Tag: health and wellbeing

health and wellbeing

Control

JudithLeave a comment


At some point, most of us turn our thoughts to uninhabited islands, more specifically being able to exist on one – alone. The prospect of being in a defined space where all that happens is decided by you, where external forces cannot reach and the time spent there yields incredible personal benefit, is well, the stuff of fantasy. Or not. Not actually. I have access to one and can escape to it at short notice. It unfolds in a trice. It’s my pilates mat. For a relatively small outlay, you can invest in your own island, and for reasons I will explain, I encourage you to do so.

As living creatures, we need to move, most basically because we must find our nutrition, organise our shelter, maintain our hygiene and nurture our young. Fortunately we have been provided with a musculo-skeletal system to enable us to do such things. When this system is compromised, so then is our life. There are a range of options available to care for our movement system and it’s wonderful to see so many people adopting them. Purposeful ramblers, runners, cyclists, swimmers and dancers are a common sight, since the automation of our world has all but made these forms of movement redundant as natural actions within our daily lives.

Of course, with repetitive motion, does at times come injury and the very issue we are aiming to avoid we may have encouraged. As a runner, I have welcomed a few of these issues! So to engage in movement that will nurture your system, safeguard or repair it in times of high intensity activity and require a level of concentration so focused that external thoughts are impossible to entertain, has got to be worth undertaking. And it is. Pilates or Contrology (as Joseph Pilates coined it) can be your way of moving throughout the stages of your life in a strong, flexible and centered manner.

You may have come to the understanding, as I have, that there is very little in life we have, or really need to have, ultimate control over. But to have a sense of mastery of our own movement is ultimately very rewarding – both practically and intrinsically. Whatever point you are at today in terms of age, injury or level of flexibility (or inflexibility) you are ready to begin a Pilates sequence.

Postscript: I shall leave Joseph Pilates to make the final point today.

”A body free from nervous tension and fatigue is the ideal shelter provided by nature for housing a well balanced mind, fully capable of successfully meeting all the complex problems of modern living.’

And with that, I shall sling my island over my shoulder and escape to mastery of the mind and control of the body.

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gardening · health and wellbeing

Sowing

JudithLeave a comment

Little Red Hen

It’s usually when I’m knee-deep in dirt that my most profound thoughts occur, and to follow suit as I recently pushed the pitch fork into the neglected vegetable patch, this came to me: you reap what you sow. Obviously not an original light bulb, but one that spurred me to dig deeper as weeds resisted and motivation waned. To keep turning that soil and uprooting a winter’s worth of tangled roots, the mental picture of what would be thriving in a few months fuelled the progress.

So as fork struck earth, as it so often does my mind took that thought on quite an expedition, concluding at the realisation that all we reap from life does in fact come from all the effort of our sowing.

This row of infant beans will be fed, watered and watched over. Should environmental factors threaten, they will be protected, mended and secured once more to their trellis. My hopes for these beans are that they grow tall and are healthy, producing a bounty for our table.

Row of new beans

Like these beans we nurture our children, nourishing, shielding and guiding with hopes of healthy, robust individuals emerging. And it is through these sowing and cultivating years that can be so challenging we know to persevere, as the ripening of resilient people is the greatest reward.

And our friends, the cheerful petal-faced people, that brighten our days as their horticultural counterparts do from their vases, flourish with our attention. Considered time and effort is a necessity to keep flowers blooming – and so it is with our companions. Both to be treasured.

flower seeds

All of the delicious meals, fascinating stories and masterful accomplishments in the workplace began with cognitive seeds, given time to develop. Pause and reflect on the satisfying fruits of your recent labour and know that it was your careful sowing that resulted in their fruition.

scarecrow

Postscript: Mind you, there are times when no matter how carefully you sow and how expertly you guard, the crows of life can intervene ….

health and wellbeing

Brew

Judith1 Comment

Goodness only knows why a cowboy wielding a frying pan dispenses my loose-leaf tea, but apparently the 1950s/60s Japanese manufacturers considered it to be the height of kitchen chic to do so.

Being a Twinings tea-bag girl, it’s not often that this canister makes an appearance from the back stalls of the pantry, but on the occasions when a teapot brew is called for, gosh it makes me smile.

Making a pot of tea signifies a break in the daily journey – a segment of life dedicated to ‘right now’. The ritual of tea making – warming the pot, allowing the leaves to steep and carefully straining as you pour – necessitates a slower pace and time to consider. There is nothing instant about this process.

It is no coincidence that a slice of fruit loaf tastes so good with a cup of tea – rather than when it is consumed unconsciously on-the-fly amidst email checking or grocery unpacking.  While your tea settles to drinking temperature, there is time and attention made available to savor each morsel.

In the company of friends I am more inclined to fill the teapot as it suggests multiple refills and an extension of conversation, an atmosphere the one-tea-bag-per-cup alternative fails to achieve.

It may have been a while since last you saw your teapot. If this is so, in the coming week I encourage you to seek it out, allow it to pour you a decent cup of peace and place that well-deserved comma in the lengthy sentence of your day.

Postscript: I’m sure my tea canister is one of a series, possibly having siblings named rice, flour and sugar – would love to organise a family reunion someday.