Something by Susie

Phew! That’s a toughie, these days I find more and more things around me quite draining.  Remembering to be kinder to myself, pushing the things away that don’t serve me that drain me definitely helps.  Out of all that darkness comes the lighter things.


This question today feels planted in my life, I was clearing out bookshelves a few hours ago and I literally picked up a very slim book – 50 natural ways to energize, by Tracey Kelly.  I put it straight back down on my pile for ones to keep and read later.  So, I am hoping that my thoughts feature somewhere in that book and that I am indeed just like everyone else. Let’s see shall we!

1.  I always find it odd that expending energy in a gym, running, playing a sport or even just walking Harper, energises me.  Its true, when you do that work out as gruelling as it may be, I always find an extra bounce in my step as I leave the gym, that, I’m proud of myself bounce. The issue is always summoning the motivation to do it in the first place.  So, if it’s something easy I seem to tell myself i’ll do it, in truth it doesn’t matter how easy it is, I can still talk myself out of it.

2.  My brother recently told me about ‘Japanese walking’, I arched an eyebrow at him at that one.  Basically, its interval walking to the rest of us, you walk fast for 3min and then walk very slow for 3 mins and repeat 5 times.  Now this is something I can get onboard with, its logical and makes sense to me.  More importantly I already walk the dog every morning, so all I have to do is adjust my style and hope no one sees me!

3.  The cold shower seems to perk me up, having a nice shower, lovely scents, then ruining it with flicking the dial over to cold.  Not sure why but I have to close my eyes and tense, I mean that in itself can’t be good for you, but cold blast I go, then I spend the next few mins telling myself how awesome I am, how committed I am to completing the required mins under this torture.  That my skin will thank me later – I’m still waiting! But I do get out of that shower feeling more awake, more alive, more motivated to move and get stuff done, so it gets a tick

4.  Dancing like no one is watching is an awesome energising, make you breathless kind of fun, leaves you smiling or laughing dependant on how you dance.  Don’t get me wrong it’s definitely nothing I would do in public, but it shows that we hold ourselves back, or at least I do, and I am sure I’m not the only one.  I find some awesome tracks on my ‘Alexa’ and jump about, singing as loud as I dare, Harper tends to get up from her relaxed slumber and move at this point to a different location. After a few tracks I’m knackered, and have to have a massive glass of water, and I pat myself on the back for hydration, and calories burned, and now motivated to changed the bed, or do the washing or some other previously delayed chore.

5.  Laughter is a medicine we should give ourselves daily, sharing a few mins on call with a friend, having a laugh leaves the both of us ready to face our challenges, and its weird, its like we can sense when the other one needs it, so we pick up the phone to be met with, “I was just thinking about you” – spooky

6.  My challenge is usually when I am at work, with the addition of stress, walking it off helps but it only walks of the stress it doesn’t ‘energise’ me. I have however, found that a good sniff of Peppermint essential oil, and a positive chat about how awesome I am, does go someway to get a boost during the day.

But I do have a rule –  if I am mad or sad about something, that I feel I need to deal with it and it can’t be avoided, I only give myself 15 mins to wallow in that vibe, then I let it go and move on!  Now that is advice I wish more pessimistic/negative people would follow, I definitely don’t ring those up for a laugh!