Vitamin Sea - Taking It Home!

The normal beach holiday take-homes usually run to a pretty shell, sand lodged in strange places in your bikini bottoms, lots of holiday pics, feelings of "I wanna live by the beach now-forever" and an incredible feeling of well-being.

Vitamin Sea, we jokingly call it. Something that we all need more of, more often. It's no accident that doctors throughout the years have prescribed time by the sea for all sorts of ailments and diseases. These last weeks, I have enjoyed my first solo holiday in 15 years (since my now 14 year old daughter was conceived) in Hoi An, Central Vietnam. Beachside. With my daughter away on a cultural experience jaunt in South Korea, it was time for this solo mama to fill her own cup.

Interestingly, I was confronted by a larger than life tarot image on the 3rd day of my holiday - a HUGE Ace of Cups image was literally at the top of the escalator going in to the Ba Na Hills cable car station, as I was on my way up to ride my fear. Missed that post? Here It Is Again.

The Ace of Cups. Complete infilling - indeed overflow - in the areas of feeling, intuition, intimacy and love. A divine hand holding out a cup, offering the ultimate overflow of heart-centered abundance. I took it as a personal message and chuckled at how BIG and LOUD the messages sometimes have to be before I see, and acknowledge, them.

I KNOW when I fill my own cup, that I am simply a nicer, healthier, happier and more loving person, not to mention far more productive, creative and successful. And so I filled my cup. I slept early. Ate well. Dreamed. Walked. Observed. People watched. Felt things. Cried. Spent a lot of time alone in silence. Walked some more. And then enjoyed 5 fabulous days completely beachside at Bien An Bang. The best thing about travelling on a super-tiny budget is you can't do all of the distracting, expensive things like endless shopping, amusements, sights, rides and distractions. Which leaves you with a fairly simple daily routine:

Wake before dawn. Walk for ages on the beach. Swim. Brunch and coffee. Retire to the cool room for the middle of the day for bath and a nap and alone time. Take another bath. Long walk on the beach late afternoon when the bite has gone out of the sun. Early, light dinner. Walk back to the room. Another bath. Lavish sunned skin all over with yummy oils. Relax and alone time. Early sleep.

When the time came to leave, I felt that tinge one always feels, of wanting and needing to capture this feeling of sun-kissed health and vitality - to take it home with me.

And so I SAT and thought through the beach holiday elements and the "why" behind that beach-holiday-feel-good feeling, and came up with a list - and some ways to replicate part of that feeling-experience regularly back in my day-to-day 800-km-from-the-beach world.

Sea Water

After sodium and chloride, the most common mineral salt found in sea water is Magnesium. The average concentration is about 0.05%. Now I have been soaking my feet, literally, for upwards of 4 hours per day in sea water as I walk along the water's edge. And swum in it completely for maybe another 30-60 minutes.

How to take that home? Instead of the 20 minute magnesium footsoak every 2 or 3 days when I finally get around to it, I could keep my feet soaking for up to an hour a day easily. All I have to do is plan to soak while I'm doing some desk time. Magnesium, the great muscle relaxer, could and should, be an even bigger part of my life than it already is. Shhh.... I'm soaking my feet in a magnesium bath now.

Sunshine

All that vitamin D synthesis is a HUGE boost for the immune system.

How to take that home? More skin-in-the-sun time is required. You'd think living in tropical Thailand that it would be a no brainer to bare your skin to the sun a lot. But the opposite is true. A prudish culture combined with it often being TOO HOT to go out in the sun, means I get far less sun that I ever did in cloudy Melbourne, Australia. So, gardening in a bikini top in the early mornings - screw the neighbours and their tut-tuts. More shorts and short skirts. And making time to go to an outdoor pool once or twice a week for some outdoor lap swimming, in a bikini. No need to bake or toast yourself on a sunbed. Just get some clothes off, more often, and let the sun caress your skin.

Walking in the Sand

I have literally stimulated the reflexology points in my feet for HOURS a day, walking on wet sand, soft sand, dry sand, powdery sand.... I may not be able to manage it at that level of intensity in my normal working day, but I CAN (a) get a foot reflexology massage once or twice a week and (b) get one of those wooden nobbly roller thingies to roll my feet over while I read and work. Regular stimulation walking outside, barefoot, over soft and/or textured surfaces.

Just More WALKING

My friend, Kate, (who I met up with in Vietnam) is a step counter. Normally that level of self obsession is not my thing. Walk till you FEEL it's enough is my normal standard. But it WAS fascinating to see there were days we walked upwards of 12km quite easily. The take home message? Just walk MORE. Walk everywhere. Often. The constant circulatory stimulus is critical for glowing, ongoing natural health.

Expansive Horizon Staring

Yup - just that quiet, mindful place where you feel enfolded by expansiveness. Maybe I don't feel that easily in my physical 'fishbowl' existence, but I can recreate it and CHOOSE it wherever I am. Meditation. Choosing audio guided meditations that 'take you there'. Mindful walking meditation. Or simply stare UP at the clouds, if the horizontal view isn't visually expansive or calming. Stargazing.

More Alone Time

While I was in Vietnam, some Chiang Mai people tried to arrange a 'meet up'. Gosh I hate those things! So much of the efficacy of Vitamin Sea comes from completely unplugging from your day to day peeps. Letting things drop. You may be a busy solo entrepreneurial mom like me, and feel like there's NEVER enough time to be able to do that. But we're wrong. We CAN CHOOSE to push back the office chair, leave our phones behind and disconnect from people and conversations and gossip and opinions and the ideas of others - for an hour or the whole morning or the whole day. Or even a week or two.

More Sleep

My usual 'matryrdom is expected' self gets 4-6 hours of sleep mostly, and maybe pulls a few all-nighters once in a while to keep things flowing. 3 hours sleep is not unusual for me, due to the demands of my mothering and my business. So imagine if I just SLEPT more - like I did by the sea. 7, 8 or even 10 hours. Every night. And I still was so tired at 2pm on a hot afternoon that I needed another nap. I could make better sleep choices anytime soon. So much of Vitamin Sea stems from simply getting MUCH MORE quality REST. Unstructured rest. Alone rest. Quiet-non-auditory rest.

So if all this Vitamin Sea is so good for us, why aren't we all living beachside, all the time? Having lived directly beachside in Australia for most of my adult life prior to Thailand, I KNOW that when I have it there on tap, all day every day, it's not appreciated or engaged with in the same way. As I gracefully age, I am also growing away from what feels like (judgement alert!) the more shallow beautiful-body beach culture, and appreciating the rich lushness of rain-forest, jungle and the botanical diversity that feeds my spirit. My ideal place already exists and I am calling that IN for my next phase of life after my daughter heads to college - tropical mountain living close to the beach - accessible to the water in an hour or two, but not bitten by salt winds nor struggling endlessly with lack of fresh water and erosion issues.

I AM inspired to head to the beach far more often and to MAKE THOSE SIMPLE DAILY CHANGES which bring the effects of "Vitamin Sea" into my world, wherever I happen to live.

Did I really find that lovely sea shell on the beach? I really, really did. Just after dawn, a few days ago. It's now in residence on my coffee table with two other shells - one from the beach at Itea near Delfi in Greece, and the other from the beach at my former piece of land on the far western coast of Australia at Cape Burnie (near Geraldton). When I need to be recharged by Vitamin Sea, I can always hold them up to my ear and they can help me call it in.....