Revelations From My Mom!

My mom and I talk a lot. I don’t care how much it costs for me to call her from my cell to England, because I adore just nattering with her about anything and everything. She regularly furnishes me with juicy updates on “what they’re now saying in the UK about…”  – a category covering the gamut from wool spun out of nettles to anti-aging elixirs. I have actually got some amazing leads from her about all things pertaining to green, because mom has her beady eye on the ball.

I also get weekly envelopes of newspaper cuttings, especially from her beloved “Daily Mail,” which is now a British institution – also the butt of many a joke, which is illustrated brilliantly by this great uTube video ( “It Must Be True Cos I Read It In The Daily Mail”). As much as I deride this rag, it’s my go-to paper as soon as I sit down to my bowl of porridge in the UK. Although blown totally out of proportion and context, many of the stories definitely bear further investigation. So a couple of recent cuttings caught my attention. The first was about Bruce Forsyth – another British Institution who had a long-running  cult game show in the 70’s /80’s called “The Generation Game”. Bruce wound up marrying a woman over 30 years younger than himself and at age 82 is in seriously good shape due to his daily ” Fountain of Youth ” exercise routine. It was the Fountain-of Youth idea that pricked my interest because there was no denying that old Bruce was giving the aging process a run for it’s money. So what exactly are these special exercises?

It turns out he was given a book by his mother-in-law 27 years ago because she wanted him to stay in shape for her much younger daughter. So Bruce’s exercises are based on Peter Kelder’s book “The Eye Of Revelation”, which illustrates 5 rites/exercises which were laid down by Tibetan Monks 2,500 years ago. Being a yogi, I wanted to see how these “rites” differed from regular yoga poses, after all, the brief googling I’d done led me to believe their wasn’t much difference. Having tried the exercises out myself, I’m actually pretty impressed. I love that they focus on balance, flexibility, and circulation – the first things to go as we age. They were designed to help the parasympathetic nervous system, thereby restoring energy and aiding relaxation.

I highly recommend having a go. You can either grab a copy of the book or find a uTube video to follow. I think this Yoga Revelation video is pretty sound:

[youtube width=”260″ height=”210″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtudVwBwBdQ[/youtube]

The other juicy tidbit that my mom was on about – especially as she just tried it, is “Tapping”. Now we’re not talking about tap dancing here, we’re talking about tapping yourself with your fingers! My mum is the least new-agey women I know – the thought of meditation, drinking wheat grass or performing daily affirmations, would horrify her – yet she seemed taken enough with this bizarre technique for me to investigate further:

I found a good video online and sat at my desk ready to give it a go. The young man in the video tells you to find some privacy if you might feel subconscious saying things out loud. My husband was reading in the adjoining room and despite the fact that I knew I was opening myself to complete ridicule (oh boy he’s already got a lot of mileage from this!!),  I proceeded. You have to think of a negative feeling and then do all kinds of tapping techniques to alter your brain function for holding this belief. I thought of a negative feeling and proceeded despite the guffawing coming from the next room – even hearing my husband saying that he was joining in by doing “Tapping” techniques on our dog – grrrrrrrrr – anyway, I have to report I did feel a release. Could be totally in my imagination, but I felt a freedom for sure.

So those are my “revelations” from mom for this week. I’ll keep you posted as more come my way and I’m going to invite my husband to join me in the 5 Rites exercises this week. The tapping would be pushing it for him, especially as it’s now become a huge family joke, but if he and I can be as limber as Bruce when we’re in our 80’s, life will be GOOD!