Happy Winter Solstice, Positive Lifers! In this extract from our Winter 2018/19 issue, acclaimed health and wellness coach Alison Canavan discusses some of the challenges of winter, and how we can learn how to thrive during the winters of life. Remember: the darkest hour comes before the dawn.
We’re still on a high after attending the wonderful Vitality Expo in the RDS last weekend. For an in-depth tour of the atmosphere on the day, and a behind-the-scenes insight into the people who made the event so great, make sure you watch the live video we recorded over the weekend, showcasing the presenting skills of our very own Paul Congdon! Catch it here.
We wanted to put together this list of our best picks from the show. If you didn’t get the chance to go, consider this a recap of the best and brightest offerings!
Eskimo 3 Fish Oil
Eskimo-3 aims to differentiate themselves from many other fish oil brands through an unwavering commitment to high quality. They are proud to be one of the purest, safest and most environmentally friendly fish oils on the market.
Rossmore Health
Rossmore Health, located in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, is a family owned business founded in 1997. They stock a huge range of natural products, covering areas such as weight loss, energy boosters, immune enhancers, detox, skin care, joint care, sugar free candies and snacks (diabetic friendly), and food supplements.
Macánta Nutrition
Macánta Nutrition Ltd. is an Irish company based in Galway producing high quality nutritional supplements that are available exclusively within Irish Health Stores. The word Macánta itself means honest/sincere, and to the company, it represents the standard for everything they do. In the design and development of their products, product integrity and quality are number one priorities.
Wild Nutrition
Wild Nutrition was formulated by the best-selling nutritional author, practitioner and speaker, Henrietta Norton BSc DipNT. The company’s Food-Grown® supplements provide superior nutritional support throughout the key stages and events in life. In 2018, Wild Nutrition won the Best Natural Supplements honour at the Beauty & Wellbeing Awards.
Pravera
Pravera is dedicated to helping people lead a healthier life. The company specialises in offering its customers the best possible product options in the fields of cosmetics, skin care, natural household cleaning and more. Some of its brands include Lavera, Primavera, SoulTree, Khadi, Organyc, Organii, and EcoCosmetics.
Nature’s Plus
Nature’s Plus has worked hard to earn the loyalty of millions of satisfied consumers and health food retailers worldwide with their emphasis on high quality at every stage, from manufacturing to on-time delivery to their work with retailers. Nature’s Plus is committed to supplying superior quality natural vitamins and nutritional supplements.
April Danann’s Shroom Coffee
Holistic coach April Danann takes great care when producing her amazing Shroom Coffee. The coffee is blended with medicinal mushrooms: reishi, shiitake, cordceps and lions mane. It also contains organic cocoa powder, cinnamon, roasted dandelion root and chicory root. Delicious! Click here to read all about it.
Abundance and Health
We were very impressed by Altrient C, Abundance and Health’s innovative vitamin C sachets which promise up to 98% absorption, thanks to liposomal technology. Liposomal Encapsulation Technology consists of microscopic healthy fat particles which are made up of phospholipids, along with water soluble vitamins and minerals. This technology has been used for many years as a way of delivering small amounts of therapeutic substances to the specific tissues of the body, without affecting any other part of the body.
TurmeriX
Turmerix is a new company that specialises in producing high-quality, fast-acting turmeric powder. This powder also contains an “X-blend” of supporting spices and herbs: cinnamon, coconut powder, green tea, liquorice, kelp, fennel, vanilla, aniseed, caraway, ginger, clove, cardamon and more.
Ooom Snacks
Many of us are on the lookout for something that can reduce stress and help us achieve a sense of balance. Stefan and Lorenzo – the dynamic duo behind a brand-new food company called Ooom Snacks – have come up with a nutritious solution. Ooom products have a measurable anti-stress effect, due to the presence of adaptogen plants. These plants can increase our body’s ability to resist the detrimental effects of stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol.
Hifas Da Terra
Hifas Da Terra is a Spanish biotechnology company founded in 1999. The company is committed to improving people’s quality of life using the previously untapped medicinal properties of mushrooms. This emerging science is called mycology. Hifas Da Terra’s range includes medicinal products, food, skincare goods and supplements.
Creacon Wellness Retreat
Creacon Wellness Retreat in New Ross, Co. Wexford, is dedicated to giving guests the most relaxing retreat experience possible when they visit, offering comforting and nutritious food, spacious rooms, and a range of interesting activities through a daily opt in/out schedule that includes Five Tibetan yoga, Gentle Hatha Yoga, Japa Meditation Class, Mandala Class and more. Tara Congdon wrote about her experience with them in our most recent Autumn 2018 issue. You can read Tara’s full article here.
Dr. Bronner’s
Dr. Bronner’s is a family business committed to honouring the vision of their founder Dr. E.H. Bronner by making socially and environmentally responsible products of the highest quality, and by dedicating their profits to help make a better world. These fantastic products are available in Ireland through their wholesaler, Life’s Great.
Genovese Foods
Genovese Foods is an award-winning producer of pestos, tapenades and mayonnaise, with a passionate clean food ethos. Their ranges include: Genovese, Oh Mayo and the brand-new Veggie Earth, which was launched at the Vitality Expo. It contains delicious pestos, tapenade and veganaise (a type of mayonnaise produced without eggs).
Mag365
Mag 365 produces high-quality dietary supplements to assist individuals in achieving optimum health, while simultaneously providing education on how a healthy lifestyle and supplementation can increase quality of life. Their powdered magnesium supplements contain a highly bioavailable active ingredient called magnesium citrate. All natural ingredients and no fillers.
Alison Canavan
The acclaimed wellness coach Alison Canavan gave a great talk at the Expo – and Paul caught up with her for a quick chat which you can watch here. Alison runs a highly successful series of health and wellness shows around the country called the Full 360 Tour. Check her website for full details! You can also read her most recent article for us here.
Monmore Organic Male Grooming
We were intrigued by the products of men’s skin care brand, Monmore Organic Male Grooming. The company describes themselves as “an Irish brand with Italian quality”. They create unique combinations of ingredients which are carefully blended to ensure the collective works as one, smell subtle, feel good and leave skin and hair in prime condition.
Grown Clothing
Grown Clothing is an Irish ethical clothing company inspired by the sea, coast and wildlife of Ireland. They use only organic, post-consumer and earth friendly materials to make their garments … and the clothes themselves are of an amazing quality!
Kama Hemp Juice
This juice packs a powerful punch! Kama Hemp Juice is high in calcium, zinc, vitamin B12, provitamin A, vitamin E, magnesium, phosphorus, selenium and iron. The company grows their hemp organically, under the sun, wind and rain, on our family farm in Co. Monaghan, Ireland. They harvest and juice the crop at the very peak of its growing season to ensure that its nutrition is preserved at its best.
In this extract from our Autumn 2018 issue, the acclaimed wellness coach Alison Canavan shares her advice on the true importance of self-care. She says, “when we show up, wake up, give back and make a difference, it accelerates our collective healing.”
by Alison Canavan
The conversation around self-care has been lengthy. At times, you would be forgiven for feeling like it has tipped over into narcissism. As human beings, the ego tends to take over sometimes and this can lead to an inflated sense of self. However, showing up for yourself in an authentic way means becoming aware that with our world the way it is at the moment, we simply don’t have time for everyone to work through all their problems fully before showing up for each other and the planet.
We live in a world of instant gratification and social media fame, leading us to think that there’s no point in doing anything that might matter unless it’s on a grand scale. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, when we show up, wake up, give back and make a difference, it accelerates our collective healing, and that is certainly something this world needs right now. Let me put it like this: if you work on your own self-improvement and you are a little bit less messed up than you were yesterday, and your friend does the same, and she’s a little bit less messed up, and then your neighbour does the same, all of these little bits help to raise the collective consciousness as a whole.
So just what does it mean when I say ‘showing up for yourself’? Very simply, it means doing the work and facing the parts of yourself you would rather ignore. This can be done through meditation, mindfulness techniques, journaling or any other way that helps you to dig deep, feel and, in turn, heal. For generations in Ireland, we have lifted the rug and swept our problems underneath, hoping that no one would ever lift that rug and release them. What we fail to understand is that we pass those unhealed traumas onto the next generation and the generation after that.
I believe we are living in traumatised times and the planet as a whole is pretty traumatised. However, I have great hope in humanity. If we truly want to feel at peace in this world, we need to go within and work from there. We can certainly get temporary reprieve from numbing ourselves when we feel uncomfortable with things like alcohol, drugs, medication, shopping, gambling and our phones, to name a few. But these temporary fixes keep us stuck as an individual and as a collective. Maybe we are feeling uncomfortable because we know the world is suffering and needs action?
We need to stop waiting for someone else to reclaim our communities. We need to reconnect with people in real life, not just on social media. When we do the work, we become more conscious and aware of waste too. Our oceans are at risk as a result of our instant gratification lifestyle. Slowing down, which is essential for human beings, enables us to live more in the present, making better choices each day like carrying reusable coffee cups, shopping bags and water bottles with us.
Remember that the world was never changed by the masses, but by the few who decided to wake up and make their lives matter. Could you be one of those people too?
PLEASE NOTE: due to unforeseen circumstances, this event, which had been scheduled to take place on Thursday August 23rd, has to be postponed. We will arrange a new date as soon as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. People who have booked tickets for this event can request a refund, earn free entry to any other Positive Nights event, or be granted free entry to the new date for Alison’s event, once this has been organised. Please email positivenights@gmail.com if you have any concerns.
If you are a regular reader of our print magazine, you may recognise Alison as the author of our Positively Metaphysical column: offering her sage advice, issue after issue, on subjects such as mindful exercising, the importance of spending time in nature, or learning how to care for ourselves.
She is also the organiser behind the highly successful Full 360 health and wellbeing shows that take place on a regular basis around the country. Alison says: “People are more stressed and busier than ever and we all put enormous pressure on ourselves to be everything to everyone, often treating ourselves quite harshly and negatively. It’s time to practice self-care to cope with the demands of our busy world.”
Alison believes in living life according to five basic principles, which she calls the 5 A’s:
AWARENESS: Being aware and present for yourself and keeping an open and curious mind towards the world around you.
ACCEPTANCE: Accepting with grace where you are in this moment, which is the only place you can truly start from.
ACCESSIBILITY: Accessible practices that you can use every day like gratitude, mindfulness, movement and good food to help you on your personal journey towards freedom and joy.
ATTITUDE: Your attitude to life is everything and having a good one makes all the difference.
ALIGNMENT: Aligning with yourself, others and the world around you is important. It starts with your daily practice of going within.
You can learn more about Alison’s work by going to her website, alisoncanavan.com.
During our time with Alison, she will tell us more about how we can learn to care for ourselves, every day, in this hectic world. This fascinating event will take the form of a one-hour interview, followed by a short break and then a Q & A session.
The wellness coach and author Alison Canavan is currently bringing her fascinating health tour, The Full 360 Series, all over the country. On Sunday, February 4th, the latest leg of the tour is set to take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Radisson Blu Hotel, Northgate Street, Athlone. Tickets cost €109 and can be booked at alisoncanavan.com/the-full-360. To avail of a 10% discount for Positive Life readers, just use the discount code ‘positivelife’ when purchasing a ticket.
Alison Canavan’s Full 360 Series has made its mark in Dublin twice: first in September 2017, and again in January. The Full 360 tour aims to empower attendees to take control of their own health by showcasing a large variety of natural products and simple everyday self-care tips. The tour has also hosted many expert exhibitors and speakers such as David Gilna, Jennifer Rock (a.k.a. The Skin Nerd) and Miriam Kerins.
If you missed the Dublin shows, the good news is that there are three more scheduled events set to take place in Athlone, Cork and Kilkenny over the next few months. The Athlone show is just a few days away, on Sunday, February 4th. This short video will give you a taste of what you can expect at the event.
People who attend the event will receive a nutritious lunch, a goody bag of natural products worth over €100, and the opportunity to learn a wide range of wellness tips that can help them to lead more productive and positive lives. There will also be a wide variety of talks on subjects such as gratitude, meditation, mindfulness, healthy eating, and stress reduction.
“People are more stressed and busier than ever,” Alison explains on her website, “and we all put enormous pressure on ourselves to be everything to everyone, often treating ourselves quite harshly and negatively. It’s time to practice self-care to cope with the demands of our busy world. The Full 360 is about joining the dots with our health and wellbeing and having fun along the way.”
Event sponsors include natural make up company Couleur Caramel, Eskimo-3, Wild Nutrition, Dr. Bronner’s, Dr. Coy’s, Pukka, and the Eden Beauty Group. These companies, and many more, will be present on the day to display their amazing products and offer their guidance on how customers can enhance their health. If you cannot make it to the Athlone event, don’t worry: two further event dates are scheduled for Cork and Kilkenny later this year. These dates are below.
March 25th at the Radisson Blu, Little Island, Cork
April 15th at the Lyrath Estate Hotel & Spa, Kilkenny
Visit alisoncanavan.com/the-full-360 for tickets and booking information. Tickets for the Athlone show are €109 each. Early bird tickets, which cost €99, are still available for the events in Cork and Kilkenny. To avail of a 10% discount for Positive Life readers, just use the discount code ‘positivelife’ when purchasing a ticket. You can find out more about Alison’s work at becomplete.ie.
Alison Canavan’s action-packed holistic living and wellness event, the Full 360 Series, is going nationwide in 2018 after a successful debut in Dublin last September. Four different Full 360 events will be taking place across Ireland over the next few months. The first stop is the Radisson Blu, Golden Lane, Dublin, on January 14th. To avail of a 10% discount for Positive Life readers, just use the discount code ‘positivelife’ when purchasing your ticket online. Visit alisoncanavan.com/the-full-360 for tickets and booking information. You can find out more about Alison’s work at becomplete.ie.
Followers of the wellness coach and award winning author, Alison Canavan, may remember that last September, she organised an inspiring holistic health event called The Full 360 Series in Dublin. This event showcased a large variety of natural products and simple everyday self-care tips to help attendees take control of their own health, in addition to hosting expert exhibitors and speakers such as David Gilna, Jennifer Rock (a.k.a. The Skin Nerd) and Miriam Kerins. If you missed it the first time round, the good news is that The Full 360 Series is now going nationwide, with four scheduled events set to take place in Dublin, Athlone, Cork and Kilkenny over the next few months.
The upcoming dates and locations are:
January 14th at the Radisson Blu, Golden Lane, Dublin
February 4th at the Radisson Blu, Northgate Street, Athlone
March 25th at the Radisson Blu, Little Island, Cork
April 15th at the Lyrath Estate Hotel & Spa, Kilkenny
Attendees will receive a goody bag of natural products worth over €100, a fresh, healthy lunch, and the opportunity to learn a wide range of wellness tips that can help them to lead more productive and positive lives. There will also be talks on a large variety of subjects such as gratitude, meditation, mindfulness, healthy eating, and stress reduction.
“People are more stressed and busier than ever,” Alison explains on her website, “and we all put enormous pressure on ourselves to be everything to everyone, often treating ourselves quite harshly and negatively. It’s time to practice self-care to cope with the demands of our busy world. The Full 360 is about joining the dots with our health and wellbeing and having fun along the way.”
Some of the event sponsors include natural make up company Couleur Caramel, Eskimo-3, Wild Nutrition, Dr. Bronner’s, Dr. Coy’s, Pukka, and the Eden Beauty Group. These companies, and many more, will be present on the day to display their amazing products and offer their guidance on how customers can enhance their health.
Visit alisoncanavan.com/the-full-360 for tickets and booking information. Tickets for the Dublin and Athlone shows are €109 each. Early bird tickets, which cost €99, are still available for the events in Cork and Kilkenny. To avail of a 10% discount for Positive Life readers, just use the discount code ‘positivelife’ when purchasing a ticket. You can find out more about Alison’s work at becomplete.ie.
On page 56 of our just-released Autumn issue, we published Alison Canavan’s breathtaking story of her experience of a Vipassana silent retreat. The magazine version is an abbreviated version of the full article below. Let your mind expand and relax as you read this truly beautiful account of self-discovery and healing.
By Alison Canavan
What is intuition? Are modern human beings stuck in logic and left brained thinking? Am I a product of what I have been told, rather than tuning into my own inner essence or knowing?
All of these questions moved around my mind as I wondered what my upcoming 10 day Vipassana silent retreat would bring my way. As a daily meditator for many years, I have wanted to sit a Vipassana for a long time and this year I finally felt ready. Having recovered from addictions and mental health problems using meditation as one of my tools, I’m acutely aware of the power of going within. In fact, I believe it’s the only way to really heal emotional pain and move into a life of freedom and peace.
As my retreat approached, I felt anxious as I knew there was deep rooted pain ready and waiting to come to surface, given the right time and space to do so. I didn’t have to wait long as on the first day I reacted very physically to the practice and had to leave the room, as I was going to both throw up and pass out. As I sat outside, pale as a ghost, the course coordinator assured me that this was a very normal reaction. That afternoon, the teacher did too.
As human beings, we all have pain and suffering. It’s simply a part of life. However, we become very good at suppressing experiences and emotions, in the hope that they won’t rise again and cause us any trouble. This is something I did for many years: I pushed everything down and thought that I didn’t ever have to face it or deal with it again. During the 20 years of depression, anxiety and addictions that followed, I never connected my emotional pain to my problems, and neither did anyone I went to see. Instead, I got handed tablets and hoped for the best.
This is like cleaning the outside of your kitchen cupboards every single day so that when you have visitors your house appears to be gleaming, clean and bright. However, if someone were to open your cupboards, the stark truth would shock them. The inside would be dirty and food would be rotting. This is what suppressed emotions look like in your body. They are giving off toxic fumes that manifest as emotional problems, such as over or under-eating, depression, anxiety, stress, sleep issues, addictions and much more.
We fail to connect the dots, and we outsource our power to external sources, hoping that they can fix us and heal our pain. My greatest learning from a week of Vipassana was that only you and you alone can heal your pain, and there is no escaping the work if you want to get well or live better. You need to feel and deal with your pain to truly heal.
The word Vipassana means to see things as they are. You are up at 4 a.m. each day and have 10 and a half hours of meditation. Bedtime is 9 p.m. The noble silence you agree to means silence of speech, body and mind, so no eye contact or hand gestures are allowed either. The silence and no phone part were incredible, and I did not miss either. Dealing with my emotional pain, however, was quite another story. You begin the week focusing on your breath entering and leaving your nose. You are instructed to simply observe your bare breath as it is and not try and change it. Then you are asked to observe the sensations just above the upper lip area. This helps to focus your brain on the sensations of your body. The technique of Vipassana is based on Buddha’s experience of enlightenment. It’s also based on science – the law of nature, which states that everything, at all times, is constantly changing. We are all made of molecules that are constantly changing form, and during Vipassana you are instructed to observe the sensations within your body with an aware and equanimous mind. This means if you are experiencing pleasure or pain, you simply observe the sensations and don’t feed into them. In life, we either feed into our cravings or aversions. Through Vipassana practice, we learn to have an eqanimous mind with the intention of taking this equanimity into our every day life, meaning that we can better respond to the everyday problems of life that come our way.
For someone like me, who has an incredibly addictive personality, it was very interesting to observe this in myself. I also had a lot of pain during the retreat, which I learnt to sit with and observe in the knowledge that it would pass, as every experience passes with time.
During the retreat I struggled with my mind many times, and some days I felt like it was a torture chamber. On day 8 I asked to see the teacher and explained to her through my tears that every thought I had was negative and my mind simply did not want to meditate. She explained that this was all part of the process and it’s what they call ‘storming’. She instructed me to go back to my breath during storms and allow them to come up and they would pass. They did. She was 100% right. Vipassana is like doing a deep surgical operation on your most deeply rooted emotional pain. My pain was certainly deep and had I not been on a silent retreat, I know I would have avoided working with it.
During the retreat, I vowed never to return. The process was so painful at times the noble silence was actually a great relief, as I didn’t want anyone to look at me and see my pain. On day 11 as I was driving home I felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude for my experience. I also realized what a blessing it is to get 10 days to sit and go within. Since returning from my retreat, I have been able to deal with stress in a different way and I also see myself and my place in the world quite differently too.
Vipassana allowed me to really see my truth. It gave me an insight into how disconnected we all are from ourselves and from our own personal GPS/guidance systems. We live in a rat race where we rarely stop to appreciate the beauty of life and the world we inhabit. I learnt that my mind really is the root cause of all my suffering, but by working with it and working on myself there is a very different life available to me: one of peace and acceptance – a life where I truly feel connected and alive.
Most modern people are not in touch with intuition. We have let our awareness drift and we have completely forgotten how to be aware of the many dimensions of life and not just the external one. You have to get connected to your senses and most of us can’t do that anymore.
We need to rethink how we sense the world and our place in it. One thing I now know for sure is that life is an inside job. We need to help people to reverse what they have been told, because working from the outside in is simply not working. Everything we need, we already have.
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