Spiritual Lessons

I was at the library looking for a book recommended to me by one of my friends, "You can heal your life" by Louise Hay. All the copies were out, so i had to reserve one. I ended up picking up two other books from the same author, one Im currently reading which is different peoples spiritual lessons that they have learnt, either from their own experiences or stories that other people have told them. I was amazed at the authors recounting her own horrific childhood experiences. It seems that she really did take the bitter pill of her own childhood and turn it into something beautiful which has helped many other people.

The other book of hers i grabbed was daily meditations. In the front it said to close your eyes, open to a page and that will be the thing you need for that day. It amazed me because I did it and it talked about cleaning up your house, getting rid of old clothes and yuck food from your fridge. That morning before getting to the library I had gone through my clothes and taken out some things and put in a bag to drop off at the clothes bin, and I had cleaned my stuff out of the fridge a few days before when I was shifting house. Every day since then I've opened that little book and been surprised and delighted by the messages that its given me, which usually feel totally pertinent to what I've been experiencing that day.

Sydney Day

Arrived at 9am yesterday and it took over an hour to get through customs, which was surprising because last time it barely took 15mins. There were so so many people all queued up at the airport and a lot of grumpy stuff members. It was a lot different than other times I've landed in sydney. We got the train into the city and got set up at our hostel, crashed out for a bit and then went to Paddys Market for some awesome cheap fruit and veg. My friend got a new Iphone cover and a cute ozzie carrybag. Then we got the train up north a bit and met my friend at her school so we could go catch up. We ended up getting a hot choc at a bar where there were a huge group of irish and welsh supporters about to watch the game, it was a bit scary sitting there in the middle of them screaming at the tv. Then we went to Sushi Train, a restaurant I was looking forward to going to see. They have a little moving belt that they put the food on and you just choose which dishes you want to try, then pay for it at the end. It was so much fun. Then we went shopping at Myers and all tried on the same beautiful dress, unfortunately it didn't fit any of the three of us. We got dropped off at the hostel and intended to just lie down for a minute, I woke up 3hrs later and my friend woke up 12hrs later. Considering we'd only had minimal sleep the night before it was great. I felt so much better in the morning.

Today we went to see General Conference, then got the free bus around town, rung people at home and had a delicious dinner. It was great. Tomorrow we're going to Luna Park, this revived 1930s amusement park, I'm looking forward to it.

Sydney

At the airport, waiting for our flight to board, its been delayed so will be here a while. I'm so glad we arrived when we did though, because a huge group of people arrived straight after us and checkin took quite a while, I hate standing in queues.

Will be over there for a week with my flatmate, doing all kinds of touristy things, will hopefully do an opera house tour, go up the top of Sydney tower, and finally go to Luna Park (we seem to drive past it every other time I"ve been to sydney and I've always thought I'd really like to go, just have never had a chance yet).

Also hoping to catch up with friends while I'm there, should be good.

Forget Me Not

Last week was the Relief Society General Broadcast, and I really liked Elder Uchtdorfs talk about 5 things we shouldn’t forget. He talked about the Forget me not flower and how much it meant to him, and what lessons we, as women, could take away from it.

1. Forget not to be patient with yourself
God knows we’re not perfect, nor those people we think are perfect. Comparing yourself to others will make you miserable. Celebrate your own good efforts.

2. Forget not that there are good sacrifices & there are foolish sacrifices
Staying up to look after a sick child is a good thing, staying up to sew 30 handouts for your Relief Society lesson is not

3. Forget not to be happy now
In the movie Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka the chocolate genius hides 5 golden tickets in his chocolate bars, with the promise that those who obtain the tickets will win a lifetime supply of chocolate and a private tour of his factory. People become obsessed with getting the tickets, to the point that chocolate, which used to be such a joy, is now a disappointment. We shouldn’t put happiness on hold while waiting for a specific event, eg marriage.

4. Forget not the “Why” of the gospel
Why we do stuff is important. Not to feel obliged, but “why” motivation sparks an eternal fire in people that will cause them to do what they need to.

5. Forget not that the Lord knows and loves you
What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of Man that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honour. You are closer to heaven than you suppose.

Going Dairy Free

So the last week has definitely proved to me something that I have known for a while but have been in denial about. I am totally lactose intolerant and can’t have dairy at all unless I want to have heinous repercussions which I won’t go into detail about here. Even yoghurt, which supposedly doesn’t affect people the same way because the lactose is meant to have been broken down by bacteria, still causes a reaction in me.

According to the blood type diet, A blood types (which I am) shouldn’t have any dairy and hardly any meat, definitely no red meat, only certain types of fish and poultry. I looked at it and thought well that sucks, and forgot about it.

I think I can attribute the richness of NZ dairy foods to my sudden weight gain after I got home off my mission. In Switzerland I ate hardly any dairy, well that’s not true, there was a lot of cheese, a small amount of milk, and heaps of chocolate. But I almost never touched icecream, cream or yoghurt and I think those 3 things are the items that cause me the most problems, they’re also the hardest things to find dairy free replacements for.

Rice, soy or almond milk is quite easy to come by, I can make dairy free chocolate myself (and have been for the last week or so – so delicious!). But I’ve never seen dairy free yoghurt yet. There is such a thing as dairy free ice cream, I haven’t tried it yet, but someone told me it has no taste.

I’m still not quite sure how I’m going to do this thing, but I just know I have to figure out a way to cut dairy out of my life, at least 90% of the time. I think its where most of my coughs, colds and flu symptoms are coming from.

Detoxing & the Spirit

So I had a realization a few days ago about the reason why I love detoxing so much (despite people around me & their detrimental comments). I was talking to my flatmate who recently completely 7 days on the Lemon diet aka Master Cleanse where you pretty much just have drinks containing maple syrup, cayenne pepper & lemon juice for the whole time. You’re also allowed herbal tea whenever you want. She said that she noticed during the cleanse how calm & peaceful she felt, things didn’t bug her like they normally would.

That got me thinking along the same lines – I usually also feel really light, peaceful and spiritual whenever I’m doing a cleanse. Its as though eating only natural wholefoods and getting rid of toxins out of my system (usually in the first 3 days which are always the most painful) makes me feel more in tune with the spirit or with higher energies. It was especially noticeable after the two weeks when I went back to eating normal food. I was driving home and somebody on the road did something that annoyed me and I started yelling at them in my car (probably they couldn’t hear me, but it did make me feel better) and I realized that I hadn’t gotten road ragey like that for the whole time I was doing the cleanse.

So aside from the health and weight loss benefits of eating whole foods and detoxing, there are definitely spiritual elements to the whole thing, which makes me think of the promises for those who follow principles of health and wellbeing contained at the end of the Word of Wisdom, Doctrine & Covenants 89 – And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures, and shall run and not be weary and shall walk and not faint.

Goal Setting

It seems like a gargantuan goal for me, given my current state of non-fitness, but I really want to do it. I have set a goal for myself to do the Tongariro Crossing this summer. 19.4kms of steep mountain to conquer. One of the girls at work did it earlier this year and her description of the walk totally cracked me up.

“You start off at the carpark and its really flat, so it lulls you into a sense of false security for the first while, and then bam! Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs! And then its flat again for a while, and then bam! Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs! And then its pretty much straight down the other side.”

I had a look at the Doc website, and her description was quite apt. The first set of stairs is apparently called the Devils staircase. My boss ran the crossing in 2 or 3hrs, but I am nowhere near his fitness level. (Hes over 60, so shame on me). Its meant to take fit people 6-8hrs. My friend lives not too far from the start of the crossing, so she said she’ll drop me off in the morning and pick me up in the afternoon.

People have died on the walk, with snow and poor visibility issues in winter, so that’s why I’m leaving it til summer, hopefully it will be warm and I won’t have any issues with it. I do need to get some proper walking boots though. I also think I need to start including more stairs and hills in my regular walks around the neighbourhood.