I remember that feeling.  That one.  The awful sinking feeling.  The one when your cheeks blush with shame and embarrassment.  The one where the pit of your stomach empties to hollow.  The one where you are stunned by shock and disbelief.  And the one where you are made to feel a failure, not good enough.  The one when you feel sick with trying to hold back the sobs.

I remember it.

The one when you are not on the list.

Not on the list for the one thing that means so much to you, to be with your team, doing your thing.  I remember that feeling too.  The one when you are on the list.  The one of pride.  The one of belonging.  The one of joy and excitement, mixed with a little thrill of fear, knowing you are going to be doing what you love, what makes your heart sing, but not knowing how it is all going to play out; and you can’t wait to find out.

When you expect that feeling, perhaps through arrogance, it is a tough, tough, heart-breaking lesson when it happens for the first time.

I felt it immediately.  The change of frequency in the car bouncing off me.  And I saw all those feelings in that split second reflected in his face and body as he realised he had been ‘dropped’, not just of the A team, but also off the B’s.

The stir of raw emotions for me was powerful.  And yet, I had to put my emotions, my feelings of disappointment, my feelings of disbelief aside and let him have the space to feel his.  I could hear Brene’s words.  Sit with him in his darkness and let him know, you know and allow him to feel.

Because nothing I could say would alleviate those feelings.  The only facts we had was the list without his name.  The fact that he has been told he has the ‘best hands’ in the year.  The fact that he is running in the national championships at the weekend, representing his school and the year above. The fact that everyone else in the championships was playing in a team.

The facts did not add up.  Nothing made sense.

So it was shepherd’s pie.  Comfort food and comfort from his hero, the Big Man and an early night.

But just before I shut everything down for the night, the final fact came through.  And it all made sense.

Their team Coach had been away, and the stand in had forgotten the ‘new boy’ (Or at least that is my interpretation)… but probably more like ‘lost in translation’. With the Big Man trying to hold me back, as my relief melted, I couldn’t get up those stairs fast enough to whisper in to my little man’s ears – you are on the list!

And the game was nailbiting!  I could have been at twickers! And my little boy, always my hero, in my eyes played the best game ever … perhaps he learnt from the experience that he never wanted to be off the list again.

There is something to be said for comfort food. And tonight 2 out of my 3 boys needed it.  One especially.  It was fortunate that the only happy, singing, joking, dicking around one had requested ‘Granny’s shepherd’s pie’ for our family Friday night supper.

This week in my lectures, we have been learning about food and all the many trends, diets, fads and phases there are currently and have been over the years.  I have always been someone who has always had a sense of ‘guilt’ around enjoying food until I learnt more about nutrition and understood the power of food as fuel, energy and wellbeing.  Only to be intensified by the myriad of advice on health, food and weightloss over the years which has been overwhelming, confusing and also conflicting!  Low fat then ‘eat fat get thin’ just one example…

I could not get on with being Vegan.  I couldn’t stand tofu and just didn’t understand the concept of a ‘vegan sausage’.  I missed fish enormously.  Didn’t know how to make a cake without eggs.  And it just didn’t sit right with me. I always felt there was something missing on my plate.  Or that I was missing out!  I don’t think I lasted one meal and the whole idea made me feel anxious! However, I have many vegan friends and see them thrive, but it just didn’t work for my body.

I was vegetarian, pretty much, on and off for the whole of my university years.  But only because I couldn’t afford meat or fish, rather choosing to spend my allowance or earnings on going out, going on holiday or something far more exciting than food. But I wasn’t really veggie because on most Sundays my house mates and I would cook a massive roast for everyone!

I stress ate when I was working in consulting.  I remember that food was on a par with going to the loo in those days, only when I was desperate!  Rolled in to bed after a supper of wine and chocolate, soup if I was lucky and boosted my day with a large latte and salty pretzel. I was unhealthy, sick a lot, got headaches, had Olive Oil legs and hip bones to sharpen pencils on.  I was young and thriving on adrenalin!

After having had Tom Tom, I tried calorie counting to lose the 4 stone I had put on in pregnancy.  But just did not understand how eating cake and wine could be part of a ‘diet’ to lose weight.  How could you put an equals sign between the same number of calories between kit-kats and broccoli?  Total nonsense in my head.  I lasted a day.

After 3 years of sleep deprivation following the arrival of Willy coupled with stressful work hours and environments, we decided it was time to take back control of our health and worked with trainers and nutritionists who supported a paleo diet.  Finally, we found something that worked for us all as a family but also worked for our bodies.

But there was always a niggling feeling that I just didn’t like cutting out certain foods;  the deprivation would make me crave it more!

So it is so remarkably refreshing, listening and learning this week some simple rules that anyone can do in terms of health – more of some stuff and less of others!

• Drink more water
• Move more
• Eat more leafy greens and vegetables
• Sleep and rest more
• Eat less
• Have less processed food and sugary drinks
• Less stress!

Nowhere does it say – cut out or none.  That works for me.  It sits right in my gut.

And my current benchmark on what to cook or eat is the saying, “Don’t eat anything your Great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food.”

So shepherd’s pie it was. Made with the secret health ingredient, ‘vitamin L.’  Made with love from Great Granny’s recipe.  Comfort food.  Good for the heart and nourishes the soul.

Today, at my kitchen table, drenched in warmth and light from the sun outside and my writing companion inside, I started my book.

It was time.   It is time!

Still on the theme of questions, and as I continue to be intrigued by Rebecca Campbell and absorbing all her ‘lightworking’, she asked some powerful ones of me today.

“If someone were to write the movie of your life, what kind of movie would it be?”  Interesting.  To date it could be comedy, drama, thriller, love story and tear jerker…  but I strongly believe my story is not over yet!  There is still a badass power story to come, an inspirational journey, a success story.  We all hold the pen of the story of our life, right?

“What do you want your legacy to be?”  Easy answer.  A happy, healthy family.  The legacy won’t be how we got there, what we overcame, how we responded but what we accomplished in the end.

“If you had to describe yourself in 5 words, what would they be?” Mother, daughter, partner, friend, lover.  Well that’s who I am..  but really who am I?  Loving, generous, gracious, grateful, humble? This one isn’t so easy.  I am also healthy, wealthy, abundant, selfless and selfish.  Too many words!  Who do I want to be?  Inspirational, successful, independent, free, loved.  I could keep going… One to ponder on.

And then if you had to do the same in 3?  Good gracious!  I found 5 hard to narrow down… which 3?

And then 1?  I seem to always go back to the one word; I am love.  My favourite book.

“What’s your tag line?”  My journey since writing the alisandwiches has been one of  loss, grief and healing, but also one of happiness, one of joy, one of rebuilding, one of evolution, one of growth.  There are definitely some words there to play around with, but  right now my tagline is:  ‘Heal yourself happy!’

Questions, questions, questions!    There are so many throughout the day that I put to myself.  Perhaps that is why I like writing?  To sort out the caught thoughts, capture the fleeting ones before they fly away.

 

The quick questions… like what were the little things that made me smile today?  The quick answers – Willy with a bath foam Father Christmas beard; Tom getting in to the U11’s cross country team (the year above his own); hearing the Big Man’s gentle snoring as he took my advice and took his run down, grey and poorly self to his bed; the waddling ducks that cross the road, from pond to pond, in the village I drive through each day… and the indulgent mouthful of chocolate brownie and ice cream I just savoured…

 

The more thought provoking questions… the ones I always have spiralling on my conscious – am I happy?  Am I doing what lights me up and makes me feel authentically me? Are my values still the same now as they were when I was 20, 30?  But the one today that really made me stop for more than a second, was in an interview with Michael Pollan with Oprah on Super Soul Sunday.

 

As I was slicing up a red pepper, I heard Oprah ask him “Finish the sentence.. ‘I believe….’”.

 

Now he had a wonderful answer, which eludes me now as I was too busy answering the question myself with my own words.

 

“I believe in love.”  Was my immediate response.

 

So, the next question to myself –  Really?  Is it that simple for me?

 

I believe in love more now than ever; but the ever changing, iridescent colours and flavours of love.  No longer the perfect sphere of love that I used to put on a pedestal.

 

I much prefer my new belief and tangible, metaphorical image of love that is in my mind.  The big glass, perfect, precious, untouchable version shattered, now refashioned and carefully positioned back together in to a structure that creates a kaleidoscope of eternal light and colour, that is beautiful in its imperfection and irregularity and that calls out to be touched.

 

And I still believe in miracles.  My perception of love has shown me that.

 

That’s today’s question answered!

 

As part of my coursework today, I was asked to answer the question “what does health mean to you?”

I used to think it meant being really physically well, strong and fit enough for triathlons, having trained and exercised and fuelled my body with the right nutrition to be in ‘peak health’.  To be lean and fresh.

And yet if you had asked me 6 months or so after my first triathlon, when I was still physically fit enough, my mental capacity and emotional wellbeing were totally off.  No amount of running and eating wholesome food was going to make me have the energy and wellbeing that I would have considered myself to be in good health.  I was lean, too lean perhaps but desperately unhappy.  I didn’t look or feel healthy at all.

And that is where my answer came from.  To me, health directly relates to my happiness.  When I am happy, everything else is good;  my fitness levels, my eating habits, my relationships, my social life, work and contribution all feels good and in alignment with my values and I have absolute confidence and faith that everything is all working out just as it was meant to.

This last year has taught me that.  In my pursuit of happiness in the darkest of days, I have learnt many lessons.  Yes, happiness is a state of being.  And yes, it is great when you can choose to be happy.  But sometimes, you have to let everything else fall away and allow yourself to heal the hurt, let time pass in order to restore emotional harmony with head and heart and finally, mental clarity lights the spark of energy, of joy, of peace, of happiness.  And to me, that is health.

And green juice, red juice and any colour of the rainbow juice on top is the icing on the health cake of life!

It’s funny how a taste, a smell can take you right back to being at an event sometime in the past or draw up an image of a person in your mind.  It happens to me a lot.  Particularly with smells… but tonight, it was with a taste… and I suppose a smell.

I had a new delivery this week.  I have been contemplating getting one for a long time, doing my research, listening, reading but it was attending a day retreat this week when I had the opportunity to ask the questions, listen first hand to the answers, I made my decision. And took the leap in to juicing.

This evening, with great excitement, I gathered together the apples from our garden, organic carrots from the bottom of the fridge and some uneaten, unloved by many, but loved by me celery and took great pleasure in popping them down a wide shoot, pushing down on the plunger and seeing the most vibrant colours trickle out of the spout.

As I lifted the glass to my mouth, it must have been the smell first that took me back to my parents kitchen table and the taste that brought the image of my Mumbo giving us all glasses of carrot juice before an evening meal as our ‘starter’.  She would often go through food fads or diet crazes and this was her juicing era.

It was a lovely, sweet memory.  It was a lovely, sweet juice.

And I am now happy added more antioxidents in to my diet with a slab of Menier chocolat.

Tonight it feels like old times. Relaxed. Laughter.  Cake. Gardening. Wine. Good food. And all soon to be sleeping on the sofa.

It was a ‘rather’ day today…

I chauffeured the boys to school this morning rather than let them take the bus; Instructions on how to look after Willy’s arm while he is on camp a mandatory mothering task, as well as give him as many kisses and cuddles before I don’t see him for 3 whole days.

I went to bed and slept like the dead rather than do the ironing; having a wriggly, unhappy little man visiting me several times for several hours through the night was not helpful in the quest to rid myself of this cold and return to health.

I made myself a delicious smoothie of oranges, apples, raspberries, bananas, blueberries and nuts rather than have a third, forth and fifth Lindt chocolate ball.  I was practicing what I am learning – crowding out the bad shit with the good.

I wrote down crazy wild, massive intentions and dreams of where I want to take myself, my book, my business and career rather than be practical, realistic and small.  I was crazy enough to think we could rebuild our relationship, our famiy and create a miracle… .  so why the hell not?

I wore bright colours, vibrant red rather than my usual greys and navy’s.  As the postcard that my bestie sent me several years ago now but still remains on my wall in the kitchen, “why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

It was a rather good day.