August 2015 - Sarah Wilson

An open letter to my friends: Your perfume is killing me!

April 22, 2018August 27, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

Dearest Loved Ones,

Your perfume is killing me. I mean it almost literally.

bfca460c69266d14078fb23482aaa149 e1440980156295 An open letter to my friends: Your perfume is killing me! — Image via Four Tears

It’s also affecting our friendship. I can’t hug you, and so you might have noticed my stepping back when we meet up.

I can’t risk dining with you in a confined space and so you might have noticed I’ve been suggesting we meet for a walk instead.

Actually, I probably haven’t always been so subtle. I’ve probably hurt your feelings a bit. This is because perfume, for me, is like a whack in the noggin; I strike out to protect myself.

I’m so, so, so sorry.

I’ve toyed with this a while: how to let you know that I just can’t cope when you wear fragrance (perfume,

My number one wellness secret (not what you expect!)

August 26, 2015August 26, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

I won’t keep you in suspense. I’m not a clickbait-y type. The answer I always give when asked for the most effective trick for being well is… to learn to cook.

I Quit Sugar - One-Pan Sesame Chicken — Participants on the most recent round of the 8WP learnt to make this One-Pan Sesame Chicken dish

When you cook you get empowered and mindful. By necessity, you cut out processed food and all the guff Big Food foists upon us. And, of course, you cut out the majority of the added sugar in your diet.

The best way to learn to cook? Here, I’ll get sales-y. It’s to do the I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program.

“I was inspired by the recipes and enjoyed cooking new things and learning new recipes and techniques. I didn’t feel like I had time to cook everything on the plan.” – participant from the current round of the 8-Week Program.

“It is so much more than just a “diet” it sets you up with the tools to succeed without having to worry about weighing/measuring/ counting points or calories which just isn’t sustainable in the long term. As an accountant I have geekily also been watching the weekly grocery bill and believe that by switching to meal planning and shopping only according to the list I have been saving £20-30 a week! We have cut right down on food waste and the fridge is packed with healthy ingredients.” – Angela, participant from the current round of the 8-Week Program.

Excitedly seeking web designer!

August 26, 2015August 25, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

Hello. The look of this site is, well, tired. And I’m doing a call out to you all to see if you have ideas for a design overhaul.

Are you a clever web designer with ideas who’d like to come into the office and work with me on this project?

I always like to put these offers out to people in my community first (if you’re a regular reader of my blog you may have noticed this on various projects over the past five years).

This is the deal:

You’d be free to work 2-3 weeks some time in September.
You’d be paid.
You’d be working on site at my office in Surry Hills, Sydney.
You’d be customising a WordPress template, bringing in additional sprinkles of pizazz.
The redesign gist is to reflect the following vibe of my new direction: minimalist and pared back but still warm, elegant but not cold, simple but still fun, fresh and innovative but totally user-friendly.

The more formal requirements:

Strong graphic design skills and demonstrated experience designing for websites and web builds.

Buy my soup in a jar. Help the homeless (my new project!)

November 6, 2018August 25, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

I have recently hooked up with the The Inside Out Organic Soup Kitchen charity. A little while back I gave away artwork to raise money for one of their projects teaching disadvantaged young mums how to cook. Now, we’ve joined forces to provide you with some of my soup. As well as the homeless folk in my community.

Two Good Soup, Kung Flu-Fighting Chicken style!

Here’s how it works:

* You place an order for one of their organic Two Good Soup online (sadly, this service is only available to those in the Sydney metropolitan area).

* You choose from a range of different soups for each order. At the moment, one of those is my Kung Flu-Fighting Chicken Soup from my One-Pot Wonders Cookbook.

* Better still, you place an order for your work crew. Orders will be delivered to your door. And for each soup purchased, one goes to a person in need. Plus you’ll get a photo of where your soup delivery ends up and a shout out.

* You pay just $10 for a big jar of the stuff.

This simple act ALSO buys a soup for someone without a home or living in a domestic violence shelter. Yep, a two-for-one deal.

Too much attention, not distraction, is the issue

November 6, 2018August 20, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

Blimey, we’re all very focused on the Distraction Problem, aren’t we. Our electronic devices ruin dinner, corrupt young minds. Our frenetic toggling is reshaping our brains in disconcerting ways.

I don’t disagree with the concerns. An inability to sit soundly and in flow with ourselves and life (or a culture that drags us from this very human need) is at the core of much of contemporary ill. But what about this new theory of distraction explored in The New Yorker recently by way of a critique of Matthew Crawford’s new book “The World Beyond Your Head: Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction”?

The idea posited toward the end is that perhaps distraction is an antidote to the real issue: too much attention.

Nietzsche on haste

November 6, 2018August 19, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

Nietzsche was known for a few utterances. And for being a prolific walker. (When he lived in Eze, France, he made a daily habit of scaling a steep 1,400-foot mountain to reach a medieval village perched above his home.) It’s in this context of walking he shared this:

“Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself”.

So said Fred in 1874.

His antidote was to walk. Walking, which is quite slow and roughly at the speed of considered thought, quashes haste. Which allows us to play with the inverse of Nietzsche’s observation. Walking reduces haste, which, in turn, brings you closer to yourself.

So said me, just now.

We really do know that we don’t want to flee from ourselves. We’d like to sit calmly with ourselves. The

Another benefit of doing nothing for four weeks

November 6, 2018August 18, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

On my recent post in which I announced I was off on a break (to India) to try the art of doing nothing, reader Leonie shared the below quote in the comment section (thx Leonie!).

xxxx — Me on the beach as a kid…doing nothing…

“You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.”

Essayist and scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb is responsible for the wisdom.

The civilized bit is the salient part for me.

Why civilized? I didn’t get it before I left. But after spending four weeks in “nothingness retreat” I fully appreciate the judicious use of the term.

You see, forced to sit with yourself, you have to flay and squirm and cry and rail…with no

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

November 6, 2018August 13, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

I think this says it all: I thought this confronting tale of life in a Mumbai slum in the early 2000s was fiction (such was the “unrealness” of it) until I got to the end and read the epilogue where the The New Yorker poverty correspondent Katherine Boo explains that every single detail is true. And that she spent four years living in the slums to get the full, graphic, stranger-than-fiction story.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Rebecca Boo — Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo

Background: Two friends had mentioned Boo’s book. Then I saw it in the library at the India clinic, shoved down the back. I have a three strikes rule. So I had to give it a crack. The upshot being that it’s now One of My Favourite Books Ever.

The gist: Boo follows a collection of slum characters as they navigate their daily human-ness in slummy filth, throwing up inevitable observations on capitalism, consumerism, corruption and character. The reader is forced to confront their own grubby lives. And their narrow take on poverty.

The best bits: The tale in itself is gripping (made more so by the fact it’s true), but the prose is what got me

Two funny stories from my time in India

November 6, 2018August 12, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

Funny moments, like sad songs, say so much. But really only when you’re still enough to notice the wonderful connect. In fact, humour, wryness, irony and calamitous coincidence are mostly joyful by virtue of the fact that we’re ensconced in stillness when we notice it (and can only notice it when still).

Here’s two you might like to get still with from my India stay:

1. The Perfect Cow Puja

One day we did a nine-hour cow puja. This entailed eight hours of chanting and adding flowers to an elaborate shrine of candles and gaudiness from 8am until the climax when the big old cow, that’s been waiting outside chewing cud, is led inside to the mud-brick meditation room. It’s positioned, with a fair bit of fuss and opining from all involved, to face east with its back to the shrine, its docile face to us. You get

The Aboriginal healing gift Australians need right now

November 6, 2018August 11, 2015 by Sarah Wilson

There’s an indigenous practice called dadirri for healing trauma.

It also brings wisdom and wholeness.

Dadirri means inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness. It’s a “tuning in” experience (best done outdoors) with the specific aim of reflecting on nature to find, and connect with, our inner selves.

It entails going bush.

It’s something everyone has, but it’s not always tapped.

It’s a technique that, when practiced often, can neurally rewire us, can heal us.