Nobody's perfect

Nobody's perfect. I'm CERTAINLY not perfect.

Sometimes it's all to easy to tell people what to do, dishing out the advice like candy, but taking none of your own. The doctor telling the patient they must give up smoking before going out for a cigarette on their lunchbreak. The fitness instructor having one to many drinks on a night out and failing to get up for their morning exercise routine. The drugs counsellor lighting up a joint after a hard day at work. Do as I say, not as I do. That's what they say, isn't it?

I know this happens, because I've seen it happen, and if truth be told, it's happened to me too. I've been known to have one too many drinks on a night out, I've had the occasional recreational smoke, I failed (many a time) to get up for my morning exercise routine, I've eaten a whole 10oz steak, with peppercorn sauce AND chips, followed by an unhealthy portion of chocolate cake WITH cream. And I've loved every mintue of it. GUILTY PLEASURES.

And do you know what? It IS ok... (and here it comes) IN MODERATION.

The law of the universe, according to the principles of Yin and Yang, relies on BALANCE. And we hear this all the time. Make sure you eat a balanced diet. Maintain a healthy work/home life balance. Don't tip the balance. Balance, balance, balance.

Yet many of us feel unbalanced. We try desperately to hang onto our perfectly balanced life, whilst everything falls down around us. And sometimes it's because we TRY TOO HARD. Go easy on yourself!!

There's one emotion that I've already mentioned that tends to prevent us from taking our well-deserved break. GUILT. Our guilty pleasures. And many of these feelings of guilt are imposed on us by modern day society. We're fed an idealistic view of what appears to be an almost Aryan utopia of what we should be striving for. HER: Skinny. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. HIM: Muscles. Six pack. Chiselled jaw line. 2.4 children. Private school. Perfect home á la Kirstie Allsopp. Domestic bliss...

We feel guilty for not going to the gym. We feel guilty for eating that piece of chocolate cake. We feel guilty for having one too many glasses of wine. We feel guilty for dumping our problems on other people. We feel guilty for having an untidy home. Guilt, guilt, guilt. It's always there lurking in the background ready to pounce at the slightest slip up. Like a disappointed parent shaking it's finger at us. You shouldn't have done that now, should you? 

Guilt, in Chinese Medicine, stagnates. It affects the energy of our Liver and our Heart. And it's very damaging. It blocks the natural flow of energy through the body and depletes it over time. It can make us feel frustrated, miserable and vulnerable. It can cause tension in our neck and shoulders, it can cause headaches, it can cause heart palpitations and it can affect our menstrual cycle (though not mine, I might add).

I recently had a mini-breakdown, a flid (that's what I call it. Why? I don't know), because everything just got too much. I was trying to set up a new business, I was trying to network with as many people as possible, maintaining my perfect "sunshine face!" (that I sometimes find so desperately annoying), I was trying to fit in my exercise regime, my healthy eating plan, my administration, my socialising, my supporting my friends, my family, my maintaing a healthy bank balance (that was slipping away fast), and BOOM. It hit me like a truck with no breaks skidding down Fish Hill in the Cotswolds, i.e. fast, uncontrollably and painfully. All because I felt enough guilt that I needed to maintain this perfect healthcare professional exterior when in actual fact, I needed to stop. My energy was zapped, I suffered migraines, I felt like I had the flu (when I knew I didn't), and I was utterly miserable.

In trying to maintain my perfectly balanced life, I had become way out of balance.

So, what did I do? I stopped. I stopped everything. I took myself off to bed and I stayed there for a whole 48 hours. When I was hungry I bought myself fish and chips. I watched films. I ate chocolate. I slept A LOT. And slowly, I started to feel better again. Goes against all the principles doesn't it? Now the nutritionalists amongst us may argue (indeed correctly) that what I needed was super-nutrition, but I counter that with what I needed to do was feed my Liver. Feed your Liver? Yes, feed my Liver.

The Liver, when it's out of balance, CRAVES. And sometimes, by ignoring those cravings completely you get can more out of balance. So, I allowed myself time to rest and I fed those cravings. Now, I have to be careful here, because cravings can become habitual, and of course when they do, we've gone out of balance too far the other way, in which case professional help should be sought. But in the majority of cases, feeding your cravings once in a while is absolutely fine.

My advise that I want to give you is ALLOW YOURSELF A BREAK from time to time. Whatever it takes. Have a day off from work and spend it in bed. Pack the kids off to the grandparents and lounge around the house. Eat cake. Drink coffee. Get drunk. Whatever it may be, just do it. IN MODERATION.

Now I'm back to my healthy lifestyle, going to the gym, eating well, feeling postive, and all because I needed that break to refuel. Sounds daft doesn't it? Well, perhaps it is, but I certainly don't feel guilty about it. And I'm well aware of the luxury of allowing myself time off. Many of us have family's to look after, work full time, social events, etc, etc, but allowing yourself a break from life every now and again is absolutely fine!

It's like I said... nobody's perfect.