Intentions for 2023

New Year's resolutions aren't for everyone, I know. Back in January, when talking about our goals for the year ahead was perhaps more relevant than it is now, Moss of Spiral Path wrote an interesting post about the toxic standards and unrealistic pressures that pile onto us year on year.

Yet, during that curious, dark and still time between Yule and Imbolc, I wrote in my journal this list of intentions:

- I want to be fully myself; to discover, express and live my truth. This will mean setting boundaries, speaking my truth, spending less time online so that I can understand and develop my own clear-headed thoughts, opinions, feelings and ideas, being honest with myself, listening to my body and my intuition, honouring my own thoughts and feelings.

- Quitting Amazon. Over the coming year I will use the vouchers I earn from surveys to buy those things on my wishlist that are only available from Amazon; the remainder of my wishlist I will move to Bookshop.org. I will also stop adding books to my wishlist in 2023 - I will discover books through personal recommendations, physical bookshops and the library.

- I will continue my practices of yoga, meditation, grounding and centring. 

- I will spend as much time outside as possible - I will put my bare feet and belly on the earth, I will swim in the sea.

- As well as the OBOD Bardic Grade and the Sisters of Rock and Root course which I am studying this year, I will continue to focus on my exploration of Druidry and the enchanted life through reading and practice.

- I will start re-reading books that I already own.

- I will slow down and invite simplicity, joy, connection with nature, contentment, peace, healing and grace. 

- I will continue to honour nature, the passing of the seasons, and our cyclical nature. I hope to move deeper into these practices and grow my connections with deity, the ancestors and the world of spirit.

- I will complete at least one of my stockpile of crafts and models.

- Insofar as it is financially feasible, I will continue working towards a low impact, zero waste lifestyle.

- I will not cut or dye my hair.

It's March now, so I can share a little insight into how I'm doing with these things:

- a work in progress, but I am learning to set boundaries, stop carrying what does not belong to me, and to be honest even when it's uncomfortable. I was recently on a therapeutic retreat where I met some individuals on twelve-step programmes, and I was deeply impressed by their hard-earned ability to express their feelings honestly, unashamedly and with clarity. I've been online more than I wanted to be (mostly to promote my book) but I'm currently working on taking a bit more of a break.

- This is going well. I have added no new books to my wishlist this year so far, and because I am reading books I already own and using the library, I don't have such a towering TBR. 

- I have practiced yoga and meditated every day so far this year and it feels SO GOOD. I've practiced yoga sporadically for years but it's only since developing this daily practice that I've been able to see noticeable changes in my strength and flexibility.

- This has been a struggle - it's been mostly cold and wet. I want to double down on this intention as I think it will make a huge difference to my experience this year if I can carry it out.

- Really enjoying the Bardic Grade so far, and currently reading Zen for Druids by Joanna van der Hoeven

- Re-reading some of my older books has been something I've planned to do for ages, it feels great to finally get on with it

- It's been an unusually busy year for me so far so slowing down has been harder than I anticipated over the winter when I was basically a hermit, so I need to take some time for rest when I can

- Haven't taken as much altar time as I would like this year, but I'm finding a disciplined meditation practice to be very beneficial

- I am currently knitting a hat from a kit Marc bought me in 2019 😂

- This is going well. We're having veg boxes delivered, eating locally and seasonally, buying from a nearby smallholding, using a local milkman, and have switched completely to natural non-toxic cleaning products. We also make use of a local food waste prevention discount store and community fridge, which pass on food from supermarkets and online stores that would otherwise go to landfill and use the profits for charitable causes, but this sometimes means we end up with a lot of plastic packaging. Luckily, our local zero waste refill store have a partnership with Terracycle, so they pick up all our hard-to-recycle plastics. It's not an ideal system, and sometimes I am tempted to slip a note in with the plastic recycling to explain where it has come from ("I'm not just a bad zero waster, I'm preventing food waste!"), but it feels like moving in the right direction.

- This is a random personal thing; since childhood I've wanted to know what would happen if I didn't cut my hair for a long period (say, a decade) but with my butterfly brain have never carried out the experiment. Thought I'd start small, with a year!

2023 is turning into a really interesting year for me. The confidence I have been building since I started working on myself in my first shopping ban is growing exponentially. My comfort zone is expanding, I'm calmer, I'm addressing some traumas from my past with help from therapy, and I'm really excited to see where things go!

As for shopping - well, I started a new shopping ban at Samhain, and I haven't broken it yet, which brings me to a personal best of 122 days without an unnecessary purchase. This time around, I'm definitely not finding it as difficult as I have in the past. I think I needed so many attempts to break the conditioning and habits that I had formed. This time, I think I will not only be able to achieve my 365-day goal (with some allowed purchases that I defined for myself at the beginning of the challenge), but also be under my annual budgets for the first time. Easy to say when it's only March 😂 but it just feels a lot more possible than it ever has before.

Into the Cauldron

During November, I scheduled myself a week of Cauldron Time, after taking the workshop Into the Cauldron with Moss of Spiral Path. Moss's concept of Cauldron Time is about taking time to rest and look deeply inwards during the dark half of the year. For me this involved taking space away from social media and screens, reading, journaling, meditating, yoga, divination, foraging, spending time in nature, cooking nourishing meals, and taking naps.

I'm a carer and parent, so I couldn't take a week off as would have been ideal, but I did try to maintain an atmosphere of calm and restfulness, and I also thought hard before agreeing to any social plans and only accepted invitations if I really wanted to. I found all this much harder than it probably sounds! Turns out, I am not brilliant at resting.

However, once I made the effort, I found it very effective. Taking time away from screens and spending lots of time outside under the grey November skies almost made it feel as though I had slipped slightly sideways out of ordinary time and into a liminal space. Suddenly I had loads of extra time which I had previously apparently been wasting fiddling about on my tablet and achieving very little. I also hadn't realised how rushed I normally feel, hurtling at ninety miles an hour from one responsibility to the next - again, apparently pointlessly, since during Cauldron Time the housework still got done, the Spud arrived at nursery on time, and everything was accomplished which needed to be, without me turning up everywhere sweaty, out of breath and slightly miserable. It was such a relief to stop trying to push the river.

I also spent time in darkness - the Spud and I sat out one night to watch the sunset, and were delighted to discover that our garden is apparently a bat hotspot. We also went walking under the full moon one night. I realised that I habitually do everything indoors, but I will try to make the effort to wrap up warm and head outside for reading, writing and playing (drinking coffee, doing surveys and checking emails could all be done outside too).

I found myself getting creative in the kitchen - mixing Penicillin cocktails on a whim to use up the last of the 'good' whisky, collecting rosehips and making syrup. 

I blitzed through my reading pile, and delved into poetry for the first time in a long time (The Girl and the Goddess by Nikita Gill was my starting point). Another notable book I read was The Stopping Places by Damien Le Bas. I found it really interesting to have a glimpse of different cultures and different ways of seeing the world, as well as different ways of experiencing this island where I live. I've been seeing Britain very differently since I started looking more into Druidry, folklore and history and learning about what's beneath and beyond the malls, car parks and council estates, and I find it fascinating to have these small peeks into a multiplicity of ways of living and of being here. We may share the same small bit of ground but we relate to it, see it and understand it in completely different ways. 

The lack of social media was a blessing during Cauldron Time. I often feel torn, as I've made some great connections on Instagram lately and found out about some wonderful events, but I can't deny I am more content without the mental chatter and feeling of being surveilled. No amount of giveaways are worth my peace of mind, surely?

The days felt strange - my life revolves mainly around caring for others and managing the household, so it was hard to find time alone or to deeply meditate as I might have liked, but the week was full of little coincidences and synchronicities, and that feeling that I was just outside normal life, in a secret and special space. The slower pace was wonderful - I did about as much as I normally would, but without feeling frazzled or habitually tense. And I prioritised time with my son over time with other people, which felt right - an important boundary that at times I had been lax about upholding.

I found taking Cauldron Time to be valuable, profound and powerful. There were many lessons that I plan to take forward, such as not letting all my time drain into my screens, being present, slowing down, and recognising that time with the Spud or time alone is also special and important, and that it's okay to prioritise it even when that means saying no to other things. 

Afterwards I felt more nourished, more settled, less scattered. I didn't really want to come back to normal reality, and I hope to try to keep my focus on rest throughout winter. I definitely plan to take Cauldron Time again next year, and at least once more this winter, to help me continue to live with more mindfulness and intention. 

I also had a guest spot this month talking to Hazel and Jenny on The Wheel podcast for their Sustainable Yule episode - listen here.

How I Shop Sustainably: Basic Cosmetics

I've generally operated a policy for this blog where I don't post links to products or shops, but as more and more people are getting interested in sustainable, ethical and zero waste products, I thought this might be a good time to share how I've tweaked my personal shopping habits for those things I use on a regular basis. As well as what I currently buy, I'll discuss what my criteria are, what I look out for, and what I actively avoid - and why. If you find this interesting or helpful, drop me a comment and let me know, as this could become a series. 

I'm UK-based so this will be quite UK-focused, so friends overseas, do please chime in with your own best tips and recommendations.

The very basics

Deodorant: switching to natural deodorant was one of the first swaps I made, during my pregnancy when I read that aluminium from antiperspirants has been found in breast milk. The detox phase, when the aluminium 'plugs' leave your pores, was a real thing, and there was a fortnight when I smelt absolutely horrible, and a period of a few months' trial and error while I hunted down a natural deodorant that actually worked. I found that I'm sensitive to baking soda, which limited my choices somewhat as it's a common ingredient in natural deodorants. I also prioritise plastic-free, recyclable or compostable packaging and only use products which are cruelty free and vegan.

I still have a few products in rotation and try new things as I come across them, but my go-to favourites now are Space Cat by Awake Organics, which I find very effective - I don't have to wash and reapply several times a day as I do with other products in my rotation, and one tin lasts me about six months so it's good value - and the sensitive range from Wild Deodorant, which I was originally gifted by a friend and found so effective I used it at my wedding.

I would note that what works for me may not work for you; one of my close friends couldn't get on with natural deodorants at all and proclaims herself firmly Team Antiperspirant, and you will almost certainly have to try a few products before you find your perfect fit, but for me it's worth it because antiperspirants and many conventional deodorants contain ingredients like propylene glycol (which is also used in antifreeze and is considered potentially dangerous to the nervous system and heart) and parabens (which potentially can cause hormonal imbalance in our bodies and have been flagged as possible carcinogens, as well as being linked to birth defects).

A word on ingredients. You may be wondering, if these ingredients are so bad, why are they in so many of our everyday products. Well, of course the cosmetics industry is regulated, although this varies depending on where you live - thousands of ingredients deemed dangerous in Europe and the UK are widely used in the USA and elsewhere. However, ingredients are often tested individually and declared as 'not harmful' as a small dose within a product - except when you then have the same ingredient as a small dose in your shampoo, your body lotion, your hand soap, your washing up liquid and so forth, you could be applying the same potential toxin in quite a large dose indeed without realising. We also don't commonly test for how ingredients that may be in different products react with each other - for example, if you have one potential hormone disruptor in your body lotion and another in your shower gel, we don't know how the combination might affect your body once it's absorbed into your skin.

For more information about this subject I would recommend the book No More Dirty Looks by Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt, here's a basic list of ingredients I avoid, and here's a database you can use to find out how safe your products are.

Toothpaste: my main issue with toothpaste is packaging, which is usually plastic and non-recyclable. Many well-known brands also test on animals, including Colgate and Sensodyne. 

An obvious swap I would recommend is a bamboo toothbrush or an electric toothbrush with recyclable heads, which are becoming more widely available (check your local zero waste shop, if you have one). I use toothpaste tabs with fluoride, which are available in refillable tins or compostable bags. (I also use a copper tongue scraper, and mouthwash tabs - the ones I'm currently using are from Lush and come in a plastic pot which you can return to the store for a discount on your next purchase, but ideally I'll be looking for a plastic free alternative.)

Body wash: solid soap is your best bet for minimal packaging. I like Lush's soaps as a treat, but they're not that budget-friendly, so in general I use one of a variety of soaps from the Really Wild Soap Co. You can also usually find some lovely natural, organic soaps at your local farmer's market or zero waste shop, or on Etsy.

Face wash: my go-to is Movis from Lush, because it comes in a solid bar (and I like the yeasty smell). 

Moisturiser: my favourite moisturiser is Imperialis from Lush. It does come in a plastic pot but again this is returnable to the store for refill and reuse. My skin has always been a source of embarrassment for me as I'm prone to breakouts, but since I stopped wearing foundation on a daily basis and switched to natural ingredients I have seen a big improvement.

Sunscreen: I have several priorities for sunscreen. Firstly, I only use what's known as a physical sunscreen rather than Nivea et al, which produce chemical suncreen. This is because chemical sunscreen contains some less than pleasant ingredients, which when they are absorbed by the skin can leach into the bloodstream. Physical sunblock, aka zinc oxide, is not absorbed by the skin (so you do have to put some effort into application to avoid the Friendly Ghost look), but does block both UVA and UVB rays.

The other downside to those chemical sunscreens is that they are highly toxic to marine life and coral reefs - even if you're not using it on the beach, all our water reaches the ocean eventually. For my little one and on my tattoos I use a high SPF sunscreen from Amazinc - yup, it's pricey, but I've been using the same bottle for three years now. For myself, particularly on my face, I use an SPF 25 from Shade, which comes in a sturdy tin so I can carry it about with me and reapply when needed. 

Shampoo and conditioner: finding a natural shampoo bar (I like bars because there's no packaging, in case you didn't guess) that works in hard water when I'm at home, without leaving my hair greasy, sticky or waxy, was a bit of a challenge. If you live in a soft water area, you can pretty much take your pick.

Sea salt seems to be the magic ingredient for me, and in hard water areas you also need a foaming agent like SLS, which I would generally prefer to avoid. There are some good, effective alternatives now made from coconut, so I'm hopeful I'll eventually find the perfect bar. Meanwhile, I'm using Seanik from Lush.

For all your solid soap bars I do recommend a soap drying rack, as letting them dry between uses makes them last much longer instead of dissolving into a soggy mess.

I also use a conditioner bar - I'm still open to trying new products here and looking for a leave-in conditioner that doesn't come in a plastic container, but the conditioner I'm using currently is from Wideye.

Lotion: if I'm being really honest, lotion isn't really a basic for me as I tend to only remember to use it when I shave, but the one I'm using currently is this one from Happy Holistics, which is rich and smells delicious.

Hand and foot cream: also not something I use terribly regularly, but I go straight to basics here and just use a jar of shea butter, a tip I got from Lucy AitkenRead's book Freedom Face, with the immortal line "No matter how you say this - "shee-uh" or "shay" - you will be corrected by someone. I like to do a huge fart at the same time as saying it, to distract from the fact I may be pronouncing it wrong."

The Rarr

You might think I'd be used to getting my ass handed to me by oracle cards by now, but sometimes the accuracy of the insight revealed by a picture on a bit of cardboard still blows me away.

I pulled a card from my Faerie Oracle deck one morning when I was freaking out about style - again. I asked the cards, essentially, who I should try to be, but the card I pulled was the Rarr, reversed - a somewhat ominous warning that my energy was out of control, I was all over the place, distracted, I should make no decisions but take a cold shower, meditate, and try to ground myself.

I was slightly alarmed by this, and gave myself a quick three-card reading, which basically said 1) you need to reground yourself; 2) you need to reconnect with nature; 3) you need to slow down and stop trying to push the river.

Surprisingly (to me, perhaps not to you?), one of the most helpful practices for staying happy and motivated during my current no-buy was renewing my study of Druidry. My books are now peppered with post-its, I developed a strong daily routine that includes time outside and tending my altar before my yoga practice each morning, and I feel grounded, calmer and more contented. Seeing my everyday activities as sacred really has an effect on the energy that I am able to bring to them. Not that I'm never Shouty Mum any more, but definitely not as much. 

At this moment I have decided not to sign up to one of the two 'big Druid' correspondence courses in the UK, which are offered by the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and the British Druid Order respectively. I'm aware that both are highly regarded and I have sent off for samples from both, but found myself reluctant to proceed. Partly because a lot of the basic material is already known to me from fifteen-ish years knocking around the Pagan community and studying folklore (and assorted New Age practices, many of which don't resonate with me - the OBOD course in particular I have seen described as New Age), partly because I'm not a joiner by nature, and partly because I'm not a huge fan of scripted ritual or male/female binaries. Yet I feel very connected with and drawn to Druidry, I just feel that as such I need to approach it in a way that makes the most sense for me. 

So I have a massive stack of books from different authors with different 'takes' on Druidry, and I'm also considering a course or two from Sharon Blackie, which aren't specifically Druidic but offer a deep dive into concepts such as the anima mundi and the mythopoetic worldview, which I feel would be useful. (I also attended Moss's excellent Re-enchantment is Resistance workshop back in the summer, and loved it.) So I've ended up with a sort of hodge-podge ramshackle hedge Druidry, and I imagine that there are people who may object to me using the word 'Druid' because of that, but I cannot overstate the value this way of relating to the world brings to my life.

For a few months this year I'd drifted away from studying Druidry. I always seemed to have other things to be doing - laundry, dishes, mucking about on my tablet. But after renewing my nature connection in Pembrokeshire, it seemed totally natural to return to it. Not only did it add fresh motivation and enjoyment to the practice of my no-buy, but it felt like a step I needed to ground that frantic, out-of-control Rarr energy.

I also recently re-read some of my own work, including my own book and this blog. I was startled and disappointed to notice how easily I'd slipped out of some good habits and into some bad ones. I actually had my shit much more together and felt overall more content when I was working much harder on my no-buy challenge. I think I knew that, deep down, and I think that's why I keep coming back to the idea of a no-buy year even when common sense should be telling me to give up. I've tried, in my book, to express the sense of freedom and deep joy I began to discover when I reoriented my life around not shopping, but even so, I've increasingly drifted away from it in the years since.

I think I need to take my own advice once again, go back to the beginning, and re-root myself into the practices that led me here. It isn't easy, but it is so beneficial to me.

Fictional Fashion Icons vs. Uniform Dressing

I've been feeling baffled and frustrated that my style is not easily defined, neatly curated, nor particularly, um, stylish. But when I tried to make a list of my style inspirations from all the way back in primary school to nowadays, as prompted by some style questionnaire I was looking at, it suddenly became clear to me exactly why I may never have a single clothing rack of smart neutral basics, as much as I may appreciate how much a simple uniform would streamline my days.

You see, my list of fashion icons and inspirations, roughly chronologically, looks a little like this:

- Claudia Kishi

- Stargirl

- Tibby Tomko-Rollins

- Alex from T*Witches

- Mia Thermopolis (books NOT movies! Actually that goes for all of the above...)

- Willow Rosenberg

- Emilie Autumn

- Tank Girl

- Luna Lovegood

- Drew Barrymore in the 90s

- The entire cast of Whip It

- Karou (Daughter of Smoke and Bone)

- Mab Graves

- Amanda Palmer

- Patti Smith

- Keira Knightley

- Helena Bonham Carter

I don't doubt there's a few I've forgotten here, but that's about the shape of it I think. In fact, I know there were others, and it's going to seriously frustrate me that I can't remember them all. Not sure how I never put this together before, but the styles I have generally admired aren't exactly tidy and sleek. I appreciate fun and joy and chaos and imperfection.

I miss 90s celebrity style, where people actually looked like they chose their own clothes and maybe made mistakes but enjoyed the process, when teenagers weren't impeccably groomed and glamorous, when it didn't seem so much like there was a right and a wrong way to get dressed. The media probably still ripped them to shreds just the same, I guess, but it felt all a bit more relaxed to me. And yes, I realise that 90s styles are in right now, but to my mind it's somehow not quite the same... It's a bit more overstyled, deliberate, ironic. Or maybe that's just my age and cynicism showing.

Can I also say that as a youngster I loved The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and Stargirl so, so much that I never read the sequels because I needed the characters to be perfectly preserved in my head and heart exactly as they were... Might have to get down to the library and have myself a good old binge read of those as well as many of these old favourites. (You're talking to someone who nearly exploded with joy when Carolyn Mackler wrote a sequel to The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things over a decade later. Someone who is now writhing in horror because I just came across a Travelling Pants spoiler whilst trying to find a Tibby-description to link to in this post. Drat and double drat!!!)

Is it normal to have fictional fashion inspirations? I'm not sure. It's not necessarily all that helpful, though - fictional characters are static, their tastes and opinions are not real and therefore not subject to influence by their surroundings, they don't have to interact with the real world or worry about shopping, fit, storage or clothing care and maintenance. It doesn't hurt to have a paragraph in a novel inspire an outfit - but in the past I've tried to use it as a basis for a lifestyle. Maybe this works for some people, but historically it hasn't for me.

Another issue I have is that nowadays I find myself drawn almost equally to the exact opposite of these whimsical styles, as I alluded to at the start of this post. I'm intrigued by the idea of 'uniform dressing' and by the super-simplicity of pared-down capsule wardrobes. Sometimes I feel pulled in opposite directions by these two aesthetics, which are by their very nature the complete opposite of each other. (I know you can create a capsule wardrobe from bright and quirky items, but the aesthetic that appeals to me for this look is very simple and clean - lots of linen, denim, black and beige.)

The drawbacks of whimsical chaos are that it requires me to make a lot of micro-decisions every day; I often have a tendency to misinterpret unspoken dress codes and feel over- or under-dressed; because some items or looks are very statement or simply loud I receive a lot (a LOT) of unwanted opinions and feedback on my outfits; when out and about I can tend towards self-consciousness or feeling uncomfortable; it encourages overshopping because it tends towards a maximalist aesthetic; outfits may have components which are less comfortable or require a lot of managing; I don't feel as grown-up, attractive or elegant as I would like or sometimes as though I'm stuck in my most awkward childhood and teenage years, so it doesn't do a lot for my self-confidence. I also find myself not really having an honest answer to questions like, "Do I still actually want to dress like this or is it just what I've always done? Do I actually like these clothes or do I like being recognised as 'the quirky one'?"

The drawbacks of a streamlined uniform are that I can feel constricted or bored very easily; that it is harder to be creative or playful; I feel oddly as though I am betraying my past self; it is harder to find and choose wardrobe items and I can end up either overspending on individual items or not being able to source what I think is the right thing, and feeling paralysed or stuck - I feel that if you have a limited selection of items they need to be perfect and this can be really quite difficult, particularly as my weight fluctuates. My trip to Brighton also showed that despite my best attempts to follow or devise formulas and make well-thought-out purchasing decisions, I don't always understand myself well enough to get it right, which feels more high-stakes with a fifty-item wardrobe where any errors in judgement make the whole thing less manageable and can't be blended in like they can in a larger, more eclectic wardrobe. Also, perhaps this is just a personal quirk, but having a stripped-back aesthetic can put more focus on face and body (e.g. feeling like I need to make more effort with make-up to avoid looking unfeminine or boring) which can feel intimidating and not all that helpful. I also find myself worrying more about whether I appear stylish to other people.

Perhaps there is no right answer. I recently had my bra-strap-length hair cut into a chin-length bob, and whilst objectively I think that length is a touch more flattering on me I was surprised it doesn't actually make a huge difference to how I look or how I feel. I had been anxious about cutting my hair and really attached to the idea of having long hair, but I find I don't miss it or even particularly think about it. This was disappointing at first, but then it became quite liberating, because it meant I didn't have to obsess about my hair or attach part of my identity to my hairstyle. I can change it up whenever I feel like I want a refresh. More to the point, I realised that there really is not an objectively perfect hairstyle for me 'out there' somewhere that I am failing to find. If only I could figure out how to apply the same logic to clothes!

Is there a way I can create a wardrobe that is playful and wild but also simple and effortless? 

Also, some more bits and bobs - firstly, an article of mine in the October issue of ev0ke Pagan and lifestyle magazine is available to read online here.

Secondly, a five-star review for my upcoming book from blogger Stefanie at Owl's Rainbow - you can read here.

Rewilding in 2022: 2nd Progress Report - Touching the Wild

This season, I went vegetarian. I'd been kicking the idea around for a while, and my close friend Alice stopped eating meat after working in packing for an online food shop over Christmas and being slightly freaked out by the vast scale of naked, shrink-wrapped poultry she was faced with night after night. I'd tried to cut down my meat for a while, but found that, in a bid to prove to Dai that I wasn't 'depriving myself', the consequence was that I actually ended up eating more meat.

Then I took the Spud to visit some farm animals. The Spud has this real thing about sheep, and after a morning of watching him cuddle the lambs and brush their soft baby fleeces and feed them a milk bottle... Well, I was ruined for the Sunday roast, that was for sure. It's not been an easy adjustment in a mixed household where we generally all eat together, but I just can't eat meat any more, so we'll have to get to grips with it.

It could be argued that a vegetarian diet doesn't work well alongside a plan to rewild. Our ancestors, and many indigenous peoples around the world, of course eat meat, and any attempt to hark back to a less artificially complex, less industrialised lifestyle would surely involve some sustainable meat or game? I can see the logic in this argument, but even if I wanted to keep eating dead creatures for my own sensory pleasure, which I don't, we are also facing a looming climate crisis, and as an environmentalist I really can't justify personally eating meat either. So. There we go. I guess it's a modern, millennial kind of rewilding that I am doing here. But I'll take it!

Leena Norms has an absolutely fab, entirely non-judgemental, non-pushy video which sums up a lot of my reasoning around choosing this diet - here it is. 

One conflict I had this season was fairly laughable. In general we're not a daytime TV household, but I found that when I wanted to roll out my yoga mat in the morning, the best way to avoid being maimed by a toddler trying to "help" me into my poses was to flick Bluey on for half an hour. Except, when I then wanted to turn Bluey off again so we could get on with our day, all hell broke loose. Navigating the storms of tantrums and tears each morning made the yoga practice much less relaxing than it should have been (and the sound of Bluey and Bingo chirping away in the background was surprisingly hard to tune out during savasana), but I had noticed a difference in my strength and flexibility after only a few weeks of fairly disciplined home practice, and really wanted to keep going with it. Attempts to encourage the Spud into the garden or sandpit instead were met with dismissal on all but the sunniest of days. I'll let you know if I ever find a solution to this one!

On the topic of the garden, my feral approach to gardening was providing some interesting results. In the spring we discovered that our garden was full of bluebells, and I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn't just gone blundering in and weeded away everything in sight. It was also full of stinging nettles, but I was quite reluctant to pull those out, much to the confusion of visitors, as I had read that they're an important habitat for caterpillars and butterflies.

Our bird feeder had finally caught on amongst the local bird community, and we were welcoming blue tits, robins, blackbirds, and a variety of little brown guys that I'm not quick enough to tell apart. Unfortunately, the birds also ate our peas and beans, and the feeder also attracted a sleek, golden-brown rat, who at time of writing has taken up residence under our shed and can often be seen sitting beside our humane rat trap with what I'm certain is amusement. I know rats in the garden aren't ideal, but I'm reluctant to introduce poison into the environment, especially with my child around. It's also not the rat's fault we don't want it there, so we're persevering with humane traps and deterrents for now. We also have a resident hedgehog, which really surprised me as we live quite centrally in town and border a busy road. And a squirrel who races through the trees every morning as if commuting to work. 

Unfortunately we also have a large number of field mice, who set up camp in the house (and ate my husband's Easter eggs, much to his disappointment) - we tried catching them and releasing them far away, but they bred faster than we could trap them. Eventually we found ourselves adopting two lovely cats from someone who couldn't keep them any more. Dai mainly wanted a rodent deterrent, as sweeping up mouse poo is no one's idea of a good time. The Spud and I were excited to have family pets to stroke and fuss over. So everyone wins.

Social media has been my biggest bugbear lately. I've now got two different apps on my phone to try to help me manage my usage, and I find that I'm either turning them off, uninstalling them when they prove inconvenient, or simply opening social media in my tablet browser. This is such a big step backwards and I'm really not enjoying it. I don't want to be the kind of person who chooses their destinations by what will make the best photo. I don't like courting followers, and in all honesty I'm slightly alarmed by my propensity for oversharing. A lot of my close friends have recently stopped using Facebook and Instagram, just as I'm probably the most active I've ever been, and I'm steeling myself to follow their example. I might lose followers. I might lose book sales. But if I carry on on this trajectory, I feel I'm losing a lot more than that.

It's not all bad news though. The defining event of this season for me was my long-anticipated wedding. It was a glorious day, made even more special by the people who came together to share the celebration with us, and on a very personal note it was really the first time I was able to see how far I've come since starting this blog. I never realised that reducing my consumption was going to be a personal development project more than a financial one, and yet over the last couple of years my confidence has skyrocketed. I've learned that no one is watching and judging me because everyone is busy judging and monitoring themselves. I've learned that perfection is overrated and boring. And I'm lucky enough to be surrounded and loved by people who are supportive, open, free-spirited and kind. 

When I realised I couldn't dance in my wedding gown I changed into a vest top and harem pants. My bra had carved red divots around my ribcage, so I decided 'sod it' and took it off. I then spent the evening dancing with my friends, or by myself, without fear or self-consciousness. At one point, on my way to the toilets, I heard the throb of music from up a flight of stairs and followed it to find a live band in the building next door, where I danced with strangers on a floor strewn with golden stars.

On the weekend of our wedding, I walked barefoot on new territory. I worked a lock on the canal. I stood atop a long barrow and felt the wind stream through my hair. I saw my friends' faces bathed in firelight; I felt the prick of bird claws on my hands and legs; I drank mead with Druids; did yoga in a yurt; danced the Macarena with a flock of Goths.

I have tasted the wild. I have found the bigger life that waited on the other side of my inhibitions. 

Dai's interest in history has helped me widen my horizons, connect to the landscape, and begin to see my home country in new ways. Parenthood has changed my sense of self and taught me the breadth and depth of my endurance and strength. Growing older has taught me about seizing the moment and forging memories with those we love. Trying to reduce my consumption has led me to an animistic worldview and re-engaged my creativity.

Now that I have touched the edges of the kind of life I want to be living, I am more determined than ever to get there. I love the person I am becoming, and I am so excited to see what comes next.

Inspirational reads this season:

Strong, Calm and Free by Nicola Jane Hobbs

Dandelion Hunter by Rebecca Lerner

Going Zero by Kate Hughes

Sustainable Minimalism by Stephanie Marie Seferian

The Planet-Friendly Kitchen by Karen Edwards

Why I Deleted Goodreads

I've been toying with the idea of deleting my Goodreads account for years, but I've finally done it. If you Google 'thinking of deleting Goodreads' you'll find that lots of people struggle with the clunky interface, the ownership by Amazon, the mining of the fairly intimate data about what you do and do not like to read, the new policy that deletes reviews that focus on scandal to do with the author, the fairly arbitrary star rating system that some feel devalues authors' work, or the annual reading challenge, which makes finishing books into a numbers game.

The clunky interface was, for me, the least of these issues. For some context, I've been on Goodreads for seven or eight years, minus a six-month break at the start of my first shopping ban. It was the only social media I kept using when I deactivated all others - I was only tracking my reading for my own interest, not really networking with others or promoting my 'brand', so I didn't see it as harmful. 

I stopped doing the reading challenges a couple of years ago, as I realised that it was becoming more about reading more and more than about savouring, pleasure, enjoyment, or knowledge. Just ploughing through one book after another. 

For similar reasons, during my shopping ban I deleted all the books I had saved on my 'to read' list, and stopped looking at my recommendations. Now, I know many people use Goodreads specifically for this feature, and certainly it was one of the things I enjoyed most about the site early on. But for someone trying to release themselves from the grip of buying too much, it wasn't helpful. 

There are always going to be new books out there that I want to read. But between lending with friends, charity shops, phone box libraries, the actual libraries, the independent bookshops I frequent, magazine reviews, authors and reviewers on blogs and on Instagram, publishers' websites, newsletters and catalogues - and, yeah, okay, Amazon, big chain bookshops and supermarkets as well, I don't think I will ever be short of ways to discover them. I found that relying on recommendations based on things I'd previously read - the Kindle store does this as well - can tend to create a kind of echo chamber, and I could fall down a rabbit hole of reading fifteen books about the same thing from the same perspective. Of not feeling 'done' if I hadn't read every single book about a topic, even when I felt I'd scream if I had to read about one more variation on - for example - circle casting, or the Wheel of the Year.

I also found that reviews from other readers could make or break a book for me before I'd even made the purchase. Reviews on Goodreads tend more towards the negative than those on Amazon (for some reason), and although I'm aware how subjective opinions are (I once gifted a copy of my favourite book to a friend, in what I believed was a fairly inspired move - she never could make it past the first chapter), it was fairly easy for a low star rating, or even a well-written negative review, to put me off even trying a book.

I did try to stop using Goodreads a few times over the years, because I was uncomfortable with the way it seemed to be taking over my reading behaviour. I'll put my hands up and say this is probably more a me problem than a Goodreads problem, as there are echoes of it in my previous obsessions with blogging and with Instagram (apparently I really, really like documenting myself for an audience). I noticed that I was sometimes choosing my books to make sure I seemed well-read on a certain topic, in case someone (who?!) checked my Goodreads to make sure I was qualified to hold an opinion. (In fairness, when I was a goth blogger, someone did once trawl and screenshot my last.fm to prove that my music taste wasn't goth enough. Too much Black Eyed Peas and not enough Bauhaus. It's a fair cop, guv.)

Even without the reading challenges, even without marking my 'current reads' to avoid a numbered total at the end of the year, I was still racing through books. Partly to defeat my TBR pile, which shrinks and grows and shrinks again but never completely goes away - which I want it to do for a little while so I can re-read some older books, slowly and in a leisurely manner, without guiltily side-eyeing the teetering stack at the side of the bed - but also partly to hit that arbitrary and subjective star rating (which for me ranged from 1 - hated it through to 5 - loved it beyond measure). 

The biggest factor for me in the end, though, was feeling as though someone was reading over my shoulder all the time. Although my friends on Goodreads were predominantly my real-life friends, I imagined that the sceptics were rolling their eyes at yet another spirituality book; the cool punk people laughing behind their hands if I picked up a Jenny Colgan. The star rating began to feel like an author popularity contest and I worried about hurting someone's feelings. The irony is that when I tried to take breaks from Goodreads, one of the things that kept pulling me back was if I read something that I knew one of my friends on the app would enjoy!

Deleting my account took all of three taps. Goodreads is built into my tablet, so I'd found it pretty impossible to just not go on there (which is how I ended up back on the app after that six-month break). Amazon punished me for those three taps by immediately deregistering my tablet, losing all my bookmarks, which was unhelpful but didn't diminish how liberated I suddenly felt. Interestingly, the TBR pile suddenly lost its grip on me. 

I think this was the right decision for me, possibly one I should have made a long time ago, but postponed because I didn't want to lose the big list of books I'd read. Will I forget some books? Almost definitely. Will it matter? Almost certainly not. And now I feel like I can do what I should have been doing all along - reading whatever I want.

Style vs. the World

Often, when I am thinking about clothing and style, I am thinking about me. What will my style be. What do I like. What will I wear. What will I buy.

Occasionally I am jolted out of this me-centric microcosm and I catch a glimpse of the macrocosm. I am reminded, again, that none of my choices exist alone, that I belong to the Earth, that 'what I do to the web, I do to myself' (to paraphrase Chief Si'ahl). The True Cost was a memorable incidence of this (and I still recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who wears clothes). More recently, I read Consumed by Aja Barber, and it was another much-needed reality check. 

It's not that I don't believe that we as individuals deserve nice clothes and great style. It's just that it's easy to get fixated on the nice, glossy, surface aspects of the fashion industry, and big business in general, and then we can kind of ignore the difficult truths that our purchases are often doing harm in the world, and that climate change is fairly likely to pull the rug out from under our comfortable existences in the next ten years or so.

Let's tackle the first aspect of this first. Consumed was not a comforting read for me as a white person. I knew that the fashion industry of the global North was both exploitative and extractive, but I'd never understood it in terms of colonialism before. It strongly reinforced, for me, that there is nothing whatsoever good about the fast fashion business model, and we need to stop supporting it and pumping our hard-earned money into it, stat.

There were sections of the book that kept me up at night. I'm not sure how exactly to describe what I was feeling, but I think the best term is horror. 

"The settlement of Old Fadama is where a lot of the unsold clothing from Accra ends up; it's home to 80,000 people and is built on top of dumped clothing. These people are becoming physically displaced by the clothing that is disenfranchising their way of life."

I just... I'm still processing that. People are living on top of our unwanted clothing. Accra, in Ghana, is home to Kantamanto Market, the biggest second-hand market in the world. Up to 90% of donations made to charity shops in the UK will eventually end up there, because there is so much. Even in Kantamanto much of this waste remains unsold. But the landfills are struggling to cope, so there is waste clothing in piles on street corners, on the beaches, in the sea... If you want to know what that looks like, click over here.

I am mortified that this is what we, collectively, as a society, have been doing to other people. 

Now, thinking about climate change. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I find it quite difficult to reconcile the way we are currently living with the devastation that - worst case scenario - could be occurring in the next ten years if we don't radically alter our trajectory. I am aware that the first and worst hit by climate change will be the already-marginalised peoples of the South (where climate change is already happening, lest anyone still think this is a future possibility - no, climate crisis, climate deaths and climate refugees are a reality that is happening right now), but I'm going to couch this mainly in UK terms, as I'm writing this mainly thinking about people who are privileged like myself, looking at this mess from the same position as me, but also, like many of us, not actually looking at it, because it's complicated and scary. People who, like me, say, "Ah yes, climate change, very terrible, much sad," and then turn right back to our phones and feeds and carry on shopping.

I think I've gone over a lot of these points before, so I'll just recap some of the highlights, as I notice that a lot of my friends in the UK are still thinking of climate change as something that will affect, say, the Amazon rainforest, or a handful of ice caps - and yes, yes it will affect those things, and that would be tragedy enough in itself, but also the UK will be facing:

- Increasing flood risk

- Crop failure and failing fisheries (that's food shortages)

- Climate refugees and potential conflict (when those low-lying coastal regions are under water, people will be in competition for the remaining land and food)

- Increased risk of pandemics

- Increased risk of fires

- More storms and extreme heat

- London mostly underwater by 2050

All of those at once sounds fairly apocalyptic to me, and makes it very difficult to plan for retirement or my child's future. I'm doing my best, but when the signs point to 'business as usual spells environmental devastation' but everyone in charge is doing a good impression of an ostrich, I'm also looking quite seriously at moving to higher ground and learning how to function off-grid. Did everyone else start talking about who would be on their zombie apocalypse team when The Walking Dead came out? Time to start dusting off those survival plans, IMO. Build your communities now. Unless you trust Boris and the gang to save us all. (My husband is a mechanical engineer; my skills include spinning, weaving, archery, foraging and some basic herbal medicine. It's a start.)

So, while in the short term I'm thinking about accessories and trips to Glastonbury, the long term future is uncertain and hard to look at directly. Is anyone else experiencing this disconnect? 

A book I have found useful is Climate Cure: Heal Yourself to Heal the Planet by Jack Adam Weber, who is himself a climate refugee, having evacuated from wildfires in California and then lost everything to volcanic eruption in Hawai'i. Weber directly addresses the weird limbo we are currently in: "I've also let go of the expectation of living indefinitely in a comfortable and standard home, with money in the bank. We are all now more nomadic and vulnerable than we realise or might prefer. We cannot know when we will be stripped of all for which we've worked so hard."

Despite the title, which for me conjures visions of white light and sending positive thoughts, Climate Cure focuses on tackling eco-anxiety, engaging with climate breakdown and building resiliency, both on an individual and community level. Weber says, "Outer solutions remain only as effective as our passionate care to radically minimalise our personal lives so we 1) consume less, 2) free up time and energy to engage in regenerative acts, such as growing our own organic food and showing up to help one another, 3) demand top-down change from our governments, and 4) learn about climate crisis to support ourselves and others through it."

Books like Consumed and Climate Cure really help me keep things in perspective. It's not about how many pairs of shoes I have or what brands I buy. It's about de-growth; it's about what I can do if I'm not busy consuming, it's about doing my best in my lifetime to mitigate the damage that has been done. It's about learning new ways of living that are more viable within the parameters of our planet.

Beauty Care for Wild Women

A change I made around the beginning of this year was that I started carving out a little more time to take care of myself. Beauty and I have had a fairly chequered history - I've swung from surface glamour - elaborate hair and make-up routines, but at bedtime taking a halfhearted swipe at my eyeliner with a bit of damp loo roll and sleeping with my foundation on - to letting nature take its course in the - apparently mistaken - belief that if I followed the same skincare routine as my other half, my skin might end up as clear as his.

Paradoxically, I am quite self-absorbed yet pretty bad at the basics of looking after myself, which is why I have plantar fasciitis (bad shoes) and sensitive teeth (turns out you shouldn't drink multiple cartons of juice a day for several years if you don't want to tear up every time you eat something with sugar in it). I have been a person who buys new outfits on a daily basis, but once left a bout of tonsilitis untreated for so long that it spread to my stomach glands. I was basically unable to eat from the pain and felt so run down and ill that I fell asleep in public places on my lunch break, but I assumed it was some weird new psychosomatic manifestation of my eating disorder and didn't bother to see a doctor for a rather long time. I honestly didn't know that tonsilitis of the stomach was a thing that could happen.

I was surprised to find that I had a bit of resistance to reinstating any kind of grooming routine beyond soap, water, lip balm and a dab of botanical perfume. I felt as if I were, in some way, betraying my 'natural self'. Is my muslin face cloth a tool of the patriarchy? I still don't really have a clear answer on that one. I suspect it's somewhat akin to 'shopping ethically' under capitalism, and we can all only do our best.

Anyway, much like rebuilding my wardrobe after giving birth, I decided I wanted to feel good in my body again, and as well as doing my yoga and going for walks, for me this meant I had to give it a little TLC. I kind of feel like I shouldn't have to - surely my body will look after itself best if I just leave it alone? - but after a week of dry body brushing in the morning and applying lotion in the evening, my skin was so improbably soft that I had to concede that perhaps I could do with a little bit of looking after, after all.

I remind myself that women throughout history have cared for their skin and hair using nature's bounty - which, yes, has included lead and nightingale poo at various times, but given that many beauty products currently contain the likes of petrol, carcinogens and formaldehyde, perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to judge - and what I am doing is therefore no different. I make my own products where I can, but when the ingredients cost as much as ready-made products, I buy carefully chosen natural products from a small handful of retailers. 

Recently, I had a fitting for my wedding dress, and under the bright lighting I winced to see how unkempt I was next to my (admittedly exceptionally beautiful) bridesmaid, who is always very well-groomed. We got to talking about wedding make-up - when we first planned the wedding, a make-up artist and professional photographer were booked, but having rearranged four times due to COVID, they were no longer available (or affordable). I didn't mind doing my own make-up, but in that moment it dawned on me that my two-years-out-of-date Lush slapstick probably wasn't going to cut it. 

When I started looking into what was available, I learned that since I started my shopping ban, the world of beauty had kind of moved on without me. I didn't actually know that primer was a thing. At first I panicked, and begged my gorgeous bridesmaid Bel to take me make-up shopping, envisaging a sprawling department store where some glossy professional could teach me how the hell one fills in their brows without looking as though they have a couple of weevils crawling across their forehead. (That said, the last department store makeover I had, circa 2016, was appalling - I had to sneak into work to wash off the Batman-villain eyebrows whilst my glamorous co-worker laughed herself hoarse.)

The night after the fitting, I decided I wasn't ready to compromise my 'crunchy' standards (side note: I recently learned the term 'granola girl', and although I'm not really the right age group for TikTok trends, please know that this is me. Granola mumma?). I went online and ordered some samples from zero waste, organic, natural and vegan make-up brands - all through Peace with the Wild, link below - and yes, I found a primer. The foundation, concealer and powder all had four ingredients - all of which I could recognise and pronounce. I felt better knowing I could look my best for my handfasting without compromising on ethics, or putting toxic goop on my face.

I do love to try new products, but I'm extremely cautious and generally don't put anything on my body that I wouldn't eat (the exception is nail varnish - I haven't bought any new since the end of 2020, but I have a few bottles that I have been given by friends). I also don't hoard products and only buy new to replace what has been used up. Dai has more bathroom products than I do.

What I am trying not to do is focus on concealment, improvement or perfection, but instead think about nourishment and care. 

For the curious, I shop from:

Peace With The Wild

Lush (although I'm choosy about which products; some contain talc or parabens which I prefer not to use)

The Really Wild Soap Company

Bain + Savon

I also use flower essences to gently help me stay in balance, my essentials are both from Saskia's Flower Essences - I use Breathe Deep, Seek Peace and My Personal Space.

For further reading, I highly recommend:

Wild Beauty by Jana Blankenship

No More Dirty Looks by Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt

Freedom Face: A Beauty Guide Free From Toxic Ingredients, Expensive Gloop and Self-Hating Bullshit by Lucy AitkenRead

(I did not realise until typing this list how many of these names and titles contain the word 'wild'!)

Rewilding in 2022: A Progress Report

So, we're now around a third of the way through the year. This feels like a good time for me to lay my cards on the table and talk about how things are going. Buckle up, this is going to be a long post.

The reason I started this blog in the first place was to stay accountable during my year-long shopping ban. As I'm sure you know by now, despite multiple attempts this was not a challenge I have yet been able to complete - however, one incremental lesson at a time I was able to get a better grip on my finances and reorient myself in the world, rebuilding a life that didn't revolve entirely around shopping.

In the process I somehow ended up writing a book, discovering the practice and philosophy of Druidry, making efforts to live a more sustainable life, and reconnecting both with myself and the natural world. So it wasn't exactly a wasted effort.

This year, I decided not to try to force myself through another twelve months of trying not to shop at all. I'd tried three years in a row, and it just wasn't working, despite the positive changes I had made. Each time I seemed to stick with it long enough to begin to see a difference, and then something would come along that was just so special I had to have it. And after that first purchase, it becomes much harder to stop yourself from the next, and the next.

And the thing was, as I've said many times, now that I wasn't panic-buying and binge-shopping all over the place (that stereotypical image of Woman In Mall With Fifteen Shopping Bags And A Skinny Latte really did used to be me), I was choosing better. Not perfectly, not every time, there were still things that didn't look right when I got them home, nail varnishes I never wore and gave to friends, the occasional regret - but overall, I did manage to develop a smallish but functional wardrobe of things I love. So, not completing a shopping ban turned out not to be the worst thing in the world.

Rewilding

This year I decided instead to put my focus more on what I wanted my overall life to look like, guided by the single word: rewilding. 

One of my last purchases of 2021 was an almanac, the Way Back Almanac by Melinda Salisbury. I purchased it without seeing a sample or any inside pages, based purely on the blurb. And on New Year's Eve, I sat up in bed and read the January chapter while fireworks blossomed across the sky outside. 

 "You'll notice all the things we're supposed to acquire and become all fit a narrow and artificial, wealthy, white and western bandwidth of what 'good' lives should look like. And they don't factor in the natural world at all. [...] I'm giving you permission not to succumb to media and brand demands to change yourself. These dark days are ideal for nurturing and soothing, for resting and recuperating. However, we're not entering total hibernation. We need to remind ourselves there's life behind walls and computers. We must begin rewilding ourselves."

I think the hair stood up on the back of my neck when I read that. It was just so precisely what I needed to read. I wanted to climb into my almanac, with its recipes for soup and natural cosmetics and gentle, earth-loving, wholesome advice, wrap myself up in its pages and live there. I immediately ordered the first of Salisbury's #WayBackBookClub books.

Very early in the year I felt myself flailing around a lot, bouncing from one social media app to another, neglecting my sit spot, forgetting about watching the sunset. But unusually for me, I wasn't shopping, or even browsing very much. I kept getting the old twinges of comparison if I spent too long online, but as soon as I closed the apps I seemed to come back to myself.

Oddly, I kept having this recurring image floating to the surface of my mind in quiet moments - just myself, meditating. But this image gave me such a strong sense of peacefulness and calm - a rootedness in my being. It felt like an invitation, a starting point. It kept drawing me back, over and over, to the concept of simplicity, of letting go of all the frantic nonsense of the overculture. It grounded me in the conviction that actually, not banning myself from shopping seemed to be the right approach at this time.

When my garden started to come alive again in spring, I approached it differently. Instead of immediately eradicating my weeds, I tried to learn about what was there. Dog's mercury is poisonous, so had to go, but possibly indicated that an established woodland may once have existed where my house now stands. I gathered cleavers - which like me you may know best as 'stickyweed' - and chopped it into my scrambled eggs for breakfast - eating my weeds made me feel like a bit of a badass, not going to lie. I've read (in Rewilding the Urban Soul) that wild foods are more nutrient-dense than cultivated foods, so I possibly gave my health a boost too.

However, this was the bright spot - over the winter I realised I had become almost completely disconnected from nature. Since the Spud started nursery and we moved away from the nature reserve we had less time for our walks, and for a while I had a bunch of mega stressful life stuff going on (at one point a section of my hair turned grey overnight, which I thought was just a TV trope). The weather was cold and horrible, and our new house lost so much heat through its ancient windows that I was loath to go out and get chilly knowing I'd struggle to get warm again. Our daily walks dwindled to a once-a-week adventure, but then after the Spud came down with one bug after another from nursery, these too faded away, and by March I felt less 'wild' than I had to begin with.

Shopping

So what you may now be wondering is, how's my shopping actually doing without those self-imposed limits and restrictions?

Well, it's been a mixed bag. At the beginning of January, I felt so uninterested in shopping that I thought I might fly through the year without buying a thing, that perhaps all these shopping bans had been a case of barking up the wrong tree. In mid-January, however, digging up old photos from my goth years reminded me that I used to have a lot more fun with style, and I felt some regret that in many cases I'd replaced beautiful items with prosaic ones. Acknowledging that I need my clothes to be somewhat practical, I started keeping an eye open for a few more items that were really stunning. However, I knew I had a trip to Glastonbury booked in April, so I didn't throw myself headlong into online shopping. Happily, I've stopped craving a quick fix to any perceived wardrobe dilemma - I'm more able to proceed slowly and build on what I already have rather than purging half my stuff and panic-buying a ton more every time I have a change of heart.

I've observed before that my urges to buy are often synced with certain times of the month; I noticed this time around that the moon also plays a part. At full moon I am more likely to feel dissatisfied with my appearance, and have a sense of restlessness which can lead quite easily to acquisition. Now that I'm not trying to eliminate purchases altogether I'm not demonizing these tendencies, but it's useful to have an understanding of when I might find it hardest to stick within my budget.

In February, one of my dear friends was taken shopping to celebrate a milestone birthday, and I was caught off guard by the nostalgia - and, I'll say it, envy - this provoked in me, remembering teenage trips to the mall, giggling in the changing rooms, the glory that was the sheer variety and affordability of cheap brands. I really wanted a 'proper' shopping trip, and I lamented to Dai that I kind of wished I could go back to a time when I didn't really know about the scale of the damage that fast fashion is doing. When it was just a pleasure. 

After a few days of feeling really deprived, isolated from my friends (I know there's some sexism behind the suggestion that shopping is a women's pastime and that's a whole can of worms I haven't really even peeked into yet, but in my circle there are only one or two others who are cutting down on their consumption for environmental or ethical reasons and it's definitely considered a bit niche and eccentric), and demotivated (I hadn't really considered that it takes energy to keep setting yourself apart from what everyone around you and society-at-large considers 'normal'), I compromised. I took a trip to TK Maxx, which I had previously considered off-limits. 

Since reading Consumed by Aja Barber I learned that discount stores, while not ideal and, in an ideal world, unnecessary, perform a sensible function in that they sell end-of-the-line items that would otherwise be destined for landfill. I tried on anything and everything that caught my eye. I really made a day of it. I exhausted myself and had to stop for a protein bar. And I bought two items - a summer dress (I only owned one other at this point) and a smart top made from recycled polyester. Perfectly anticonsumerist? Definitely not. An improvement over years previous? I think so.

I noticed that Instagram use definitely corresponds with increased shopping, or at least an increased desire to shop, which is a bit unfortunate. Perhaps I'll have to give serious consideration to putting my account back into hibernation, as by April I was kind of hammering through the clothing and cosmetics budgets I'd laid out for myself this year, although it's not critical yet.

Inspirational reads this season:

The Way Back Almanac 2022 by Melinda Salisbury

Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

The Wheel: A Witch's Path Back To the Ancient Self by Jennifer Lane

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology by Mark Boyle

Consumed by Aja Barber

The Guide to Eco-Anxiety by Anouchka Grose

Afloat by Danie Couchman 

Change, Not Sacrifice

In late December, since my finances were going to hell in a handbasket for reasons largely beyond my control, I decided to stop tracking my daily spends for a while, as it seemed like beating myself up more than anything. Although I'd conceived of this as a temporary break whilst I waited for life to get back on an even keel, I found it quite difficult to get on board with, as though not writing down my purchases would trigger some kind of enormous supermarket sweep that I wouldn't be able to stop. It seemed like giving up.

And in many ways, I think I was giving something up. It had become an almost subconscious belief that if I could just sacrifice enough, my individual actions would counterbalance fossil fuels, banks, governments, the entire underpinnings of capitalist society. As if one person's abstinence from air-freighted asparagus might tip the system.

It isn't that I don't believe individual actions are necessary or valuable. Quite the opposite! I believe that we each need to do what we can in our own lives and in our communities to build resilience, protect and repair our ecosystems, vote with our wallets, and otherwise gently but firmly wrest power from the corporations that hold it. 

However, my family, friends and peace of mind were telling me that since I can't singlehandedly perform miracles, I had to stop looking for the amount of personal inconvenience that would magically fix the climate. I have this kind of romantic ideal of the person I'll be when one day I don't want to shop any more and can afford an organic veg box again, when I live in a fictional idealised community that has a food co-op and a tool library and I can get everywhere I need to go by foot or bike.

The thing is, that's not where I live now, nor is it the life I'm living. Nor does making myself feel guilty about every choice, purchase or action get me there any faster.

I don't really accept the prioritising of personal luxuries over global issues. I'm not going to be cranking the heating up in January so I don't have to wear a jumper or sit with a blanket. It's still my intention to reduce my meat and dairy consumption and try to avoid air-freighted foods. But I do want to feel generally happy and comfortable, so I did finally fill a Thrift+ bag with the clothes I don't wear (or that I force myself to wear) and sent it off. I also finally decided that I'm not doing a shopping ban this year, although my intention is still to reduce my overall spend, especially on clothing, and choose wisely. The way I describe this change in the privacy of my own head is, "I want to dress in a way that makes my heart happy," and I'm working towards that.

I'm also trying to accept that at the moment I am skint, and so I can't always afford - for example - the Ecover washing up liquid instead of the supermarket basic. (I hate knowing it's damaging to aquatic life every time I do the dishes, but I also need to eat. Instead of blaming individuals, I'm learning to blame a) the companies who make these things, and b) the system that makes it more expensive to not harm the planet and imagines that trickledown economics is a viable way to sustain a fair and just society.)

One change I will be making is a move away from Amazon. I know, ironic for an author whose book will be sold there, but I don't like their approach to either resources or people, and I feel there are better places to put my money than in the pockets of billionaires. Honestly, it's something I've been thinking about but putting off for ages now, because the selection is so vast and the prices are so cheap. One of my survey sites pays in Amazon vouchers, which I used as a shopping ban loophole for a time. When they temporarily changed their vouchers, I found myself having to admit that I didn't want to spend actual money on some of the things on my wishlist. Because things were so cheap and plentiful, I was beginning to make poor choices.

Equally, in the same way I don't buy clothes from fast fashion retailers any more, so too do I want to move away from the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' mentality with regards to books. There's still the library, book swaps, charity shops and - for a real treat, as it was when I was growing up - independent book sellers.

Buying an item of clothing has become a more special occasion for me now that I do it less often, and usually in person, from a small retailer, often combined with a visit to an interesting place or event. I'd like to see this same shift with regards to buying other things. It feels like an improvement to my life rather than a sacrifice.

A complete Amazon boycott would be difficult - an awful lot of sites are hosted through their web services, for example. But I can move my custom to other booksellers, at least. 

So my plan at the moment is to change and improve the way I shop and what I spend money on, rather than to stop shopping entirely. Is this a step backwards or forwards? I guess I won't know until I try.

First Steps on the Path to Rewilding

Once I allowed that hopeful word 'rewilding' to take up space in my head, I had to start thinking about what, exactly, that was going to entail for me. A quick brainstorm threw up ideas like:

- being aware of the moon's phases

- having a 'sit spot' 

- writing poetry

- making something with my hands

- foraging

- permaculture

- going barefoot

It also meshed well with some of my other positive habits, like celebrating the seasons, decorating my altar with nature finds, going for daily walks, reading and journalling, as well as those habits that are always the first to go when my mental health takes a hit and my phone use goes up, like doing yoga, meditating, practicing my pennywhistle, and cooking from scratch.

It fit with the positive habits I wanted to create too, like eating locally and seasonally, getting more sleep, and shopping considerably less - and shopping second-hand or small when I do shop. It also kind of answered a conundrum that had arisen for me whilst I was trying to tackle my shopping habit - what do I do with my time, headspace and energy if I'm not constantly spending money on my image? Creativity, magic, activism - a triple-pronged answer that to me felt just the right kind of wild.

In short, the more I thought about it, the more rewilding myself seemed like the logical next step on my mission to re-enchant my life.

The first steps onto this path then became really obvious. I had to make space in my life to begin making these changes, and that meant my technology use had to get under control. Since reinstating my social media accounts to help promote my book, I'd gone from an average of twenty minutes a day phone usage to an average of three hours. It was a bit of a shock to me how little control I seemed to have over it and how quickly the hooks of addiction got under my skin. 

This time around I couldn't take the easy step of deleting my social media apps. Firstly, I didn't think my publisher would be hugely impressed, and secondly, I have a new (to me) phone which has the apps built in. I tried disabling the apps, but once I figured out I could re-enable them in about four seconds, it quickly became a pointless exercise. I started re-reading How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price, with the aim in mind of learning moderation. I wanted to be able to make a post every few days, respond to a few comments, emails or messages at a time, and then - crucially - put the phone down and get on with my life. It's eternally frustrating to me that I find this so difficult! I'll let you know how progress goes on this.

Next, I wanted to double down on my outdoor time. Whilst reading Rewilding the Urban Soul by Claire Dunn back in late summer, I'd gotten into the habit of taking my first hot drink of the day outside to the garden, and sitting on the patio to watch the wildlife in the trees and the clouds roving across the sky. Kind of a very domesticated version of a sit spot. And I noticed that it seemed to lift the mood of the whole day - not just for me but for the Spud too, who would charge around with his toy trucks in wellies and dressing gown. One morning he spotted a squirrel and was thrilled with his discovery for hours.

So as well as my daily walk, I wanted to take up this practice again. I'd been driven indoors by bad weather, but just as with walking, when I made the effort to wrap up warm and get out there it was always worth it.

In similar vein, my third resolution was to restart my practice of watching the sunset every day. This was something I'd stopped doing after we moved, simply because there was no longer a window conveniently facing in the right direction. But it wasn't exactly a hardship to take the time to sit on the doorstep for a little while. I was surprised by how much I missed those few daily moments of beauty. And surprised that I'd just let the practice slip.

Three things seems like enough to aim for, for now, although I do have some more ideas once I've managed to incorporate these habits successfully. Wish me luck!

Shopper's Guilt

We all know about buyer's remorse, but I'd like to coin a new term: shopper's guilt. This is something I have noticed I now feel when buying, well, anything, from a new item of clothing - even when necessary - to a hot chocolate on a cold day. I think it stems from having tried for so long not to buy anything at all. I love to see whole weeks of no-spend days on the page in my journal where I write down my daily spends, and sometimes it's hard to remember that groceries, birthday gifts for other people's kids, and even - deep breath here - the occasional treat, are not failures.

The thing is, I've read about so many people who successfully completed a year-long shopping ban that I just assumed it was something I would be able to do with enough willpower. I didn't really take into consideration other factors at play in my life, such as the struggle I'd had to put a wardrobe together post-baby. As long-term readers will know, due to a number of factors such as lack of self-esteem and not much sense of personal identity, my wardrobe for the last couple of years has largely been made up of items gifted by friends and family during their own clearouts, which helped to tide me over when I didn't have money to spend to buy new items for my changed body and really needed a break from online shopping.

But now, three years after the Spud's birth, I am finally starting to get comfortable with who I am, what my shape is and what I like, and I'm able to make good choices about what to buy and when. But I felt so guilty about wanting to do so, when I already had things I could wear.

Then recently I read Real Life Money by Claire Seal. Actually I put off reading it for ages after checking out the sample, because I was super invested in trying to be as anticonsumerist as possible at all costs, and sentences like "it's not about bullying yourself into frenzied frugality and then beating yourself up when, inevitably, you need to buy a new toothbrush on a 'no spend day'," gave me the Fear. I'd learned to think in very simple terms regarding money - spending = bad. I was sceptical - and nervous - about the suggestion that there might be other ways to tackle my shopping habit other than the extreme frugality method.

But after feeling terrible for buying myself a new jacket - even though I'd already identified that I needed one, and had had it on my wishlist for nearly a year - I decided I'd better give it a go. I've gotten way better with money since starting this blog - I actually have savings now - but I was tired of the guilt. I'd spent years feeling small because I shopped too much - now I felt bad if I shopped at all, which didn't really feel like an improvement.

After reading Real Life Money - or rather, devouring it in two days - I bought two items from a local business run by some friends of mine - a pair of rainbow dungarees with a celestial print, which were discounted, and a deck of Tarot cards I'd been looking at on Amazon for about eight months. 

Immediately I felt awful and texted Dai, telling him I needed him to hide my debit card, as I "was suffering a lack of self-control". Then I stopped and thought about it. Did I want to return the items? Well, honestly, no. The dungarees fit beautifully, went with a lot of my favourite items, and were gorgeous. I was pleased that I'd been able to find something so me in a local shop. The Tarot deck was bright and colourful, and had a very different vibe to my other deck, which is more dark and earthy. I do try not to collect decks, as I don't see the need, and I'm sceptical of collecting things just for the sake of it (everything takes resources, after all) but having two beautiful sets for different moods and different readings didn't seem like the end of the world.

I texted Dai again. "Actually, belay that. I've spent within my means and I don't regret what I've bought. It's not a self-control issue I'm having, it's a guilt issue."

Learning to shop mindfully scares me a bit, because historically I find moderation harder than an all-or-nothing approach. Last winter I tried to take a break from my endless shopping bans and immediately bought far too much. I'm the sort of person who finds it hard to eat just a couple of cookies. But, is all-or-nothing healthy, or have I been shooting myself in the foot trying to go from full-throttle shopaholism to a dead stop? Have I been subconsciously telling myself that I don't deserve nice things, or that I am bad, wrong or brainwashed for wanting those things in the first place?

Real Life Money was a really useful read for me, not just because of the similarities between Claire's shopping issues and mine - she discusses how new motherhood, body image and social media can all be factors at play, which I have definitely experienced. But I teared up reading things like this: "The appeal of stripping out every extra cost from your budget can be hard to resist, especially if you’re angry with yourself. But punitive budgeting just doesn’t work in the long run, because you grow resentful and bitter as you start to feel more and more deprived. If we take things right back to our goal of happiness, security and mental wellbeing, months and possibly years on end of putting your life on hold for the sake of improving your finances doesn’t really make sense. After all, to put a slightly morbid spin on the matter, you could finish off paying your debt or reach your savings goal, and promptly get hit by a bus. That’s not to say that it’s not healthy or necessary to make a few sacrifices – after all, if we carry on doing the exact same things, we can only expect the exact same outcome – but making sure we keep our emotional wellbeing front of mind is important."

A note: I regularly add new books to my Recommended Reading list (which lives in my sidebar for easy reference), and this month I decided to add an extra section specifically for books that I would definitely have included in the bibliography of The Anti-consumerist Druid, had I read them before submitting the manuscript. So if you're hunting for something new to read, you'll find all my favourites in that post.

The Commodification of Enchantment

I recently read Making Magic by Briana Saussy, and one quote that really leaped out at me was about outsourcing our imaginations to the TV, books and movies. The reason this hit home so hard was because I absolutely do this. I've always been a bookworm, but nowadays if I have free time I will usually escape into a book rather than do anything else (ah, that'd be why my mending pile never gets any smaller).

Not that reading alone has atrophied my daydreaming muscles! I strongly suspect that social media and the ever-present temptations of the internet have their part to play. But there is a definite and noticeable difference - for a decade or so now I have been finding it a struggle to write fiction, and I can't visualise as clearly or as easily as I used to, both of which are slightly unhelpful for a writer and a practising Pagan. 

I remember a few years ago when I committed to following the weekly exercises in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, I baulked at the idea of a week without reading or other media input. Yet when I gritted my teeth and did it, I found it did me good (much like not shopping). I did consider doing the same thing again a while ago, but decided I couldn't go without my Kindle at the time as it was keeping me sane during the Spud's nighttime feeds. Perhaps soon. (Though, I'm also still restricting my shopping/spending and also changing my eating habits to help with an ongoing condition... Perhaps trying to cut back on everything at once is a terrible idea? But I digress.)

Unfortunately, it's not just my imagination that I've been outsourcing. When I was in the middle of my intended shopping ban and living near the nature reserve, I really felt connected to nature and thus to my spirituality. Since moving to town, I've noticed it's become more common for me, when I want to 'feel spiritual', to pop to the shops for a copy of Kindred Spirit, or drop into my local esoteric store - which opened a few months ago, just around the corner from my house. And I must admit it is an excellent store run by lovely people, but it certainly doesn't help with this whole non-shopping gig I seem to have been trying and failing at for forever.

I don't want my spirituality to be a thing that I buy. I'm very aware that I have a huge (H U G E) reading stack of books on all kinds of appropriately mystical knowledge, but neither the mental focus or the mental and physical space to put much of this knowledge into action. I'm at risk of becoming an armchair occultist.

The only saving grace here is that at least I've spotted the behaviours. I've been finding it extremely hard to recommit to a long-term shopping ban plan (say that one ten times fast). There always seems to be some exciting trip or event on the horizon where I might just see something I can't live without. Usually it's clothes I want to keep on buying, but at the moment I'm actually at peace with my wardrobe (since I started making more effort to dress the way I really want). Books are currently my biggest weakness - my TBR pile is getting out of control again, and I need to slow down and stop obsessively seeking novelty so that I can better enjoy what I already have!

I also need to go back to getting my hands muddy. Since the weather turned colder it's been easy to abandon my morning sit on the patio, in fact having much time in the garden at all, and our daily walks seem to have redirected from the riverside to the high street... For someone who bangs on about nature-based spirituality, I have developed an embarrassingly indoorsy streak. Well, enough of that. Back to poking around fox paths and wandering in the moonlight, because even if wild nature was a thing that could be bottled and sold, some things should never be commodified.

A Mystical Year?

Like so many of my posts, this one is inspired by a book I read recently, The Year of Mystical Thinking by Emma Howarth. Apparently I just love it when people set themselves year-long challenges. Emma Howarth found a pack of Tarot cards she had used and loved when she was younger, which inspired her to spend a year exploring the realms of mysticism and magic to find ways to bring more joy and enchantment to everyday life. As you have probably guessed, I am very much here for this idea and was extremely tempted to have a go at the same thing myself. Although I'd probably set myself different challenges, as Reiki and astrology don't particularly speak to me, and my disposable income is a bit too limited to book too many crystal readings and sound baths.

But, a more mystical year sounds like a wonderful idea to me. I started thinking about different things I could incorporate - I already celebrate the Wheel of the Year, but I would like to go to more rituals (both in person and online). (Side note: we did try to attend a gorsedd for Samhain, which would have been my first public ritual, but we got held up in traffic, couldn't find a parking space, and then couldn't find the right group amongst all the covens and groves who had flocked to the same stone circle. For the winter solstice, we are planning to leave earlier!) I'd like to spruce up my altar, which is currently a very informal affair situated on the windowsill behind the kitchen sink, as that was the only safe place for it to be during moving chaos and with an inquisitive three-year-old, but it keeps getting splashed with water and I can't decorate it with paintings, photos or fabric. 

A huge factor for me would be trying to be more aware of nature - since we moved I'm still finding it hard to rekindle that connection, and generally don't know the moon phase unless I look it up on my phone (#paganfail). Oh, and that yoga and meditation practise seems to keep sliding down the priority list - don't know how that happens.

Now that I'm using Instagram again, it's quite important to me to make sure I stay rooted in the physical, offline world and not return to the days of doing everything for the 'gram - which is all right really, as my messy house, permanent exhaustion, and haphazard intuitive Paganism don't actually photograph that well. I still find it really easy to get sucked in to what other people are doing, so a challenge that refocuses me on my own stuff is also good. It's all about achieving that balance between being able to connect with people and be findable, but also being able to keep my mind clear, and I think I will only get there through trial and error unfortunately!

Of course, I'm very aware that I still have not completed the challenge of a year without shopping, and I'm slightly uneasy about how this might sit alongside a mystical year. I firmly believe that any kind of spiritual practise should not depend on buying products, but I'm also aware that local Pagan communities often communicate via their local supply stores, so when looking for open rituals, classes or courses it would be rather hard to rule out visiting such stores. Also, pretty things are tempting and nice, and I'm only human.

What I've been thinking about for the reincarnation of my shopping ban is running the year from Samhain to Samhain, as a way of connecting my Pagan practise with my desire for escaping consumerist living. And a vague hope that trying to flow with the seasons might make the process a little bit easier - for example, right now we are spiralling inwards towards the contemplative and restful period that is the dark half of the year, which to me does not feel like the right time for the bright, intensive stimulation of an online shopping frenzy. (So yes, I've already started another no-shop year, with little fanfare this time - but to be honest, there are currently some life circumstances that are not too great, and I wonder if perhaps it won't last that long as willpower is in short supply. On the other hand, so is money, so there's that...)

Just Eat It: Intuitive Eating and the Ghosts of Diets Past

I've been reading a book recently called Just Eat It: how intuitive eating can help you get your shit together around food, by Laura Thomas PhD. A few pages in, I wanted to recommend it to pretty much every woman I know. Occasionally by slapping them upside the head with it until they read it, though I'm told that's frowned upon.

I can't call this a book review, because a book review needs to be fairly analytic and I struggled to evaluate this book logically beyond AAAAARGH MY MIND IS BLOWN EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS. Let's call this a book discussion, instead, because boy, did some weird shit come up for me while I read this.

Firstly, I hadn't really realised that diet culture is insidious as fuck. Take a second look at the TV viewing you grew up with, after reading this book. Here's a snapshot from my developing years: Friends. Buffy. 90210. The OC. Ally McBeal. Farscape. Other than showing my age, I suddenly realised that according to these (admittedly enjoyable) shows, there's pretty much only one way to have a female body, unless you are an actual alien. Cast members from several of these shows admitted to suffering from eating disorders whilst filming. This was such a lightbulb moment for me - until fairly recently, the vast and incredible diversity of human bodies was literally nowhere in the media. (I'm also white, cis, straight-sized and able-bodied, so compared to a lot of folks I'm well-represented in mainstream media.) There is one single main body type held up as 'standard' or 'normal' for women - thus all other bodies are implied to be aberrational (see: the running joke in Friends about how Monica used to be fat).

This obviously struck several chords for me, as I had a bizarre, somewhat melancholy dream about being a crew member on the set of a TV show whose entire job consisted of lovingly framing the actresses' hipbones and making them look as thin as possible. Doy....

I also found myself remembering the ghosts of diets past with a weird nostalgic fondness. That buzz that comes from the hope that this time, the stars will align and you'll magically transform into the thin toned babe in the lycra booty shorts, swishing your hair on Miami Beach. Or something. The excitement, the anticipation of a new "wellness plan". That one diet book I followed (with the hideous subtitle of 'get skinnier than all your friends') where you consume nothing but black coffee till lunchtime, blow up balloons every day, and take an ice-cold bath every morning (I'm not kidding, I did this). 

The chapters on clean eating and concepts around 'processed' foods were fascinating to me as well. I almost... didn't want to accept the facts being presented to me. Part of me wanted to continue to believe that the right combination of chia seeds, spirulina, coconut water and kale would make me pure and clean and lovely and forever unhungry. How can so many Instagrammers be wrong?!

The reason I chose to buy this book at this time was that I have a bit of a pot belly going on at the moment. This was brought to my attention by several friends and family members getting excited about my 'good news' and asking when I was due.

At first I laughed this off - I'd spent a good portion of our holiday on a cider farm... maybe I was becoming one with the apples? - but after a while it started to get to me and I started considering a diet. I'm not really sure why. If diets worked, there wouldn't need to be a multibillion pound industry built around the concept. Also, been there, done that, hated it, would put the whole concept in a dustbin and set fire to it if I could. I own a t-shirt that says 'screw diet culture', for goodness' sake. But in a moment of self-consciousness and weakness, the urge was there.

Happily for me I bought this book instead.

Why does this relate to my blog about consumerism? Well. Sit ye down and I'll tell you a story about the hundreds and thousands of pounds I would not have spent if I hadn't believed for a decade and more that the way I naturally look is actually a problem. A problem that it is presented as being my duty, nay, my life's work to solve.

Times that amount of money by the number of women in my friendship group caught in the same trap. Times that amount of money by the number of people in the world caught in the same trap. How many years of your life have you spent fighting your own body? How many products have you bought to hide, flatter, disguise, slim, tone, lift, sculpt? How many uncomfortable garments have you tolerated because you believed in some dark recess of your mind that your body, not the badly made clothing, was the problem?

Diet culture is fucking poison. Don't swallow it.

I thought I knew my onions (sorry) about food and nutrition, but this book was a revelation. I've remembered how to listen to my body instead of the clock. I laugh in the face of food guilt. I take great pleasure in reminding myself 'nutrition is cumulative!' when that stupid little voice in the back of my head starts chuntering away about my food.

If you've ever felt guilty about eating a doughnut, seriously, read this book.