Soulful Sunday - Meditation, Gratitude and a General Update

Meditation

I have been trying to implement meditation into my morning routine. I wake up naturally, no alarms (unless I go to the wholesale market very early) and I get myself a drink of half a squeezed lemon and 500mls distilled water. This is important to get my system powered up and cleaned out from the day before! I take this back to bed and put on some meditation music off my YouTube playlist, lately I have been listening to the Chakra Chants. I think I did this 3 consecutive days in a row and I find that as soon as something disturbs the routine I am thrown off easily.

"They" say the best time to meditate is in the morning, but I get so relaxed that I end up falling asleep again! I seem to be sleeping a lot these days, going to bed at 9pm and waking up at 7am, but sometimes I have slept till after 9am despite the early night. My exercise is somewhat none existent, so I am rather confused as to why I sleep a lot! 

I find that the best time for me to meditate is in the morning because I have less disturbance from my house mate, alternatively I will meditate when he goes out. Some days I will get into a really deep state and one time I felt like I was above my body (I was quickly brought back though), but other times I will find it hard to keep my mind quiet. 

If you want to start meditating and need some tips then I recommend you get acquainted with the Chakras. I find that I get more from working on my Chakras than just breathing, but a good place to start is being aware of your thoughts and your breathing (e.g. take a deep breath and follow it to your stomach, legs, feet, toes, etc. feeling the sensation as it gets to each of these body parts).

Gratitude

I am currently on Day 26 of my gratefulness challenge and I have 5 more videos to film. I started an appreciation blog a few years ago and I made 146 posts! That is quite an achievement for me, so hopefully when the videos stop I will be able to carry on being grateful and thankful throughout my day. I want to be aware of everything in my day to day life and I think being grateful should start first thing in the morning. 

General Update

My house mate and I have decided that we are going to cycle to the Wholesale Fruit and Veg market 3 times a week. We have been getting a lot of free food recently and believe that we could probably sustain ourselves on this produce and reduce our spending. We would still have to buy bananas in bulk and we seem to have to buy tomatoes too. I will be spending some money on persimmons and cherimoya too because I enjoy these fruits a lot.

I had a Tarot reading on Wednesday and it was my first time. I actually started my day in Liverpool after spending the night at my dad's house (we had a father-daughter trip the day before). My dad had turned the TV over to the psychic channel and we watched a bit of Sally Morgan, she has a TV show that follows her around during her tours and one on one readings. From what I have experienced, my dad is a logical thinker and needs to see proof before he accepts the idea. Sally can speak with spirits and she was doing just that on her show whilst my dad tried to express his opinions that she is just a performer. I too used to think like my dad, "it's made up", "it's staged", but Sally seems really genuine.

I told my dad I was going for a reading as he dropped me off at the train station. I thought it was quite funny that we even had the discussion in front of the TV because he didn't know about my reading at that point! I don't want to tell you what was said to me, but a quarter of the way through I had a spirit come to tell me that I will be OK, I broke down in tears! I wasn't expecting any message, but to have one after the morning's discussion just hit me from nowhere! 

The rest of my reading was so accurate to my current journey I was just shocked that this is so real and I have now witnessed first hand that there really is something in the Tarot and people with psychic abilities. Out of all the cards I could choose, I got the ones that suggest I will be OK and everything that I am working for will work out. 

This afternoon I am going to a spiritualist church for the first time to see what it is like. I have really been feeling a calling recently.

I am going to leave it here and wish you all a wonderful Sunday afternoon. I hope you will get in touch if you want to tell me about your experiences.

Love

Jennifer x

Think Thursday - Gratefulness

I may have already posted about gratefulness before, but I have a new understanding that you can never be too grateful.

I have been doing a gratefulness challenge on YouTube because I have been and can still be rather ungrateful. What I am hoping to get from this challenge is the ability to be aware of everything in life, from the small things like being grateful for having a bed, food, water, etc to having opportunities, supportive friends and the ability to do whatever I set my mind to.

Since starting this challenge I have opened my mind a lot more (there's still a long way to go don't get me wrong!), but it has taught me many things about myself and about the rest of the world. It is great getting feedback from my very small audience as it is reassuring that these videos do help other people realise how important it is to be grateful for everything, even the small things. I am grateful that people have taken the time to watch my videos and even read this blog! 

There's so much to be grateful for everyday, so many people to be grateful to, yet I still seem to overlook the most important aspect of life. God.

I am not a religious person. I was brought up protestant and went to Sunday school until the age of 11, but once my parents divorced that was the end of my participation in practising religion. I contemplated going back to church when I was 21, but I didn't take it any further and since then I considered myself atheist. However, this year has changed me. I've met people, watched documentaries, read (and still am reading) books and see things around me that seem coincidental, but now I know that there's no such thing as a coincidence or chance.

I believe in God, but I do not believe in any particular religion.

Without God, we would not exist. God is the creator. I am grateful for having this life and for my journey. One day I will meet God, but until then I take comfort in his presence. I hope that one day you all reach a point in your life where you accept God as being the creator and find comfort and awareness of his presence.

It really is important to be grateful and step by step I hope to improve myself so that it is something I do automatically without the need to think.

What are you grateful for? Let me know your thoughts about God.

Jennifer x

Hairy women

I  have not epilated, shaved or waxed my body hair since I arrived back in the UK on 22nd July. The only body hair I have maintained are my eyebrows (and even that's becoming less frequent!) 

If you have any experience or imagination at all I'm sure you can guess my armpits are reasonably hairy, as are my legs! 

I decided that I wasn't going to remove my armpit or leg hair because being back in the UK it doesn't usually get or stay hot enough to bare these parts of my body. After a few weeks my hair had grown quite quickly and I started to really like having armpit hair. I often find myself loosely pulling at it as if it were some sort of relaxation exercise! 

Initially it was the armpit hair that I was only interested in keeping, I was inspired to keep it by Miss Diana Fruitypants from Canberra, Australia. We met at the Thai Fruit Festival in July and she had this wonderful patch of hair on her armpits. Admittedly I was taken aback by it, not sure why I was surprised to see hair there on a woman, but it really grew on me. After some thought I remembered how natural it is. 

Proud to show my hairy pit!

I am in somewhat of a love hate relationship with my leg hair. Having grown up secretly shaving my legs (when my mum went to work) to avoid the name calling or general making fun of at school, I have always viewed having leg hair as disgusting and not very feminine so this is still a challenge to get used to. 

At first I had decided to keep the hair out of laziness. I normally epilate so it is quite painful, as is waxing. When I shave I sometimes experience irritation and I'd definitely never use hair removal cream as it has so many chemicals in it. Therefore, I decided that I would see how long I could grow my hair before a. I got disgusted by it b. it started to get too long c. it had a negative effect on my life. 

So far I have found myself only disgusted with my leg hair, but then I put on some trousers and it goes away! I think even today it isn't too long, it's just longer than it's ever been. It should never have a negative effect on my life. If anyone has a problem it is with themselves, so in that respect I would disregard them! 

I have recently googled "women with hairy armpits" and I was surprised to see a movement this year to embrace having hairy armpits! (Link, Link, Link) It gave me a sense of liberation when I saw so many pictures of young women posting their pit pics with pride and of course we have the much loved celebrities who have covered numerous magazines and newspapers with their hairy armpits. I am in full support of this hairy movement! Let's get back to being as natural as we can (without defecating in public of course)!! 

My mum's reaction to my hairy armpits was somewhat unexpected, although I should have prepared for it in all honesty. Apparently in the 21st Century women shouldn't be hairy... Also, because I have previously removed my hair it grows back differently, so I should continue removing it... Now I haven't done my research about the growing back part, but really the 21st Century comment can be turned around like this, it's the 21st Century so I have every right to do with my body as I please (without breaking any universal laws) , so if somebody has a problem with my body then the problem lies within themselves (as stated above)! 

Admittedly it is shocking at first, but once you give it time it grows on you (pun intended)! If you're female I urge you to try it out, if you're male I urge you to encourage your partner to try it out! Let's learn to embrace nature, if it wasn't meant to be there then it wouldn't grow. 

Hairy women unite! 

Jennifer x