A park with a heart

By Virginia Winder

The fountain lake at Pukekura Park

Nature nurtures the soul.

Had a low day today, what I call a lost day, mainly spent in bed listening to audio books, sleeping and trying to meditate.

What helped me greatly was going to Pukekura Park with a mate for the Festival of the Lights.

We went early to hear a young man called Ben Dixon, from Hawera. He is highly talented and his own songs were uplifting.

But so was the New Plymouth park, which I’ve always thought of as the beating heart of our community.

I sat there, head tilted back, looking at the soaring trees and watching the patterns of the clouds. I imagined the people who chose to create this park back in the late 1800s and how they planted many of the trees.

Also, I wondered what they would think of the festival, the music playing and the children dancing in front of the stage.

Look what they created for us. What a legacy.

Wherever you are, there will be such a place. It could be a reserve, a beach, a trail by a river or lake, a national park or a coastal walkway.

We have all of the above, but in summer Pukekura Park is the hands-down winner, especially in the heat of the day.

On Wednesday, I walked through the park with my childhood friend Glenys at midday. It was cool under the trees by the lakes and we talked our way through our wanderings, which will get faster. We are committed to a weekly stride out in this place of great beauty.

Tonight, being in the park was just what I needed. I was able to look beyond myself, focus on my friend, eat healthy food and feel embraced by a park, which has been cared for by so many people, including a beloved niece.

So, after a lost day, Pukekura Park nurtured my soul. I feel whole again.

Forgiveness is freeing

By Virginia Winder

A few years ago I worked with a bully.

This person used passive aggressive tactics, undermined me in many ways and completely knocked my confidence.

For a long time I felt sick when I heard or read this person’s name, when I saw cars like theirs or when I thought about them. Sometimes I would get angry, other times I would be weighed down with ill feeling and too often I would obsess about their hypocrisy.

Also, I was terrified of meeting this person in the street or the supermarket. Just the thought filled my gut with acid.

The thing is, my poisonous, fearful thoughts weren’t hurting them. They were hurting me. Instead of filling my mind with creative thoughts and focusing on good things and good people, I was crippled by toxic anger.

So I had to let them go – the bad thoughts and the person.

I had to forgive them. Also, I had to forgive myself for allowing myself to become a victim, something I had rarely, if ever, been before.

To move on was a whole process, which entailed lots of hard work.

The most helpful thing was mindfulness. This is a word that’s getting bandied around a lot these days, but it involves many things, including working on acceptance without judgement, knowing that thoughts are just thoughts, not facts, and living in this moment, right now.

What happened was in the past and it needed to disappear into the ether.

There’s also the Loving Kindness Meditation, which is about having compassion for all people, including yourself, those you love and even an adversary. It’s available on the internet and worth practicing.

I love the one read by Dr Russ Harris in the CD that comes with The Happiness Trap or on his app, the ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) Companion, which I bought for my iPhone.

Doing a mindfulness course was also a blessing. It gave me great calmness each week and reinforced many things I knew but had forgotten.

Another tool towards forgiveness is writing down everything you need to say. Let the rage out, pour out the ugliness, then have a burning ritual and let it go.

Other times I would stand in the shower and let the water flow over me and imagine all the hurt disappearing down the drain.

Forgiveness, like grief, is a painful process, but you learn a lot on the way.

Finally, I ended up at the same function as this person, who came to talk to me. We chatted cordially, clinked glasses and wished each other well for the future.

As I stood there, my heart beating normally, my words kind but careful, I realised things were back in balance. I felt no anger, no bitterness, but a state of great calmness.

I was whole again and went home feeling as free as a soaring seagull.

Let your thoughts flow

By Virginia Winder

Thinking room is as important as creative time.

Awakino Gorge

My favourite places for thinking are waiting rooms – doctors, dentists, blood labs, you name it – swimming pools, beaches, the bush, in big-city cafes and on planes.

But the best place of all is as a passenger on a long car journey.

Today, on the way back from Auckland, with my son and partner in the back and my husband the focused driver beside me, my mind wandered freely, discovering characters and plot twists in the novel I have begun.

As an aside: I will never tell you what I’m writing about because of the advice of my writer friends, who say it’s not advisable. That’s backed up by J.K. Rowling, who says: “I found that discussing an idea out loud is often the way to kill it stone dead.”

What that means for me is that I’m dying to tell someone about it, and that someone can only be my keyboard and eventually, hopefully, some readers.

First, though, the ideas have to be there.

Back Beach

That’s why down-time is so important and also space without mobile devices as distractions.

Solo beach and bush walks can stimulate the imagination, unless, of course, you wish to be totally mindful and watch, smell and feel the world fully.

If you’ve got a project on the go and need fresh ideas, try doing something with a rhythm, like drumming, cycling or take the plunge.

For me another great place to dream is while swimming lengths in a pool. My mother used to count her lengths by going alphabetically through the states of America, or the rivers of the world or the capital cities.

When I swam in the lane beside her, I’d ask: “What are you up to Mum?”

Her answers could be Missouri, the Seine or Laos, depending on her topic of the day.

Apart from concentrating on my freestyle strokes, I love to submerge my mind in creative thoughts.

Like my body, ideas float and flow freely as I pull and kick through the water.

Another great joy to me is being in a big city with a notepad and pen, tucked in the corner of a café where nobody knows me, just writing whatever pops into my head.

It’s difficult to find such a place in a small city like New Plymouth, but headphones and music do offer some thinking space. Great coffee also helps tickle the muse. 

Then it’s to this comfortable place, my writing space, where I am right now, fingers dancing over the keys. This is the place my thoughts come to life.

Creating great memories - now

Takapuna Beach

By Virginia Winder

I've been wading in memories on Takapuna Beach. 

There is a huge move to live in the moment, the now, and I'm a great supporter of that. 

It's by being immersed in right now that great memories can be laid down, like foundations. 

You see good memories, like those of summer holidays, can be so comforting and uplifting. 

From when I was aged from 7 until 17, our family camped at Takapuna for three weeks every January. 

We had an old canvas scout tent and, as we got older, pup tents for us kids. 

Our site was the closest to the beach. 

My friend Glenys later came too and so did my sister's friend Jackie.

Glenys and I lived in our bikinis, slathered our bodies with Tropical Blend and lay in the sun listening to Radio Hauraki. 

Standing on the beach today, a thousand memories came whooshing back and I basked in their joy. 

In the mid-year holidays I stayed with the camp managers, Harry and Gwen Webster, and learned to love Takapuna in the winter and later Milford, when they moved. 

When I was at university, I flatted in a giant house on the beach front at Takapuna.

What my memories have reminded me is how the simple pleasures in life can be so precious. 

Especially if you live in the moment and feel them so exquisitely. 

My Takapuna days were about fishing, shrimping, swimming, learning to skateboard, running on the beach, expeditions around the rocks to Milford and cementing great friendships. 

With Uncle Harry, we discussed the meaning of life, the great pyramids, the Dead Sea scrolls, religion, racism and UFOs. 

My Takapuna days molded me. 

We gave our kids different memories of camping at Oakura Beach. They were days of swimming, playing games, beach walks and exploring the rock pools. 

One day our son Nelson and I lay on our stomachs peering in to a pool that looked lifeless. But we waited quietly and slowly it came alive with creatures and was as busy as a city. We were utterly absorbed in the moment. 

You see to create indelible memories you need to be 100% in the now. 

And also be open to the wonders of life, people and our world.

Moderation is my new friend

By Virginia Winder

My sister's amazing Christmas cake

It’s the Christmas cake that’s the problem.

Or so I say.

I could’ve eaten it in moderation, of course, but I decided to try and rip into it, so it would be all gone by New Year’s Day.

It wasn’t. So now moderation has prevailed and I don’t want this luscious cherry-and-almond-filled cake to end. It was made by my sister with love using a damn fine recipe.

In other ways I do want to be finished. 

Because the truth is I’m the biggest I’ve ever been. I won’t embarrass myself by sharing the kilos with you, only to say that I want to shed – 40kg.

Last time, I wrote words like this I decided to train for a half-ironman. There will be nothing so drastic this time because that was just too extreme. My obsessive training contributed to a mid-year breakdown and discoveries that parts of my body’s architecture aren’t so well constructed. However, I did manage the swim leg in a team for the half ironman at Tauranga just days before my 50^th birthday.

Three years on, good eating habits and a regular exercise regime have fallen by the wayside.

Butter on toast is a downfall

These are my edible downfalls – banana and peanut butter milkshakes, Lewis Rd and Whittaker’s chocolate milk, chocolate (of all descriptions), toast and potatoes with lots of butter (not eaten together), oat crackers with Castello cheese, doughnuts from a new café, fish ‘n chips, sugar in coffee, fries and aioli and sour cream on Mexican food.

What I will not do is go on a diet. Ever. They fail because they aren’t sustainable. I will talk more about this on my journey to Vibrant Wellbeing.

It’s time however, to overhaul my eating habits, majorly.

Breakfast could be fresh fruit, or muesli, yoghurt and in-season fruit, although I have fallen in love with pomegranate. 

Muesli, yoghurt and fresh fruit

Snacks can be coffee and some protein – nuts or yoghurt.

Lunch can be anything without bread. Lots of protein, vegetables and grains. You see, I am planning to do a bread-free life as much as I’m able. That’s mainly to cut out the butter and the over-dose of carbohydrates. There will be exceptions (pita breads and an amazing woman's home-made sourdough), but not many.

The milkshakes and chocolate milk are easy to bypass as are the rest of my bad choices. The sugar in the coffee will be cut down to half, starting from now.

Dinner, well that’s up to the maestro – my husband Warren is the chef in our house and he does a fine job.But with our son leaving home soon, there will be lots of salmon and other fish on the menu. Hmm and scallops, prawns...

Exercise will be walking, swimming, cycling on the Coastal Walkway and pilates. I will be entering no races, except the one with myself to become active, fit for travelling and agile enough to walk in difficult places.

And I can do all these things, even with the Christmas cake on hand.

Moderation is my new friend.

The courage to be vulnerable

By Virginia Winder

Today over coffee with a dear friend, we talked about bravery.

Brene Brown

About being vulnerable, as shared by American researcher and writer Brene Brown.

About being human and all that brings – the love and pain, hurt and happiness, suffering and soul-searching, the uncertainty and fears.

It’s also about following your dreams, your passions, your truths, even when you’re feeling afraid.

My friend is one of the bravest people I know. When her husband was living with a brain tumour that would eventually take his life, she brought up two beautiful girls and also got a degree.

Another woman, a wonderfully colourful soul, is moving to a big city with the intent of spending the last years of her working life helping unions or fellow workers. She’s going even though she hasn’t got a job or a place to live yet. She’s made that commitment to herself.

A man I know gave up work to recover from cancer. This was bravery, because this was at a time when men were always the bread winners of families. He took that leap of faith because he knew if he didn’t, he would die. He had cancer four times and is still alive – 23 years on.

Andrew Judd

Bravery is about changing, being open-minded enough to alter your views completely. That’s what New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd did concerning his late understanding and promotion of all things Maori. He put himself on the line completely and he’s suffered backlash from many quarters.

Showing tolerance, forgiveness and kindness towards others can also be large acts of great courage.

Every single time you try something new, read an article that challenges your core beliefs, reach out for help or in answer to someone else’s needs, that takes bravery. Picking up the phone to call someone you’ve meant to for ages or mending a family feud by taking the first step – yep, you’ve got it, that’s bravery.

Simply stepping out of your comfort zone is courageous.

My personal acts of bravery are about commitment and being vulnerable.

This year I plan to write my first novel, learn to make short videos, investigate podcasts and write this blog on a daily basis, as constant as my Facebook flowers (which will continue, after all my world is floral now).

That means you’ll get me when I’m well, in states of hypomania and depression, when I’m frantically busy and when I feel like curling up under the bedclothes to hide from the world. Sometimes writing will be utterly terrifying for me.

New Year’s resolutions aside – bravery can happen on any day and in any guise. It can be standing up to a workplace bully, saying no or saying yes, or it might be  sharing your deepest thoughts with someone you’re close to.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn't feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive,” says Brene Brown.

Be brave - for yourself, be yourself. 

In the beginning there was stone...

By Virginia Winder

A haze of rock dust escapes between the crimson pohutukawa trees and on to the road.

It’s Day One of the Te Kupenga International Stone Symposium on New Plymouth’s foreshore and the sculptors are grinding and chiselling.

The andesite originates from the dormant Mt Taranaki and the 26 artists, including internationals from places like Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Belgium and Australia, began the day facing raw rocks.

Over 22 days they will turn them – and others – into works of art, all the while working under the scrutiny of an interested public.

New Zealand sculptor Jocelyn Pratt begins work on her stone.

Vibrant Wellbeing will be like that, except I’ll by going longer.

But while my quest for wellness will be in the public eye, it won't be set in stone. It will feature a cast of characters with knowledge and wisdom to share about living life to the fullest. It will also have a strong focus on creativity.

Other topics will include mindfulness, mental health, being fit, eating well, people’s passions, spirituality, inner peace, music, art, soul-searching stories and the truth. Sometimes what I have to share will shock you. Other times it will make you smile and possibly cry. Maybe not in the same post. 

What Vibrant Wellbeing won’t be is patronising, preachy or pushy.

It will – hopefully – be inspiring, funny and honest.

So this is the beginning, on January 1, 2016. I so love a new year and a clean slate.

My rock of words are ready to shape. Like the sculptors at the symposium, I have ideas in my head about what Vibrant Wellbeing will look like, but these will change as the material on offer presents possibilities, new twists and turns.

What you need to know about me is I’m overweight (soon to change). I have a mood disorder (ups and downs). I am a writer (journalist and creative). I love people, but I also relish my own company. I am a mother, a wife, a friend and a sister. I love bodysurfing, audiobooks, weta (large New Zealand insects), movies, coffee, great food, my community, travelling and art. I also have dreams and this is part of that.

Welcome to VW’s Vibrant Wellbeing - a winding, woven, wacky tale of great hope.