The Wellness Warrior event...

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer at Jess Ainscough's Wellness Warrior Event and book launch at ACMI, Fed Square.


I have been following Jess's blog (The Wellness Warrior) for a few months now and she is one of my favourite bloggers along side Melissa Ambrosini. 


A quick background on Jess, she is a cancer survivor and she did this by looking at alternative therapies and changing her lifestyle to survive as her cancer was diagnosed as terminal at the age of 22. She is now 27 and fit and healthy, amazing! I highly recommend her blog and of course her new book 'Make Peace with you Plate'. 


As some of you may know, my background is Event Management so working an event is not new to me but I have been out of the game for a while now plus it is always a little nerve wracking when you don't know any one else. But I felt comfortable straight away, all the girls and Jess's partner Tallon were so friendly and welcoming it made it easy.


Jess's event was a sit down and have a chat style. She opened talking about her story and then invited her three guests on the stage to join her on the couch. Her three guests in Melbourne were Wes Carr (Australian Idol winner/singer/song writer), Lisa Mitchell (singer/song writer) and Heritier Lumumba (formerly known as Harry O'Brien, Collingwood Footballer). Wes Carr sang a song at the beginning and at the end...I must say these songs touched me and I will definitely be buying his new album 'Road Trip Confessions'. 


The surprise of the night for me was hearing Heritier speak, of course we all know him as the footballer but it was great to hear him speak about wellness and meditation. I said to him afterwards how good it was to hear him speak on these topics and not football and he said that he much prefers speaking about this than football. He has bought out a book called 'It's Cool to Be Conscious' which I purchased last night and can't wait to read. He has done so much of this work that we just don't hear about. Heritier has a new fan in me!

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A highlight of the night for me was meeting amazing women who love this stuff as much as me. I met an inspiring woman, Autumn Tansey from The Lynch Effect and we just clicked as soon as we started chatting. We were like kids in a lolly shop, munching on our luvju chocolate from Loving Earth and talking all things wellness, fitness and yoga. We even were dreaming of this event one day being us and spreading the love far and wide like Jess does. I look forward to more chats with her in the future and I highly recommend her blog; her story is inspiring! 


A couple of things Jess mentioned last night really made me feel like she was talking to me directly. These were:


1. Jess was talking about how our mind stops our bodies and the example she gave was that a couple of years ago she climbed the Himalayas. This one particular day on her trip it was seven hours straight of stairs, if she had been told beforehand that this is what was coming up she would have said no and her mind would have started giving up on it before she had even started. But because she didn't know this was happening until she was doing it her body was able to push through and do it and this was all because her mind was under control. 




I am off to Cambodia to do a 415km charity bike ride over 10 days and my mind could and still can stop me from pushing through and completing this mission. But since hearing this story, it will definitely be coming up in my head when my mind starts to give up on me.


2. Jess did an experiment, she made an all organic sandwich, then went to a local deli and bought a white bread salad sandwich from there and lastly she bought a cheeseburger from McDonalds. She left them side by side because she wanted to see how long it would take for them to go off. The next day the organic sandwich was mouldy and off, the day after that the deli sandwich was mouldy and off but after 6 months the cheeseburger was still there and looked like you could eat it. Now what does that say about that type of food? How does our bodies even digest that sort of material? I know I will be steering clear of this type of food from now on. This scare tactic worked on me!! 


Overall the night was uplifting, it challenged me with some of the things that were brought up but most of all inspired me to keep on this path and remind myself each and every day why I am doing this. 



*Photos below in order; me with Heritier Lumumba, me with Autumn Tansey and Jess & Heritier's books.




Be happy & healthy,