7 Secrets of Wellbeing – Eminé Rushton
Eminé is one of our best-loved friends in the beauty and wellbeing world. She is the personification of a beautiful gentle soul. After nine years as Beauty and Wellbeing Director of Psychologies, Eminé left to found her website ‘This Conscious Life’ with her husband Paul Rushton, with whom she has two daughters.
The Rushtons also wrote a book SATTVA: The Ayurvedic Way to Live Well, the sum of their long interest in this ancient medical system. As one reviewer wrote, ‘Whether you want to dive right into the Ayurvedic lifestyle or simply to add a few elements of calm to your life, Eminé and Paul have distilled all the wisdom you need…’. We find that simply opening the book and gazing at the page is soothing.
Her new role is Editor of Oh Magazine: ohmag.co.uk – watch that space!
1. Be tech selective. I often feel like an analogue girl in a digital world. I am no good at staying on top of my in-box, am forever missing direct messages, and my social media ‘presence’ is completely scatter-gun (a reflection of real life…). Social media is like an unending rabbit hole – you’ll be falling for years. I simply refuse to put in more than a small, necessary amount of time because it could easily overtake every other part of my life. The easiest way to avoid temptation is to never turn my phone on before 8.30am each day (when my girls both leave for school), to put it away when they come home at 4pm, and never have it on overnight. So I can enjoy a film without distraction or eat a meal without one eye drawn to a flashing alert. Even on days when I am in the office (in my new role as editor of Oh magazine – ohmag.co.uk), I take a time out for lunch, and don’t get my phone out at all. I might read or simply watch the world go by… it’s something we need to re-teach ourselves. In just one generation we’ve wiped out our ability to sit still, contentedly lost in our own thoughts.
2. Touch your skin. I trained as a facial therapist back in 2012, and have practiced on and off, ever since. It’s a beautiful antidote to the computer-based work I do as a writer and editor – in my therapy room in Kent, natural light flooding in, no phones, silently working, treating, intuiting – things just flow, and I stay completely focused on what I am doing. I feel the same each morning and evening, when I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, massage oil into my skin, really taking the time to stroke up between my brows, along my jaw, thumb-circling my chin and clearing the pressure from my sinuses. I have just finished the new Mauli Supreme Skin Cleansing Oil/£44 (maulirituals.com). The neem, moringa, calendula and rosehip blend really suits my oilier Mediterranean skin, which hasn’t looked this clear or fresh in some time. I use gua sha and rollers most mornings to boost circulation. I love stroking around my cheeks, jaw and brows where I hold a lot of tension.
3. Laugh out loud. I don’t think it gets more important than having a deep, sidesplitting belly laugh as often as you can. I’ve a few friends who never stop laughing – and a neighbour whose breathless hoots can be heard at all times – and they are the most youthful, vivacious people. Their skin and eyes glow: they just love life, and it shows. I can be really serious at times – and am often the disciplinarian parent – so I have to remind myself of this. Which is why I gravitate towards fun-loving friends and spend as much time as I can with my big, noisy, hilarious, demonstrative Turkish family.
4. Notice the good stuff. It’s been hard on a lot of people this year. We’ve had a long run of bleak headlines, political fear and an impending sense of lack and doom. I wrote SATTVA with my husband Paul, to really home in on the good stuff that is all around us, but that often gets usurped by the deafening doom and gloom. Since moving out of London and into a little cottage in a quiet village in Kent, things have shifted so much. Our year is inherently seasonal. We sow, grow, harvest, make, bake and nourish ourselves in a way that we really didn’t when we were working 14-hour days, and spinning in the urban hamster wheel. We notice the beauty of things around us – the vivid ruby red of the acer as autumn deepened, the crystalline kisses of frost on the windowpanes each morning, the great and blue tits that have made their home in the fir at the end of our path… I felt really sad the other day - then I saw the birds swooping, dancing and nesting side by side and my heart could have burst.
5. One thing at a time. When my six-year-old is asking me a question, or I am pegging out the washing, or I’ve stopped to make a cup of tea, I try to do that one thing with my full focus. Closing my email window while I write a feature, and having my phone and screens switched off so that I can really hear what my child is saying when she comes in from school. Just sitting down having breakfast with my girls, around a table with a candle in the middle, and us all listening to one another, and looking into each other’s eyes as we do so – that’s about as good as it gets.
6. Elemental goodness. I grew up in a rough part of south-east London so time outside was minimal. Once winter rolled around I hardly ever even stepped out into the garden. But every summer, we’d spend seven or eight weeks in Cyprus, barefoot by the sea, roaming free. Then I would become a different person - one that felt, inherently, like ‘me’. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become ever closer to nature. We spend time by the sea in Hastings, Ramsgate, Camber, Seaford and Saltdean, and winter is characterised by frosty walks through local woodland as much as by roaring log fires at home. Every day needs some elemental nourishment – sun on skin, sky taken in, deep glugging sups of crisp, clean air.
7. Morning meditation. I got into the habit of waking up an hour before the children and stepping into a silent world, where all seems possible. I love that exquisite outstretched morn-scape – when you have time to feel your way into a day, sip tea, see the sun rise, meditate for a short while, and just allow yourself to define what you wish to create that day – rather than have it thrust upon you by a shrill alarm, caterwauling child or the unending needs of others. Morning has its very own particular magic, and when I miss it – if I wake too late, or stay nestled too long beneath the blankets – I feel the difference.