space Archives - Family Health Advocacy

We all want to live in a rich, fulfilling and abundant life. But sometimes it feels like it is far out of our reach. We can get bogged down with the daily struggle and sometimes it feels difficult to turn life around and create abundance, health, time freedom, wealth and happiness in our day to day lives. There are several tips that you can follow to create the best version of your life from no matter where you are starting from.

1. Gratitude

The most important aspect of creating an abundant, joy filled life is having an attitude of gratitude. By focusing on the most positive aspects of our lives, we are able to increase what we focus on. Find gratitude for even the most small things in our day – the gift of being able to move our limbs and walk! Or the gift of having food to eat throughout the day or the ability to be connected to everyone we could want simply at the touch of a button on the device in our hand.

If you are struggling to find something to be grateful for, just sit with your breath for a few minutes. Follow the inhalations and exhalations and have gratitude for the rich oxygen flowing into your body to nourish and fuel your cells and brain.

When you are able to focus on small pieces of gratitude, your overall abundance of gratitude grow and spills over to be your main focus during more of your day.

2. Detachment

Detachment from the outcomes that you are hoping for is an essential part of living a life that is balanced and healthy. It is the ability to not focus on how events will play out and how it will affect you, but how you can thrive every day no matter what happens. Things have a way of working themselves out, and by trying to stay neutral to outcomes, both good and bad, it helps you to stay level and not follow the highs and lows of life.

3. Attraction

Use the Law of Attraction to your benefit and use the magnetic attraction of like and like, to draw things into your life that you would like to see. Create space in your life to allow new things to come into your life, but again, stay somewhat detached by knowing that either way, life is good when you are filled with gratitude.

4. Refuel

Take time to refuel your body, mind and spirit and know that the time you spend with yourself, enjoying your own company is a worthwhile investment into your health. Enjoy hobbies that you have long forgotten about and devote a few hours per week to you own mental health and clarity, to clear the way for feelings of gratitude and to become clear on what you would like to attract into your life.

Spend time with your family and friends, those who make you feel good about the world and focus on the positive parts of your life and they are sure to multiply.

Jo-Anne Richardson, RHN

Jo-Anne Richardson has almost a decade of experience managing a chiropractic office and educating patients on how chiropractic can allow your body to express optimal health. She is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and holds a Degree in Communications. She loves to experiment with raw vegan recipes, loves to salsa dance, travel and learn new holistic health information to share tips with everyone who visits the office.

Can you imagine heading into your backyard and picking a ripe, juicy strawberry?

What about digging in the dirt and pulling up and enjoying the sweet, explosive flavour of of a freshly dug carrot?

What if you could go into your garden and pick romaine lettuce leaves or spinach leaves and make a fresh salad?

How would this transform you life?! It sure has transformed mine. I can’t tell you the joy I have been able to experience while growing up on a large commercial produce farm. We grew strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb, carrots, lettuce, beets, spinach, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, kale, Bok Choy, cucumbers, zucchini, Brussels sprouts, squash, pumpkins and so many more.

Now, I have a much smaller garden than when we were helping to feed our community, but my joy is still the same. My favourite thing is to go out into the garden and enjoy a freshly picked treat from my own backyard and share the bounty with friends and family.

The best part is that starting a small organic garden is SO easy! You can definitely plan to have a garden this summer and enjoy fresh produce from your very own backyard!!

Step 1:

Choose a sunny place to locate your garden. The more sun, the better! Dig off the top layer of sod and remove it or reuse it in a location that needs fresh grass. Use as much or as little space as you’d like – try to keep things rectangular or square so your planting lines will be straight. Dig the dirt up and loosen it as much as possible with your garden tools.

Step 2:

Hit your local greenhouse or garden supply store and score some compost or decomposed manure. This will add lots of nutrients to the soil so that your veggies can grow efficiently.

Step 3:

Decide which fruits and vegetables you’d like to grow. For your first season, the easiest choices to grow are:
• carrots
• lettuce
• spinach
• kale
• tomatoes (buy the plants that are already developed)
• cucumbers
• basil, dill, cilantro, etc

Step 4:

Check the seed packages for timing to plant, but it’s important to wait until you are basically clear of the risk of frost, which can damage or kill small plants that are just starting.

Follow the directions on the seed packages for depth, but dig a small (usually approximately 1”) trench to drop the seeds into and cover them up with a bit of dirt and pack it lightly. Water each row you plant and sit tight!!

Water your garden regularly and be sure to pull out any weeds. Weeds interfere with the plants’ ability to pull water from the soil, absorption or nutrients and take up room that they need to spread their roots.

But be sure that you are actually pulling out the weeds, not your plants that are too small to identify yet!

Master Tips:

• Make sure you leave enough space both between each seed for the item to grow, as well as enough room between the rows that your produce isn’t choking each other out

• Imagine how large a head of romaine lettuce gets – so leave a few inches between the seeds if you want the lettuce to have room to form full heads. Otherwise you will just have a lot of leaves growing every which-way because they don’t have enough space. (either way, it’s still delicious! And if one of the seeds doesn’t come up, you haven’t wasted a lot of space in the row)

• Cucumber plants spread for several feet, so plant them toward the edges of your garden and train their plants to spread out onto the grass. Just move them before the lawn mower drives by!

• Imagine the size of carrots and leave an inch of room in between seeds to they have room to grow and develop. Same for beets, radishes, onions, etc.

• Tomato plants can grow quite large and also need some sort of support system to stake them up so they don’t fall over. Even an old broom handle can be driven into the dirt and you can tie up the plants with old panty hose – it’s soft and won’t damage the tomato branches

I hope your garden brings you as much joy as it does for me! It’s also a great way for children to learn where their food comes from, how it grows and how to take care of it. It is such a great survival tool that they can use for their entire lives.

Jo-Anne Richardson, RHN