HOW TO SPRING-CLEAN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
This is probably the toughest one for most of us. How do we clean out our collection of connections? Many of us cling on to friendships and relationships that are well past their use-by date, believing that quantity is more important than quality when it comes to the people in our lives. Often the friends that are an important part of our lives are those friends we don’t need to see all the time. Other relationships that used to work well become toxic over time because we never vented each other’s frustrations. Here are a few ways to tidy up our relationships: CLEAR THE AIR To avoid relationships from becoming toxic, we need to be able to talk about positive and negative behaviours and the actions we expect from others. This can include honesty, money or intimacy. Eliminate misunderstandings, lack of patience, gossip and lies. True friendships need time, energy and attention and require forgiveness and understanding. Share your family member, friend or partner how certain behaviours make you feel. They will understand and take action. PRACTICE GRATITUDE There are people in our lives who touch us through certain actions or influence us in a positive way at certain times. For instance, when I was unhappy in my job and thinking of starting my own business, a woman I had only just met encouraged me in such a positive way that I completely shifted my focus towards achieving my goal. You want people like this in your life, people who inspire you. People who care about you even if they don’t know you well. Nurture these contacts, or at least give them gratitude. Even better, pick someone in your life you want to influence in a positive way and return the inspiration. NOT ALL FRIENDSHIPS ARE FOREVER There are people in our lives who have, over time, taken more energy than we have received from them. If you feel like it is an effort to nurture those relationships, it may be time to let them go. You may just be going through a rough patch in which case it is worth raising these issues with your partner or friend and talking about them; however, if they have been bringing you down for a while and there’s no resolution in sight, it may be time to focus on those people who make you happy instead. SOCIALLY DISCONNECT If you can’t let go of a real friend, start by deleting some...
This is why we should eat chocolate to be happy
Yes, admittedly there are many reasons I could go on about why we eat chocolate to be happy. But in the following you won’t read about its anti-aging capabilities, or how it can help fight cancer. Neither will I tell you about the ancient native American relationship with the holy cacao bean that is being used in Shamanic ceremonies to connect to higher powers. Today is the day you will walk away with liberation from all the nutritional restrictions being put on you all day long. You will no longer feel deprived and hence overcompensate, because you will know better. Let’s start by analysing what it is that makes us feel bad about consuming chocolate. For me personally, being lactose, fructose, galactose and polyols sensitive (which means I can pretty much eat…hm, bugger all!) chocolate is definitely a no-go, even the yummy dairy-free Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt I love so much is off the list. But most intolerances, as we all know, are called that because we cannot tolerate an excess of them. If we’re allergic that’s a different story. But a tiny bit here or there is, even for me, irreplaceable. What really makes us feel bad is when we consume too much of it. That’s when we classify a type of food as bad. Moderation is key, self control the secret The mother of all evil is overindulgence. I have heard this a lot form our recent 6 week transformation challengers, and I know it’s hard! After a long day of running around, getting the kids ready, having the house tidy and working through our busy schedule, all you want to do is switch off and reward yourself with a little delight. Then, we open a block of chocolate with the genuine intention of just having a bite and end up with the empty wrapper; that is when we feel bad. We feel bad, not only because we know the excess amount of calories will be showing on our hips, bellies and thighs the next day and we realise we don’t have time to go to the gym and work it off. But also because, once again, we lacked self control. So how do we practice self control? By depriving and punishing ourselves for failing? I used to allow myself to eat chocolate only on a Sunday night while watching TV with my partner at home, so what ended up happening was, I went out and bought masses...
4 IDEAS TO AVOID PLATEAUING
So you’re good at your job or your role as a mum, you’re beating your boss at tennis more often than he beats you, you’re tidy and clean...