Uncategorized

Walk your own pace

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

We all adopt these paces in life; finding our groove...are we happiest in the fast lane, are we more middling or are we slow and steady. Should I say, we should find our own groove...yet so many of us live to the pace that is expected of us (or one that was set for us by the metronome of our childhood or cultural entrainment) and this "wrong pace" for our constitution can make us so unwell in the long-term; burning us out or even slowing us down to the point of long-simmering frustration with a life that doesn't keep apace with our longings and aspirations. When we pitch it just right, we land in our sweet spot, and our natural melody of life simply comes forth, asserting over the noise of everything else that may be going on. Our tempo may change according to time of day or the season but the key thing is that we are hearing its direction from somewhere within and then attuning ourselves to it, listening for the clues of our inner conductor as we swell our sound or soften it in ways that feel the most natural to our innate constitution.

A thing about mornings

~ Helen White ~ 2 Comments

Do you struggle, I mean really struggle, to adjust to getting back into your body in the mornings? Even when there's absolutely nothing to worry about, there's no stress, no unhealthy lifestyle habits to explain it, nothing that could be making your cortisol peak when you wake, do you somehow know that you are treading a very fine line as you re-enter your conscious state each day? Have you had to entrain your family to tread very softly around you first thing in the morning because loud noises or sudden announcements get your heart racing, switch on pain? Even when you are perfectly chilled in your mind, ecstatic with life even, is this your "normal" experience of waking; like it's a precision manoeuver? Its a vata kind of a thing...and there are things you should know about how to make this easier.

Vata dosha and electro-sensitivity

~ Helen White ~ 1 Comment

It was one of the first things I asked myself about vata dosha when I first read about it; since it is all about lightness, wind and air, does it make us vata types more susceptible to electro-sensitivity than people with other dosha balances? Several weeks into asking myself that, I am convinced that, yes, it does...

Wanting to land: working with a vata dosha

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

If you have a vata dominance, how do you ground that airy, high-spirited, out-there, mercurial constitution long enough to find your way about in a physical body...and then stay there in a way that feels comfortable and sustainable? Here's what I've learned so far:

Deepest relief

~ Helen White ~ 1 Comment

Tuning into your own most-treasured time of "void", of a feeling you once stored-up for such a day as this, a distant memory of what it truly feels like to have nothing to do and nowhere to go can be such a gift to yourself. Especially if you can allow yourself to accept it as it is, on behalf of who you are right now, not making it about nostalgia as though you are trying to recapture some long-lost essence of your past when "life was better" or "you were more deserving of it". The biggest challenge is to allow it, to really give yourself over to it and not seek to make it into another project by orchestrating it or making it conditional. How easy do we find it to be in void and not allow the mind to seek something to do, to worry about or a way to make the time more "useful" or "constructive" (as we tend to regard it when we constantly keep ourselves busy)? Yet empty space is anything but lacking in use; and it might be the very thing we are needing most, the refinding of which will be the missing jigsaw piece that makes all else suddenly fit together. Like the hidden portal  we couldn't see for looking, it might be the doorway to exactly where we were trying so hard to get to with our minds...and there it was, all the time.

Itching to get there

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

The many and varying, often uncomfortable, symptoms of a woman's mid-life transition are all versions of this metaphorical (you could even say, metaphysical) "itch". Really, its transformation underway...a metamophosis...and in making it mundane, by denying it or even making it seem like a problem, a curse, we fight back against what is really like a spreading of wings from the chrysalis; bewilderingly, disorientingly beautiful. Our culture has done terrible things to downplay the stage of her life that is all about female empowerment and there is a minefield of superstitious beliefs and misinformation around it; no wonder we hurt and struggle our way through it. When we welcome and encourage that transition, we allow for it to be smoother...and there a number of reasons why we might want to be doing that. These are, you could say, the times we have always been waiting for...

The electrolyte connection

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

I thought I knew about electrolytes but this feels like a whole new breakthrough in my understanding of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue...and it was right under my nose all along. Get to know your electrolytes (and how to replenish them) to deeply energise your life.

Super-sensitive abroad

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

Travelling away from home can be an extra-challenge for those of us with health challenges and sensitivities of any kind because it takes us out of our routine. It's not so much the distance but the upheaval that can be difficult to cope with (on top of the extra tiredness that comes with travel) when you probably have well-established survival tactics in place at home that enable you to cope pretty well with your health most of the time. Booking a holiday can feel a bit like planning to blow all that carefully created homeostasis to pieces in the name of having fun and there have been times when I wonder why I do it; is it even worth it (the answer, by the way, is yes). Changes in sleep arrangements and diet can throw health into disarray when maintaining that balance has become a finely tuned thing.

More energy…not less

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

It's a truth I've come to own over years of learning to hold the equilibrium of my physical body that allows me to lead a normalish life - akin to countless others who think they have a shortfall of energy, I possess almost too much energy inside my cells rather than too little. Those waves of crashing exhaustion that periodically seem to want to floor me are because my tank is overspilling with energy, not running dry. And its a trait I notice about a lot of so-called energy-depleted people, especially women....