Sarah Wilson

This week I detox my apartment

It may not be evident from where you sit, but I’m currently experiencing slow death by tinned lima beans. I’ve been eating a stack lately, in seemingly benign ways – tossed through stews, in soups. It was always bound to catch up with me. And if it doesn’t, my Capricornian habit of efficiently freezing said meals in plastic containers ready for convenient reheating on busy weeknights most certainly will.

On Friday I invited “building biologist” Nicole Bijlsma into my apartment to do a toxic report on my two-bedder flat. She took a three-hour look at the way I live using a bunch of beeping devices. The report card came back: veritable marinade of toxins.  Everything from the pot plant in my bedroom (a fungal breeding ground) to my lip balm habit is overloading my system. Our bodies are great detoxers, says Nicole, but the sheer quantity of pollutants we collide with today has pushed us to our limits. When we tip, an increasingly familiar host of “unexplainable” disorders – cancer, ADHD, fertility issues, auto-immune disease – kick in.

Oh. Dear.

But tell me, what’s more oh-deary for you: the feeling that, once again, you can’t do anything right these days (I mean, tinned lima beans…?!). Or the fact your gut has kind of known things aren’t right for a while?  And you’ve erroneously ignored it?

This week I trawled through the conflicting, highly charged debates as to whether “science can prove” pollutants kill folk.

I read recently on some efficiency blog that teachers at Montesorri schools (which push a self-directed style of learning) do this thing where they ask the class, “Are you ready?” Apparently it’s a technique geared at getting kids to focus and prepare themselves for learning.

I love it. Are we ready?

Before I run out the door in the morning, with 298347 to-dos on my mind, I ask, Are we ready to do the day well? Before I return a call to Mum, after running around frazzled all day, I pause and ask, Are we ready to give the conversation the care and attention it needs? Before I sit down to write this blog, Are we ready to do it with heart?

It’s like a little full-stop at the end of one activity. And a nice considered launch pad for the next. It’s a breather.

Are we ready? If not, then abort. Back away for a bit. Come back later. That’s cool.

Really, this week it’s just a plug for bits and pieces of goodness I’ve come across in the past week. You know, little inventions and consumerables that make a difference, people sharing good stuff. That kind of thing. I’m in Canberra at Mum and Dad’s place, being treated to an open fire, daphne posies in my bedroom and runs with Dad (we’re training for City2Surf)…while I write my book. So, I’m off to focus. Over and out! x

1. TOM tampons.

I love the story behind these little wads of indispensability. Aimee Marks is 23. She’d had jack of tampons being ethically, environmentally and healthily low-grade. Tampons on the market today are either synthetic or cotton (cotton is one of the most heavily pesticide-sprayed crops on the planet). So she created her range of organic TOM tampons (Time of Month) . The pack is also smart…designed so that the little white pluggers don’t fall out in your bag. Did I mention she’s 23??? You can buy them at Pulse Pharmacies.

I predict that in the next year or so the big issue we’ll be getting outraged about it is the amount of toxicity we ingest. On Sunday I’ll be posting my Sunday Life column about how I got building biologist Nicole Bijlsma to do a toxicity reading on my apartment. But the crap we ingest via cosmetics and beauty products is deserving of a separate mention.

I’ve posted work by The Story of Stuff chick Annie Leonard before. This week she released The Story of Cosmetics, an 8-minute expose of what we’re doing to ourselves when we apply mascara, shampoo, etc. You REALLY need to watch it (below). It coincides with the introduction this week of the US federal Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 — the first attempt in more than 70 years to overhaul cosmetics regulations to eliminate the use of cancer-causing chemicals and other harmful ingredients.

A few things to chew on:

* Those“pink-ribbon” brands? Dozens of them rank an 8 or higher on the Skin Deep database’s toxicity scale

(10 is the worst)—including products that contain carcinogens and hormone-disrupting chemicals linked to increased cancer risk.

I know this seems like a really daggy post. But stick with me, at least until the jump. It gets really interesting. See this quinoa recipe below, from 101 Cookbooks, an amazing resource for super healthy food ideas…I challenged myself to make it entirely from stuff pulled from my freezer. There are tricks and things to know…read on…

A full freezer is a green freezer

New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman is a mad freezer nut. He wrote recently in Oprah magazine that storing food in the freezer is actually economical because freezers work more efficiently when they’re full…something to do with solids stay cold longer than gases, so keep the whole lot at a more consistent temperature. Rad. Mark pretty much stores everything in his – flour, lemons, fruit, bacon. I’m not far off.

Some stuff is better frozen

Frozen tofu, for instance, stirfries better.

We all saw the gendered election worm last night…what was interesting was that, compared with previous election debates the worm tracked far more positively than normal. Plus, the pink worm (women) was, overall, more positive than the blue (men).

When Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott started sledging the other, both worms took a dive into the dirt. Ditto when they spoke negatively about…anything.

Which begs: do we really  believe a positive approach wins, or are we simply seeking happy-happy-joy-joy-ness, at the expense of balanced critical thought? You’ve probably noticed the whole positive psychology spiel that dominates so much discourse these days. You attract what you put out there, and all that jazz. It would appear we’re all seeking a sunnier approach against a backdrop of a confusing, cluttered life.

This week I get some dream coaching

Is there anything more spleen-twistingly, incisor-grindingly tedious than listening to other people recounting their dreams? I don’t think so. Which is why I won’t share how two nights ago I dreamt I was flying, but not really flying, more falling and desperately breaststroking though the air trying to gain traction, while being chased by a faceless swamp-thing. And wearing no underpants.

But this week I did share the dark side of my id with Australia’s leading dream coach Leon Nacson, who also runs Hayhouse Books. To see if pausing to understand the symbols and meanings in one’s dreams has any worth.

Back when we were all suppressing twisted oedipal urges, dreams were interpreted as a revelation of our subconscious (and often sexual) desires. A Jungian lens saw other people (and objects) as representing aspects of ourselves. So that swamp-thing? He’s some dank part of myself that’s holding me back from flying freely. Which makes surprising sense, actually. As does the fact he’s a masculine presence.

A thought or two on MasterChef Finale. And life friction.

Today I’m off to Hamilton Island to MC the Great Barrier Feast at Qualia, featuring Justin North from Becasse (we first met on MasterChef) and food writer Simon Thompsen (also done a cameo on MasterChef). I’ll try to post some tweets about the best flavour combinations. Follow me here. I keep getting asked if I’m watching the finale of MC. Well, rather fittingly I’ll be away for the finale of series two. Eating.

A year ago I was sitting in a pub with friends watching the finale, with me up there on the screen with the boys…and Justin North! Can I say this now? It’s been a year. I didn’t so much enjoy the experience. The whole “hosting” gig. It felt like I was a square peg shoved in a round hole, being pushed against the grain of my being.

When this happens in life – as it does from time to time, to test me – it leaves me in quite the state of friction. Being rubbed the wrong way is not good. I get irritated. Eventually I surge forward into action and find a path with a smoother surface.

Dumb Little Man posted a list of the 7 Reasons Why You’re Time Poor this week. I don’t always read these kind of things – I’m too time poor – but this jumped out as one of the reasons:

#3 You Have Too Much Life Friction

Life friction. Not good. It literally holds you back like Velcro.

Other life friction is catching a bus that goes a route to work that makes no sense. Find another route. Continuing to work with a client who does your head in and really doesn’t pay the bills big time. Drop them. Going to a gym which is on the other side of town because you haven’t got around to cancelling your membership. Switch. Wearing shoes that hurt your feet. Donate them.

I’ve tried just about every form of meditation. None of them really stuck. I used to get stupendously tense meditating, often reduced to tears…that’s how much they failed to “stick”. About two years ago I tried TM, sometimes called vedic meditation. I’ve said this before: when I get three reminders of something, I strike. That is, if three people mention the same thing to me, out of the blue, then I know I need to take note. And act. Which is what happened with TM.

Meditation: finding the space between sensations

When the third person mentioned TM teacher Tim Brown to me, I signed up. I was down the beach at 5am, having not slept at all, distraught and lost. I was going through a grey time in my life. A random guy called Tom who I recognised from yoga came up to me, gave me a hug and said, “You’re in a tough place”. We met for tea that night and Tom talked up TM and Tim.

I find meditation is generally presented to people in this way. Perhaps this post will be what touches you, it will be your third strike?

TM very literally Changed. My. Life. Tim promised it would. I was skeptical. But six weeks after I started, I landed the MasterChef gig. I meditated in the car outside before going in for my audition. The casting team said my certainty and poise got me the job.

There you go.

The TM deal in a few dot-points:

* TM works like this: you sit in a chair (no need for crossed legs) with your eyes shut for 20 minutes, twice a day. You repeat a mantra in your head that your teacher gives you over and over. You repeat it gently – you don’t “shout it”.

* If your mind wanders, you gently steer it back to the mantra. Always back to the mantra. That’s all you have to do. The mantra is designed to do the rest. It “drags” your consciousness down, down, down. The teacher chooses a mantra with a vibration that suits you.

* I meditate after exercise in the morning (my body is more open, which helps go deep), often down at the beach in the morning sun. At night I do it before I go out/have dinner. It’s great to shower first because when you meditate you produce an oil on your face which is REALLY good for your skin and has been shown to make you look younger….

Do you have a soft voice? What I mean is, do you have a secondary voice – not the loud, chattery one that natters away in your head most of the day – but another quieter, gentler voice that pipes up just when you need it to? You hear it when you listen for it.

I do. It gets a bit drowned out most of the time. I’m a very abrupt person – I barge around, mostly, and wonder why there’s so much chaos in my life. And am often too busy to hear my quiet voice. And yet I crave a quieter, stiller way.

The louder, more bombastic voice gets priority because it seems more urgent, more “right”. It’s the voice that’s been rewarded over the years. I’ve fed it with attention. Like laughing at show-offs.

It’s taken years to realise the loud voice really has no idea what it’s on about. It wings it. The quieter voice has the answers. She just doesn’t need to shout.