Sarah Wilson

how is the quitting sugar thing going for you?

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I’d love your thoughts…it’s been almost four weeks since I released the I Quit Sugar ebook and I was just wondering how you’ve been finding it. Any questions? Any results? Please do feel free to share. Fellow bloggers, is the affiliates program working for you? From my end, it’s been so heartening to see how … Read more

Friday giveaway: free institute of integrative nutrition course worth $4500

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It’s Friday. And I’d like to give a lovely reader: free tuition with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition worth more than $4000   when they buy a copy of the  I Quit Sugar ebook between now and Monday EST 5pm. As you might know, the INN course saw me qualify as a Health Coach last … Read more

8 things to learn about being creative from Wendy Harmer (a podcast)

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I’ve decided to start an occasional series with creative people I admire who have a spark of unique “dive-into-life”-ness that I think we could all learn from. There. A long sentence for you.

128220 6 600 8 things to learn about being creative from Wendy Harmer (a podcast)
Image by Tierney Gearon

Wendy Harmer is my first such guest. She is a MASSIVE spirit and her impact in Australia is huge. She’s a comedian, teen fiction writer, memoirist, blogger (you must sign up to Hoopla – smart women contributors talking important water cooler stuff) and…the rest. She’s playful and she creates from a very true and honest space. The best kind. I loved chatting with her about how she does what she does. Her words helped me enormously….mostly because she is so positive and accepting of the process. She plays. She explores.

Anyway, listen in.

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Some of the salient mantras and points I took:

* She used to dive into big new things thinking “everyone will be much better than me”. Over time she’s realised no one really knows what they’re doing…they’re all just trying. “Most people are being average”.

* She always wanted to edit a magazine. So. She created Hoopla. Because now the internet means you just. Can. Very true and good for anyone with dreams they haven’t fulfilled yet.

* When she gets a bit nervous she says to herself: “I don’t have to do this for a living”. Bam. Expectations lessened!

* She works 9am-3pm. Sometimes she only gets 3 paragraphs down. Sometimes she scraps the lot the next day. 500 words a day is about fair, to her mind. Phew…

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this could be why you’re 30-something and single…and OK about it

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This is a doozie of an article that I just read in The Atlantic. We all like chatting about this stuff: the disconnect between men and women today and the peculiar place both single men and women in their 30s are in. It’s such a HUGE issue and we all try to grapple with the reasons, the ways forwards etc. Wondered why it’s such a barbeque stopper? Read on…

128220 7 600 this could be why you're 30-something and single...and OK about it
Image by Tierney Gearon

I’ve written about this stuff many times before, how women give away their feminine power and some other discussions here and here on the current relationship biso.

The Atlantic article by Kate Bolick is worth a read in full, but I thought I’d pull out some points that sparked debates in my own head. Take a deep breath:

What’s happening now on the relationship landscape is monumental, just to be sure:

“The transformation is momentous—immensely liberating and immensely scary. When it comes to what people actually want and expect from marriage and relationships, and how they organize their sexual and romantic lives, all the old ways have broken down.”

Bolick outlines in great detail how women’s wages are increasing more than men’s (in the US), are more educated etc than men, and cites the various reports on “the end of men” (which is a bigger issue in the US where the GFC hit male professions mostly):

If, in all sectors of society, women are on the ascent, and if gender parity is actually within reach, this means that a marriage regime based on men’s overwhelming economic dominance may be passing into extinction.

Or to quote Gloria Steinham: “We’re becoming the men we wanted to marry.” I see this everywhere. But I don’t know that it’s doing us any favours – it’s defeminising women and emasculating men and confusing the whole equation. But Bolick provides this:

Now that women are financially independent, and marriage is an option rather than a necessity, we are free to pursue what the British sociologist Anthony Giddens termed the “pure relationship,” in which intimacy is sought in and of itself and not solely for reproduction.

Now that we can pursue our own status and security, and are therefore liberated from needing men the way we once did, we are free to like them more, or at least more idiosyncratically, which is how love ought to be, isn’t it?

One would think so, but….Behold “the new scarcity”:

American women as a whole have never been confronted with such a radically shrinking pool of what are traditionally considered to be “marriageable” men—those who are better educated and earn more than they do. So women are now contending with what we might call the new scarcity. Even as women have seen their range of options broaden in recent years—for instance, expanding the kind of men it’s culturally acceptable to be with, and making it okay not to marry at all—the new scarcity disrupts what economists call the “marriage market” in a way that in fact narrows the available choices, making a good man harder to find than ever.

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10 ways to sweeten food without sugar

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Well, my I Quit Sugar ebook has been on sale now for 3 weeks. So, there’s a bunch of you who’ve already seen results. Picture 25 10 ways to sweeten food without sugar

Here’s some of what you’ve been saying:

“I can’t believe how many tasty foods there are that don’t have any sugar!” Kerry

“I’m in week 3 of I Quit Sugar – feeling really good and skin is clearer and brighter, whoo!” Jasmine

“I have been sugar free for five days now. I am starting to experience that clarity that you and so many others have talked about, and it is a nice place to be – instead of thinking about chocolate and biscuits all the time!” Sally

One of the main tricks I share for quitting sugar is to get used to using other sweeteners (but only healthy ones). In I Quit Sugar, I share recipes and supply a shopping list of things to keep in your cupboard. Funnily, Huffington Post recently ran a list of simiilar sweeteners, some of which I’ve included here…

  • crushed berries…instead of jam. Crush some fresh or frozen berries (perhaps with a little stevia; I find frozen ones work) and spread on toast.
  • vanilla powder… with yoghurt instead of icecream. In my ebook I share other tips, including where to buy the stuff.
  • cinnamon…instead of sugar in your coffee. Try adding a dash of it to coffee as it brews. Toss it into the french press or coffee maker and let it infuse into the grinds.
  • coconut flesh and flakes...to sweeten porridge.
  • licorice root tea…in chocolate treats and baked things. A small teaspoon of the root (ie not after it’s made up into tea) adds instant sweetness.

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my chat with Deepak Chopra…real deal or frantically caught up?

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This week my body travels, I stay home

90795 8 468 my chat with Deepak Chopra...real deal or frantically caught up?

Sometimes, in the course of writing this column, I come across a breed of self-helper I can only describe as disenchantingly full of it. Edward de Bono is one such (sorry to be so frank, Lateral Thinking fans). Then there are those who, well, I just can’t seem to put a finger on them – are they the real deal or do they simply have a book/webcast /workshop to flog?

Deepak Chopra, possibly the most well known mind-body and spirituality guru in the world, is one such.

I met Chopra during his recent Australian visit. He was running ludicrously on time. In fact two minutes early. And so, as I stood waiting to be greeted, he filled the 120 seconds tap-tapping wildly on his phone. When done, he immediately pointed out we’d spoken before. We had 18 months ago. How the hell did he remember? And what a bugger he did. Because back then I also struggled to get a grip of the guy, and so never wrote up the interview. I got the feeling he knew this, too.

I’d followed Chopra on Twitter, but had to unfollow him after a week – his updates were relentless and mind-boggling frenetic, passionate sprays at critics interspersed with conscious-raising inspira-bombs. Which, to my mind, jarred with his calm, centred, non-attached Perfect Health messages that I’ve always found so compelling in his books.

And I guess this is at the knobby kernel of my un-ease: how can the dude preach one thing and seem to live by another?

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get your stuff sorted

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You’ve heard of The Story of Stuff Project? I’ve mentioned it a bit here, especially in regards to the story of stuff in cosmetics.

It’s a movement helping us all to consume less stuff. Because we don’t need it, it makes us unhappy and, frankly, it’s killing us. I grew up with these messages from my parents and then was exposed to the opposite extreme during me time editing Cosmopolitan magazine. I went from a niaive lack of engagement in consumption… to total abhorrence of it. Our eternal grasping for stuff is upsetting. It upsets us.

Anyway. If you haven’t seen The Story of Stuff, here it is below OR, come see Annie Leonard, the chick in the video and behind the project, in person. She’s in Australia next week. I’ve posted the dates below.

Good and important… stuff. Book in to hear her talk!

Wednesday, October 26th
Time: 6.00 PM for 7.00 PM
Location: Mullum Civic Hall – Dalley Street,  Mullumbimby
Cost: $10/12 at the Door, food and drink available
RSVP to [email protected]
Hosted by the National Toxics Network

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when failure is totally an option

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This is an ad for a global sneaker brand, I know. And it’s been, no doubt, developed by a team of brand psychologists who conspire to manipulate the human mind for consumerist outcome.

But.

Gosh, it’s good and touching.

We need to hear from other people – especially people we regard as successful  – about how they failed more than they succeeded. For two reasons.

So we know success isn’t something magical and based on luck. That it’s about hard work. And we can all do hard work, right?

And also to remind us that we ONLY succeed by going DOWN into failure. Going down means we then build up “success strength” in the grapple back out. Going down buys us the time to know what we’re doing. Going down cements what we really want (because you have to have something to aim for when you grapple back out). Going down means when we succeed, we’re the real deal, not just a fluke.

To really get the message, you need to see this, too:

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my chocolate nut balls (healthy nuff for breakfast!)

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Over the weekend, my partner in “Sunday mornings on the deck eating eggs + reading the papers” crime Lizzie and I made nutballs. This is them…

nutballs finished my chocolate nut balls (healthy nuff for breakfast!)

Three things you need to know:

1. These balls of goodness are so healthy and anti-oxidising that you can eat them for breakfast. And just to test the theory, I did so this morning.

2. They are not addictive and you won’t eat the whole lot in one sitting. How so?

They contain ZERO sugar

They are rich in good fats that fill you up pleasantly and fast. Seriously, no desperate hankerings afterwards.

3. Lizzie and I are the two most impatient women on the planet: we whizzed these together in three minutes, including the taking of pretty pictures.

The recipe is derived from a nutball recipe Nora Gedagaudas sent to me. We kind of modified it, throwing in stuff we liked. You seriously don’t have to worry about exact quantities. You can’t stuff this recipe up! And don’t be afraid of the butter and coconut oil. It’s goooooood for you!

my sugarfree nutballs

  • half a  jar of almond spread
  • 250g or so of organic nuts. We used almonds, brazil nuts and walnuts for their hormonally healthful properties. We tried using a stab-mixer, but it turned them into a powder, so promptly switched to a large food processor).
  • 1/2 cup of raw cacoa powder (to taste)
  • 2 big handfuls of shredded coconut
  • 1/2 a stick of organic salted unadulterated butter. Or use the whole packet (200-250g) if you don’t have coconut oil.
  • 4-5 heaped tbls of coconut butter (coconut oil)

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I got rid of comments so I could hear the conversation

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This week in Sunday Life I remove comments from my blog. Just for a bit.

111735 5 600 I got rid of comments so I could hear the conversation
Illo by Geoff McFetridge

When I’m feeling a tad on the smug side of my life situation, I find a little visit to the comments section of my blog sets me straight. In the main, comments on my blog are helpful sharings of tips and links. But every now and then a snarky interloper pipes up, like a foul air bubble in the lower intestine, to pull apart the most banal detritus of my existence.

Such as whether I Photoshop out a gap in my teeth.

Or how many times I say “um” in a podcast.

I find it a practice in mindful ego control, mostly. I observe the snarkiness bubble to the surface. Smile. And accept that I put myself out on a limb by having a public blog, ergo I must accept some flack. And then I let the stinky snark float on past, ignoring the urge to pop it with well-crafted comeback. It’s a bit like handling a toddler: acknowledge good behaviour, ignore bad behaviour. With time, I’ve developed a lovely Teflon calm from the process.

I’m lucky, though. I’ve only had to remove two comments in almost two-and-half years of running my blog. But this is not the norm. Monitoring comments has become a laborious chore for many (some bloggers I know remove 40 per cent of contributions daily). So much so, a growing number of the big blogging names have dropped their comments sections altogether, despite the commercial reality that comments are traffic drivers, which, in turn, are monetisation drivers.

This is no trifle issue. It’s dictating news agendas, hurting people in humiliating and irreversible ways and driving some to suicide. Nasty comments can be hate-bombed into the interweb by cowards who hide behind pseudonyms and there’s nothing that can be done to discipline or control them. Unlike a hand-posted letter to the editor of yore, these comments are not carefully and mindfully prepared. And social media commentators argue commenting contradicts the original notion of the social media “conversation”. They’re more akin to an impulsive heckle at a footy match – unaccountable and mostly about me too-ism. As a result, the Australian Press Council last month called for a discussion on online reader comments as part of their broader enquiry into media standards.

Apropos of something, I love the Swedes. They’re so often the first to buck the system, mostly in the nude and incorporating a community garden. Last month they led the way once more when three of the nation’s four newspapers banned anonymous online comments.

All of which has got me thinking: should I take a stand and drop comments on my blog?

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