Well I feel I must begin this blog by saying how very pleased I am with this beautiful weather. Every opportunity I’ve had I’ve been out in the sun soaking up some Vitamin D. It’s recharging my batteries. I have even taken my laptop out to the garden to write this week’s blog!
I’ve had a tiring but very good week. My mind is buzzing with new ideas and projects and I’ve even managed to complete a few of the old ones as well. So I’m pretty pleased with myself really.
Those of you that know me know I’ve fought a battle with ME/CFS in recent years and to be honest my health wasn’t that great even before this came along.
Even though last month I managed to climb my first ever Munro (Scottish Mountain), as my health has improved that much, I’ve found that there still seems to be some traces of the ME/CFS hanging around. I’ve done a lot of work on my body and mind of the last few years, which is why I’m back to about 95% health, but that last bit won’t (very frustratingly) budge.
However this last week I’ve had an epiphany! I’ve realised even though I know I’m 95% better I’m still allowing myself to be the ME/CFS label and still think of myself this way. What I mean by this is that I still think of myself as muddled, confused, brain fogged, headachy and easily tired (although much better on all counts than before). This week I have been making a conscious effort to not think this way and I’m sure this is helping already. Rather that looking for and talking about myself in this way, I am making changes, I am not allowing my body and mind to stay under this label any more, I am putting my foot down!
The other thing I’ve realised I don’t do is give myself credit when I have completed something, helped someone, had a good idea or am working on something good. This is a fundamental flaw in many of us, we really don’t appreciate ourselves. We are all beautiful, amazing beings and instead of embracing this we constantly put ourselves down, are negative about ourselves and basically bitch about ourselves. This is not healthy and can be the cause of many health issues, it can also prevent healing and reinforces negative pathways within the brain. So every day I’ve been praising myself for my accomplishments, big and small. I’ve also been doing the same task I set a dear friend last week and that’s listing 30 things each day you’re grateful for. It really does make a difference as it gets you out of the negative cycle of your thoughts of always finding fault with things and, of course, makes you realise how many amazing things you have to be grateful for. Give it ago and see what you think….
One last thing I am trialling is called Mindmaster. It’s a program you download to your computer and then pick the topics you want to work on and it flashes images and words up on your computer screen whilst you working. These apparently have a positive effect on the subconscious mind and help reprogram it to do what you require of it. It’s free for 14 days so we’ll see how I get on with it. =0) http://www.mindmaster.tv/
I was wondering how everyone else was getting on with Plastic Free July Have you made any changes, are you more aware of what you’re buying, using and throwing away? I’m really pleased that by doing away with bin bags we are now recycling and re-using even more than before (which I didn’t think was possible) and our normal house hold wheelie bin has hardly anything in it. So not only have we reduced the amount of plastic we are using but we have also reduced the amount of waste going into landfill.
My last blog finished with me mentioning about the Natural Home & Skin Care Products Workshop I was about to hold last weekend, so I thought I’d just tell you a little bit about how that went.
We made Bath Melters (mini bath bombs), an all purpose Balm, Bath Salts, Carpet Deodoriser, a Room/Body Spray and a general Household Cleaner (these were all natural, environmentally friendly and palm-oil free products). 
We had a nice big raw food lunch, which seemed to go down well and everyone said they were full, but not the bloated type of full you get from eating too much cooked food. 
And I REALLY enjoyed the day, it was such a lovely group of people that attended, we nattered and put the world to rights about so many topics and everyone got to take away all the things they’d made. To say I was buzzing at the end of the day would be an understatement! Can’t wait to arrange the next one now, watch this space!
One of the things that everyone always seems surprised about is how easy and cheap it is to make all the natural products, especially when shops charge a small fortune for you to by anything environmentally friendly from them. So I thought I’d share with you one of the easiest things you can make yourself and that’s an all purpose household cleaner.
1. Wash out any old empty spray bottle you have at home.
2. Add 1/3 white wine vinegar and 2/3 filtered water (leaving about 1/2 cm spare in the top of the bottle).
3. Squeeze in a whole lemon or lime (making sure only the juice goes in).
4. Add 20/25 drops of essential oils (either lemon, lime, tea-tree, lavender, grapefruit, pine or a mixture of these as there all good cleaning oils).
5. Put the top on the bottle and shake and there you have it!
Make sure to give it a quick shake before you use it each time, as it separates out otherwise. This is great at cleaning, floors, windows, kitchens, you name it, it will clean it and much better than almost all chemically cleaners you buy from the supermarket. I would just be careful about using it around baths, where there is a seal as sometimes the vinegar can eat away at this area.
So anyway I best be off and get myself ready for my weekend Mindfulness Retreat down in the Borders at the Samye Ling Buddhist Monastery. Tell you all about this in the next Blog!
For anyone that’s interested in any ‘Let’s’ events coming up, please check out the Meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/Lets-Make-This-World-A-Better-Place/
