Thank You, Merry Christmas & Goodbye!

Thank you to everyone who’s been involved with, a customer of, or even just on the email list for Peak Wellbeing.   I’ve had a fantastic time interacting, meeting, helping and healing you all over the years and I will miss you.  I have been inspired, educated and humbled since starting Peak Wellbeing in 2007, and I am incredibly grateful for the journey it’s taken me on. 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I wish you all peace, health & happiness for Christmas and beyond.

Bess

Bess Donald (nee Purser)

Peak Wellbeing is Closing

I have decided to close Peak Wellbeing at Christmas, a decision I’ve made for many reasons.  Principally because I’m in the luxurious position of not needing to work, and I feel drawn to help people on a voluntary basis.   I love interacting with each and every client and I will miss you all but it feels right at this time for me to look for new challenges, new ways of working to help people to find wellness, balance and peace in their lives.   The clinic will close on Friday 21st December.

I can whole-heartedly recommend the following two people for those of you who just can’t survive without a massage:
The first is Nigel Morgan, who has been working at Peak Wellbeing for over a year now as remedial massage & sports therapist.   He’s very good at getting ‘in deep’ and sorting out all your aches, pains and injuries.  He has clinics in Eastwood and West Bridgford and also offers home visits.  He can be contacted on 07816 06 86 96, ashwoodhealth@yahoo.co.uk
The second is Barbara Goodall, a very dear friend of mine who has been an aromatherapist for more than 10 years now.  She works with the essential oils to soothe, relax and harmonise mind, body & soul.   Barbara works from her home on Sandbed Lane in Belper and can be contacted on 07936 432 836, b.goodall.timeout@talktalk.net.  She is offering all Peak Wellbeing clients a 50% discount on their first treatment with her.

I would like to thank you all for being such wonderful clients, I really will miss treating you. 

In peace,

Bess

Bess Donald (nee Purser)

Wedding Pics

We had an amazing day and have loads of great memories.  The wedding photos are by the very talented Beth Swift of Burnt Orange Wedding Photography, I hope you enjoy them!

Going to the Chapel...

Hello everyone,

I’m very excited because at the end of next week I’m getting married (If you’ve not already heard me shout it from the rooftops!) and will be on honeymoon (Perth and Phuket) thereafter.   I finish work this Friday, 21st September, returning on Monday 22nd October.   Whilst I’m away there won’t be anyone to take calls or messages at the clinic, but you can still email me.  

For any back/neck/shoulder problems and general aches & pains you can call Nigel Morgan on 07816 068696 or email ashwoodhealth@yahoo.co.uk who is taking appointments as usual.

I’ll post some photos of the big day on my facebook page, www.facebook.com/peakwellbeing so feel free to have a gander on there.

In peace,

Bess

You’re never on the wrong path…

You’re just not managing it quite as well as you could be right now.  So how do you know if you’re on the right path?  How do you know if you even have a right path? “If you have life, you have purpose”, so says Caroline Myss in Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday program, the inspiration for this article.  Everyone has a purpose, and everyone’s purpose is different.  It’s just a question of figuring out what that is.   Don’t fret though, because you never lost your purpose.  You’re reading this, which means you must be alive, which means you have a path and a purpose!

First of all, you have to have no judgements, no expectations and give up your need to know what happens tomorrow.   Don’t judge your life as it is now, just accept it (you don’t have to like it, just face up to reality).  Don’t expect anything.  Don’t expect to be living in a bigger house because seemingly everyone else’s is bigger.  Don’t expect things haven’t happened to you, as in ‘I can’t believe it happened to me/it shouldn’t have happened to me’.  Well, it did, and there’s nothing you can do to change the event (only how you think about it now).   And it doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong path.  You are never on the wrong path.  All the decisions you’ve ever made are helping you make decisions now and every decision you’re ever going to make. 

The right path feels right.   You’re being true to yourself and not betraying who you are. If your boss is unkind, or you’re constantly feeling like you’re the one making all the sacrifices, or you’re drained of life, you’re not making the right choices.  Again, you’re not on the wrong path, you’re just not managing it as well as you could be right now - “If your life path begins to harm you, you’ve taken a detour”.  And there can be many life paths, as many paths as there are decisions.  If you’re family life is perfect and you couldn’t be happier, but your job is boring and unfulfilling, then in that area you need to choose a different path, a path that feels right.  It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to quit and find a new job, but maybe find out if there is something else/more you can be doing.

You don’t even have to know where the path is taking you, you just have to know you’re making the right choices for you.  So stop, take a deep breath, look around you.  What do you appreciate in your life now?  What doesn’t feel good?  What can you do to change it?  What can you do to ensure you appreciate everything in your life, to ensure you are on the right path?  Now do it!

Jonathan Eisen: Meet your microbes

Powerful Longevity Foods

The more we learn, the clearer it is that longevity isn't just about our genetic heritage. Instead we can control many of the factors that will influence the quality and quantity of our years with all those small, daily decisions we make about nutrition, fitness, sleep and other health behaviors.

So when we saw the recent study linking vitamin D and calcium supplements to a longer lifespan, it got us thinking. What other nutrients or foods could help improve lifespan? Read on for some tasty items that may just add years to your life.

Broccoli For Cancer Protection 

Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables are full of sulforaphane and other antioxidants that help to protect healthy cells from damage caused by free radicals. But when it comes to the veggies, raw may be better: recent research has found that boiling in water has a "leaching effect."
Read more

Thrive Movement - An unconventional documentary

THRIVE: What On Earth Will It Take?
www.thrivemovement.com

Visit www.thrivemovement.com for more information on THRIVE. THRIVE uses the Yekra player technology.  See www.yekra.com for more information.

How to Have Healthy Bowel Movements

A fascinating article by Dr. Ben Kim
To have healthy bowel movements, it's essential that you support colon and rectal health with all of your daily choices. Keeping these areas clean and healthy provides the following benefits:

1. A lowered risk of developing colorectal cancer, one of the most common types of cancer in industrialized countries.
   
2. A lowered risk of experiencing irritable bowel syndrome, chronic constipation, and chronic diarrhea.
   
3. A lowered risk of developing hemorrhoids.
   
4. Less gas production.
   
5. More efficient absorption of water and minerals.
   
6. A feeling of lightness, comfort, and well-being in your abdominal region.
   

Before we discuss specific choices that you can make to keep your colorectal region healthy and to have comfortable bowel movements, let's review some basic anatomy and physiology of this area.
Read more...

"Have a nice day, I love you!"

Just had to share this video with you of Bermuda's Happy Man:

Video from KarmaTube

To help your bowels move with ease, Put your feet on top and bend your knees

Welles Step

It’s not the done thing to talk about bowel movements, but I just wanted to share this little gem of advice with you that costs very little but makes a big difference to your everyday life.

Thanks to Thomas Crapper, toilets became commonplace in the 19th century, giving us a sanitary way to dispose of human waste.  But for what we gained in hygiene, did we loose out elsewhere?  According to Dr William Welles, we did.  Through his research, he found that squatting was the best way to eliminate waste from the body, and that toilets do not support the abdomen in the correct way. Bowel cancer most commonly occurs at the beginning of the ascending colon or the rectum, the areas that aren’t supported when using a toilet, but are supported when squatting.  Further research suggests that constipation, varicose veins, hernias, haemorrhoids and appendicitis are all attributed to the use of the toilet.

So the simple solution is to use a step (a child’s bathroom step is perfect) and hug your knees into your abdomen when on the loo.  You’ll find it much easier to pass a motion/have a poo/whatever phrase you’re comfortable with!  Steps are widely available, cheap (if you’ve not already got one lurking around somewhere), and it’s a very easy thing to incorporate into your daily routine.   So don’t be ashamed, remember, even the Queen poos.   I wonder how many Welles Steps she’d need for all her bathrooms?!!

“To help your bowels move with ease,

Put your feet on top and bend your knees”  Bess Purser, 2009.

My Second Favourite Form of Exercise

My Second Favourite Form of Exercise

I’m not a gym person.  I’ve been twice, when I was about 16, with a friend.  I was all enthusiastic about it until she couldn’t go with me the third time so I didn’t go either, and I never went back.   The thought of going to a gym to exercise just does not get me excited at all, and I think this is a common stumbling block for a lot of people.   You know you need to exercise more, but finding the time and inclination is difficult, if not near impossible.  

Let me tell you about a one (or two) of my favourite forms of exercise and why I enjoy them, in the hopes that it will inspire you to find something you love to do too.  My second favourite form of exercise is dancing, of which I do two types.  The first is Ceroc, a type of modern jive that gets your heart pumping and your feet thumping, yet forces your mind to relax.   It’s sociable, energetic and easy (ish) to learn.   For the first couple of years of my Ceroc career (once I’d learnt the basic steps which only takes a few classes), it was the only two hours in a week when I wasn’t in charge.  It’s a male led dance so as a female, all you have to do is follow the man’s lead and giggle when you get it wrong (which happens frequently, even after four or more years).  The more I concentrate on what I’m doing, the more my body tenses and the more mistakes I make.  So I just have to relax and go with the flow, feel the rhythm and keep spinning.

The second type of dancing I do is pole dancing, which could be construed as controversial, as I pride myself on my professionalism as (amongst other things) an aromatherapy massage practitioner, and the in the wrong context, the two vocations together makes for an interesting career choice!  However, the pole dancing lessons take place in a freezing cold studio on an industrial park and couldn’t be any further from a sleazy strip joint if you tried, and I have no intention of trying.  Being just a beginner in this pole dancing lark, and being rather nervous before my first class, I have found it very enjoyable, again sociable (though thankfully no men this time!) and after just three weeks my arms are already more toned and my strength has improved noticeably.  It works pretty much all areas of your body, as I found when I couldn’t change into second gear for about three days after the first class, and I can still feel it in my lower abdominals now.   It’s also a very skilled form of dance (verging on acrobatics), and I have much respect for the others in the class who can hang upside down holding on with just their thighs, whilst somehow appearing graceful. I hope that one day soon I will have the strength, flexibility and fearlessness to enable me to do the same too.

Another form of exercise I enjoy is walking.  I love having a good stomp up a hill to get the blood flowing and the heart beating, then turning round to pause and enjoy the view before carrying on.  I also love the fresh air, seeing the seasons change and exploring my locality on foot. 

There’s bound to be an activity out there that you love to do, it’s a case of experimenting and finding it.  It could be golf, martial arts, abseiling or trampolining.   There’s nothing that beats the feeling of being in the moment, with the wind in your hair and the world spinning around you.   You don’t need to make an effort as it becomes a joy to do, you don’t need to make time as it becomes part of your routine and you don’t need to worry about exercising more as you can’t get enough of it. 

The heart of forgiveness

What does forgiveness mean to you?  To ‘forgive and forget’ is often said but rarely actioned, as it can be interpreted as ‘What you did to me is ok’, when that’s the last thing on Earth that will ever be ok.   So you hold onto the memories, the anger, the resentment and the fear, and everytime you think of that person or event, your jaw tightens, your shoulders get closer to your ears and your stomach starts hiking up the acid production.

It’s not a nice place to be, and holding onto those emotions can lead to illness on a physical level.  Louise Hay states that the liver is the ‘Seat of anger and primitive emotions’ and that the probable cause of indigestion is ‘Gut-level fear, dread, anxiety’.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to let go of all those negative emotions and feel free from the people and events that have caused you pain?

So how about a change of definition of forgiveness...  Doreen Virtue, in her Healing with the Angels Oracle Cards, explains forgiveness as ‘I am no longer willing to carry around pain in response to your actions’, and Oprah Winfrey’s favourite explanation is ‘Giving up the hope that the past could be any different’.

Hold those words in your head, roll them around in your mind.  Can you feel them anywhere in your body?  It made me take a deep breath the first time I heard Oprah give her definition.  I was watching one of her lifeclass webcasts on facebook (highly recommended) and had to keep re-running that part just so the words could sink in and I could feel the release in my body. 

It might be that you have no-one to forgive but yourself, and sometimes that can be the hardest.  Again, you can’t change the past, and you won’t be doing it again, so don’t beat yourself up about it.  Doreen Virtue goes on to say ‘When we hold unforgiveness in our hearts, we only punish ourselves’.  So stop it.  Take a deep breath and forgive yourself.  Aaaah, there you go, feels better doesn’t it?!