Tell us a little about yourself.

I am a single mum by choice and have 1 daughter Betsy and she is 11 months old. I had Betsy in my late forties with assistance from an IVF clinic in Sydney and in Greece. She is my only child and had I have started the journey into motherhood earlier, I would have had more children. I run my own business called A Balanced Life and provide conception coaching and counselling to adults.

What is a conception coach?

Conception coaching is an idea that I turned into a reality in the last 12 months. It wasn’t until after I had my baby that I started to think about adding a service to help others who are in assisted reproductive/fertility programs and decided to add conception coaching to my business. I had been in and out of these programs for 4 years and what I found was there were a lot of services out there for preconception care for the body, Such as naturopaths, acupuncturists, massage, herbalists to name a few, but no one was looking after the emotional and thinking processes for anyone in the programs.

Being in the assisted reproductive/fertility program such as IVF was a lonely process. I had stopped telling people I knew that I was undergoing treatments to have a baby. Most were too opinionated and judgemental, some tried to talk me out of it and most of all I didn’t want to keep reliving the grief and loss by telling people when a round of treatments had not been successful. I was lucky that I had a couple of friends who had been through the programs before me and they were supportive and understood how I was feeling.

My beliefs and values about being a woman, a mother, starting a family later in life, being single, being judged by everyone including my family and society at large was all being tested, turned upside down and inside out.

I had not been through an experience like this before and felt I needed a qualified therapist that could understand it all and had been through the same or similar experience as me who could help me to understand what was happening and how to make sense of it for me. When you are in these programs, you feel out of control most of the time as your life is dictated by blood tests, taking artificial hormones, having internal scans, begin prodded and poked every other day. I felt, and so did many others, that they had given over their bodies and lives to the process of IVF and normality of their lives had faded away.

I spoke to many women who I had met in previous years (from swim classes, to mothers groups, and acquaintances I had met along the way) that had also been in the various programs like I had. I asked many of them how they felt going through these programs and who they had to help them emotionally and psychologically along the way. I was surprised to learn we had the same or similar experience and some had seen counsellors and felt they were not helpful at all. Mostly because they couldn’t assist them in a way they needed. So I decided that as I was a degree trained counsellor and coach I would start offering conception coaching to help others navigate their way on their journey too. I came up the name of conception coaching myself, as I had not heard of it before. I then started to develop how I could take my own experience and help others that were also in these programs.

What do you enjoy about your work as a Life/Conception Coach and Counsellor?

I have always loved people’s stories and each story is unique and interesting. I really enjoy working with people and helping them get back to what is important to them, that being; work life balance, relationships and living congruently with their values and beliefs. My conception coaching is so full of hope for a future and bringing acceptance and balance back into the lives of the parents to be is such an honour to work with them on their journey.

What does healthy eating mean for you?

Healthy eating is paramount in my home. Having good quality produce that is organic and pasture fed meat and fish feeds my families body, mind and spirit. We need our body and brain function to work optimally in this busy world and when it is healthy it works much better for us.

What are 5 of your kitchen pantry essentials?

Organic Coconut oil

Organic olive oil

Organic Quinoa

Himalayan pink salt

Good quality nuts and seeds

What do you indulge in?

Good quality food

Beautiful hand made teas from Ovvio

Chocolate coated macadamias from Byron Bay Coffee Company

A nourishing face cream

What are some of the things you value most in life?

Family, health, loving supportive friends, living in a vibrant city, being free to live life to the fullest and grab any opportunity that is available to me.

What is your favourite quote?

I have 2 if I can share both with you.

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about & that was the beginning of fairies. J.M. Barrie

And

And the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin

Do you find time to nurture yourself? What does this involve?

I don’t have a lot of time these days with a small baby. I grab a few minutes each day to breathe deeply and quieten my mind with meditation. I love to cook and this helps to relax me. I take long baths and get a good night sleep most of the time.

What are your tips to staying happy and healthy?

I believe that good health encompasses, mind body and spirit. I can target all 3 with good healthy food as I am nourishing myself from the inside out. I go for walks each day with the baby and the dog. I laugh a lot and find a positive in all my challenges. I am grateful every day and don’t take myself too seriously.

What do you and Betsy like to do on the weekend?

We love to walk in Centennial Park and go to the duck pond and feed the ducks.

We play with her toys and our dog Maudie

Visit friends

Go for long walks

Would you like to share one of your favourite healthy recipes?

Slow cooked leg of lamb in a cast iron pot.

Ingredients, all organic

A leg of pasture fed lamb

Coconut oil

2 lemons cut in half

2 bay leaves

4 large ripe tomatoes, heirloom if possible, chop into small pieces. Or use 1 can of organic chopped or crushed tomatoes.

2 tablespoons of Ovvio Grecian Herb & Spice Blend

Home made stock

Handful of black olives

Salt and pepper

Method:

Brown off the lamb in the cast iron pot with a few tablespoons of coconut oil on the stove. Takes about 10 minutes.

Add tomatoes, lemons, bay leaves, and olives and cover the lamb about 2/3^rd with the stock.

Add salt and pepper to taste. I sometimes put in whole pepper and then take them out when serving.

Cover with the lid and put into the oven on 120 C for up to 6 hours. I have many times cooked it for 12 to 18 hours on 90 C. The liquid can be spooned over the meat every few hours. Sometimes I add in sweet potato to the mix too.

I serve with vegetables; either roasted or steamed and if you like to add quinoa, serve it on the side or under the lamb.

Email:  Vanessa@abalancedlife.net.au

Website: www.abalancedlife.net.au

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Balanced-Life/168993066499834

Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/pub/vanessa-roworth/1b/a26/999

Twitter: @balanced_life

Or let’s paraphrase Einstein and say that if you think you can live a truly healthy life on an unhealthy diet, then you’re bonkers!

What is a Ful Life?

A Ful Life is a healthy and abundant life where we can be joyful, purposeful, soulful, thankful and youthful in equal measures.

A healthy lifestyle is important because our bodies are designed in such a way as to accept nature’s nutrients and the various combinations of them. Our bodies crave natural foods in order to grow and evolve, and to ensure our immune system, brain and bodily functions can deliver us sustained health now and into our older years.

We are the sum of our experiences, and our health is certainly the sum of our health choices. We only have one life on this earth, so is it not best to nurture it from childhood to old age in order to remain strong, vibrant and robust? Now that’s a Ful Life worth talking about. A joyful one too!

My passion is in educating and assisting my fellow human beings to understand what foods generate energy, positivity and long-lived health in our bodies. At the same time, it is crucial to understand why health benefits accrue by choosing our foods wisely.

This is why I now offer my 40 Days to a Ful Life program. It is a “personalised program to guide you and your family, step by step, to making sustainable changes and improve your family’s health and wellbeing.”

What Benefits Can I Expect to See?

The program is specifically designed to assist you set your health and lifestyle goals, and then achieve them!

Establishing good health habits is always a sensible long term plan, but they aren’t always easy to accomplish on your own. The 40 Day Program guides you through this process and, along the way, helps you to understand the merits of such as exercise:

• Appreciate how food and health interact
• Understand the nature of cravings
• Optimise the family’s energy levels
• Feel good in your body as you maintain your natural weight
• Create balance in your life, emotions and relationships (oh yes, your health choices really do affect your moods and personality)

The Significance of 40 days

Making any type of significant change requires a purposeful commitment. The old rule of thumb is that it takes 21 days to form a habit. It is a number that caught on from a 1960’s book, but which has little real application, though it sounds catchy. University studies claim that it can be anywhere from 18 to 66 days for most people, but really, the individual and the habit explained most of the variation.

Rather than be “somewhere in the middle”, 40 days is associated with times of testing or trial, a time of rebirth and transformation in many religions and cultures. From fasting traditions to birthing rituals, it is a practice that has come down to us through the ages. The Yoga world also sees 40 days as how long it takes for a bad habit to change to a good one.

A healthy lifestyle is more than a habit. It is a way of life, and 40 days is a period that is long enough to ingrain good practices in a way that a mere 7 or 14 days cannot. Once you’ve invested a certain period of time in anything, it becomes far more difficult to throw your good work away.

And once you see the tangible benefits, you won’t want to.

Check out my “40 Days to a Ful Life” program here.

Right, off to get forty winks!

Bren x