15 easy things you can do when you feel like shit ( thanks Buzzfeed)

  1. Get a drink of water.

You could be dehydrated! Your body needs water. Not juice, soda, or alcohol — get a tall glass of water and make yourself drink all of it.

  1. Make your bed.

When you have a lot to do and it feels overwhelming, making your bed can be the first step in getting your life on track. It will also (hopefully) discourage you from getting back into it.

  1. Take a shower.

Life feels different when you’re clean! And it can give you a burst of energy if you’re feeling lethargic. Wash your hair and give yourself a head massage.

  1. Have a snack — not junk food!

Did you eat enough today? It’s super tempting to eat junk food when you feel like crap. If you don’t feel like making a whole meal, maybe eat just a piece of fruit; something you can burn throughout the day and not in a burst of five minutes.

  1. Take a walk.

Maritsa Patrinos / BuzzFeed

You might need some fresh air and not even know it. Give your body some natural light, breathe some different air, move your legs a little, even if it’s for just five minutes. Allow yourself to think some different thoughts.

  1. Change your clothes.

Even if you aren’t going to leave the house today, put on real clothes. Or, if you’ve been wearing the same uncomfortable clothes all day and feel restless, change into your sleepy clothes and slippers and relax.

  1. Change your environment.

Maritsa Patrinos / BuzzFeed

Staring at the same four walls day after day can be drudging. Can you work from a cafe, a library, or a friend’s house? If you can add going somewhere to the list of things you did today, you may feel more accomplished.

  1. Talk to someone, not on the internet — it can be about anything.

If you don’t feel like talking through your troubles, that’s OK. Visit a friend, talk to them about a movie you saw. Call your mom and see how she’s doing.

  1. Dance to an upbeat guilty pleasure song.

NOT ELLIOT SMITH! Pick something high energy and bump it. Dance like a rock star for one song to get your blood pumping again.

  1. Get some exercise.

Do some cardio, work up a sweat. If you don’t have the time for a whole workout, look up a sun salutation on YouTube and stretch for as long as you have time. Do some push-ups or sit-ups at your desk.

  1. Accomplish something — even if it’s something tiny.

Maritsa Patrinos / BuzzFeed

Do you need to grab some groceries? Schedule a doctor’s appointment? Reply to an email? If you can’t get to the big stuff on your list, focus on the small stuff, and don’t forget to congratulate yourself for getting something done.

  1. Hug an animal.

If you don’t have a pet, can you visit a friend’s? Or can you go to an animal shelter?

  1. Make a “done” list instead of a “to-do” list.

Maritsa Patrinos / BuzzFeed

Instead of overwhelming yourself right now, start feeling better about what you did get done. You can add “brushed teeth,” “washed dishes,” or “picked out an outfit” to your list. It doesn’t matter how small the task, prove to yourself that you’re effectual.

  1. Watch a YouTube video that always makes you laugh.

youtube.com

I personally recommend this one.

  1. Give yourself permission to feel shitty.

You’re allowed to have a shitty day, and you don’t have to fix it all right now. If you try to fix it and it doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. Give yourself the time and space you need to feel what you’re feeling.

Big thanks to Sinope for this inspirational Tumblr post.

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Pain – are you ready to let go?

Do you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders? Are you constantly sticking your neck out for everyone else? Are you stressed, tired, have unexplained pain or unable to sleep well?

Sometimes unexplained pain or chronic pain cannot be resolved with conventional therapies or medication. It may offer some relief, but the pain returns. This pain can reside on a physical level, but the source may be emotional. Unresolved emotional pain including trauma, grief, stress and loss can often manifest in the body as physical pain.

For some, this pain is beneficial, it is a way of getting help, sympathy or assistance. Some of us are not ready to let go of our pain as it offers us a chance to connect with others, a reason to ask for help, it allows us to need others without having to be vulnerable or emotionally needy, so instead, we become physically needy. Sometimes we are not ready for help, we want to blame an injury, an accident, our medication or incompetent doctors or health professionals. But what if this pain is trying to tell us something? What if the accident, the injury, the hurt is a way of our body letting us know that we need to acknowledge our emotional wounds and pain?

Energetic Healing can help

Human memory is stored in the brain and the body. Some memories and emotions, if left unprocessed by the brain, manifest in the physical body as pain. Sometimes this pain can be relieved but nor completely shifted by body work (like massage, physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathic work or acupuncture) or even medication. The pain may be caused by trapped emotion, suppressed heartache, or grief, emotional pain sometimes needs assistance to be released in other ways.

What is energetic healing?

Energetic work is conducted fully clothed on the massage table. A variety of methods are used – tailored to your needs.

These may consist of:

  • EFT ( Emotional Freedom Technique) or tapping to release subconscious beliefs and old thought patterns
  • Meditation – using guided meditation, connect with your inner child, teenager, goddess or warrior to strengthen and realign your soul
  • Reiki – hands on healing channels universal energy calming the body and mind and clearing blockages in the body
  • I utilise intuitive guidance to unlock additional insight for your healing
  • As a trained counsellor I offer support and a safe space to release emotions which you no longer need to carry

How will I feel after?

Some clients immediately feel lighter, happier, stronger and more vibrant. Others report feeling particularly emotional in the days following a  treatment. This is part of the healing process. It is important during this time to allow these emotions to pass through you and release them from the body. Whether they appear as sadness, grief, anger or depression, sit with these emotions, acknowledge them and let them pass. Be kind to yourself, rest, retreat if you feel the need to, walk in nature, drink water, nourish your body and sleep. The body is in recovery. Gentle movement and rest will help to move the emotions out of your body.

Energy healings are $150 per session and are approximately 1.5 – 2 hours.

Sometimes one session is enough to release pain, for older or more established pain a few sessions are beneficial to work more deeply.

The only question for you to answer is – Are you ready?

Book a session
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Gut Feeling

Have you ever walked into a room of new people and seen someone you felt you should avoid? Ever sensed where your car was in a shopping centre car park, even though hours of shopping had spun you around and you forgot where you parked? Ever walked out of a job interview and knew you had the job? These are all gut feelings.

Harvard University and many other medical and scientific journals are just starting to prove what many of us have sensed for years. They are now discovering that our stomach and digestive system are actually made up of millions and millions of neurones that we thought were only found in the brain. They are now referring to the stomach as the “second brain”.

Some people who are either highly in tune with their bodies, hypersensitive, intuitive or empaths, already are nodding their heads. This makes sense to them. It feels obvious to me. I know when I go against my gut or my instinct; I always wish I had’nt. Even so far as the conversation I have at my front door nearly every day “ should I take a cardigan?” then I remember I live in Brisbane now, so the answer is mostly no.

Medical studies are just catching up with this theory about the gut brain connection. You can google gut/brain to see more of the studies and the experiments they are now conducting on the link between food and mood, and how depression and anxiety can stem from the gut. We are also finding out how over-prescription of antibiotics can now not only mess with your gut flora but as a consequence your emotions and mood. The amazing thing is that they have proven that by examining cells in the intestines that they are actually made up of millions of neurons, which previously were believed to be the cells only found in the brain. I’m no neuro-scientist, so you can have a look at some of the links, but finally there is proof. We need to start to trust our gut!

The simplified version of this, or how it was explained to me in a diagrammatic form is that in utero as the cells are growing and dividing, when the fetus looks like a little baby mouseling thing, half the cells morph into the head and half into the stomach. The cells split and divide and the neurons or previously what we called “brain cells” were split in two between the head and the belly. Shared cells in two different parts of the body. Scientists argue that this doesn’t mean the stomach can think, it just means it is capable of highly functioning tasks. Like the very un-sexy one of breaking down our food into a bolus or churning it into chyme in order to expel this in the form of waste from our body. I disagree; my stomach tells me stuff all the time. I ‘m only just starting to listen to it.

A few weeks ago I woke with an oppressive feeling of absolute darkness. I knew somebody was going to die but I didn’t feel it was in my family. It didn’t take me long to wonder as a few hours after not being able to shake this feeling, the terrorist attack happened on London Bridge. I actually told my husband that day as the feeling was so strong. Now that I have started to really listen to my inner voice, my intuition or my gut feelings, I feel that I need to know when they are true, just for proof. So telling someone, or even just writing it down is my validation.

Like most people in their twenties, I thought I knew everything. Whenever I felt anything, I pushed this down and overrode this with what I thought was my more superior brain. It got me into all sorts of trouble, with what I thought were the “best” friends or the most “adventurous” relationship or even the “perfect” job.

At the beginning of my career, when I worked in a job I had tired of, I was desperate to work in advertising. I had an interview with an agency where they liked my experience but assured me I would be bored. I was so full of youth and enthusiasm, I ignored this wisdom. It was an ad agency, it was my dream! They offered me a trial day to see what I thought. On a deeper level I knew it was wrong for me, a large corporate office based on the North Shore, all my friends were in the city, it was a longer commute, not a great increase in salary and the staff were a little less colourful than what I was used to.

The morning of the trial I was given two briefs. One was to write a piece on a rubber backed mat using the words “high traffic area” and the other was to celebrate the use of a revolving cloth towel dispenser in public bathrooms. I kid you not. I took my lunch break and phoned the receptionist from a pay phone. “I’m not coming back.”  I said into the orange mouth piece. “ We thought so, ” was his reply. Sometimes you just know.

When I overstayed in an unhealthy relationship, my body certainly let me know. If breaking out in hives wasn’t enough, vomiting every time he put the key in the door when he came home from work was a sure sign. I still told myself I was having an allergic reaction to some vitamins I was taking.  We make up all kinds of stories to justify our actions. Listening to my gut could have saved me many months of heartache.

I have also had days in the office where things didn’t feel right, where even though my brain told me it was just another day, my stomach would sink and lurch and tell me otherwise. Then a staff meeting would be called, an announcement made, restructure, redundancies etc. The gut knows things the brain doesn’t.

Many, many times I have ignored my gut, my inner voice or my instinct about someone or something. Now people who know me, get used to me saying “ I just know,” or “I’m pretty certain this is the right thing for you to do,” or “this just doesn’t feel right to me.” I am learning to trust it. So far it has always pointed me in the right direction. I certainly know when I go against it because things just don’t turn out right. My lesson in life right now is trust my gut.

I am a Brisbane based Counsellor, Massage Therapist, and Reiki Practitioner, currently exploring the areas of intuition in the role of energetic healing. For appointments see my website https://www.rachelwilkinson.com.au/ or email info@rachelwilkinson.com.au

Links:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/healthy_aging/healthy_body/the-brain-gut-connection

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628951-900-gut-instincts-the-secrets-of-your-second-brain/

http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection

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Strip it down

Kata Tjuta – Olgas, NT.

I have just spent a few days in the outback. It was fairly impromptu. Although I took great care in packing all the things I thought I would need, it turned out I needed much less. The days we walked out into the bush carrying only water and a camera were the most free I had felt in a long time.

Standing in such a great expanse of land and sky cleared my mind. I realised how we crowd our lives full of stuff we don’t really need.  All I needed were shoes, T-shirt, trousers, a jacket and an open mind. I laughed a lot. We blamed it on the altitude, the vortex or the spirit of the place. But it was more of a lightness of being, nothing to think about and stripping life down to the bare bones. All we needed were food, cameras and sunscreen. Oh and WIFI so we could broadcast to the world what a great time we were having.

When I returned home, I looked at my house and all of the possessions we have accumulated and dragged around with every house move. I then started to think about all the things I felt I needed to do and the madness crowded back in. I had to:

  • Unpack bag
  • Wash clothes
  • Hose the red earth from my shoes
  • Clean and tidy the house
  • Set up for a new client
  • Buy groceries
  • Manage children

I can see why a simple life is appealing. A small dwelling, a humpy, a fire, bush food. No groceries or house cleaning, no clothes, no shoes. While I know this is never going to be a reality for me,  I can understand how mentally freeing it is. How the mind has other places to go rather than worry. Joy for example, insane fits of giggling, peacefulness, serenity.

Meditation for me, has been a helpful way to clear my mind of clutter of an evening. I can then fall asleep without the whirings of my mind. I’ve now realised I also have to dump some of the other worries and irritation and guilt and stress and baggage I carry around with me on a daily basis. Clutter is not only external. I feel like I am approaching the middle of my life, checking in my luggage and being told my bags are oversize. I have an excess of emotional baggage I no longer need to carry around with me.

I am no longer going to worry about:

  • What my partner, children, friends or family are stressing about. They have to carry their own luggage.
  • Ancient history, childhood beliefs, negative feelings or attitudes or blame or thinking I am not enough. I am an adult. I am responsible and accept myself for who I am, and how those experiences have shaped me. I have enough to carry without all that old stuff.
  • Other people’s issues, dramas, problems, – I will empathise and listen but I cannot carry these for you, they don’t belong to me. Only you can fix you.
  • Past disappointments – these have passed. I free myself from feeling blame, or guilt or sadness for these. I have grown and changed and no longer need to hold on to these old feelings.
  • Work – somehow this always manages to sort itself out and my worrying or stressing or carrying the burden and weight of these problems do not help the outcome.
  • World problems – poverty, terrorism, politics, war, economics, illness, death – this is all out of my control and too much for one person to carry.

I surrender. I unpack my excess baggage and I will no longer be lugging all of this additional weight. I don’t need it anymore. I have stripped it down. There is nothing more to do now – but fly.

 

 

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