Category: – Self Care | Self Love

The Scale of Recklessness

I’ve never considered myself to be reckless. Even as a teenager I was the one who always ‘looked before I leapt’. However, I did not live a cotton wool-padded life. As a mid-baby boomer with two working parents I grew up with bare feet, no bike helmet, no sunblock, lots of sharp objects, bare electricals, toxic and explosive stuff hanging around accessibly, and deadly plants and spiders in the garden. Also, I had plenty of unsupervised freedom to roam the neighbourhood and the local forests, creeks and storm drains. Many other kids suffered breaks, lacerations, concussions and other injuries due to recklessness. But, me, not so much. With enormous energy and zest for life, I ran, jumped, climbed, rode, splashed, explored, poked and prodded to my heart’s content, but quite consciously and aware of my body, movements and surroundings. Continue reading “The Scale of Recklessness” →

The Power of Rest

We all have an extraordinary ability to keep going, work hard, stay on our feet and keep at it. This is great and something to appreciate. I wonder though whether we have lost sight of what is needed to sustain this and stay well whilst we commit to life and work.

Taking one aspect of self-care and really exploring our relationship with it can be very revealing. For example, rest is something I have had to have a really close look at and would say that for most of my life I have believed it to be a necessity that needs minimal attention or care beyond which it becomes an indulgence. Continue reading “The Power of Rest” →

Rushing, But Going Nowhere

While driving the other day I noticed a car way behind me, swerving in and out of traffic, passing everyone in a hurried way, apparently without time to even use his turn signals. He zoomed right up behind me, so close I couldn’t even see his bumper in my rear-view mirror, and proceeded to rocket past in the left lane and quickly accelerated into the distance. Continue reading “Rushing, But Going Nowhere” →

Sore Teeth and Rough Books – Are we Ignoring our Children’s Innate Sensitivity?

“My teeth are really hurting me, Miss,” cried a young student in my primary school classroom recently. He was deeply distressed and the tears were flowing freely as he held his jaw to soothe the pain.

Towards the end of a very lengthy spelling test, he had asked if he could go and sharpen his pencil. I’d indicated we only had 5 words to go so it wasn’t necessary – I’d be able to read the last 5 words even so. Continue reading “Sore Teeth and Rough Books – Are we Ignoring our Children’s Innate Sensitivity?” →

The Body and My Relationship with it

All through life I have had this body that I have been carting around. An amazing body that I have not really ever stopped to appreciate deeply. This body is my vehicle, my means of getting around from point A to point B, a very useful and practical thing indeed. But have I ever stopped to feel that there is so much more to appreciating this body and all that it can really be, and more importantly, all that it can be a vehicle for?

Well, let’s find out…

For most of my life I have seen my body as just a ‘thing,’ as mentioned before, “something to cart around and get around in.” And most of the time I find myself getting frustrated with my body – why can I not move faster, be less clumsy, get more things done; why do I have to stop to feed, care for and sleep this ‘thing’? Why can I not eat and drink certain foods without the body reacting or getting sick? Continue reading “The Body and My Relationship with it” →

Poisoned through Self-Abuse

Abuse is a very huge box in which so many things are happening, without always showing any clear signs to the outer world. I would like to look into the box and share with you a kind of abuse that we can call ‘self-abuse’ – an abuse of our own body, maybe without the awareness that we do this, or seeing it as a form of abuse.

At the moment we hear a lot about abuse in the Catholic Church, in sport and recently in the movie world. People are sharing their experiences and this can be a beginning to bring abuse into the light. But there is a lot of abuse in the whole world that we don’t see or hear about. Or, could it be that we don’t want to look at it as a kind of abuse? Continue reading “Poisoned through Self-Abuse” →