News & Insights

There is a lot of talk these days about mindfulness and meditation and the benefits these can bring when we incorporate these into our everyday lives. I have shared the same anxiety as many when this topic is raised, that we imagine people sitting on yoga mats in earthy linen clothes in the middle of a forest surrounded by birds in blissed-out peace with some connection to a source we could only ever dream of accessing. Perhaps you imagine the insta mums in boho pants with long flowing silken hair with one toddler on her super toned hip – thanks to her matcha teas and chia budda breakfast bowls – another two kids under 7 kids dutifully sitting on their meditation mats, whilst they all say their Ohms in perfect tune before breakfast. Maybe it’s an image of monks on a hilltop beneath a giant bell looking out over the Himalayas. Or a group of super-fit sweaty women in a room full of steam in a Hatha Yoga studio in Bondi. Oh, those are the special relaaaaaaxed people. People who can just make their minds STOP. I’ll let you in on a little secret I discovered about all this meditation and mindfulness stuff; You can do it at the sink. Yep. You can do it at the kitchen sink. For 30 seconds. You don’t even need an app. You don’t need a Yoga Mat. You don’t even need PANTS! In fact, DON’T WEAR PANTS!!­ Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a leading researcher into mindfulness, describes mindfulness as the ability to be fully present and aware of where we are, what we are doing, while not being reactive or overwhelmed by what is going on around us – merely observing. While meditation is exploring the present moment as it is. Mindfulness Meditation is about suspending our judgement about what’s going on in the present moment and just ‘being’ within that moment with a sense of warmth and kindness towards ourselves and extended outwards towards everything else. Put simply, there is nothing fandangle about these concepts. Like any practise, it is a muscle we can exercise and build upon, starting with something as easy as standing at the kitchen sink while we do the dishes, even with the kids screaming, wearing no pants. Rather than stopping your mind, you are moving completely into your mind and becoming aware of the wonderful present moment in its entirety. And it is easily within your reach. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn began researching mindfulness meditation back in 1982 and has since studied over 25,000 people in his several week long retreats known as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Programs. These are about learning to develop our capacity to respond to stress, pain, emotional triggers, and even chronic illness, using mindfulness-based practices. Mindfulness was never intended to be something only Yogi’s, Oprah, and people from Beverley Hills and Byron Bay could achieve. It is a practise every individual can weave into their everyday life. Simply by taking one minute here and there, then maybe two minutes, then maybe three, flexing the muscle and building as you go. By becoming mindful of your thoughts, of your moments; you can develop a healthier quality of life and improve your mental, spiritual and physical health. I love this quote from the Los Angeles Times when Dr. Jon did a 2010 interview about mindfulness and meditation because it hits the whole unachievable /unattainable / grey-area / so not me / voodoo thing on the head. “Mindfulness, the heart of Buddhist meditation, is at the core of being able to live life as if it really matters. It has nothing to do with Buddhism. It has to do with freedom. Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant. It’s about people waking up, not being confined by any belief system. Awareness is bigger than a belief system.” October 2nd, 2010. Naomi Morris, Special to L.A Times. Source: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-oct-02-la-me-1002-beliefs-meditation-20101002-story.html Now let’s demystify this mystical mindful meditation thing and get back to the kitchen sink. Feel free to wear or not wear pants. You’re washing some dishes. Let’s say it’s a big pot, because these days the only thing we are going to wash in the sink are the things that don’t go or can’t fit in the dishwasher. Become aware of your feet nice and flat on the ground facing the sink. Your hips are nice and square, facing the sink, back straight, shoulders loose. You pick up the sponge and squeeze out the water, taking a long deep breath in and while you do, just listen to the sound of your breath coming in while looking at the sponge in one hand and the pot in the other. And you notice the pot, notice it’s colour, the shape, it’s texture. You notice the colour of the water around the pot, notice if there are bubbles, notice the temperature of the water. Is it hot? Notice the texture of the water. Are there bits floating around in the water? Now notice how you feel right about now while you notice the water and its texture with your hands in the dirty water? Did your emotions change as the words ‘dirty water’ came to mind? Now notice your thoughts, without judging them. What were you thinking right about then as you thought the words ‘dirty water’? Even as you are reading this sentence. If you sit with the feeling – without becoming the feeling – that comes with noticing those two words, quite amazing insights can come from them. This is where mindfulness becomes interesting. For example; dirty water for me, when I began to explore mindfulness using this very same practise about a decade ago, huge feelings of inadequacy surfaced just from washing the dishes mindfully. Starting with the dirty water. I ‘realised’ I was a shit parent. How? I caught these sentences floating past my mind once I became still as I washed the pot mindfully. ‘I didn’t teach my kids to scrape their plates off well enough so I must suck at parenting’ And – ‘Here I am by myself as usual washing up alone, kids in bed, Scott’s away. I have no-one’ And many more self-sabotaging statements that I would let chase across my mind after a long day to reinforce life as it was back in those days as the wife of an international miner and working/studying mother to three little boys. The more I practised this exercise, washing the dishes each night, the more I unpacked from an observer’s point of view and realised I actually wasn’t a ‘shit’ parent, but that I had a subconscious monologue going on that I wasn’t even aware of consciously until I began practising mindfulness. We catch ourselves running the ‘monkey mind’ as they call it in Yoga where we stand at the sink and think and think and think and then go ‘Wait a minute, there’s a feeling behind this and a value that I’m imposing upon myself that maybe isn’t fair or warranted’. Back to that pot, scrub the pot. Smooth your sponge over the surface. Notice how it feels to clean the surface. Notice how you are sensing with your fingertips, feeling the cleaning of the pot. Notice the smells and the sounds of the scraping. Take in all the sensations as if you had never washed a pot before in your life. Notice if you have spilled any water. Then move back to your mind and again notice your thoughts. Breathe in, listen to your breath, breathe out and hear your breath. You have just practised mindfulness. Well Done! This exercise is purely about being in the present moment. Becoming aware of exactly what you are doing, feeling, expressing, experiencing, right in the now. While it seems very simplistic in this little blog, I can tell you from experience, the benefits are absolutely mind blowing once you begin to incorporate mindfulness and meditation into your daily life as an ongoing practise. And the best thing about it is you never need to spend money on it for it to have earth shattering positive consequences to your overall health and wellbeing. This is one very simple technique and the one I started with, from a blog I read decades ago. I’ll be sharing tonnes more here with you all and running heaps of demonstrations online and at the wellness centres across the states that you can try at home. I want to demystify all the Boogey Woogie around this stuff because it doesn’t have to be expensive or transcendental for it to be life changing or to have an impact on your life. You can do meditation and mindfulness and yoga retreats and they are incredible as well, but you can also do all of this at the sink, in the car, on the beach, on the loo. Anywhere, Anytime! There is a wonderful documentary called ‘The Power of the Heart’, with a very touching story where a group goes into meditation/prayer under extreme circumstances, to become deep in the present moment to survive. It is not about religion, far from it. Rather about becoming deeply connected to being present in the now. It’s quite powerful. There is something incredibly beautiful to exploring the immediate present the more you practise it. I am excited about bringing these lessons and sharing our explorations with you all. Let me fill you in on some of the science of mindfulness that I’ve been discovering. There are enormous amounts of research going into the benefits of mindfulness and meditation thanks to its growing popularity with superstars. Unfortunately, the glamour and insta popularity is what makes it all seem unachievable for the rest of us. The bare facts are that it is good for us and it is achievable. Here are just a few sciencey bites to chew on. Anxiety and Depression A review of nine clinical trials published in JAMA Psychiatry found mindfulness-based practises when included in treatments for patients with clinical depression reduced the rates of relapse for up to 60 weeks. The reductions in relapse were regardless of sex, age, education, or relationship status. Addiction Mindfulness and Meditation interventions were shown to help decrease cravings and substance misuse according to a review of several meta-analyses of 34 randomized controlled trials. Mindfulness and Meditation can be particularly helpful in increasing people’s awareness of their experiences of triggers that cause relapses such as anxiety, despair, anger, stress and loneliness. Negative Attitudes and Harassment/Bullying Mindfulness can increase people’s awareness of their underlying thoughts and reduce negative attitudes or biases that might be going on such as a sense of low self-esteem or a fear of being rejected in a social situation. Immune Functions Meditators who went on an 8-week mindfulness meditation training program increased their flu antibodies as if they had just received a flu vaccine in a randomized controlled study by Richard A. Davidson and Jon Kabat-Zinn published in Psychosomatic Medicine, 2017. Facilitation of Recovery Mindfulness can not only help you deal with a chronic or potentially terminal illness or life-threatening event, but it can also help you move on from it. A study of MBSR in Chinese breast cancer survivors provided evidence that mindfulness can enhance post-traumatic growth and decrease stress and anxiety in cancer patients (Zhang, Zhou, Feng, Fan, Zeng, & Wei, 2017). Another study of young breast cancer survivors showed that women who practiced mindfulness were more likely to experience increased self-kindness, decreased rumination, and decreased stress (Boyle, Stanton, Ganz, Crespi, & Bower, 2017). Mindfulness, yoga, and meditation have also been found to decrease anxiety and facilitate post-traumatic growth in breast cancer survivors, in addition to increasing vigour and spirituality Improved Sleep NCCIH Funded a study of 45 adults with chronic insomnia and found that mindfulness-based training successfully improved overall quality of sleep and aided the ability of all participants to successfully fall asleep. Creativity/Innovation Researchers analysed 33 published articles with 1,549 participants discovered mindfulness-based interventions focusing on open-monitoring can boost creative capabilities. Improved Cognition In a 2010 study published in Consciousness and Cognition Journal, researchers assigned 24 people in the intervention group. They received four sessions of mindfulness meditation training. The control had 25 people, and this group listened to an audiobook. Results showed that both the mindfulness meditation training group and the control group showed improved mood, but only meditation training reduced fatigue and anxiety and increased mindfulness. Moreover, brief mindfulness training significantly improved visuospatial processing, working memory and executive functioning. Researchers concluded, “Our findings suggest that four days of meditation training can enhance the ability to sustain attention; benefits that have previously been reported with long-term meditators.” There are so many more benefits, I could ramble for years. And I will!! But not today. Stay tuned for my next blog on the benefits of meditations and our ice baths!!! We will be wetting our toes in the chilly waters of our new installations at the wellness centre with cryotherapy, ready for the new retreat’s rollout. So many great things in store. I’m looking forward to the coming adventures with you all. Don’t forget to visit us at the new Wellness Centre in Wollongong and keep your eyes out for the opening of Kiama and Goulburn too. For all the new activities and events happening visit our socials and events pages. Have A Magnificent Day! Kell Baer, R. A. (Ed.). (2006). Mindfulness-based treatment approaches: Clinician’s guide to evidence base and applications. San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press. Didonna, F. (Ed.). (2009). Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness. New York: Springer. Germer, C. K., Siegel, R. D., & Fulton, P. R. (Eds.). (2005). Mindfulness and psychotherapy. New York: Guilford Press. Gunuratana, B. H. (2002). Mindfulness in Plain English. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications. Hayes, S. C., Follette, V. M., & Linehan, M. M. (Eds.). (2004). Mindfulness and acceptance: Expanding the cognitive-behavioral tradition. New York: Guilford Press. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go there you are. New York: Hyperion. Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness: Fifteenth anniversary edition. New York: Bantam Dell. Orsillo, S. M., & Roemer, L. (Eds.). (2005). Acceptance and mindfulness-based approaches to anxiety: Conceptualization and treatment. New York: Springer Science. Roemer, L., & Orsillo, S. M. (2009). Mindfulness- and acceptance-based behavioral therapies in practice. New York: Guilford Press.

Alive4Life Disability Services is excited to announce the opening of our new wellness centre nestled in the centre of Wollongong City. The location is walking distance to public transport the major shopping centre, parks and of course beaches! To celebrate the grand opening in early February we will be holding competitions, raffles and other exciting initiatives to engage with out clients, staff and the wollongong community. Interested in our Wollongong services? – Get in touch

The best salespeople on the planet are Fear and Doubt. And today, as I found myself getting lost nervously making my way to keep a long overdue promise, both were eagerly and loudly making their pitches. Fear and Doubt have closed many deals with me. They are relentless, they know my soft spots. They refine their game time after time and speak an intimate, cunning language that no one else would ever hear and that I would never let leave my own lips towards another person. We all play that game within our inner dialogue. Especially as I finally arrived at my destination with my heart thumping and fingers searing into the steering wheel. ‘I made a promise.’ Madam Fear whispered, ‘but I said one day 5 years ago, it doesn’t have to be today. I can do it next year when things settle down’. And Holy penguin poppers Batman, did I want to wait until next year. The temptation was seductive, suddenly seeing a flash of changing my plans to asking Scott if we wanted to go out for an early dinner and movies. Everything has been so full on. We need a family night. I turned off the car. Pulled my key out. Took a deep breath. Begging Courage to step in and move the others on their way. Nothing came. So, I just moved my body into blind action. I’m here. Just get it over with. It’s 1 hour. Open the door; Feet out the door. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said “Don’t even think about it, just do it. Don’t listen to what you have to do in your mind just do it and get it over with ”. Feet out of the car. Touching the concrete. Don’t look inside yet. Ignore the pounding in my chest. Lock the car. Don’t look yet. Keys in my bag. NOW WALK. For the longest 5 seconds of my life I squeezed my terrified eyes shut before I could look into what waited in front of me and yanked that memory right to the front of my mind. It was Saturday, 31st of October 2015. I was painting Thunders Sith face for the Halloween party we were about to go to, my little brother sitting next to me, insisting. Pushing. Demanding. In his loving, inspirational and very convincing brotherly way. We had both started indulging in old, unhealthy habits again after sharing years of fitness, comparing diets and training variations and cheering each other on in our very different adventures. He had made it, building his own Powersports Gym and then on stage to his body building comp. I had completed 4 Tough Mudders and many other endurance races. And then we celebrated. Far too much! But unlike me, Kris gave himself boundaries around slipping and time limits. I just kind of flailed about a bit, cursed my knees when I’d try to run every now and then and loathe that I had to work so hard again. “You need a goal Kell. A good one to motivate you not to slip backwards like we have.” He persisted. Yeah, I had a goal. To be skinny. And I’m shit at that goal. It’s really, really hard to maintain. I continued being vague and non-committal. Kris pulled out his photo slides. “Kell there is no better feeling than walking off that stage after a comp.” walking off that stage? “My goal wasn’t to walk on that stage Kell. It was to walk off it. Because that meant I’d won. I’d completed the goal. And that feeling of walking off that stage, after willingly inviting strangers to judge my body and getting through it; THAT , that was the best feeling I’ve ever felt in my life. And it made me want to do it again”. It’s probably a ‘have to have been there’ moment to understand it. Kris is one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever known my whole life. He could talk me into anything with the most creative, loving yet stern pitches better than anyone else on this planet. And he knew it resonated with me because we had talked about the euphoria, I experienced finishing my first mudder race. Sheer nirvana mixed with pain and freezing and five days of recovery. I chased that feeling. But I was only ever running against myself. It was the best sport to avoid judgement, letting a team down with my ‘less-than’ sportiness or having to compete against other people. My fitness world was very private. Kris took on the scary stuff that confronted his every weakness. I avoided that as much as possible. But he had hit a nerve. The recovery time often ended up overshadowing the end of race nirvana I experienced. And the sensation was never quite as strong as that first race. I might have stomped my foot because I tend to do that when my little brother has a very strong and convincing argument that will do me the world of good. But I was clever. (I thought so anyway…) “Fine!” I said. “Fine what?” “Fine I’ll do it” “Kell (that bloody condescending/commit-right-now smirk glaring me in the face) what are you going to do?” “I will do the bikini one. I’m not going all female Arnold Schwarzenegger. One day I’ll do the bikini one” For a split second he did that serious, contemplative look his grey eyes sometimes took and he said “Promise me Kell. This is something I know you’ll love and learn from. I’ll give you everything I have, stats, food, whatever. I just know it will be your thing if you just give it a go.” At the time I knew how much it meant to him. The problem was, I didn’t realise how much making that promise would end up meaning to me far, far too late. True to his word he sends me his stats and planners and wrote me big stories and motivation, gave me mindset meditations. The works. I looked at all of it and talked to him about it. But had no intention of making ‘one day’ today. On the sixth second, I opened my eyes suddenly deeply feeling the intense void my little brother had left in my physical world when he moved on to the wonders of metaphysical planes. My body was a mixture of sorrow and terror. Doubt and Fear. But as I looked ahead expecting to see what I most feared – cut up model like humans wearing tiny crop tops and latex undies doubling as gym pants, judging my 40 year old, 100.2kg jingling body hid beneath my biggest T-Shirt – I saw a normal, lovely woman walking towards me. Saying my name. Welcoming me. Not looking me up and down. Just seeing me. The gym had people in it. Not people from sports illustrated. And no exercise bike! It was a strength gym. It was exactly where Kris would have made me start. I was so happy to discover I’m surprisingly for everyone today, much fitter, flexible and healthier than I imagined. I still got it. With every minute, every measurement, every movement and machine I felt confidence doing some serious shoulder barges with Fear and Doubt. I stepped on the scales in front of other humans and courage took another step forward with me. I set up my account and synced my new online accountability and recording app and up popped Madam Motivation. The more I engaged and let go in the process, the more my team players nudged their way in. And then something crazy happened. I felt this beautiful sense of ease and trust overcome me. Gemma was incredible at connecting and hearing me. And as that feeling came over me Gemma touched her phone and her Home Screen flashed up and I saw … KRIS! I was shocked for a second and said, “OH MY GOD THAT LOOKS LIKE MY BROTHER!!” 

Alive4Life Garden Projects June 2020 While COVID 19 might have put a stop to lots of things over the past few months, in times of uncertainty and stress there is no better way to spend your time than being creative and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing at alive4live. We have taken the opportunity to transform our garden by creating a beautiful vibrant garden sculpture and wind chime from repurposed and found objects. It’s been a fabulous team effort drawing on the creativity of our staff and clients, we have spent quality time working together soaking up the autumn sun creating our recently installed garden artworks. In a climate of uncertainty creativity is a great way to relieve stress and anxiety. A creative act such as crafting can help focus the mind, and has even been compared to meditation due to its calming effects on the brain and body. Creative pursuits such gardening, sewing, painting and drawing releases dopamine, a natural antidepressant. Working on group projects has a number of positive benefits, working collectively provides an opportunity for sharing skills while problem solving and the sharing of a creative experience strengthens relationships. As a group participants encourage each other and celebrate the success of their achievements. Come and enjoy our garden or join us at Alive4Life for our next creative project.

Hi Everyone! As we crawl into the cooler months of the year, dusting off those comfy cardies, fluffy winter blankets and knee length socks, I wanted to wish everyone a very safe and snuggly winter. The Alive4Life Team are busy at work preparing to maintain a safe winter wellness centre and safe practises for our valuable support workers and amazing clients. We want to assure you that we are very focused on keeping our operations running safely and consistently to continue to provide the best and most versatile services to our community. COVID-19 has been a very steep learning curve for us all and I for one and quite proud of Australia for stepping up the way we have, protecting our communities and ‘flattening the curve’. I think Flattening the curve will be a catchphrase for years to come, who would have thought!? I believe the popular consensus is, that as we begin to transition back to normal, it will most definitely be a new kind of normal. One glaring point I have noticed personally is how strange it has been to stand so far away from people I have known and loved for years. To be wary of touch and feel so distanced from others as we go out to do normal things like shopping. Barriers have been placed between us and people serving us at counters. Masks are being worn, hiding the smile of passers by and making ‘hello’s’ and ‘goodbyes’ difficult to hear and maybe not even spoken so much lately. It is a vastly different social climate than the one we enjoyed, just a few months ago. And boy do I miss those hugs, those person to person sales and friendly smiles from perfect strangers in the street. For me, I have taken away how much we all valued and relied on our social way of life but how little we ever really noticed it’s meaning to us as a part of a community until it was attacked by COVID-19. Since our social connection was compromised, I have noticed we have made so much more effort to connect in other ways. Zoom, more phone-calls to friends and family we never usually have enough time to call, Bin night outings on Facebook, smiles and the mutual acknowledgement waves between neighbours who don’t usually speak to each other, but finally know they have something in common between them. And that’s the most important fact about the way Australia and New Zealand have tackled this virus and why it has done more to strengthen our communities rather than decimate them. We changed the way we see this pandemic into something we all have in common. Something we share that we stand against together. We might disagree individually on the small facts like the COVID App and playing golf but not going to the beach; But as a group, as a country, we are all taking the hits on the chin and staring this disease down with our Ocker comedy and resilient culture. We stepped right back up after bushfires devastated our beautiful country and soldiered on towards the COVID-19 battle without hesitation. The new normal is looking like it will be filled with continued family friendly practises. Like working from home when we can, sitting by the fire in our backyards and eating sausage sangas. And hopefully – Zoom Meetings in my business jacket and pyjama pants. We have seen the horrors in other countries and have more than enough of those same stories here in Oz, but there are plenty of great lessons and new attitudes that have arisen too. I would love to hear what positive stories you have heard during these unprecedented times, or experienced. Please feel free to share so that we can collaborate snapshots of hope, positivity and resilience within our community. Take Care Everyone!!

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