Wednesday 14 May 2014

Vulnerability and Forgiveness

"Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult hearings we will undertake.  And one of the most fruitful."





I spoke about something in my last post that's left me feeling a little vulnerable and a little raw around the edges.  It's something that I've struggled with quiet a bit most of my adult life and it's a habit that I'm very honestly ready to kick to the curb.  My dirty little secret is that sometimes I over eat.

I've not had a great relationship with food since I had a a fellow personal trainer and mentor, tell me that I needed to loose weight.  He told me that the way to do it was eating like a sparrow for a few weeks.  That sent me down the rabbit hole of not eating a lot, strict restriction and then binge eating.  This habit got a whole lot worse last year while I was prepping myself for a bikini model competition.  I followed a strict restriction diet for weeks on end, and then would get down on myself and binge.  Then the day that I finally decided that I wasn't going to do any other competitions until after the wedding I went a little crazy.  All those foods that I had restricted from myself, yet idealised as being the ultimate naughty treat was suddenly available to me in abundance.  I feel as though I was trying to make up for a year of restrictive eating by trying to eat as much naughty stuff as I could.

The problem was that I was doing this in secret, while I was trying to maintain this perfect, healthy image that I had been portraying.  Deep down I was really starting to feel like a fake and as the weight was creeping back on I started to feel more and more down on myself and turned to food to try to cheer me up.  The inner turmoil has been rough and I've made a decision that I wanted to come clean with myself so that I can begin healing and shutting the door in the face of this awful habit that I've developed.

It's hard for me to be so open and honest about this and I could have tried to deal with this behind closed doors, but I want to use this space as a true representation of me and be as real and as raw as possible.  I also want to openly make a statement to my heart and say:

"I forgive myself.  I want to let you know that I forgive you of any negative thoughts that I've held onto so tightly, I want to forgive myself for putting me down at times even though I am truly beautiful."

Forgiveness; in forgiveness you can lift that emotional weight you have attached to anything from your past so that you can free yourself of any attachment to time or a mistake that occurred in a time that no longer exists.  Releasing negative judgement allows you to see your beauty, your perfection and your essence, which is love.  By forgiving, you are free to be open to the future with amazing new possibilities.

I know that I am growing and learning and I take a little peace in knowing that I am in the exact time and moment that I need to be, this moment right now is perfect.

So today I am going to go out into the world with my head held high, knowing that I am moving forward in this life fearlessly.  Today is a brand new day and a new beginning to make the right choices for my future and not fall trap to any negative self talk.

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and if you've read this and want to talk with me about it, I am an open book please ask any questions.  Please don't hold any negative judgement of me, this was difficult to speak about but I'm taking a big step forward in me living a true and authentic life.

Lots of Love
Nic
xx

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Getting Real with Myself... Includes an Exciting Epiphany



I get truly inspired sometimes just before I'm about to go to bed.  These thoughts and ideas pop up in my head and I'll either go to bed tossing and turning thinking about these random thoughts for hours or I'll do some serious journalling to get them out of my head and onto paper and then still think about them for a couple of hours.

Thanks Kinfolk for the great photo.


I'm having one of those nights, but tonight I'd thought I'd share what's going on in my head... just a little insight... hopefully someone out there will read this and be sitting there smiling thinking 'yep I can relate'.

Tonight I'm revisiting the intentions that I set out for myself at the beginning of the year.  I'm thinking about what has changed, what deadlines are looming and what I need to do to make things happen.  I have three major goals that I want to accomplish this year.  They are all really big in their own right and all three goals are incredibly important to me.  I'm trying to remain balanced with achieving all three goals and trying not to get stressed out, but occasionally the stress of everything gets to me, weakens me down and then I go and do something silly like eat a packet of rosemary crackers from Coles - damn they are so good!  Now that I've worked through my little melt down and I'm coming down from my rosemary cracker high, I can feel something telling me that it's time to get serious and start kicking some real goals.  I really want to explore my first and biggest goal for the year with you guys tonight.

The stunning Olivia Palermo and her fiancé Johannes Huebl - Thanks Brides Magazine for the shot.


My first big goal for 2014 - Well I should say our goal, I'm getting married in September!!  OMGee, bear with me while I turn into a squealing 16yo, but I just want to scream from the roof tops, I'm in love with Russell Devalter and I can't wait to marry this man.  I'm so incredibly excited to be getting married, this whole process has been a breeze, the venue is booked, I have my dress, Russ has his suit, the photographer is booked in, the make up artist is booked in, the first round of E-Invites have gone out, I've made decisions on favours, the honeymoon (our big 3 month tour of Central and South America) is starting to get booked in and everything else I'm just taking as it comes, I'm really just enjoying this time and being engaged to this amazing man.  This is the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Along with all the planning comes making sure that I look my best on my day... this is where I'm starting to get stressed, and stress is not good for anyone's body... all that extra cortisol ages you quicker and also makes you hold onto fat - not what I want right now - go away excess cortisol!  So here is the deal.  I've had some ups and downs at the start of this year and still coming out of all my restrictive eating patters from competition prep last year I've still been in an awful cycle of binge eating.  It's not good and from the time that I bought my wedding dress to now, i've probably put on 5kg... not what any bride to be wants... I want to be a glowing goddess on our wedding day, I want to look and feel healthy and be in tip top shape.

So I'm now 4 months out from my wedding and I'm getting on track to loosing the excess bulge and making my skin glow.  Through doing my nutrition course, I've already learned about 20 different diets and they all seem to have the same base rules.  So I'm taking what I'm learning and I'm coming up with my own glowing goddess guidelines (my exciting epiphany) that I'm going to be putting to the test over the next four months.

It's important for me that these guidelines have a completely balanced and holistic approach that not only includes healthy eating and training guidelines but a glowing skin care regime and a self love manual as well.

I'm tackling this with a completely holistic approach, because I have been down the path of restrictive diets and calorie counting, and while they do get short term results, there is always a draw back, and that drawback is mental instability and weight gain - not fun for anyone!

Ok so I think this is pretty awesome, Glowing Goddess Guidelines - my guidelines to being a truly beautiful bride inside and out.  Eeekk has a ring to it :) I may pluck up the courage to post some before photos to Instagram tomorrow so that you can all follow my progress and to keep me accountable.

Ok well that's my thoughts for the night, what started off as me wanting to look at my goals turned into something I'm now pretty excited about exploring further!

Goodnight my sweets!

Nicole
xx


Saturday 10 May 2014

Procrastination & a Chocolate Craving = Figgy Choco Logs



I've been studying like crazy this weekend and loving every second of it.  Study, study, study... then it hit a craving for something sweet, something chocolate to be exact and it could not be satisfied by store bought artificial garbage.  This craving could only be satisfied by clean, whole healthy food.  Luckily I needed a break and something had to be done about this craving. STAT!

I looked into my pantry and pulled out the ingredients to produce Figgy Choco Logs.

Figgy Choco Logs

Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup oats
- 1/2 cup almond meal
- 1/2 cup walnuts / almonds
- 1/2 cup shredded coconut + some for rolling
- 3 tablespoons of raw cacao powder
- 6 organic Turkish figs
- 1 tablespoon organic coconut oil
- 60ml water
- pinch of salt
- 1 tbs of maple syrup (if desired)

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a food processor except for the water.  Process the mix until it comes together, it'll be a bit crumbly at this stage.  Continue to mix while adding the water a little at a time until the desired consistency is reached.  It should be a little sticky and should stay together when rolled into a ball or log shape.

I scooped out tablespoon size of the mix and rolled them into log shapes in the shredded coconut.

You could eat these straight away but I think they are better refrigerated for about 20mins or so.  

Enjoy my lovelies.

xx

PS. I'm starting up a newsletter soon.  It'll be full of amazing content and some goodies that won't be on the site, so to make sure you don't miss out on the first issue, click the subscribe button above and get on the list.

xxx

Friday 9 May 2014

Glowing Goddess Smoothie

Ok, I just want to tell you something...


I love green smoothies, I love love love them :)


Every day for over a week I've started my day off with a green smoothie, a glowing goddess green smoothie to be exact!  Eeeeppp I'm so excited about this little concoction I've come up with that I couldn't contain myself I needed to share and spread the goodness to you beautiful people.

I've noticed my energy levels have picked up during the mornings, my skin is starting to glow a little brighter and well, I'm eliminating more regularly (ladies, don't be shy, this is super important for glowing goddess like us).  Also this smoothie is super alkaline, read more about the benefits of being alkaline here.



I don't have a Vitamix as yet, I'm saving all my spare pennies for one, but I have to be patient and wait for it.  So I had to come up with a way to make my smoothies super smooth without the super blending power of a Vitamix and I think I've almost got it there!

This is how I did it:

- Add 1.5 - 2 cups of water (filtered is preferred, but any water will do)
- Leaves of 2 stalks of kale
- Handful of spinach, or mixed lettuce leaves

BLEND

- Add 1 apple - cored and chopped
- Add 1 pear - cored and chopped
- Add 1/3 cucumber - chopped into chunks

BLEND

- Add 1 banana
- Juice of 1/2 a lemon

BLEND - ENJOY :)

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Dalai Lama 18 Rules for Living






I came across these 18 rules for living a few years ago on one of the first blogs I ever read.  They really resonated with me and after all this time I still come back to the list.

I'm not sure if the Dalai Lama himself wrote the rules, but they sure are a pretty good guide.  So here are his rules:


1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three R's - Respect for self - Respect for others - Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honourable life.  Then when you get older and think back, you'l be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for you life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation.  DOn't bring u the past.

14. Share your knowledge.  It's a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge success by what you had to give up in order to get it.


So do any of these resonate with you?  Let me know in the comments below.

Love Nicole

x

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