Health & Wellbeing

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SOMERSET EAR WAX CLINIC

• Ear wax removal by irrigation • Ear check prior to Audiology • Fully trained and experienced nurse • Home visits can be arranged for the housebound

Sister Teresa Munro RGN 07962 106 045 / teresamunro@hotmail.co.uk Horizon Suite Frome Medical Practice, Enos Way, Frome BA11 2FH

Age Concern North Dorset

(Sturminster Newton)

Your local charity for all age-related information and advice

Befriending Welfare Advice Telephone Support Foot Clinic 01258 475582

Office open 10am - 2pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday

info@acnorthdorset.org.uk | www.acnorthdorset.org.uk Alice Johnsen is a life coach based near Sherborne. 07961 080513 alicejohnsen.co.uk

Putting life in boxes

If you are familiar with my coaching at all you will have heard me go on about compartmentalising many times. It’s a brilliant tool used to reduce stress, boost focus and increase productivity. All good so far. For those who haven’t heard of it, I will try to summarise. Imagine a grid (or draw a grid on a piece of A4) and put different parts of your life into each box. Draw as many boxes as you want. Then pick one box and just concentrate on what is there –nothing from the other boxes. Finish that task then move to the next box. (That is a very quick description so if you would like to go through that in greater detail in relation to your life, please go to my website below to book a call.) But it occurred to me earlier this week compart-mentalising is not always a good thing. Because the thickest walls or com-partments can leak. I’m talking about emotions, reactions. We can compartmentalise our actions but not our feelings. The human mind just doesn’t operate that tidily (and a good thing too or it would be a very dull world). So if one compartment - or part - of your life is causing you stress, chances are it will, at some point, seep into other parts of your life. You know how it is when you are tired, overwhelmed, sleeping badly, worried about your job or a child? It starts to affect how you react to the people around you and events in totally different parts of your life. We just cannot shut off strong feelings, however much we would like to. That’s why we all need to look after ourselves, to take stress and anxiety just a bit seriously. If you feel something in your life is causing everything else to feel challenging, take action. Address the situation if you can by having that difficult conversation, making a tough decision or considering how you can delegate something. Or seek external support. None of those steps will be easy. I admire all my clients for taking the step in talking to me – it cannot be easy to start with. But once you have taken the decision to make changes or seek help, you have done the hard part. From then on you are not battling a situation alone. Whatever you do, done early and promptly will mean the rest of your compartments remain water tight.

NATURAL PAIN RELIEF

therapist in Gillingham

Bio resonance scan & treatments, Clinical reflexology & baby/toddler reflexology T: 01747 826931 yvonne@intelligenthealthclinic.co.uk Making Life More Comfortable!

EMMA HOWE. CLAIRVOYANT. Est. 25 years, indepth personal & telephone readings. Call 07881 088664

A walk around...

with retired Dorset rights of way officer Chris Slade

PULHAM

This is a walk of a little over five miles, mainly on Tarmac. Park in the village and head north-east along the road going gently downhill between banks and ditches typical of the area. After a mile and a half you’ll see a sign ‘King’s Stag’. The sign is in Pulham! A little way beyond the sign is the parish boundary where you’ll find a gate on your right giving access to a footpath heading south across fields and skirting Ranksborough Gorse, a wood. After half a mile you’ll join a road at East Pulham. Turn right and head north-west. After a while you’ll pass under a tree with lots of bunches of mistletoe growing on it. It might be a good idea to do this walk around Christmas time, taking the right person with you. When you reach the B3143, turn left and retrace your steps heading south-west for half a mile until you come to a left turn to join a cul de sac leading south to Grange Farm where the road becomes a bridleway continuing south south east along field edges. Some of the gates have chains which are difficult and time consuming to undo so, if you’re impatient and athletic, you might prefer to climb over them. When you’ve negotiated the farmyard at Glebe Farm you join a lane leading south west to a T junction where you turn right and head uphill to the north west. After nearly half a mile you’ll find a footpath on your right giving access to the churchyard. The church is worth a visit and has some lovely stained glass. Return to the road and carry on until you rejoin the B3143 where you turn left, passing (or entering) the Halsey Arms back to your car. WOULD LIKE TO MEET

MARTIN 63, meet lady 5070. Gillingham, Sturminster Newton, Sherborne, Yeovil, Shaftesbury, Gillingham, Blandford or nearby. 01258 472910

Protect yourself with this fiery (and a bit stinky) brew

With winter comes nasty colds and flu. The best thing that you can do is to keep yourself as healthy, fit and strong as possible so you can see these bugs off. Eat well, lots of vegetables, preferably seasonal which at the moment includes wonderful leeks, celeriac, beetroot, carrots and parsnips as well as the start of the brussel sprouts. A rainbow of vegetables that will give you all the nutrients your body needs. Get outside every day and have a walk, preferably getting your heart rate going and breathing deeply to get oxygen down to the bottom of your lungs, keeping your airways open and strong. Sleep with a window open and in a cooler room and what I think is important is allow yourself to take it easy – naturally we would all want to hibernate in the winter and fighting this, I find, pretty exhausting. To help protect yourselves from the dreaded lurgies, you can make what is called ‘fire cider’ or ‘plague tonic’, which will discourage any bugs lurking around, particularly in the upper respiratory tract. (It might also kill off any amorous feelings from your partner… but if you both take it; you can be pungent together!) You need equal parts in weight of garlic cloves, cayenne pods (chilli), ginger root, onion bulb and horseradish root. These all need chopping up finely and putting in a jar which you then fill to the top with organic apple cider vinegar (with mother). Screw the lid on tight and give it a good shake every day for two weeks. After the allotted time, strain the liquid off and put it in a dark glass bottle with the date and Fire Cider clearly marked and store it in the fridge. It will keep for a good long time as the garlic and onion are seriously strong antimicrobials. You can discard the soaked herbs. At the faintest hint of a tickle at the back of your nose or throat, or if you have come into contact with someone sniffing away; take a teaspoon of this several times a day. If you find it a bit potent then pop it in a bit of warm water to dilute it down a bit. This is for short term use: It is warming, it will stimulate your circulation and might make you sweat, which is always a good way of getting rid of toxins. I am having a problem getting horseradish root so will make it without, but if anyone knows where to get some, please let me know. n pellyfiona@gmail.com

Fiona Chapman is studying naturopathy and herbal medicine at the College of Naturopathic Medicine

Health & Wellbeing The two faces of shame – healthy and toxic

Healthy shame is an emotional signal that we have made and will make mistakes. Healthy shame gives us permission to be human. Mistakes are part of our human nature from which we learn. Embarrassment and guilt is a recognition of our limitations as human beings; hence it’s okay to mess up and get it wrong. Toxic shame however does not recognise limitations and the compulsion is to be perfect in what we say, do and feel; whatever the cost. A toxic shame person has an uncaring relationship with themselves. It’s experienced as ‘I am a flawed, useless, defective person.’ Toxic shame is no longer an emotional signal to our limits; instead it becomes a state of being, a core identity and a sense of worthlessness. Guilt is usually defined by an action; whereas shame is a feeling that can eat away at you from the inside. A shame-based person will guard against exposing the core of who they are to others. In toxic shame the self becomes an object of its own contempt that cannot be trusted. It’s paradoxical and selfgenerating, leading to shame about shame. Toxic shame is the feeling of being alone and isolated. Often people will readily admit guilt, hurt or fear before they will admit shame. We avoid facing our own shame by using behaviours such as perfectionism, striving for control and power, patronising, care taking and rescuing (helping other people), anger and rage (aggression, hostility, threats, violence), envy and jealousy, criticism and blame, indifference, judging and moralising, people pleasing and being nice, contempt for others and being resentful. To heal toxic shame, we must come out of hiding; because as long as our shame is hidden there is nothing we can do about it. In order to heal it we must embrace it. There are no shortcuts and all avoidances like denial and selfanaesthetisation are ineffectual in the long term. I have had clients that have carried shame for many years about certain things; never even telling their nearest and dearest The tendency to avoid emotional suffering is often the primary cause for much of our physical and mental illness. In the case of shame, the more we hide it the worse it gets. We need to change our shame from being internalised to externalising it – and this can seem an incredibly scary thing to do. Healing the shame that binds us is simple but difficult. Coming out of hiding means honestly sharing our feelings. We need a witness to our shaming experiences. To unburden yourself of your toxic shame is can be such a relief and incredibly healing.

n David Stanton is a Senior Counsellor/Psychotherapist living and working in the Vale. Appointments: 07584 711488

Shop local and support small businesses this Christmas 100% natural skincare, lovingly handmade in Motcombe, Dorset with profits funding tree planting in the Blackmore Vale Visit our website for a range of eco-friendly moisturisers, bath melts, soaps and beautiful gift sets with free delivery on all orders over £20 www.kunewyk.co.uk Han a d d e in Dorset 100% Natural I n g re dients m

blackmorevale.net

New Blackmore Vale, December 10, 2021 71 Health & Wellbeing Meditations in nature: Rooks twisting and tumbling in the wind

Wild winds accompany me this morning along the ride. The air is clear and crisp and the horizons are sharp in the bright autumn sunshine. The height of autumn is now upon us and each passing day sees the trees shed another layer of clothing. As my feet kick up the carpet of leaves, I look over the adjacent farmland where the last of the harvest has left the fields stubbled and brown. Here I can see a hundred or more dark shapes energetically pecking at the earth. They are rooks, one of my favourite flocks of autumn and winter. Rooks belong to the corvid family that includes jackdaws, crows, magpies, jays, choughs and ravens. They are large birds that have a distinctive bare, grey patch at the base of their bills and shaggy thigh feathers that look like baggy shorts. Although rooks first appear as black, they are in fact the most beautiful oily, iridescent purple, bronze and green. Being perceived as similar in nature, rooks and crows are often used interchangeably in literature and folklore. For example, Macbeth warns of nightfall when the “crow makes wing to the rooky wood”, and the saying “as the crow flies” derives from the rooks’ long and direct flight to their rookery. In contrast to rooks, crows have a solitary or paired existence, hence the country adage that “a crow in a crowd is a rook and a rook on its own is a crow”. The raucous, complex social communities of rooks has given rise to the many collective nouns for them such as a ‘parliament’, a ‘storytelling’, a ‘building’ or a ‘clamour’; the former being their tendency to hold court and chastise the wrongdoers in their rookery for stealing twigs from their neighbours. Today, however, in this blustery wind, it is their aerial displays

that captivate me. I can’t think of any other land bird that plays in the wind the way that rooks do. Twisting and tumbling with their lifelong partners towards the ground, then scooping skywards at breakneck speed. After their airborne antics they return to the bare fields to feast on the invertebrates. Until that is, one takes to the air again and suddenly they are all up and the sky is momentarily punctuated with noisy black silhouettes, chortling and jostling for position. As I leave them to their business, I ponder how easy it is to take familiar birds for granted; that is until you consider how empty our countryside would be without them. Dr Susie Curtin curtin.susanna@ gmail.com Make a difference and make us dance!

By Victoria Brunton of Kunewyk natural skincare There is a saying among small businesses, that ‘every time someone places an order, we do a little dance’. As a small business owner, I can confirm it’s true and I personally dance! We put so much love, care and thought into every item that we make and sell. They are our ‘babies’. Our spare time is spent creating, dreaming up products with you in mind. For many of us, our small business is the only way we are able to make an income. We have thought up our products and created a business through a talent or as for me, a salve to help with my son’s eczema and a realisation that I could help others with dry skin issues. This is why, a few weeks before Christmas, I plead with you to shop local, support small businesses and support our dreams. Only by you supporting our businesses, can you keep our dreams alive. Think of all the big branded stores – the people at the top don’t feel joy and pride with your purchases. They are thinking of their profits and would happily stamp us out. Whereas we think about how you will feel opening your package. For local traders, smile as your purchase is handed over and your presence in their shop, is so important. It is heartbreaking seeing our local shops quiet just a few weeks before Christmas. Before you go online, have you visited all the small shops to see what they can offer you? More than ever, our high streets need your support. And I’m sure you’ll find a hot mince pie to devour midway. If you would rather do your shopping online, that’s fine but have you shopped on Etsy? Full of marvellous unique treasures, handmade by small businesses with added options to personalise your gifts. Most of us have panic shopped on Amazon, but think twice next time. It’s time to stop buying plastic, meaningless gifts from overseas. Great Britain has so much to offer you. Thanks to my lovely customers who have supported my venture and I love hearing from you! You are incredible. Remember – shop local, support small businesses and keep your high streets alive. We need you.

Come join the ROCKOUT WORKOUT

Join the POUND POSSE... £1 for a Pound!

For one week only, 4th-10th January, I am doing an introductory price of ‘£1 for a Pound’! BRING ALONG A FRIEND AND POUND! Pound is a cardio jam session inspired by the infectious, energising and sweat-dripping fun of playing the drums. Instead of listening to music you become the music in this exhilarating full body workout that combines cardio, conditioning and strength training with yoga and Pilates-inspired moves using ripstixs and an exercise mat.

Classes in Broadstone, Wincanton, Marnhull, Motcombe, Okeford Fitzpaine Contact HAYLEY SANDELL, POUND PRO