If you know you would benefit from choosing to move your body more, read on to get past your excuses.

Can you remember what it was like to feel fit and have abundant energy? To feel really alive? To sleep like a log, and wake up alert and ready for the day? All this and more is much more likely to be yours when you choose to make movement a way of life.

Our bodies are made to move – just watch young children who are rarely still!

Somehow we lost the impetus to move our bodies, and spend long hours sitting, often motionless in front of computers or the TV. Despite knowing the benefits of moving, we actually choose to stagnate!

Choosing to move beyond the excuses

Here’s the key – it’s all about choice – your choice! If someone offered you a million pounds, or dollars, for really moving your body every day for a month, I’m sure you’d choose a way past your excuses!

I don’t have time

Check how many hours a day you spend on the computer or watching TV – how about exchanging some of that to move?

Think of the benefits of movement – feeling more alert and focused likely means you’ll get through other tasks and chores more quickly, thus freeing up time.

If you really feel pushed for time, remember moving your body doesn’t have to be a separate activity like swimming or going to the gym, you can integrate it into your everyday living – try walking to the shops, some DIY, or gardening.

It’s your time, you can choose how you use it!

I’ll get onto it tomorrow

Aah, procrastination is an easy excuse! The trouble is tomorrow never comes.

However  small, choose some movement you’ll do today – how about a short walk after reading this article?

Then visualise yourself fit and energised, and plan your movement for tomorrow.

My body isn’t up to it

It’s easy to avoid moving because of a sore hip, or some other ailment. Whatever situation you find yourself in, you’ll be able to move your body in some way.

Draw inspiration from those who compete in the Paralympics overcoming great physical adversity to be supremely fit. Think of people like Christopher Reeves who did daily exercises in the hope of one day being able to move again. Your body can move, and the more you move it, the better it will get.

I don’t have the energy

For most of us the lack of movement that contributes to feeling lethargic, so it’s a question of getting moving to feel the benefits.

If you have ME it’s a question of doing a little movement, and following your medical practitioner’s advice.

I don’t have the clothes/equipment/money

There are plenty of ways of moving in your everyday clothes, that don’t require equipment or funds, such as walking, jogging, yoga, Tai Chi. Choose to look for ways to move more that suit your situation.

I’m happy as I am

Yes, it’s always easy to stay in your comfort zone! Check out with yourself – are you really living life to the full? If you’ve got this far reading this article, I expect you know deep down you and your body would benefit from more movement.

Another excuse?

I think you get the picture – simply focus on the benefits and choose your way past it!

Still stuck?

If your excuses persist, a Delicious Healing session will help change your whole perspective on moving by dissolving any sub-conscious conditioning.

Take action

Once this article is posted, I’m off to don my wate rproofs and re-start my daily lunchtime walks. I’ve also chosen to practice the Tai Chi I’m learning on Tuesdays 5 times a week. My new choice is to get up and move if I’ve been sitting at the computer for half an hour.

Be it walking, gardening, housework, rebounding, dance, cycling, yoga, Tai Chi, the gym, jogging or any other way of moving – what extra movement will you do today?

If you are currently unfit and plan to take up a new activity, check with your medical practitioner first.

The Delicious Nugget: Your body is made to move and you know the benefits of moving, so it’s up to you to choose to let go of your buts and get moving!

A TV advert convinced me to try juicing, and for the next six months I started my day with freshly made juice.

So, what are the ins and outs of smoothies and juices?

Ingredients

A green smoothie is a blend of fruits and green leaves whizzed up in a blender.

My typical green smoothie includes: mango/pineapple/apple + banana/avocado + spinach/kale/lettuce + lemon slice + celery stick. Yum!

Because of the fibre content a smoothie is quite satisfying – more like a meal.

A green juice is extracted from a mix of fruits and green leaves, with the addition of vegetables.

My typical green juice includes: cucumber + carrots/courgette + celery + mango/pineapple/apple + spinach/kale/lettuce. Yum!

For me, the main advantage of juice is the sheer vitality and lightness I feel after drinking one!  I’ve also noticed that a juice including bitter greens such as kale or dandelion leaves, doesn’t taste as bitter as the equivalent smoothie.

Equipment

To make a smoothie you need a powerful blender, though a stick blender is adequate for occasional use, eg when travelling.

There’s a wide range of electric juicers on the market; do make sure you get one that will juice greens if you want to include them in your juices. The more expensive juicers are more efficient in extracting juice. Modestly priced hand juicers are also available, however it’s worth investing in an electric one if you plan to make juices often, as they speed up the process dramatically.

If space is an issue, a blender will make a smaller footprint on your work surface than a juicer (unless you get one of the new ‘vertical’ juicers). We had to put our food processor away to make room for the juicer!

A mid range juicer is likely to be at least twice the price of a mid range blender, so if already have a blender, it may make sense to start with smoothies, as we did.

Time

Smoothies win hands-down for preparation time. It only takes a couple of minutes to load and run the blender, pour the smoothie into a glass, and rinse the blender. A smoothie is always my choice on mornings when I’m in a hurry.

It takes me about 7 minutes to cut up the fruit and veg, keep loading the juicer, and then dismantle and wash the parts. On the other hand, when I do have time, the whole juicing process is now so automatic, it’s become a morning meditation!

Nutrition

With a smoothie, your body receives the whole of the fruit and greens. When the cell walls of greens are broken down by the blender, amino acids – which are the building blocks of protein that are needed for growth and repair – are released.

With a juice you get a more nutrient-dense drink, with a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals, which is helpful for cleansing and healing.

Blood sugar

The ‘whole’ food in a smoothie is more balanced since there is less concentration of the natural fruit sugars that you get with juicing. Sugar is released over a longer period, and blood sugar remains more stable.

However, depending what  you will be doing next, the quick energy boost from the more concentrated sugars in fresh juice may be what you’re looking for!

Digestion

A big advantage of juices is the ease with which the body can assimilate the liquid and all the vitamins and minerals it contains. This can be helpful when you’re ill, convalescing of have a compromised digestion which would struggle with the fibre in a smoothie.

On the other hand, fibre has a regulating and cleansing effect on the digestive tract which many people find beneficial.

Cost

If you use the same ingredients to make a juice and a smoothie, you’ll get around twice the quantity of smoothie, because the smoothie is bulked up by the fibre that is discarded from juice. This makes juicing appear more expensive.

On the other hand, since juices use more vegetables such as carrots, beet and celery, which are generally cheaper to buy than fruit, the difference in cost my not be as much as it seems when you look at the pulp coming out of the juicer!

My conclusion

Having spent extensive periods of smoothie only, followed by juice only, I now oscillate between the two as the mood, hunger level, available ingredients and my time takes me. If my digestion were upset, or I were recovering from illness I would take juices for a while. Best of all, check each day what your body would like!

The Delicious Nugget: Green smoothies and juices are both good for you – smoothies give all-round nutrition includthe building blocks of proteis from greens, while juices yield a higher concentration of micro-nutrients and fruit sugar and  are more easily assimilated and good for cleansing the body. If you have the equipment for both, check ‘Which does your body want today?’

Right now, ‘How comfortable are you?’

At the Qi Gong class, our teacher kept asking ‘How comfortable are you?’, explaining that if our bodies were not completely relaxed the energy flows would be restricted, and the benefits of our movements diminished.

Whatever you plan to do with the next few hours of your time, and that includes sleep, having a relaxed and comfortable body will help you do it more effectively.

Here are 3 quick ways to relax your whole body that I use regularly. I suggest you scan the headings and see which one jumps out for you! Best to avoid them when you’re driving though.

Yin breath

Take an ordinary breath in, and then imagine that your out-breath is coming from a place the size of a walnut located inside your head – between your ears, and behind your third eye.

Take another ordinary breath in, followed by breathing from this place inside your head for a few breaths.

Once you have the hang of your outbreath going from inside your head, repeat it – this time saying to yourself on your out-breat:

‘Be the breath’.

Keep repeating the Yin Breath until you feel fully relaxed.

When I first learned this Yin breath from Alain Herriott in 2007 it instantly relaxed my whole body, so I’ve been using it ever since. Now just one Yin breath instantly relaxes me completely!

Asking

For those of you who use Access Consciousness tools, here’s the question I use when I find myself in an uncomfortable position while running someone’s Bars.

Ask, in your head:

‘What energy, space and consciousness can I be that would allow my whole body to relax with ease?’

Simply live in that question (rather than look for an answer). For me, while I live with the question, I find my body makes tiny adjustments, which don’t disturb the position of my hands on the person’s head, allowing my body to relax completely even though I appear to be in an awkward position.

TAT Pose

If you practice TAT, you’ll know that the TAT Pose itself has a very relaxing effect on  your whole energy system.

If you’re new to TAT, you’ll see a 2 minute video showing the TAT Pose here.

The main thing is to find a comfortable position to take the Pose, so your arms don’t get tired while you hold them up to the front and back of your head. Some people find it most relaxing to lie down, and have some cushions to support their arms.

Simply hold the TAT Pose for up to 5 minutes (and no more than a maximum of 10 minutes in any 1 day).

I’ve been using these methods for years, with a little practice you’ll soon find the one you chose gives you rapid results.

You may be surprised at some of the positions where you can relax. Alain Herriott had us do an exercise where we were to relax on the floor with a tennis ball under our backs – we did so!

The Delicious Nugget: Deeply relaxing your body until it is very comfortable will raise your potency for whatever lies ahead.

If you were able to figure out with your mind how to resolve your sore back, wouldn’t you have done so by now? You probably need to access another source of information and awareness – your heart  – the place in your body where you feel things, so you can use your feelings to heal more quickly.

For me it’s like driving off with my handbrake on – I notice there’s a drag on the car, and wonder why I’m going so slowly, until I suddenly remember to release the handbrake, and away I go with speed and ease!

Wouldn’t it be good to be able to remove the drag on your healing as easily as releasing your handbrake?

The trick with many energy healing methods is to turn off your brain and drop into your heart, or feeling area. However, because of our left-brain, analytical culture, it can be really difficult to switch off your brain, which can chatter its way round and round the problem, with no access to a solution.

You may be surprised that your heart has brain cells, and they were created before your heart was, while you were in your mother’s womb. So by moving your awareness to your heart, you can access another type of wisdom.

Two quick ways to disengage your brain

Put your hand on your heart

Simply placing your hand over your heart moves your awareness down from your mind to you to your heart – your feeling area.

Bow your head

Bowing your head also disengages your brain, and moves your focus to your heart – where you feel things.

Whatever energy healing method you’re using, try disengaging your brain – at least for part of the time, and experience your healing process speeding up!

The Delicious Nugget: Disengaging your brain helps you tune more readily into your feelings, and speeds up your energy healing.

Read on to find out how I now enjoy just one piece of chocolate!

I’ve had a few goes at ‘conscious’ or ‘mindful’ eating, which haven’t been too successful. Here’s the simple approach that works for me.

It can be fun to share this experience with friends. Taking your time is of the essence here, so make sure you have a few minutes of unhurried time when you won’t be distracted.

If you’re not a chocolate fan, try this with another food that you would like to eat less of – maybe a savoury, salty food.

1.      Savour with all your senses

Touch the chocolate, feel it, look at it, smell it – take your time to really connect to it with all your senses.

For me, taking the time to really absorb the smell of the chocolate is satisfying. It doesn’t stimulate my appetite in the same way as a cursory sniff, so sometimes this is enough and I no longer want to eat it!

What do you notice?

2.      Roll it around in your mouth

Now put the chocolate in your mouth, and without biting, roll it around with your tongue. Again, take your time with this.

For me, I notice the smoothness and the start of a creamy taste.

What do you notice?

3.      Chew and swallow

Now bite the chocolate, and chew it slowly until you’re ready to swallow.

For me, if it’s a good quality chocolate I enjoy the melting creaminess and flavour. With cheap chocolate I notice an artificial taste and too much sugar that I don’t like – no more of that, thank you!

What do you notice?

4.      Check if you want more

Finally, check to see whether you want more.

For me, I now find I’m satisfied with one chocolate, or one piece of a chocolate bar  - there’s simply no urge to eat more!

What does your check tell you?

You may find, like me, that one chocolate was enough. If you want more, eat the next chocolate in the same conscious way, and then check again. You’ll probably find you are satisfied well short of your usual ‘appetite’.

If you still want to eat the whole box, it’s probably time to see if you’re eating to dull uncomfortable emotions rather than satisfy your body’s needs. Watch out for another article on that!

The Delicious Nugget: Consciously eating chocolate, by slowly savouring it with all your senses, makes it more satisfying so you won’t want to eat so much of it. You may not want to eat it at all!

Your body has innate wisdom, consciousness and healing power

Your body has been your faithful companion all your life; doesn’t it make sense to tune into her needs? After all your body is unique, so who better to tell you what will keep her (or him!) happy and healthy

So, when did you last listen to your body? I mean really listen to what your body needs, rather than you decide what you think your body wants to eat/drink/wear, what exercise she will benefit from, when and for how long she needs to sleep, whether it would be most rewarding for her to walk by the river or in the woods, and so on?

This begs the question of how to listen to your body; fortunately there are several ways to do this. They are all variations on the theme of tapping into your body’s wisdom, just as you can tune into a radio station using different wavelengths. For many years I used dowsing and muscle testing to check what resonated for my body, and these are excellent methods to pursue.

Nowadays I talk directly with my body. For me this has the advantage of gaining information from my body that I may never find through questions that require Yes/No responses.

For example, rather than check out: yoga / jogging / Pilates / Psychocalisthenics in turn, I simple ask her what exercise she would like to do, and she may say ‘I want to go dancing’, which I hadn’t even considered.

To talk to my body, I focus inside and relax with a couple of deep breaths. On a deep outbreath,  I silently say to myself ‘be the breath’, and this instantly takes me to a very still place of consciousness.

Other ways to get to that place of knowingness include: rolling your eyes up to go into the theta state, as used in The One Command, or taking the TAT Pose. The firstI got talking to my body was was during a TAT session, so if you’re a TAT person, you might like to take the TAT Pose while inviting your body to talk to you.

Then I simply say ‘Hello Sula’ (she told me her name the first time we talked), and in my mind’s eye appears a dancing, energetic being – very much like a fairy. We then have a conversation, which for me is very much like talking to a person. You may find you communicate in other ways, eg through images or sensations or insights.

An important key is to trust whatever comes to you first as you listen to your body, however strange it may seem.

To build your confidence it’s also a good idea to practice often, with small things. As you follow through with what your body needs and she gets happier and healthier, you’ll want to keep talking to her!

How to follow through with what your body needs, rather than allow your mind and emotions to over-ride her requirements? That will need to be another article!

The Delicious Nugget: Your body knows best what she needs. Relax, invite your body to tell you what she needs, and trust what comes up.

As the festive season approaches you’ll probably be bombarded with more food than at any other time of the year.

This year I’ve become much more aware of my eating; so here’s the most powerful tip I use to eat well and feel good afterwards!

If you think you’re inevitably going to overeat and you project all the associated feelings such as feeling over-full, a temporary high and then a lethargic slump and maybe some guilt, that’s what will most likely materialise for you. It’s the Law of Attraction at work – what you think about and feel manifests as your reality.

The trick here is to change your thinking and feelings in advance! You replace the old thinking and feelings with the positive thoughts and feelings you will have as you eat what your body needs and you feel great afterwards. For me this is a feeling of relief that I’ve eaten what my body needs, and the alertness and aliveness that comes from eating well.

To take this beyond positive thinking – which is hard work and often fizzles out, it’s best to experience the feeling of good eating when you’re in your sub-conscious mind. This enables you to access the extraordinary power of your subconscious that controls most of your activities. For example, once you learned to walk your sub-conscious mind took over, so you no longer need to consciously think how to walk.

How good would it be to reprogramme your sub-conscious mind so you automatically eat well too?

There are many ways to access your sub-conscious mind – where your brain is in the theta state – eg meditation, The One Command, Sedona Releasing, EFT etc. My Delicious Moment of Now, or simply asking yourself Am I Still Breathing? will help you quickly access your sub-conscious.

Taking a little time each day to feel the good feelings of eating well will automatically reprogram your sub-conscious to guide you to appropriate action so you actually eat well in practice. You don’t need to be concerned with how this works – simply raise your vibration to the good feelings of eating well while in your sub-conscious mind, and you will attract the reality of eating well.

Of course like learning to ride a bike you need a little discipline at first, until it becomes automatic and your sub-conscious takes over!

Any time you catch yourself feeling doubts or going back to your old feelings, take a minute or so to get into that meditative state, and feel the good feelings of eating well again. It won’t be long until your sub-conscious is running them for you, and as you experience the bliss of good eating, so you expect to eat well, and you’ve set up a virtuous circle!

Once your subconscious is reprogrammed the actions you need to take to eat well will come easily to you. You’ll find it easy to:

• wait until you are hungry before you eat – perhaps by eating less between meals.
• eat what your body needs – this may vary from day to day, and you may find some surprises. What Does Your Body Really Want To Eat?
• recognise when you’ve eaten enough – rediscover your signal for ‘enough’!

Happy eating!

The Delicious Nugget: Just as you trained your sub-conscious to automate your walking, with a little effort you can train it to guide you to easily eat well.

Have you ever struggled with the discipline of rinsing your sprouts twice a day?

Sprouted seeds, pulses, grains and nuts are highly nutritious: they are living foods with all their vital force present, and as embryonic plants they are loaded with the enzymes our bodies need to carry out a myriad of processes. They also help alkalise our bodies, and are rich in minerals.

Cooked and processed foods are enzyme-poor, so many of us end up short of enzymes, and our bodies may even draw enzymes from other organs to help us digest the food we eat.

What better than to eat live, nutritious foods in the form of sprouts? As well as being nutritious, they are very tasty – with flavours ranging from the peppery radish to the nutty chick pea. I’ve also been surprised how filling they are.How to sprout the easy way

1. Buy yourself an ‘Easy Sprout Sprouter’ at a very reasonable price from Amazon UK, or USA.
2. Select something to sprout – my favourite is a mix of different types of lentil – green, puy and brown. [Sprouts that get mucilaginous, and therefore do need to be rinsed frequently are not suitable for this method.]
3. Fill the inner sprouter beaker to about one third full with eg lentils, and place inside the outer beaker.
4. Add water to almost fill the sprouter (I use filtered water, as the sprouts will absorb the water). Put the vented lid on, and leave to soak overnight.
5. Empty the excess water, take out the inner beaker with the sprouts and rinse very thoroughly under the tap. Drain the excess water by shaking the beaker containing the lentils..
6. Replace the vented lid, and leave the sprouts to grow until the shoots are about the same length as the lentils. This takes 2-4 days depending on the temperature. I keep my sprouter on a sunny window ledge.
7. Once the sprouts are ready, store in an airtight container in the fridge. You can use the sprouter itself with its sold lid, or another container.

Your sprouts will easily keep for a week in the fridge.

Easy, eh?

Eating your sprouts!

Now for the good part! Because your sprouts are still alive, they have not lost any of the nutrients as happens with so many transported fresh foods.

Sprouts are good in salads, sprinkled on soups, as an addition to wraps, or even as part of your juice. You can also use them as the base for making pates and dips, like hummus.

It’s good to eat a variety of different types of sprout, to benefit from a range of nutrition.

The Delicious Nugget: Sprouts are highly nutritious, live foods, that you can easily grow with a minimum of effort.

Your body is unique, so why not tune into her specific needs, rather than follow the rules someone else has developed for their very different body?

In the self-development arena there’s sometimes a notion that we need to get beyond the shackles of the body into the ‘higher’ world of the spirit. On the contrary, our bodies are highly aware – perhaps more than we are, and you can easily tune into your body’s awareness.

The Leaning Test

There are many ways to check what your body wants to eat, such muscle testing and dowsing with a pendulum, both of which take a bit of practice.

Here’s the easiest way to check if your body wants to eat a particular food. from Access Consciousness.

1. Stand with your feet together, heels and ankles touching.
2. Have an open mind about what your body wants!
3. Hold the food or drink you’re considering in front of your solar plexus (ie a little higher than your navel).
4. Check which way your body leans:
   • towards the food means your body wants the food
   • away from the food means your body doesn’t want the food.

After a few practices, you’ll find this a quick and easy way to check what your body wants to eat.

If you’re unable to hold the food, as in a shop or restaurant, simply look at the food, or the item on the menu, and your body will respond to its vibration.

Now to explode another eating myth – what your body wants to eat today, it may not want to eat tomorrow! Your body has no hard and fast rules like never eating chocolate; one day it may need chocolate, another it may not!

Prepare to be surprised at what your body wants to eat and drink, and how this changes from day to day!

As always, please check with your medical practitioner if you are concerned about the food your body can tolerate.

The Delicious Nugget: Your body knows best what it wants to eat at any given time, use the leaning technique to tune into your body’s awareness of what it needs at any given time.

This article answers the 6 questions people often asked

What are The Bars?

There are 32 ‘Bars’ of energy that run through and round your head. They relate to a range of aspects of your life, including Healing, Body, Money, Control, Sadness, Joy, Peace & Calm, Ageing etc.

Each Bar stores the electro-magnetic component of all the conditioning you have stored about that particular area of your life (often experienced as stress), that limits your experience of what life can be.

Where do The Bars come from?

Gary Douglas channelled the 32 Bars in the early 90s.

Gary is the founder of Access Consciousness, which aims ‘to create a world of consciousness and oneness’. Access Consciousness offers thousands of tools and techniques to help you access consciousness. These tools and techniques fall into two groups: body processes – including The Bars, and verbal processing.

Having your Bars run is the foundation of Access. It’s also a very effective stand-alone gateway to a more joyful life.

Is it like Reiki?

No! Having your Bars run is quite different to Reiki, acupuncture, reflexology, phrenology, EFT and all other modalities.

What happens in a Bars session?

As each Bar is activated, all the redundant conditioning you are willing to let go, automatically dissipates out of your head. Just like pressing the Delete button on your computer!

You lie fully clothed on a couch for about an hour, while your Bars practitioner gently touches small groups of Bars on your head.

For a distance session, you simply relax while your Bars are run ‘remotely’. Yes, I can tell you from experience, distance sessions are very potent! Listen to Liam Phillips interview me about distance healing here.

What will having my Bars run do for me?

As you easily and effortlessly undo years of conditioning you create more space in your head, and more opportunity to be the joyful you! As a minimum you will feel very calm and relaxed. Beyond that it’s your choice how you use your new space!

Will I need my Bars run more than once?

Ideally every two or three weeks. To return to the computer analogy, it’s good to frequently ‘clear the history’ of the points of view you’ve accumulated! That’s why it’s good to do the Bars Training, so you can set up Bars exchanges with colleagues, family and friends.

More questions?

I’d love to answer them, please ask them on my Blog, or contact me.

The Delicious Nugget: Having your Bars run allows you to easily and effortlessly release old conditioning, opening up the space in your head for more joyful living!