Mastering health by getting your house in order.
[Applause]
have
you got your house in order
you see if someone had asked me that two
or three years ago
my answer would have been a big fat no
because my house
it was more like a pack of cards a house
of cards just waited to come crashing
down
some of you mothers might relate washing
on the couch i mean it’s it’s clean it’s
folded but it’s still there
breathing and sometimes as a mother the
simplest instructions just seem to get
lost in translation
like we’re my son he comes running up to
me because he’s excited to have a kindle
and he’s like
mom mom can i download some books on my
kindle
and i’m like yeah go for it go nuts
well 48 geronimo still books later at
380
could have been more specific
and things like they have their own
interpretation of what you say
so don’t use too much shampoo well of
course that directly translates as
use up all the shampoo
so sometimes as a mother we just have to
just take it some time for us take some
solitude and bring some joy into our
life
so i got some of those socks from the
washing pile and i decided to
re-condo my sock drawer and it was great
for a day so
then i just i found myself wanting to
take some time for me
to revive and revitalize
so there i am i’ve got both doors shut
and i’m in the bathroom for two minutes
and i don’t even get that my son he
walks in my mum i can’t find my lunchbox
and my daughter oh mum can you sign this
note for school and my husband will say
hey darling
can you tell me what time and there we
have it they’re all too familiar
family meeting in the bathroom
any one of those things could have been
that thing
that brought my house of cards crashing
down
so one night i’m sitting at the computer
and i’m typing away at the kitchen table
and i’m i’m trying to stay awake i’m
falling asleep because it’s late at
night
in fact it’s it’s actually now really
early in the morning it’s 3 a.m in the
morning and i’m
eating cashew nuts to stay away and keep
falling asleep and
i’m trying to write report comments
report comments like i would have
written before i was a teacher
before i was a parent and i’m trying to
do my best for these kids and
write the best report comments and
during the day i’m trying to be the best
mum i can be and give my energy to my
children and i’m still trying to be the
best
wife i can be and live up to some
domestic goddess status
and i’m still trying to be the teacher
that i used to be
and i’m grieving i’m grieving for
the confident the energy that i used to
have
i’m just tired and i’m i’m fatigued and
i’m overwhelmed and i feel like i’ve
just got no time for me because
i’m giving my energy away to everybody
else and i’m juggling
all these balls and the ball that i go
and drop
is health
so i meet with my husband the next night
and i say we’ve just got to do something
about health
so we start digging deep into our reason
why why we want health
and the deeper we dig the reason is
i want to do it for my children because
i don’t want them to grow up thinking
they have to be a martyr
and they have to give the energy away
so we embark on this three-month journey
and we start
getting into eating healthy and and
getting into food psychology and getting
more of the good stuff in
and after three months i
reconnect with that old self and
suddenly
i have the energy and i feel revitalized
and so i start digging into other models
of health
and i came across the model of health
that we use new zealand health
which is tifari tapafa sir mason jury’s
model of health
and he looks at health as a house
and he looks at the four pillars of the
of health
as the four walls of this house of this
house so we have
the first wall which is our physical
wall we looks at strengthening the body
and the second wall looks at the mental
and emotional well-being the third wall
looks at our spiritual well-being
and the last wall looks at our sense of
family and social well-being and that
sense of connection
and you see i had realized that health
was my first wealth
and my health had rippled into so many
other areas of my life
because i had been working on this first
for what i’ve been getting in my green
drinks eliminating processed food
getting in my water
doing my breathing and anchoring in my
why
and i had built this first wall of my
house
by nurturing with nourishment and now
that i’ve nurtured
my my body well i now had to nurture my
mind
and you see by doing that
there was a really interesting thing
that happened
i was going to start making sure that i
focused my mind
and it was one of the best things i
could have done
i was thinking about what i could do
with my
my my computer and i was i was going
right
what can i do with my house business and
i’m working away
and this email came through
and it was the most incredible
opportunity
it was an opportunity to go to africa
and to spend time with the hudson and i
was like
this is the opportunity to live life the
way we would have thousands of years ago
with some of the last hunter-gatherers
in the world
i was like this is an incredible
opportunity
this is something so cool
that someone else would do and
that’s what i thought this is something
so cool
that someone else would do and there we
go
there was an old inner critic just
beavering away oh you couldn’t do that
oh you’re not capable
are you just a mother luckily
my love for learning had directed my
focus and focus well it can go either
way
it’s like waiting for a roller coaster
ride some people
are feeling the fear and others are
insanely enthusiastic
and it’s whether we view it as like a
negative
or a positive thing
and i had played this game wouldn’t it
be fun if
this imaginative game i thought wouldn’t
be fun if i did my coaching training
and really skilled up on health and
wouldn’t it be fun by
doing coaching i met incredible mentors
and colleagues
and what it’d be fun by meeting these
mentors and colleagues that i’ve got
invitations to travel and have insane
adventures and
that just blew my mind and here was all
that
in an email so i applied
i applied to spite my inner critic
and i realized that you can feel the
fear
but you just have to focus on the
excitement
by focusing your mind and that was the
second wall of my house
so i was on the way to africa and
there’s a whole other ted talk about why
you don’t pack through the night
how to set an alarm and gratitude for
mothers that ring you in your meant to
be at the airport chicken
but i get there and i find 43 hours and
airports and that i’m finally there and
i’m with the hudson
and i am lying at the bottom of this
boba bear tree and i’m
looking up i’m in my sleeping bag i mean
during the days i have seen things like
scorpions and snake trails
and weird millipedes that eject cyanide
and in lines but i’m not thinking of any
of those sorts of things
i am lying down looking at this bob tree
in this huge trunk and it’s glowing red
because the fire light is hitting it
and up the top of the bob tree a tiny
stars breaking through the branches
and the light of the moon’s coming down
and i can hear the fireside chatter of
the tribesmen
and the clicks the laughter the
storytelling
i look up and there’s this huge arrows
in the tree and on these arrows are all
the bows the bows that the hunters are
gonna use tomorrow for the hunt
and i can reach out and i could touch
these bows
i’m lying there and i’m so comfortable
i’m so connected to nature and i’m now
fighting to stay awake
and i realize this is lifting my spirit
up and i
feel so comfortable and it reminds me of
when my little boy was in bed
and he was doing that hook when you’re
just about to leave the room oh mum
i know what i’m going to be when i grow
up i’m like
thinking mate i’ve got so many things to
do dishes washington fold reports to
write
but i don’t say that i say yeah what’s
that
he said i’m going to be a fireman no
i’m going to be a magician no i’m going
to be a plastic
extraordinaire and if i wasn’t present
in that moment
i would not have known that a plastic
extraordinaire
saves the world from plastic
and it was that same being present in
the moment when a little four-year-old
girl grabbed my hand said mom mom can we
do a moon dance
and before you know it a mom dad a
little girl outside doing a moon dance
it’s the importance of connecting with
nature
of being present in the moment not
thinking of the past
or the future but being in that moment
and doing things that
lift your spirit up and that is that
third wall
of the house and just like i was
grateful to be looking up at that bar
bad tree
i was so grateful to meet the chief of
the hadza tribe
this is the chief his name is
hang on had to work on that
and i gave him a ponamu and it was
great to experience firsthand that whole
notion of it takes a village to raise a
child
and in this community everyone had their
role like
if a woman was having a baby all the
women were there to support her
and if a man was going out hunting but
all the men they went out together
and there was no jealousy that was a
foreign concept to them
and no conflict can you imagine that no
conflict
they lived in a state of gratitude and i
was so grateful because i was out
hunting with this chief and were out on
this hunt and we were walking along and
then suddenly
the chief stops so we stop
and we look and we wait
and we don’t make a sound because we
don’t want to distract
or disturb anything that’s there and
then he starts walking
so we start walking and he sees this
baboon track
and so we’re off and we’re tracking this
baboon and we’re running behind them and
all of a sudden we lose the chief
in the two tribesmen and we don’t know
where we are
we don’t know how to get back and
we don’t even know we’re just sitting
there as lion bait
and if we go full we might get hit by
arrows
luckily we spot one of the tribesmen so
we head over that way
and we head over to this tribesmen and
if you ever
want to see what the human body can do
when you eat the right stuff
and when you use your body the way it’s
meant to be
this tribesman he’s pulling back his bow
and the muscles across his back
are rippling across his shoulder and
he’s pulling back this bow
and he pulls back the arrow and he
shoots the arrow up into the tree
and it hits nothing we don’t hear the
thud
because he missed the bird and so we
wait
for the interplay we look at the chief
we look at the tribesmen and the chief
starts taking the mick
and the tribe and starts laughing and
these two are having a joke about it
and i’m thinking this might be all you
get to eat all day
i’ve seen golfers have a worse reaction
to missing a shot
but it reminded me of the importance of
enduring relationships
of connection that sense of
family and social well-being and that
is that fourth wall
and another day i was out with this
tribe swimming and we were
hunting and gathering and she was
digging up tuber roots and we were
slicing them and
eating a bit of tube root and then
suddenly there was this great excitement
about this tree and so we go over
because this tree is buzzing
and one of the tribes while he’s hacking
into this tree he’s hacking in
and he brings over a big chunk of the
trunk
and so we’re looking at this and inside
a tiny bee’s about the size of a pinhead
and bee’s eggs so we try some of these
bees eggs
and we’re eating them and they burst
like lemon in your mouth
and they’re delicious and then we try
the honey
and this honey like there’s still bees
tiny little bees in this honey
and it’s dripping down my hand and
i haven’t showered for quite a few days
but i tell you i’m licking
my fingers clean to get every last bit
this honey is that good
and then what the tribe’s woman does
next is she does something
that completely changes my view on
motherhood
she takes this trunk and she walks over
to the rest of the tribe
and the kids they see it and they know
and they come running and they’re all
excited
like bees to a honey pot that yay gives
a honey give some honey
and she stands there and she shows them
all away
and i’m thinking well that’s a bit rough
you know these kids want the honey give
them the honey
you know why don’t you the money but she
doesn’t she shows them all away
and what she does is she then proceeds
to go and feed every single one of the
mothers first
and only once she’s fed every single
mother
only then does she proceed to them for
the children and that’s when i give it
we’ve got it all wrong if she doesn’t
feed those mothers and they don’t
survive
then those children don’t survive
we need to taste a sweetness in life in
order to give to others
we need to nurture the nurturer
and just like sir mason jury’s model of
health
we need to ask ourselves is our house an
order
are we addressing those four walls of
our health because when i asked myself
that question my life completely changed
are we looking after our physical health
our mental and emotional health our
spiritual health
our sense of family and social
well-being
because that was the key thing
if we don’t put our own oxygen mask on
then we’re not getting our fair share of
the honey
and if we don’t do it for ourselves then
we need to do it for
the young eyes that are watching the
young ears that are listening
and learning
the biggest gift we can give our
children
is to teach them to nurture their body
their mind
their thoughts their spirit their family
their relationships
get your house in order
nurture your happiness
by nurturing yourself
thank you