'The Wellness Collective' - Chatting all things wellness & the keys to 'finding your passion & purpose'!

Over the next few months we we share our experiences with some of the real ‘go-getter’s and ‘gurus’ of the health and wellness world.

Today I’m lucky enough to chat with the very lovely Carissa and Asja from ‘The Wellness Collective’, who have shared their thoughts on ‘finding their passion and purpose’ as well their views on health, wellness and living a life full of, well LIFE!!

If you’re anything like me, you will be giggling in excitement when you read the interview script, and leave feeling that little bit extra empowered, uplifted, inspired and ready to get out there and achieve the things you’ve had lingering in the back of your minds for the past few years!

Trust me, I’m smiling larger than the Sydney Harbour Bridge as I re-read it!

  Tell us a little bit about what your business is about?

We have a business called ‘The Wellness Collective’.  I am a nutritionist by trade, and Carissa is a design queen and wellness lover - we are two Librans who love knowledge and love pretty things - so we wanted to create something that was REAL, that was BEAUTIFUL and that was incredibly USEFUL.  Our goal when we approach any project or product with ‘can we be the piece of the puzzle that makes self love, wellness and food all fall into place for our tribe’. 

    How did you get to where you are right now? (Business and/or life).

We have both come from strong business backgrounds and personally have had our lessons and struggles come thick and fast (who hasn’t!).  The Wellness Collective was born when Carissa came to a workshop of mine and we got girl crushes and then got creating!  That simple.  When you know you know and our meeting was definitely a matter of ‘the right place and the right time’.

   How would you define ‘good health’?

Good health is a combination of mind, body and soul but exists within a larger framework of the space you live in, your community, your relationships and the world.  Mindset is such a big one, we see time and time again women who just need to find a bit of wiggle room to let themselves off the hook and fall in love with them selves - it doesn’t happen over night, it may not always be easy but IT IS WORTH IT.  The definition of health and what is ‘healthy’ can change depending on what is on trend - but a healthy mind is the best foundation for any long-lasting health and amazingly happy life.

   What comes to mind when you think about ‘living with PASSION and PURPOSE’? And how do you do this in your days?

Wow, this is a biggie.  When I think of passion and purpose I also think of putting you and your heart first.  Those ideas, those pops of inspiration need to come to life. They are the soul food that makes us uniquely different and lights up our spirit and makes our hearts sing.  Finding moments of passion and purpose - that might be doing something you LOVE every day or purpose may be simply being MORE PRESENT in your day - are the stepping stones that link together to make a life more meaningful and fulfilling.  Who doesn’t want more of that right?

We are so grateful that we get to live our passion and purpose more and more each day.  The more we get to be in this zone, the more momentum kicks into gear, creativity ramps up and those to-do lists that you procrastinate over get BROUGHT TO LIFE!  That is magic in itself and we are stoked that we get to do what we do!

    What does a day in the life of you look like?

For the first time we both have more space to work on the Wellness Collective together - and our days are rarely the same.  For example today we trained with one of our fave trainers Zenny (Zenergy) at 5:45am before sitting down to meeting for upcoming projects at 7am.  The rest of my day will be filled with meetings, Skype with potential collaborators and scouting locations for new workshops - with an afternoon of planning an upcoming food shoot (Eep!) before yoga and time with the man and the dog at the beach…..but last Monday we were packing pu from a weekend on the road in Townsville hosting workshops and road tripping back to Mackay getting inspired by podcasts, following up on phone calls and generally laughing a lot!

    What is most important and valuable to you?

Family and relationships.  These relationships are why we both crave the flexibility and freedom of our work - we are doting Aunts and the more family time we have the better.  Knowing that work, no matter how passionate your are about it, is still work is so important.  Instagramming through dinner with your man is a no-no (still guilty of it sometimes though), and a conversations whilst cooking dinner and replying to last minute emails (cause we are so excited…) isn’t a habit you want to cultivate.  So I suppose that can summed up on being PRESENT.

    What is your biggest obstacle/hurdle/challenge that you have been through and how did you over-come this?

Woah another biggie - I love it!  I know Carissa and I are both people that ‘get stuff done’ and this is evident in our careers to date - which also means that in the past we have push push pushed….to point of uninspired burnout.  Overcoming the need to be busy or always achieving is a big one, and it is a work in progress, but it is something we are definitely keen to master! 

                            

     

    What’s next on the cards for you (and your business)?

We both worked through Xmas so we have some time in Bali in March which we are super excited about - for the business we have a few exciting products coming to market (watch this space), as well as rolling out new workshops with lots of fresh content and yummy ideas.  We have plans in place but we are very big on leaving a little space for the unimaginable to happen because we LOVE MAGIC!

    What has been your biggest achievement so far?

We are thrilled with every step we have made so far - progress over perfection - an we think a lot of that hard work is going to pay off in to great achievements this year so WATCH THIS SPACE.

  What is the best advice you could give to women wanting to live their BEST life?

If not now, then when?  Now is a great time to start choosing you and your passions, desires and health - even if it is for 10 minutes a day.  You are so so worth your own time and attention.

THANK YOU so very much girls – keep doing the amazing work that you are, you are definitely inspiring a lot of people out there, in such a beautiful way!

Such awesome advice from two very positive, passionate and professional ladies who are definitely rocking it in the wellness world!

Head over to their website to download their cute and printable manifest....  www.thewellnesscollective.com.au

instragram.com/the_wellnesscollective

facebook.com/thewellnesscollectiveaustralia

or contact them directly: hello@thewellnesscollective.com.au

6 ways to loosen the grip of fear on your life now...

Reacting negatively or with anxious, scared, sad, confused and frustrated emotions is usually a result of learnt experiences. 

To learn how to protect ourselves from any sort of pain in the past, whether it be emotionally, socially or physically - with the skills we use in our childhood or younger years. If the protective mechanism at the time was successful, then we learn to continue this behaviour or thought pattern.

Although this protective 'mechanism' may have served us at the time, sometimes we can't always run away from situations or throw our arms and legs in the air having a two year old tantrum, or even hide behind our sweet Mother's legs when we are faced with things that scare us.

What we have to learn how to do is firstly understand that fear is a result of something we either experienced in the past, or haven't experienced so we start to put up our 'protective forces' just in case things go wrong.

The thing about being an adult in the big, bad world is that it is always changing. We are continuously exposed to new situations, experiences, challenges, personalities and obstacles. As humans, we naturally will form emotions as a response to any type of stimulus, but being able to acknowledge those emotions as a reaction from our mind is a really big key in being able to march on down that challenging path without wanting to vomit or melt down in a big pile of tears on your workplace floor!

Here are a few ways to try and develop this awareness of those fears starting to take hold, before you succumb to that nagging, internal voice inside your worrisome head.

6 Ways to loosen the grip of fear on your life:

11)    Be vulnerable (explore yourself, your passions, interest, fears – be open to failure and criticism).

22)    Acknowledge your fears – this is the first step in being able to release them. When you start to hear and acknowledge how your fears are sneakily working their way into your life, it is only then that you can consciously let them go as nothing more than a reaction of your emotions or a ‘storey’ that your mind has created as a way to protect itself from harm –which may have once served it, but now is no longer relative or necessary.

33)    Expose yourself to your biggest fears.

44)    Think positive. Get out there and scan the internet, read a few books or check out social media such a pintrest or Instagram – these are often gold in being able to get a few quotes, mantras or words that really reach your heart. Thinking positive has to relate to YOU, your dreams, push hard against your fears and keep you focussed in achieving the dreams or goals you set out to.

Any mantras, quotes, affirmations or visuals that you can find that relate to and reach you – print them out, take a screen shot on your phone and place them somewhere that you can see it and refer to it every day!

55)    Manage stress. When you’re stressed or fatigued, it can be really difficult to try and beat your fears or focus on your desires – particularly in the early stages when you need a little bit of conscious energy to create those positive habits. Take time out to exercise, meditate, go and sit outside in the fresh air and simply be aware of your surroundings (your environment has a very big impact on your emotions, and it certainly helps to take you away from any ‘crazy’ that is happening in your life, work or home.

66)    Practice courageous acts. I’m not saying get out there and start base jumping off cliff tops or play chicken across a busy highway – but getting out and doing one thing that makes you nervous, anxious or scared each day (or at least each week to start with), does amazing things for your confidence, self efficacy and your ability to feel as if you can trust yourself to do the things that deep down you know you always could.

Think about your noted fears and test out the theories that your ‘mind’ or ‘emotions’ has told you that you cannot do. 

I believe in you!!

6 ways to find HOPE and light up your insides again...

Only a few short months ago - I would wake up each day with a tight throat, a sinking feeling my stomach, a racing heart and the feeling of having thirty ferris wheels running around inside my head.

Initially it was a matter of dragging myself out of bed by going for a run or doing a Pilates session just to give me some motivation to actually get on with my day. I dreaded the thought of having to go into another day of work each and every day and into a place where I no longer felt satisfied or fulfilled.
This slowly grew into feeling severely unhappy, anxious, hopeless and not even being able to get into my car to drive myself to work - even with my 'false' inner cheer leader trying to pump up my mojo to put my pedal to the metal!

I spent my days in indecision; trying to figure out what to do with my life, what my interests were, what my passions were, how I could link my values and dreams to a career or lifestyle change. For anyone that has ever gone through a similar situation in their lives - its so incredibly exhausting to have a little mouse run on it's wheel thirty thousand miles an hour each and every moment of the day as it tried to figure out what to do.
The things that i now realise made this time in my life even more difficult was that my sense of hope had diminished to such a low point that I was listening to all of the negative voices and aspects of my current life that i began to believe it. To my impressionable mind, I had 'the worst life in the world'. It told my emotions to feel guilt, shame, unworthiness and a huge drop in confidence in my ability to take the steps needed to dig myself out of the deep hole of negativity.

For anyone that knows me - I am an optimist at heart. I am always the first person in the group to reply in passing comment with a "hey - it could be worse", or "well at least it didn't....." or "but look on the bright side....". So for my negativity and loss of hope to get so bad it took me away from my core beliefs, values and natural personality - it was certainly time to take action.

Some of the biggest things I have taken from that experience are as follows:

1) Take some time for yourself to let your creativity fly. For me, it was writing. I felt as if each time I wrote in reflection that a weight was lifted off my shoulders (yes - I'm actually starting to get a cheeky, 3 year old grin on my face as I write this!). I also made sure that every moment I spent driving in my car or sitting at home by myself, or even out walking in the sunshine that i sang! As ear bleeding as it sounds, get out there and release that tension through voice - TRUST ME, you can't help but start to feel a little bubble of satisfaction and release when you belt out your favourite tunes!

2) Get yourself into a routine as soon as you wake up. Find ONE thing that you love and makes you feel good about yourself and do that every morning. It kick starts your day, gives you a sense of achievement to lift your confidence and just reminds that negative nancy inside your head that 'hey - there are a hell of a lot of awesome things going on in my life!'.

3) Sit down and write down a list of things that you do that make you happy. These can be your go-to happy actions in times of need, as well as starting to uncover your inner desires. The biggest and most KEY thing about beating your negativity is to find your hearts passion. Without a passion, you will never find your purpose or the thing that gets you up everyday with some swagger in your step. Choose 5 things from your passion list to explore over the next 30 days.

4) From the list above (and feel free to add to it with time - as the more you tap into your optimism and sense of hope, the easier it will be to reach and the more the negativity will be buried), think about how your perfect life would be. Write this down in a paragraph. Be as specific as you can - what will it look like, what will you be doing, who will be around you, where will you be?

5) Learn to focus on the NOW, not the past or future - focus on right now in this moment. This will help you to be cleared from any inner guilt/shame/sadness from the past and remove the anxiety/fear of what will happen in the future. The old saying that "it is about the journey, not the destination' stands true in reminding us that each day happens for a reason and it will play a part in where we head in our lives. If we are focussing in on our passions, then things will just happen for us - provided we are open to taking the journey and accepting the things that happen to us as part of the process, rather than wasting our precious moments worrying about any mistakes that lets be honest - are in the past, we are in the NOW.

6) Push past your fears. It’s so seductive to tell ourselves that we’ll go after what we want when we have more experience, more money, or more time, but the truth is, that will never happen. We must identify these excuses as masks for our fear. It’s only when we get clear on our fears and recognize how they are holding us back that we can begin moving forward. Accept them as a thought and emotion, then LET THEM GO.

'Feeling hopeless is the fastest way to kill our passion and keep us form finding our purpose. Hold onto the hope that there is something GREAT out there for all of us!'

How to acknowledge your thoughts and let it go - the key to mindfulness...

Over the past few weeks I've learnt quite a lot about myself.
It's amazing how many questions run through your mind when making a major change to your life as well having a little bit of extra time to 'over-think', 'over-analyse' and 'over-critique' everything that you are.

Having time to yourself, alone with your thoughts can be incredibly beneficial. Making sure that you do take time away from everything and everyone else is an important part of learning who you are, what you want, what your interest and passions are, which direction you want to go in your life and what you NEED.

The only trick is to not look at things too deeply - otherwise you will almost definitely fall into the trap of 'crazy brain' looking way too deeply into the reason behind everything that could, will and has happened to you. Although reflection is a necessary part in being able to move forward to bigger and better things in life, too much of it can be detrimental and lead you into negativity.
For most of us, over the years and experiences that make up our life we have learnt to instinctively 'protect' ourselves against anything that could harm us.
This harm may be mentally, physically, emotionally, socially....whatever it may be - the human being has developed such powerful protection mechanisms that we often let negativity take over before positivity even has time to assemble itself.
This doesn't mean you always think the worst of every situation, but it is very easy to let our inner fears take hold of our days and prevent us from trusting ourselves to rise to the challenges of our desires.
This negativity, when left to seep out for too long can turn into what our mind conceives as pain. Although this pain can come in any shape or form (virtually anything that doesn't give us instant gratification e.g laughing or love), our mind perceives it as a threat and our thoughts spiral downward.

I am a poster model for this detrimental over-thinking. I admit it - although I am an introvert by every stretch of the definition, I do love having time to myself to reflect, consolidate and think about things, but if left for too long I know how easily it can stem into a whole bucket (or Santa sack big enough to bring joyful presents to every child around the world!!) of negative thoughts which usually get internalised.......which usually then turn into negativity and anxiety around things that were never even linked to what the initial thought or issue was!!

I found myself this morning after driving 30minutes to my Sunday Pilates and strength training class, then returning home after it - I started to think about things (and I guess the fact that I was running on one soy latte for the first 3 hours of the morning may have added to the 'negativity thinking'!!).
The last few days I have been on such a high horse having finally figured out what I want to do with my life - hallelujah - and finally being able to let my thoughts simply be acknowledged without having to analyse each one (until you learn to do this, it is hard to fathom how free your soul feels!).

However when one or two thoughts held on to my mind for too long....they started to develop into other things. For years, my self confidence is the first thing that dissolves at a rate faster than a bath bomb in hot water when I over-think things.
When I plan  goal related to my passions, my initial excitement is HUGE! The trick is, I usually have to dive into the goal straight away before it gets time to think about things too deeply and my mind responds by second guessing itself that I can follow through with it.

My internalisation responded by telling my mind that I couldn't do it, that I didn't have the skills, I wasn't 'loud or extraverted' enough, I didn't have enough experience, other people didn't have the same confidence in my goals and questioned me.....these continued to grow into 'I'm not good enough', I don't look as pretty as the other girls in the industry I want to move into, I can't speak as clearly and confidently or as bubbly and infectious as the others in my industry - all when asked for evidence could not stand their ground but still ......the thoughts were strong enough to over-take my passions and leave me feeling like a small child that has been sent to their bedroom for being naughty.

My point is - to beat this, there is one very simple solution.
Elkhart Tolle speaks about a profound moment her had on his 29th birthday years ago. After battling years of depression and anxiety, he found himself in a state of complete helplessness and said to himself "I can't live with myself anymore". Something happened in that brief moment, and he had an epiphany - it was like he had two people inside his head. "I and myself"......he realised that he was living in his body with something else very powerful that had taken over himself - his mind. From that day on, Eckhart Tolle played with the idea that his mind perceived thoughts as threats. His depression and anxiety (and over-thinking) had built up so strongly that perceived everything as pain. His mind instantly turned thoughts into 'pain'.
The change that he learnt to make was to recognise that thoughts are simply an emotion as a reaction to a situation. They don't necessarily mean pain, but once you simply acknowledge that emotion - don't try and micro-manage it or fight it - just let it be.
Living in the moment and simply experiencing human emotion as it is, is the most effective and beneficial technique I have ever learnt in stopping my over-thinking.

We as a fast paced society are so used to being stressed, trying to organise, plan, analyse, reflect, and respond to the things that are around us, that we have all forgotten how to simply let things happen.

Life goes on no matter how your mind wants to respond to it, and let me tell you, it is so much less fatiguing to let the tight chest and tense forehead go as you keep this in mind. You don't have to have an answer or reaction to everything. Just let it be, acknowledge it, don't try and change it or fight it - just let it be, accept it and move on to the next moment.

A word you may all be familiar with is mindfulness - what an amazing concept!!