasional coffee and be confident that I will feel fine. I can not have Diet Coke. I am okay with that.

Today I went to a Psychic Development class at the WEA. I have been looking forward to this for a while. Basically it was an introduction to various types of intuitive and psychic abilities by trying them out. I had a great time, and had more success than I expected. There were a few things I had no success at, but that is cool. I was very excited to get to practice some Psychometry, which I recently discovered I had a knack for. I was spot on each time I tried it today and was able to put the feelings into words better than I have in the past, so that was pretty exciting. I am hoping to catch up with one of the ladies again in order to give it another shot.

Tomorrow I have to write an assignment and clean my house, oh what fun... :)

xox

This & That

Not much has been going on this week. Work, study. The usual.

Yesterday I went to Day 2 of the "Heal Your Life" workshop. I attended Day 1 a couple of months ago. It was a really good workshop. Some of it was quite similar to things I worked on at the Retreat a few weeks ago, but in different ways which was really good. All the same people from the Day 1 course were there, which was great too. A really amazing group of people.

So my Healthy Habits for the week have been going pretty well. I am doing well with the water. I have done well with the chips apart from one day. Friday night we have drinks and nibblies at work to celebrate moving into our new office. There were chip there. I had a few. I am okay with that. A few is not an entire 200g bag in one sitting.

So for this week I need to add one more good habit and remove or replace one more bad habit.

Good Habits
 + 2L of water every day
 + 20-30 minutes of exercise 3 times a week

Bad Habits
 - Potato chips
 - Eating breakfast on the run

The exercise thing is really important. Since finding out my Achilles was torn back in February I have really done nothing. And boy, can I feel it. My overall energy levels are so low. My fitness is all but gone. I have done up an exercising plan that is really gentle on the Achilles (still having a few issues there). Plus I can do gentle walking, and using the bike hooked up tot he trainer. I will start slow, but it is definitely time to start.

As for breakfast on the run - this is killing me. I eat in the car, in the office as I am firing up the computer, or when I walk to get the mail in the morning. No more. From now on breakfast is eaten at home at the table. At this point I am not being specific about what I eat, just as long as it is not on the run. I started today.

This is yummy Paris Creek Honey & Vanilla Yogurt,

with toasted oats (I toasted them myself), a small banana, and seeds (sunflower, pine nuts and pepitas). It was absolutely delicious, and I am counting on it to get me through till lunch time as I have a day of study planned.

xox

A Weekend Spiritual Connection Retreat

I have had - such  -an amazing weekend. I am not going to go into it all because to be honest, it is really quite personal, but I'll give you the blurb.

It started Friday night with my fist lesson of the weekend (first of many many lessons).

Listen to your gut.

My car broke down on the way there. And I knew it would. All day I knew there was something wrong, even though the car drove perfectly in the morning. But I convinced myself I was being paranoid. Luckily I got it to a town where I had phone service so I could call the RAA. The car had to be towed to the depot - in the opposite direction to where I was headed. So I let them take it while I sat in the closed up town in the dark trying to figure out how to get to the Retreat.

Luckily for me one of the facilitators was happy to come and get me. So I got there late, but I got there.

I really surprised myself by staying completely calm throughout, and arrived in surprisingly good spirits.

The weekend was filled with meditations, and workshops, and card readings (we were doing for each other), and healings (both done within on ourselves and by the facilitators when needed), and sharing, and the most amazing food imaginable.

The food... Oh the food...

All vegetarian. All organic. All incredible. I was in food heaven. We started Friday night with haloumi & vegetable skewers, with a devine chickpeas salad followed by a banana and tofu pudding. Breakfast on Saturday was a selection of organic muesli's and cereals, fruit, toast, rhubarb compote, yogurts, nuts and seeds. Lunch organic pumpkin soup with the most amazing bread. Afternoon tea was a mouth watering apple and date loaf. Dinner was a devine roasted vegetable lasagne followed by apple pie. But the piece de resistance (for me anyway) was Sunday breakfast. Eggs scrambled with basil pesto and feta on a bed of spinach with tomato and cooked mushroom. It was heavenly. Before we left we had some incredible chocolate brownies to finish off the weekend.

I came away from the weekend feeling amazing. I had revelations and insights and have come away with a stronger sense of who I am and where I need to be headed.

I met some absolutely amazing women. Women who have so much inner strength and light. Women who I really connected with and llok forward to spending time with in the future.

xox

Retreat

I am very excited. This weekend I am heading off to a Spiritual Retreat. I leave tonight straight from work and will be home Sunday afternoon. It is a weekend of workshops, and meditations, and amazing organic vegetarian food. I am really looking forward to it.

I have wanted to do something like this for the longest time, so I am really pleased I am finally getting to do it. The phone will be off. There is no internet, no TV, no computers. It is going to be amazing. Very "Zen". :)

xox

Some Interesting Developments....

I am now nearly to 100 hours since my last hit of caffeine. On Monday morning the headaches were so bad I thought I would die. I caught the bus to work and spent the entire trip focusing my Reiki energy onto my head and the parts of me that needed help. By 9.15 the headache was gone.

Yesterday I was a bit headachey, and due to an excessively bad day at work really really wanted some Coke. But I didn't.

Today I have no headaches, but am tired and really really thirsty. The anxiety has started as well. The good news is that this time I was ready for it so am not freaked out by it. I can mange it and in time it will go away.

So for the last week or so I have been paying attention to what I have been eating. To the taste, the scent, the texture, and most importantly how my body feels during and after eating. I have discovered some interesting things. Some foods I thought I loved, I don't actually like the taste of. It is the texture that I enjoy. Some foods I thought sat well inside my stomach, do not. Some foods I thought I reacted to, I don't when eaten alone.

This is a really interesting time for me. Especially discovering that I do not actually like the taste of hot chips. It is the texture. So I need to focus on finding something with a similar texture (and none of the fat). I also do not like how I feel after eating them (especially the gas - I owe my Chiropractor an apology for last nights smells...) LOL

On other news I may not have mentioned, on the weekend I became attuned to Reiki level 2. I am now a qualified Reiki practitioner. It takes 21 days for the energies to settle then I can start actually doing this properly. The interesting thing is that on Day 21 I will be in the middle of a weekend spiritual retreat. I am expecting this to be a very powerful day for me (it is also my sister birthday although I am not sure of that will have any impact).

The spiritual retreat is something I have always wanted to do. This one came up only a week ago and I jumped at the chance to participate.

Lastly, in a week and a half I will be starting back in the world of study. I have been accepted into the Advanced Diploma of Naturopathy. I am really looking forward to it. but also nervous abut studying again and the amount of time commitment it will be. But I really want this so I will make it work.

xox

This'n'That

Well, not much has been happening in the world this way of late. The Shave was so full on and took so much out of me in the lead up that I am taking some time to chill and to get used to the new "do". :)

I spent a lot of the weekend with Ness and her girls who came over from Melbourne to support me in my Shave. It was so great to see them and to have that support.

I have been doing lots of sewing finally. I am really enjoying getting back into it.  Today a few packs of Charm Sqaures arrived that I forgot I had even ordered! I love it when that happens. :)

My Achilles is slowly healing. I am still wearing the boot and still using a walking stick. But the pain and the swelling are decreasing. Which is good. 

I have been reading lots of spiritual and self-help books of late and am using this to try and get the insides all fixed so I can then focus on the outsides.

I am not posting much as I am really pretty boring at the moment. Between Physio appts and work, there isn;t a whole lot happening. And I am loving it. :)

xox

Body, Mind & Psychic Expo

Yesterday I spent the day at the Body, Mind & Psychic Expo helping out at the Animal Dreaming Stand.  We had such an amazing day!  I don't think it was as busy as last year, but maybe that is because I was behind the stand rather than walking around out front.

I admit, it was a long day.  We started at 10 and it went till 7, although I left at around 6.30 as there were really very few people left.  I am an office worker by day so spend most of my day sitting on my butt.  9 hours on my feet was HARD!  LOL.  The weird thing is, it didn't feel like 9 hours. 

We had such an amazing day.  The people that we met were so amazing.  Everyone was happy and positive, and there was such an amazing energy around our stand.  Other stall holders mentioned that the energy around us was incredible.  There were 3 of us working there.  I have met Jeanette (who was running it) a couple of times but had never met Ilona before.  But the 3 of us worked together so well! 

I really put myself out there.  I was standing out the front and giving out affirmations which was drawing people in to us so that we could show what we had and do some one card readings with the amazing Animal Dreaming Oracle Cards and the Creature Teacher cards. 

It was scary being out the front and being 'visible', but it was fun and it was empowering.  And something I need to learn to do.

I did get the chance to go for a wander around the Fair.  My Mum and Ross came down and I had a chance to have a squizz at everything.  I was doing really well at not spending any money until the very end...  I found this gorgeous little meditation stool from Black Dragon Seats.

It is really comfy.  I often find when I am sitting cross legged on the ground that my legs cramp up quite quickly and my lower back aches.  I sit on a cushion, but it isn't really any support.  This little stool has 3 adjustable heights, and is surprisingly amazingly comfortable.  I sat down on it after I had been working on the stand for around 7 hours.  I swear, I wanted to stay there for the rest of the day.  Because we were working there the guy gave us a 10% discount which was lovely of him.  It was still more than I wanted to spend, but considering I didn't buy hardly anything else, it was still a way cheaper day than last year!

I also got to meet the team from the Free the Bears Fund.  I had a chat to the Co-ordinator and have the details for the next volunteer meeting that I have already booked into the diary.  I am really looking forward to starting to work with them.

I think the main thing for me that I got from the day though, is that now I know without a doubt I want to be in the spiritual healing world.  I have a lot to learn.  This is a process and a journey and I accept that.  But I felt so energised and content there.  That is where I want to be.  I am doing well with my Reiki, and I am studying the Tarot.  I have so many other things I want to learn.  And I will.  I just have to learn patience (not one of my strong suits) practice what I already know, get myself out there, and learn.  It will come.

xox