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How Nikki Harman went on a journey from being homeless to practicing mindfulness. Plus the best food for mental clarity.Hi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:From Homelessness To MindfulnessIn addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best food for mental clarity and focus. This food literally raises our brain function to its maximum and it's really easy to find.OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story.I am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Nikki Harman, who has an amazing story to tell. Not only has she been through quite a lot in her life, but what she does now is super exciting as well. So I really can't wait to dive into it, and so let's do it!Nikki welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast!Nikki: Hello! Thank you for having me.Me: You're very welcome!Nikki's storySo you've got quite an incredible story and I'm actually quite honored that you're happy to share it with us and everything. I know that your story, I believe your story begins when your parents split up, is that right? And you were about eleven, is that right?Nikki: Yes, so when I was eleven my parents split up. And at the time just before they split up I was living in a really lovely six-bedroom Victorian house in a nice seaside town. My parents had good jobs and all was going fairly well, but they split up. And because the house we were living in came with the job that my dad had, we lost the house.Me: Oh!Losing everythingNikki: So we lost everything basically. My dad moved to London to go and find work, and my brother, myself and my mom moved into this temporary accommodation, a bed and breakfast.Me: How old was your brother?Nikki: My brother was eight.Me: Sorry?Nikki: I was eleven and he was seven. So it was from the age of eleven to twelve that we were in this temporary accommodation. For a year before we were rehomed into a council flat, so my brother was seven and eight.Me: Wow yeah. What did your father do during this time? Did he just like go to London and not look back, or...?Nikki: He came down when he could. Although he was working most of that time. And I remember only really seeing him every few weeks. Probably every four to six weeks, an occasional day trip down, a Saturday. Most of the time it was just me and my mom and my brother.Me: And so your mom, she wasn't at the time of the split...She was looking after you? Did she have any other work or a job?Nikki: No, she didn't work. It kind of broke her, this whole situation. She wound up having quite a significant mental breakdown over it. She became quite distant and disengaged with us. It was just really quite difficult because I remember what it was like just before we moved out saying goodbye.Packing your life awayWe had two beautiful cats and a couple of cockatiels and we had to rehome them. Just packing all of our belongings, packing everything away. Everything in my room, all my toys, my books, my stereo, my tapes, cassette tapes. All my music, all that kind of stuff, it all had to be put away. And I felt like I was packing away a part of me, really.That was my room, that was just me. So what it must have been like for my mom to pack everything in the house away and not know when next we might see it all.We were told initially that the law is that temporary accommodation means four to six weeks before you are rehomed. Clearly that doesn't happen now and it didn't happen then. And so we didn't really know how long it would be. It was kind of assumed at the time that it would be a short-term thing. But it became clear very quickly that that wasn't going to be the case. So by the time we moved into this room that had just a bed and two bunk beds in...Me: That was the B&B?Nikki: Yes that was in the B&B where we were living, that was where we lived, that was our home. And we were able to use the dining room for breakfast with the other guests, we'd get an evening meal.Life in a B&BBut the B&B itself was quite run down and the people there I think had sort of a prejudiced attitude towards us, because we were council tenants. We weren't normal paying B&B guests, so they treated us quite differently.When there were other guests staying, we got better quality food. But if it was just us, it was very much sugar puffs in the morning, a piece of toast. And then in the evening it was often like a tinned stew or tinned something. It wasn't proper cooked, home-cooked food. Tinned potatoes...They would be as cheap as much as they could. We didn't really have much in the way of quality food.But I was grateful really for having had anything to eat at all, because it was quite the case that we didn't get lunch during the weekends and school holidays because the B&B didn't provide that for us. And my mom didn't have a job, she didn't have money, she didn't have the inclination really to be wanting to do very much in the way of supporting me and my brother. So we'd go quite hungry throughout the days when we were not at school.Me: So how could...I mean, what I don't understand is how could the owner of a B&B have, you know, children in their home who don't have food. You know? Like when you're on school holidays, you're still in the B&B. They still see you every day, they know you haven't eaten anything. And yet they just don't feed you. I don't understand that.Nikki: No, I mean occasionally we'd get a jam sandwich.Me: Yeah. Oh boy.Being kept out of the wayNikki: Something like that. But they weren't like that, they weren't those kind of people. They had their own children anyway. So they were sort of preoccupied with them. They didn't really pay too much attention to us. And actually they didn't want us there. During the day we were kind of kept out of the way. Sometimes we'd be allowed to go and play in the garden with their children.Me: That's what I was going to ask, yeah, if you ever played with their children.Nikki: Yeah, we did, but not very much.Me: Did you have to like stay in the room or something?Nikki: Yeah, we stayed in the room a lot. Me: Wow.Nikki: So it just wasn't a very pleasant experience. And given that we were living in a seaside town....My mom, because of the way she was, didn't want us to go onto the beach. To get to this bed and breakfast we had to walk past the beach. And we were never allowed to go and play on the beach in the summer holidays.Me: Oh that's awful!So close yet so far from the beachNikki: We saw people playing with their sand castles and eating ice cream, and the smell of fish and chips everywhere you went. All these lovely things, and on a hot day just not being able to go on the beach because my mom didn't want us to do that. We would invariably be...we didn't go into town very much because mom didn't want to. But it would be to go into the lauderette to wash our clothes. So we'd sit there and then head back home.I'll never forget that, just not being able to play on the beach. And then having to go and sit in this room on lovely sunny days, and hear about all the real guests in the B&B going off and doing fun stuff. Where they'd been and what they'd been doing. It was all quite difficult.Me: I'll bet. And your mom, I think you said, was she like smoking? What did she do? You said she was like smoking all day or something?Nikki: Yeah, she was a smoker.Me: So you were in one room with a mom smoking all day. Ewww.Nikki: Yeah, not nice.Me: Oh my goodness. And so that lasted a year, yeah?Nikki: Yeah, so what happened...It was a year long in temporary accommodation.A cottage for the winterThe council put us in a what was called a winter let from about November to February time. February March time. So we were moved out of the bed and breakfast and into this tiny, tiny dilapidated, rundown cottage which... It just had frost on the inside of the windows. The only sort of heating was a tiny little fire in the lounge.My brother shared a bed with my mom and then I was in another room. So I was grateful to have my own space. But the sheets were wet from the cold in the house and the condensation.Me: So did you have to like sleep in your coats or something?Nikki: Yeah, it was along those lines. Clothes to put on. But my brother got whooping cough that winter as well, which just made it awful for him.Me: I'll bet.Nikki: The freezing cold and coughing. We could hear him coughing all night and wheezing, it was terrible.Life at schoolMe: And what about...Did you have...I mean, you were presumably going to school, right? How was it with the other kids at school? Did you make friends with anybody?Nikki: No, I became quite withdrawn at school because I didn't know how to begin to explain what was happening. A lot of what was going on at the time my mom didn't want us to talk about because she was ashamed. She'd lost everything. As I say, a single mom in a room, we were in this horrible winter let, no money, no home, her mental health was declining. She just didn't want to engage with anyone. And she's always been like that anyway but that compounded it, that exacerbated it at the time.One of the things she would always tell us was to not talk to other people about what was going on at home. So it was very difficult for me to express how I was feeling. I became very anxious, I was incredibly anxious. Because I just didn't know what to do for the best, and how to make the situation better. I wanted to make things better.Me: And you said you took on a parental role with your younger brother, is that right?Nikki: Yeah, very much so. It was all kind of, yeah, just wanting to make sure he was OK and that mom was alright. I'd be kind of quite hyper vigilant about my mom because I'd be worried that she was OK. So at school I'd just have this worry, and because of that, because of my behavior, my friends became quite distant. They didn't understand and I'd try and explain what was going on and how difficult things were.Homeless even with a roof over your headAnd there was that song, you know, The Streets of London? The song about homelessness. One of my friends at the time, who I'm sure didn't really understand how terrible things were for me at home. But she made a very snide remark about that song that we sang one day in our music class. She said, “Well you think you've got it hard. You should see what it's really like for the proper homeless people on the streets. You're not on the streets so you're not homeless”. It was that kind of attitude that they had.And it made me then think 'well no-one believes me. Maybe I am just making all this up. Maybe it isn't as bad as I think it is'. But actually I knew that things were terrible.I was declining at school, my grades were dropping, my concentration was terrible. As I said, I was always very anxious and worried that something terrible was going to happen.No dad and no moneyMe: And where was your dad during all this time. Because presumably he was working in London so he must have had some money, right?Nikki: Yeah, he had some money, some of it was going to Mum. But obviously he was paying rent on wherever he was living at the time and doing whatever. And my mom, I think because she smoked and she drank... The thing is that she would deny this vehemently now if she were sat here next to me. And I've confronted her about it in the past but she seems to remember that she didn't drink because we had no money. But I can remember her, I can specifically remember her drinking a lot and smoking a lot. So where that money was going I don't know. I had no contact with him really because, you know, mobile phones hadn't been invented, we didn't have a phone. We had the phone at the B&B when we were staying there. And in the winter let there was a phone box down the road that we went to on a Wednesday evening. He would phone us at seven o'clock, phone this phone box number and we would speak to him. But mostly it was my mom wanting to speak to him. So we got a little bit of time to chat then, but he didn't really know the main things that were going on at the time because I didn't want to worry him. I kind of just held it all in, really.Things start to get better at firstMe: And then how did it start to get better? Because I mean eventually I know that you got out of...you got into the council flat. And then after the winter let was that much better? Or how was that different?Nikki: Well after the winter let we moved back into the bed and breakfast again for about another four months.Me: A different one, yeah?Nikki: Back into the same one. Me: The same one? Oh!Nikki: The same place. Bar one week where they'd been booked so we stayed in the bed and breakfast next door which was lovely. The loveliest people there who cared for us and they were genuinely interested in what we were doing. And it was so sad to then have to go back next door after that. But yeah we were there until June eighty-seven.And then we moved to this beautiful, lovely, I say council flat. But it was like a Victorian building with beautiful views over the sea and large rooms everywhere. A very spacious flat. It was like the best sort of place you can imagine after being stuck in a B&B and a winter let to be able to have our own bedroom and our own space and all that kind of stuff.Me: Did the food situation get better at that point?Nikki: Not initially because Mum still didn't work. She was pleased that we were out of the bed and breakfast, but at that point the divorce started to come through. And so she was still going through her issues and she took quite a decline in her depression and her depressed state. I became increasingly worried about her.A harrowing trip home from schoolMe: Were you afraid that she might, you know, take her own life or something?Nikki: Well she did try once when she picked us up from school in her car.Me: With you in the car?Nikki: With us in the car, yeah. She would often be smelling of alcohol when she picked us up and sometimes she would be taking temazepan. So sometimes she would be quite drowsy at the wheel. I can remember having to kind of steer the car back on the road because she was kind of swerving a bit in and out.Me; That must have been scary.Nikki: It was very scary. But one particular day she was very agitated and upset about something. And when we drove back she took us on a different route to the way back home. We were going up some country roads and there was a coach in front of us. And she started putting her foot down and speeding up trying to get closer to this coach. She then just announced, “How would you like to go to heaven, kids?”Me: Oh wow.Nikki: And we both started screaming. I sat in the front and my brother was in the back.Me: How old were you then?Nikki: I was twelve at that point and my brother was eight. And I was turning to face my mom and holding my brother's hand in the back seat to try and reassure him. Putting my hand on my mom's arm to try and stop her, and shouting at her to stop and slow down. Just asking her to kind of know that we loved her, we didn't want to die, we wanted to help her and other people wanted to help her.Trying to think like an adultI can distinctly remember trying to think, 'What would an adult say if they were in this car now? What would an adult do to fix this problem?' That's what I remember thinking at the time, what would they do. So I was trying to knock the car out of gear to see if I couldn't do that... I was just pulling at her frantically, and something made her slow down.Me: Wow.Nikki: We headed back home, back into town. But she blamed us, that at that point it was all our fault that she was still alive because she wanted to die. Saying she'd never forgive us and all this kind of stuff that was just pointless.Me: Well and it made it doubly hard for you, right?Nikki: It did, but I just felt so worried for my mom. And when we got back, she then said, “Don't tell anybody that this happened. If you tell anybody, then you'll get taken away from me”.Me: Well you would, yeah.Nikki: I didn't, I didn't say anything.Back on solid groundBut I do remember getting out of the car and touching the ground with my hands. I had to have the front and the back of my hands on the ground because I felt like I'd gone to jelly at that point. The adrenalin had worn off and I was in shock. I just needed contact with the ground to know that I was safe. And then we went off into the garden and she went upstairs and it was never mentioned again. And, you know, again, trying to get my head round all of that with her...Me: Wow.Nikki: She denies that it ever happened, she doesn't remember it. Well she does, I'm sure she must have some recollection of that time in her life. But so she was very depressed.And then going into that flat, although it was great because we had our own space, it just increased our isolation. Because what happened was that she just locked herself away. And because it was coming up to the summer holidays again in eighty-seven, she just hid herself away and me and my brother were in the same situation. Looking after ourselves, and no food in the cupboards. Only what was packed from when we were living in our house, so we were basically helping ourselves.Foraging for foodThis might sound really disgusting, but we'd be really, really hungry and be raiding the cupboards and finding chocolate powder. We'd just eat spoonfuls of dried cocoa powder, chocolate powder. And golden syrup, mixing it with golden syrup to make like a yucky paste just to get something into us. We'd have cereal in the mornings and in the evenings a very basic meal that Mum might come out and make. But she often kind of forgot about us because she was in her own world of depression.Things were very difficult for a long, long time and slowly things improved. Slowly things got better for her and subsequently got better for us. She got herself a job...Me: And how do you think things got better? Like was there any specific thing that started to happen? Or was it just like time healing things?Nikki: I think possibly the fact that there were people...she was on someone's radar. I think one of the local church groups had found her and were trying to connect with her and make contact with her and just try to help her through her darkest days. And I do remember them coming round to see her and she wasn't that bothered by them particularly. But there was somebody there for her to talk to and that was the most important thing that she needed at that time, was an adult.Me: An adult, yeah.Nikki: And it was the most important thing for me and my brother because that meant that someone else was there to share our burden.Me: Oh yeah definitely, you didn't have to be the adult anymore, yeah. Wow.A slow recovery with people to talk toNikki: So it was just a very slow, gradual process. And then she met somebody and things got better from that perspective. You know, her self-esteem improved and she came out of her depression and got on an even footing. But it was over a very long period of time, it took a good...I'd say it took a good twelve to eighteen months for her to get herself on an even keel.Me: Well still though compared to some people that...I mean I know it wouldn't...it didn't feel quick to you, but if I hear twelve to eighteen months, like there are a lot of people that stay in the situation she was in for years and years. So it's a blessing that at least, you know, as horrible as it was, at least she did get out of it eventually, right?Nikki: She did. My mom's a very complex character and I'm not in contact with her anymore because of just the way she's behaved and treated me. And it's a very complex relationship that I have with her, but she never really wanted me. That was the basic...I kind of grew up with that knowledge that she wished I'd never been born. She would often say that to me. And she would often say, “I can't wait till you're eighteen so you can leave home” or “I wish you'd never been born”. You know, those kind of things would come up quite a lot.Trying to do the right thingBut I've always tried to do the right thing. I've always tried to be there and to be the model child that she wanted me to be. I was never good enough for her in her eyes, things like that. It was never going to work. My mom has taught me to be a good parent but by knowing the right way to do stuff rather than the wrong way to care for your children.Me: Yeah. For sure.Starting a businessWhat prompted you to start your business? Was it one incident in particular?Nikki: Well I'd started meditating twenty years ago after I qualified as a nurse. And I found that meditation worked really well for stress and for coping with everything that was going on. As a nurse in a busy hospital you see all sorts of things that affected me. I was quite affected by some of the things and I found that meditation was a really good tool. And when I was going through the difficult period with my husband before the divorce, before I made the decision to end the marriage I was trying to save it. Using meditation as a method of trying to keep my sanity and work through things.And I decided one of the outlets of doing that was writing a course to teach adults how to meditate. That's when I began. I started having groups of people round to teach my four-week course as an introduction into mindfulness and meditation and then it developed from there.My motivator for me when the marriage ended in 2014 was to put my energies into the business and into helping others go through difficult periods in their life by using meditation and mindfulness as a tool.Getting out of your comfort zoneSo I wrote a book called The Gem In The Dust which is about just sort of finding your light within you through whatever difficult period you're having to be able to... Imagine you're sitting in a ragged old sofa and you've got comfortable. You've found your groove in the sofa. And you have to make that choice one day. Whether or not to stay in that groove or to stand up and be uncomfortable for a while and push yourself out of your comfort zone to find out what's really going to work for you. Because you can sit and pretend all you like that your life is good, that your life is happy. But you know that somewhere inside you there's something not quite right. Or eating away at you slowly. Or making you depressed, or anxious or worried or fearful of change. Ultimately you can't ignore that.So The Gem In The Dust is about just being able to find that within you. That power within you to make changes in your life for the positive, for the good. And so I wrote the book and wrote a six-week course to go with it and now teach people that as well.Me: So is the book and the course...those are available from your website, right?Nikki: The book hasn't been published yet, I'm still looking for an author. I can teach the course and I've got my manuscript and I've kind of put it on a back burner for a little while. But I do need to get going with pushing it again and either self publishing or go down a publisher route. Because I want it to work, I want to get it published and I want to reach out to these people.Giving herself therapy by helping othersSo that was enabling me and kind of giving myself therapy throughout the whole sorry tale really of going through that period in my life. That's how the business started.Me: And then now you said that you're doing really amazing things with children, can you say a little bit about that?Nikki: Yeah, I love working with children. I became a Connected Kids tutor and trainer. Connected Kids is founded by this amazing woman called Lorraine Murray who started teaching the courses about twelve years ago. There are three levels and I did the first level which was just a one-day introduction into teaching kids meditation and loved it.I realized that my true passion was working with kids to teach them how to connect with themselves, how to regulate their emotions, how to understand their own world within them and make sense of the world around them and make empathic connections with others. And Lorraine Murray calls us the Peace Pioneers, you know, the people trying to generate peace and harmony and balance into our own world with kids as well. I then went off and became a tutor and then did the trainer module so I now teach adults how to teach children meditation through the Connected Kids courses.Nursing and mindfulnessAnd through my work as a nurse I'm incredibly passionate again about making mindfulness part of the clinical toolkit that we as healthcare professionals can use with children in hospitals and hospices and wherever. I did the introduction course, the Connected Kids introductory course specifically for healthcare workers who work with children in the clinical setting. So I'm hoping to get that running, get that off the ground quite soon. I'm just waiting for someone to take me up on it so that I can start teaching it. Because it does work, I've seen amazing results from teaching kids how to meditate and how to use mindfulness in their lives.Me: Yeah, I mean I think...one of the things that...another thing that really struck me with your story was some of the reasons why you wanted to share this story. And I would love if you would share those because I think it's really important.Nikki: My passion is about helping kids to develop resilience. To learn to be more emotionally connected to themselves and those around them. And to teach adults how to make that connection with their kids or the children that they work with.Being open about mental health issuesMe: But I mean you've also got reasons for sharing your personal story, right? I think you said something about breaking down barriers and addressing the sense of shame that comes... Do you want to say anything around that?Nikki: Yeah, I'm quite open about discussing these things. Because the more it's buried, the more mental ill health is hidden away, the more difficult it becomes to deal with it. And the more difficult it becomes to address it. I want to break down those barriers to reduce that stigma of mental illness. And to accept that it's OK to have a mental health problem. It's not something to be ashamed of. And the more you reach out and access help, the better your chances of recovering and getting treatment are for the problems that you've got. So the worst thing that anybody can do is to pull the shutters down and hide away and pretend that there's nothing wrong.Me: For sure.Where to find NikkiAnd so where can people go to find out more about you and what you're doing? I mean I'll put the links below obviously but it would be good if you could mention where they can find you.Nikki: Sure, well my website is inner space project dot com. And I'm also on Facebook, so it's Facebook dot com forward slash inner space project. I'm on Twitter as at the mindful nurse. So they've got those places they can find me and my website will have all the information about the courses I'm doing. I've got my blog as well which I write on which is inner orange dot blogspot dot com. That has a lot of my personal story on there and how it relates to meditation and mindfulness and wellbeing. But there's also a lot of information about meditation and mindfulness as well. And videos that I put up on there from time to time that you can watch too. So yeah, those are places you can find me.Me: Super! OK.Nikki's Food For Thought campaignOh and there's one last thing that we didn't actually mention, which was you're involved with something called food for thought?Nikki: Yes, Food For Thought is a campaign that I've started in the run up to the summer holidays. Based on again my own personal experience of homelessness where we just sort of... Just seeing the rise in the number of families that are accessing food banks and the 3-day emergency food parcels. They're really in food crisis... This goes up over the summer holidays because kids aren't getting their free school meals. And they're often missing meals as a result. Or families are working extra hard because they've got to pay childcare costs. So things like that. They're turning more to food banks than ever before.So the Food For Thought campaign is about raising that awareness and asking people just to donate something to put into their local food bank the next time they go shopping. Or to find their local churches who will be... most around the country do some sort of food collection for food banks.Finding a Food Bank near youMe: And so what's the best link? I'll link to Food Bank in the notes, but what would the url be for that?Nikki: Well there's the Trussell Trust which is a charity that do food banks. They've got four hundred and twenty food banks around the country. So that's one of them.Me: OK so people could just Google 'food banks', right? With their locality and then they would find the nearest food bank.Nikki: Food banks. That's right.Me: OK so that's probably the easiest way. Super! Well thank you so much for being here to share your story Nikki, I really appreciate it.Nikki: Thank you for listening.Me: You're very welcome. I mean I think what you're doing now is very amazing. I think it's so important to help kids be more resilient and self-confident and, you know, it's good for everybody really. But it's particularly nice for children.Thank you thank you! Bye for now!Nikki: You're welcome.The best food for mental claritySo, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you the best food for mental clarity. And that food is dark, leafy greens!The reason I mention dark, leafy greens is because they contain a lot of a particular element that is really important in many a food for mental clarity. That element is chlorophyll.Chlorophyll is said by some to be the 'blood' of plants. Because it's the green power that plants get by basically absorbing sunlight. So by taking in chlorophyll, you're literally taking in the energy of the sun.You can find chlorophyll not only in dark leafy greens, but also in superfoods like blue-green algae, spirulina, chlorella and wheatgrass, all of which have a very concentrated level of nutrients that really ramp up the oxygen levels in the body. They therefore are excellent foods to keep our minds sharp, focused and clear, so if you're faced with difficult decisions for example, these foods can literally help you focus.Many other benefits of chlorophyllNow I think you won't be surprised when I tell you that chlorophyll is good for so many things, it's ridiculous. I mean, if you've ever Googled 'help with' followed by any kind of health ailment or condition, chances are you've seen dark leafy greens listed as one of the foods to eat, because of their levels of chlorophyll. They're good for just about everything from arthritis, toxicity, cancer, digestive issues, oral health and more. I'll link to an article in the show notes that goes into more detail if you'd like to read more.How you eat leafy greens for more chlorophyllAs to how you eat these lovely green leaves, well salad is the obvious answer...but of course you can also blend a handful of spinach, kale, chard or other mild greens with some fruit to make a green smoothie. It doesn't have to taste green, and this is a great way to get greens into people who otherwise wouldn't eat them.I've got lots of recipes that use greens in my 5-Minute recipe ebooks, which I'll link to in the show notes as well.Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story. I hope you enjoyed it!And of course if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your particular situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESMore about chlorophyll here: https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/other/health-benefits-of-chlorophyll.html5-Minute Mains and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/To find your local Food Bank (in the UK): https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/find-a-foodbank/About Nikki HarmanNikki Harman is a mindfulness coach, Connected Kids™ children's mindfulness tutor and trainer, and registered general nurse (RGN) working part time in the NHS. Specialising in working with children, Nikki has worked successfully with her clients. She also teaches adults to explore how to move out of their comfort zone to achieve a goal or dream. Her blog is based on professional information, mixed with personal experience. Nikki has written a course for healthcare professionals who work with children in the clinical environment to teach mindfulness techniques as part of their toolkit.www.innerspaceproject.comwww.innerorange.blogspot.comTwitter https://twitter.com/themindfulnurse Facebook https://www.facebook.com/innerspaceproject/

How Fiona Robertson travelled the world on a shoestring, discovering her life path as she went. Plus the best travel food ever!Hi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:Adventure was my missing nutrientIn addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best travel food I know. It's not only packed with nutrients and easy to carry everywhere, but it's also the best food to help eliminate parasites from the body.OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story.I am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Fiona Robertson, the Body Whisperer, who helps people understand who they want to be. Fiona has travelled all over the world and has some amazing adventures to share with us which I think you will find very inspirational.So Fiona, welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast!Fiona: Yeah, thank you very much for having me. Thanks for inviting me. Nice to meet you here finally, face to face.Me: Yes, exactly! Cause we've known each other for a while, right? But it's been like an internet based...Fiona: An internet-based friendship, yeah, I know (laughs).Fiona's storyMe: Super! So I know that you've got, you've had quite a lot of adventures, but I think you mentioned that your taste for adventure perhaps came from your childhood. Is that right? You said you felt quite different as a child, can you maybe explain why?Fiona: Yeah, 4 years old we went to South Africa to live as a family. We kind of grew up with no shoes. So basically just kind of playing with lizards and centipedes and understanding all about nature and just wanting to be outside climbing trees, being a tomboy.A different way to grow upIt was just a different way for me to grow up. And when we moved back to the UK, I realized I was just different. I wanted to be outside playing in different ways and not playing giggly, schoolgirl games.Me: So how old were you when you moved back to the UK?Fiona: I was nine. Yeah, nine, nine and a half, something like that. Just kind of old enough, over the formative years, you know, that I'd really got a different country and kind of life under my skin. You know, I'd learnt Afrikans, I'd learned there was another language, I'd learnt there were different things going on. We were in South Africa at the time of apartheid as well, so you get a lot of different experiences, you know? We travelled there too on holiday of course.You see, I didn't think it was different, but it is, you're in a game park for a holiday and there's cheetas walking in the car park. It's exciting! And that's what my story's about, I didn't realize that adventure was so under my skin.Into the militaryMe: And so you said that you signed up to work with American Express in the military, is that right?Fiona: Yeah, one of my first jobs when I finished college and school and everything, I didn't want to go on to be an interior designer. That was my dream. But when they mentioned to me that it was four years foundational course and then I could specialize, I was like, “You've got to be kidding me! I can't sit still for that long! I've gotta be out there doing something!”I was interested in travel and so I got a job with American Express and it was on the American Air Force bases in the UK. So I started in High Wyckham and I was basically doing their travel tickets, their military travel tickets, then I ended up going and reliefing on the other different air force bases. So Greenham Common, Huntingdon, the ones in East Anglia, and just travelling around and doing that. Going and doing my travel, my specialist travel stuff for the American air force base.A different worldIt was cool because you walk into a different world. You go on the American an air force base and that land is owned by America. They have their happy hour, they have their bowling alleys, they have their shops, they have their own ways and cultures of doing things.Me: Wow. That just strikes me as really weird, you know? Like I've never, I mean even though I've lived in the UK for quite a while now. I've never been on any of the bases, and so part of me always just thinks, 'you're not contributing to the local economy', you know.Fiona: Oh they are, they don't all live on base, they live outside. But that was when I was nineteen, I started working on the American air force bases.The perfect job in travelLooking back now I just think what a perfect job for me. Working in travel and on an American air force base, you know?Me: So you organized travel for them, is that right?Fiona: I organized travel for them and basically with the old Prestel sets and the old ABC travel guide books we found air flights and all that kind of stuff. So I took all my exams for APTA travel. After that I went on to do incentive travel and after that I went on to sort of venue finding. Anything to do with people and traveling and moving. But incentive travel was very interesting, I liked that too.Me: What's incentive travel?Fiona: Imagine that you've got top salesmen and saleswomen and they're given an incentive. If they're the top team in the whole company in the whole of the country, then they get sent to some glorious destination and everything's paid for. So we used to organize all that, you know? With the ground agents and meals and restaurants. Down to exactly what kind of napkins would be on the table. It was like organizing a big wedding every few months, you know? Everything from the chauffeurs to the taxis to the kind of color-coordinating the flowers, everything.Import, export and video camerasMe: And then you went into a very different kind of business, right? With video cameras or something?Fiona: Yeah, I had another job in between time working for actually Ocean Pacific and I was on the export desk there. And I used to do all the certificates of export, and that was interesting for me. Because other people couldn't understand what these guys were saying, and I was just able to tune into what maybe the Greeks or the Spanish or the...You know, they were speaking pidgin English and wanting to be understood and then I was able to tune in somehow to what they were actually trying to tell me.And then I went on selling military cameras into industry, and again I worked with a lot of people from all over the world. So I listened to their languages and I listened to their accents and I understood about their culturesMe: So what happened when you wanted to go travelling? Because you said that at one point you had this business and then you sold it, is that right?Fiona: Yeah, from running the company I was working with I then set myself up for myself and found all my own clients and things and did that for two or three years. And I woke up one morning and thought 'God do I want to be doing this in five years' time? No! Two years? No!'Time to go travellingMe: So was there any specific incident that prompted this decision? Or was it literally from one day to the next waking up and going 'I don't want to do this'?Fiona: I thought that the company that I'd set up was my baby. I'd been with this other guy who was in the same industry though he ran a different company. So when we split up I think that was probably one of the kick up the backsides. I just said, “No, this is my baby, I want to hang onto this baby, this company” because Vision Source was my baby.But then when I woke up in the morning I just went, 'oh my God what am I doing? Do I really want to be doing this?' And when it was such a loud, resounding 'no', I couldn't not listen to that. I really had to think, 'no I'm just not going to be satisfied, it's going to kill me if I stay in this office and do this'. Even though it was doing really, really well.I managed to find somebody who was interested in selling, I sold the company to them. I rented my house out and I just took a rucksack and started travelling around the world.Me: So then how did you start? I think you said you bought an around the world ticket or something? I'm asking because, you know, if there's somebody listening who thinks 'oh I'd really like to travel around the world', I think some people wouldn't even know where to start, you know?A pink-haired rebel going round the worldFiona: Yeah, I was thirty-nine, I dyed my hair pink. Me: That's hilarious!Fiona: I was like wanting to be rebellious. Most people when they see the photographs kind of say, “Were you fifteen then?” and I say “No, thirty-nine, dyed my hair pink”. And I had my rucksack, a friend just said, you know, grab a rucksack. You buy a ticket that goes one direction around the world, and you can't go backwards so you always find a destination that forwards. And I think I didn't go that off the grid really. Thinking about it in retrospect it was fairly obvious.South Africa I started because that's where I've still got family living. Then, you know, Thailand, Singapore, Fiji, Cook, New Zealand, Australia and America. I really did not want that to end. That was just...no way.Me: But I think at the beginning I mean I imagine you would have had a decent amount of money to do that from the sale of your business, right? At some point did the money run out? I ask because you said that at one point you were just very trusting and that you thought, 'OK how can I just go to this new place with no money and nowhere to stay?'Fiona: I didn't...the business wasn't sold until I came back from my travels. They owed me the money. They were supposed to be selling my cameras and selling everything while I was away, and they just basically didn't. So I had to sort of deal with things until I came back. And my house that was rented only rented for a few months rather than for the whole year. So yes.Me: Wow.How travelling can be cheaper than staying at homeFiona: In fact it's cheaper to travel around the world than it is to live in a house and try and support yourself.Me: Whoa, you're kidding! Really?Fiona: No, I mean you stay in backpackers. You've got no material needs, you've got your shorts, your t-shirts, your toothbrush, you bring everything back to real, real basics. So you've got a book, you finish a book, you swap it for another book. It's just cheap. You stay in youth hostels, you meet fantastic people. Some of them obviously an awful lot younger than I was at the time. I was thirty-nine, they were all on their first out of university experience, they were travelling the world finding out who they were. And I didn't do that till later, but...Then you've also got different generations who decide to do it. But staying in youth hostels, they're pretty much...they're a good crowd of people. And when I really kind of left my rucksack in the first place, I locked it up, I tied it up, I did all the things that I thought I had to do. And then I walked out of the youth hostel and I went, 'no, damnit, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna unlock everything. We're all in the same boat, we're all from different countries, we're all in the same boat. I've been travelling on an open-sided bus in a tent, on ants' nests and all the rest of it. This is not gonna be a problem for me'.A successful mental mindsetSo mental mindset: “I' am not gonna have any problems with anybody touching any of my stuff. I got nothing they want to steal, we're all in the same boat, we've all got like...” We had our old CD players, we didn't have mobile phones and those kind of things then.Me: That's true, yeah.Fiona: And I carried my passport and my money and my tickets with me in a little bumbag as we had then. Everybody was in the same boat and if you're that open and trusting and you believe you're OK, this is very much the work that I do now too funnily enough, but if you have that vibration running through you, you'll be OK. If you have the vibration running through you like...People before I left wanted to say to me, “Oh my God! Really? You're going to this country? Well don't let anybody put anything in your bag” and “don't put your bag out of your sight” and really all their fears they were trying to put onto me before I left.But if you have this kind of like 'Do you know what? We're all in the same boat, we're all wanting to be experiencing travel and different places and different people and food and...Me: Yeah. So then...Wow! I'm still reeling actually from the previous thing you said about it being cheaper to, you know, travel the world and stay all over the place than to stay in one place, you know. I'm going to be thinking about that for a while!On to Reiki trainingBut I know that you said that at some point you started just like doing things for people to kind of pay your way, right?Fiona: Yeah, it wasn't so much to pay my way but it was just to experiment. During my travels I decided that I would finish off my Reiki. That was a funny story as well.So I'd been travelling, I ended up in Cape Town and I decided to go for Reiki because I enjoyed Reiki. And this guy gave me Reiki and I was completely knocked out. When I sort of came round, he said, “Oh something came to me when I was doing your Reiki. If you're interested in pursuing, maybe finishing off your masters or something like that to do with Reiki, I know a very good woman. She lives in Prince Albert.”And he told me where that was and I thought 'well that's kind of up from where my dad lives on the wilderness in South Africa, I could go and see Valentine and have some time with her'.So I thought about it for a while and I rang, and I rang, and I rang, and I remember writing in my journal, “Bloody hell! This woman is impossible to get hold of!”Changing your thought patternsI scrubbed that out and I put “This woman is easy to get hold of”. I did have a phone, beg your pardon, one of the first kind of Nokia phones. She rang me. So imagine – I'd been saying all this time, 'this woman is really hard to get hold of'.Me: Yeah, and of course she was then.Fiona: Just by scrubbing out that whole thought pattern and changing my thought pattern, I'd actually said 'this woman's gonna be...and she's really easy to get hold of'. My phone then rang and she rang me to say, “Great, I've had your messages. When can you come?”Me: Super! Wow!Travelling with the flowFiona: So I was on this roll when I was travelling of trying to be this very open, flowing person who wanted to experience how easy and safe the world was. Rocking up in an airport like in Australia, I hadn't got any Australian dollars, I hadn't got anywhere to stay. It was kind of one o'clock in the morning when we landed. I wanted to find out how easy it was just by allowing myself to feel easy.Me: And so what happened in that Australian airport at one in the morning?Fiona: Oh God it couldn't have been easier! They are so set up. Maybe in another country it would have been harder.So you arrive in the airport and most people had somewhere to stay and they were being picked up by people. I walked in and I thought, 'oh a cash machine, fine, pop my card in, get cash out, that's easy'. By the cash machine there's a desk there, a welcome desk, there's brochures everywhere for youth hostels and everything. And I thought, 'I wonder if I ring them now if anybody would be on the desk, or if I should have to sleep in the airport'. Which I had done before.And so I rang and somebody said, “Yeah, yeah, no problem, we can come and pick you up, we'll see if there's anybody else coming this way. We'll be there in about an hour”. And they were. Super polite, super easy. Picked up my bags, picked me up, took me to the youth hostel in Perth. Got me a room and that was it.Don't plan too much in advanceMe: Wow. So generally you found that that's the way it worked, right? With the trusting and that it would be easy and things just kind of like fell into place?Fiona: I was told before I left by a girlfriend of mine also called Fiona. She said to me, “Don't book too much up in advance because so many things are changing the whole time. Try not to plan too much because if you plan, you're planning out what the universe might have to deliver to you. Something more fun, something more exciting.”Me: Oh yeah, that makes total sense.Fiona: So don't plan too much. I kind of took it from the other point of view, that I'm a planner, I'm a scheduler, I'm a bulldozer. I'll make things happen. And I was really trying to be experiencing from a different perspective. This was my opportunity to really experience that to live in the flow.And that's really what I want to try and do in my everyday life as a mom now as well. Be more open and understanding and intuitive to...'OK so why did that happen then? Why are they ill?' So this is what brought me...OK raw food kind of came in there as well, but it really brought me to sort of try and interpret what I was being shown.And if you happen to get arrested...Me: Yeah. So did you have moments when you were travelling when the flow just stopped? And you started to feel fear or you were just like 'Oh this isn't working” or... If you did, how did you get back into flow?Fiona: Yeah, I'm trying to think about it. I got complacent, I was in Thailand and I stayed longer than I should so I was kind of arrested when I left.Me: Oh my God, you were arrested!Fiona: Yeah, because I'd overstayed my visa. You're only allowed to stay there a certain length of time so when I left, I just handed in my passport. And they pulled me off to this room and they really interrogated me and I'm just like, 'I was just kind of complacent and I didn't really think about it' and “Well I'm leaving now so just let me go!” (laughs)Me: And so what happened? Did they let you go?Fiona: They let me go, but they made me wait it out. I think I missed that flight so I had to get another one or something. Yeah, they wanted to really make a point there that you can't be complacent. So I thought OK... I wasn't really in charge of looking at my dates in that respect.When you have to push a littleAnother time was when I was in Australia. I was coming down the west coast of Australia and it became a bit of a rush. So I knew that my visa ended at a certain date, I had to be in Sydney so that I could get my flight to New Zealand. The people I was travelling with were under no speed whatsoever. So I realized then 'I have to do something, I have to move this forward faster'. Then I became out of the flow and I was very proactive into getting things moving. And I don't know what would have happened if I'd just bummed along, I don't know.Me: Well yeah but I mean, but then you...that was kind of necessary, right?Fiona: Yeah.A Thailand detox adventureMe: Sometimes you have to do that right? And then you said that at one point you said you kind of discovered raw food and detox and you started coaching girls on your travels?Fiona: I did, that was really fun.Me: How did that happen?Fiona: I was in Thailand and I'd done Thai massage, Thai cooking. And I'd said to the girl that I'd met when I was travelling...I said “God, you know we need to be doing something that we would never, ever dream about doing when we went home”. She said, “Yeah I agree, we need to do something that's kind of off the wall”. I said, “Exactly!”I walked into this bar just to order a water and there was a leaflet on the desk that said The Sanctuary. And it was for detoxing. So I took the flyer and I said, “This really, really hits me! Let's go and try this!” I spoke to the guy behind the bar and he said it's a really cool place in Koh Pang Yang.That's where we went and did detoxing, and they had a fantastic raw restaurant. I'd never experienced raw food before. So we did the detox and I learned what I could from Moon, who was the guy who ran the place and the time. I looked at these menus of these foods and of course your tastebuds change when you do a detox. This was a full detox, colon cleanse, doing enemas, coffee enemas and everything else. Met some fantastic people, had some great conversations, we slept a lot.Simple food for radiant resultsWe met all sorts of shamans, all sorts of stuff. And then I realized afterwards that myself and my friend, our bodies had completely changed, our body temperature had changed.In about three weeks after that, we went for two weeks to another island and we did absolutely nothing. We just ate very, very simply, just raw food. So tomatoes and everything. The restaurants there were very confused. We didn't want the Thai food, we just said, “Basic, plain plate of tomatoes, that's all we want”. So we learned how to say that and we were doing that. We radically shifted some weight and we radically...our bodies changed and our whole energy was completely different. I was like, 'geez I like this! I get this! I feel awesome, I feel radiant!' We were just having so much fun!The coaching beginsMe: So then you started coaching girls? To help them...Fiona: Yeah then in the next place I went to I met some young girls. And a couple of them had said, “We're on our last leg”. They were kind of going the other way around the world. And one of them had kind of said, “You know, I'm a nurse and I left that because I wanted to find myself, I wanted to find out what I really wanted to do. And here I am on the last leg of my journey and I don't think I've found myself at all!”Magical questionsI said, “Oh, OK”. So I just started asking her some questions, and I set her some tasks for the evening. I said, “What do you want to do?” And she said, “I've got no idea!” I set her some tasks for example, I think one of them was 'a hundred and one things that make you happy'. How easy. And setting out what her perfect day would include. They were two of the simplest tasks that I thought that she might actually do or might actually enjoy doing.And the next morning when we were kind of...She was leaving and I was just having breakfast. And she was like, “Oh my God!” She said, “I totally get what I wish I'd known before. I know what it is that I want, I know what makes me happy, I know this and I know that and I know the other” and I was like 'oh my God'. And then just other conversations, it just seemed to be natural for me that when I was speaking to somebody...Not telling them what they should do, but kind of like, 'have you ever thought about what it is you'd like to do? What it is...Who you'd like to be, what you'd like to wear? How you'd like to sound, speak? Do you enjoy singing? Dancing? What is it?' All the different things that make you who you want to be.Me: Wow.Fiona: It came from that, really. Just having conversations. Nothing structured, but just allowing people to find out for themselves what they liked about life, about being alive.Finding a travel partnerMe: And then at one point you met your Dutch partner, right? How did that happen?Fiona: Yes, we met in Australia and we just started travelling together. We were going the same route together. Very interesting conversations. He allowed me to be very profound and very deep. And I found something new about myself as well, which normally I would not have had those kind of conversations with people. In a very deep, delving, wondering, curious, inquisitive, wanting to know more. So that was kind of refreshing and probably why we stuck together for so long because we allowed each other to have those kind of conversations. And I found myself a different kind of person. That I didn't agree with everything that he said, or I had an opinion. I found my strength from having those kind of conversations too, I'd had a strong interior. And I found that I knew what I wanted, let's put it that way.Back home and pregnantMe: I know at some point your trip around the world ended. And then you were...you were back at home feeling sad, right? But then you were...you started travelling again when you were three months pregnant, is that right?Fiona: (laughs) Yeah, I got back to my house in Oxford. We stayed there for a while and I'm just like, 'God, I don't want to be here because I'm gonna end up doing what I used to do and I don't want to do that'. The world's a bigger place, you know?So I was three months pregnant, I was age 40, and I said “Right, that's it. We're gonna take a caravan, and we're gonna find somewhere that makes my heart melt. That really fills my heart, that makes me feel fulfilled”.Me: Wow, what did your partner say? Was he surprised? Or was he like 'yup'...Fiona: He was cool for that, he's now back in Holland, he's not here with me in France. He couldn't make it work for himself. But that's OK. So that was it. He said, 'yeah, great! Let's have an adventure'.An adventure to find your ideal homeWe took a caravan and basically I had a tick list of the things that we wanted. So what would you want if you had everything you could possibly imagine? You'd want the sea and you'd want the mountains. And you'd want the outdoor life because South Africa's under my skin. I'd have the plants in the garden, hibiscus plants and palm trees. It would be very green.So we started travelling, you know, down the coastal route of France, and kind of 'does this place? No. This place doesn't feel good. Does this place?' And “How will you know when you find it?” he used to keep saying. “I'll just know, I'll just know”.Me: And so how long were you travelling before you found it? Because most people wouldn't leave when they were three months pregnant, right? Cause they'd be thinking about 'oh my God'...No tests, no scansFiona: I didn't have any tests, I didn't have any scans, I didn't have anything. And I was huge, I had like a huge baseball, like a beach ball stuck out in front of me. My son ended up being five kilos, he was a big boy. But I was a very happy mom, and I was just really, really happy being pregnant and travelling.Me: And so where was he born? Was he born before...Fiona: He was born in Holland. So we stayed here, we found the place, we found Biarritz Saint Jean De Luz. And I imagined us living here what it would be like. We both had tears in our eyes and it just felt so homely, we had left and we'd come back. And when we came back it felt like we'd come home. So it was all feeling-based.Me: Yeah, I'm the same, I'm very feeling-based so I can totally relate to that.No French, no job, no baby knowledge...Fiona: And so then we found the house and then we went back to Holland. We had Micah in Holland, we lived in a holiday home for two months. Micah was my eldest who's now twelve. He was one month old when we moved back here. I knew nothing about babies, I knew zip! Nothing! Nada! I had his sister who helped me go shopping and all the rest of it. And I was breastfeeding and I thought, 'Well what else do I need to know?' I probably sound like such a hippy!Then we came here, we didn't speak French, we didn't have a job, we had a house, a big house. And we had a baby, and my big dog, he was with us as well, Milo. I sometimes wonder how I managed but I used to speak to my spirit animal and for some reason she used to guide me through and make me feel very comfortable and very safe. And that's how I did it.Me: Wow. And then...well, you speak French now, right?Fiona: I don't think I could ever call myself a good speaking French person. I do my best.Me: Well yeah but you make the effort, right? You do what you can, right?Fiona: Oh yeah, I make myself understood. And even funnily enough when we first moved here he would say to me, “What did they say?” I'd say, “I couldn't repeat it, I don't know what they said. But I know it's OK. And we need to do this, this and this”. It was just like an infusion.Me: Yeah, well like it was when you heard people speaking with different accents before, right? That's cool.Fiona: So I was here on an adventure.The world can come to youMe: Well and I know that you said that you kind of had the world come to you, right? Fiona: Correct, correct.Me: So what happened there?Fiona: What a great thing.Me: And how did you start that, actually?Fiona: My partner at the time was trying to work in Holland and travel. And I just said, “This isn't working, let me have a go”. I'd just had my second baby and he'd just stopped breastfeeding. And I opened up Retreat Biarritz, which is basically a detox retreat. I was running it from home, we had two studios that we'd built. People were staying in the studios and I was basically doing for them what I'd learnt to do when I was in the Sanctuary.So basically they're doing three day fast, colon cleanse, learning all about raw food. We did raw food kitchen. Then I used to take them hiking in the mountains, I used to take them to the beach, I took them to the hammam. We took them to the local markets. Just so that they could have a holiday experience while they were here.Me: That's fantastic, that's really great. Wow. So do you still...what do you do now? I know you do a lot of things, but do you still run the retreats now?Detox retreatsFiona: I still run the retreats for small groups of people. Sometimes individuals come, and again from all around the world. I mean I've had ladies from Greece, America, Australia, Russia. And they just find me, God knows how they find me. They come and they go, “I'd really like to come and work with you”. And I'm like, “OK do you just want a detox? I can just do a straight detox for you”.But at some point always the conversation comes up. They're in an old story or they're stuck, you know? 'I used to have a body like this' and 'I don't understand why my body does this'. And then the body whispering seems to sort of come in, and we have that intuitively guided conversation that helps them understand more about their body.Me: So then how does the body whispering work? Can you give us just sort of like a short, I don't know, a little brief idea?How body whispering worksFiona: Oooh, yeah, how does it work! Goodness me! Basically a lot of the ladies who come, they are stuck in a particular story. There's something that they haven't digested emotionally. It could be that they're feeling anger, but then I kind of go beyond that, what's under that. And if you're feeling anger or resentment and things, often what I'm feeling is that people are feeling very disconnected. They're not feeling any connection to other people, but they're not feeling safe.So one of the main things I do is I help them to feel what it feels like to feel safe. And most people, they have no idea what their safe place feels like. When they can discover what their safe place feels like, you've almost got something to back into when things don't feel comfortable for you. When the shit's hitting the fan or you're at a dinner table or there's a conversation going on that you're not feeling comfortable with, you can kind of go, 'hang on a second, where am I?'Tuning into your bodyZone in – some people might call it being centered or whatever, but you zone in and tune into yourself. You get out of your thinking, analyzing, bulldozing head and you get into your body. So you reconnect with your body and you go, 'wow, there I am'.And it's like 'OK so what's kicking off at the moment? Does it have anything to do with me?' And your body is able to kind of respond to you when you understand how your body works. Your body would kind of say to you, “It's got nothing to do with you”.But you can pick up who it is in the room that's really got the energy, the strongest energy in the room that's affecting you. And you can say, 'OK so if that's the person, has what they've got going on got anything to do with me? No. Back off'. You can back off, you can get back in your own energy.How most of us calm our nervesWhat I found was I used to overeat. When I was in the company of my ex particularly. He had a very chaotic mind unless he was focused, he was ultra, ultra focused, but otherwise he was chaotic. Very argumentative, a devil's advocate. But when he was kicking off, I would find that I would overeat because I wanted to shut that off. Me: Oh wow, OK.Fiona: And I calmed down my nerves... The best and the quickest way to calm down your nerves when you're stressed is for a lot of people to eat. When we don't feel safe, we eat. And our body is protecting us by having the chemical reaction that goes on, the hormones that are released in the body, they lay down fat. That's the body protecting itself. Basically the adrenaline and everything that's going on...There are toxins that run through our body, and I didn't realize how overvigilant I was because of my childhood. Certain things that happened there. I didn't realize how overvigilant I was and how aware I was of feeling empathically what was going on around me. So my only way to control that was food.Discovering how you really feelThat doesn't really tell you what body whispering is. Body whispering for me, when I'm on a call with somebody, if I'm talking to them, I'm tuning in to them. So I can teach them how they feel. Basically ninety-nine percent of anybody who's around doesn't have a clue how they feel. They think, 'oh God that doesn't feel nice' but they automatically go into the thing that makes them feel better which is eating. Or drinking, or smoking, or shopping or whatever it is. I concentrate purely with people to do with food.So basically I can connect in with them and I'm saying “OK how do you feel about that situation?” And they go into their heads and they start describing it in mental ways. I'm like “OK fine, now bring yourself into your body because you're mentally describing and giving me mental feedback. Bring it back from your body. What are you feeling in your body?” And often they'll pick something up but I'm able to help them hone in to what the feeling really is so that they can recognize it the next time.Me: Yeah, I get it, you're teaching people basically how to...Fiona: Read their bodies.Me: Read their bodies, yeah. That's very cool.Fiona: And also what's happening to me is that when I'm reading their body... Even over Skype, it doesn't have to be live, even over Skype. I can say, “OK so I'm picking up...So a thought came to me, I've just been asked to ask you this question. What does this got to do with that?” or “Would this resonate with you?” So I'm allowing myself to be open that I'm picking up something for them.A body scan offerMe: Wow. And so I know that you have something pretty cool going on at the moment which is a body scan offer I think. Do you want to say something about that?Fiona: Yeah, I offer people if they're interested to find out what the undercurrent is that's going on through their body. So basically I help people understand the undercurrent that's going on. There's nothing more responsive to your thoughts than your body.That being said, if you don't know what you're thinking, then how can you possibly change your thoughts? So often people are saying mantras or they're saying positive thoughts. But the undercurrent that goes on behind that is often very subconscious. I call it on a soul level, when you have total disbelief on that ever happening for you. It could be to do with money, but I talk to people about their bodies.How it worksSo what I ask people to do if they're really interested is they can come forward and they can have a body scan. I can have half an hour with them, I ask them some questions. They're very kind of open, big questions that allow me to see where they're coming from. And for example what makes them really happy or really sad, and then I can gauge what's going on. I can gauge their stress levels, and I can feed back to them what's going on and what's the most likely reason things are not working for them. Even if they've been dieting and detoxing and exercising for years. But there's something going on in their bodies that they haven't allowed themselves to let go of. They're still hanging onto something and it's hanging onto their body.Me: And so if people want to know more about that, where's the best place for them to find you and to look at that offer?Where to find FionaFiona: OK I have my website which is fionarobertson dot co. And I don't know how we can do that, but...Me: Well I'll link to things in the show notes anyway.Fiona: Yeah, I'll send you a link to the body scan so that people can come through and they can test out the body scan. Basically have a very happy-go-lucky conversation with me. And yeah, just find out a little bit more about who you are and what your body's asking for, funnily enough. What she needs, what she wants and what she's lacking the most. And it's not nutrients on a vitamin and mineral scale, it's nutrients of other descriptions.Me: Wow super, OK. And is that a free consultation, or...?Fiona: Yeah.Me: OK. I thought so, I just wanted to make sure I said it because some people, that's...they'll want to know that. And then, yeah, hopefully...Well I'm sure that there'll be a lot of people interested in that because I mean I just think that's fascinating!Well thank you so much Fiona for being here to share your story!Fiona: Oh, thanks!Shed your baggageMe: It's been quite a...it's certainly given me a lot to think about around... Well around world travel, really, because I love travelling and I have travelled quite a bit. But I'm gearing up to do some more in the future with not very much baggage at all, so that's...Fiona: Oh, so nice to get rid of your baggage! And what a nice analogy as well, get rid of all your baggage!Me: Yup, all kinds of baggage! (laughs)So thank you so much for that inspiration. It's been really great to talk to you!Fiona: Thank you so much for inviting me, thank you so much.Me: You're very welcome, thank you, have a super, super day!The best travel foodRight, so fantastic! I hope you enjoyed that story. And I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you the best travel food that I know. And that food is...dates!Dates are an amazing food. They're easily portable, you can just pop some into a bag and put them in your suitcase. You can even carry them on a plane with you – at least as of today you can still do that. Properties of datesNow in terms of properties of dates, the first thing about dates is that they are amazing for the digestive system. This is because they are one of the best foods for getting rid of parasites. They basically bind onto and then help sweep away all kinds of nasty stuff: parasites, heavy metals, bad bacteria, viruses, fungus and especially Candida. And if you've got a tendency to constipation, dates can help there too.In addition, contrary to what you might think as they're very sweet, they're excellent for helping to balance blood sugar. The fruit sugar that they contain also helps feed the muscles and refuel the brain – so they're a great brain food too. As well as a great food for sport.And if you often feel stressed, dates can help you there as well. They contain almost 70 bioactive minerals that support the adrenals as they work to help us face various life challenges. On top of that, they've got a huge amount of amino acids which elevates their levels of potassium which in turn helps stop formation of excess lactic acid. Another good reason why they're really good for sport, as well as anti-stress.They're also said to be abundant in anti-cancer properties, particularly for abdominal cancer.And because dates are so high in nutrition, they can help with weight control. For example, some Muslims eat dates with water to break a fast before they eat anything else and one benefit to that is that it helps avoid overeating at that first meal which I think is really cool.Why dates are the best travel foodAnother very cool thing about dates is that if like Fiona you want to go on a travelling adventure and you're not quite sure about how you'll find food, some people say that a wrapped up date in your pocket or in your bag can act like a good luck travel charm. It can ensure you'll always find something to eat. Of course yes you can always eat the date itself, but some say that this little fruit can help you find more than that.For those who want to know what exact nutrients dates contain, well there are a lot. But the ones I'll mention here in addition to potassium are calcium, iron, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium and zinc, as well as vitamin K, vitamin A, thiamin, niacin and riboflavin. It's got loads of stuff.How to eat datesAs to how to eat dates, well you just grab a handful, right? Be sure though to remove the pit inside first please, we don't want an impromptu trip to the dentist. And just 4 to 6 dates a day can give you excellent benefits.They're also one of the key ingredients in many recipes for things like energy balls. So for example you can blitz some dates in a food processor with some nuts and maybe a bit of dried coconut for an instant snack. And if you'd like more recipes where you can indulge in their sweetness, I'll post the link to my 5-Minute Desserts recipe ebook below the show notes for this episode. Which brings us to the end of this week's story! I hope you enjoyed it!And if you've got a crazy, true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your particular situation), I'd love to hear from you! If you enjoy my stories and want to hear more, join us and subscribe! I share one crazy yet true story a week. And if you've got any questions, just pop them in the comments! And if you're listening on iTunes, do give me a review, that would be awesome.I hope you have an amazing day, thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESLink to 5-Minute Desserts and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article on dates including links to studies and other articles: https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/health-benefits-of-dates.htmlFiona's website: www.fionarobertson.coFor your free Body Scan session, book a time with Fiona here: https://fionarobertson.acuityscheduling.com/Fiona's bioFiona Robertson, Author, Creator of the Home Detox Box, Retreat Biarritz, and a Body Whisperer intuitive holistic coach - supporting women as they release, reset and re connect with their bodies. I assist the body to consciously re constructing itself from the inside out, releasing the emotions and stress that cause the body to hold onto weight and create digestive and long lasting physical symptoms.

Description: Heather Craik shares with us some pitfalls of dating as a single mom, with some pretty crazy results. Plus a food that fills you up from the inside outHi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:How Not To Date As A Single Mom (And Still Find Love Anyway)In addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best food to feel full, in other words, to fill you up from the inside out.OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story.Our guest, Heather CraikI am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Heather Craik. Heather's going to share with us what it can be like to start out life as a single mom, explore dating on Tinder (which like I've never done) and have long distance relationships (which I haven't done either). So all that sounds super interesting to me! She now helps people solve a completely different kind of problem which we'll mention later.For now though, Heather, welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I've been looking forward to having you ever since you told me about your incredible, roller-coaster story!Heather: Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.Me: You're so welcome. So I think if I understood it correctly that your story starts where you were with somebody and you got pregnant? And then you wound up being a single mom? Can you talk about how that came about, maybe?Heather's storyHeather: Yeah, sure. I mean I'd been with this guy for about nine years or so and that's an entirely different story in and of itself. But what happened was I was in Canada when I fell pregnant. And because I wasn't expecting to fall pregnant in Canada, I didn't actually have medical coverage for that. So I came back home to the UK which is where I'm from. And you know a couple of months after that I realized that it was really not working out with this other guy.Me: The nine year guy.Heather: So that was just a bit entertaining for a while. I broke it off with him and went through the rest of my pregnancy, it was just me. My parents were there which was really helpful. But I was about 5 months pregnant I reckon when it ended.Me: That is so, I have to say that is just so, so brave! Oh my goodness. Like how did you...how did you feel like when you... I mean, yeah, how did you feel? I can imagine – I can't imagine, I mean I've been pregnant, I have two kids. But how did you feel when you just like made that, made that decision, you know? To...Heather: Well I think leading up to it was quite stressful. And I noticed that before the decision was actually made, I felt stressed for a lot of days, but once it was done and it was over I actually felt relieved. Which I think was really telling.Me: Wow. That's really telling. Especially like the situation you were in, right? Cause I know that for me, when I was pregnant in some ways I felt kind of vulnerable, you know? Because you're carrying this childHeather: Oh yeah, entirely. I was back staying with my parents even. So yeah. But they were great, by the way. My parents were fantastic from the word go.Me: Oh wow, that's really good. Well I'm sure that at the end of the day they just really want you to be happy, right?Heather: Yeah, they're really good that way.Rebuilding a businessMe: So then you started out as a single mom, so was your son born when you were still living with your parents? I mean, were you working at all?Heather: Yeah, I was still with my parents for about 10 months after he was born, actually. So I was working, I had started work on my business at that point but it hadn't really fully taken off. I had my business before I fell pregnant, let's just clear that up. But then it sort of, you know, the whole moving country and then being very pregnant and then having a very small child, it had fallen by the wayside. So I had to kind of build that back up again.Me: Yeah. Wow. I can't even imagine, like, I don't know, I started...I started my business when my kids were like 10 and 12 or something like that. But I think I was so traumatized when my son was born, my first child, that I don't think I could have had any head for business at all. It was like...Heather: Oh I tell you what, pregnancy brain is such a real thing though. You don't realize it, but probably the last couple of months of my pregnancy and for three months after I couldn't focus on my work at all. I would try, I would sit down in this dazed fog and try to code and it just did not work.Me: Wow, I guess because...that would be an interesting topic in and of itself, right? Pregnancy brain and why it happens and everything. I mean you've got another being with you, right? That's, that could be...that's the first thing that comes to my mind. That must have been really hard. But at least your parents were there to help out, right? I imagine when your son was born, then...Heather: Yeah, I didn't have to cook for the longest time! That was hugely helpful!Me: Oh! Heaven! (laughs)Heather: I know! I do miss that!Time to start dating againMe: Yeah! So then how old was...cause I know that at some point you did...you did want to start dating again. How old was your son when you were like, 'OK, I'm gonna just, you know...'Heather: I think just over a year, actually.Me: And was there anything that happened? Any specific, I don't know, moment or incident that caused you to think, 'OK I'm ready to date now'? I mean, it's a pretty big decision, right?Heather: Honestly, it had been a very long time for me since I'd had any...you know, any of that wonderful sex stuff. Me: Any action. Yeah, of course!Heather: And it was getting to that point...I had moved out which was, you know, helpful. So I'd moved out and had my own place and my son was more settled, he started to sleep better at night which was a real help. Yeah, that was pretty much what led up to it.Me: Wow. And then so you said that you started finding people...How did you start finding people? I'll let you talk about it!Trials of TinderHeather: Well since I pretty much live online anyway, I automatically gravitated over to dating sites. You know, I'd been hearing a lot about Tinder because I'm of that age group that they obviously target for that kind of thing. So I thought 'OK whatever, I'll have a look'. I wasn't expecting to find anybody but I thought whatever, it would be worth a laugh at least.Me: So then like sorry, for people who don't know what Tinder is, can you say a little bit about like how it works?Heather: OK well basically, what Tinder is, it's an app first and foremost. It links into your Facebook but it doesn't post to your Facebook. It just pulls information from there. And you know, you get these photos that come up and you either swipe right if you'd like to talk to them or swipe left if you don't want anything to do with them. Me: Yup (laughs).Heather: So what happens is if you swipe right and someone else, like the one you just swiped right on also swipes right, then you can start a conversation.Me: Right. Kind of like shopping, I guess.Heather: Kinda sorta. You already have that 'OK well we both agreed we like something about you'. You get that. By its nature it can be quite shallow, but there actually are descriptions and bios as well. People don't actually read them...Me: That was my other question as well. Cause if you swipe...So do you have the description under the picture that you can read before you swipe? Or do you only swipe based on...Heather: Yeah, you can see it under the picture. You just have to click and you can read it. Not everyone does.Me: Of course, yeah I can imagine. Interesting people...or notSo you met some pretty interesting people on Tinder, right? I believe there's a little story there...Heather: Oh, yes, did I ever!There were a few interesting ones I will grant you, but the one that still sticks in my head was this one guy. And I don't remember his name, I don't even really remember what he looks like, but I remember he was quite reasonable at first. So obviously we'd both swiped to the right to talk, whatever. We'd exchanged a couple of messages and then pretty much off the bat he was like, “Well I like Lego”. As one of his interests. And I was like “OK, well Lego's pretty cool, fine.” And then he comes back with, “No, no, I really like Lego”. Before I had a chance to respond to that, he follows up with this other message saying that he likes to put it in certain places and I'm afraid that I was out. All done. No way!Me: Oh no, that's too weird (laughs). Did you actually like meet live with anybody on Tinder?Heather: I did actually meet live with one of them and honestly it was probably one of the more shallow ones. It was just one of those 'hey he looked good I looked good'. Fine. We'll meet up. And he was a nice guy, still is a nice guy. Not the brightest tool in the shed, but yeah, we did meet up and we did engage in some activites and that was fine. But not particulary fulfilling, I would say.Is Tinder worth it?Me: Yeah. So is your conclusion that it's probably good for the shallow stuff but not much more? Is that what you would say?Heather: I reckon it probably could work for people that had a bit more time. There were certainly some interesting people there that I reckon if you'd gone out and spoken to them in a coffee type setting that might have been OK. But a lot of people do just go on and use it for shallow whatevers.Me: Yeah. So then, how long did you kind of like play around with Tinder before you went on to somebody else that...yeah? (laughs)Heather: Probably around a month and a half or two months, I was just bored by that point. And you're having to keep up all these other conversations too. It seems sort of mean to be like 'OK I'm not that interested' but at the same time...not that interested.Me: Yeah, and it's time and everything that you're taking up, right?Enter the former loverSo then how did the former lover come into the picture?Heather: Ah, well you see he was one of those people that we never went particularly far emotionally. That was just never our thing. But we had been lovers obviously on and off. And he...I'm not sure how that started again actually, I think what happened was we started talking again cause we were phasing in and out of each other's lives anyway. We started talking again and it was just one of those 'hey OK, so do you just want to come over' type things. I think I actually started out telling him that nothing was gonna happen, and that was obviously not what actually happened.Me: I had somebody like that too. It was actually quite handy, it was because I used to be a singing waitress and a singing coat check girl in this like fancy French restaurant place. Very, totally random and there were lots of different bands that came through and there was a guy like that. You know, we had a kind of understanding that if, you know, if we were in the mood for just something superficial, we'd just, you know, it's fine.Heather: Yeah, and it's not like you don't care, it's just never ever gonna be anything else.Me: And then I feel like, you know, well I think there's a place for that right? If that's what you want and that's what they want, I mean why not, right?Heather: Yeah, I mean it worked out pretty well for that.A long distance relationshipMe: And then you said that after that you somehow then found yourself in a long distance relationship, I mean how did that happen?Heather: Yes, I kinda did. So this guy was somebody that I'd met in Canada about 6 years prior, nothing ever happened there. He was friends to us both but we'd sort of lost contact for a while. We hadn't really seen each other for a while. We started talking again, it must have been a couple months after Gabriel turned one, so it must have been September probably that we started talking again. I was minding my own business, not looking for anything in particular. And he just admits that he likes me, and I'm like “Oh, OK” because I'd always sort of had a thing for him too. So we did that and then it just went boom. Right time. We gave it a go.Me: And then how did you...but you said it was long distance, so like how did that work? Did you like Skype each other?Heather: What we used to do was we would talk a lot on Facebook messenger because that was the quickest and easiest way. But he would also video call. Like after a few months we realized that worked a bit better. He would hop on video and we'd talk. Which, you know, it was fine when my kid was asleep.If he isn't a kid kind of guy...But for whatever reason my sweet, darling toddler that loves everybody hated when I was on video with this guy. He was fine with video with other people even. Hated it. Tantrum after about 10 minutes, did not like it.Me: I wonder why.Heather: Yeah, I mean to be fair, this guy didn't particularly like him either. He tried, but he wasn't ever a kids type person and you know he really didn't like my ex either which didn't help matters because honestly...they're related, so...Me: Oh, your son and your ex, yeah.Heather: Yeah. So, yeah, that didn't go very well. He did make an honest effort but that's not really something you can make an honest effort on. Which is kind of why we ended up splitting actually. It was that and the distance. Because I realized that I didn't want to move back to Canada and he had realized that he didn't want to move either.Me: So how long were you in that kind of situation with him before you were like 'oh well this isn't really gonna go anywhere'.Heather: Well I think probably that entire relationship lasted about 5 months. It was about a month or two of 'OK what are we gonna do about this' so that wasn't particularly fun. And then it became really obvious at the end that it was just never gonna change really. I did entertain the thought of moving for a little while. And I know that he tried thinking about moving too for a little while, and we just wouldn't have been happy moving, either of us, so.Trying out BumbleMe: You said that once you moved on from the long distance relationship, you mentioned something called Bumble. What's that?Heather: Oh, Bumble, right. So it's kind of like Tinder, but with a very noticeable difference. Only the women can do the first message and you only get 24 hours after you've matched to make that message. And then they get 24 hours to message back, and if no-one does within their time frame, that's it. Unless you pay. Some people pay.Me: And how did you find that compared to Tinder?Heather: Honestly it was very similar, but the people seemed to be looking for deeper connections in general. In general. But there were obviously still plenty of the 'oh hey, I just want a casual something'. That's fine, if that's what you're looking for.Me: And then did you meet a lot of people on Bumble?Heather: There were a few people I spoke to actually, and some of them were quite lovely. And there was one I actually met up with. He was fine, we sort of met up during the day at one point first of all. You know, we got on great, it was OK. I think we went to the park actually, so Gabriel was actually there. He was running about at the park. This other guy was there and it was fine, there was nothing going on. We would up meeting up the next evening. And basically we did the kissing thing and then the other stuff, but oh my God no!Kissing a black holeHow would I describe this delicately? Probably not very well, but I'll describe it anyway. Imagine a black hole and imagine chicken pecks and combine the two. And that was his kissing.Me: Oh, that's horrible!Heather: And the sex itself was not much better.Me: Oh, OK that's actually, that's a really good image. That's a bit scary, it's kind of a bit freaky.Heather: Yeah, you sort of wonder how they get to that age without knowing how to kiss. But anyway.Me: I guess some people do, right? I guess that didn't go anywhere! Heather: That did not!Me: (laughs) And then you said you found yourself in another long distance relationship? Or not a relationship?Heather: Ah, completely accidentally, I had in fact sworn off boys at this point. I was like 'you know what, I don't even care anymore. I'm not doing this dating thing anymore, I'm happy on my own'. Because it had come to that point, right? My business was going well by this point. I was perfectly happy just not looking for somebody. That was me at this point.Me: I mean then did you think...sorry, did you think that...when you say you were perfectly happy not looking for somebody, was it because you thought 'oh there's no point, they're all gonna be a bit crap' or was it because...Heather: There was a bit of that but it was more that I wasn't that fussed about it anymore.When you're perfectly happy on your ownMe: Oh! What happened for you to like be not fussed?Heather: I think it was a combination of the ending of that long distance relationship. Because I had cared quite a bit and then obviously it didn't work for practical reasons. Combined with...I'm gonna call it a sex experience, but it's not...you know the one. And then also combined with I'd reached a point where I really wasn't lacking anything.I think probably the reason I started looking in the first place was that I felt this longing for a connection, right? But by that point I was actually OK on my own. I didn't need that to validate me anymore.Me: So the interesting thing I find about that is that there are so many people who try to get to that point through conscious effort, right? For example they think to themselves, 'oh I keep reaching out to others for connection and I'm kind of just fed up because nothing's working. I'm just gonna be by myself and do a lot of introspection'. And stuff like that. Whereas with you...Like in other words, they try to get to that point by working on themselves in a very conscious way. Whereas with you it sounds like it was a very kind of like organic process.Heather: It was completely accidental! I was just doing my own thing.Me: Did it have anything to do with your business doing well? Because I know you did say at one point that it was quite hard with your business, right? There was a bit of a tough period.Heather: Well yeah, because obviously I had a young child. It's not that easy to juggle with business, especially since I was used to just running it by myself.Being your own personI think that took some getting used to. But no, what happened was over the course of that long distance relationship that lasted about 5 months, my business started to take off and have more traction. My child, very helpfully, started sleeping through the night. I wasn't a sleep-deprived zombie anymore. That was a lot more fun! I started to take better care of myself again and you know what? He was actually quite good for me in that regard because I started to explore being my own person again which was really quite helpful too.Me: Oh I know what you mean.Heather: All that combined so that I found who I was again.Me: I know what you mean, it's kind of...cause I can remember that stage with my own kids. It's kind of like, yeah, you do get your own life back in a sense. I think you put it well to me in an email when you said like a mombie, right? You're walking around with no sleep.Heather: Yeah, up until that point I don't think I had slept more than two hours in a row since he was born. Because his longest period of sleep...And that only happened when he was about a year old maybe, was four hours and then two hours and then two hours and then one. But obviously I was still up. So I got two, two, one and a half if I was lucky...Self-affirmationMe: Oh wow. So then...I was gonna ask you something about that. And then your business started to take off, right? You got more clients and everything? Do you think...cause I don't know about you, but for me I know that when the business stuff starts to go really well, that's a big, a big kind of self-affirmation, in a way.Heather: Yeah, it's like this realization 'oh hey I can make it work. It's doing well, I can do this'. That point that you get to. I'd had it before, but I think with being pregnant and having my kid...There was a part of me that was initially worried that 'oh my gosh, what if I don't ever get this back?' You know? So obviously that had been appeased by that point because I started to see it come back again.Me: So then now where are you at now with that? I mean I know that your business is going well. But do you also like, are you at the point where you have somebody in your life? Or are you at the point where...Heather: Oh yeah, it's actually really funny. It was probably about a week after I got to this realization that I was totally fine. I could just have a business and have my son and maybe go travelling and all this fun stuff....Along comes the right guyAlong comes this guy that I'd been speaking to probably since October. He was a friend of a friend, we'd started talking on Facebook. I think we met once some years ago for like 5 minutes. So we'd been talking and we get along really well. We'd video chat just as friends, whatever. And so somewhere in there he decided to profess his undying love for me which was helpful.Me: Oh, wow.Heather: I'll be fair, I do love him too. We are not together. I am still single because I'm incredibly stubborn and I'm not doing the long distance thing again. But he's actually looking at moving here at some point.Me: Wait, so is he in Canada at the moment?Heather: Yup, he's in Canada as well.Me: Oh! Yeah, you've gotta get those guys out of Canada, right?Heather: Yeah, I'm just gonna need to import somebody.Me: Exactly. Well, just the good one, right? The other guys can stay over there.Heather: Yeah, they can stay as far away as they need too.Me: Just get the good one. Being clear about what you wantMe: So are you...how can I put this? Have you basically just said to him, you know, “I'm not moving, if you want us to be together then this is how it's gonna work. And I need you to come here” kind of thing?Heather: Pretty much, yes. What happened was that I was quite open with the fact that I'm not leaving here. Or that if I did leave from here, it would just be to Europe maybe. You know, fairly local because I don't want to leave my family behind again.Me: Especially with your son and everything, right?Heather: Yeah, and a ten hour flight each way is not ideal.Me: Oh I know, I've done that, yeah!Heather: That's where I came into it. And he was all like, well he was initially all 'No I don't want to move either'. Which was fine because, you know, we weren't dating. But he sort of came round to the idea. I think what happened for him basically is he looked at it and decided, 'Actually I don't have much to keep me really. And I want to be over there with her, so...' That's where he came to it.Me: Wow, so yeah, you'll soon have somebody flying halfway across the world to be with you, which is pretty cool, right? Heather: Yes, it makes a change.Me: Exactly! Rather than you doing all the flying, that's really good.What Heather does nowSo what about...so now I know that with your business and everything, well. I'd love to ask you about what you're doing now because I know for a fact that what you're doing now is super helpful to people like me!Heather: Yeah, OK. So what I do is, I run Designmancy. And basically what I do there is I will take your WordPress site and I can build it, I can repair it, I can train you how to use it. I can fix it...Anything you could possibly need for WordPress, that is what I do. I'm your coder fixer gal, basically.Me: Wow that is really cool. And you take on all different kinds of projects, everything from like building sites to fixing existing sites...Heather: Oh yeah, I mean I am honestly at my happiest when I'm getting to fix bits and pieces of code or getting to build something new. Really I get kind of twitchy if I've not fixed anything for a couple of weeks, so just give me something to do!Me: Oh just give me a call, I've got plenty to fix!Heather: Basically that's how I work.Me: That's really cool. And of course you can do it from anywhere, right?Heather: Well yeah, that's a big help too.Me: That's fantastic! Brilliant! What's your...Oh I'll put the link to your website in the show notes. But for the benefit of people listening, where's the best place for them to find you?Where to find HeatherHeather: OK, probably the best place to find me is designmancy.com. I'll spell it cause it's a bit of a weird word. It's design, I think we all know that bit! And then it's mancy dot com. That's the best place to reach me. Depending on when you get there my site may still just be a 'coming soon' page. Because cobbler's shoes and all that stuff. But it does have this really nice early bird discount, so hop on over!Me: Super! So then I have another question for you. Is that the new design of your website? Because your business is already, you know, going well and making money and stuff, I assume you got your previous clients from a previous website? Is that right?Heather: Well I had had a website there for a while but it was never really that good. I've actually been getting a lot of my clients from Facebook groups and referrals and word of mouth. I've not been using my site as much but it has gotten to the point where I really need it to work. I'm really excited by this actually, I've hired a copywriter to help me. So she's doing all my written content. Obviously I'm doing my website bit but I've got a photographer and all that fun stuff as well. It's coming together really quite nicely and it's exciting!Me: Super! And I do know that it's very cobbler's shoes, right? That, you know, the WordPress site designer whose WordPress site isn't designed yet because you're doing everybody else's, right?Super! Oh thank you so much Heather for being here to share your story with us. I love that, so...Heather: Thank you Barbara, I'm so glad I got to be here and thanks for having me!An ideal food to feel fullMe: You're so welcome! So, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you one of the best foods to fill you up. It's a great comfort food that's actually good for you. And that food is...oats!Now oats are a very powerful yet often underestimated food. They really do help fill you up and give you energy over long periods. As do chia seeds, which I've spoken about in a previous episode.And the reason I'm mentioning food to feel full is because a lot of us could reach for fulfilment in the arms of someone. Man, woman, whatever. But this food can actually fill you up without reaching for anybody's arms. And then you can still reach for the arms of somebody if you want to!In terms of food to feel full, in one study done in Australia, oats actually ranked at number 3 for a 'satiety index'. Which basically is a number allocated to how good particular foods are at satisfying hunger and contributing to a feeling of fullness. Some researchers have found that eating oats can help reduce appetite as well. So if you make yourself some oatmeal with apples, you'd be giving yourself a double whammy of food to feel full, as it were, because apples are good appetite-reducers too.I'm sure that if you've eaten oats, well you may not be very surprised at that because you've probably experienced feeling pretty full after a bowl of, say, oatmeal or porridge as they say in the UK.Other benefits of oatsDid you know that oats do have a lot of benefits, and one of the benefits is that they're great for your gut? They're high in fiber so they're very helpful for digestion, and some researchers believe that they may even help boost some of the beneficial bacteria in our gut.The other cool thing about oats is that they can be very helpful for lowering cholesterol. The oats bind with cholesterol and therefore help remove excess from your body. I've got personal experience with this because my ex-husband used to be on medication for high cholesterol, until he did two things. The first one was he started eating my food, but also he added in oats at breakfast. Within a year he was off the medication and that was about 10 years ago now. And if anyone comes near him and says the word 'oats', they will get an earful about how oats bind with cholesterol and you know, blah blah blah. He goes on about it(!)But the benefits of oats don't stop there. You don't have to eat them, you can bathe in them! For help with inflamed skin conditions such as eczema, chickenpox or even sunburn, you can add one cup of finely ground oats to your bathwater and let your skin soak up all that goodness.What oats containAs to what oats contain, they have many minerals, such as selenium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese and zinc. So the phosphorus helps if for example you've got students in your house for example and they're studying for exams and things, phosphorus can help there too.Many people ask if oats contain gluten. It's important to note here that oats of themselves don't actually contain gluten. However, if you are celiac or extremely sensitive to even traces of gluten, you'll want to check the provenance of your oats. Because sometimes they can pick up traces of gluten if they are grown next to a field of gluten-containing grains such as wheat or barley. You can buy packages of oats that are marked gluten-free, they're just a bit more expensive. But you can get them.How to eat oatsAs to how to eat oats, when you're faced with buying oats in the supermarket, you may get a bit confused. There are steel-cut oats, oat groats, rolled oats, Scottish oats... all kinds of oats! I'll link to an article below that spells out the different kinds so that you'll know what to buy without tearing your hair out.Personally I use two kinds. I use oat groats, which are the whole grains. They're great for soaking overnight and making into oat milk, and they're also really good for grinding for making oat flour. I also use rolled oats which are basically hearty flakes. They're oat groats that have been pressed flat and they're great for making energy bites.I've got some recipes that use oats in my 5-Minute Chocolate Heaven ebook, so if you'd like to take a look, I'll post the link below in the show notes. Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story – and if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESLink to 5-Minute Chocolate Heaven and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article on health benefits of oats: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270680.phpAn easy explanation of the different types of oats: http://www.webmd.com/diet/oatmeal-benefits#1Heather's bio: Heather runs Designmancy, your place for WordPress design, repairs and training, while raising a 2 year old son and generally plotting to take over the world.Heather's website: http://designmancy.comFind Heather on Facebook and Instagram​

Sohini's discovery of a young boy and his amazing story, and how he inspired her to leave an upscale London legal firm to become a solicitor who helps change lives, one drop at a time. Plus one of the best foods to help fight overwhelm.In addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best food to help fight overwhelm, because our guest today went through something that was pretty emotionally intense.Our guest, Sohinipreet AlgWhich brings me to say that I am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Sohinipreet Alg. Sohini is a solicitor – a lawyer – who has an incredible story for us about how she left what could have been a very financially lucrative career to take a very different direction as a solicitor, all because of a young boy. She is compassionate, determined and very caring, as you will hear. So Sohini welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really happy to have you here today!Sohini: Thank you for having me Barbara, I'm excited to be here.Sohini's storyMe: Super! So Sohini, why don't you start by telling us what kind of work you were doing before you met this young boy, when you first got started as a solicitor?Sohini: OK well I think that was quite early on in my training contract, so I was doing various areas of law at that point. I hadn't finalized what I wanted to do, which area I wanted to go into. Immigration was actually not something that I wanted to go into, but as you'll see I kind of just fell into that.My main area of interest was kind of a corporate, commercial area of law, so I was mainly concentrating on that.Me: And is there any reason why you were concentrating on that to start with?Sohini: You have to do a few seats in your training before you qualify. So they gave me a commercial seat, and an immigration seat, and also a housing and litigation seat.Me: What's a seat? Is that just like a temporary post, or something?Sohini: It's about 6 months, 6-8 months of training in each area over a period of two years, and then at the end of the training you kind of naturally go into one of those areas and specialize in that.Going for the moneyMe: OK. So then your story I guess would begin... How did you find the corporate seat, first of all? Did you do that one first?Sohini: I did, and I really enjoyed that. It was something that I thought I'd like to go into just purely because of the financial side of it I think. A lot of people obviously end up going into law or anything similar thinking “oh yeah, the money”! So I think I was probably quite similar in that way.I didn't have a real interest in law in that sense, I did a History and Latin degree so completely different to law. But I didn't know what I would do with my history and Latin degree, so I thought 'the corporate and commercial side of it's gonna make a lot of money so let's try and do that!'Very long hoursSo first I went into a firm which had quite a strong corporate field and that was the first seat that was given. And I enjoyed that, it was very cutthroat, very long hours.Me: That's what I was going to ask, yeah, I mean, what was the atmosphere like? What kind of hours were you working?Sohini: Well it would easily be...you'd start at eight o'clock and you'd be finishing at maybe ten or eleven o'clock at night.Me: Wow! And was that normal even for people that were...once they'd finished their training?Sohini: Absolutely, people would just continue into the early hours of the morning if necessary. So if you're working on a deal, if you're working for an organisation or a company, they expect you to be at their beck and call so you'd be available 24/7 really. Me: Wow!Sohini: It wasn't actually too bad compared with some of my seniors. So yeah, it's pretty difficult.Me: But you enjoyed it!Sohini: I enjoyed it, well not as much as I actually then enjoyed other areas as you'll see but especially because I thought that was what I wanted to do and that was what was going to make me money. So that's what I was seeing more than anything else.Me: And you did 6 months there and then what happened? Then was it the immigration seat?Defending the homelessSohini: No, then I went to do a public law and housing seat. So it was kind of...I was dealing with local authorities, dealing with a lot of homeless people, dealing with landlord/tenant issues, nuisance, etc. It was a completely different seat, it was more personable, more client contact. That was quite nice actually, I enjoyed it. There was a lot of appearing in courts etc and assisting barristers and solicitors.Me: Were you assisting...I mean I just want to get an idea because I know nothing about law. So were you assisting...for example with the homeless people, were you assisting the homeless people? Or...I mean to me I kind of see it always as two sides, right? There's the side of the homeless person and what they want and the side of the, I don't know, the council and what they want.Sohini: I was working primarily for the individual so it would be for example the homeless person. So I wasn't working for the local authority, I was working for the individual in that situation.Legal AidMe: And how did they...so was that pro bono? Like how did you get paid?Sohini: Yeah, well it's Legal Aid, so our firm also had a Legal Aid contract with the government as well. So if you aren't able to pay and you can prove your financial situation, you do get free access to legal care.Me: Wow!Sohini: The government paid for it. We just had to basically at the end of the case prove that we'd put in x number of hours and this person wasn't able to pay privately and so we were paid accordingly from the government.Me: With the homeless people, what kind of things would you help them do? Did you help them get housing then?Sohini: Exactly. So it would be where they were refused temporary housing and they could prove they were homeless, there was criteria that they had to follow. Sometimes it's pretty difficult to prove everything. Or it was just that they had temporary accommodation but they got kicked out of the accommodation because they'd spent too long in the accommodation etc. Basically it was just trying to get them housing when they deserved the housing and the local authority wasn't giving it.On into the world of immigration...dragging her feetMe: Wow, OK. And then from there you went to immigration, I guess?Sohini: Yes, my final seat was immigration and that was the seat that I really didn't want to go into.Me: And why not? What were your thoughts about it before you went into it?Sohini: I think it was just...Well, I didn't think there was much money in that area also, and I was also concerned because it's a very fast-paced, very rapidly moving area of law and I wasn't sure I'd be able to get to grips with. It's an area that you need to just keep retraining and keep on top of it because the immigration rules change that quickly. And there are so many...there's a variety of countries that people can come into the UK from, and there are different rules according to where you might be applying from. So it was just such a difficult area, that's just what I thought, it wasn't something that I wanted to move to naturally.Me: Right, so then you started going into it not really wanting to do it, and then what happened?Discovering new aspects of herselfSohini: Yeah well I think not even a couple of months into the seat, just a few weeks into the seat I quickly became very absorbed with the area actually. I was doing longer hours in immigration than I was when I was doing the commercial seat.Me: Really!Sohini: Yeah, and I think that was purely because I enjoyed it that much, and I felt that compassion that I didn't have initially, I didn't think I had in me.Me: Oh wow! That's honest!Sohini: Yeah, so it was just quite overwhelming when I joined. I mean the firm that I was with, they have an excellent track record with immigration law and it's one of the biggest departments in the UK. So we had a variety of immigration clients. We had private clients, we had Legal Aid clients, we had asylum seekers, you know it was all sorts of clients, people who were in the UK unlawfully or illegally trying to legalize their stay. There was just such a variety and listening to people's stories, finding out what their background was, why a lot of them really felt the need to live in the UK, what had happened in their past, it was amazing. Hearing the stories was just amazing. Very heartwarming and very humbling as well.Me: And so speaking of stories, this brings us to the story that you mentioned, right? That seemed to affect you the most, is that right?A young boy...under a truckSohini: Yeah, exactly. I think it was because I hadn't come across many such cases before. But it was a young boy who...and I think it was early in the evening and I was getting ready to actually leave the office. We got a call that there was a young boy who had entered the UK unclaimed. That was assumed. He couldn't speak any English and he'd come under trucks. He was kind of held on under the trucks, so the truck drivers didn't even know that they'd picked him up in Calais for example.Me: Oh wow, how was he under the truck? I think you said he was strapped? Like somebody had...Sohini: He was strapped under the truck so...Me: So somebody presumably strapped him under the truck, right? Because he came from Afghanistan, right?Sohini: I mean you'll find a lot of kind of people who help or assist asylum seekers to cross the borders in very dangerous ways. We all know about what's been happening with you know, people crossing the rivers and things like that and people go to extreme lengths and this boy was very young, you could see that straight away.Me: How old was he about do you think? Roughly?Sohini: I think he was probably about nine or ten.Me: And do you have any idea how long he was strapped under that truck?Sohini: He was strapped for quite a number of hours. So he had come from Calais, he was strapped from Calais and he came into Dover, so yeah, he risked his life.Me: At least six or seven hours, right?Sohini: Yeah, a very long time.Going to DoverMe: So what happened? They called you and they said what? Did they say “Can you come? There's a boy that's just entered the UK”?Sohini: Basically I think the lorry driver then realized when he stopped at Dover that somebody had just come over under the truck. And the boy couldn't speak much English but I believe as far as I can remember the truck driver tried to call the local authorities etc and they didn't know what to do. They called the firm I was working with because they knew that the immigration team was pretty big and we dealt with a lot of asylum cases at that time. We got a call and they asked us to come to Dover to speak to the boy and find out what it is that he wanted to do in the UK.What to do firstMe: So what was your reaction when you first saw him? Like you arrive in Dover and then you see this boy...Sohini: It was just... gosh, the fear on his face, I still remember that. It was just...he couldn't speak any English, he didn't know where he was, he'd left his family behind, didn't know what had happened to his family. He didn't know what was going to happen to him. So there was just this kind of overwhelming fear in his eyes that I still remember. That was quite upsetting.Me: What did you do at that point? Because you couldn't...I mean, you didn't have a language in common, so...Sohini: No, we had to wait for a translator, we did have somebody come to translate so that was really helpful. Then I had to sit with him, find out what was happening, why he'd come to the UK, where his family were, which country he'd travelled from, etc.Me: And so what did he tell you?A boy's harrowing storySohini: That he'd left Afghanistan because of the troubles that were happening there, that a lot of his family members had been killed...I think he had another couple of siblings who had all dispersed as well so his parents...his father had been killed, his mother said that they needed to flee. His mother couldn't leave because there were elderly people that she was looking after so she told the kids to leave and he was the only one who seemed to have made it to the UK.He didn't know what had happened en route to his siblings. So he was just terrified and he was just so worried for his family, he didn't know what happened to his siblings or his mother. But we couldn't get in contact with them, we didn't have contact details for them.Me: So I suppose he never found out, I imagine.Sohini: No, he never found out.Getting him helpMe: And then what did...you're with the boy, you're with the interpreter, you find out what happened, and then what did you do? Because presumably he has to sleep somewhere and get food, so who did all of that?Sohini: Well, he was initially put in a detention center.Me: What's a detention center?Sohini: It's basically a lot of people that come into the UK for example unlawfully or awaiting decisions, they're held in detention centers. They have specific ones where children can be held. So he was held in the detention center and that was quite distressing for him.Me: I'll bet.Sohini: My main aim was to obviously put in his asylum claim as soon as possible and try and get him in with a local authority so that they could care for him and he could get the right provisions. So that evening I still remember going back to the office and he remained in contact with me. He had access to a telephone number and he was just so scared. I tried my best to kind of prepare an application and try and get him suitable accommodation as soon as possible after meeting him.Me: Yeah, of course. Do you remember how long he had to stay in the detention center?Sohini: He was there for about a week.Psychological as well as physical help...Me: Wow. And so...oh you mentioned, I think you mentioned to me that they gave him a place to stay but then he also had mental health assessments or something like that? How does that work?Sohini: Basically we had to first of all verify his age and make sure that he was in fact a minor and wasn't an adult because we did find a lot of people who were trying to claim to be younger than they were so they'd get preferential treatment. So we had to establish and confirm his age. We also had to find out that he was OK. He'd been abused, there was a lot of violence used against him. So he had to have assessments taken. He had medical assessments to make sure that he was OK.Me: Physically OK, yeah.Sohini: Exactly. He was referred to a psychiatrist as well for mental health assessments and that all contributed, assisted his asylum claim because obviously we could prove that he wasn't lying and that he did go through the torture that he said had been inflicted on him. So that was all important to his case.No more contact...Me: Yeah. And so once you got housing for him, did you find out what happened to him later on?Sohini: He was...as far as I can remember, he was then put into a foster home I believe it was. So someone looked after him. Unfortunately we're not able to maintain contact on a personal level with a client.Me: Of course.Sohini: Which is a shame because I would have liked to, you know, find out how he's doing etc. I still do wonder, actually.Me: Of course, yeah.Sohini: Although I came across many such cases afterwards and even continue to do so right now in my professional life. But because I think that was the first one I came across, it stayed with me all these years. So yeah, I would like to know actually how he's doing, but...I'm sure he's doing well now.Me: How long ago was this then?Sohini: This was, oh gosh, about ten years ago.Me: Wow, so he'd be about twenty now.Sohini: Yeah. He would be, yeah.What Sohini decidedMe: Wow. Oh! So then...so then after, having experienced all that, what did you do next? I assume you...I mean you said that you decided that that was why you wanted to go into immigration, but what kind of thoughts were going in your head when you were thinking about making that decision as to what part of law you wanted to practice?Sohini: Well I think it really kind of hit me that I'm more inclined to work with people on a personal level and I just felt so satisfied and kind of content knowing that I had helped him in some form. He was so appreciative, you know, at the end of his asylum claim when he got asylum and he got accommodation, he got leave to remain, etc. Just the appreciation that he had, it was so, so nice to see. And that just beats any other feeling I had when I was in my commercial seat! It was absolutely something that I knew that I had to carry on doing.Me: Yeah. That was really nice that you felt that from him as well, right? Despite the...some things go beyond language barriers, don't they.Sohini: Exactly, definitely.What Sohini does now to help peopleSohini: So... what do you do now? What kinds of things are you doing now for people?Sohini: I set up roughly about three years ago my own immigration business, and I continue to do immigration. After I finished my training contract I was working in the City in London for an immigration firm, so I continued doing immigration law. I've since set up my own and I deal with all sorts of immigration matters. It is all private immigration matters, but I help applicants with discretionary leave, asylum seekers have asked for my help, I help private clients with work visas and I help a lot of organizations with their tier 4 visas etc. So I do a cross-section of immigration and applications just now.Me: OK. Wow. And so how can people find you if they want help with any of these things?How to find SohiniSohini: My website is probably the best place to find information on, and that's www.elmrose.com and the firm is called Elm Rose Consultancy and you'll get an idea online about what services we provide. And they can pick up the phone and call me, I'm available at any time. So everything's available on my website, you can find out a bit more there.Me: Yeah, if anybody needs help with that kind of thing, right? Especially as it's such a...I don't want to say hot topic, but well yeah, hot in the sense of controversial hot, right? It's just...it's a bit unreal, right?Sohini: Especially with Brexit just now, the European clients that I have. Their case is now just to kind of confirm their right to be in the UK. Me: Yes of course.If you're in the UK and feeling concerned...Sohini: There's a lot of concern just now. I'm even happy to speak to people just to allay their concerns or fears about what's happening in today's climate.Me: That's fantastic, that's really good to know because I'm sure there are definitely people listening who may be thinking 'I'm not British, what's my situation' and all that stuff. Yeah, thank you for that. Sohini thank you so much for sharing this story with us.Sohini: Thank you for having me.Me: You're very welcome! Yeah, I'm just very grateful that there are people like you out there that people can reach out to, you know? Because I think having lived in two foreign countries now, it can be quite a scary thing. It's good to know that people have someone like you to help them out when it all gets a bit scary. So thank you!Food to fight overwhelmRight! At the beginning of this episode, I said I'd share with you one of the best foods you can eat to help fight overwhelm. If you're in any situation where you just feel emotionally overwhelmed or wired and you need to relax. It's a food that has many, many properties besides helping us relax. And that food is...celery!Now before you start screaming and saying “Oh celery, that's diet food, it's absolutely horrible!”, it is not! There are delicious ways to eat celery that I'll share with you later.But first I would like to say just one or two benefits of celery that I think are especially cool.Benefits of celeryWay back when, Hippocrates – the father of modern medicine so I'm told – he used to prescribe celery as a tonic for people suffering from nervous tension. I mean apparently even in his day, people still got stressed.This is because celery has potassium which has been shown to help control blood pressure. Now Chinese medicine prescribes celery for the same reasons, in addition to its being an aphrodisiac, I had to throw that one in. Gotta try that one, right?Another cool thing about celery is that it appears that celery doesn't actually lower blood pressure in someone whose blood pressure is already low. I mean how cool is that!Celery also has high levels of magnesium, as well as other minerals and essential oils, all of which can help us relax. So if you're wired in the evenings, or if like Sohini you have super long days, try a glass of celery juice before going to bed. It actually tastes pretty good, and it tastes way different than munching on the celery sticks themselves.Celery is also great for detox. It's a great diuretic so it can help flush toxins and other waste out of our kidneys. Plus I think many people know that we require more calories to eat and digest celery than the celery actually contains, so it's a great food if you're looking to slim down which I think is how most people know about celery.How you eat celery...the tasty way!So how do most people eat celery? Well, I think you know that, right? We usually pick up a stick and munch on it if we're on a diet, usually cursing the poor veg at the same time and we feel like we're punishing ourselves.But there are way better ways to eat celery. One way is in a juice with other fruit or veg. You can mix fruit and vegetables in there. And one of the articles that I'll link to has a great recipe for a green juice that I'm definitely gonna try. Let me know if you try it too!My favorite easy way to eat celery is super easy: I just dip it in some nut butter. I'd say my favorite is almond butter. It's really delicious and you don't feel like a rabbit.I'll link to an article in the show notes that also has a recipe for a salad using celery that sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself. In this recipe they do mention parmesan so if you don't eat dairy, just substitute the parmesan for some nutritional yeast. It looks pretty tasty so I might try that myself.I also have an amazing recipe for my Way Better Than Waldorf Salad which takes celery to a whole new level, and I'll link to that as well. Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story – and if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation),  I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESMy 5 Minute Salads & Sauces recipe ebook with my Way Better than Waldorf Salad recipe: rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipesMedicinal uses of celery, including juice recipe: www.wellbeing.com.au/body/recipes/Celery-Worth-stalking.htmlOther article with salad recipe: www.doctorshealthpress.com/food-and-nutrition-articles/10-health-benefits-of-celeryWhere to find Sohiniwww.elm-rose.comFacebookTwitterLinkedInSohinipreet Alg is a qualified Solicitor and specialised in Immigration law.  She is Level 3 OISC accredited and is a Senior Caseworker under the Law Society's Immigration & Asylum Accreditation Scheme. Sohini has worked all over the UK, including large London city based firms, and is the Director of Elm Rose Consultancy. She has an unparalleled passion and commitment to her clients.

Gabriella Guglielminotti Trivel shares her story of how she went from an abusive relationship, to losing her job, to freedom in Antarctica. Plus my favorite warming ingredient that you can add to your food AND put on your body, with surprising results.Hi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:From Abuse and Divorce to Freedom in AntarcticaIn addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you one of the best ingredients you can add to your food when it's cold outside. And you don't have to just use it for food. You can actually add it to something that has nothing to do with food and that I know will surprise you. The best part is that when you do that, nobody has to know!OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story. I am very excited to be joined here today by speaker and visionary Gabriella Guglielminotti Trivel, author of the book 'Antarctic Odyssey a New Beginning'.In her own words, Gabriella is A Woman of the 21st Century, Author, Speaker and Female Cycle Consultant and she's got a fascinating story to share with us today, complete with whales, seals and penguins as well as her own life lessons learned.So Gabriella welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today!Gabriella: Hello Barbara, thank you so much for this opportunity.Me: You're so welcome! I love your story because you overcame some really difficult situations and then you went on to do some amazing things, so I think that people will really enjoy it.Can you tell us – I mean, I know that now you do all kinds of wonderful, beautiful things, but it wasn't always like that, right? I think at the beginning you were talking about a relationship that wasn't exactly ideal for you. Is that the best place to start?Gabriella's storyGabriella: Well I suppose it's the best place to start because to be totally honest, I think that whenever a story starts, meaning an intimate relationship story, nobody really plans to go into something that is not nice.The honeymoon comes, everything's fantastic, but then both the characters start pouring into the relationship their own characteristics, their agenda, their baggage... It becomes like a bit of a murky puddle.Me: I know what you mean, yeah. It doesn't sound like a good thing to have, a murky puddle! I know that it didn't start out as a murky puddle. And I know that you're originally from Italy, right?Gabriella: Yes, I was born in a city called Turin in the northwest part of Italy, at the foot of the Alps. It's in the Piedmont region, from the French “au pied du mont”. It's a very mountainous region with plains and hills and so forth, and Turin is only a few kilometers from the border with France. I grew up in a mountainous environment, going skiing and trekking in the mountains with my parents. And so a few decades later I ended up in flat England.Me: Yeah, with hardly any snow, right?Gabriella: Well, it doesn't snow much but it does sometimes in Scotland. When I went to Scotland it was always summer, but they do ski there I was told. Working in the MaldivesI ended up in the UK passing through the Maldives, because that's where I was working for an Italian tour operator. On the island where I was based I met this Briton in 1997. In my spare time I was diving, underwater with tanks, because I was a diver before. The Maldives is a diver's destination so when I could, I was diving.The diving instructor buddied me up with this chap who was alone who was British. He was actually quite at home in that little island because he had been 10 or 11 times already. We were buddied up together and so that's how it started. As you can imagine, in a very romatic place... we basically met underwater!Me: Oh that's very cool!Gabriella: Sometimes when I think about it, it sounds like it was taken from a fiction book or something. But it happened to me, and then of course... he was there for a couple of weeks and we had opportunities to get to know each other a bit.The island was so big that it would take you 5 minutes walk to go around it. So obviously it wasn't very difficult to keep bumping into each other, that's how it started in a way. And I'm sure that part of the story was because it was in a romantic location even if I was working, and he was on holiday...More trips togetherBut of course what happened was he went back home and we kept in touch. He was writing me letters. And then when I finished my contract there, I went to visit him in London.Of course the fascination hadn't faded yet so a month later I moved in with him for good, and it was very kind of rushed.Me: How long had you known each other at that point?Gabriella: When I moved in with him, basically I had just met him in the Maldives a couple of months earlier and he had stayed there for two weeks. But then when I went to visit him after working in the Maldives, I went to visit him for a week or so and in that week he asked me if I wanted to join him. He was a photographer and he was invited to show his diving photographs at an exposition in Singapore. He invited me to come along, and of course I said yes!From Malaysia to LondonAnd after the diving exposition in Singapore, we went diving in Malaysia. So again it was a very exotic situation where we got the chance to get to know each other a bit more.So then when we came back, I went back home basically to return for good.It was all very nice at the time, but very quick. I don't know what to call it... a story, an adventure. So then I found myself in London, cold, rainy London, and I started the second chapter of my life in the UK, in London.Cultural gapsAnd like in all stories, in all relationships, there are many factors that come into it, that create or direct the story in a certain way. In our case I think there were many gaps. Not just the language. I studied as an interpreter so my English was pretty good, but there was still a cultural gap.Me: Yup, I can relate to that.Gabriella: You might speak the same language, but you speak two different languages. You come from different backgrounds and different countries.Me: Yup, I had that with two husbands, one French one and one Mexican one. I spoke both languages and there's still a cultural gap.Gabrielle: Yes but it's funny though, unless you are in that situation, it's difficult to imagine. Your imagination is never like reality.Me: Of course. And was it hard for you to settle in the UK? In London?Gabriella: Well, it was in a way. But you see, when you're in love, you make everything do because you want it to work. Yes, the weather was...British. Unpredictable, and very variable so it changes from one moment to the next. But mainly it's not continental so it means you don't have the four seasons. You tend to have sort of two seasons really, and that was hard.Paradise for some, hell for othersBut what I want to say is that I was in a paradise on earth. The Maldives is definitely considered one of those places on earth that's perfect for honeymoons, this type of thing. I was working there, of course I wasn't on holiday there. But it was really hard to work there, and it felt to me like hell on earth, funnily enough. Such a paradox. Me: Really!Gabriella: Basically from paradise on earth which for me was feeling like hell, anyway, I fell on 'not paradise on earth' – weatherwise in the UK. But I was very happy because of course I was in this relationship that at the time I loved and cherished so much. That was for me a big lesson that I would never forget – that really, happiness is where your heart is.But of course I have to say that I've been here in the UK for nineteen years and I can say that yes, after a while, the weather gets at you!From holidays to power gamesMe: Yeah of course. But then the relationship started to change, right? Because at first you said it was...Gabrielle: Yes, like all relationships in the beginning it was very easygoing and nice and so forth. But it became more like a power game and I wasn't aware of it. I should have been aware because there were signs from the very beginning, but you know, sometimes we are blind to the signs. We can't hear it even if we can hear physically.Me: I mean when you say power games, can you think of an example?Gabriella: Yes, there was a gap of eleven years between the two of us and I'm a very easygoing type of personality and I don't really want to control anybody. But on the other side there was a person who was obviously much older than me with possibly much more life experience than me.And I am guessing here because the bottom line is that we never really know what happens in another person unless that person tells us, right? But I'm guessing with hindsight that inside there was a desire to create this relationship, he possibly really enjoyed it, wanted it and so forth. He just wanted it to work, but his character was very domineering, he was very controlling.Even if I'm as I said a very easygoing type of person I think, very flexible... I had just left my country, I had just moved here, I started from scratch. That didn't bother me, because I quite like that type of thing.I was the one adjusting to everything basically, but I couldn't adjust to being controlled.Why some people manipulate othersAnd you don't see it in the beginning because you think the other person is like you. You think they just want to love you, things like that. Maybe I was naïve but I'm sure I belong to a big club.Me: I mean, did he just like not let you go where you wanted, or have the friends that you wanted? Or try to tell you how to be?Gabriella: No, it took me a long time to realize it because...because you see, with people who are manipulative by nature... My theory is that they've been wounded or hurt, and so it's their survival instinct to try to manipulate their surroundings so that they can survive. It's very basic.Me: Yeah, that's what I think too.Gabriella: This is my theory, but anyway I think it was definitely applicable to his case.I don't know to this day what his wound was, but he definitely wanted me to be in a certain way, doing certain things. He wasn't so obvious. Otherwise I would have realized this earlier on. He was always camouflaging to this 'good doing', these good deeds that were in my interest and all the rest. Maybe according to him they were in my good interests, but not in mine.If you crush somebody character-wise and you want to control the person, you are actually also discarding all the nice characteristics, all the nice bits of the person. You can't just have a puppet in your hands. Well you can, in certain situations it works. There are certain men and women who are kind of happy in that kind of relationship, but it didn't work for me.Tantrums...as an adult?Me: Was there one event...What happened to make you think “This is enough, I have to leave”. Was it one event in particular?Gabriella: Yes, I was just arriving there. One thing that for me really killed the relationship and the story, and I'm happy to share it because there might be other women in similar situations.He was a very narcissistic type of person, and those people have to crush who is next to them because otherwise they don't feel good enough. One way to have his way was to throw tantrums. Really. Like children do.But you know, if you are a mother and you have a child doing that, you know how to deal with it because it's part of the growing up process.But when you are an adult and you have your partner doing that... Like it happened in the middle of the jungle, he wanted to go back to London and leave me there...Me: Ohhh!Gabriella: Stuff like that. It happened more than once.Maybe the first time you put up with it, you think 'Hmm, strange'. And then the second time you might start thinking, 'What have I done?' Because that's what happens to women, we tend to first check with ourselves. We always are prone to think that we've done something wrong ourselves.Me: Yes, of course.Gabriella: So that's what happened with me. When this was happening, I thought 'I've done something inconsiderate', or 'I'm bad'... I was always feeling guilty for something.Scary stuffMe: Was it scary as well? Because if I imagine an adult, you know, a man, my partner having a tantrum...that would just freak me out.Gabriella: Well yes it was! I can tell you! In certain situations it was, because, you know, like... We were returning to Indonesia, we were on this tour, there were just the two of us with a local guide. I can't remember now exactly what happened. He really literally wanted to go back to London and just leave me there, out of the blue. What do you do with something like that?Of course now thinking about it, I think if I would find myself in a situation like that or similar, I would just deal with it very easily because I've been through it.Me: That's what I was gonna say.Gabriella: If you haven't been there, in a similar situation, you don't know what to do. It's natural that you don't know what to do.What you can do if you're in an abusive relationshipMe: That's what I was going to ask actually, because there might be people that are in that kind of situation now. What would you tell them?Gabriella: Well what I would say is that to realize that you're in an abusive relationship is very difficult. And I'll tell you why. It doesn't necessarily have to be physical abuse, because a moral or emotional abuse is just as difficult. Or even worse maybe, because if somebody beats you up, the blows, the bruises on your skin might go, but the emotions, they stay. And then you have to heal them. It might take the rest of your life to do that.In a way, I wasn't in a physical abusive relationship, but it definitely wasn't a peer relationship. And I can say this because I'm now happily in a very nice relationship and I can see how different it is. I'm not...I'm also very aware that I don't want to make it worse than it was.But my advice would be for a woman to...instead of keeping silent, try to find help, professional help. Because if you just talk to your friends or colleagues or whatever, relatives, they will have their own unconscious agenda. Meaning that they will try to help in their own way, but it won't be maybe the best way for you.But with a therapist or somebody, you start maybe having help that shows you where you are and what's happening. They will play back to you what's going on. That's definitely something that I regretted not doing immediately. I waited because I was in denial and this is typical of women. You think that it cannot happen to you, but it does.The moment of no returnMe: But then once you... I know that you did decide at one point to go through with the divorce.Gabriella: Yes, you asked me what was the moment of no return. The moment of no return was just another tantrum, but this time it was very low key in a way compared to others that had been very magnificently planned, right? It wasn't in an exotic location, it was just in a shop. It was a small shop and in front of the sales attendant he just threw this tantrum and just treated me... like shit, basically. And it just reached a point where I just thought 'This is enough'.I had already matured within the years and realized in my body, really physically, that I was dying.Me: How long were you together?Gabriella: Well not long because it was... I moved to the UK in 1998 and we got married 3 years later, and then the point of no return happened in 2005. So I mean long enough to be damaged.Me: Yes, that's long enough, exactly.Gabriella: But not that long. And I'm saying this because I know that there are women who endure abusive relationships for decades. Finding excuses for the children if there are children involved, is actually the worst way to teach your children for the future because they will remember, they will absorb that.What we unconsciously create...Funnily enough, I have to say, and I'm sharing this as well with no pride, well, hiding my pride simply because I know that it can be useful for others. My parents...I had the example at home of my parents who had a similar relationship.And so what I had done, what happened to me or basically what I had done myself was to put myself in the same type of relationship. Because we do that unconsciously because we want to recover or resolve it. Our mind is always looking for a solution for everything that happened to us. It's so classical, like a psychology manual, right? But when it happens to you it's really...it's different, it hurts. But basically that's what happened.My father had a very old-fashioned type of relationship with my mother. Like what happened in the last century. And so the father would decide everything and the mother would say yes to everything.Even though I was born in the twentieth century, very highly educated, spoke four languages, traveled and all the rest of it, you might think 'You're sorted, girl! You're a girl of the world!'And yes, maybe from the outside. But inside, that wasn't the story and so I ended up in an abusive relationship. Having said that, I learned a lot and even if it was painful, I have to say that I couldn't have become the woman that I am today if that hadn't happened to me. It was a shortcut to really wake up.But for people out there, either men or women, because I know that it can happen to men as well. It doesn't have to necessarily be just the woman being in an abusive relationship being abused by a man, it can happen both ways.The very best thing to do for yourselfThe best thing is to actually listen to what you feel in your body because the body always tells us.But we are maybe conditioned by our upbringing. Or we are as I was saying deaf and blind and we don't want to see it, we don't want to hear it, we ignore the signs. The first step is pay attention to what your body is saying to you. And second, reach out because there are many organizations in the, let's call it the civilized so to speak world. It doesn't have to cost necessarily.The very fact of realizing 'there's something here not right, I want to go and see if I can find some help' is the first step to come out of it. And it helps you psychologically to become aware of what's going on.Me: Yes of course.Gabriella: It's been a long journey!Life putting you in a corner...and whyMe: But then you started to come through the other side, right? I mean, even though...you were made redundant from work? Is that right?Gabriella: Yes, what happened for me is that it was all together.I mean, the marriage wasn't happy already and had been that way for years. But what made it all kind of collapse I think was also the fact that I was made redundant at work, and he was self-employed so he was working from home. So obviously having me around didn't help and I was very aware that being at home it would have been hell, but that was what life served me.Life is very clever, always finding a way to put you in the corner so you then have to do something about it.So I was made redundant and I kind of also lost my social background workwise because that was a very big part of my life. Second the relationship at work was a nightmare and that had to be fixed. From the lowest point, to coming back upWhen the point of no return happened and I realized 'this is it, this is enough'...Because after being in the shop with this tantrum, having things thrown at me and whatever, we went into a supermarket and it went on. So I found myself basically like in film scenes that you see, you know? The film character walking and weeping and crying all over the supermarket, feeling like worse than that you can't go. And I was dying inside. But that was the point of no return where I felt 'Hang on a minute. This is enough! As difficult as it might be to break up and face a life that you don't know what it will be, with a big question mark, is still better than having to put up with the same situation every day that is obviously not going to change'.Me: So then what did you do to change things?Gabriella: Well life served me again, because basically who started the divorce process? Him.Me: Him?Gabriella: Yes, he started the divorce process because it was part of his way of being. He wanted to scare me because he thought that that would be a big scare and I would come back home. And you would do that...I mean, it's funny to say, but that would work with a little girl, not with an adult. And deep inside maybe there were parts of me that hadn't grown up enough, but I wasn't a little girl anymore. I was a woman of over forty years.Grabbing an opportunity, even if it takes yearsSo I realized that that was my chance. I had to grab it to be free again. Meaning, well being free at the time just meant to start feeling better. Not feeling anguished by living with a person who wouldn't respect me. You never knew when he would burst out, but the only certainty was you knew he would burst out at any moment.And I know that there are many people like that. They have that kind of character and some get into violence, they become more violent than others, whatever. But we are not here to make a hit parade of who was the worst and who was the best, you know?Me: No, of course, yeah.Gabriella: It's about making people aware that it can happen and there's no shame in that. We all have parts of ourselves that need to be healed so the best thing is really when we witness stuff like that that's going on, and it's obvious, it's apparent, you can't deny it, then it's time to take action.So I said yes to the divorce, he didn't expect that!That was the start of a long struggle because I was hoping that because he started it, he would want it. I was hoping it would be easy and we would free each other up and that would be it. But he didn't want that.Me: It took a long time, right? I think you said it took two years, is that right?Gabriella: Yes, it took two years.Me: Even without children, which I think is just crazy. That's a really long time.Gabriella: Yes, maybe things have changed now, I don't know. But when you have a party that doesn't want it to happen, they put everything out to put obstacles.Nothing to cling to, and yet...Me: But you had a career change at the same time, right? What did you do before and then what did you wind up doing afterwards?Gabrielle: Well what happened was I was working in the tourism industry and I was made redundant. And I could feel inside me that I needed to change because it wasn't satisfying me anymore.For me that was very scary because it wasn't just to lose the relationship and maybe the stability or the safety, so to speak, of a marriage and a relationship. It was also the fact that I didn't have any friends anymore because all of my friends were work-related or socially related with my husband.So I found myself really alone. And London being a big place... At the same time I couldn't really cling to my work. Because in a situation like that, it's useful to at least have something that you can cling to. It could be different things, it doesn't matter, but at least to have something that stays there and represents stability because otherwise it can be quite psychologically challenging.But I didn't have that. I didn't have any social stability, financial stability, career stability of any sort. So I had to face that as well. And I did some temporary work, still in the temporary industry, and then I went away traveling for a month.That was...even if I was still living separated under the same roof, I went backpacking, travelling through Vietnam. And that really helped me, because I'm a free spirit. That really helped me to rediscover myself as a being, a human being. Even if it was scary – you had to consider that I wasn't in the best position emotionally, but I did it, it really helped me.The learning journey begins...and leads to AntarcticaAt the same time I came across NLP, neurolinguistic programming. I trained in that, and that really helped me to recover. I've always been interested in personal development, the power of the mind, and to explore that for me was fundamental. To really rebuild myself psychologically and emotionally, but also it helped me to find a direction in my life.I did different courses, different things. Because after I divorced, I decided to give myself a bit of time and freedom to be able to look around instead of putting myself into another box immediately. So I started doing different trainings, and I eventually ended up in Antarctica!When in doubt, test yourselfMe: I was gonna ask, how did you get to Antarctica, and what was that like?Gabriella: Well, what happened was, it was funny.Two days, or three days after my second court hearing that really marked the end of my divorce, I came across this opportunity to join this chap. He was an Australian explorer really, an adventurer, a coach, called Peter Blair.He had been himself to the North and to the South Pole. So a very adventurous type of person. And after having been to Antarctica, he was actually starting to take people there as a way to explore yourself, to face your limiting beliefs.Having had the training in neurolinguistic programming which is all about the power of the mind... Having walked on fire...Me: Yup! I did that too!Gabriella: So you know that for me was really interesting. I couldn't resist it, because I wanted to test myself. As if I hadn't done it already... But it was very appealing and besides I always liked traveling. I had never considered Antarctica simply because it's too cold for me.But the idea of joining a group of people to go there to face your own beliefs and limitations and fears was for me irresistible!I had a bit of money that I managed to get out of the settlement for the divorce and so I thought 'Before I go into my mind again and become normal and rational again, let's do this because I know this will be good for me'. So nine months later I ended up in Antarctica.And another trauma...Me: Wow! And then what made you decide...Because you've written a book about your journey, right? Can you tell us about that?Gabriella: Well I wasn't planning to write a book. I was actually planning to produce a documentary about it. But I didn't have the funds to be able to get with me a crew or anything like that, forget it, so I just went with a camera myself and I started filming, not having done it before.But unfortunately something very unpredictable happened during the trip and so what happened was I lost my gear.Me: You lost your gear?Gabriella: Yes, my photographic gear.Me: Oh! Wow!Gabriella: So for me it was really going to hell because I had waited for that trip. For me the best part of it was to be able to go there and witness nature. For me it's a big thing. And you can't go more wild and natural than Antarctica. So I was expecting that, you know I was really preparing for this trip so much, I was really looking forward to taking pictures and filming and the rest. But something that I wasn't planning obviously... Again, life serves you right. I lost my gear!Benefits of lossSo what happened was I went through this trauma again and because it was a trauma for me. When I came back I was still trying to see if I could produce something with the little footage I had and I couldn't find a way, basically. That happened in 2008 and in 2011 I eventually surrendered to the reality of it.And I had this idea, I realized 'OK, it seems that I can't do anything with this experience'. I really wanted to share this experience, right? Because I learn so much from other people's stories and I feel very thankful for the person I've become because other people went to the trouble and the bother to put their story out there.And so this nagged at me constantly and I had this voice inside me that was pushing me to keep closing. But it seemed that all the doors were closed and I didn't know what to do.Eventually three years later I realized that I could write a book. And I thought 'Well at least if I write a book I have my experience there that anybody can read'. And these days technology allows us to be found more easily than in the past.So that's what I did. I went away and in two weeks I wrote my book.Me: Wow! That's fantastic! In two weeks!Gabriella: Yes, and after three years, that happened. But that's me, I found it easy to write. Obviously I have to say for honesty that those three years after the expedition I must have digested the thing.Writing a book and throwing pride to the windMe: Yes, because you put a lot of life lessons in your book as well, right?Gabriella: Yes, the story of the book is the trip on the ship with this group of people. But it's not a book that talks about the beauty of Antarctica. Of course it does because I put pictures in it as much as I could because I think it's worth it. Although it's an inner journey. It's what happened to me internally. I wrote it as raw as it was, I wrote all those things that nobody wants to admit because we think, 'if the world finds out that I do that, that I think that, oh my God it will be the end of it!' Because we all have that side of us that wants to... We're shy, or we're ashamed of some parts of ourselves that we don't want to show.I thought it was worthwhile to do it because if we do it, we allow others to realize how we are all the same. And how vulnerable we are. And how strong we can be at the same time. So yeah, I chuck away my pride and I chuck away my ego and I just wrote it as it was.Some potent teachings that Gabriella shares with others nowMe: So now I mean I know you do some really interesting things to help other people. You mentioned that you help women gain confidence, authority and fulfilment in life by knowing their body, doing all kinds of other things, helping them work with their female cycle... So if people want to know more about that, where's the best place for them to find you? I mean I'll put it in the shownotes, but...Gabriella: Well that's another whole story. I came across a lady called Alexandra Pope who talks about menstrual cycle awareness and that was for me life-changing. And so among the many things that I've done and investigated, that was for me as a woman what really made the biggest impact on my life.So therefore I realized that I wanted to spread the message. Because if I'd been instructed, educated by my mother or any other elder woman when I was young and I'd been raised with that awareness, I would have possibly not entered into an abusive relationship. I could have avoided a very painful and expensive divorce and other things. So I realized the potency of that teaching.Where to find GabriellaMe: So for people who want to find out more about that, that's on your website, right?Gabriella: Yes, flyinginspiration.com They can find out more about myself, what I do...Me: And your book as well, right?Gabriella: Yes, they can find the book but they can find lots of information which is free. There are many interviews, articles... It's all there for you.Me: Super! Well thank you so much! Gabriella thank you SO much for your story. I really enjoyed it and I think, you know, I know that it's been quite a journey for you. So I just wanted to thank you for coming on and sharing it with such honesty and beauty!Gabriella: Thank you Barbara, for the possibility to share the message. Hopefully it will help somebody out there today, tomorrow and for the years to come!What to add to food (and other places) when it's cold outsideSo, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you one of the best ingredients you can add to your food when it's cold outside. And as I mentioned, you don't have to just use it for food. You can sprinkle this ingredient inside your socks to help keep you warm! It's also really tasty, and you only need a tiny bit.Have you got an idea what it could be? It is...cayenne pepper!Benefits of cayenne pepperCayenne and other hot spices are great to add to your food when it's cold out, because they literally trick your body into thinking that the food is hotter than it actually is. Not that you need to eat cold food of course, you can heat up soups and things, but cayenne gives your food an extra kick of heat.And yes, you can add it to your socks. On the inside though, otherwise you won't feel it and you'll just be heating your shoes. And do make sure that you haven't got any cuts or open wounds when you do that. You just need a small amount, like a quarter teaspoon.So why does this work? And what other benefits does cayenne pepper have? Well, cayenne contains a substance called capsaicin which increases the circulation in your fingers and toes.Cayenne pepper is also used internally to help with digestion, detoxification, relieving toothaches, boosting your metabolism and helping reduce inflammation.Another curious thing about cayenne pepperAnother curious thing about cayenne pepper, and I think this is quite cool, it's contrary to what we might think. It actually can help in the prevention and healing of ulcers. This is because it inhibits the secretion of acid and stimulates production of alkaline and mucous secretions.Now that might sound kind of gross, but if you've got an ulcer, you might want to take a look at the research article that I'll link to in the show notes to draw your own conclusions.Some people find that applying cayenne pepper directly to the skin can also help with pain from arthritis and headaches, including migraines. Its effects are still being studied, but I would definitely encourage you to try it out for yourself if you think it might help you.If it doesn't work, you haven't lost anything. But if it does work, wow, right? You'll have yourself the cheapest and healthiest medicine ever, and way better for you than aspirin, right?How you eat cayenne pepperWhich brings me to how you eat cayenne pepper, which is very easy.Just add a pinch to soups, curries and other savory dishes. Simple!And if you'd like some ideas for savory dishes, I'll link to my 5-minute recipe ebooks in the shownotes.Have you got a story to share?So I hope you've enjoyed Gabriella's story today as well as our food tips. And if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have enhanced or even saved the day in your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Email me at barbara@rockingrawchef.comGot a question, or a comment?If you enjoy my stories and want to hear more, join us and subscribe! I share one true story a week. And if you've got any questions, just pop them in the comments! And if you're listening on iTunes, do give me a review, that would be awesome.I hope you have an amazing day, thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCES5-minute recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article featuring fun tips for your feet, including cayenne pepper: https://feet.thefuntimesguide.com/pepper_for_cold_feet/Article on benefits of cayenne pepper: https://draxe.com/cayenne-pepper-benefits/Study on capsaicin and gastric ulcers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16621751Gabriella's bio:Gabriella Guglielminotti Trivel is an author, speaker, visionary and female cycle consultant who helps women gain confidence, authority and fulfilment in life by knowing better their body. She helps women to make their female cycle their best friend, couples improve their relationship, find a more satisfying way to communicate and have better intimacy.Gabriella's website: http://www.flyinginspiration.co.uk/Her book: Antarctic Odyssey, A New Beginning

Even after divorce you may find yourself running away with a handsome stranger to a foreign land...complete with happy endings, food and intuition and how to get yourself some more clarity in your life.And at the end of this episode I'll share with you one of my favorite things to eat to help increase your intuition – which could really come in handy if you've got a tough decision to make like our guest Darla did. Our guest, Darla AntoineI am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Darla Antoine. Darla is a soul coach, and she works with the elements of what she calls Sacred Darkness, such as dreamwork, divination and deathwork (which is not as scary as it sounds, she tells me). Darla will tell you a bit more about what she does later on, but first I really want you to hear her story which I just can't wait to share with you because it's gonna be great!So Darla welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today!Darla: I'm excited to be here Barbara!Me: It's really great, I mean, I can't wait to hear your story because when you told me about it, I was like “That could have happened to me!”Darla: I know, right? Me: Because we've both had kind of like crazy pasts. And I know that it starts with a husband and kind of moves on from there with the mysterious stranger. So do you want to tell us what happened?Darla: Sure, OK.Darla's storySo I got married young, I was about 22 years old which was in 2004 and I loved my first husband, obviously. We're both from Washington State and we moved to Iowa.He started going to grad school to become a chiropractor, I started to go to grad school in New Mexico for intercultural communication. The last year of his chiropractic school, he had to work under a chiropractor, so we moved to Spain.Learning Spanish from very youngEver since I was a little girl, I always knew that I'd be moving to a Spanish-speaking country. At 6 years old I was trying to teach myself Spanish, I just knew I needed to learn Spanish.Me: Oh that's so cute!Darla: Yeah, and so this was it. We were moving to Spain and he knew he was gonna work under a doctor in Spain and we were gonna stay in Spain for as long as we wanted, and that whole thing. And I was like “Yes! It's finally happening!” I was about 26 years old at this point.But the long distance...I was living in New Mexico, he was living in Iowa and Spain. And we were only seeing each other every few months, which started to weigh on the relationship and there were other issues...Me: Oh, so you didn't go to Spain with him then?Darla: I did, but I also was going to grad school so in summer breaks or on vacation I'd take time off to go and work on our relationship.Whose dream will come true: mine or yours?But anyway we had a great time in Spain, but the distance was wearing on us and there were other issues about...Have you seen the movie LaLa Land?Me: No, but I know lots of people have.Darla: Yes, lots of people have. And the movie ends not the way you think it's going to end. It's very obvious that if the couple had ended up together, that only one of their dreams would come true. Not both of their dreams would come true.So that's how it was with my ex-husband. If I'd stayed with him, his dreams would have come true but my dreams wouldn't. I would just be the supporting role, and blah blah blah.So I was in a very tough position of walking away from our life in Spain in our relationship and going alone on my own and that's what my gut was telling me. I had a very profound dream that backed that up, and I went to a psychic for the first time in my life. She told me, she confirmed what I was feeling and confirmed that yes there was another life waiting for me if I wanted it, and that soon I would be travelling to Costa Rica for research. And I would meet someone there, and this someone would be involved in sustainability, eco living and such. I thought “OK, that's interesting”.And then I asked her some more questions and I got off the phone and made the tough decision. Not just right then and there, but over the next few weeks I slowly dissolved our marriage. It was very difficult.I left Spain and came back to the States and then I had taken the semester off from grad school. I wasn't in grad school in New Mexico, I was up in Washington State with my parents. You know, 26, 27 years old, living with my parents again.Me: I know what that's like, I did that once, it wasn't fun.Looking for a farmDarla: So it was this time of year, late March, early April, and I thought well I need to keep my focus on the future so I don't go crazy.I was studying intercultural communication and I wrote my masters thesis on how food creates cultural identity and legacy, so I thought “I'm gonna get out of the library and I'm gonna go work and visit farms and talk about how food is affecting people's cultural identity and their cultural legacy.So I started looking for permaculture farms in the Washington State, British Columbia area. And somehow I landed on a site for a permaculture farm in Costa Rica.Me: Uh-oh!Darla: Yeah! The psychic's words from 3 weeks ago? I totally didn't think even about it, it didn't even cross my mind. I'd forgotten what she'd said.So I thought “well this is interesting”. I sent them an email, and they wrote right back and they said “We'd love to have you come and volunteer, we could use you next month”. And I'm like “Next month is 10 days away, I should ask my husband about this” and I thought “I don't have to ask my husband about this, he's not gonna be my husband much longer”.Then I thought, “I should ask my mom about this” and I thought “No, no, I'm 26 years old, I don't have to ask my mom about this!” So I had like almost no money, I booked the ticket and did a happy dance because I was stepping into my own adulthood, making my own decisions, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, and it felt really good!10 days later I was being dropped off at the end of a road in Costa Rica. And it wasn't until I had booked the ticket and wrote back that yes I'd be there in 10 days...That's when I remembered the psychic's words that I'd be going to Costa Rica for research.Me: Wow!Darla: And I got goosebumps, I thought “Oh my gosh, something's gonna happen!”Life on a hippy farmIt was great! It ended up being like a really disorganized hippy farm. I didn't learn anything about permaculture!Me: That's hysterical!Darla: I was disappointed but then I just embraced it. I was like “You know what? This is like summer camp for adults. This is fine”.I was gonna stay for a month but I ended up extending my stay for two months and I didn't have any money to pay the $300 to stay there for a month. So I made a trade: I would be the cook for the second month in exchange for staying. And so when you're the cook for 20 people, you're cooking all day.Me: Yeah, I know what that's like too!Darla: Yeah! So the first month was all summer camp and the second month was like work. But it was what I needed. I got to be around people who didn't know me as so-and-so's wife. They just were meeting me at face value and embracing me and loving me, and some of the people I met there are still really dear friends today.Me: And how was your Spanish at that time?Darla: It was pretty good. It wasn't as good as I thought it was, but it was pretty good because I'd been living in Spain. And I took Spanish in high school and college because I just always knew that I needed to learn Spanish. It's the only foreign language I've bothered to learn.From summer camp to full time cookSo about 3 weeks into my time there I was cooking. I wasn't officially the cook yet, but I was filling in for someone and I was cooking. And the guy who owns this farm also used to own a tour guiding company. He would bring in mostly college students who were on a tour. They would come in through his farm for a day or two and learn about permaculture and then go on the rest of their tour in the country.So one of these tours was coming through, there were about 18 college students. I was told they would be here at about 8 pm. Now there are two ways to get to this farm: you could hike through the jungle for an hour and a half, or you could take a 30-minute boat ride. It was very isolated which was perfect for me.So I was told that they were going to be walking in and the next day boating out and to have dinner ready by 4, they'd be arriving by 3, perfect. They'd be led by their Costa Rican tour guide. OK.And one day, among the vegetables...I'm in the kitchen and I'm chopping vegetables and all of a sudden there's this redhead standing in my kitchen. He's decked out in all this fancy gear. Fancy outdoor gear. And I'm thinking because he's pale-skinned and redheaded, “He must be one of the professors”. He looked about 30 years old. The group's arriving. And sure enough I see some college students walking in behind him.Well I immediately get super annoyed with him. I'm like “Who is this guy?” I don't see the Costa Rican tour guide anywhere.A friend and I had just gotten lost on that trail between the farm and the nearest town the week before. It's a very difficult trail, you need to know what you're doing.I'm like “Here's some hotshot young professor, he's ditched the tour guide, showing off, he's wearing a whole bunch of gear he's never gonna wear again, it's obviously all brand new...”Me: It's interesting how many assumptions you made though, right?Darla: I made so many assumptions! And I was so annoyed. And then I saw the way he was looking at me. Then I thought “Oh my God, this guy's gonna be a pain, he's gonna want to flirt with me...”So here's the thing, I very seriously thought, “He's gonna want me to move to Michigan to the suburbs and have babies!”Me: Oh that's hysterical!Darla: I don't know why Michigan, but Michigan popped up and I was like “I don't want to move to the suburbs and have babies in Michigan! No offense.”Me: Now I'm laughing because I know what happens afterwards, right?Darla: So yes, but then he thought I was Costa Rican. He opened his mouth to introduce himself and it was in Spanish, in perfect, 'this is my first language' Spanish. Not 'I've learned Spanish really well and I can introduce myself' Spanish. It was perfect Spanish.And OK, well, I stopped, my eyes popped out, my mouth might have dropped open a little bit, and I was like “OK well you just got more interesting!” I was kind of shocked and I didn't say anything, so then he took my shock for not understanding, and he switched to perfect, 'this is my first language' English!He said “Hi, I'm Andy, I'm the tour guide”. And I was like, “OK, hello!”Me: All your assumptions were gone, right?Darla: All my assumptions were gone, which was wonderful! It was nice to be surprised. In less than 24 hours...And there was definitely some attraction between us, but he remained very professional. He was there at the farm for less than 24 hours, so he didn't try to sneak off into the bushes with me...Me: Did you regret that?Darla: Yeah! But then I thought well, he doesn't just hit on every cute girl he comes across, this is something. So it turns out his parents emigrated to Costa Rica when he was in the womb, when his mother was pregnant with him, from Michigan! They came from Michigan in 1978 and moved to Costa Rica and he had been born and raised in Costa Rica by US immigrant parents.And before they left the next day, we exchanged email addresses and he said, “I don't care when you come back to Costa Rica, I don't care if it's next month, next week, one year, two years from now, you let me know the next time you come back to Costa Rica and I'm gonna take you out on a date”.Me: Oh! It's like something out of a movie!Darla: Yeah, it really was! But I thought, “well you're cute but I'm never gonna see you again”. I took his email address and neither one of us were big on Facebook but we eventually added each other to Facebook and I went back to New Mexico to finish my graduate degree, I got another boyfriend and kind of forgot about him, honestly.Two years later...And twice over the course of two years he emailed me via Facebook and all the conversation was “How are you?” “I'm fine, how are you?” “I'm fine” “Good”. That was it. Hardly no conversation at all.Me: Wow.Darla: Yeah. But then I was finishing grad school and I thought “You know, I'm gonna go back to Costa Rica, that's really where I feel like I started to become my own adult. And I'm gonna go back for a few weeks and go visit friends that I made there before I go get a job and have to ask a boss for permission for vacation”.So I was making plans to go back to Costa Rica when he emailed me, Andy, this guy in Costa Rica. He emailed me out of the blue. And I'm like “Oh actually I'm coming to Costa Rica, do you still want to go on that date?” And I thought he could have been married with kids, then, I don't know.Me: Yeah, because it was two years later, right?Darla: Yeah, it was two years later. And he immediately wrote back and said “Let me know when you're coming and I'll pick you up at the airport”.Me: Ohhhhh!Darla: And I thought, “Oh dear!”Falling in love...So it went from being seeing him for a night, going on a date, to spending the entire 3 weeks with him. He drove me all over the country, we fell in love.Now here's the thing: the psychic said I would meet someone in Costa Rica and that they would be involved in sustainable living. And he has an organic sustainable farm, he and his sisters run an eco lodge, so yeah.We live on an organic, sustainable homestead now in Costa Rica, and it's been 6 years. Actually 6 years earlier this week, we celebrated it's been 6 years since I came to Costa Rica to see him, and we've got two little boys, and we're madly in love with each other still.Me: Oh wow! That's such a nice story! And it has a happy ending as well, doesn't it?Darla: It does, yeah.Me: And one of the things that came out when we were talking about this was you were saying how your intuition really helped you to make some of the right decisions. Do you want to say more about that? Were there specific moments when you just tuned into yourself? And how did you do that?Darla: Yes, so my intuition really started picking up at the same time as my marriage started ending. And I've always been a really strong dreamer. Dreaming has always been a really great way to get messages to me from the divine.So one was I had a dream right before I ended it with my husband that confirmed that I needed to end it. Two was right before I came here to visit Andy, speaking of dreams, anyway. A most powerful dreamI woke up in the early morning and I started coughing. Like I'd been sleeping with my mouth open or something and my throat was dry. So I started coughing and I needed to get some water. There was water across my room on my desk, but I was still dreaming. And I had this very vivid image of like my astral body or something in the cosmos. Like I was flying through stars, I've never consciously remembered something like this.And I was zooming to get back to my body because my body needed me, but there were these two orbs of light going with me. Like we'd been out playing in the cosmos. I got back into my body and I woke up, but these orbs of light were laughing at me. They were taunting me. They were like “Ha ha, look who has a body! Look who needs to get back to their body! Ha ha!”And as I got back into my body and I started becoming conscious, I could still see and hear them and the more I woke up, the more they faded. Then I tried to get up out of bed to go get the water and I fell to the floor, like I couldn't operate my body. I still wasn't completely back into it.Me: Wow!Darla: I started laughing and I had to like drag myself across the floor to get my glass of waterMe: Yeah cause you must have been really thirsty!Darla: Yeah! By the time I'd had a glass of water I had regained function of my body, but I just felt that those two orbs were gonna be my children.Me: Oh! Wow!On paper? Insane. But in reality...Darla: Yeah, this was about a month before I came to visit Andy on the trip that we fell in love. So I thought, “OK, things are shifting in my life. Things are changing. A whole new energy is coming”.And then sure enough within like 8 months after we got together, I was pregnant by the end of that same year with my first son. So yeah, so the dreams definitely told me that shifts were coming and that changes were coming.But then also just the gut feeling that I had that “This is crazy, I left one husband and now I'm moving to a foreign country to be with a guy”.On paper it all sounded insane, but in my heart and in my gut I knew that this was right, this was what I'd been preparing my whole life for. I always knew that I needed to speak Spanish. I always knew that my partner, my mate, was far, far away in another country. Ever since I was a little girl, I just knew it.Me: That's really funny that you say that about the Spanish, because I was told years and years ago by a psychic that...I was learning French at the time and the psychic was like, “Well, you really need to learn Spanish” and I was like, “Really?” I was in high school, I was like 18 or something, you know? And I wound up using Spanish when I was 38! But use it I did and, you know, married a Mexican, yeah, all that stuff. So it sometimes takes quite a long time to manifest, right? But it does, it's there.What Darla does now to help othersSo talking about dreams and intuition, I think that links really well to the kind of thing that you're doing now with people. Do you want to say a little bit about that? And then, you know, where people can find you?Darla: Sure. So one of the biggest things I love helping people with, especially women but men as well, I love helping them also tap into their dreams. Even if you haven't remembered a dream in years or whatever, you can regain your dreams.And on my website which is – should I give my website address?Me: Yeah, sure!Darla: OK my website is thecopperscarab.com I've got a whole bunch of blog articles that can help you reclaim your dreams. But I also have a course that will just walk you through everything you need to know about dreams.Death work and transitionsI also help people with death work. This is kind of a new door I've got my foot in, but I really love it. I think death work is something that's present at any time of transition, and it's something that really helped me navigate divorce. It helped me navigate moving to another country, and it helped me navigate becoming a mom. Because the old 'me' had to die. Well, all three of those things. I had to shed an old version of me.And between divorce and moving to another country and becoming a mom, I think motherhood has been the hardest transition for me. Maybe because there's so much joy and love wrapped up in it as well, it's not just that I'm cutting off this part of my life and moving on. You have to keep living and interacting and loving this new life. And it's also very painful. It can be very painful and a very hard transition.Divination for everyoneSo I help women transition through big life transitions with death work, and then I'm a big fan of divination. Dreaming I think is a form of divination, but especially when you've got big decisions to make. It's really easy to get stuck in your head or stuck in your emotions and you kind of need a way to get the clarity without the emotions and without influencing it yourselves, so learning a divination tool is really helpful. Whether it's tarot, or claircognizant - inner knowing - or dreamwork, or anything like that. I think at least a form of divination is really important for everyone to know.Me: Yeah, I'd agree with that, cause I think it's just really empowering, you know? To know that you've got this tool to make really important decisions yourself, right?Darla: Exactly.Me: Yeah, that's really cool. I'll definitely put the link to your website in the shownotes as well, and I'll get into the food tips in just a moment.But first I wanted to thank you so much for being here to share your story cause I love your story and I also love what you do. So I'm gonna encourage people massively to check you out and see what you do because it's just amazing, so thank you for being here with me!Darla: Thanks for having me!Me: You're very welcome!Food and intuitionSo, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you one of my favorite foods to help with your intuition in case you've got any difficult decisions to make, among other things.This food is very common and I'm sure you've eaten it already without knowing the amazing good that it's doing for your mind!The food is...almonds!Now I'm not talking roasted, salted almonds. I'm talking about fresh, raw almonds.Benefits of almondsAlmonds are a great source of vitamin E, protein and calcium, which are all nutrients that our endocrine glands absorb and which therefore can help bring us clarity of mind, focus and heightened intuition.How you use almondsHow do you use almonds? Well you can eat them raw by the handful, of course. You can sprinkle them on salads or eat them in a trail mix. But no matter how you eat them, one thing I would say is that to get maximum benefit from your almonds, it's best to soak them first for a few hours. I soak mine overnight or while I go out for the day.The reason I say to soak them is because nuts have a natural coating of enzyme inhibitors which can make them heavy to digest. The enzyme inhibitors are natural, and they're the reason you can walk through the grocery store and not a forest. They tell the nuts to wait to become a tree until they've got not just light, but water as well. So when you soak them, you're basically activating them. You're telling them that it's time to release that fabulous growth potential – which you absorb when you eat them soaked. It's kind of like eating the potential of an entire tree with each soaked nut. Pretty cool, right?Think of sprouts – it's the same principle. You're eating the potential of an entire plant in each sprout. That's why you've heard that they're so good for you.Where to find out moreAnyway, if you want some specific recipes for using almonds, I have lots in my 5-Minute recipe ebooks that I'll link to in the show notes.The link between food and intuition is actually one of my favorite topics, so I'll also link to an article of mine that goes into more detail about several foods that you can eat to help improve your intuition.And for those of you who want to read more about the science behind food and intuition, I'll link to an excerpt from the best resource that I found which comes from a book called Nutrition for Intuition, written by Doreen Virtue and Robert Reeves and published by Hay House.I'll also link to an article that has more information on other health benefits of almonds in case you find that useful, because there are a LOT of them!Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story – and if you've got a crazy, true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation),  I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESDarla's website: thecopperscarab.comArticle on food for intuition: https://rockingrawchef.com/increase-intuition-with-food/Excerpt from article on food and intuition from the book Nutrition for Intuition:  http://www.fourcornersmagazine.com/sedonaconsciousmag/nutrition-for-intuition-by-doreen-virtue-and-robert-reeves/Article on other benefits of almonds: https://draxe.com/almonds-nutrition/5-Minute recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/About Darla AntoineDarla is a soul coach who helps women navigate times of transition and dark nights of the soul utilizing what she calls the Elements of Sacred Darkness: Dreamwork, Divination and Deathwork (not as scary as it sounds). She is also the mother of two young boys and lives on a homestead in Costa Rica. By accident.