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. It’s not conclusive, but the proof is trickling in. Canada has outlawed baby bottles made from BPAs, Teflon is being phased out voluntarily (!) in response to consumer demand, and the US National Academy of Sciences says 25 per cent of neurological and developmental problems in kids stem from everyday pollutants. It’s taking a while because this new form of dying is rather new and it’s the longterm, cumulative effects that matter.

Most of the detracting research focuses on short-term effects and is often – sigh – funded by large chemical or telecommunication companies. Until more of us die from prostate issues, more of our kids become addled with ADHD, and more of us fail to fall pregnant, I’m choosing to go with my gut. Mine says, listen up.So, back to the lima beans. Nicole says almost 100 per cent of food tins are lined with BPAs, a known hormone disrupter that leaches into food and causes just as many freaky issues in low levels, as in high. And tinned tuna? Brace yourself. Bruce Lourie, author of Slow Death by Rubber Duck, ate the stuff for three days and more than doubled his mercury levels to well above US government “guidelines”.

Do you store your food in plastic, too? OK, all is not lost. Look for the number inside the little triangle displayed on your containers and remember this mantra:

keep 4, 5, 1 and 2, all the rest are bad for you.

But never freeze or microwave plastic. Non-stick pans? Turf them, especially if they’re scratched.  My microwave is a disgrace. That door mesh doesn’t do a thing, as Nicole’s beeper screamed at me. So stand at least 1.5m away when it’s on, she says. When microwaves first came out I used to glue my nose to the door to watch the magic happen. Which makes me despair for my brain wiring. So does news that my wireless router is frying my immune system. Nicole rattles off some instructions: stand 1.5m from your microwave when it’s on, get a hard wire, don’t use a cordless phone and limit mobile use.

On the upside, my IKEA couch doesn’t contain flame-retardants (those Swedes are so on to it). Plus I have a stupidly strong sense of smell. This means I can’t abide smelly stuff.  “Good,” says Nicole. “Anything perfumed, unless it’s pure essential oil, contains phthalates which disrupt hormones causing obesity, ADHD, early puberty and fertility issues. Avoid anything that lists ‘fragrance’ or ‘parfum’…it’s mostly code for phthalate.”

This detox was confronting. And I’m bracing myself for the sceptics who’ll claim it’s all ridiculous and that I’ve been hoodwinked. I counter with two words: hand sanitiser. For me the stuff emblemises our predicament. It’s made from triclosan which is now in thousands of products that you never knew needed sanitising (pizza wheels and shower curtains). Thing is, it’s a proven endocrinal disrupter, studies are emerging to show it’s contributing to bacterial resistance (ergo, the rise of “superbugs”) and recent research shows it doesn’t work and we don’t need it. We’re just told we do, says Bruce Lourie… by campaigns funded by triclosan manufacturers and detergent associations. Hoodwinked, much?

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.

I like how it uses the pronoun “we”. Who is we? It’s me and my inside people (do you remember that post?). It’s me and the whole universe. We’re all in on this together, no? Of course we are.

It reminds me of something that Tim Brown my meditation teacher says: “Let’s see”. He proffers this as the answer to those times when you’re fretting about what might happen or what might not happen and you can’t make a decision (I’ve, in the past, been in this state a lot…I’ve learned to back off from it a little of late). He says, “let’s see”. As in, “let us see”. As in, let the flow of the universe – all of it – see where things need to head.

When you read the fine print to this, it says: You, my sweet, can chill a bit. Sit back. Relax. Observe. And find it kind of funny how things turn out as they need to.

Are we ready? Is everything feeling like it’s a good time to step forward? Do you have your inside people on board?

Let me know if this technique works for you? I’m kind of loving it…

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.

2. Love Conviction

PR chick Almira Pizovic has just launched online store Love Conviction featuring stuff for sale (accessories, homewares etc) inspired by  LOVE. The charity sale section of the site features stuff by Almira’s Aussie designer friends – Cassette Society, This is Genevieve and Santos wish- who’ve donated things they love, with proceeds going to charity Inspire, which targets youth dealing with depression (they run Reach Out and the organisation used to be run by my dear friend Kerry).  Nice conviction.

3. The Happy Tweeter

I met Mahei Foliaki and his partner Bridget Davis (the Internet Chef) on the weekend up at Qualia, Hamilton Island. Turns out Mahei is regarded as one of the happiest tweeters hanging on the wire. Huffington Post has written about him. And he has close to 40,000 followers. If you’re new to the sport, and want to see how Twitter is done well, he’s a good one to follow. He’s at Iconic88 (the 88 being an auspicious infinity symbol).

4. Some happy bloggers

Over the course of doing this blog, I encounter some great bloggers who share their thoughts on my site and put lovely links to my work. Like-minded. Doing sweet stuff. And with their own voice. This is crucial to blogging. If you worry about what others think, or if you wobble about trying to be all things to all people, or if you try to copy or mimic what others are doing, people can smell it in your writing.  Blogging is an opportunity to be truly you. It’s the only way to succeed. Celebs who blog don’t necessarily do well. Everyday folk with stuff to say, do.  If you’re new to blogging, these ones below – who have all supported me hugely over the past 7-8 months – are worth checking out…for inspiration.

Kooky and smart and loving: Gala Darling’s site is potently good, consistent and bold. Her weekly Carousel list is a gorgeous smorgasbord of great reads (countless blogs have copied her technique). She’s as kooky and whimsical as all get-up and has one of the most confident, defined voices. She looks forward, not back. She brings her own thing to the table. People can smell her authenticity. Ergo, her massive international following (several hundred thousand). She’s a kid doing her own thing. I met up with her in New York last month – she makes her living now from her Love & Sequins ebooks that she sells for $12. Smart. The real deal.

Pure and pretty, with conviction: Aran’s food blog Cannelle et Vanille is divine. She’s recently turned gluten-free and her recipes have reflected this. So pretty. So good. And intimate, too. The girl has a wonderful heart, too, and connects across Twitter from the US in the most generous of ways. We’ve become inter-webbed friends.

A girl with values: Erica at girl with a satchel also has a wonderful voice. She’s been going for years now – musing about media and magazines. Her voice has got stronger and stronger over the years. I know her from my mag days. She was always a gem.

She boldly meshes her musings with her Christian values. I like this. Good on her. Here’s a rundown of her “Core Values” from her “about me” section. Telling….

GWAS is not perfect, often giving into material temptations (oh, the pretty things) and partaking in the superficial pursuits espoused by the glossies (counting calories, celebrity gossip, coveting Chloé shoes…), but she’s confident that a life lived by glossy standards alone is a miserable one.

To that end, GWAS chooses to live by faith and God’s grace, seeking His approval and embracing the teachings of Jesus Christ, who valued peace, joy, humility, gentleness, sacrifice, kindness, submission, honesty and self control. It’s not easy being green, as Kermie would concede, but a girl (with a satchel) has gotta believe in something.

Small and new and pretty: Laura at life.beauty.laughter who writes lovely lists of things she likes and wants to do. She has a nice eye for pics, too. Like the one above. For a newby, she does a lovely, authentic job.

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.

* The industry is not policed: Less than 20% of all chemicals in cosmetics have been assessed for safety by the industry’s safety panel  so we just don’t know what they do to us when we use them. A product can list in its ingredients “fragrance” or “parfum” and it could be anything, really. They don’t have to declare. BTW, when “fragrance” or “parfum” are listed, it means they’re trying to hide something…best to avoid.

* Lipstick poisoning: 61% of tested lipstick brands contain residues of lead.

* Natural much? On cosmetics labels, words like “herbal”, “natural”, even “organic” have no legal definition.  That
means anybody can put anything in a bottle and call it natural.

* Our shampoo is making us fat: toxins are fat soluble. So our little bodies, when put in contact with toxic substances, protects us by soaking up the toxins in our fat cells. More toxins…more fat cells.

So what should you be doing?

Annie provides these tips:

* Simplify: use less stuff less often, and choose products with shorter ingredient lists and fewer hazardous synthetic chemicals (do you really need to spray “air freshener” around the house or sit in a tub full of toxic suds?) Want more tips? Visit safecosmetics.
* Just say No to Fragrance: It’s best to avoid the mystery concoction known as “fragrance,” [or parfum] made from a dozen or more secret chemicals. Everything has a fragrance these days, from make-up, to candles and even clothes. Check labels carefully; even “fragrance free” products may contain fragrance chemicals to cover up the odor of other chemicals. Nicole Bijlsma has provided this link on what ingredients to avoid in cosmetics.
* Read labels: Thankfully there are great resources online to help consumers make sense of confus-
ing product labels. One of the best is the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database, which ranks products for toxicity on a scale of 1-10. It’s friggen fascinating!!!

Me, I’m quite stumped on this issue. I don’t want to toss what I already have in my house. That’s too wasteful for me. But I am committing to no longer buying stuff with long lists of ingredients. Not easy. Anyone out there got some good tips? It’s all pretty new? Anyone know if there are groups here in Australia acting to get legislative change here about labelling?

Share please! And I’ll add to this post

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. Also, many starchy vegetables, like corn and peas, are better frozen than “fresh”. Starch breaks down as soon as the veggie is picked. Freezing stalls enzyme break-down. So those peas? They’re frozen not long after they’re picked and are in better nick than those that travel to the markets than to your local shop and then sit in your fridge for a few days…

But bear this in mind…

Watch out for freezer burn – make sure everything is covered, filling containers to the top. Sauces and pesto can be stored with a layer of oil on top. Cooked beans and rice  can be topped off with water.

10 Things to freeze now

1. Fruit: puree fruit that’s about to go off in little batches, then add them to smoothies or porridge. Freeze berries or stone-fruit halves spread out on trays, then put into containers, so they don’t freeze together in a block.

2. Stock: Me, I store my leftover stock (that I’ve made, or from one of those Tetra paks) in icecube trays and pop one out when I’m making a stirfry …for flavour and great de-glazing action. To save space, I sometimes reduce the stock and just add more liquid when I thaw it out.

3. Beans and grains: I cook my brown rice, quinoa, chickpeas, etc in large batches to about 90% done and freeze in batches, topping them up with a little bit of water or stock. Then they’re ready to go for dinner, or porridge. Chickpeas and other beans are great – you can crumble off a handful as you need them, like peas.

4. Stock-making material: Mark Bittman provides this tip.

Scraps of poultry (most of the chicken parts we don’t eat are good for stock), meat (again, especially the less-used, bonier parts) or fish (heads and skeletons in particular), vegetable trimmings, bones and more. Keep separate bags for each, adding to them when you can. Remember, though, that stock is not garbage soup: Carrot and potato peels, cabbage cores, and the like can be used, but in moderation. Animal organs are best avoided (fish gills and guts must be removed, and offal in general makes bitter stock).

5. Tomatoes: I cut fresh ones up into 1/8ths and freeze, breaking them off as I need them). When they thaw the skins slip off a treat. Nice.

6. Bacon: I’m addicted to the stuff. I slice off from the stack as I need it

7. Herbs: Again, Mark provides this tip – freeze in ice cube trays covered with water.

8. Vegetables: I buy organic veggies in bulk and blanche them to 90% done and freeze in portions, ready to throw in a salad or a strifry or with a rice portion and a tin of tuna for lunch. Kale, spinach and broccoli, I find, work really well.

9. Egg whites: I don’t really have a need for this, but Mark rates it: If you make a lot of custard, or other recipes that call for a lot of egg yolks, you will have extra whites. Freeze them in batches of two or three for making meringues, macaroons or angel food cake.

10. Nuts: nuts and seeds work sooooooo well frozen. It keeps them really fresh. I like to eat them frozen as a snack. A great way to make use of those huge bags of almonds they sell in the supermarket cheaply.

So, the 101 cookbooks recipe. I made it (and make variations of) using all stuff from my freezer. It uses quinoa and kale, two of my favourite ingredients right now. Sometimes, for lunch, I just grap a portion of quinoa or brown rice, a portion of kale and some frozen peas, toss in a few capers and at lunch I heat it all up together and toss over a tin of Greenseas tuna. Snappy!

Kale and Quinoa Recipe

a splash of extra-virgin olive oil
a pinch of fine grain sea salt
1 shallot, minced (this can be stored in ice cube trays)
3 cups cooked quinoa (see my post for instructions)
1 cup corn,
1 1/2 cups kale or spinach, finely chopped
2 cups extra-firm nigari tofu, browned in a skillet a bit
1/3 cup pesto
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds, toasted
1/4 cup roasted cherry tomatoes

In a big skillet or pot heat the olive oil and salt over medium-high heat. Stir in the shallot and cook for a minute or two. Stir in the quinoa and corn and cook until hot and sizzling. Stir in the kale and then the tofu, cooking until tofu is heated through. Remove the skillet from heat and stir in the pesto and pumpkin seeds. Mix well so the pesto is spread throughout. Turn everything out onto a platter and top with the cherry tomatoes.

Serves 4 – 6.

** To roast cherry tomatoes: Heat oven to 350F degrees. Cut each tomato in half and arrange in a large oven-proof baking dish. Mix together a big splash of olive oil, a spoonful of brown sugar, and a few pinches of salt – pour this over the tomatoes. Gently toss them a bit, making sure they all get coated, finishing with each tomato facing cut-side up. Place in the oven and bake for 45 mintutes or so, until the tomatoes are shrunken and sweet.

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.

Over the past couple of years, snark has died. This is a good thing. Snark is what bloggers, in particular, can resort to when they’re trying to be critical…but lack of experience sees them revert to base sledging. I’ve commented on this a lot. Everyone Out There These Days wants their opinion heard and so Everyone is trying to emulate what experienced critics and columnists do. But, sadly, they don’t always pick up on the fine art of pulling apart a topic or argument and critiquing the premise alone…and not the messenger. Since Socrates established the practice, good critical thought has been about gently steering a proposition to encourage openness of thought. To seek truth.

Good critics never get mean. They don’t need to. They can dangle a countering idea so beautifully that the subject of their critical voice crumbles on its own. No violence required.

And so along comes Twitter. And the whole Tweet Love thing. Twitter, on the whole, has ridden the positive psychology wave. I read recently that those who post positive tweets attract more followers. The Observer wrote about this My Town of Kind phenomenon where:

“wide swaths of the Web have become bastions of support and earnest civility, where community-members “retweet” or “reblog” each other’s bon mots, promiscuously proffer thumbs-up, help sell perfect strangers’ books, drive traffic to each other’s blogs and real-world events and even defend one another.

This bit is interesting:

“People sometimes will get bent about something and put it on Facebook or Twitter and realize that’s just not the tone anymore,” said literary PR consultant Lauren Cerand… “really negative people, they don’t have a lot of friends.” (In other words, you’re more likely to think before you tweet when you can actually watch yourself losing your audience with each nasty missive!)

What do we all think of this? Does it get too sycophantic for you at times? It does for me.

That said,  I think it’s quite easy to tell the difference between those putting out a genuine positive voice and those seeking followers, or kudos. You can all “smell” the desperate follower grabbers, don’t you reckon?

Anyhow, this note from a reader arrived on Thursday and sums up how the Tweet Love can work nicely. It’s from Thursday ’s post on transcendental meditation and how I came to meditation via a random recommendation, which was the catalyst to my coming to host MasterChef (you’ll have to read the post to see the connection…). Her comment refers to a post I did on the wonders of the Pomodoro Technique. Somehow it all comes together here, uniting a third person:

Hi Sarah,
I was reading this book ‘50 ways to find a lover’ by Lucy-Anne Holmes. The book is hilarious, Lucy is based in London. Her second book is out next month.
Anyway I tweeted one day saying how much I love this book.
And Lucy-Anne Holmes, out of nowhere tweeted me back saying thank you.
Anyway I followed her in tweeter. Then one time, she tweeted, asking which music is good for writing, to get inspiration?
And I tweeted her saying the tomato tik-tok sound, and I asked her to refer to my blog. And to check your website.
and she did. And she got to know how amazing you are.
And she must hv read this post
Because she Just tweeted thatbecause of you (and one other person) she’s going to try meditating.
Isn’t it amazing what Twitter does?
X

Sweet. Have you had a similar Tweet Love encounter that is truly quite bizarre and two-degrees-of-separation-ish? That makes you marvel, ‘Isn’t it just glorious how the world can work’?

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.

Newer theories say our dreams merely serve physiological purposes, such as keeping us asleep. That dream where you’re stuck in mud and can’t move…it’s stopping you from waking to go to the loo. Others say they’re a neurological dumping of superfluous data from the day, and help us solve problems. Einstein stumbled upon E=MC2 in a dream. The particular configurations of the benzene atom and Singer sewing machine were also discovered in dreams. We all know it works – you “sleep on an issue” and awake with a clear answer. In high school, I was obsessed with solving Lewis Carroll logic problems. It was a hobby of mine. The hoarier ones I’d nut out in my sleep. Ditto tricky quadratic equations.

Harvard research published late last year claims dreaming’s a parallel state of consciousness that’s continually running but is suppressed in waking life by our senses. Which begs: what’s our true state? Dreaming or waking?

So which approach provides the best answers and insights?  None of them and all of them. Leon explains that dreaming your teeth are falling out can simply be a note-to-self to see the dentist. Or it can be a red flag, alerting you that you’re not speaking cleanly, that you’re using too many words and not cutting to the chase.  Both can make sense. It depends on you.

But universal themes do emerge. Flying dreams, he says, represent a desire to get above the mad clutter of life and glean perspective. Leon, who’s analysed dreams for four decades for people worldwide, says this kind of dream is on the up and up, which is not surprising at all, right? Nor that dreams about feeling stuck (featuring spiderwebs, which signify the far more fear-inducing technological “web”) or empty or spiritually empty (winning the lotto but not feeling anything) are also trending right now.

But, and this is where it gets fun, you don’t have to be stuck with a grim dream diagnosis. Leon explains that emerging theories say it’s not what you dream, but how you react to what’s happening in the dream, while in your dream, that is of greatest import. He explains a falling dream is about feeling unsupported, which is quite victim-y. But where you fall, or what you do while falling, can reveal more inspiring things about yourself (do you just splat, or fight the fall?). All of which would not be that helpful, except that, as Leon explains, you can steer a desired reaction.  Leon suggests that when you wake from a falling dream where you’re not happy with your flaccid landing, use your “just woken up” semi-delirious state to imagine sewing a parachute. Or whatever.

Leon also suggests using the feelings from dreams, rather than getting bogged down in the symbols and events, to guide you in “real” life. This week I got all Freud on myself and tried this out. On Tuesday night I asked my subconscious for insight into a life-steering decision I need to make. In the morning I woke, remembered the question, which triggered recollection of the dream I just had. Taking Leon’s cue, I focused on my reactions and immediately felt my answer. I’m not sure exactly where it came from, but it just did.

All of which would be hard to fathom, except that does anyone know where any answer comes from? As Leon says, “No one knows where in their brain their phone number is stored.” But this doesn’t stop them from accessing it.

**And for some extra fun, Salon has just assembled a slide show of the best dream sequences in movies.

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.

Back to MasterChef. I loved the show. Love the judges like brothers. But as a woman with things to say, it was a bad fit. As a woman who cares about the fact that women on TV should say things, not just wear pretty dresses and buffer the boys, I had to act. I had to find a smoother way to flow. I did. It was hard. It was lonely. I’m so bloody happy now.

Friction happens for a reason. It slows us down enough to regroup, refocus. It forces us to choose to get unstuck. Rather than bob around. What do you reckon?

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….

* TM has been scientifically proven to be up to five times deeper than sleep.  20 minutes of meditation is equivalent to 3 to 4 hours sleep.

* I don’t fret about where I do it. I do it on planes, in my office, in my car. In fact, the more “inappropriate” the place, the better. The slight discomfort makes me focus more. I’ve written about this before, the idea of finding happiness “in spite of” mess or pain or chaos.

* When I was hosting MasterChef I used to meditate in the toilet cubicle (the only place I could get some peace) while my curlers set. On Mondays at Sunrise, I meditate in the wardrobe. No one seems to have a problem with this…I don’t think (!?).

* Catalyst on ABC ran a feature on TM last week: Transcendental Meditation: Hocus-pocus or healthy practice? Worth a watch.

TM has attracted controversy over the years. I’ve read/heard it all. The main criticism seems to be that it’s expensive.

* TM costs about $1000 – for a course over 3-4 nights. Once you’ve been “initiated” you can then attend weekly group meditations for free. I reckon this is great value. For Tim, like all TM teachers, teaching meditation is his career. He has a family to feed. He’s not a monk sitting in a cave living off donations. Yep, you can learn meditation for free by volunteers. But – and this is an odd concept – I think the act of handing over $$$ for the service makes people like me respect the service more, and apply myself more fully to it. Hey, it’s the world we live in!

This is what meditation feels like (for me):

* You know that sucking feeling when you stick a Mac powercord in the socket? That’s how it feels when you slip into the meditative state – like it all fits snugly, nothing is missing, things are firm and certain.

* Sometimes I feel my body expanding, like I’m the Michelin man. This is, apparently, my consciousness expanding beyond the experience of my body. Other times my head spins around on it’s own. Some people collapse forward on to their laps.

* Mostly, meditating is a jittery, thought-filled experience. BUT, the important thing is that when I come out of it after 20 minutes I’m 2938473 times calmer. This is what counts. Not what you do in meditation, but what happens after. Everything feels sweeter.

The three things I dig the most about TM:

* The soukshma/sookshma principle: while repeating the mantra, practice soukshma, which- as Tim teaches – roughly means innocent, faint and effortless. That is, come to the mantra innocently, faintly and effortlessly. This, for me, is the beauty of TM…it instills soukshma into your very being. So that out of meditation, the innocence, gentleness and effortlessness continues. It imbues. Infuses.Soukshma, soukshma, soukshma…!

* Thoughts are good: It doesn’t matter if your mind starts chattering. Thoughts are little bubbles of tension that surface as we sink deeper. Thoughts release tension. They are good. They also remind us to return to the mantra. Thought pops up; cue “return gently to the mantra”.  This constant steering things gently back to the mantra is key. Because, when you return to real life out of meditation, it sets you up to gently steer things to calmness whenever your mind gets cluttery. It’s practice. It flexes a “steer to calm” muscle.

* It’s just stringent and organised enough: I’ve stuck with TM because I belong to a community that sticks to it. We meet every Monday night just to meditate and chat. I see TM’ers around town, meditating down at the beach and in parks. Feeling like I belong to a crew of meditators makes me do it twice a day. A bit like living in a society where brushing your teeth day and night is normal, expected. So you just do it.

* It makes me look younger. I know this is vain, which is not very balanced of me, but HTG (honest to God), part of the appeal of TM is it’s anti-aging properties. My skin has changed over the past two years. The muscles on my face have released, relaxed and opened up. HTG.

Tim Brown with a nice anecdote about meditation:

Meditation is not about withdrawing from life but learning how to access that space within oneself where we are able to enjoy the experience of life without being overwhelmed or consumed by it.

It’s a bit like when you go to the movies, get there late and get stuck in the front row. The screen is in your face and difficult to watch and the sound is way to loud. Far from having to leave the cinema all we need to do is get back a few rows.

Now we don’t want to go to the back of the cinema, that is no good as then the screen is too far away and the sound quality is poor – this is no more satisfying than being in the front row.

The ultimate place is in the middle of the cinema. That’s where the screen is at the right distance and the surround sound is the best. You can sit and be taken and engaged by the movie while still maintaining an awareness of yourself in the seat. This is what we call the “Goldilocks Phenomenon” – not to hot, not to cold, just right – or not to close to the experience to be consumed by it, not to far away so as to be disconnected from it, but just right in the sweet spot where the experience is engaging without being all consuming.

This is what we are looking to achieve through meditation. The rigors and dynamics of day to day living are drawing us further and further into the business of life which is causing us to become too enmeshed in it – as a result the experience becomes overwhelming and uncomfortable. This is the basis on which people find life stressful and all consuming, it is the basis for all suffering, discomfort and dis-ease.

This is exactly what meditation, or the “art of transcending” is all about – “moving beyond” ones current experience and gaining a greater perspective on the whole of one’s experience – this is what I call “conscious altitude” and it makes all the difference to being able to see things in context and brings greater stillness, clarity, creativity, energy, intelligence to the mind and prints out in the body as greater physical wellbeing.It’s not rocket science, and it’s been know for thousands of years how to trigger this response in the mind and body and the importance of doing so. The pressures of modern day living is causing people to reinvestigate meditation as an option – much to the benefit to themselves, those around them, their society, their country and their world – thank goodness!

Tim is based in Paddington, Sydney. You can contact him here.

Tim also lists other TM teachers in Australia, America, UK and NZ.

David Lynch on TM:

Are you a meditator? Tried TM? What’s your favourite, or “sweetest” observation about being in a  meditative state?

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.

Ever noticed how when you are super certain, you’re happy to sit back in an argument or in banter and quietly put your point across at the end? Yelling just makes things chaotic and noisy and distracting. There’s no point competing with the loud voices. It’s like that. My quiet voice sits back and waits for me to be ready to hear it, ready for me to lean in and listen better.

The DailyOM posted this a little while back about learning to hear your quiet voice:

It is generally true that the more insistent voices in our heads delivering messages that make us feel panicky or afraid are of questionable authority. They may be voices we internalized from childhood or from the culture, and as such they possess only half-truths. Their urgency stems from their disconnectedness from the center of our being, and their urgency is what catches our attention.  The other voice that whispers reassurances that everything is fundamentally okay …

Once we hear it, we know it speaks the truth. Generally, once we have heard what it has to say, a powerful sense of calm settles over our entire being.

I’ve found when I do listen to my quiet voice, I am more certain. I become more certain. I become that wise chick in the room with a knowing aura.

I’ve learned to listen to my quiet voice by sitting still each day – 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening, in meditation. For the first five minutes or so, the loud chatter rambles on. Then, with gentleness is rambles off, and my quiet voice steps forward. Often it doesn’t have to say much. Often it just says things are cool.

I also step back from bombastic situations and smile at what’s going on…my quiet voice is heard when I do this. My quiet voice gets more and more solid with practice. And so do I. I kinda like being the wise, quiet chick with the knowing smile. It feels way more powerful and infectious.

Have I lost anyone with this? Do you know what I mean? Do you have ways of hearing your quiet voice?