The Naughty Naturopath Mum – Alisha Lynch
Alisha Lynch is a Naturopath, creator and owner of the Naughty Naturopath Mum flower essence range, blogger and mum to two young scallywags.
Alisha loves to motivate and inspire people to keep healthy with her passion for gut health and encourages making good choices in life, especially in the areas of food and nutrition, emotional support like her flower essence remedies and keeping our stress levels down.
She also likes to remind us that no-one is perfect and we often need to make mistakes to learn and occasionally be a bit ‘naughty’! Her belief is that balance and having fun in life are the most important things to achieve for our emotional and physical health.
We talk to Alisha about being naughty, her beautifully blended flower essences and life.
SSC: Love the name Alisha- tell us more about how you came to the name Naughty Naturopath Mum and why you are so passionate about what you do?
Alisha: I call myself the Naughty Naturopath Mum just to help me get across to my customers and audience more of an idea about who I really am….I’m naughty in the sense that just because I know what’s best for me…doesn’t always mean I do that!
I worry about the perfection portrayed online particularly in the health world and I don’t want people thinking that to be ‘healthy’ means that they have to be a certain body type, do daily yoga and always be drinking green smoothies! Health is a journey and it requires balance and sometimes we need to be a bit ‘naughty’ (for want of a better word) for our mental and emotional health which is just as important (if not more so!) as our physical health. I also have quite a cheeky and sometimes prankster type personality so anyone who knows me, knows the name fits me very well.
SSC: If you could share only one of your flower essence blends, what would it be and why?
Alisha: This is such a tricky one! I have so many flower essence blends that have so many different purposes so I am going to have to share more than one! #sorrynotsorry
I guess Slow Down is the first one to mention…it helps so many people because it’s one of the biggest issues for most adults and kids these days. Our lives are so busy and full and with all the technology we have wherever we turn now, it can be really really hard to switch that brain off and just be present. Slow Down helps to settle down scattered thinking and those cyclical thoughts that can go around and around in our heads. It helps us feel calmer, more clarity and less stressed.
Grounding blend (part of my chakra blend range) is another one to mention as it balances the energies of the root chakra. I mention this one because it’s great for feelings of anxiety and this is also quite a common issue for most of us! This blend helps you feel more grounded and stable.
And I have to mention Mumma Magic for all the Mummas out there! It covers a lot of different emotional aspects brought up by parenting and really helps out in so many ways…from helping with more confidence, dealing with overwhelm, stress, mumma guilt and more. It has helped me so much and I basically came up with this blend to help address all the emotions that came up for me when I first became a mum and am so proud to hear so many other mums being helped by this blend on a daily basis.
SSC: How can we all bring a little bit of naughty into our lives without the judgement?
Alisha : I think we need to just be a lot kinder to ourselves. We are such a harsh judge and jury with ourselves in everything we do. There is a lot of pressure, on women especially, these days to be achieving it all and attaining it all and we look around at others or scroll through our social media news feeds thinking we need to be doing better at EVERYTHING! I think a lot of people deny themselves pleasure because of this pressure. The pleasure of taking an afternoon nap instead of getting the house sparkling clean, the pleasure of a take away pizza one Friday night even if it isn’t inline with health or current weight goals etc.
We need to listen to that little voice inside us that’s asking for more fun and more pleasure because if we deny ourselves too much there will be rebellion in other ways. Anxiety, anger, resentment, sadness, loneliness…these are all emotions that can come about if we deny ourselves all the time. It’s a daily practice of not allowing the harsh self talk to run our lives. And just adding in the moments of pleasure and fun as much as possible while still keeping your health goals on track for the majority of time. If you catch yourself laughing, smiling or just sighing contentedly, do more of that! And congratulate yourself for allowing that into your life. We only have this one precious life and we need to enjoy it!
SSC: Do you have any rituals/routines that help you stay in “balance”?
Alisha: Yes! If I don’t have these little rituals, my anxiety flares up, my sleep suffers and my negative thoughts can run rampant!
Most importantly, is my morning ritual of a 15 minute visualisation. I use guided meditations and visualisations on my phone. I pop in my headphones and sit somewhere with the sun on my face and allow the feeling of positivity and peace to flood my body.
I start the day with two glasses of water with apple cider vinegar and make sure I drink a glass of water every hour all day. I also take my flower essence drops morning and night and throughout the day when needed and these help me immensely.
Before I go to sleep at night, I pop the headphones back in and finish the day with another visualisation. I visualise a great sleep and how I want my day to go the next day.
I also take myself off for a night by myself in a hotel 1-2 times a year just in my home city of Brisbane! So as well as my family holidays, I’ll make sure I have 24 hours just for me without hubby or the kids. I don’t catch up with friends or anything, I just book in a massage, read a book and get room service while watching an inhouse movie. It’s something I started a few years into motherhood and it’s a very cherished ritual for me now and does me and the family the world of good.
SSC: You wrote an interesting piece on are we addicted to self- help – can you share some more of your thoughts with us on that?
Alisha: As a child, I was always trying to do the right thing and be the right person for everyone until I rebelled as a teenager and almost became the opposite of that! That on and off rebellion while trying to ‘perfect’ has continued into my adult life and I found that being the right person for everyone around me just became impossible. This became more obvious to me when I became a mother as I just couldn’t be responsible for making everyone in my life happy at all times! Who had the time? Pleasing everyone began to really harm my happiness.
It’s impossible to be what everyone needs but for some strange reason we think we can reach this unattainable ‘perfect person’ and we find ourselves constantly trying to improve who we are to be better. It’s so easy to look for answers outside ourselves, in books, health ‘gurus’, practitioners, online courses etc. but we need to travel our own path. All the answers lie inside of us. We are the only ones that can be our own guru. I have liked learning this and it’s why I love using flower essences as they help me shift my own emotional baggage out of the way so I can walk my own path more confidently and love things as they are right now. As soon as we get happy with who we are right now in this very moment, we can clearly see the next step we might need to take.
So I guess in summary, we just need to allow more acceptance of the way things are right now and most of our peace and growth will come from there.
You can follow Alisha here:
Bec Van Leeuwen is a truth-seeker, devoted wife and mother, a globe-trotter, a nature lover and a human potential activist. Her mission is to support and inspire awakening women who are on a quest to create real and lasting change in their lives, their communities and the world.