The Scent of Happiness

I wrote a 100 word piece of Flash Fiction this week called The Scent of Happiness. (You can read here if you wish).

Our sense of smell is inordinately powerful. It can make us mentally time travel to a past experience within seconds. The smell of home baking transports me back to my Nana's kitchen, the smell of suncream links me to building sandcastles on a beach with my children. These are all pleasant experiences to revisit. The smell of Gin however, reminds me of teenage heartbreak, of drinking too much in an effort to console my poor, broken heart.

We are often not consciously aware of these sensory links. We may smell something that links us to an unpleasant memory, like the one above, and find ourselves in a low mood, without quite understanding why. In the case of a pleasant memory we may feel sad it has gone, wishing we could cling on to the happy feelings, scared we will never feel that way again.

Through Mindfulness we learn to recognise these sensory links and the physical sensations that may accompany them and observe them in a kindly, non judgemental way. Rather than resisting or ignoring the emotions that are present for us, (what we resist persist) we learn to let them be, to practice acceptance and self compassion, in a way that fully supports our health and wellbeing.

To find out more about our Mindfulness courses or one to one coaching (also available via Skype) please visit our website and contact us for further information.

Nobody's perfect (that's why pencils have erasers)

“If we judge people we have no time to love them”. Mother Teresa 

I am a long-term gold member of weight watchers and attend the obligatory 5 meetings a year to keep my membership active. 

At my last meeting the Leader was talking about WW headquarters and how some of the girls that work there can’t reach or stay at their target weights. Perfectly acceptable I thought. Other members of my group clearly didn’t think so.

Numerous comments were made insinuating that weight watchers shouldn’t employ staff that haven’t got their weight under control. 

It’s crazy that people think like that. No-one is infallible. I was so tempted to stand up and say “my name’s Louise, I’m a nutritional therapist and I ate too much cake’.

Yes I may know, in theory, the perfect diet, but when I developed a chronic health condition several years ago, I, as many others do, turned to food for comfort.

Of course it didn’t take long for me to accept my new, unhealthy diet was exacerbating my already high levels of pain which far outweighed any temporary high sugar was giving me. 

Getting back to the wholesome, clean food I was used to and removing any excess weight from my already inflamed joints was such a relief.

But my point is we are all human. People generally put enough pressure on themselves without others offering judgements. If we didn’t slip up we would never learn, grow and inadvertently create new opportunities in this crazy life of ours. Nobody is perfect and I for one am glad.