breast cancer Archives - Mireille Parker

Why Shit Happens.. Even When You’re A Manifesting Ninja!

My love,

I’m feeling really excited because I’ve finally finished Loving! It’s a transformational guide about loving yourself, loving your life and manifesting. I wanted to include all I would include if I ran a course again. I first learnt about the power of the mind and energy to manifest when I was 24. But actually I started doing it much younger, from age eight, when I started dancing.

Too tired to practise, I’d lie in bed and rehearse the steps in my head. Then when I went to do it, I’d be able to as if I had been physically practising. Then when I was 12 I won the cross-country. I hadn’t been so great at athletics till the year before. Dancing 13 hours a week made me super fit. But there was one other girl who was better than me at the cross country. I prayed and visualised winning, just like with dancing (aka imagining), and I did.

When I started my coaching business in 2014, I’d teach manifesting through my course, workshops and private coaching. But after the breast cancer metastasised, I got shy about it. I felt like I’d failed, when really it was just that Life had more to teach me.

During that period I had off, I learned about the art of simplicity and organisation and implemented it. This is a key aspect of manifesting too because when we’re stressed, we’re not in alignment. I was using ‘the power of joy’ then to build my life back up, but better than before. Soon, I learned that this was the law of attraction and I spent a few years studying and practising this.

Why does shit happen (even when you’re consciously creating)? Because the purpose of life is to awaken into consciousness and everything happens for a reason. Sometimes you are not ready for what you want so you get the letting in process. There is usually a silver lining. Feel your emotions and process. But then, know that everything happens for you and not to you. Our souls need to go on a journey to fulfil our life’s purpose.

Why am I so passionate about manifesting? Because, like you, I’ve had some huge challenges in life to overcome, like cancer, and because I have a low tolerance for living a life I don’t love. And being a person I don’t love. And being around people who aren’t good for me. I majored in psychology at uni and have been interested in the mind since before then. Plus, I hate to see other people suffering and would like to share what I know and what I do.

I’ve included my 11-step formula for manifesting in Loving and 4-step process for manifesting on the go. But first there is work to do to get to that. It’s 55 pages and available for immediate download. I’m feeling very happy and proud of this guide. It’s a transformational journey.

With so much love,

Mireille xx

____________________________________________________________________

Love to feel peaceful and happy but too busy to do anything about it? Tired of the turmoil? Discover how to train your mind in 20 minutes a day to experience presence and flow, happiness and harmony, no matter what is happening around you with metastatic breast cancer warrior and author, Mireille Parker.

Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

Sarah can’t escape herself, even overseas. Will she call hot Oliver? Who doesn’t even know she’s there! But who is this beautiful artist Bonnie? Set in Lucerne, Switzerland, and starring a travel agent from Perth, Australia, Wonderlust is a unique modern philosophical romance about creative women.

Get Wonderlust here!

NORI Diet for Cancer : Why I Quit

Last year I wrote about my love for the NORI diet for cancer and today I am writing about it again because it was a very popular post and I occasionally have women going through breast cancer write to ask me about it. I am not an expert in any way, but I have had hormone receptive breast cancer for seven years, with metastasis for the last five. So I have tried a lot of different diets, as well as being on oestrogen production inhibitors, Zoladex and Kisquali, and Exemestane, which is similar to Tamoxifen. I am simply sharing my experience here.

What is the NORI Protocol?

To recap, The NORI Protocol is a therapeutic four-month vegan low protein diet with a lot of supplements and no alcohol. It needs to be done with a practitioner, who will look at monthly blood tests to see if levels, such as Vitamin D and magnesium, are high enough. The theory is that the diet starves the body of methionine, an amino acid that the body doesn’t produce itself, and this mimics the effects of fasting.

Did you stick to it?

I started the NORI in September 2019 and finished on January 9th of 2020. And I stuck to it almost 100%. I think there was only one occasion when I drank a cider and at the end, on a trip to Phuket, that I ate some rice. This was not allowed on the diet, except for the four days out after every ten when vegan methionine- containing foods were allowed. Like olives and starches besides potatoes.

What was the effect?

The diet had a really positive effect on the tumour marker in my blood tests. A healthy marker is considered below 50 and mine had always been less than 20. But after a few months on the NORI, it went to 6 and remained there even after I stopped and was eating a mostly vegan diet with a maximum of one alcoholic drink a week.

However, the tumour marker is not the whole story. I had clear scans too in February and was thrilled that everything was so great. My reason behind wanting to do such a diet and then adopt veganism and little alcohol was because I wanted to go off the medication, and be cured for good. So that eventually I could realise my dream of falling pregnant and having a baby.

Why did you do the NORI again?

Without going into all the details now, in July last year I ended up in hospital. The knots in my glutes that wouldn’t come out and pins and needles in my right leg, both of which had started in January, turned out to be more tumours. I started on the NORI as soon as I found out and once again it had the great effect on my blood tests, lowering the tumour marker straightaway.

Then I started the medication again and had radiotherapy for the tumours. Because of this, they went. But I continued to do the NORI as well, since it’s meant as a complementary therapy, even though it was extremely difficult to deprive myself when I was going through so much. I felt like I had Herculean will-power but it wasn’t very fun.

Why did you stop?

After a few months of the diet, I quit. The first time was because I started crying at the dinner table. Tears were running down my cheeks as I faced one more potato salad, while my parents were eating something regular and delicious. I put my head down so they wouldn’t see, but my dad asked if I was alright. “I hate this food!” I cried. “Well don’t eat it then,” he said. “Just eat what you want.”

So I did. I stopped the diet. And I was so elated to be able to eat a tuna sandwich again. Still, after paying so much for all the supplements, I thought to take them. Well, after vomiting fifty times, no exaggeration, I decided Life was trying to tell me to stop and so I did. That was in early September and I have been eating a regular diet since, with meat, dairy and alcohol, back on the medication since July, and have had increasingly low tumour markers and a recent clear scan since.

What else do you do?

Besides diet, I meditated for two hours a day in September and October but since then back to 30 minutes daily. I exercise a few times a week and mostly go swimming and walking at the beach once or twice a week. One thing I didn’t like about the NORI protocol and the particular course I did as part of it was the overload of exercises to accompany it, like the Wim Hof breathing method. After being in this for seven years, as I said, I have come to value simplicity and ease more than anything. Trying to do it all caused stress and confusion for me. But of course, it’s a journey.

What have you learned?

One thing I realised is that perhaps NORI is effective for cancer that doesn’t have to do with hormones. Because if oestrogen and progesterone stimulate my tumours, why would a diet affect it, if the diet doesn’t affect my hormones or not to the extent that is needed? Secondly, if there was one thing I’d definitely do differently, it would be to go on Zoladex and have the induced menopause when it was first recommended to me in 2014. That would have saved me a lot of metastasis perhaps. But maybe not. It was only with the addition of Kisquali in 2018 that the metastasis seemed to stop. In any case, Life has taught me many things in this time and I am extremely thankful for that.

__________

I’ve created Empower : a free guide to help process emotions, change thoughts and return to peace and happiness and Uplift : a transformational mini-guide to turn your life around, create an upward spiral and spark high-vibe conversation. They go together really well. Stay tuned for Loving, coming in a few weeks and subscribe to hear more from me.

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

____________________________________________________________________

Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

Get Wonderlust here!

Break-ups, Crisis & Daily Mishaps to FLOW & Happiness

My dear, last year someone broke up with me for being too “spiritual”. I know what he meant and that’s perfectly fine. I was actually really thankful that he was so clear and honest with me. But still, for a while, and with the events of last year, it rocked my confidence. When I started seeing a psych in September, I expressed that I didn’t know what to believe anymore. But as life and our sessions progressed, I came to realise that I actually do have many beliefs and practices that are helpful to myself and to others.

So that’s why I’ve started sharing them more. Each time there is some mishap or some difficult person or situation to deal with, I use my practices even more and give them to those who need help. I know of people going through really tough situations right now, like a dad who’s not been able to see his two young sons for a year because his ex has made false claims about him. I would like people who are going through stuff like that to know that it’s entirely possible to turn your life around, but you have to believe you can affect the outcome.

One thing to know about the law of attraction is that the vibration of the problem is not the same as that of the solution. When you’re sitting there trying to figure stuff out, the solution is elusive, but when you go for a walk or go do something else, it comes. Last week I had a really strange thing happen. My car registration was due and had been paid but the money returned to the bank account. I got on the phone to pay or figure out what was going on and while I was waiting, I heard some useful information on the recorded message and knew that I needed to go to The Department of Transport.

So off I went. It was a Wednesday afternoon and Perth was in a semi-lockdown so all the social distancing procedures were in effect. I was a little stressed by this situation because I didn’t know what was going on and by the time I got to the counter, I could tell this was not the right lady to get. She kept telling me to stand back when I moved from my spot and then told me I had to take my car to the pits because the number plates had been cancelled. When I told her I still had the number plates she was confused and went to get advice. Meanwhile I stood on my spot, masked up, till she came back and told me to return with my number plates.

In a panic, I thought to go home and get back there that day, but there was a lot going on, school-hour traffic, and so I decided to return in the morning when I was fresh. So that is what I did. The problem was resolved easily and effortlessly, with my new energy, and I didn’t have to wait long. The lady said that it had been an error and I accepted that, knowing everything happens for a reason, including this. I actually ended up with a few added bonuses, including money saved.

Thinking that “It shouldn’t have happened” or how annoying it was that I had to run around when it was their fault would have been a waste of time and energy. It should have happened because it did. But I know when you’re going through something big or small, it can be hard to get to this place of peace and flow. That’s why I’ve created a couple of guides to help. Uplift is a transformational mini-guide to help anyone wanting to turn their life around, get out of a slump and start going in an upwards direction or for those who would love some High Vibe Conversation starters. The other is Empower : a free guide to help process emotions, change thoughts and return to peace and happiness.

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

____________________________________________________________________

Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

Get Wonderlust here!

When Your World Crashes Down

The year is 2016 and I am working away in my coaching business, having just finished running the Healthy and Powerfully Feminine online course for the first time, and loving it! Sure there are many ways I could improve my organisational skills. I have a stack of papers beside my desk with all the ideas and projects I’m going to implement and a piece of paper posted to the pinup board above my desk listing out what I’m going to be doing each month. Then Life happens.

Literally, just as I finish the ebook on How To Be Queen of Your Love Life and upload it, the first migraine hits. It feels like having a plate smashed in my face. I stagger home from the cafe and spend the next month either lying in bed, trying to work up the courage to turn over, or making it out dosed up on pills to get different therapies to try and work out what is wrong. In between, when I do feel good, I try to post on instagram, to publicise my ebook and keep running my business, but each time I’m slapped back down by a killer migraine.

Eventually my friend Aleisha says to get an MRI and I do and find out I have a 6cm tumour in my head pushing the whole brain over, causing the migraines. Well, you may know the rest. I have emergency brain surgery two days later, spend a week in the hospital and eight months recovering. The behind the scenes, I will be sharing in my next books. The thing is that after a few months (a few weeks?), I tried to carry on as usual, posting on instagram and then having the great idea (sarcasm) to run a Body Love workshop. Only looking back could I see that I wasn’t ready for it. But at the time, I tried to carry on as usual. Then I accidentally deleted all my YouTube videos by “mistake” one day and was so distraught that I finally gave up.

That was when the journey to wellness really began. It was awful also and I went through many months of suffering and even longer to fully come to terms with the repercussions, but ultimately I am happier and better. Even though I felt happy and good before. Right now there is a lot of this going on, worlds coming crashing down, and I’m writing this to say that it does get better. This midlife crisis really is for our highest good. The Great Awakening.

______________________________________________________________________

I’ve created a guide called Uplift to help anyone wanting to turn their life around, get out of a slump and start going in an upwards direction or for those who would love some High Vibe Conversation Starters. I know how it is. Grab yours here.

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

p.s. You can find me on Instagram here or for my art, Locomotive Creations, here.

____________________________________________________________________

Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

Get Wonderlust here!

How To Turn Fear To Faith!

‘Feed Your faith and your fears will starve to death.’

~ Seen on Instagram

After having three major surgeries in the last seven years, two on the brain and one on the breast, and all the rest that comes with metastatic breast cancer, I know a thing or two about turning fear to faith.

In fact, you don’t turn fear to faith, like you don’t turn fat to muscle. You simply increase the faith (or the muscle) and the fear becomes drowned out. Ok clearly I don’t know so much about fat and muscle so let’s stick to the topic. How to turn fear to faith?

1. Affirmations

When I was in the hospital that week following the first brain surgery, when the 6cm tumour and my whole brain sac was removed, the medication I was put on also had the side effect of causing anxiety and confusion. One day in particular when my mind really was slipping into the abyss, the thing I clung to was the repetition of this affirmation.

All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this only good will come. I am safe.

I repeated it over and over. And over. What affirmations do is, as well as being a prayer and programming of the subconscious mind, they create new neural programming. Because when you’re having this thought, you’re not having another thought. In this way they put you into a higher vibe state so you actually can receive different thoughts, aka think positively.

2. Belief

If you believe that things are happening for you and not to you, if you really believe this and reflect on your life enough to actually know in your bones that it is so, then you trust. You have faith. Of course it can be hard to see this in the moment but if you believe in a higher power, higher self or creative force, then you don’t have to manage it all yourself.

Everything is always working out for us.

In everyday life, we must build this faith in whatever we want to believe. Find examples in real life or on the internet and program your subconscious mind to know it can be so. This is what I did via Chris Beat Cancer, Dr Gabor Mate of When The Body Says No and many others. Plus, I had a lot of practice with the mind and Life’s magic to know there’s more to it than what most of society believes.

3. Action

Taking action increases faith because you are actually doing something, not just thinking about it. For a while I practiced adopting my parents’ diet but that didn’t work out well. Then I went headlong into the keto diet and read books about the metabolic theory of cancer. While that was helpful in many ways, it wasn’t my path. Eventually, following intuition, I found the Nori protocol.

Whatever you’re doing is working. It all adds up.

I had also been practising the law of attraction and just being happy. That was also not my solution. When I was actually eating healthily and gave up alcohol, on the NORI protocol, I felt healthy also. I knew I was doing my part in the equation and the rest was not up to me. Action builds faith because well, not only are you doing something, but also it decreases the resistance of desiring without doing.

4. Neutrality

As I’ve shared, when I was 24, I first learned how to harness the power of my mind and, while I haven’t done it perfectly in the years since, daily practice, in the last five years especially, has enabled me to push the thoughts out of my head. Rather than trying to change my thoughts, these days I practice thinking nothing. How to think nothing? The more you practice meditation, the better you become at this. You can bring your attention to the chest and focus on this, as I share in Master Your Mind.

We are more than the mind. We are Life itself.

When I become conscious of a thought I’m not interested in entertaining, I imagine a bulldozer pushing it out of my head, but mostly I just allow my mind to have its fun, giving it problems to solve, while I carry on. An important step when feeling anything though is to practise the technique I shared for moving emotion through the body and releasing it. Then you are naturally neutral, like a child after a tantrum or an animal after a fight.

5. Perspective

We cannot see the bigger picture from where we are, we cannot see how things are actually working out for the best. But looking back, this becomes obvious. When I look back on how I accidentally deleted all my YouTube videos that time in 2016 or how I got the breast cancer and then it metastasised, I can now clearly see the benefits.

Whatever’s happening is meant to be, just wait and see.

The law of attraction is also called the art of allowing. I got Allow tattooed to my right wrist with a lightning bolt because I believe in it so much. It was right there that the anaesthetist put the metal into my vein to monitor my pulse the second time I had brain surgery. Thank God for that!! While seeing the bigger picture, it’s important that we do feel our feelings. Sometimes I’ve also missed the opportunity for real transformation by not fully feeling the pain of what I was going through.

Learning to master my mind was the best thing that ever happened to me. If you’d like to tune into intuition/instinct and gain the clarity of your Life’s guidance while taming the beast of fear and chatter between the ears, I’m offering to do the practice with you so you can ask any questions and get help and clarification as we go. To join, you simply have to do the following.

1.Get the Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within book.

Just 20 minutes a day. It’s a book for busy people!

2.Follow my MasterYourMindBook on Instagram.

I’ll be posting the daily updates and insights there. We start tomorrow! And if you’re not in my Museletter community, please join here and let me know if you’re joining the MYM practice. Can’t wait to hear from you!

Love,

Mireille xx

p.s. Stay tuned for Tuesday when I’ll be posting How To Get Over An Ex! Also please like and share this post so others can see it. Thank you!

The witty and intelligent novel about a travel agent from Perth, Australia, who goes to Lucerne, Switzerland, seeking a deeper experience of life and finds love in a most unusual place. Set in 2007, Wonderlust is a journey of food, sex, body obsession, refugees, writing and reality TV. It’s the really interesting conversation you wish you were having!

Get Wonderlust here!

Manifesting A Miracle This Week!

‘Rule your mind or it will rule you.’

~ Horace

When I hear how many Australians commit suicide every week. When I read that another ex has been brutally murdered. When I see that doctors, nurses and health staff are feeling so stressed and overwhelmed. That people are fighting over toilet paper. That an old friend has bought Master Your Mind because his wife has a serious illness. I think, no I must not be quiet. I must share this.

Because if we have control of our mind, if we have happiness, the kingdom is ours. We are each so powerful. SO powerful.

Something amazing happened last weekend. I had been watching some videos on selling on Amazon on Friday night and it put me in a bit of a low vibe state. It felt quite overwhelming and I felt tired, too tired to blah put myself out there again. I went to sleep and two hours later woke up, tossing and turning with “What if I fail?” thoughts.

I tried to just breathe through it. Then I remembered this other video I wanted to watch from Aaron Doughty, a law of attraction/consciousness teacher. He was saying that in 2020 it’s all about how you can help and it has to come from the heart, in no matter what field we’re in. But it has to be genuine.

At the beach with my friend the next morning, I was telling her I’d decided I was going to practise the law of attraction more when it came to my books. Still not feeling totally in alignment but allowing that to be so, I read and after lunch I fell asleep on the grass there. I remember having an intense dream and feeling this unease. How could I promote Master Your Mind when I’ve just finished talking about Wonderlust?

Just then I received a message from a friend I knew seventeen years ago. He’d got in touch out of the blue a month back to ask me to sign a petition as his wife tragically has developed a motor neurone disease, ALS. Now his message said that he’d bought Master Your Mind and he hoped it would help.

Whoa just like that I was snapped straight out of my head and into my heart! Oh my God. This is so not about me!! If I can help someone out there to create the peace within, that is exactly why I brought the book out now and so quickly!

Now I am so motivated to promote the book because people actually need this. I’ve distilled what I’ve learned over the past 17 years into a 30-day, 20-minute a day process. The crazy thing is that my friend came into my life exactly at the time I’ve been writing to you about, with the break up that propelled me to learn about the power of the mind!

I knew him very briefly between the break up and my trip to India and it was exactly on the Easter Thursday that I went out with him and not with my friends. My ex called the next day to ask why I hadn’t come out. Ja, I remember things. Imagine knowing that seventeen years later, what I learned then would help this guy help the love of his life? Or that him messaging me, following his intuition, would be the motivation I needed right at that moment to share this work?!!

Isn’t it awesome?!

Learning to master my mind was the best thing that ever happened to me. And now, because of my friend’s message, I’m offering to do the practice with you so you can ask any questions and get help and clarification as we go. To join, you simply have to do the following.

1.Get the Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within book.

2.Follow my MasterYourMindBook on Instagram.

I’ll be posting the daily updates and insights there. We start on Monday! And if you’re not in my Museletter community, please join here and let me know if you’re joining the MYM practice. Can’t wait to hear from you!

Love,

Mireille xx

p.s. Stay tuned for Sunday when I’ll be posting How To Turn Fear To Faith!

Get Wonderlust here!

How I flowed to my FOUR Instagram accounts this weekend!

Not all those who wonder are lost. But sometimes we are looking for a direction. OMG! The funniest things happened this weekend. And all in my home of course. So how did I flow to my FOUR Instagram accounts, you ask?

Well, I’ve been thinking about my direction for a while. Like, pretty much the last few weeks of my trip. Then after uploading the Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within in 20 minutes a day book on Amazon on Friday (Yes!), I started to think about how to incorporate all of my interests and books into my Instagram account without being super annoying.

So I thought and thought on Saturday morning and came up with a good plan. But you know, the vibration of the problem is not the same as that of the solution. Still my mind was having so much fun (loves solving a problem) and wouldn’t let it go.

Finally I had to do things like clean my house, but then, later in the evening, I started watching some clips on YouTube on Quentin Tarantino and his creative process and then advice from company founders like Beso, Ma, Buffet and the like. That led onto an interview with the founder of Skinnymeteatox, The Fifth watches and a few other brands, who was saying that for each of her products, she has a different Instagram account.

Everything happens for a reason, no?

Last Thursday, I was about to go for a walk after lunch when suddenly I had the very strong urge to set up a new IG account. So I did that quickly before I went for the walk and then proceeded to take so many photos on the walk that I have three months’ worth of 3x/day posting (just a day in the life). I love this new account so much!

Dedicated to our wonderful world, Wonderlust_intheworld makes me feel so happy. But back to Saturday, I went to sleep and then woke up early Sunday morning with the idea that I would start two more accounts; Mireilleparkerauthor and masteryourmindbook and I set them up immediately.

Mireilleparkerauthor started out as being just that, but once I was posting yesterday I realised that I really wanted to post my travel shots and make it more of a mini blog type of thing. It’s also a great way to organise my photos, which would have been an immense job in itself.

But what I’m loving is being funny, silly and obscure! Actually, I absolutely love satire (like The Great Gatsby, The Virgin Suicides and Lolita) and with Wonderlust I was trying to do that for many years but it didn’t work in the first person, if you know what I mean.

In my early years of having an Instagram account, an artist and coach in Switzerland told me she liked those kind of posts I did but someone else I admired said she didn’t like that kind of thing and, while trying to fit into the box of being a coach, it stuck with me.

But, I really like the one liners and the juxtaposed captions for the same reason I enjoy art and literature. It’s fun to not have everything explained. It’s amusement for our brains. Right? It’s interesting!

So, all this to say, I now have four Instagram accounts!!

I was supposed to be writing about Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within being released, but I’m so loving this new development that I can’t help but share it with you. It’s also the perfect example of what I share in the book.

So I’m going to be sharing my journey with #my4IGaccounts on my mireille_parker IG page. Come follow if you’d like the updates.

What a funny experiment.

I’m excited to share what I learn. Am I doing the right thing? Will this turn out well? Am I simply an idiot? What’s gonna happen? All this and more coming to you.

And if you’d like to check out my babies :

What a wonderful world! @wonderlust_intheworld

Let’s get sidetracked on the Main Street. Wonderlusting. @mireilleparkerauthor

Create Peace Within. Quotes & Tips for Introverts, Deep Thinkers + Busy People @masteryourmindbook

Metastatic Breast Cancer Conqueror sharing the journey with #my4IGaccounts @mireille_parker

I will write to you again on Thursday because I want to share more about what Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within is. Also join up here to keep up-to-date with my journey and receive weekly insights and musings.

Till then..

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

10 Tips to Make Working from Home Easier

I hope you are claiming some benefits during this time of COVID-19 lockdowns and keeping yourself attuned to a peaceful frequency as much as can be. Feeling your feelings too of course. But as many of us are working from home, I am sharing what I’ve learned to make it simpler and more effective, with less stress.

I’ve been working on Master Your Mind and I guess I’ll publish it on Friday but I’ll let you know. I wanted to put it out asap to help everyone during this time, sharing what I do and have done since I was twenty four to create peace within. And manifest. The subtitle for it is create peace within. Although I do share how I manifest and all I’ve learned about this, especially in the last few years since the brain surgery.

I know it’s a very uncertain time. But so is having stage IV breast cancer for three years! If I was to dive too much into the worst-case scenarios, I don’t think I’d have beat it. Or at least I’d have felt very worried and anxious through the process. Tune the world out to tune into what you desire. Of course take the precautions and action steps. But there’s such a thing as information overload as well. And we are the creators of our own reality. What matters is what’s going on right here right now, in your world. And so I bring you..

10 Tips to make Working from Home Easier

It’s been 7 years I’ve been working from home or almost 14 if you include when I was working on Wonderlust. There are many things I wish I’d known to make it easier when I was working in my coaching business. I was overloaded and stressed and so I share with you the following in the hope that it helps you too.

1. Structure

Before I had a morning routine that used to run until mid-morning and then I’d be stressed and always chasing my tail. Now I have a more succinct morning routine, getting up by 6 or 6.30 and starting by 8/8.30am. Then I work until lunchtime with a break after 90 minutes for fruit and standing in the sunshine. Other things that are structured for me include when I go to the supermarket (Tuesday late afternoon), when I buy fresh produce (Monday lunchtime) and then I make do with what I have for the week.

2. Routine

I eat the same breakfast every day and pretty much the same lunch, plus wear the same clothes for two days in a row. I write my museletters every Tuesday afternoon a and do writing work in the morning. Routine reduces stress by cutting down on the number of decisions we have to make, our mental load, and it gives us more energy and space for creativity. I also use apps to help me with this. One is To Do and there I put lists of regular things I have to do. Like shopping lists so I can just mark off what I need or when I had certain kinds of Jobs to do on a Monday, for example, I’d put it and mark it off there. It takes a little preparation but once you’ve done it, you have a system.

3. Priorities

There is usually one thing that is most important to do. Make a to do list, tackling the most important job first, when willpower, energy and focus are high.Usually I’ll get two or three main things done during the day.Ticking lists (achieving goals) actually produces dopamine, the feel-good chemical, in our brains and makes us feel successful and happy.

4. Simplicity

Every day I pretty much make a salad with beans and whatever else I have for lunch. It’s important to not eat too much as this makes us tired. With blood sugar levels out of whack, our liver and pancreas are also working to control this and not processing hormones properly, as I learned in Womancode by Alisa Viti. Another idea is to make up a hearty soup once a week and then freeze some. Other things I keep simple during my work day are the clothes, jewellery and make up I wear. It’s pretty repetitive and minimal.

5. Focus

I keep my phone on flight mode until lunch time and there are no notifications that come up on my laptop except text messages. I know it can be a challenge to focus in our world of swiping. I’ve been finding that reading more books is making me that much more focused too. Focus by working out the blocks of time you are working in and then don’t waver. Sometimes I’ll stand up and walk around or go to the mirror and pluck, but that actually helps to get more inspired. In five minutes, I’m back at work.

6. Schedule

When something is on your schedule, you know it’s going to happen. This reduces stress because it means you don’t have to do everything today. Every few months I’ll make a new schedule for myself on the electronic one. I could be using this more but it’s already an improvement. I schedule in my fitness time and leave time for relaxing. So I know if I don’t go to the gym on a Tuesday or Thursday evening and yoga on the Wednesday, it’s not going to happen because Monday and Friday evenings are for relaxing.

7. Movement

Be sure to include movement in your day, especially before starting work. I always stretch and before I’d walk down the street to the cafe but now I go for a walk/run round the block before starting and maybe down to the cafe later to pick up a coffee or a walk at lunchtime. Also getting up and stretching throughout the day and taking breaks is important. I am no fitness guru but I’ll do some squats or lunges while waiting for the coffee to boil, for example.

8. Air

Be sure to have the window open a crack. It’s important. Oxygen energises the brain. I do find I work better with fresh air coming in. If you aren’t able to go outside, open the window in the morning and yell “Good morning!” Haha. Only if you want to. You could also whisper it.

9. Preparation

A guy I dated used to say “preparation is key” and though it annoyed me at the time and I thought it was super boring, he was actually right. Things I prepare in advance now include setting my supplements out once a week. If I don’t do this, I forget to take them. Usually I do this on a Sunday evening. I’m sure people go as far as setting out the clothes they are going to wear the next day. But I am not that person. Still, whatever I can prepare in advance helps. And yes, it’s scheduled in.

9. Goals

Write out your goals for the week. There is perhaps one top one and two others. I put this for the week of my physical schedule to keep the focus. Then I have other lists of more long-term goals on my pin-up board. Right now I have lists of Books I’m Writing, Books I’ve read in 2020, My Desires and a list of Work goals and Personal goals. It’s fun to check them off as I complete them, but I’m not in a rush, just doing it as they come. Writing it down is half the work done and it gets it out of our heads for more focus, creativity and freedom.

10. Limits

When the day is done, the work is over. Switch off. You’re done! This was one I was never good at running my coaching business and found myself working all the time. Now I have once a day when I post on social media (3.30pm or around then) and that’s the only time I check it. The other important thing is to not do your housework or beauty while working. Schedule that in too. Perhaps some people do find it relaxing to sweep up as a break, but if we are constantly thinking about what needs doing, it’s very stressful. I put the blinkers on and focus on my work when I’m working.

My dear, I don’t know if this is all just plain obvious but it wasn’t for me. In fact, the only book I read for a year after the brain surgery was L’Art de la Simplicité and have been applying it ever since.

Before I go, did you get your FREE Release Your Feelings Guide?

Let me know if you did and also which of these ten tips was most helpful or what you do to work with focus and ease.

I wish you a wonderfully productive and easeful week and look forward to letting you know about Master Your Mind as soon as it’s out.

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

A twenty-six year-old travel agent from Perth, Australia, goes to Lucerne, Switzerland, on an actual cultural adventure, seeking a deeper experience of life. But finds she has brought her bad habits with her. Will she have to call Oliver, the hot Swiss guy who speaks of history and politics? And who is this mysterious and beautiful artist Bonnie? Set in 2007, Wonderlust is a journey of food, sex, body obsession, refugees, intelligence, creativity, writing and reality TV. It’s the really interesting conversation you wish you were having.

Get Wonderlust here!

Power of Joy (1) : Grounded in Perth

“It did not happen overnight

and it was not

given to me by another.

I am the maker

of the happiness and love

growing within me.”

– Diego Perez

Being bombarded with messages on how we could be better, do better, eat better, live better feels like just a day in the life of a human in 2017. All this striving. Always wanting to be somewhere, anywhere.. not here.

But what if we were happy with here right now? What if we are happy in our jobs and relationship, happy with our bodies and wealth? What if right here is perfect and exactly where we need to be to get where we’re going? What if we really and truly felt this to the pits of our stomachs? What if we feel this satisfaction, this perfection of the present, not just as a concept in our heads but down to the blood in our bones?

Back in November, a few months after the breast cancer brain sac tumour removal operation, I was definitely not! feeling this. Sitting in bed one Sunday, my mind was going round and round with all the mistakes I’d ever made and all the decisions I hadn’t thought through properly, but which I now knew the consequences of. What an idiot. Here I was with.. no job, no income, a passport that was expiring, no credit card (I’d closed the account) and only a quarter of my hair. I couldn’t date! I couldn’t renew my passport! I didn’t have money to go overseas anyway. I couldn’t escape!

Damn. All these wrong decisions. Such a joke. But seriously not a funny one. For the first time in my life, pyjamas on and journal open, I was totally and utterly grounded.

GROUND

– ded

My mum had tried to ground me once when I was a teenager. It didn’t go very well. But now, through my own choices and bad luck, here I was at my parents’ house, so completely GROUND-ed.

Oh my God!

Hello??

How did this happen?

Had every decision been a mistake?! Did I always choose wrong? My head was spinning with regret. Oh! If only I could crawl back into my old life.. I’d do it better! Yes, I’d be so satisfied! I’d be happy there, here. I could be happy anywhere.. But no I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t live it over. And make amends.. No, I was stuck here. Spinning, spinning, spinning.

How to make it stop?

I clung to the bed. But then, somewhere between the pages of my furious, desperate notes, there came a space. And two thoughts :

1. I had been striving since I was 24.

2. I was done with striving.

And I was actually not that stuck. I actually had quite a lot.

But I’d been striving so hard, especially since I was 24!! Geez and I was tired. I’d been striving since that break-up prompted me to want to (need to) learn about the power of the mind and how to rule it. My ego had been going CRAY-Z. And I wanted peace! I wanted it to shut the F up. All I wanted was peace! But then, applying the techniques to get over the ex and create calm, I also learnt how to intentionally co-create with the cosmos (no less). I learnt how to manifest.

Sometimes I did it well (unintentionally) and other times not so well when I tried too hard. All that striving. So much striving. I worked hard to work and live in New York for 6 months and then in Montpellier, France. Well, I didn’t work hard to get there. I worked consistently and the manifesting technique did the rest. What I didn’t do though, was be desperate about either. Would have made it easier if I’d known the difference then but hey, we live and we learn.

While writing Wonderlust, my novel, I also worked consistently. Two hours a day, four days a week for seven years. And I enjoyed it. But haha, there was always a part of me believing that my interesting life would really begin once I’d finished and published it. Now, sitting in bed that Sunday, I really really understood that I already had the interesting life when I started striving for it.I only had to see it.

.A blog, breast cancer, the Coaching Academy, business, workshops, the Healthy + Powerfully Feminine interview series and course, social media, marketing… I seemed to be in a constant state of putting myself out there.

And after all that here I was, back where I’d started.

Craving what I had to begin with.

The desire to travel.

And just be me.

I saw that I’d gotten nowhere wanting to be elsewhere.

So it was time to just be here, trusting in the simplicity of this known place.

At some point I got up from that bed and step by step, bit by bit, with a mind that felt muddled, and feeling at first like I no longer knew myself, rebuilt my life from the ground up.

From the GROUND.

– Up.

This is not a fantastical story with stupendous results or a headline grabbing month. But it’s a good story. It’s a story of simplicity. I got a job, then another one. I waited. And trusted. Step by step. Until again it flowed.

What freedom. Only looking back can I see how far I’ve come. Since that day.. when I decided to put all my books away and be guided by my own life. I went from feeling no joy to feeling a whole lot of joy every day.

I felt to start high-impact exercise to help with mental clarity and to combat osteoporosis from the estrogen suppression. So I got into aerobics, continued walking and did yoga. As well as that I did these 5 other things and in four months went from no income/job to 3 jobs and from living at my parents’ to being back in my home with the perfect housemate for me and most of all, from being down to happier than I’ve ever been.

Lastly, I found out I was actually using the Law of Attraction. See if it works for you too and in the next post I’ll explain where I went wrong for so long. I feel called to share this because people are ‘efforting’ too much and getting nowhere great. I hear it all the time. In the café, online.. So if you desire to work a little less and live a little more while moving towards your future with ease, this is what I did :

1. Be Here Now

At first this was all I was focused on since wanting to be elsewhere or further along, seemed to have caused this mess. But then, as I made progress and could see how easily things could come together, if I could just get that teaching job, for example. I would start to feel a little dissatisfied with the present moment. Then I’d remind myself ; Just be here now. Focus on what’s so great about now ; turn the music up and enjoy the drive to my admin job, enjoy how good it felt to stretch and move in different positions as I did the filing, for example, enjoying the sensations of being present in my body, dressing up and really appreciating the interactions and stories. Once again I soon felt so joyful. I enjoyed it so much that I really didn’t want to leave, but it was time to take my next step and so I had to.

2. Focus on Feeling Good

For this reason I quit social media for 3 weeks. We can have significant realizations while perusing social media and seeing a timely post, but it can also be the thing that pulls us out of our presence, in too many directions or adds to the dissatisfaction with what we have, especially when we’re not feeling our best. So I tuned out and when I could again connect and share with joy again, I did that. I also found some resources that focused on simplicity and started enjoying myself decluttering, budgeting and living simply. Then, while waiting for my working life to begin, I started to write a memoir because writing, especially without the angst of getting it published, is fun for me and helped me to stick to a routine and feel that glorious sense of accom-plish-ment.

3. Believe Things are Working Out for the Best

I asked my mum how she handled life so well despite the challenges, being rational but also positive, and this is what she said. So I did. I was also greatly inspired by this quote,

“Heaven is a place on earth; it’s an orderly, disciplined, constrictive way of thinking.”

-Anon

So no matter if it was true that I’d made every mistake I could make, it just wasn’t very helpful to think so. Instead I believed that whatever had happened was meant to and I just couldn’t see the bigger picture yet. Rejections, when they came, bounced off with this thought. “Something better is on its way.” Yes, you can become quite the ninja!

4. Take the Next Step

Trying to make too many changes or do everything at once had lead to overwhelm and angst, but with patience and persistence, things would work out over time. Becoming good with a schedule helped me realize that two things cannot exist in the same place at the same time. But over time.. I worked out what my top 3 priorities were and found a way to fit them in and leave what wasn’t important yet. Little by little and slowly but surely, with ease, one by one, and then faster, life flowed again.

5. EnJOY yourself

“I was not waiting, I was just standing there, enjoying myself. In-joy-in myself.”

-Ekhart Tolle

Along with Love and Gratitude, Joy is the most powerful emotion. It is the reason we want what we want. We desire to feel love, joy and gratitude. As in the law of attraction , like attracts like. When we feel joyful, grateful, loving and abundant, we attract this. We are a vibrational match to our desires. But you can’t fake joy! What we can do at least is enjoy ourselves. Focus on what is good, focus on what is going right, feel our feelings of course, yes, and then get back to realizing how lucky we actually are. And that our lives are working out for the best.

Gratitude practice and journalling ; Do it every day, rewiring the neural patterning in the brain until it comes easily and suddenly one day you’ll truly get just how much has changed, how strong you are, how far you’ve come, now singing at 7am and dancing round the house.

In the next post I will explain why our fanciful desires often manifest more easily than the ones we really want and how life is actually always working out perfectly. To read on, click here.

To your joy and mine,

Mi xxx

On Love…

Hi my love,

The break has been wonderful. Thank you for your understanding. And of course…

Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope you enjoyed your Xmas and are feeling the new energy of 2017. I felt to come back with a Valentine’s Day message for you because LOVE.

But sometimes (usually) (always) the most loving thing we can do for ourselves is know when it’s time to rest.

So rather than finish this museletter yesterday, I did things, like going to work, napping, having coffee with my sister-in-law at her place and talking to a good friend for an hour on the phone (it was her birthday but it reminded me to do that more often).

For Valentine’s Day I’d planned to take myself to see a French film at the outdoor cinema, but in the end just wanted to rest.

I’ve spent this year still working on simplifying life, time and financial management, sorting out priorities and where I consciously choose to spend energy so that I can fit in everything I want and need to do.

It’s a process.

This year my mantra is Be here now.

This reminds me to enjoy life in the present moment. To be in the present moment. And to come inwards.

It’s a reminder to come back to myself.

When I’ve been too ‘out there’ and ‘on there’.

Just be here now, Mireille.

It feels so real.

For Valentine’s Day I wanted to share with you one of my favourite memes about love.

This one…

While this does represent my relationship goals (the simplicity, presence, appreciation, acceptance and connection expressed in this phrase), it is also perfectly apt for my current relationship with myself.

Paradise is this morning in bed with myself having coffee.

And that, is freedom.

Paradise.

Paradise is this happiness with the present moment, this simple pleasure.

Thank you.

And ‘her’ is also the journal.

This morning in bed with her having coffee.

Writing is my first and enduring LOVE.

I came to her when I couldn’t express my feelings, when I didn’t know how I felt.

Then I’d write, in private.

Later in public. Words were a way to connect. Language brought us together.

Through writing I was able to be my authentic self.

I was able to speak.

But I still go to sleep with the journal by my side and wake up to her in the morning. She is the way I connect.

To you. To myself.

This afternoon I’ll be having a full body scan – bones, pelvis, liver, lungs – and I’ve planned a date at the hospital cafe beforehand with my journal.

I’m really really looking forward to that.

Life unbounded.

Time and space.

The last time I had this scan was on the last day at the hospital – 61/2 months ago – the hardest day of my life – when I was mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted – and had to do this scan in order to go home.

It felt like I was on a boat at sea with a screen inches from my face, moving, closer and further, closer and further, and me about to vomit. But I couldn’t, because then we’d have to start again and I wanted to go home. So I had to use every method I knew to control my mind… and then some. For the whole 45 minutes.

And still after being wheeled to the room again and my parents weren’t there and the nurse had told me my parents were really worried and I was on that moving boat. For hours, it felt, before they returned and were safe. I worried that something would happen to them in their sleep. Or that they’d have an accident coming back.

Using every mental technique and power to halt the spiral into anxiety, when body and mind were weak with hunger and fatigued from the medication, the operation and all the news of the week.

And after they were back and safe and Vanessa sat on my bed and said “If anything ever happened to you, I would never recover” and I knew. I knew my place in this web of life. I knew I was very much wanted and needed. This is what I knew.

Nothing could happen to me. I had to be here. Now.

There is so much beauty, even on the darkest days.

When the 27 staples had been taken out of my head (with Vanessa still sitting there in front of me on the bed), and all the flowers and cards had been packed onto a trolley, I waited with mum in the foyer while dad brought the car around, feeling like the bionic woman, lucky, strong and utterly exhausted, with a mind not quite mine, to begin life again outside.

X X X

There is a book waiting to come out and it’s time to open my legs and push. I am pregnant with words and stories. I don’t know how it will look. The father is Life. Conceived in experience. Given life through dedication and consistency. Passion, the midwife. Christened into creativity. Raised in love.

To your joy and mine.

Love,

Mireille xxx

p.s. Please tell me in the comments below how you’ve been and what and who you LOVE.

I’ve simplified and updated my coaching offer and page. If you need me, I’m here. You can also still receive the guides on being Queen of your Love Life here and Loving your Body Beautiful here. To your happiness sweet soul.

________________________________________________________

This week on Instagram…

Follow to connect and share!

________________________________________________________
Mireille Parker is a coach and speaker for those who who would love to feel their peace and power in body, mind and spirit.

Her journey began at the age of 24 with a break up when she began learning to use the power of my mind to not only quieten the constant chatter and commentary but also to create a fulfilling life, with beauty, creativity, spiritual connection, logic and guidance from within. You can read more of her story here.The coaching relationship is such a beautiful way to create healing and transformation at a practical and very deep level. Peruse her offerings here.