Sarah Wilson

My philosophy right now: small, nice, gentle changes to the way you do things can drag you from the biggest of ruts and bored sludges. Little creaky movements to the left or right. Do-able shifts.  Like, sometimes I part my hair on the other side. Or write in a different location (yesterday I hung out at the Surry Hills library). Small, gentle shifts make life feel fresh. But keep it small, otherwise they don’t happen.

If you feel the same way,  you might want to give this little app a crack. Omm Writer is a beautiful, FREE!! download

Confused about soy?

A number of you have asked about soy products, and how they affect thyroid issues, especially in the wake of the whole Bonsoy debacle. And especially because everyone seems to have an opinion on it these days.

Naturopath Angela Hywood from Tonic (you can read her first contribution here) posted the below as a comment, but I thought I’d drag it out for everyone to read.

PS. These are her thoughts. Me, I’m still working through what my body feels about it. I love soy chai. It warms cockles.

Angela says:

I’m not anti-soy for most people. However, I do suggest soy be eaten in moderation in a wholefood diet and in traditionally fermented forms (which include miso, tempah, soy sauce and tofu).

However here are a few issues about soy from a reliable, credible whole foods research associated in USA, The Weston A Price Foundation.

•High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.

Have you seen this? Somehow a reporter from Insider got to go into LL’s house and rummage through a wardrobe that’s taken over the apartment. There are not enough days left in that girl’s life to wear all those clothes.

It’s actually gross. Not the clutter, but the mindless consumption of so much stuff. It distressed me.

As the journo (can you call her that?) says,  it’s a reflection of the chaos that is Lohan’s life. Guilt-laden, unconscious and tripping.

This week I try out “satisfycing” for size.

The inspiration for this week’s reflection is the release of Lori Gottlieb’s Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough, the latest tome to tell women how to score a bloke. Gosh, and there we all were living life according to the 2004 self-help gospel He’s Just Not Into You (the premise: don’t settle for Mr Not Sure Enough).  How wrong can a girl be!

(As a bracketed aside, I wonder if the Mr Not Sure Enoughs can be lured back from the dating scrapheap to become Mr Good Enoughs? They might need to be!)

If you missed Gottlieb’s controversial 2008 article in Atlantic magazine, on which the book is based, her throw-in-the-towel theory is this: women who get to 30 and haven’t found Mr Right should choose a guy who’ll simply “do the job”. Single and now in her 40s, Gottlieb says she wished she’d settled for a “perfectly acceptable but uninspiring” man herself.  How, um, inspiring. Apparently Tobey Maguire thought so; he’s bought the film rights.

Now, I’ll say no more on the topic (if you can’t say something nice and all that jazz). Except to say that this week it inspired me to revisit decision-making.

Strong Women contribute to the world in many ways, not all of which are fully appreciated

The scene: green tea this morning with my hung-over friend Sally

The topic: a quote from a review of Antonia Fraser’s biography in which she outlines her life as the wife of writer Harold Pinter. It neatly sums up what Women of Strong Character know to be true:

The Special Problem

Early on, just after their affair had got under way in 1975, Antonia was warned by her brother, Thomas: “You have a special problem. You are a woman and a strong character­ yet you want your husband to be stronger. Women with strong characters who want to dominate are always fine because there are plenty of weak men around. Also plenty of strong men for weak women. But yours is a special problem.” Actually, Antonia concludes, “He’s quite right in a maddening way.”

Strong women wanting stronger men? How do strong women feel about this? In many case, fine, I reckon.

This is my anthem right now: Let it Go, This Too Shall Pass. Watch and listen and start your day kindly!

OK Go! (the kids who brought us that crazy  Youtube dancing treadmill dance) are back with this new clip. Filmed in a grim-looking swamp with little swamp men playing xylophones. Very perfect.

Let it go…let it go…when the morning comes.

I didn’t sleep last night. Sometimes I excited about things and this just happens. Or I need more time to fret about something from the day. In the past I’d panic when I was still wide awake at 4am as those wah-wah birds started their wah-wahing, signalling my chance to sleep was over.  But now I just let it all fret out as it needs to.

OK, so my head is burning and I’ve got that itchy feeling you get from not sleeping (you get it too, don’t you?). In the past I’d fret I wouldn’t be able to achieve as much in the morning after no sleep. Now I just let it go. Everything passes. We get that opportunity every morning. If we choose it.

I’m Teflon Woman today. Just letting it go.

There’s an Italian proverb: “Where the sun does not go, the doctor does”.

This is how I started my day: Bondi at sunrise this morning

Doctors are now scrambling to get out studies that say pretty much the same. But with more words. Basically because they’re finding that we all need more Vitamin D. It plays a humongous role in preventing cancer, osteoporosis and a bunch of auto-immune diseases. People who get sun, get less illness. Simple and sweet.

There’s a few things to know here, which I found so, so interesting:

• Vitamin D is best absorbed from the sun. Only about 10% of our daily needs can come from diet
• It has to be direct sun – that is, no sunscreen or T-shirts or shade-clothes.
• Doctors are rethinking their whole sun-is-the-devil message. Baking yourself like a chook in the midday sun ain’t good. But 20 minutes daily is about right.

If you want to read more, the folk at Huffington Post are frothing on the subject at the moment.

Or just go sit outside. I’ve been meditating down at the beach most mornings for a few years now. 20 minutes of direct sunshine on my face does all kind of good things for me.

Thank you to Uge at Aquabumps for the shot. xx

I’m a big proponent of the idea that “everything we think we know about health is wrong”. It’s a big call. But I stand by it.

I got more proof when I came across this TED presentation from Dan Buettner. Dan was commissioned by the US Government to work out what factors contribute to longevity in Blue Zones (communities around the world where a stack of people live to 100).

Here’s 5 points I liked. They’re not really what we’re used to hearing, are they!

1. No exercise plans.
In lieu of ‘exercise’ these communities were all active and avoided stagnant conveniences and shortcuts in life that promoted laziness.

I like this idea…British scientist Sydney Smith wrote a letter to an unhappy female friend in the early 1800s. It listed 20 things to do to be happy.

you can just tell they like each other

I liked his comments on friends, points 6 and 7:

6. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.

It’s a good delineation and formula, don’t you think. So much can grow from an interaction if the foundation is simply “they like me, they get me”.

For me, when there is this is the energy between me and my closest mates, I become more likeable.

Do you find when you’re with a “friend” who you sense doesn’t really get you, you misbehave?  I have an old friend who has it in her head that I don’t have time for her and posits my life as pretentious and “too Sydney”. So, of course I find myself really unreliable in making time for her. And with a fake tan whenever I see her (or at least looking like I have one).  I mirror her expectations of me.

On the acquaintance front: sometimes I just crave the skim-the-surface-flirtatiously interaction you can have with someone you don’t really have a lot in common with, but who has a light energy. The interaction is very now. Very much about the sport of communicating.

So, a few days ago I gave my account of coping with thyroid disease . Now I’ve asked some experts who I’ve encountered along the way to share their experience. And some advice. It’s certainly helped me…

I've used this pic purely because she's wearing the same kinda glasses as me!

But before I do – just quickly – a random thyroid factoid someone once presented to me:

Most people with Hashimoto’s (and perhaps other auto immune diseases, too) suffered some sort of trauma about 18 months prior to the onset of symptoms. I’m not sure how backed-with-facts this is. But whenever I ask sufferers they totally agree. It fits my story. How about you?

But now, to the lovely Angela Hywood…