Weleda Conference

Last weekend I attended the second annual conference for Weleda Advisors. It was a wonderful day. There are now twice the number of advisors as last year, and what a year it has been. í ½

I love Weleda products, mainly because they work. A massage therapist introduced me to Arnica Massage Balm to help with my long term muscular back pain. It really helped. It has recently won the Natural Pharmacy Award for 2013.

Natural Pharmacy Awards January 2013

I started using it on my Holistic Bliss clients, and it helps many of them. I approached Weleda and asked if I could sell their products to my clients and they said yes and we’d love to have you as an Advisor! I received training and some products to use as samples and off I set to tell others about the uniques, 100% organic, plant-based, skin care, body care, baby care, homeopathic and medicinal products. Everything I have tried, I have loved!

I am available to demonstrate the amazing Weleda products, to you and your friends, in the Burton-on-Trent area. It’s a great night in and you get to spend some time with your friends while sampling a variety of Weleda products. Call me on 07833 903855 to book your event, there are some wonderful Christmas gifts available soon and the best thing is that they are really not expensive (half the regular items are under £10) for the great quality products that they are. I’m sure you will love Weleda products as much as I do!

Disaster averted!

Originally written on September 26th 2011!!!

I haven’t been able to find the time for my little blog for ages. I’ve had a lot to deal with, not least the accidental destruction of my old laptop. Who would have thought that half a glass of wine could be a killer? Apparently laptop keyboards don’t like wine very much! I tried to dry it out with a hairdryer, placed it upside down with kitchen roll underneath to catch the drips and contacted the insurance company! An excess of almost the cost of a new laptop was a little off-putting, so I tried to switch it on again after a couple of days. It worked, took ages to boot up, but exciting moment, it actually still worked. That was until I tried to put my password in. The keyboard didn’t work. my daughter said, couldn’t we plug the PC keyboard in, but it had a different connection. Lateral thinking came up with a wireless keyboard, so off we went to purchase one. It was a huge relief to find that it worked, and I copied all my recent work onto my external hard drive. Just as I was about to copy my photos over, the laptop finally died, never to boot up again!

I was glad to have the external drive and even more glad to discover that an automatic backup of all my work had taken place only two days previously. All I needed to do was to purchase a new laptop. And here I am writing on it 🙂 Not such a big disaster after all – I am now regularly backing my work up to an external disc drive – it’s scary to think of having to redo everything or of losing all my assignments for Uni – it was a good lesson to have learnt – the hard way!

The best part of my work … blending essential oils!

Essential oils

My most favourite part of my job working as a Clinical Complementary Therapist at Holistic Bliss, is the blending of essential oils to make a specific essential oil blends to help treat particular medical conditions for my clients.  Today I have made several blends for a variety conditions:

For mucous overproduction, I have used Silver Fir, Eucalyptus Radiata, Black Spruce and Ravensara.  This helps to clear the airways really well and the client liked the blend so much that he bought some extra to use in an oil burner.  He’s getting the benefit of the oils between treatments that way.

For my client with back pain and tight muscles, I have made a blend of Ginger, Black Pepper and Rosemary.  The client is also very tense and not able to relax so I added some Lavender to the blend.  We have been talking about how he can best manage his pain and his back has improved using this blend, so I just made up another batch today.  My little upstairs room is smelling gorgeous today!

Finally, I have made a special blend for treating my elderly clients who reside in local Care Homes.  I used Almond, Avocado and Wheatgerm carrier oils and simply used Lavender essential oil as the essential oil.  This combination of carrier oils is really excellent for older, frail, dry skin and the smell is so relaxing and wonderful for those who are agitated because of dementia and other conditions.  Lavender is calming, relaxing and has sedative properties.

Lavender oil - very relaxing!

I love this aspect of my work.  It feels very creative and almost artistic and yet the science behind the oil blends is complex and has taken me years to learn.  It is very satisfying when client’s report back to me that I have helped them with their pain, their stress or to relax their tight muscles.  One of them even claims I have “healing hands”!  I’m sure that’s not true, those essential oils have extremely powerful properties!!

After all that blending and breathing in the essential oils, I’m feeling a little sedated myself … perhaps it’s time for a nap!

So much going on … and my phone died!

Bonsai Carmona - how mine used to look!

I’ve been blogging about my inability to keep a Bonsai tree alive.  I should make it clear from the outset that I’m not very good at keeping houseplants at all!  I’ve killed busy lizzy plants and they are supposed to be indestructible!  I’m going to have a look online for some tips about keeping a Bonsai, the instructions simply said, don’t leave standing in water, but I guess keeping it dry as a bone doesn’t actually constitute not leaving it standing in water does it?

My biggest concern of the past few days has been the gradual deterioration of my mobile phone.  It started to play up and not go to the various apps when I pressed the screen, then the screen froze and I couldn’t even turn it off, having to take out the battery, and not just the once, you understand, to get it to restart! Quite frustrating! So I went to the shop and was told I needed to attach the phone to my computer and upgrade the software.  I knew that I had the latest version, but I went home and did a reinstall anyway.  That just seemed to make the problem worse, now the radio didn’t work and I couldn’t access links on Twitter or Facebook.  Technology at its very worst!

Eventually, I decided to bite the bullet and call the tech people.  “Have you tried taking the battery out?” I was asked!  I could have screamed at that point.  The battery had been out more than it had been in over the last 48 hours!  “You’ll have to return it to us, Ma’am” I was told very politely.  Not what I wanted to hear.  Back to the shop, once again, and off goes my phone, hopefully to return in 7-10 days all fixed up and ready to work again.  Apart from the fact that the salesman said, “this model is discontinued y’know” and “they’ll have to send you a replacement model if they can’t fix it”.  So I may end up losing all my backed up contacts, if I can’t restore them to a newer model.

Ah well … deep sigh, I’m using my old model, the one that doesn’t work terribly well, has extremely slow internet access and always posts FB messages in triplicate for some inexplicable reason, but at least I’m not completely out of touch! I can’t believe how attached to my touch screen phone I’ve become and how much I miss it! I can see I’ll be using my laptop a lot more for a while, but it’s not quite the same!

Think I killed my bonsai!!!

It was really beautiful, a wonderful birthday present and I really like it.  It’s 4 years old and I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks but it’s looking decidedly limp and unhappy with it’s lot.  I’ve moved it to the kitchen and I’m trying to revive it with a drop of water here and a drop of water there.  Does anyone know how to look after a Bonsai tree?  All advice gratefully received!

Birthday Bonsai and the full moon!

Full moon - so bright!

After blogging last night about how the tsunami in Japan has made me think differently, I have thought about the people I knew when I was working in Tokyo.  I hope that they are ok and have not been affected too badly by the disaster.  I think I will try to locate one lovely lady in particular who was so kind to me when I first arrived in Tokyo and showed me where to get the best sushi every time I visited.

My birthday was at the beginning of March and one of my good friends forgot it this year.  Not a problem, but we spent time together today and when she arrived she had bought me a tree, a tiny little 4-year-old bonsai tree.  It felt very fitting somehow and so now I have a tree in my dining room.  I have no real idea how to take care of it, so I’m going to be doing some research about that!  Any suggestions gratefully received!

We had a great walk in the local park together with our children running after a football and the dog!  It helps with my efforts at keeping fit! The sun was shining brightly and the afternoon was perfect for lifting my spirits and bringing me closer to nature.  Those daffodils are starting to open and in a few days the park will be ablaze with their golden faces!  I love this time of year.

After my friend had gone, I spent some time in the garden with the children and my son’s telescope.  The full moon was completely amazing – the closest the moon has got to us in many years.  The kids were transfixed by it and when we managed to see it in the telescope (we are beginners!) it was so bright and beautiful.  My daughter took some incredible photos too. We also managed to focus in on Jupiter which was sparkling away and another star which was not so bright.  It was a very special time and I was happy to see my children soak up some of the wonders of the universe.  We are so grateful to have had such a clear and warm evening to see the full moon and are lucky to have cozy conditions to return to inside.  I am reminded that all over the world, we can all see the same moon but some of us don’t have homes to go back into.

Following the Tsunami

 A week ago, just last Friday, although it seems like much longer, I couldn’t drag myself away from the shocking news unfolding in Japan.  Now, I am not a big fan of the media and dislike watching the news, but those pictures and their implication for the Japanese people stopped me in my tracks and I couldn’t stop watching the unfolding disaster.  The news stories from Japan have affected me deeply.

By way of background, I have been to Japan a few times.  I was responsible for the foreign office IT for a large London law firm back in the day, when I had no children and life was very different.  I travelled to Japan on several occasions, planning and helping to install a new computer system and training the staff to use it.  Then there was maintenance, remotely, at a time when the internet was just being born, SMS messages were brand new and ISDN connections were the only way to connect up.  How fast technology has changed!  The Japanese people I met were truly lovely, kind, friendly, generous and always helpful to me.  I feel a deep connection to them from those days of old, and have been moved to tears on several occasions during the last week.  I started to use Twitter for the first time, following @BreakingNews for up-to-the-minute news.  I connected with some local tweeters from Tokyo who shared about what it is really like there now, with continued disruptive aftershocks of great magnitude, waking you from your sleep; of food shortages, toilet roll shortages and the real concerns of the people living there which are vastly different from the media hype about radiation and government advice to leave.  I’m grateful to those brave people especially @TokyoTwilighter, @FloatingCamera and @tokyofound who have shared their day-to-day experiences and concerns on Twitter and helped me understand and feel close to their situations. 

And life, as always, goes on.  Over 16,000 people dead and more missing over there in Japan and here, it’s Comic Relief night.  They have shown pictures of other desperate situations in Africa. The stark reality of how lucky I am to live where I do and not to have my life affected by such dreadful events is very clear.  I phoned, I pledged money and my children invited me to the Youth Club at our local Church, where they raised over £650 to watch various members of the congregation, including the youth leader, the vicar, curate and the 80-year old church warden, being splattered with different colours of gunge!  It was a very enjoyable time, lots of laughter and the kids all had a really great evening.  I’m sure Comic Relief will raise many millions of pounds to help those less fortunate than me and I’m glad to have been part of that local event. 

Action, no matter how small, has felt better than the awful, empty, wordless, feelings of helplessness that I experience when watching pictures of towns and villages destroyed by the tsunami devastation, far away, on the other side of the world. Brave people of Japan – you are in my thoughts and prayers, and will be for much longer than the media interest in your current situation. Sending you peace and love!

Spring is on it’s way!

Well so far this week, it’s been sunny, despite being very cold, leading me to believe that Spring might just be here already.  However, today’s rain and gusty freezing winds have brought me back to reality with a bump.  I’ve admired the cheery snowdrops and crocuses and even some gorgeous early daffodils, looking very Springlike, but the weather doesn’t seem to want to know!  I’m definitely very keen for Spring to finally appear. Sunshine always lifts my mood and cheers me up, but rainy grey days do just the opposite!

Research has been at the forefront of my mind this week. I love to research my client’s various medical issues and find ways to help them deal with their conditions. My degree requires plenty of in-depth research, but I have a term with no studies right now.  That feels very strange. My brain likes to learn new things, so I’ve been very happy exploring different websites for information about prostate cancer, depression, motor neurone disease, strokes  and dementia recently. The best thing for me is finding ways of using my knowledge of complementary therapies to find combinations of therapy treatments to help people.  It is a lovely field to be working in and everyone enjoys the treatments.

So, this week I have learnt that Lemongrass and Black Pepper essential oils are really useful to improve muscle tone.  They smell absolutely heavenly too! Great for sagging skin following weight loss too.  For improving a low mood my favourite is Bergamot. It has a wonderful orangey smell and is very cheering, just like those Spring flowers I saw.

Check out my website to see what other delights are on offer at Holistic Bliss. Aromatherapy massage and reflexology in combination can make a huge difference to your health and general sense of well-being and can lift your spirits and improve your mood, while you are waiting for Spring to finally get here! I look forward to treating you!

Sunday musings

It’s been an interesting weekend.  The house is clean, most of the washing is done, my daughter’s broken drawer has been mended and we have finally been able to add a new fish to her tank, we just need a name for it now! The children are all excited about being off school for half term.  So, we are making plans for the week ahead, visits to friends, the dentist and Warwick Castle, to use up some vouchers that expire at the end of February!  I have one day this week, where the children will be away, so I will work then.  I’m looking forward to the little break too, as last week was very busy.

I have added a few photos to the Holistic Bliss web site which has been fun. Have a look and let me know what you think!  The whole web site experience has been a very steep learning curve for me over the last few months, but I’ve really enjoyed creating a small area of cyberspace to call my very own!  Blogging is something else, stretching my brain even further. So far, I haven’t told anyone that I’ve started this blog as I don’t know what the response will be. I feel quite shy about it. I suppose, I just have to think that I’m entitled to my opinion and just put myself out there, but I don’t like the thought of any negative comments that may come my way! I think I’ll be brave and tell my lovely Facebook friends and see what happens!

Keep smiling!

Hello world!

Here I am, sitting in my office, blogging, for the first time ever.  I didn’t expect to be doing this today!  I have work to be getting on with, but life sometimes throws me a curveball and I just go with the flow.  I’ve meant to start writing a blog for ages, and when I read someone else’s blog post, I followed a link and set up my own page.  I’m not even 100% sure how it all works, but you can only try, and see what happens right?  I have nothing to lose and everything to gain from reflecting about how life is for me right now.

This term is easier for me because I don’t have any study modules to follow, that’s not to say I don’t have any course work to be getting on with, because I do, but as far as formal lectures and assignments, I get a term off.  I completed two assignments last term; Counselling Skills for Health Professionals (I got a B!) and The Management of Pain (amazingly I got an A!).  So, I’m glad of the time off before embarking on a placement next term and a compulsory module on Leadership.

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to grow my business, Holistic Bliss.  I’m hoping that my satisfied clients will continue to come back to me for further treatments, they seem to be enjoying them so far, and that they’ll recommend me to others.  It is always nice to get a personal recommendation. I’m learning more about Motor Neurone Disease today. The more I understand about this illness, the better I can help one of my clients.  I’ll get back to reading the book in a bit!  I’m also considering the best treatment for someone with chronic back pain, more research, but that is one of the things I love about this type of work.

Hopefully as I write about my studies and how it impacts on my daily work as a Complementary Therapist, people might be interested enough to read and like what I’m saying.  Time will tell! I hope you like my musings, please let me know if you do.