Maybe there are charitable trusts somewhere that can manage our contributions for us, giving sometimes to causes at home and some abroad. But even World Vision has a more specific focus that seems not to deal with domestic disasters. How do you choose?

If only we could be sure that our donated money was not all spent on administration. If only we could trust the so-called charitable trusts, some of which were set up originally as tax minimisation schemes, not truly for the money to go out of the owner’s control.

I will do some research as the whole question of giving back from our own fortunate circumstances worries me. We do our bit, but is it enough? No wonder tithing was started to get the rich to give to the poor. But even tithing couldn’t guarantee the money was spent where it was needed and not on big offices somewhere for administrators’ luxury. Not interested in that.

I recall when I was working in Africa at the time of the Biafran war. There were no antibiotics,no dressings, food for 5000 people was all donated. A benefactor in New York offered to send a crate of antibiotics by ship to Libreville. We cheered at the news. The ship arrived after a very long couple of weeks and we trouped down to the dock to meet the tender as the port was too shallow for a ship to dock.

We opened the crate and found, to our complete disappointment, that it was full of toothbrushes! Apparently the daughter of the benefactor had married a business tycoon who made toothbrushes and thought they would be safer and cheaper to send!

The one thing African children do NOT need is toothbrushes! I was so enraged that I did not allow the interpreter into the meeting and I raged in broken French to the Red Cross representative. These children had near perfect teeth as they were grown before the famine hit and anyway they had no sugar to rot them and they cleaned their teeth constantly by chewing on sticks!

So my charity dollar has to be considered carefully. I think I can find a few worthy causes but I will keep you posted.

Be well!

PS  I appreciate your thoughts, please leave me a comment as all suggestions are gratefully considered…

I love this quote! When your children grow up and take bold, and sometimes foolish steps we can only stand back and let them make mistakes. But occasionally a miracle follows and it turns out, not only all right, but fantastic!

Being confident in your mothering (ok guys your ‘parenting’) takes courage every day. When decisions are taken that any mother would know would spell disaster, or at the very least, hard times, it takes courage to let it happen and let the lessons be learned without maternal interference.

As I am aware of my own maternal struggles, I realise what my own mother must have gone through. When I was just pregnant with my elder son, my husband and I made the decision to leave the security of a well-to-do family in Dublin and come to Australia with only $50 in our joint pocket. What??! Are you mad, Maura?!

My poor mother sobbed when I left. It was dark, it was cold and I had to leave when it was pouring rain. I thought Mum was crying because I was leaving but I know now she was crying for that reason and the frustration of looking at my awful decision!

But miracles do happen. I was happy to be going to explore the other side of the world. I had already been to Africa and I felt confident coming to Australia, even though I barely made it off the boat when my son arrived! But Australia has been good to me. I love this sunburnt country, so much that I felt that I could kiss the ground when the ship docked. Alas, too fat with pregnancy so my husband was spared the embarrassment!

Once you have responsibility for another human you find all your other reference points fade away. Now the baby-child-teenager and then adult, remain your focus. That is until menopause when we were meant to take stock, let go and sort ourselves out first. At this time of life, it is not only a good thing for a woman, but a good thing for the entire family, for her to take better care of herself at last.

Grannies are so valuable! Those of us that are not grandmothers yet so envy the others whose feet are being tripped up by tiny little persons. The lessons we can offer are only possible if we have the wisdom to let the little ones develop confidence and courage to take steps backward as well as forward.

Sometimes it takes courage just to face another day. Lots of women live lives ‘of quiet desperation’. Giving another person a smile can make the difference in a person’s day. But you can sometimes baulk at a major change at this time of life, mainly because we realise how things can turn pear-shaped. But take a firm hold on your confidence and just do it!

It is better to make the decision yourself rather than have a decision forced on you by someone else.if you are a natural procrastinator, remember the man who never made a mistake, never made anything. I look at my unfinished projects and shiver with guilt that they are still there, looking at me. But what if I make the decision not to finish them? Does that make me feel better or worse?

Resolving problems comes easier to some personality types. But others delay decisions until they are forced by circumstances to go one way or another. That’s ‘management by crisis’!  My ex-husband was so good in a crisis that he unconsciously let things go until there actually was a crisis and he could shine! Boring old preventive me was appalled!

It was a bold move to divorce and make a life for myself, but again miracles do happen. Now I have a good professional reputation and do interesting work, have two wondrous sons and friends galore. If only Mother could see me now…

How do I show my deep respect for the efforts of our soldiers while still expressing my strong disapproval of wars and all they bring with them?

Recently my sister Pat was here from Ireland and we had to explain to a visiting ex-Brit how in Ireland in the 60s you had to choose which side to support or die. We had two choices: IRA or non-IRA.  In case you think I automatically chose IRA, think again. Even then I could see that 500 years of war with England had not produced much in the way of sanity for Ireland. Sure, we had our semi-independence (the North was, and still is, part of the UK) and we held our heads high, but the reality is that until we (Ireland that is) joined the EU, nothing much had changed.

The choices in a relatively cool war zone like Ireland were still stark, and no doubt are just as stark in any modern heated war zone. Join one side or the other or remain forever suspect by both sides. No use dying alone. If neither side trusts you, you will still be just as dead, only sooner, as there is no one to defend you.

I know in my heart that fighting is inevitable. But fighting… is still such an awful option. For the awfulness of it, I respect the soldiers. For the courage of it, I respect the soldiers. For the right to freedom defended everywhere in the free world, I respect the soldiers. So I will mourn as others do on Anzac Day and I will thank the good God that my sons are now almost too old to be called to war. Pity those mothers who are fearful for boys (for they are still only boys) fighting on foreign fields, some never to come back, some to return with unmentionable wounds.

Whatever your views on war, give thanks for the courage of men (and women) who have the guts to stand for what we all believe in.

So remember, there are horrors we home-bodies may never be called to witness or take part in. But we must respect those who have to intervene, and those who may have to in the future. Our lives are held in a fragile net of democracy and freedom. We hope the net is never tested, but we also hope there will be trained personnel to defend us if it ever is tested.

Blessings, especially to our defence forces overseas. Come home, lads.

I’m such a simple soul with technology that the only way I can keep track of all my various jobs/appointments outside the clinic is to write LARGE letters and dates across the top of pages in date order on the top of my desk!! Otherwise chaos is likely to prevail. Hidden diaries inside computers are the most dangerous as I have a visual memory and if I haven’t seen the date written LARGE as I pass by, I won’t recall that there is anything on and am as likely to be out seeing friends.

Which leads me to wonder whether the faint feeling of having forgotten something today is causing a general feeling of anxiety in our work-torn world. Not just me, but everyone? Maybe others are 3-4 times as smart as me and don’t forget to consult the hidden diary in the computer/phone/iPad etc. But I recall missing a court date when I was a young lawyer which made me fear the terror of such a thing ever happening again. Missing court dates is enough to get you not only fired, but disbarred, in American parlance. Luckily that situation could be redeemed but only just.

Upheaval and excessive events are a known cause of stress. There is even a table of ‘stressors’ that you can download. Each event has a stress value and there are some positive stressors as well as negative. For instance, death (other’s, not your own) rates about 10 points and divorce rates 11. Death of a child rates about 15 or so but marriage and a new job also rate about 8-10. I have stopped taking the test as the last time I did it I rated over 40 (well over 40), which was the maximum, equalling close to being admitted to the funny farm.

Ambient stress such as I am now going through, is OK if you remember to stop more and more things closing in. If more and more does close in beyond your control, you really have to just stop everything. And breathe. And plan the order of things to be done.

It takes time to process many different sorts of things at once. When I was younger, I had a medical practice, studied law, ran a teenage family, was the primary bread winner, and played bridge, went camping and basically enjoyed my life. When I was asked how I did it (memo to self tonight: this should be remembered and applied right now) I said I just thought of the tasks as part of one job i.e. my life. Just as women all over the world think about children, food, cleaning, husbands, travel and solving homework, they are all part of one job, raising a family. Well, my problems now are all part of one job: surviving my life!

In many ways the clinic practice is light relief. I can’t think of anything else as I concentrate on the patients and I don’t take phone calls from outsiders during the consultation, so there is caa-aa-alm. But as soon as I step outside into the corridor or to go to the…. tea-room, they pounce. Either receptionists, nurses, colleagues, other patients, or (God Help Me) reps from pharmaceutical companies. Nice people themselves with a dreadful job to do so I try not to be too rude!

So what message can I give you from all this?

• Be patient if I seem rattled!
• Use my website emails only for seminar details etc, not your own hormones or clinical problems
• Find me another PA before the end of May!
• Allow me to go on holiday in August-September, I will need it!
• Tell me if you don’t get this blog.      (WAIT a minute! How can you know if you don’t get it?? OK, so you can take the girl out of Ireland, but you can’t get Ireland out of the girl!

Be good!

I came across this oddity, a fairly fundamental oddity perhaps, while I was talking to a patient this week. He believed that he had been most unfortunate, most unlucky, more than anyone else he had ever heard of, because he had a list of ills that had befallen him. He did not believe in life after death, in God or in Nature, the Universe or anything. “When you’re dead, you’re dead, mate!” he said.

The other patient that I saw this week was in fact most unfortunate. She had a list of ills three times the length and seriousness of the first patient. She was less disturbed, more hopeful and more enthusiastic than she might have been, but she believed in Something Out There looking after her. So she lived every day as if she would live forever. She bought good quality fair trade coffee and re-cycled toilet paper. She volunteered at the Op shop 2 hours a week, she managed on a pension that is so small it hardly qualifies for the term.  She believed in playing fair with the world around her, blaming no one for her problems but happily meeting each challenge as it arose. Because she believed. I don’t know whether she went to any church and it doesn’t matter.

It is not important what she believed in, but the fact that she had faith in what would be good for her coming around when it was due.

Such belief creates the world we live in. We can muddle along in misery never knowing whether we will live til next Christmas, never hearing anyone say they love us, never having a hand to hold or an ear to tell out troubles to. But if, like the lady I mentioned, we can trust, we can survive.

I too believe in Something Out There. Some days I am mesmerised by Nature in full glory; other days it is the cloud patterns in the sky; sometimes it is the sheer gratitude for the life I have and the friends I love. I too believe that things will work out well. If the doom-sayers want to bring me down, well, I don’t listen.

The more sensible amongst my friends have told me their sage counsel in the past, and even in the present, but although I take care, I don’t fret (well, not too often!) and if God, the Universe and Everything is still there looking after me, then things will be OK, one way or another.

God as an elderly gentleman with a need for praise and buttering-up is for children. Paint him as a happy but stern grandfather and little ones will pay more attention. But adults need to make their own decisions about God. Even if they reject the paternal image and the whole religious performance, they will need at some time or other to decide whether they have something to believe in or not. Sad is the man or woman with nothing and no one to trust to make things right. So often if we just honour the enormity and power of the energy of the universe, we will be standing in awe of the Divine Something. That’s all it takes. Then we can relax, knowing that whatever happens is going to be for the best.

Then we can be like the woman with nothing, who actually has everything.

Some ancients believed in the spirit of each rock and flower. Have you read The Findhorn Garden? It’s a good example of that, and it shows its power.

Some believe in God and St Mary McKillop. Have you read her story? It’s a good example of that.

Some believe in Spiritualism, that the spirits of dead loved ones can help from Heaven. The Spiritualist Churches are good examples of that.

Some believe in Jesus Christ or in Mahommed or Sai Baba or even in themselves as a powerful creator. The secret is……. They are all right!! The power comes from the BELIEF, not from the target of the adoration.

But if you believe in random life and death and random misery or happiness, then that’s what you get, Random Misery or Happiness. How people would join you if you set up a support group or a Church of Random Misery or Happiness? None.

The most important thing in life, more than self-respect, more than wealth, more than friends or love itself, is TRUST that things will turn out well.

What you think you create,

What you feel, you attract,

What you imagine, will be.

We are going to explore some more of these things, as well as naturally effective hormones and the mind-body connection when we meet in May. The ways to find trust, the way to treat yourself and those around you so as to maximise your health and happiness, the way to believe in meeting and knowing the people you need to meet and know, will be explored. Natural remedies are given to us by Nature (God, the Universe, Whatever) and we need to see, admire and use them and be happy and grateful.

Blessings to you all.

Maura

PS  Be with us on May 26-27 in Mudgeeraba, Queensland. Call Liz on 0431 122 090  if you want to know more. But hurry, my house is not that big, I can only take about 20 and there are 12 booked already!

Suddenly I realise that it is unusually quiet. The birds are few but there are a couple of courageous magpies trying to get the dawn chorus happening. Where do all the little birds go when there is a big blow? Where do the bigger ones like magpies go too? Maybe close to the ground since the tops of the trees are waving around too much. Birds cannot fly in such a storm but they clearly survived to sing again this morning. Is that where the expression ‘going to ground’ came from?

It is staggering to contemplate the amount of courage it takes to find a safe place when you are bird, not able to carry your young, not able to move around by flying. Even eagles cannot take their young to a safe place and eagles’ eyries are always high up where the wind is really severe. The trust factor in Mother Nature must be really high.

Humans are the only ones who panic when things are tough. If we could only trust that it will all work out OK.  After the floods and fires I am sure there will be lots who disagree with me about trusting Nature. But in those extreme conditions we still have to do all we can and trust for the rest.

Maybe we can take a leaf out of the birds’ book of survival. Going down to the ground, lying low while the fuss is happening, being quiet while the storm lasts, then re-emerge to sing again. Possessions are what make our lives comfortable but they are no use when you are running away from storms or trouble. Look at the long lines of refugees in Somalia, starving but walking to find food and shelter. However attached you are to your mother’s furniture it simply has no survival value.

The Buddhists have always said that we should not get attached to ‘things’ as they are useless burdens and responsibilities that come between us and true happiness. Like the birds we need to have the courage to face the storm in a quiet place and rebuild our lives day after day.  Thoreau said ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation’. Those who rebuild their lives day after day and still find a way to sing in the morning, like the flood and fire survivors, deserve our respect. We need to have the same courage just in our ordinary lives and we need to realise that others too have to find courage when things are tough.

As we face another surge in the Global Financial Crisis, take hint from the birds. Trust, act carefully, and all will be well tomorrow after the storm has passed.

Be well

Maura

Ronaldo came to Australia from Brazil looking adventure instead what he found was home. Settling on the Gold Coast Ronaldo’s open and friendly manner is both energizing and inspiring and his passion for nutrition and cooking stems from having experienced health challenges himself as a child. He’s spoken both nationally and internationally on the principles of nutrition to benefit people’s health by preventing diseases and ultimately as he sees it saving lives! He loves and respects food and knows that fresh ingredients have to be used adequately to preserve maximum nutrition and bio availability. Ronaldo has already published his first cookbook, is a chef on the Gold Coast and is a personal trainer to friends in his spare time.

“Hormones Health and Healing”

2 Day Workshop – May 26^th & 27^th

Gold Coast

The best thing about life is “Speaking Your Truth and Being of Service” as James Redfield said in his book.

For me, the most important role as a practitioner is taking everything I have learnt through my years as a GP and imparting that knowledge to you for the benefit of you and your family and friends.

Ordinary people can do extraordinary things if they know how. Businesses are built around the confidence of the person providing goods or services that matter. Confidence is built around natural truths. In many ways I have broken with medical tradition, not only in the area of hormone management but also in my own life, by becoming a successful lawyer, by helping businesses become sustainable and profitable and by helping individuals attain their own goals of health or success using unconventional methods that really work.

I’m thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity and to share with you these 2 days in my home. I look forward to being with you on this journey and helping you to meet your goals too!

Here’s a taste of what you will discover over the course of the 2 days:

• Understanding Mind-Body Medicine

The energy universe is all around us and we have to make use of the natural energies of the earth to heal what is wrong with our planet and us. Understanding the natural energies of the earth has taken hundreds of years in the making but knowledge in this area is expanding just as rapidly as computer technology and we are now in position of having way more information than just ‘positive thinking’. You will be learning and understanding how to use the energy universe around us to heal ourselves, our situations and to achieve what we want.

• Learn How to Safeguard Yourself with Natural Medicine

Ninety percent of the patients in our clinics want a more natural way to deal with their health issues. The world is looking for less artificial interference and more natural flow of energy solutions for health.  It has taken a long time to find out about the different natural ways to deal with health issues and it is important we all have a mental store-room of skills to apply and tips to use every day to increase our sense of well-being and our energy and vitality.

• Workshop Training Manual

Maura has spent years and $$$ in training & has 40 years experience, all of this will be condensed into your own personal training manual.

• World class Nutritionalist, Dietician, Personal Trainer and Chef Ronaldo Fulieri

Ronaldo came to Australia from Brazil looking adventure instead what he found was home. Settling on the Gold Coast, Ronaldo’s open and friendly manner is both energizing and inspiring. His passion for nutrition and cooking stems from having experienced health challenges himself as a child. He has spoken nationally and internationally on the principles of nutrition to benefit people’s health by preventing diseases and ultimately, as he sees it, saving lives! He loves and respects food and knows that fresh ingredients have to be used adequately to preserve maximum nutrition and bio availability. Ronaldo has already published his first cookbook, is a chef on the Gold Coast and through a live cooking demonstration will be teaching nutrition & weightloss specifically targeted for hormones in midlife.

• Health professionals Forum for Q & A

We will be bringing together other health practitioners in the area of midlife and hormones to give you a new perspective on natural health approaches and enable you to ask specific questions about  issues that have come up over the course of the 2 days.

BONUS

• Audio Recording of the 2 days

• Home Recipes for Home Remedies

Learn how herbs, spices and foods can be used to make you own medicine.  Use common ingredients available in supermarkets, nurseries and probably in your pantry now!

• Internal Anti-Ageing Supplements (to take home with you)

 Calcium & Vitamin D

Omega Oils & Anti-Oxidants                             

Common sense and safe nutritional supplements used to offset the negative health effects of aging, stress and inflammation. Maintain health and vitality and prevent age related decline in many systems with the “basics”.

VALUE  $100

• External Anti-Ageing Custom Compounded Cosmetics (to take home with you)

 Vitamin C Serum

A potent anti-oxidant & collagen renewal anti-wrinkle nutrient

Anti-Aging Wrinkle Cream

Formulated to regenerate & repair dermal collagen & elastin

Rose Hip Oil Anti Oxidant

To help restore elasticity & general health of skin

VALUE  $150

PLUS

• VIP Discount to Ewell

Online Pharmacy Health Food Store

Gateway to Broadbeach Pharmacy

• 2 Days with Dr Maura McGill

Expanding on the role hormones play at work and at home.  She has described how hormones work and what they are, now she will be talking about hormone problems that come up like endometriosis, contraception for the over 40 years, polysistic fibrosis, PMS, PCOS, heart disease and other common conditions.

Maura has also been interested in mind-body medicine for about 25 years and from experience she knows that people get better from illness according to how their mind is set. “What I have found is that some people get better because their mind is in the right place and some people will never get better because their mind is not in the right place.” Learn how to capitalise on the mind’s power over the body and use it to heal, change circumstances, improve relationships and create happiness.

VALUE $2500 X 2

TOTAL VALUE OF THE 2 DAYS  $5250

PRICE  $650

No Hassles 100% Satisfaction Money Back Guarantee

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO BOOK YOUR SEAT NOW CALL LIZ 0431 122 090

I do not watch this show on purpose as I find it very confronting, but it’s hard to avoid the adverts for it.  Of course there are grossly obese people who have totally lost control of their lives and their eating, and, believe me, I am more than qualified to comment as an ex-fatty. But what troubles me is the indignity that the participants are put through in the name of reality television.

We all know, or at least suspect, that vigorous exercise is needed to peel off the weight, but is that any justification for exposing these poor people to the high risk of heart attack and crippling embarrassment? They will need counselling afterwards, but I believe they should have it before they embark on this obscenity of a show.

Self love is not best expressed by gobbling quantities of chips n chocolate! And it is a lack of self love that creates the problem in the first place. Not lack of money, not family habits, not lack of food information, not learned behaviour, just a pattern. The reward of looking good from not eating is simply not enough.  Food is an expression of someone providing for us. Even if it is only the guy at the fast food outlet, unconsciously we are being given something we need.

Step back. What need? Clearly there will always be enough food in our society, unlike other countries. (It is not helpful for the starving millions in China for you to gorge your food and finish the plate)

How do you love yourself and make up for the various missing things in our lives? How do you sort out whether it was your mother and/or father who didn’t love you enough, or whether you have no satisfying job to go to? Maybe you’re trapped in a so-so marriage or other relationship. Maybe going to the fridge is easier than going for a walk.  And does it matter which trigger has caused your self-destruction? The outcome is the same.

Overweight people have multiple factors at work and nothing is easy in this area. From the outside a couple of facts have to recognised:

1. Stopping… eating… works. How do we know? Because all the lap bands, all the gastric by-passes, all the diet regimes and hunger strikes in the world all work the same way, i.e. less food is consumed, dramatically less food in most cases.
2. Healthy food can still have too many calories/kilojoules. We are after less nutrition, not more.
3. After the age of 50, wait for it girls, we only need one meal a day. We can afford to have a couple of low carb snacks but only one meal. Believe me.

The Maura McGill Theory is that there is no tribal survival value is giving valuable food to an older woman. Older men can still hunt. Young women can have more children, and children themselves have to eat to grow. But we old chicks have to recognise that we are supposed to sit at the back of the campfire and eat the scraps!

I know I’ve said some of this before but the Biggest Loser dramas on screen seem to me to make people, who are already suffering, into freak shows for the entertainment of the masses.  Watching gross bellies wobbling in the surf, sweating in a gym, crying with shame and embarrassment, is truly obscene. God help them. How can their self esteem ever recover when they see themselves on screen? I already have trouble exposing my poor legs on the beach, but I would die with shame if I thought anyone would have it on YouTube for the rest of time.

How best to help this community-wide problem?

1. Don’t make sugar and carbs into treats, either for yourself or your family, especially children.
2. Have water first every time you reach for sugar. That will associate the fairly boring taste of water with the sugar/chocolate you eat afterwards.
3. Even while the snack is on it’s way to your mouth, in your hand, say to yourself “I don’t eat chocolate/chips/whatever”. Gradually you will brainwash yourself, or self-hypnotise, and the result will be that your brain will win!
4. Learn to walk for exercise. No handbag, no shopping, nothing on your mind, just enjoy the walk. Be present in the moment, as the new age-ers say. You never know who you might run into, or what you might notice; and if you are not by nature a walker, just start with 10 or 20 minutes to break yourself in gently. It is not a race, it’s pleasure we are looking for as a reward for change.
5. Only weigh yourself naked, before breakfast (and after going to the toilet) but not every day. Once or twice a week is enough. We all have enough stress in our lives so there’s no point beating ourselves up as well as the outside world giving us a hard time.

And remember, everyone ages. Some do it well, some badly, but never lose your self respect even if your body shows the effect of time. Your soul is more important and yourself esteem will carry you through many a tough time.

Pray for those on the Biggest Loser!

Blessings

Maura