BEAUTY ESSENTIALS – HOT PICK!

By Alison Graves

Autumn is the perfect time to stock up on nourishing, moisturising beauty goodies – and a great new lipstick or fragrance to make you feel good! I hope you enjoy this week’s selection, which includes lovely, creamy body washes by natural beauty specialists Weleda (celebrating their 90^th anniversary this year).

Weleda Wellbeing Advisor Dr Nina Watson shares her tips for practising minduflness whilst in the shower:

Listen to your body when choosing products: choosing products that meet your needs at that time can add to the sensory, nurturing experience. Whether you ease your mind and body with relaxing lavender, or revitalise yourself with Sicilian lemons, warm aches and pains with arnica, or detoxify with birch. Ask yourself “what do I need right now?”

Set your intention to be fully present just for the next few minutes in the shower: Say to yourself, “For the next few minutes there is nothing for me to do, nowhere for me to go, this is exactly where I need to be right now. Any thoughts that pop up about what I have to do, I will come back to later. Just for now, I will bring my attention to the expereince of being in the shower”.

Notice ALL of the sensations: Listen to the sound of the water, watch the droplets, smell the natural essential oils, feel the heat of the water. Tune into the physical sensations within your body and how your skin feels. Take this time to gently massage the skin, face and scalp as you wash. Feel each breath flowing in and out of your body.

Be kind to yourself if your mind starts to wander: If your mind wanders, be gentle as this is what minds do. Notice the thoughts and, without following where they were taking you, gently bring your attention back to being in the shower, the water and where you were in your washing routine.

Be compassionate towards yourself: Gently turn towards whatever your experience is – softness, aching, judgmental thoughts, emotions that pop up. Just for these few moments try not to analyse, judge, fix, or change anything. With kindness, pause and acknowledge the experience and then gently bring your attention back to the feel of the water, the breath in the body, the smell of the body wash, just being in the shower. You may have to do this again and again. This is the practice. Be gentle and kind with your expectations, compassionate and accepting of whatever arises for you. Let yourself be exactly as you are. There is no aim, or outcome, just the practice of doing this is enough.

As you reach the end of the shower meditation, take a moment to extend gratitude towards yourself for giving yourself this time and attention. As you dry yourself and move into the rest of your day, set your intention to be fully present in whatever you do next.

The Weleda Body Washes are £7.95 each available from Weleda.co.uk and natural health stores