Guest Post: Journey to your Wellbeing

May 20, 2011 by Brenda
Filed under Uncategorized

JOURNEY TO YOUR WELLBEING

By Michaela Olexova, The Baoli

Just like our genes and good manners, wellbeing habits are passed on in our families between the generations. Some of you have to work on them really hard and they grow on you over time and some become part of your daily routine in the way you perform them subconsciously, almost unnoticed.

Having grown up in communist Czechoslovakia, I was not spoilt for choice when it came to stocking up on groceries or getting a pair of ‘real’ jeans as the past regime simply didn’t allow such luxuries. As far as I remember people would instead adopt a ‘do it yourself’ approach in order to treat themselves to something new or special, allowing many self-made artisans, tailors, gardeners or bakers to arise in the community.

How amazing it was to go foraging in a forest every summer for fresh mushrooms that you would later dry and save for the winter stews or spend hours picking tiny blueberries to bake a fresh cake, a piece of which you would trade with your neighbour for pickled gherkins or strawberry jam, made from her garden produce. I guess that must have been my first experience with organic food, home baking and growing our own fruit and vegetables. Always so fresh and full of goodness!

Some stuff on the other hand I wasn’t that keen on but my mum knew best when she kept reminding me to turn the light and telly off when not in use or not to over run the bath with hot water to save energy and money. Oh yes, and how many times did I have to go with empty lemonade glass bottles and return them in our local shop for recycling or collecting old newspapers to earn my pocket money?

Spending summer picking medicinal herbs that would help you fight nasty colds over the winter months wasn’t exactly my ideal holidays or helping my mum sewing buttons on a new jumper she had just knitted for me so I could wear something original. Slow fashion anyone? Although maybe forgotten for periods of time with a boom of supermarkets and temptation of big brands, these were the things that were part of my childhood and they stuck with me to this day, bringing a smile to my face when picking a fresh tomato from our back garden one day or re-using plastic ice-cream trays for picnics on another.

How lovely then to see the new trends of farmers markets, grow your own schemes, home made cakes and jams, recycled fashion and waste or the rising popularity of herbal remedies and planting strawberries on your window sill. Without having to refer to hundreds of books covering the ‘new’ eco-friendly lifestyle that will save our planet, I hear myself reminding my own family to switch of the bathroom light and chuck the old newspapers into a recycling bin over and over again, simply because I was taught this is the right thing to do. Now I can only hope my daughter picks up these habits and pass them on for the wellbeing of her future family…

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