Brace yourselves, this is a RANT!!

I’ve learned the lesson that some days when I’m doubting myself, I need to Just Show Up. So on a day where I felt like saying no and hiding in the house, I decided to say “yes”.

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What are the benefits of cold water? Cold water’s a hot topic these days, with more and more people jumping in. Wild swimming is certainly growing in popularity (Outdoor Swimmer reports a boom in outdoor swimming in 2020) and we’re starting to see celebrities getting in on the act too with cold showers and ice baths.

We keep hearing that cold water is “good” for us, but why exactly? Is it purely the physical exposure to the cold and our body’s reaction to it, is it something to do with building mental resilience, or is it something else?

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Mindfulness is becoming a well-known phrase.

But does it still conjure up images of people sitting on a circle of cushions at a retreat, chanting “ommm” for hours on end? How can we use mindfulness in our everyday lives, and how does mindfulness help in the workplace?

Do you want to know the hidden benefits of doing a 30 day challenge? It’s a lot more powerful than it sounds. The benefits are huge, and all it takes is just a little bit of staying power.

My mum used to say “keep the heid” when things were going crazy or we were in a flap. I heard it so many times that I never properly thought about it.

As I sat down to write this, I suddenly heard her say “keep the heid!” and I realised the wisdom contained in those three words. Keep your head. It’s mindfulness. It’s how we learn to cope in moment of stress.

Apparently, most of us are deficient in vitamin D. I didn’t realise this was an issue because my knowledge was:

a) it prevents rickets; and b) rickets is a thing of the past.

Right?

Wrong – on both counts.

I now realise that, unless you live an outdoor life in the Tropics, you need to take this vitamin.

We had our last training swim in the loch leading up to our 3km swim event. I was nervous beforehand, knowing this would be a long one.

I’ve had an interesting week, coming down with covid.  The most intense stage only lasted about 36 hours, but the exhaustion and the pain and burning in my head were certainly different from anything I’ve experienced before.

This is the first time I’ve been unwell for years, and it really made me appreciate how my understanding of my own health and wellbeing has changed over time.

This is my long-suffering husband who joins me swimming in cold lochs in the Highlands. We go for beautiful swims, getting glimpses of the scenery as we turn our heads to breathe, occasionally stopping for a rest and a chat, feeling safe, happy and calm.

But it wasn’t always this way for me.

29 years of being A Vegetarian and I have never felt especially aligned with the title. Not that I mind that word or anything (I’m just me, I don’t care what it’s called). But I’ve learned a lot about the assumptions and judgements that come with a label.

We’re all grown-ups.  We’re free to choose where we allocate our time, money and attention.  None of this is right or wrong, and none of these choices make us a bad person.

But it’s food for thought isn’t it? How often do we consciously make choices about where we allocate our resources?  And do those choices align with what we actually want from our lives; are they helping us get to where we’d like to be?

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This guy has never been a lap cat. Always independent, and happy to receive our affections on his own terms.⁣

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Research shows that the most successful people have morning routines.

When it feels like lots of things in the world are out of our control, having a morning routine is a great way to take charge of the day, even just for 10 minutes.  It boosts our self-belief by reminding us that it’s within our control to create the day (and ultimately the life) that we want.

Let’s talk about our heart chakra… and why we want to look after it.

It’s such an important area of our bodies and energy space, creating the bridge between our lower three chakras (related to security, the material world and grounding) and our upper three chakras (related to self-reflection, inner wisdom and spirituality).

“I’m so glad I just said it!”  Do you ever feel like that?  You hum and haw, running it over in your mind, thinking: what if it sounds silly, what will they think of me?

Today I didn’t really feel like it. It’s December and the air’s damp and cold, the ground is muddy, and I’ve had a bit of a headache for a couple of days.  So maybe any other year I would have not bothered and thought, ah I’ll run another day.  But not today; not this year. This is story of how a positive daily habit changed my life.