Consciously Well

10/10/2023

Noticed this discount from the Calm Ap people. I have no affiliation, but I just like to share anything that I find helpful... that you may also.

The most relaxing app in the world

02/10/2023

“Hunting awe” is a wonderful practice to get into. I loved this show on Awe Hunting on Compass. For me… watching flowers slowly bloom, the sparkling of sun of water, spring leaves growing, and my dog relaxing in the sun taking big happy sighs also counts as awe. Check it out…

04/09/2023

An inspiring weekend at the ACIIDS conference with some great thought leaders in Australia in the chronic complex illness space.

The gracious Jill Carnahan, MD who does a beautiful job of acknowledging the complexity of how both environmental exposure to toxins and infections, AND trauma ALL contribute to disease states.

With heart, spirit Dr Jill truely “gets” how early developmental experiences and pasts trauma’s contribute to our stories, beliefs and body patterns that contribute to disease. And the commitment and dedication it takes to understand our true nature. For an inspiring read…check out her book Unexpected.

14/12/2022

An end of year post to say hello!! ...and to wish you peace and joy at the end of this 'break neck paced year".

I hope you find some space in the coming weeks to just BE - with loved ones, in nature...anything that brings you joy.

My husband recently called 2022, the 1000 day year. With the unprocessed feelings, emotions and exhaustion of 2020 & 2021 in there too. I agree with him.

This repost below resonated with me - and hopefully it may give comfort to someone out there who is wondering why they feel so depleted. Wishing you happy holidays. My last day in practice for 2022 is the 22nd December and I return in 2023 on the 18th Jan. With love and gratitude...Sally

A gentle reminder about why you are utterly exhausted…

No one I know began this year on a full tank. Given the vicious onslaught of the previous two years (let’s just call it what it was) most of us dragged ourselves across the finish line of 2021… frazzled, spent, running on aged adrenaline fumes…

We crawled into 2022 still carrying shock, trauma, grief, heaviness, disbelief… The memories of a surreal existence…
And then it began… The fastest hurricane year we could ever have imagined. Whether we have consciously processed it or not, this has been a year of more pressure, more stress, and a race to “catch up” in all departments… Every. Single. One. Work, school, sports, relationships, life…

Though not intentionally aware, perhaps hopeful that the busier we are, the more readily we will forget… the more easily we will undo the emotional tangle… the more permanently we will wipe away the scarring wounds…
We can’t.

And attempts to re-create some semblance of “normal” on steroids while disregarding that for almost two years our sympathetic nervous systems were on full alert, has left our collective mental health in tatters. Our children and teens are not exempt. The natural byproduct of fighting a hurricane is complete and utter exhaustion…

So before you begin questioning the absolutely depleted and wrung-dry state you are in- Pause. Breathe. Remind yourself of who you are and what you have endured. And then remind yourself of what you have overcome.
Despite it all, you’re still going. (Even on the days you stumble and find yourself face down in a pile of dirt).
Understanding brings compassion…

Most of the world’s citizens are in need of a little extra TLC at the moment. Most are donning invisible “Handle with care” posters around their necks and “Fragile” tattoos on their bodies…
Instead of racing to the finish line of this year, tread gently. Go slowly.

Amidst the chaos, find small pockets of silence. Find compassion. Allow the healing. And most of all… Be kind. There’s no human being on earth who couldn’t use just a little bit more of the healing salve of kindness.

With love ♥️

Naomi Holdt - Psychologist and Speaker

www.raisingvibrations.com.au

12/06/2022

Happy long weekend. As I sit in the sun drinking my delicious cup of tea listening to the birds chatter around me…I am deciding to drink all that positivity into my body. This is why…💕

Fleeting thoughts and feelings leave lasting traces in neural structure. Whatever we stimulate in the brain tends to grow stronger over time.

This brain stuff can sound exotic or esoteric, but in essence the approach is simple: find the neural processes that underlie negative mental factors, and reduce them; meanwhile, find the neural processes that underlie positive mental factors, and increase them. Less bad and more good – based on neuroscience and Western psychology, and informed by contemplative wisdom.

08/06/2022

An interesting read about addiction…

“Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles. One is just water and one is water laced with he**in or co***ne. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks. That is our theory of addiction.

Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.” So he built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything a rat could want is in Rat Park. Lovely food. Lots of s*x. Other rats to befriend. Colored balls. Plus both water bottles, one with water and one with drugged water. But here’s what's fascinating: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use it. None of them overdose. None of them use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.

Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can't bear to be present in our lives without being on something, drink, drugs, s*x, shopping... We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.

The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with things not people. You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff. In fact, we are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume. Drug addiction is a subset of that."
Credit: Johann Hari

16/05/2022

Okay okay so these are still an occasional treat… but my “little girl” inside myself just got really really excited seeing these gluten free mint slice biscuits just released 🥳😍🥳

EXCITING ENDORSEMENT NEWS! The Arnott's Biscuits products you’ve been waiting for!

We saw so many fantastic guesses last week for the new gluten free Arnott’s products – and here they are!

Arnott’s culinary experts have created three more gluten free versions of classic Aussie favourites: the delightful Shortbread Cream, the decadent Mint Slice, and the tasty and fun TeeVee Snacks Original!

Arnott’s has extended their range of gluten free biscuits so that more people can enjoy their delicious and iconic biscuits without compromising on taste and quality. These are additions to the existing Arnott’s gluten free range of Scotch Finger, Choc Ripple and Tiny Teddy’s.

This new range is Endorsed by Coeliac Australia, made in Australia, and available in Woolworths and selected Independent stores from this week.

16/05/2022

Some thyroid (and regulation of nervous system) gems here….

The symptoms of low thyroid function and vagal tone are similar.

Their connection may be based on a physical layout of the vagus nerve.

On the way to the gut the vagus controls the muscles at the back of the throat to begin the digestive swallowing process.

It also slings a nerve back up to the voice box, to control the laryngeal muscles.

Right here is the thyroid gland, which may show the connection between vagal tone and our voice.

Low thyroid hormone levels cause fluid to accumulate in the vocal folds, and when the thyroid gland enlarges due to disease, the vocal chords can become pinched or partially paralyzed due to their snug proximity.

One characteristic of hypothyroidism is a hoarse voice.

The thyroid gland is controlled by sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves (vagus).

That means if your stressed, it will downregulate the production of thyroid hormone, potentially due to lack of vagal nerve tone.

Your vagal tone can be measured by tracking your heart rate, your breathing rate, and your heart rate variability (HRV).

Increasing your vagal tone activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and having higher vagal tone means that your body can relax faster after stress.

In 2010, researchers discovered a positive feedback loop between high vagal tone, positive emotions, and good physical health.

So how to improve vagal tone? Better connection and control to vocal chords and voice will assist your brain to keep good relaxing vagal tone (hence why singing make us feel good!)

Physical ways to activate the vagus nerve:

1) Gargling while humming – try to see if you can do a 1-minute exercise
2) Cold showers
3) Deep expansive breathing, with exhale double the inhale
4) Voice exercises

To use the laryngeal muscles you need to exercise the full pitch of your voice.

Siren exercise: takes an “oooo” sound and gradually goes from the lowest note of your range to the highest and back down, like a siren for an emergency vehicle.

The sound is continuous and covers the tones between the notes.

If it’s hard in one point, just keep practicing, it will get easier as you gain better control.

08/05/2022

💜

This weekend may bring up difficult emotions for some people.

If you're worried about someone, check in to let them know you're thinking about them, and offer to support them in any way you can.

You can find tips on what you can do to help them at https://bit.ly/3MXCqj9

27/04/2022

And a bit more on hormones and what can disrupt them...

Imbalances in your hormones are triggered by bad food. ⁣⁣
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If you eat sugar, you’ll produce more insulin, more estrogen, and more testosterone. Any type of flour and sugar can lead to these imbalances. ⁣⁣
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Dairy and gluten are often triggers for inflammation and hormonal imbalances. ⁣⁣
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Xenobiotics or environmental chemicals like pesticides in our food can act like powerful hormone disruptors and trigger our own hormones to go out of balance.⁣⁣
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We know that sugar, caffeine, alcohol, stress, and lack of exercise all contribute to worse PMS and all hormonal imbalances – including menopause.⁣⁣
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After removing the bad stuff, you will want to replace it with good stuff. ⁣⁣
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Eat a whole, real, unprocessed, organic, mostly plant-based diet with organic or sustainably raised animal products. When you focus on this type of diet, you minimize intake of xenoestrogens, hormones, and antibiotics. Taking simple steps like choosing organic food and drinking filtered water can hugely impact hormone balance.⁣⁣
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Getting good quality sleep every night and exercising regularly can help balance your hormones. Along with supplementing with Omega-3, vitamin D3, B vitamins, magnesium, and probiotics.

27/04/2022

Often people don’t think this is an issue…but it is. Very much so. The reason I use pure essential oils as perfumes only.

Hormones get messed up by perfumes… in body wash, smelly candles, and anything with man made fragrances in it. It’s never just one sniff of course…it’s the total load on the individual human. Aim to reduce the load of all environmental chemicals for overall health.

Obesogens are a subset of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which disrupt a body’s hormone activity. Obesogens are generally defined as any chemical that can cause the human body to produce more fat than it normally would. These can include substances we usually think of as fattening, like sugars or...

14/04/2022

How beautifully accurate! Weather we call it depression, burnout, breakdown… We need to let the old die so the new can emerge.

THE WISDOM OF BURNOUT

I don’t think people realise how much sacred intelligence there is in their exhaustion, their burnout, their despair.

We all need to become exhausted, burnt out, frazzled and depressed at some point in our lives.

All of us.

Some get stuck in the mud. Others push through. It’s somewhat of a mystery, what helps people push through into the glory and into their wildness.

The edge of death, the edge of life. I have been there. I lived there for many years.

The false self NEEDS to burn out. It longs to die. It is not real.

Yes, our inauthenticity needs to die. Saying no when we mean yes and yes when we mean no. Stuffing down our rage to appear polite.

Squashing down our despair to seem “up”.

Repressing our s*xuality, our true longings, our authentic desires.

Pretending to know when we don’t, or pretending to not know when we really do.

Suppressing the wisdom and intuition and knowing in our guts.

Pretending to be spiritual, nice, kind, nonjudgemental, tolerant, strong, when really, fear and loathing and rage boil underneath.

Trying to avoid disappointing the ones we love.

But our wildness will save us. Our rage, our terror, our explosive despair will make us whole, if we can digest these misunderstood energies. The more we suppress such infinite creativities, the more exhausted we become and the more we want to die (live).

The danger is, we assume that there is something “wrong” with us for feeling so “negative”; we see this as some kind of failing or weakness of ours, and we further shame our shame, de-press our depression, turn away from these infinitely intelligent signals, these CALLS FOR NEW LIFE.

Yes, in our innocence, we push away the very thing that is trying to save us. We medicate away our feelings, try to numb ourselves even further.

We try to “keep going”. We try to “relax”. Or we wallow and indulge in our feelings, creating a new identity of “victim”.

There is a middle way, friends.

Breaking open to the truth of our lives is terrifying. But necessary. Sometimes we need to burn out first, be brought to our knees first, fall into utter despair and helplessness, travel into the underworld of ourselves, and tell the awful truth of “me”.

We need to speak our raw truth and risk alienating everyone around us.

We need to be willing to confront our deepest loneliness and rage and risk losing our friends, family, supporters.

We need to take the risk of joy. Follow our heart’s call.

Take small steps towards the things that scare the s**t out of us.

We need to let ourselves die... to who we took ourselves to be.

Break down, burn out, end the bulls**t... and touch the awesome fire of Truth. This is the path of the brave and of those who have no damn choice anymore anyway.

- Jeff Foster