Rest has become my word of the year. In a culture that glorifies constant doing, many of us are tired yet struggle to stop. This piece explores what happens when productivity starts to cost us our health, clarity and connection, and why rest is not indulgence but essential maintenance.

Is wellness only for those who can afford it, or is it something everyone deserves? This article explores the growing "wellness paywall" and uncovers how true wellness focuses more on balance, community, and simple joys than on luxury price tags.

Spiritual hygiene refers to practices and rituals that help maintain and cleanse your spiritual well-being. Just as we nourish our mental and physical health, so too can we take care of our spiritual health to reduce fatigue, a depleted nervous system, the susceptibility to recurrent colds or other illnesses, and burnout. 

Over the years, my spiritual hygiene practice has evolved and I use various tools so I can adapt accordingly to the situation or any time constraints. 

Spiritual hygiene is particularly important for people who work closely with clients in a therapeutic setting, such as massage therapists or energy healers. However, the following tools can be employed by anyone as they navigate the day to day challenges of life or if you are embarking on a healing journey.

It was TIME to take some time off. This staycation retreat was just what this practitioner ordered…and needed.

I love myself.

That is not the end of the story. It sure as hell isn't the beginning of the story.

The Joy Retreat May 2023

Where does the time go? I find myself asking this question a lot during the week. I use several apps to help manage the various tasks I have to complete and keep some order to proceedings. Although the majority of these apps are used for business, some are invaluable for my personal life too but are not always well received.

Scheduling apps such as Calendly are used for scheduling meetings, more specifically it allows people to choose my available times to book a meeting. The appointment is neatly synced to my calendar and I receive notifications ahead of the meeting. It is easy to see how useful this would be as a business tool but what often makes people recoil in disgust is when they receive a Calendly link from a loved one to book an informal “catch-up”.  Understandably this may seem like a boujee, detached way to connect for some. However, the opposite is often the case.

Is eating just about us getting our basic macronutrients and micronutrients or is it more of a sensual experience?

Mindfulness is not just about sitting still in awkward poses for hours on end. It is about being present, as much as possible, in everyday activities. This might be in conversation, brushing your teeth, or eating.

After a self-prescribed week of no training to heal an injury, I was ready to rip someone’s head off. But I came to realise that health is a balance of doing the things that make us feel good and doing nothing so we can hear what our bodies need to feel good.⁣

You can't help but feel a huge sense of awe and gratitude when you sit in the grounds of Codrington College. However, today was especially magical because it was the last Sense - Mindfulness Session of 2019

As many of us have, I have been indoctrinated with the mindset that work has to be gruelling, monotonous and stressful, and anything that deviates from that is wrong.

Work patterns, habits and locations have changed significantly in recent years, but has our conscience followed suit?

The Caribbean Wellness Day on Saturday was incredible - spending the day giving treatments and meeting amazing people.

My phone had become an extension of my arm and the constant notification sounds, flashing lights and vibrations had become addictive. I feared my happiness, sadness, anger, compassion were being dictated by an algorithm. Real, heart-felt interactions were being replaced by miscommunications and misunderstandings.

It is written in many self-help books and spoken as a mantra in many weepy rom-com movies that, "you cannot truly love someone else, unless you learn to love yourself". But what does this look like? How long would you last in a relationship with yourself? Maybe the mantra should be rephrased, "you cannot truly love someone unless you have been in a relationship with yourself" 

My ego is too frail to admit that being in a relationship with myself would not be that healthy. We would spend far too much time losing each other as we get distracted by things in parks, stationary or hardware stores. Arguments would be conducted in a silent passive-aggressive tone and one of us has to be more serious than I am.  

Growing up, my family would often travel to Barbados and we would visit our many, many distant relatives in the parish of St. Andrew. Driving through this lusciously green and still parish we would pass an unassuming stretch of land my mum would point out as the Conrad Hunte Cricket Pitch. Being young, and not particularly interested in cricket, I didn't think much of it.

It wasn’t until this year, watching the England cricket tour of the West Indies, that I started thinking about those trips and the great West Indian cricketers my dad would recall. I got hold of a copy of Sir Conrad Hunte’s autobiography Playing to Win published in 1971. It details his cricketing career as an opening batsman for the West Indies from 1958-1967. During this time he played 44 Test matches amassing 3245 runs at an average of 45.06 - placing him in the annals as one of the best opening batsman for the West Indies, if not of all time.

From the last century until today, cricket has been plagued with politics. The West Indies Cricket Team is no exception. In 1960 Hunte played in the first Windies team to be captained by a Black man, Frank Worrell. His appointment was championed by the historian and cricket commentator C L R James and echoed a rise in the Pan-African Movement that saw many Caribbean islands gaining independence from European nations.

Flicking through my old diaries has given me a renewed empathy for young people navigating their way through the tortuous teenage years.

A cold car boot sale in Cambridge, an incredible event hosted by the beautiful and talented Candice Bryan of Noire Wellness and welcoming a beautiful soul back to London.