New Year Progress Update – and Some News!

A smidge late this year (sorry: the reason to be revealed below..), but here is my usual ‘state of the nation’ type post so we can see what happened last year and what’s coming up with Purehealth in 2019. As you know, I love a new year – all that lovely blank time to change stuff, try things and have fun!

2018 was a slightly odd year business-wise as I felt a bit lost really. I felt really well and could do anything I wanted, but then I found I had so many ideas, I became paralysed by choice. In the end, I just decided to coast along and do whatever felt right! Happily, you seemed to like it as my follower numbers have shot up, especially on the blog. They doubled last year and I topped 100K views from almost 50,000 visitors to the blog, plus I had an amazing 58K views on Pinterest. Add in Twitter, Facebook and the groups, the Purehealth family is pretty big! I don’t have huge numbers of followers – small-fry for some I’m sure – probably because I am very strict on who I let into the closed Purehealth family groups, but I am immensely grateful for the loyalty of every one of you, thank you 🙂

I changed the way I posted on the blog a bit, writing fewer posts (283 would you believe in 2017 down to 105 in 2018?), but I did some really long ones, researching and writing about some new tests and creating detailed factsheets for the A-Z, which took a lot of time and thought. This is all free info; my gift to you, and I’m pleased that it seems to be hitting the mark. Some of the most popular subjects included histamine intolerance, central sensitivity syndrome, adrenal fatigue and SIBO.  The top post was about the importance of Vitamin D for Diabetics, so maybe I should be doing more on diabetes generally? And the most popular section on the website was – as usual – TrulyGlutenFree.

TGF is still going strong despite me making the website less visible and closing the Facebook page and Twitter accounts – people are still joining. Maybe I really have to take the hint – I said that last year too, I just noticed!

  Of course, the big event of the year happened in July when the publishers (Berrydales Books) released my new edited edition of the Step by Step Healing Plan, which I am pleased to say has been received well. I continue with the education job that is encouraging people to look at the mind-body side of medicine just as much as the biochemical, physical side. You can see the ebook and paperback on Amazon UK here. And on Amazon US here.

Personally, I felt much more ‘normal’ after several years of, let’s face it: struggle. OK, my foods list is still more restricted than I’d like, but it seemed less of an issue because I felt well and could eat relatively well (compared to how it used to be anyway!).  You will remember that in 2017 I had several stressful events happen – not least getting married! – and felt my amygdala had become hypersensitive again due to the stress. I lost more foods and became generally more reactive again. There was much gnashing of teeth. In fact, lots of mouth and TMJ jaw pain with migraines, my usual reactivity symptoms. Taking my own Healing Plan advice, I knew if I was to get the reactivity levels down again, I needed to convince my amygdala and brain that I was safe and all was calm.

A wise person once told me to think what my main stressor at any given time is and focus on eliminating or improving that. At this point, I was still feeling quite agoraphobic and fearful of driving. So, in a bid for more self-nurturing outings, I went out and did more stuff, walked on the beach, went to daft craft things and made rubbish crochet, glassware and stuff like that – and eventually I conquered the fear. This was helped by getting myself a lovely little Kia with all the whistles and bells. Shouldn’t have as couldn’t really afford it, but I did it anyway as a treat for all my hard healing work – and I love it so much; I am happy pootling about on the narrow, steep Cornish lanes once again and taking myself here, there and everywhere. Beep, beep 🙂

That bit of self-care for a while really paid dividends and I felt so much more confident and well that, in September, I opened up my patient list and started taking patients again! I had to close my clinic years ago because I was simply more ill than my patients, so it was very heartening to feel like I could step back up to it again. I have enjoyed it immensely – and I hope has helped some of you, but boy it is hard work! By December, I had to close my list for now because I was in danger of becoming overwhelmed already, eek! It does mean that less research and writing to disseminate information – my true ‘raison d’etre’ at Purehealth – is getting done so I have to find a better balance somehow. As usual, I want to be able to do both, so I’m musing on how that might happen. Maybe I need to be less of a generalist and specialise a bit more to hone things down to a copable amount?

  In fact, I was watching a training webinar just the other day – about gluten testing and treatment for coeliac children – by this specialist consultant in the UK within the NHS, and it struck me that I could have given that whole webinar quite easily. My knowledge on gluten illness really is pretty up there now. I first started researching and writing, testing and advising treatment for gluten related disorders in 2008 – so have over a decade of experience now. It brought me up short, to be honest. I thought maybe that info would be very useful to people and I should be doing more with it. But then, of course, I saw something else on another subject and thought: ‘ooh that’s interesting!’ and off I went again lol. Such a butterfly..!

So, driving fear solved. Check. Enjoying going out and doing stuff. Check. What was my next main stressor to focus on?  I was surprised to realise I was feeling a bit too lonely and remote from things I love doing! Even though I had a lovely life by the sea, on a very deep level, I was missing my family and friends, stuff nearby that doesn’t take hours to get to (cinema, theatre, shops etc), work stuff (which all seem to happen in that there London, grr!) and actually ‘seeing’ patients face to face – whose gonna come to Cornwall?!

I’ve made some lovely life-long friends in Cornwall, but every time I wasn’t there to join in a family thing or something, it felt like a stab to my heart. Plus, ‘we’ are pregnant again with our second grandchild (yay!) and they now live about three miles away from my family, having moved down to Warwickshire from Aberdeen! As someone so eloquently put it recently, it slowly dawned on me that I am ready to step out of my healing cocoon, my hiding place, and step right back into the buzz and joy of family and work life. That has got to be good news, hasn’t it?!

As usual P and I don’t hang around and just got on with it! Just before Christmas, we took a deep breath, sold our beautiful house in Cornwall and are moving back to Warwickshire imminently!!! I shall miss the beauty of Cornwall, the charm and relaxed ‘Dreckly’ nature of the place and the lovely people here greatly, but I know it is the right thing to do and Warwickshire is beautiful too, just no sea :(. I feel ready to settle and I want that to be near my family, not four or five hours away. I’ll have the added benefit of being mid-country for patients and an hour or so from London for training stuff, shows etc. And I won’t have to drive for 50 minutes to get to a cinema or a good shop 😉

All going well, we expect to have moved by mid-Feb into a rental to start with, possibly in Leamington town or a bit more out in the sticks. How exciting!! I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before – I was worried I might jinx it! So, busy and exciting changes ahead. I am concentrating on the move for now and then we’ll see where I end up and what happens from there. Wish me luck and I’ll keep you posted, of course!

Meantime, I hope you had a good and productive 2018 and that this year will bring you even closer to your dreams – you just have to be brave, think about what would make you happier, then go out and do what you can to get closer to it. Life is short; let’s make the most of it :). Have you got anything big planned? Do share so I know it’s not just me who’s gone mad!