Now this is possibly an overly frivolous post. But, hey, it’s Friday. And, strangely, I do actually care if I’m wearing the wrong coloured undies. A while back reader Heather asked me to do a post on colour…and what they do for our moods etc. So I thought I’d consult a woman who specialises in colour…and coloured knicker readings. Seriously!

Years ago, when I edited Cosmopolitan magazine, I called in Australia’s leading colour specialist Chris Brazel to do a feng shui/colour makeover of our office. She walked straight into my office and shrieked, “OMG, you’ve got a fire extinguisher in your relationship corner!!!”. At the time I was extracting myself from a very messy relationship. I called the maintenance dude and had him remove it immediately. Seriously! Again!

This time I got Chris to do a colour reading on stuff in my life…as a way of illustrating some stuff on colour. I gave her five images and she went to town:

1. My orange bike (and brown top)

With the brown top it indicates that someone is bogged down and the orange is about change and wanting movement towards balance or a change in direction with work.

photo by Vanessa Hunter

I AM the human guinea pig! Can’t help myself. I mentioned the other day I’d tried Atlas Reconnect… because the idea was planted and I figured I should test it. It’s a funny little technique – it involves a practitioner using a pen-like device that sends pulses into the soft tissues around the atlas vertebra, the top bone of the spine.

This loosens things enough to allow the atlas to naturally slip back to its natural position. Natural? Apparently so. Most of us have an atlas that’s disconnected which in turn causes all kinds of ailments – crap digestion, headaches, general foginess, sleep problems, bad posture and so on – from poor blood supply getting to the right parts of our bodies.

* I did the adjustment with Sean Innis, who brought the concept into Australia and trains up other practitioners around Australia. He’s a dude.

* it takes one session only – about 45 minutes

* there’s no manipulation or cracking – just the buzzing pen thing

* it costs $200 ($100 for kids) you can find a practitioner here.

How did I find it? I emerged from the treatment pretty spacey and floaty.

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….

Another week, another installment. A month or so ago I posted my musings on my not-so-amusing journey with hashimoto’s.

This week, I’ve invited Melbourne personal trainer, BioSignature practitioner and blogger Kat Eden to give her comic – or otherwise  – input.

thyroid disease can feel like you're hovering in a pool of sludge

I came across Kat on the site Dumb Little Men and loved her tips on living life better. I contacted her cold (it’s one of my favourite things to do – contact someone I find interesting and just start talking) and found her advice very sound, especially in regards to hormones and digestion.

Over to Kat:

What causes this whole caper?

From my way of thinking, and based on clinical experience I’d say stress has to be one of the biggest players in sparking auto-immune disease. In particular chronic stress. It doesn’t really matter where the stress comes from, or even if it’s a whole bunch of little stressors rather than one great big life-changing event. Your body doesn’t separate one type of stress from another in terms of the way your nervous system and hormones respond, so the accumulation of stress can be (often quite suddenly) very toxic.

I know, I know…these details are a long time coming. I posted a while back about visiting a shaman (who told me I shouldn’t do relationships). Tri Makna is his name and he’s a lovely, gentle soul who’s got it going on. He has a twinkle in his eye that says, “I see you”. From memory it cost about $AUS30 for an hour and he’s a 15 minute taxi ride out of Seminyak, past the Denpasar jail where poor Shapelle is couped up. If you’re in the area, he’s worth meeting and being seen by. Go with an open heart…