What's happening in Nana Glen this late Winter?

Just a quick update on progress on the organic Love2Grow farmlet..  Unfortunately I haven't worked out how to launch content from my web domain into this blogger domain.  So you will need to click on the link and be redirected to a new page and a slide show will begin.  You can use the controls at the bottom of the slide show to navigate or just let it run through.
Nana Glen - Late winter 2009

Look how far I've Come...

It's a song by Ben Lee which is very apt at the moment. I was thinking about where this all started and realised it's almost 4 years since my life took a dramatic turn for the better. In 2005 I was lamenting about everything, my job, my relationships, my life in general and it seemed that I couldn't change anything or do anything other than hop back onto that treadmill again. I was also shocked to discover that I was depressed! I didn't find this out by going to the doctor, I found it out through a course I was attending on Depression and Anxiety which Parentline ACT had funded for my attendance. (I was a volunteer counsellor for that non profit organisation for several years.) What I discovered on that course was that I had all the symptoms of depression, though not on a major scale... but it made me realised that I was heading down that way... I already had anxiety attacks which were crippling and felt shame for having them. I was not living a life, I was surviving it... I felt powerless to change anything and everyone suffered around me because of that.

So what turned it around? Well I was walking into work one day when a I noticed a sign in a shop window that said "Does your life feel like a treadmill?" and it listed about 10 of my woes which I had literally complained about to Tony (husband of 14 years now) that morning on our daily walk with our dogs. It was weird seeing it in print using almost the same words. Later that day I went off to a stretch and flex class and went into the change rooms to change and there it was again... on the back of the change room door. I wasn't one who followed whims or believed in omens at that stage but I felt a strong pull to it and wrote down the number and attended the information night for a course that changed my life. Tony and I both attended that one and the next one and I went on to do another one specifically for women. With each one, I felt my personal power returning to me and I made immediate and positive changes in my life.

I was studying to be a counsellor at that stage and was close to ending my diploma. I quit my day job as an IT Project Manager and went and worked with Parentline doing face to face counselling and ended up landing a job with the YWCA as a family counsellor. I also became a parent effectiveness trainer and ran courses for Parentline and the YWCA. I loved it! I could see people's lives change and I could see how amazing just the gift of listening without judgement was to another being. The one thing I could not comprehend was how much undervalued counsellors were. Working in the community sector means basically get little more than minimum wage whilst trying to help people change their lives. The financial returns were just not there and in addition I still had health and anxiety issues which I couldn't resolve. We (Tony and I) also had decided that we wanted to move from Canberra and we couldn’t do it without an injection of funds. So it was back into the treadmill again, however, this time we had a plan of attack to get off permanently!

I've never been one to resort to drugs to solve my problems. Drug companies have no interest in getting you healthy, that would mean that they would lose out on a source of income... no it's much better to insure you have to remain on their product for many years and just mask the symptoms. So my first foray into Energy Therapy began and the results were immediate... even if I didn't understand what it was at the time! The most basic technique available to anyone is Emotional Freedom Technique and I still teach it to clients all the time. Western medicine is slowly recognising the value of Eastern medicine and acknowledging the energy system in our bodies. The reason why they have taken so long is because they can't probe it or see it in the naked eye, but they are realising it's importance. New understanding about the relationship between energy and the flow of information within the body is causing conventional medicine to rapidly update the perspective that views the person primarily as a biochemical entity. The EEG, EKG, PET, and MRI are diagnostic instruments that build on this principle. But again I digress... (more on this subject later).

I got so excited about the positive effects of EFT that I started seeking more information about energy modalities and met a lady one day who told me she did BodyTalk. I didn't know what this was at all and she offered me a session at half price. Oh My God... it was amazing and she knew so much about me just from touching my skin. She brought up past memories and experiences that were affecting my life now! She resolved them in the body and the effect was that over the next period of time, things improved in my health and my mental health. I had to know more, so I signed up for the first modules to learn it for myself. That was in 2007 and that year turned out to be a greater learning curve than my studies for my diploma. On top of this I also learnt NLP coaching techniques and a technique which allowed me to release unconscious belief systems which affect the way you act and your health.

Over the last 2 years I have completed almost all of the modules for BodyTalk (there are 2 basic modules and then 5 advanced) and will continue onto further study with the International BodyTalk Association. I have finally left my treadmill life behind. My relationships are better than ever and now I've just moved myself to the best climate in Australia to start my business here and grow and consume good food. Next blog I will talk about the effect of food on your body and mind and what you can do to help yourself and your kids.