I think I’m getting old. I’m about to quote Neil Young lyrics at you. Darnnit, I’ve posted a YouTube clip of the old guy singing this classic track. As a kid, Dad used to play Neil Young on Saturday afternoons when we cleaned the house. And Credence Clearwater and Deep Purple. I happened to see … Read more
It’s ugly and lumpy and mostly people don’t know what it is when they see it at the shops. But I love turmeric. Even if it does stain every device in my kitchen a bright yellow.
Know this: more and more studies are showing it beats inflammation. And fights cancer. I eat it as often as I can and it’s made major inroads into my puffiness from that damn ole thyroid disease. SO MUCH SO, MY RECENT TEST RESULTS WHICH I GOT BACK YESTERDAY SHOW I’VE REDUCED MY ANTIBODIES TO NORMAL LEVELS. It wasn’t just turmeric. But it was from diet! Yes. It can be done. PLEASE be heartened by this. Read more about how I heal my auto-immune disease here.
Turmeric has been called one of nature’s most powerful healers.
So, I’ve been MIA a few days. This is because my computer exploded. As in, literally. I was working away and it went SNAP! and blew a fuse in my office. This happened to you? I’m sure it has. But how did you handle it?
My computer is now dead. Apple (bless them) are replacing it and are currently trying to retrieve data…including my book. Personal update: I’m staying calm. And using the opportunity to have a good hard look at myself.
Truth be known, the ordeal has tested me. I’ve been in a state of panic and frustrated beyond what I thought I could endure – unable to do ANY work during an insanely busy time for me. I’m about to start filming a new show, my book deadline’s getting closer, I have exams…and the rest.
But the intensity has honed my thinking. It’s forced me to look for the lessons.
When you ask, honestly and with enough open, raw desperation, “Why has this happened?”, you get your answer.
Recently I was given a pair of those chubby, stack-soled “fit” sneakers*. You know, the kind that look a cross between that very special footwear you can only buy at a chemist and those foam stilts Baby Spice used to wear with legwarmers back in 1993.
* I was given Reebok EasyTone’s. But MBT‘s are very popular. So are Skecher’s Shape-Ups. This is not an endorsement…but so many of you have asked for the details!
Such shoes come with claims: they are said to lift your bum, increase your heart rate, zap cellulite, solve your existential angst, sort your tax return and nab you a new partner. That last one, of course, is made up. These shoes are so ugly, they’re known universally to deflect potential suitors as soon as they see you coming (in life-improving, calf-elongating strides).
Lifted bum or no lifted bum.
Following the toxic audit on my apartment that I wrote about on Sunday, two rather big things. I have to move out of my apartment. And I’ve tossed my frying pans.
I’m moving because my bedroom is on top of the fuse room for the entire block. I’ve always thought this was a bonus – my room is nice and warm in winter. Nicole the building biologist asked if I have immune problems because the crazy, magnetic field action in my room would be wreaking havoc, she’d imagine. Boy do I ever – I have auto-immune disease, and it’s taking an eternity to heal. “How long have you been living here?” A little over three years… “How long you had auto-immune disease?” Three years. Ahhhh….
I’m not a dramatic over-reactor. But I can’t ignore this.
But to the pans. Non-stick pans are coated in Teflon, which is what makes them slippery. Oh, how I’ve loved Teflon in the past! The way it cooks eggs. And nuts. No mess. No oil. Problem is that a chemical that’s released when you heat up Teflon is leaching into everyone’s blood stream and is making us sick – cancer, birth defects, HORMONE DISRUPTION and high cholesterol (ironically, given non-stick saves on cooking oils) are the oft-cited effects.
Studies are going back and forth. For a full discussion, read Slow Death by Rubber Duck. They go through the arguments and come out categorically telling everyone to get rid of non-stick pans.
I get sad often. Have done since I was a kid. It can just creep up and over me, take me by the throat and dangle there. Then, once embedded, it will drag up big, raw feeling from deep within. In gushes. I’m powerless once it’s upon me. I cry. A McDonald’s commercial can see me cry for an hour.
My Mum said I was born with over-active tear ducts. My ex used to call me (fondly), a “sad sack of shit”. He’d watch the cloak of sadness inch up and shake his head. Here we go.
I got sad this weekend, which is why I’m writing this today. Sad for the lonely people. Sad for the pain the human experience can endure. I was watching the news and my sadness had me 100% attuned to people’s faces. The loneliness was palpable.
Sad is different to depressed. Depression is an old woolly cardigan I wear, too. But sad, unlike the fug of depression,
It may not be evident from where you sit, but I’m currently experiencing slow death by tinned lima beans. I’ve been eating a stack lately, in seemingly benign ways – tossed through stews, in soups. It was always bound to catch up with me. And if it doesn’t, my Capricornian habit of efficiently freezing said meals in plastic containers ready for convenient reheating on busy weeknights most certainly will.
On Friday I invited “building biologist” Nicole Bijlsma into my apartment to do a toxic report on my two-bedder flat. She took a three-hour look at the way I live using a bunch of beeping devices. The report card came back: veritable marinade of toxins. Everything from the pot plant in my bedroom (a fungal breeding ground) to my lip balm habit is overloading my system. Our bodies are great detoxers, says Nicole, but the sheer quantity of pollutants we collide with today has pushed us to our limits. When we tip, an increasingly familiar host of “unexplainable” disorders – cancer, ADHD, fertility issues, auto-immune disease – kick in.
Oh. Dear.
But tell me, what’s more oh-deary for you: the feeling that, once again, you can’t do anything right these days (I mean, tinned lima beans…?!). Or the fact your gut has kind of known things aren’t right for a while? And you’ve erroneously ignored it?
This week I trawled through the conflicting, highly charged debates as to whether “science can prove” pollutants kill folk.
I read recently on some efficiency blog that teachers at Montesorri schools (which push a self-directed style of learning) do this thing where they ask the class, “Are you ready?” Apparently it’s a technique geared at getting kids to focus and prepare themselves for learning.
I love it. Are we ready?
Before I run out the door in the morning, with 298347 to-dos on my mind, I ask, Are we ready to do the day well? Before I return a call to Mum, after running around frazzled all day, I pause and ask, Are we ready to give the conversation the care and attention it needs? Before I sit down to write this blog, Are we ready to do it with heart?
It’s like a little full-stop at the end of one activity. And a nice considered launch pad for the next. It’s a breather.
Are we ready? If not, then abort. Back away for a bit. Come back later. That’s cool.
Really, this week it’s just a plug for bits and pieces of goodness I’ve come across in the past week. You know, little inventions and consumerables that make a difference, people sharing good stuff. That kind of thing. I’m in Canberra at Mum and Dad’s place, being treated to an open fire, daphne posies in my bedroom and runs with Dad (we’re training for City2Surf)…while I write my book. So, I’m off to focus. Over and out! x
1. TOM tampons.
I love the story behind these little wads of indispensability. Aimee Marks is 23. She’d had jack of tampons being ethically, environmentally and healthily low-grade. Tampons on the market today are either synthetic or cotton (cotton is one of the most heavily pesticide-sprayed crops on the planet). So she created her range of organic TOM tampons (Time of Month) . The pack is also smart…designed so that the little white pluggers don’t fall out in your bag. Did I mention she’s 23??? You can buy them at Pulse Pharmacies.
I predict that in the next year or so the big issue we’ll be getting outraged about it is the amount of toxicity we ingest. On Sunday I’ll be posting my Sunday Life column about how I got building biologist Nicole Bijlsma to do a toxicity reading on my apartment. But the crap we ingest via cosmetics and beauty products is deserving of a separate mention.
I’ve posted work by The Story of Stuff chick Annie Leonard before. This week she released The Story of Cosmetics, an 8-minute expose of what we’re doing to ourselves when we apply mascara, shampoo, etc. You REALLY need to watch it (below). It coincides with the introduction this week of the US federal Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 — the first attempt in more than 70 years to overhaul cosmetics regulations to eliminate the use of cancer-causing chemicals and other harmful ingredients.
A few things to chew on:
* Those “pink-ribbon” brands? Dozens of them rank an 8 or higher on the Skin Deep database’s toxicity scale (10 is the worst)—including products that contain carcinogens and hormone-disrupting chemicals linked to increased cancer risk.
