“What if your new definition of success was authenticity?”

These words from my mentor Cora sent chills down my spine. This was closely followed by the challenge to “turn it off for a week”.
Turn off my need to be always ON, playing a role for whomever I may be speaking too, or whatever group I am in at the time. Turn off the need to be the funny one, the intelligent one, the great mum, the awesome wife. Turn off the need to be on form constantly and to play “Ali”.

I felt a little teary eyed, excited, and like a weight had lifted off my shoulder.
So authenticity huh ? Up until now my definition of success has always been a great marriage, nice house, respect, lots of friends, gorgeous clothes……..and on it goes. I have all those, but funnily enough you still want more.

What if the true meaning of success was looking inward, finding the answers within yourself and being who you truly are?

My definition of success changed today.
Whats yours?

PHEW. Anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed lately? It has been pretty darn busy for us lately with work, study, blogging, kids and attempting a social life, and things are starting to take a toll on my energy levels. I am really really tired. So tired in fact that I have made a few decisions about my diet to try and attempt to get some of my energy back.
You may remember a while ago I blogged here about listening to your body, and then last week I talked about tuning in to your intuition. My intuition has been telling me loud and clear that I really need to up my protein intake big time, or I won’t be able to keep this pace up.
I have also been learning a lot lately in my nutrition study at Institute For Integrative Nutrition about the theory of bio-individuality – the concept that no perfect way of eating works for everybody, and we have been encouraged to really experiment and listen to our bodies over our year of study.

Soooooooooooo

I have decided to try adding a little bit of fish and some organic eggs to my diet, and see if this improves my over all energy levels.
I considered eating a little dairy, but this instantly causes my eczema to flare up, so that is simply not an option.
I have absolutely no doubt that a vegan diet can provide everything you need to remain healthy, but right now I am struggling to do the ground work and preparation require to maintain a varied healthy vegan diet.
I am not sure whether it will help, how long I will trial it for, or even whether I will be able to stomach it, but I firmly believe in listening to your body and it’s individual needs, and intuitively this is where I feel I need to be right now.

I will keep you posted!

Question: What foods do you find help you most when energy is flagging?