I am highly sensitive, my partner is sensitive, and both our kids are sensitive. It shows up for each of us in different ways but, despite its various guises, we are all susceptible to overstimulation in our emotional and physical senses.

In a world that is increasingly vying for our attention, few would disagree overstimulation is an issue, yet the world seems to insist on toughening us up. It’s very isolating and I’ve been quite stunned by some of the reactions people have had in relation to this issue, not seeing it as anything other than a sign of weakness.

For example, just this week a teacher told me she believes my sensitive daughter, already overwhelmed by her school day, should be taking on a team sport next term; requiring two after-school/weekend commitments each week. The purpose? So that “she feels she is just like the other kids, and is as strong as the other kids and, like them, has talents and challenges”.

This is quite interesting to me, as the premise seems to contradict itself. Every person does have unique talents and challenges, this is true, but why does that make one strong and another not? I have no problem seeing her sensitivity as anything other than a huge strength that comes with certain challenges.

One of those challenges is that, for her to remain centered, she needs quite a bit of time to unwind – or defrag as my friend aptly calls it – after a lot of social interaction and sensory stimulation. Of course, school, falls squarely in this category. So after years of trial and error (that got downright ugly at times) we arrived at keeping things simple and making a point of heading home after school and staying there.

At home my daughter, who the school would have out pursuing sports that she is neither interested in and also contradicts its own core pedagogy (which advocates not introducing team sports until they are older), is happy drawing, writing and building. It’s the time in which she gets to express herself freely in the home sanctuary.

I also make a point of taking my kids out of school for two reasons. The first is to learn how to swim, in my view a basic survival skill, especially here in New Zealand where we are at the water’s edge in every direction. We have, of course, tried learning after-school and on weekends, but school has already taken the best of their attention and they arrive with ears closed and uninterested in focusing on anything else.

Any teacher worth their salt knows that, to learn, you have to have a student who is able, eager and willing to focus their attention. My kids love being in the water, but timing is everything if they are going to learn this basic survival skill well.

The second reason is for rare and coveted quality time as a family, which I wrote about in Evolving Education – Where Booking a Family Holiday during Term Time Took Me.

Before I move away from this example completely, it’s worth adding that I had shared my observations with the school about my daughter’s sensitivity when I first came across the work of Elaine Aron, though received no response. I had put that down to lack of time rather than a dismissal though; based on the aforementioned pedagogy I’d imagined we might be well aligned, apparently not so.

This is also a school with a long-established form of rehabilitation programme based on the premise that learning difficulties are often due to disruptions in the development stages in the first seven years of life that can result in poor spatial orientation and body awareness, sensory processing challenges, retained early movement patterns and coordination difficulties.

Why these disruptions to development occur is less often discussed but, as I understand it, it is thought to be a result of trauma. The trauma could be, for example, in the form of an illness that occurred right at a critical time of physical development, or an emotional upset such as the birth of a new sibling or a loss of some kind.

This is where It gets more interesting for me as I connect into the work of Dr Gabor Maté, a Hungarian-born Canadian physician with a background in family practice and a special interest in childhood development and trauma, and in their potential lifelong impacts.

In his book Scattered Minds, Maté demonstrates that ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder also known as ADHD - Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder) is not an inherited illness, but a reversible impairment and developmental delay. While he believes there is significant hereditary contribution to ADD, it is based on a deduction that what is being transmitted genetically is not ADD but sensitivity.

He asserts that environment has the far greater impact on the circuitry of the brain though and it is that which shapes the inherited genetic material. He believes environment – and specifically trauma occurring within the environment in the first months and years of a child’s life – to be the determining factor in whether the impairment of ADD will or will not appear in a child.

For those with ADD, it is well worth reading Gabor Maté’s work in more detail, but the specific type of trauma that he refers to is the emotional state of the primary caregiver when the new infant enters the world and in those earliest months of care. It is easy to see in an overstimulated world how stress unwittingly creates the type of trauma being discussed, especially where there is a genetic predisposition to sensitivity.

Whether ADD (or some other disruptions to development) will arise, will vary from individual to individual. When he makes the statement that people with ADD are hypersensitive he adds This is not their fault or a weakness of theirs, it is how they were born; their inborn temperament.

In putting to bed the idea that it is not ADD itself that is genetically transmitted, Maté points out that genetic explanations for these conditions assume that after millions of years of evolution nature would permit a very large number of disordered genes, handicapping an ever larger proportion of humankind, to pass through the screen of natural selection. He goes on to say:

We face no such difficulty if we see that what is being transmitted genetically is not ADD or its equally ill manned and discombobulating relatives, but sensitivity.

The existence of sensitive people is an advantage to humankind because it’s this group that best expresses humanity’s creative needs and urges. Through their instinctual responses the world is best interpreted. Under normal circumstances, they are artists or artisans, seekers, inventors, shamans, poets, prophets. There would be a valid and powerful evolutionary reasons for the survival of genetic material coding for sensitivity.

While Dr Gabor Maté’s work is more concerned with what that sensitivity predisposes humans to and how to heal it, I felt it is one of the most empowering paragraphs I’ve read on sensitivity.

On the face of it, it links in well with the pedagogy and programmes at my kids’ school, so you can see why I might be somewhat perturbed by responses I’ve had, or not had.

In venting about this, a good friend of mine bravely said to me “I get why you are angry, but can you share your dreams for the future when the fire has died down, I rarely hear them from you?”

Well, in a nutshell, my dream is that we as a society evolve past this point of treating children in a one-size-fits-all way. Instead of seeing newborns as empty vessels that we can shape, we need to wake up to the critical importance of those early months and years and support families to be there in a nurturing way.

In Our Children Are Changing – We Need to Move with the Times I talked about research such as the Dunedin Study bringing this important link between early childhood and the later outcomes to the fore. As Maté points out , it is recognition by society at large that there is no more important task in the world than nurturing the young during the earliest of years that will make a difference. So much social dysfunction would be prevented and so many productive and creative forces allowed to unfold.

As for those of us that are sensitive in our temperament, we have a job to do in healing the scars that run deep in our psyche from our own experiences and we have a job to do in helping our children understanding their strengths.

I’m also making it a priority to seek out people, practitioners and healthcare experts who have experience and knowledge in this area and who can support our family in our wellbeing and create a supportive community around us.

It’s important for me to raise awareness, for a person has no more choice in being sensitive then they do in eye colour or gender. And, in fact, it’s a huge benefit to feel and perceive the world in the way we do. It’s time to move forward and give more voice to this issue in the most apt way we can, sensitively.

If you enjoyed this you may also enjoy Embrace Your Sensitivity Rather than Have to Protect Yourself from the World. If you would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

We like people who are like us; it’s likely a survival instinct that served us once upon a time. Except I now notice when I start to feel some invisible barriers trying to erect themselves between me and another simply because of our differences. It is precisely where those barriers arise that can sometimes indicate an area of growth for me.

For example, I have enjoyed reading some really short articles from a particular author over the last few years, who publishes only the briefest of insights and observations about life. They are the type of insights and observations that also come up within me, so I asked him whether he has his story published anywhere. I am fascinated by the divergent backdrops in people’s stories that still result in the same understanding of why we are here and how to be successful in a meaningful way.

His reply was a bit curt, but he mentioned bits of his story came out now and again in his blogs and he’d written about it in one of his books. So, ever the Google investigator, I managed to discover a little of his background.

Between the curt reply and a single fact I then discovered about who he presents as in the world in the introduction to one of his books, I noticed when I next got notification about a new article of his, a barrier had crept up.

This has brought awareness to the judgments I’ve made. I decided to attribute the best possible motives to his curt reply, likely just a factor of time and timing, also being aware of the irony of enjoying his short-and-to-the-point articles and yet not liking the same in a personal response.

The other factor that rubbed up against my own choices was the mention of religion in the backdrop of his life. While this is something I used to have an almost allergic reaction to, I’ve arrived at a point summed up beautifully in the Chinese proverb There are many paths to the top of the mountain but the view is still the same. So I found it interesting I was still having any kind of a reaction at all.

The great win out of this is that I am now conscious of these kinds of barriers I used to put up subconsciously. I am also conscious these are the kinds of barriers people can put up or let down when they talk to me or read my articles.

Even knowing this fellow and I share the same ideas about life at a deeper level, just in a slightly different packaging, I recognised some of my old patterns reverberating. I won’t feed them, I simply recognise them and will let them fade to a distant echo and continue to enjoy reading his short insights.

That is why I feel each person’s story is of value, and would encourage everyone to share their story with others, precisely because not everyone relates to just one person. Even if I do relate to someone in general terms, I’m not going to relate to everything they say.

For example, another of my favourite authors published an article about the one difference between men and women that men just don’t get. It was that women have regular moments in which they fear for their lives, almost on a daily basis (and it intensifies when they have others they care about in their life, like children), whereas for men it happens in distinct moments they can likely count on one hand.

I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with this premise, it just didn’t resonate for me right there and then, but it did intrigue me. Based on my experience with this author there will come a point in my own life’s experiences where I will revisit this notion and be able to express it in a way that makes sense to me.

At the moment it sits there like an object to be observed and considered, which is fascinating in itself.

Then, of course, there are the people I know but generally don’t relate to at all – and no matter what they say I am in danger of disregarding it. This is something I need to be aware of too because each person may have something to say that inspires some further insight within me.

I find, for example, that when I’m dealing with doctors I have to be mindful of that bias. After years of frustration with the health system, I was forced to seek answers to my wellbeing and vitality elsewhere. Now when I’m dealing with practitioners in the health system I know I’m seeking a diagnostic opinion only, rather than a drug or surgery if other more natural alternatives are available.

That said, I know there are many practitioners in our health systems who, while they can’t necessarily prescribe or professionally recommend alternative treatments, are often users and supporters of these within their own families.

That was a journey that started in early adulthood, with me having blind faith in a health system and its practitioners and, frankly, a tentative mistrust of anything alternative. My early judgments came from the values and beliefs I’d adopted within my family and community. Fast forward a quarter century and those values and beliefs have changed radically, through a willingness to open up to possibilities and – now – many years of personal experience and knowledge.

In sharing our stories and our insights, for each person who is disinterested, there may be another who needed to hear it right then to inspire their expansion and growth.

​If you have read or heard something you disagree with, just sit with that for a while and wonder at why it got your barriers up, is there something in there for you to explore and open up to in your own life? What judgments are you carrying that are not even really your own? Life can open up immensely when we are willing to open up to it.

If would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

It was 1985; my swim team was on an exchange trip with another team in a neighbouring country. I was spending my first weekend away independently from my family. Thirteen year old me was nervous but looking forward to meeting the other family I’d be staying with: a young girl my age, with an older brother, who both swam for their local team.

When I arrived, I met Rachel and her older brother, who was driving us back to their house. I got into the back of his old light blue Ford Capri, his obvious pride and joy, and Rachel and I began to chat. As the journey began through the winding countryside of Lincolnshire, I had been unprepared for the sheer terror I was about to face.

At thirteen I didn’t want to seem uncool, neither did I want to be bad mannered, but taking the narrow winding lanes at speeds in excess of those dad normally drove at on the motorway was pretty hair raising. I was having a complete internal melt down and literally preparing myself to die…

Over the last couple of weeks I had been enjoying some of the talks at the World Tapping Summit. I often forget about tapping as a tool – especially in the moment when I’m blindsided by something that gets me spiraling on a negative track.

Anyway, after listening to a great talk by Carol Look on self sabotaging behaviours, I had started to recognise how my empathic abilities were sometimes stopping me from getting too close to others to be able to help them.

This was followed by another fantastic talk with Carol Tuttle on this very topic. Discerning whether the energy we are feeling is wholly ours, or whether it originates from other sources (like a TV programme or others around us, or even our ancestors).

She covered something very close to my heart, about what we take on board in our early childhood affecting who we become. She made the astute point that, if things aren’t peaceful, predictable and safe in our early years, our ability to read others’ moods is heightened in order to just survive within our family environment.

While this would obviously be more marked in abusive households, it happens to a certain extent in all households, since we are all human and experience a gambit of emotions after all. Carol teaches how to take this empathic gift we have developed out of preservation and protection and use it instead for something that can benefit us.

This really resonated with me, having keenly felt my mum’s angst and stress in ordinary day to day life as she was parenting. Kids learn to recognise the signs around this and want to smooth things out. Yet I can’t help someone feel good by taking on how bad they are feeling, which is precisely what ends up happening.

With my awareness raised I’ve been more alert to taking on energy that isn’t mine and using some of Carol’s techniques to release it.

For example, last weekend I was headed across some native bush in a car with four others. The road we were on climbed up over the hills and back down the other side on miles of dirt track, with many sharp bends and places where the track narrowed to a single lane.

This isn’t my favourite kind of car ride, and not just because of the motion sickness I experience. When it comes to cornering I stick with the slow-in, fast-out technique taught to amateur drivers’ world over. Approaching with caution appeals to my nature.

Many years ago, I did an Advanced Driving course at Silverstone, home to the British Grand Prix. I have noticed in the years since that it appears to be a trademark of most petrol heads to drive as if they are on the race circuit, maximizing both entry and exit speeds when taking a corner. Of course there is unlikely to be another vehicle coming towards you on a race course.

As we were headed along the road I heard my fellow passenger in the front telling our friend, who was driving, to be cautious. I knew my fellow passenger was not looking forward to taking this route due to an experience she’d had many years ago; so my empathy was on high alert.

That is when I became tenser and started to anticipate all the awful things that could happen. While our driver was far from a petrol head, he certainly cornered faster than I would. And as we progressed along the road I added my voice to that of the other passenger, and then the person next to me picked up on the vibe and added her voice and anxiety, while the other passenger just wanted to know when we would get there as she felt sick.

You can imagine the discord. I could see by the set of my friend’s jaw as he was driving that he was feeling under pressure, and it felt like he was digging his heels in by not slowing down. That triggered me further because of past incidents (like the one described above) where I’ve felt like a hostage in a vehicle, absolutely sure I was going to die at any given moment.

This brought the cacophony to a head, with him yelling at us all to leave him alone to concentrate. I imagine there are many out there in great sympathy with my friend, I mean, I get it. Even in that moment I started to get it; just how affected each person’s energy had become by the others and our own spiraling memories and thoughts.

So I just closed my eyes for the rest of the journey and focused on my breathing, imagining myself sitting inside a bunch of reflective mirrors that allowed me to return others’ energy, and leave me free to experience my own while working on becoming more centred.

Carol Tuttle mentioned how it takes men take seven times longer to process their emotions, just because of where the limbic system is situated in their brain, so it was fair to say there wasn’t a lot of engagement from our driver for the rest of that day; he was pretty wrung out. That said, we had all gotten ourselves in a better space by the ride back, which was a lot calmer.

One of my friends mentioned afterwards how sad she was we had that experience, but I don’t see it like that. There is no one person responsible for setting the tone, we are each responsible for our own energy. Our driver friend was as responsible for his energy as I was for mine; the same applies to the others in the car.

The only thing we can each do is start to recognise when we are feeling triggered by something and do what we need to in order to centre ourselves and feel calm enough to get some perspective that is more helpful. All in all, it was a fabulous learning experience for all of us.

I have had many experiences of unpleasant car rides, just like the one I recount at the outset of this article and – when I think back further – all of these reinforced the initial anxieties I took on in childhood sitting in the back of a vehicle and listening to terse phrases about slowing down, and watching out, the energy palpable in those moments.

I can see how I’ve taken on board someone else’s story and made it my own over the years. That is not to say I’d steer away from advising any driver to approach corners with caution, especially with nervous passengers in the car. Nervous passengers versus driver ego appears to be a common scenario.

This is just one example of many in each day I could probably mention. That very same day my partner was watching a documentary about a huge pop star, now dead, accusing him of some horrific deeds. I knew better than to tune my energy into something like that. I am aware of the suffering that goes on in this world, but I am not helping anyone by taking it into my energy.

As I said to my friend, the best we can do is focus on our own energy rather than trying to fix other people, no one needs to take responsibility for how others are feeling. She has a sunny nature generally, so just be the sun that continues to shine. Sure, there will be the odd cloud, but no need to invite a storm because of how others are feeling.

If you are reading this article it likely means you too are aware of taking on others energy. As Carol said, this is huge in itself. Conscious awareness of something is the first step to change. Figuring out what is mine and what is not is a process. It will take many examples to work through, tapping being one way of helping.

Practicing feeling into my own energy versus others may take some practice, but I reckon it’s worth it to just feel the relief of my own unadulterated energy – so much lighter than carrying everyone else’s.

​There are many other techniques and tools to help out there to release the trauma we feel, for that is what taking on negative energy is. Anything negative that triggers us is likely to be creating a trauma signature in our bodies and, left untreated, will eventuate in sickness. A quick Google search brought up suggestions such as bodywork, hypnotherapy, energy work (like tapping) and Biofeedback.

I’m grateful for my empathic gifts, but know that unless I can learn to observe without letting my energy tune into something heavier, it is stopping me from helping as much as I can in this world – which is the real reason I have this gift.

Empathy is the gateway to compassion. For a long time I had understood compassion to mean I needed to get down with the person so they knew I was in their corner. Instead of lifting them up from down there though, I’ve discovered it’s a whole lot more effective if I can help them to lift themselves up.

The reason for that is it’s an inside job. I can make someone feel better by lifting them up, but then what? Then a dependence is created on external things (like me) to make them feel better. When in reality, they are already equipped with that ability inside themselves.

For a long time I’ve created distance in order to help others, by offering perspective. While I will continue to do that, it’s time I created capacity for deeper healing and growth to occur.
What would it feel like for you to lose the weight of how others are feeling? What would it free up capacity for you to do? A world of lighter beings, even just a few, sounds like progress towards a more authentic and compassionate world.

​If you enjoyed this you might want to read Who is Holding You Back?, Shine the Light on the Shadows of Your Childhood or You Are the Gift Your Ancestors Gave to the World. If would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

I have noticed there is a moment, you might not notice at first, but keep observing every time something comes up that triggers you. This moment is fleeting, but it’s pivotal, it’s your choice point.

You will desire nothing less than to satisfy the lust of your usual reaction, the pull will be strong.

If you take it to satisfy your hunger, it will feel momentarily delicious, victorious and powerful. But then the moment passes, and – what was a passing storm – has grown into a cyclone that feels like it’s going to consume everything in its path including you.

Instead, if you resist the pull, it will feel a lot like trying to resist laughing when you are tickled. There is a visceral surge for action within you. Rather than continue to be enslaved, watch it, observe what is happening with interest.

If you can ride this urge without reacting, you will discover it is fleeting. On the other side, you will find the storm passes quickly. On the other side there is a calm centre, a place to watch the whole event with interest from a new platform and you will gain insights for your growth.

You may be triggered many times, many more storms may come your way and each time you must make a choice to observe rather than react.

Eventually you will be rewarded with a realization that those storms don’t even come your way anymore and, even if they do, you are no longer triggered and no longer feel the ugly desires to satisfy the unhealthy reactions that you once felt.

What you now feel, is the peace of your own energy, your inner self unencumbered by the unhealthy patterns unwittingly taken on from the others around you in preservation many moons ago.

You are now free to be you.

​If would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

Novelist Mary H K Choi writes in Emergency Contact “Penny believed with her whole heart that there were moments - crucial instances - that defined who someone was going to be. There were clues or signs, and you didn't want to miss them.” 

In my search for purpose, I notice there are many signs that give me insights when I choose to see them.

I was at a parent education talk last week about the changes kids go through in their ninth or tenth year. It’s a significant time in child development terms, a big step into the world of critical enquiry and independence, leaving the realm of imagination behind and being more concerned with their sense of I.

In the course of the talk, Heinrich Schliemann (a pioneer in the field of archaeology in the 1800’s) was mentioned in relation to his discovery of Troy. This had been an obsession of his since the age of nine. In the book Encountering the Self: Transformation and Destiny in the Ninth Year, Hermann Koepke talks of Schliemann as an example (among many others) of how a fateful encounter at that crucial age defines a destiny.

This got me intrigued as – when asked what we remembered about our own childhoods at that age - I drew a blank. I have many memories that span the range of those early school years, but I’d struggle to place them in any age order and nothing immediately sprang to mind as significant.

Yet a few days later, as I was driving somewhere, suddenly a memory popped into my head. It was me emphatically stating to my mum that my aunt was not allowed to tell me what to do (I’m guessing she obviously had), stipulating only my parents were allowed to do that. While I clearly recognised my dependence on them for survival at that age, I also knew I was not giving them a lifetime pass.

Mum used to paint a picture of my toddler years defined by the statement “I will do it my own self”. Independence, more accurately freedom, was of innate importance. So I suspect it is no coincidence that almost forty years on I’m writing about liberating the true self from the shroud of values and beliefs I’d come to see as my own after having to don them for so many years.

Neither is it coincidence that I was attracted to a fiercely self oriented and stubborn partner, I had a lot of learning to do on the topic of pleasing others and self worth. I suspect that it is also no coincidence that both our children hold tightly to the independence and freedom that is their heritage and birthright.
It makes life interesting as a parent as I cannot allow them complete freedom within our society or our family unit. To function out in the world they have to be able to respect other people’s boundaries; to take a no. So one of my greatest challenges is walking that line between having a few carefully selected boundaries, the absolutes, while also allowing them to feel into their freedom as often as possible.

What makes it such a challenge is society’s little advocate in my head, the critical voice I heard through the years of rigid control that characterized the typical childhood of my time and place. The wrangle between that voice (have you ever caught yourself sounding just like your parents?) and the awareness of my true inner voice, the one that was always there but spent years being snuffled (have you ever listened to that one? Do you know how to?), results in quite divergent behaviour at times.

I’ve realised my inner critic predominantly offers two voices, one is judgment, the other takes my empathic awareness and turns it against me. It makes judgments of people and situations all the time, the same judgments I heard over and over as I was growing up: the rights and wrongs of the world, the way things should be.  This voice makes me feel angry. Of course my inner voice makes no such judgments and knows there is no right or wrong, only what is right for me right and right for you in any given moment of time.

The other voice is always making me aware of how others feel often before I’ve even figured out how I feel; it makes me think it’s the right thing to do to put other people first. In short, my inner critic makes me feel guilty about putting my own needs first and prefers that I just appear helpful to others rather than rock the boat. 

A friend was asking me whether the reason I rewrite and rewrite emails before pressing send (in response to a person with a particular authority, or a company or other organisation) is because I want to avoid upsetting people. Yes, sort of.

Reshaping my words though is more about my underlying desire to be heard. I know if I run with the critical voice in my head, the one that is angry or feels guilty, then the words create harm, so I look to reshape them into something that will inspire and uplift towards the solution I seek.

Writing is where I tend to get it right; it's a focused form of thought. Opening my mouth to talk, however, is a bit of a gamble. Like being mama in the house at the end of the day when everyone is tired, well, that's the part that needs filtered.

I know the origins of that voice were about keeping me out of trouble, helping me fit in; in short it was – in its intention - about protecting me and keeping me from harm. But the voice needs an upgrade, because the reality is I was born with my own inner voice and it has lots to say, lots that needs to be heard.

Now that I have found my inner voice, I recognise the clues to my destiny much more easily. To hear it, I have made room to listen. I’ve practiced a daily meditation over a number of years now, and I take regular time out in nature to contemplate and hear what I have to say.

What about you? Can you hear your inner voice? What clues does it provide when looking back? What are the clues to your destiny?

​If enjoyed this you might enjoy What You Give Your Attention to Is Your Greatest Contribution, Have Fun Not Knowing What You Want to Offer the World and Finding Your Purpose – the Magic of Those Who Believe in You. If would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

“Just like a GPS, the universe sends you signs to show you the best course. If you follow the flow, you get where you want with ease and happiness. If you miss a turn (you still get there), the road becomes longer and harder.” Charbel Tadros

“Book your next appointment after cutting out sugar and wheat for at least twenty one days ” said the osteopath. Wait, what now?...

I was looking forward to the appointment with my Osteopath. She has a really nice vibe about her, always positive but in a gentle, understated way. When I first started seeing her for some chronic back pain, she prompted me about getting back in the pool “your body would really appreciate the chance to move, to feel its flow” she said. I heard her and I’ve been back in the pool now twice a week for the last three months.

So there I was, anticipating the usual low key yet impactful interaction and she starts asking me about my diet, after listening to my response she said “your body would really appreciate you cutting out wheat and sugar”.

Dread flooded through me. I proceeded to tell her my journey with food, and explained that I understand the optimal diet is one where the food is in its natural state rather than processed.

There have been only a few times in my life that have necessitated a strict diet, for health and fertility reasons. While there has been an overall positive shift along the scale towards more healthful eating over the years, there is still a lot of unhealthy stuff in there.

So I rolled out the excuses. In short, my diet feels compromised because of the situation I find myself in. I’m the cook of the house and cater to a meat and gluten glutton, a couple of anti-vege sugar fiends with differing but limited palettes and all of them seem to have adverse reactions to trying anything particularly healthy. On top of that, preparing meals is something I do because I have to, not because I love to.

I concluded by meekly acknowledging my awareness that my body really isn’t appreciating the food I’m feeding it and I have an intention to change once there is some time to focus on it. Meaning, I do not really want to prepare my food separately from the family, which feels like an even bigger grind.

As I waxed lyrical on all of this, she listened without comment or judgment. Then she said “So you are putting everyone else’s preferences ahead of your own, even ahead of your own health.” Ouch! “Your body really should be able to recover quicker than it is, there is too much inflammation, and it would appreciate you listening to what its telling you about your food preferences.” True.

Then she surprised me by saying “Book your next appointment after cutting out sugar and wheat for at least twenty one days.” Wait, what now? Didn’t she hear my excuses; I don’t want to do this now. I prodded a little to see if she was serious, she was. “Well, okay” I half joked, “I’ll see you around.”

I left feeling pretty down in the mouth. I was being overtaken by the sense that my time for procrastination was over and I wasn’t yet ready to let it go. After having ignored all the signs my poor body has been trying to give me for so many years, it had to inspire an advocate to speak on its behalf to get the message across more clearly. I was being given such a big sign I’d be a fool to ignore it.

Interestingly, that very afternoon, I started getting an earache in my right ear. I turned to my trusty reference book Your Body is Telling You to Love Yourself by Lise Bourbeau. Under ear problems there was a paragraph that struck home “Pain in the ear that does not affect your hearing is a signal that you feel guilty and are punishing yourself over what you want or don’t want to hear.”

Let’s just say I could see the connection. Then, as I got to thinking about it, I realised the osteopath was only saying sugar and wheat; “That is doable” I started to realise, not so limiting as the previous diets I’ve been on. I just need to cut out the crap (like confectionery and flavoured chips) and choose alternative grains, which isn’t that hard really – and it is only for twenty one days so I can get a picture of the difference it will make.

That said, doing something for just twenty one days and then quitting is not really in part of the fabric of who I am, plus that is the length of time it takes to form a new habit. So I begrudgingly stopped eating processed sugar and wheat, knowing I’d just leapt off a cliff and there would be no going back.

Then, the next morning, I read my daily horoscope as I do for fun, and the words leapt out at me:
“You have learnt the hard way that you can’t always be true to yourself and be everything that everyone else wants or needs you to be. If you always put your own needs ahead of others you would not have a happy or fulfilled life, nor would you if you always put the needs of others ahead of your own.

It is all about balance, realising that we live in a world of give and take. Yet above all, your personal truth can’t be compromised, which means some relationships or situations might have to change. Don’t be afraid of change, for doors open when you are being true to yourself.”

Really, I can’t argue with that either. Having decided to take action my earache had gone and I have enough experience of cutting out these foods to know what a dramatic difference it will make to my body. All the stiffness, aches and pains will no doubt be a thing of the past, as will any other figurative or literal excess weight I’ve been carrying; I’d been neglecting myself from a dietary perspective for a long time.

Signs can be subtle, or more blatant. I find the longer I ignore the subtle signs the louder they get. So what signs do you need to listen to in your life? Is it time to find the sweetness in your life more naturally?

If enjoyed this you might enjoy Food for Your Best Life. If would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog