My uni semester finished 2 weeks ago.  I finished the semester early as I had no exams, all my assessments were written assignments. Some of my friends are still studying for exams and will be doing them over the next week.  I've filled my time ensuring that all my notes are up to date, that I have downloaded all the learning materials and readings, just in case I've missed the odd thing here and there in the business of the semester. I'm usually pretty good but had missed some updated notes that were put up on Blackboard after our workshops.  In addition to this I did a lot of sleeping in the first week of the holidays.  My body needed rest.  This has been my best semester so far as far as my health and energy goes.  I've been on low-dose Naltrexone for 6 months now and it has definitely helped with my ability to cope physically as well as assisting my cognition.  I'll write a post specifically about Naltrexone over the next few days.

As I've mentioned previously, taking care of myself, in addition to taking all of my medication, is vital to me being able to be independent and to cope with uni. With that in mind I regularly prep food so that I always have healthy, nutritious food on hand so it takes little to no effort to throw together a healthy meal or snack for myself. I've been gifted some food this week. An abundance of oranges from Mum's tree, lemons, limes, mandarins, lettuce, English spinach, an avocado and a custard apple.  I cut the oranges into pieces and store them in old jam jars in the fridge as a ready snack or to add to Sophie's dinner - yes she eats well too which is why she is in such good shape at 13.5 years old. There is a 9 year old lab called Sally who lives near my parents and she looks considerably older than Sophie, can barely walk and has lived on dry food all her life.  I really think nutrition makes a huge difference.  I've always raw fed my dogs.  Anyway, back to the food prep.  In the fridge I have a salad made up (blue bowl), carrot sticks and cut up cucumber stored in water in jars at the back, orange slices cut up and stored in jam jars at the front and a bottle of homemade hummus made with my friend Tiia's recipe.  I also have a container of berries washed and ready for when I feel like a sweet snack or to sprinkle over my porridge of a morning.

 

It makes it so easy to throw together a healthy meal.  To the salad below I added some parsley and tomatoes from my garden. My tomato plants here grow with wild abandon and I am rarely without cherry tomatoes.  As I'd been gifted so much food I splurged and picked up some smoked salmon which I added to the salad.

Sophie and I take our regular walks most days.  Some days she's a bit wobbly and stiff so I keep her at home but we both love getting out. It keeps us healthy too. That and doing yoga and pilates here at home.  Sophie joins in to these at times which makes some sessions more of a wrestle and giggle fest than an exercise session.

Another aspect of my lifestyle is to reduce my carbon footprint further and I'm very happy to be able to recycle my coffee pods.  I have a Nespresso machine as I knew that Nespresso provided a recycling program.  As there is no collection centre for the pods close to me I can use the Nespresso postal service by putting my pods in their postal bag and simply popping it in the post box.  Very convenient.

Catching up with friends in person has been on the agenda too which seemed odd after being so isolated during the Covid lockdown.  Everyone's lives have been so different, each with their unique challenges.  Today I am visiting my friend Susanna who is one of my friends from uni. Susanna and her husband moved to Australia this year.  Sadly she lost her father during Covid and was unable to return home to his funeral due to the restrictions.  I felt so deeply for her so far away in a new country, in lockdown, navigating her grief.

While I'm out today I'll call into the bulk food store and get the ingredients that I need to make gluten free flour.  Far cheaper than purchasing the same mix at a local health food store and containing far more nutrients than the regular gluten free flours commonly found in our supermarkets.  I'll share some more about being gluten free and the flour mix I use when I write about low-dose Naltrexone.

Blessings of the day to you my friends. xxx

My Orchid is Blooming!!

Transpersonal Psychology

Yesterday in our Zoom class we spent a number of hours exploring the world of Transpersonal Psychology.  It was both fascinating and extremely validating for me.  My long held interests in the transpersonal have in the past, particularly during my marriage, been tolerated, met with intolerance or disbelief, and diminished and maligned as my 'witchiness'.  It was something to see me as less than because of my interest in it and, to quote, was just 'given air time to'.  Yet here was this luminous lecturer with a PhD, articulate, enthusiastic, talking about prophetic dreaming, meditation, chakras, holotropic breath work, near-death experiences, the clair's (clairvoyance etc), eastern belief systems, working with energy, altered states of consciousness and much, much more.  All supported by credible research.  All being on the front line of mental health treatment, wellbeing and also opening up into  the field of medicine with the study of the energetic field of the body (aura, etheric layers etc).  The validation has been very healing for me.  I was diminished, dismissed and disrespected so much that it broke something deep within me under the hurt. Now seeing my beliefs, my way of viewing and engaging with the world so substantially supported and validated I feel something over my heart knitting back together, returning to wholeness.  The possibility that I might discover the answer to how I dream things that come true, have clairsentient, clairvoyant and clairaudient experiences, have had communications with those who have passed....it something that I'm eager to learn.

Here is little peak at some of my class notes for you - just a summary section.  There was so much information in this class, it was really full on.  Three of my lecturers are trained in Transpersonal Psychology so I'm sure I'll learn much more by the end of the course.

Last night I sat down with my meditation journals and my synchronicity journal (which contains my experiences of synchronicity or 'unable to be explained' experiences) and started to read back over them.  I started reading entries from 2015 and basically had my mind blown.  The gift of hindsight shows me just how clear the guidance and messages I was receiving were - and that is not trying to fit information to how things have turned out.  I was given direct quotes of things that would be said to me years later for example.  How do you wrap your head around that, let alone explain it?  I'll continue to read them today after I have worked on my critical reflection and attended my last class for the semester.  What a journey.  If you meditate, I highly recommend that you record your experiences in a journal to be read over later.

This is a possible area for me to investigate for my final Master's research project and my PhD.  I already have a notebook dedicated to these where I am starting to jot down resources, questions, and information to possibly explore.

I have two boxes of journals full of the journals I have written in daily for a good 25 years now.  These three however are the ones that I would grab in the even of a fire or some such calamity.  The two on the right contain the records of my meditations and the one on the left has the record of all those amazingly synchronous experiences that I've had and struggled to explain and understand.

Do you journal?  Do you meditate or practice mindfulness?  Have any of you experienced non-ordinary states of consciousness or unexplained events?  I'd love to hear about it.

Lazy Sunday

I'm tired today.  I've done some food prep which took little time or energy thank goodness and washed my sheets with is rather more tiring. The bed is yet to be made...  My bins are out at the curb and full of garden waste which is another win for the weekend.

Mini frittatas made with leftover roasted capsicum, chorizo, haloumi and spinach.  I think I'll freeze at least half of these.  I have them for breakfast or with a salad for lunch.  A giant bowl of cut rockmelon, watermelon and red pawpaw.  Finally a big Greek salad that I grated some carrot into -very odd but it bulked it out and added another veg.  They'll keep me going for awhile and hopefully help me manage feeling so tired.

I had a box of fresh dates that needed using too so I whipped up some bliss balls.  My kitchen light blew before I took a photo of them so I nabbed this one off Pinterest. Mine look very similar but rolled in coconut.  I'll freeze half of this batch too. 

Two weeks of uni to go and 4000 words to write then I have a breather for a little while. 

Hope you are all staying well and happy.

Garden

Some time ago I headed off to Bunnings and bought myself two raised garden bed kits which I put together then filled lasagne style with sugar cane mulch, compost, manure, blood and bone.  This is what it looked like then...

It's been awhile and the capsicums and zucchinis never survived the grub plague that ate it's way through our community.  Here are photos of the garden taken today.

 The strawberries have been prolific but Sophie helps herself to them so I have had not a one from the crop. :) I still have rocket, lettuce, chives, tomatoes (a few different types now) and have added wombok and bok choy as I was given seedlings that my uncle had in surplus.  As you can see the top layer of cane mulch is decomposing nicely and the plants are all very happy. What amazes me is how low the soil has sunk.

 The soil was right to the top when I first set the garden up and it's down a good 15cm now.  It's such an easy way to garden that I'd recommend it to anyone.  The soil stays moist too reducing the amount of watering that needs to be done.

Letting one of the lettuce go to seed so it will produce it's own little ones. A new planting of wombok at the empty end.  This is a good photo to see how much the soil has subsided.

My brother was here earlier and we were talking about doubling the size of the garden by purchasing another kit and adding it to the length of the present garden.  That will give me room to plant asparagus which I LOVE growing.  I also have seeds for wild garlic, viroflay spinach and daikon radishes (these were a gift). I have two pineapple plants and a variety of herbs on the other side of the tank. Being a bit more self sufficient in fresh produce is something that is important to me and I enjoy time in the garden.  There is something so joyful and comforting about growing your own produce.

My miniature citrus trees are in pots around the side of the house and have not grown well, largely due to gross negligence on my part.  I think when I take my next study break I'll move them around and put them in a better position. Maybe in Sophie's holes to prevent her digging..... 

A Sign of Good Things to Come?

Today I had to venture out and head to Caboolture for an appointment.  As I drove past the Show Grounds I saw a double rainbow appearing to end right where I was headed.  It feels like years since I've seen a rainbow and how special to see a double. 

Hopefully a sign of good things to come....

Studying with Long-term Illness

I've been asked lately how I manage to cope with the demands of uni while living with chronic health conditions.  It made me pause and reflect as after 20 plus years living with autoimmune diseases I don't give much thought to it, I just do it. The 'how' I do it is what needs to be pondered.  Firstly, my conditions mean that I get very tired and I can be in terrible pain (although this has reduced significantly since being placed on Low-dose naltrexone).  Studying means sitting for long periods and this is an issue for me regarding both pain and fatigue.  I am on lots of medication to help me in lots of different ways and without these uni would definitely not be possible.

My bag of morning medications.  A total of 8 tablets and 1 troche.

My bag of evening medications, including the magical low-dose naltrexone which has been life changing.

While the medication is essential I see how I live my life as being my first line of management and maintenance of the best health possible, which in turn allows me to study.  I make sure that I get enough sleep. I eat healthily, clean, nutritious food made at home.  I live a quiet life as my energy needs to go into uni and looking after myself.   This doesn't mean that I am isolated and do nothing. I have wonderful friendships and I do go out and do things but I consider if any outings will impact my ability to have the energy to care for myself or if it will negatively impact my body and thus my studies.  Not ideal but it is what it is.  My routines are coming back after being blown to pieces with the rest of me when J left and they are very helpful in helping me to look after my home and keep on top of things like the washing, housework, cooking, groceries and garden.  I use a modified version of the Flylady system.  These routines were a lifesaver and life-changing when I found Flylady maybe 12 years or so ago.  Caring for the house when you are not well is so much easier if you have daily routines and zones. 

When studying, I use the Pomodoro system which is where you study for 25 minutes then have a break for 5 minutes. There are timers on youtube that I use and in my 5 minutes I get up and stretch my body, go outside and do whatever my body needs to be able to sit back at the books for another 25 minutes.  I also make sure that I have a comfortable office chair and sometimes move to the couch to do readings as it supports my body better.  In my longer breaks I use the massage equipment that I purchased on sale because it was not affordable for me to continue with regular physio or therapeutic massage to manage my pain and maintain my mobility. They both have a 15 minute setting so I sit down and get massaged regularly.

The foot massager was excruciating for the first two weeks, but after that it became tolerable and now my feet no longer feel as though they are full of glass when I walk and if I use it regularly I can get out of bed in the morning and have normal mobility in my feet.  Fabulous! Gotta be happy with that.  By making sure that I use these regularly and doing yoga daily, I haven't had to pay for massages or physio.  After spending $2000 in one year on a frozen shoulder that greatly inhibited my ability to dress myself, wash my hair, to make the bed etc I think these have been a brilliant investment.

At uni I have a learning access plan via Student Support and my doctor.  It means that I have automatic extensions (which I very rarely apply for), sit my exams in a small room with a comfortable chair and have my own comfy chair in my classrooms.  Little things that make a difference.

I'll write another post on Low-dose naltrexone and the wonderful Dr Holloway but right now I have to log on to my afternoon class via Zoom.  

Stay well and safe everyone.