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Essential oil ingestion: Just DON'T Do It

6/10/2019

Got gut health issues? Down some OnGuard Softgels to sort out what-must-be candida.
Everyday detoxification? A few drops of lemon essential oil in your water everyday will have your liver squeaky clean in no time... all without having to eat an actual lemon!
Want to feel the spiritual benefits of frankincense oil extra swiftly? Chuck a few drops of that stuff down the hatch and feel your consciousness expand...

No, no, and dear God, NO.

In short, essential oil ingestion can incredibly be dangerous unless prescribed by a qualified herbalist, naturopath or aromatherapist. Not a distributor for an MLM essential oil giant who has no health qualifications or expertise besides what their team leader has passed on to them.

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First month on our homestead

3/10/2019

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If you're a regular reader of my stuff, you already know that non-wanky health, food eaten for pleasure (not weight control), and social justice are kinda my thing.

So it probably comes as no surprise that living a good hour from the nearest hot yoga studio or massive health food grocery chain doesn't worry me in the slightest.

Actually, it feels like I can breathe again.

Our recent move - from an endless sea of Colorbond steel on the rapidly developing northern Gold Coast, to a rural ecovillage in the hills south of inland Kenilworth - has been a long time coming.

After spending my entire adult life in urban rentals, and the odd caravan or treehouse, I finally feel as though I can say:

I am home.

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The call for wise, old women

31/7/2019

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"A village without elders is like a tree without roots."
- African proverb

Winter, 2018

I'm frustrated.

I crave the presence of old, wise women. The sage, the elder, the crone. The wise old woman, or man.

Like an open wound craves soothing balm and mending and tenderness, I crave the smell, the words, the energy of the mature feminine archetype. And of actual old, wise women.

Where are they?

We have an ageing population, but - as Michael Meade, host of Living Myth podcast so eloquently states - instead of getting older and wiser, it seems people are just getting older.

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periods, fertility & eating disorders

21/5/2019

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"I have my period. So I mustn't have an eating disorder."

For years I thought that if a woman was menstruating regularly, she was displaying one of the ultimate signs of health.

I thought that if a woman had a regular period she must be well nourished. That the moment her caloric intake dipped below her requirements, her body would stop ovulating and periods would disappear.

That Mother Nature never lets our bodies grow babies - a highly energy intensive endeavour that demands massive amounts of resources - in a perceived famine.

For years, I was wrong.

In my time as an eating disorder dietitian, student naturopath, and having lived through an (undiagnosed but still very harmful) eating disorder, I have learnt a thing or two about periods and under eating. Here I'll attempt to bust some common myths around periods, fertility and disordered eating.

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The laid-back parent's guide to baby's first solids

13/2/2019

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Starting a baby eating solids is a time of great trepidation for many parents. This might be because this transition from exclusive breastfeeding or formula feeding to family foods (which starts around 6 months and continues until between 18 and 24 months) is a very vulnerable time.

It's a time when patterns like "fussy" or picky eating, or babies not eating enough to meet their requirements can sneak in, leading to malnutrition or failure to thrive. Delays in developmental milestones around feeding can and often do occur unless good feeding and eating practices are set up, ideally from the start.

And of course, there's always the fear of choking.

No wonder this time can be such a big cause of stress for parents.

But in spite of the clear importance of this transition period, I don't think that it needs to be stressful or scary. I actually think that starting your baby on solids can be an enjoyable, fun and even relaxing time for kids and parents.

And in fact, by taking a deep breath and chilling out you can actually help your child learn to feed themselves in a timely manner, get all the nutrition they need, and have fun doing it.

I have a 12 month old and a 3 year old and they have both been proficient, happy little eaters for as long as I can remember. Here's how I navigated starting my kids on solids when they were around 6 months old, and beyond, all whilst being responsibly lazy.

"Be laid-back about solids introduction. This early stage is mostly for fun and games."
- Ellyn Satter RD, child feeding expert

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Don’t call me yogi.

27/1/2019

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Recently I changed my Instagram handle from @forestyogini to my actual name. It may seem insignificant - just petty semantics - to some. But to me it's no small decision. It’s a personal (de)identity shift I’ve been thinking about making for some time.

Why?

For those who give a shit and are still reading:

I no longer feel comfortable calling myself a yogi or yogini.

A few months back when I listened to Dana Falsetti’s excellent podcast “Deep Dive” on this very topic, it validated my feelings of unease and finally exhumed the heart of the matter for me.

Perhaps it's the spirit of Australia Day (being celebrated this whole long weekend) and the historical colonialism, racism and cultural misappropriation that surrounds this controversial holiday that have finally pushed me over the "dare to change your Insta handle and confuse everyone!" line.

I practise yoga and I make money from teaching yoga. But I just don’t feel like I have the authority to claim the title yogi. In the same way I have been feeling increasingly uncomfortable saying namaste at the end of class. For the same reason I don’t wear mala beads or paint a bindi on my head. For the same reason most yoga teachers probably wouldn't recognise the goddess in the picture above (hint: it's not Kali).

Don’t worry, I’ve tried all of these things and more. But for me, they’ve never felt quite right as I explained at length in my post Why I quit yoga (and what brought me back). For me, letting go of the self-appointed yogi title is yet another layer of self-discovery, and my gradual disentanglement from the clusterfuck of fake spiritual empowerment and "holier than thou"-ness that I call the Sexy, Successful, Spiritual Woman Ideal.

There are three main reasons I'm letting go of the yogi title.

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5 Flavours to Eat for Health

23/1/2019

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In Chinese medicine and in Ayurveda, the hallmark of a balanced meal is the inclusion of all of the flavours. By including all of the flavours in a meal, you’re going to feel very satisfied. And satisfaction is a crucial element of enjoyable, intuitive eating. One of these flavours is bitter, a very important taste that many of us are missing on our plates.

Throughout Spring and Summer in my Southeast Queensland neighbourhood, edible weeds pop up everywhere including in my own my backyard.

Under the kids’ trampoline out of the lawnmower’s reach, I find dandelion greens, sow thistle, billy goat weed, sheep sorrel, and wild carrot, among other largely unknown yet freely available sources of nutrition*. At the farmer’s market I uncover a similar array: mustard greens, endive, chicory, kale, parsley, rocket.

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The Mother and The Warrior

2/1/2019

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Pic courtesy of https://www.writeups.org

James Cameron has directed and produced some of the best movies of all time IMO. The run of action movies he directed in the 80's was pivotal in forming the fertile ground of my childhood imagination - The Terminator series, Alien trilogy and in the early 90's, Point Break (which is so bad, it's good, y'know?)

I have spoken of my love for Aliens in this blog on intuitive eating (Aliens and intuitive eating? YES!)

Sigourney Weaver plays the central character Ellen Ripley, a leader and a warrior. To get a taste of Ripley, watch the clip below where she is about to enter the alien hive in order to find and rescue her adoptive daughter, just as the colony is minutes away from exploding. It's pure badass.

Aliens is one of the rare movies where a female is the lead role heroine AND she is not hyper-sexualised.

I mean, Wonder Woman and Tomb Raider are OK and maybe make small inroads in the eternal quest for equal gender representation in action movies, but who seriously fights villians in high heeled boots whilst maintaining deep cleavage, and a full face of make up? Practicality and believability factor: zero.

Ripley is also a mother.

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Purity vs. hybridisation

19/12/2018

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When it comes to the work I do, I've never been 100% sure about what to call it, or if it even has (needs?) a name. Try as I might (and I have, numerous times), the stuff I "do" can't be put into a single box.

And it's not for lack of direction; I know what I am good at and what I love to do. It's just that there are so many directions I feel I am being pulled in.

Perhaps a nicer, less divisive way to say that, is that I have many colourful threads that form my web of being! :)

I often feel this pressing need to categorise "it", to pack it down nice and neatly into a label, to be able to explain to people what I do in a concise sentence without feeling like I've left large chunks of who I am stranded by the side of the road, all for the sake of simplicity.

And so here I am, eating disorders dietitian by day; (newly) Zenthai shiatsu practitioner by candlelight.

In one studio a yoga teacher emphasising the importance of play; in the next a nutritionist distilling hours of reading textbooks and research papers into digestible information that my clients can understand.

Studying naturopathy and Chinese Medicine on one hand; investigating the clinical applications of CBT and DBT for eating disorder clients on the other.

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a jill of all trades. Master of none. A case of shiny object syndrome. A fraud. Not really good at any one of those things.

Hello, voice of my inner critic, I hear you loud and clear.

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Spring energetics - moving from darkness into light

12/10/2018

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Wild edibles have been popping up everywhere in our hood - check out these bitter dandelion greens. Perfect with some sour lemon juice, olive oil and salt for a simple spring salad.

Spring is here, and although I LOVE it, the transition has been rough...

Winter just isn't my thing (as nice as all those warm cups of chai tea are!) Spring is my favourite season of the year - and not just because it's my birthday season. As the weather started warming up, our little family enjoyed daily expeditions to a local mulberry tree. It seemed our hands and faces were perpetually stained purple, and life was sweet.

Then we had a car crash.

And it was as if our whole world was turned upside down.

Someone rear ended us on the highway. Miraculously no one was hurt, but it shook us all up. Since then, my family and I have encountered battle after battle. Physical, emotional, mental, you name it.

It started with that car crash involving all of us (such a scary experience with babies in the back). Between us we've been through a bout of hospitalisation for appendicitis, some heavy repressed memories resurfacing, a shitload of emotional processing (with anger, shame and vulnerability at the forefront), the extreme physical fatigue that accompanies such emotional processing, a teething baby (aren't they just always teething?!) and learning about the "tantrum explosion" stage of a certain ginger haired three-nager.

Kairi eating dirt. Might be some Wood energetic medicine I don't know about?!

Yin to Yang, dark to light

You could say that the car crash not only shook us up: it woke us up from various slumbers we'd all been sleeping through. For me, it has shone a spotlight onto some dark places I've been ignoring for a long time.

Seasonal transitions can be interesting to say the least. And the transition from winter to spring is perhaps the most tumultuous transition. It’s a tug-o-war between the quiet, dark, restorative, inward Yin energy of winter into the bold, outward, ascending, bright Yang energy of spring – and the shift can be massive!

Spring energetics - wood element

In Chinese medicine Spring is associated with the element Wood. The energy of new growth and germination marks this season, and here in SE Queensland new plant life is springing up all around us. This is my favourite time of the year for urban foraging and wildcrafting edible weeds.

The meridian that corresponds with the wood element is the liver / gallbladder meridian. Wood element within us governs our sense of vision, the emotion of anger, and the sound of shouting. Wood energy can aggravate the mind by allowing pressure to build (like a seed germinating), propelling us forward into creating, planning and working.

Wood element is about us having purpose and vision in our lives, our planning ability. Type A personalities this is the time to be careful to keep your perfectionist / overworking tendencies in check! (talking to myself here - I’ve taken on WAY too much work lately resulting in thoughtless shortcuts, frustrating setbacks and angry outbursts, and I now need to reassess my workload. AGAIN!)

When vision is stifled, we feel that anger and frustration and want to shout, and at the right time and place we can and should shout. Anger is an energy that needs space and if pent up that pressure can become dangerous.

Anger, indigestion... and growth

Amidst the storm of emotional turbulence that has marked this year's dark to light seasonal transition, I’ve had some seriously angry outbursts. As a bunch of shit has happened and painful repressed memories from my past have resurfaced, I've been feeling more than my usual lot of anger towards myself and others from my past and present.

I find yelling into the earth, punching a pillow, or just roaring while standing in my kitchen helps me let some steam off and transmute my pain so I (hopefully) don’t dump it onto other people - usually my poor husband!

I've found that yelling and moving my body helps me tap into the deeper emotions of grief and pain, so that I can then cry and move through those - and hopefully come out the other side to a lighter place.

The energy of new growth and germination marks this season - and clearly that growth isn't always comfortable! If too much Wood energy builds pressure and is not released, it can result in symptoms like hypertension, headaches, sore muscles, indigestion, allergies, irritability, insomnia and outbursts of rage.

This year's winter into spring has been a gloriously turbulent, disastrously beautiful, emotionally and physically exhausting transition for us - maybe it has been for you too. Personally I've had to reach out and practice extreme vulnerability with close friends (not one of my strong points), and practice those uncomfortable skills of feeling unpleasant emotions, releasing through crying and yelling, and applying bucket loads of self-compassion.

But it's not all emotional turbulence and digestive ails. With Spring there's also that palpable quickening in the air; that shimmer of morning dew on newly sprouting herbs in the garden; that pulsation of warm, wet earth underneath bare feet. New growth, even if it's forced and we don't feel ready for it. The promise of new life.

As I wake from a winter slumber (physically and metaphorically) I'm beginning to see how old ways of being are no longer working for me, and have been forced to deal with issues that have been sitting in the dark for years.

I'm also seeing the seeds I planted many months and years ago start to germinate into exciting new projects which I'll be sharing with you in the coming months.

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Casey's blog

Essential oil ingestion: Just DON'T Do It

First month on our homestead

The call for wise, old women

Winter, 2018

periods, fertility & eating disorders

The laid-back parent's guide to baby's first solids

Don’t call me yogi.

5 Flavours to Eat for Health

The Mother and The Warrior

Purity vs. hybridisation

Spring energetics - moving from darkness into light

Yin to Yang, dark to light

Spring energetics - wood element

Anger, indigestion... and growth

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