Woah!  It’s been a few weeks since my last post!  Slap on the wrist for me!  I’ve been over the Tasman and back for my bi-monthly trip to Sydney to see patients and run a couple of workshops (on fermented foods and kids lunch box ideas).

A hive of activity at the last fermented foods workshop in Sydney

I was over for two weeks, staying with fabulous friends.  Being away always sets up extra challenges of finding your routine outside of your usual environment, and I have to admit, I have a way to go in perfecting this!  I was not on top of things program wise.  Not helped by still feeling quite heavy and uncoordinated in my movements with a lot of emotional sabotage coming up.  I did however go for a few bush walks with family and friends, and while walking and waiting around I was consciously activating my core, or doing glute raises while perched on a rock or other such movements prescribed by Carl.

Waiting for others to catch up provides the perfect opportunity to practice some glute raises!

Fortunately I managed to fit in two sessions with a… healer.  I don’t know what else to call him.  I think he calls himself and natural health practitioner.  His name is Ben and he is a qualified massage therapist, but his specialty is helping people to release old emotions that we store in our bodies.  I tell you – it was a pretty incredible experience.  I was blown away.  Being a newbie at this kind of treatment, it was both physically and emotionally painful. “Are you doing pain again” he would keep asking me as I’d squirm and swear on the table “you know it doesn’t have to be painful”.  “Yes” I would reply – what else could I say?!  Gradually I was learning the ability to process the perceived pain and let go of it, and with that was a letting go of the emotions that very clearly arose at the same time.  It may sound weird, but it was fascinating and afterwards I was bounding around with so much energy that if I was a child I would no doubt have been prescribed Ritalin.  So I went for a run – a great one – form felt good, my energy was high and I was running through beautiful greenery to a lush waterfall.  Back home I was doing push ups, burpees and then doing Carl’s lizard crawls around the house!

This beautiful spot signalled the turn around point in my run.

Back in Wellington now and my reassessment with Carl on Wednesday went startlingly well – great improvements on many fronts as far as strength and mobility are concerned.  Very exciting for me and for Carl!  Hopefully I’ll get in a session with Gayle this week too so she can assess how things are progressing.