Live Your Best Life: Eminé Rushton

I’m delighted to bring you the next in my Live Your Best Life series, an interview with Wellness Director at Psychologies magazine – Eminé Rushton.

Living your best life doesn’t mean that life is perfect or that you have everything figured out. It’s about being the best version of yourself that you can be at this moment. It’s about recognising what’s good in your life, working to share more joy in the world and making the most of this one, precious life you have. By talking with inspiring women each month who are figuring out how to live their best life in their own way, I hope we can all be inspired to do the same.

So, Eminé, tell us a bit about yourself and your life and how you got to where you are today…
I feel blessed, almost every single day, which I realise is not necessarily the norm. I really love my job – I am Wellness Director at Psychologies magazine, overseeing health, beauty, travel, nutrition, and I have a really happy (if busy and noisy and dramatic) home life with my two headstrong and passionate girls and my husband of 17 years. I actually ‘fell’ into this… I was waiting for an internship to begin at the Soho Theatre’s Writer’s Workshop (I always dreamed of being a theatre director, and studied English Literature at Durham, while being very involved in student theatre), when my designer friend called to ask if I could stand in for the beauty assistant at Vogue (just to answer phones) as she’d come down with gastric flu. I didn’t think I had anything to lose – and here I am, 14 years later, having moved through myriad magazine roles – as a beauty writer, freelance editor etc – to cement the things that I am most passionate about, in one place – and that is practical, kind, life-changing wellness wisdom, for everyone, via the pages of our magazine, and beyond.

What particular quotes or mantras hold meaning for you?
“It is never too late to be what you might have been,” by the revolutionary author George Eliot – I had this pinned to my desk at home when I was in my late teens and feeling pressured about which A-levels to take, and over the many years since it continues to resonate with me. That belief that you truly can change your life at ANY time – today, tomorrow, in this moment – is so powerful. I think we all need to feel that those things we assume to be impossible might no longer be… that if we do take that leap of faith, toward fulfilling our passion, it will all be worth it. I’ve taken those leaps over the years – training as a holistic facialist over many months of weekends, while pregnant with my second child and working full time (mad?!), and launching my own wellness blog, the Balance Plan, to celebrate the power and wisdom of nature – and every one has repaid me in interesting ways… even if I had my initial wobbles and regrets along the way too.

What are the warning signs that life is getting on top of you?
Oh gosh, I have had to get so much better at this. Being so passionate about Ayurveda has really helped actually – it sort of tunes you into your body’s own intuition, and you get so much better at reading the signals and stemming the potential problem before it really becomes an issue… an example – coming out of summer and going into autumn is a time when the body can naturally dry out more, and the lungs become quite susceptible to infection as a result. I felt the beginnings of imbalance in my body – sore throat, lethargy, heaviness – and moved my diet to include more seasonal veg, spice, warmth, broth, herbal teas… you really have to care for yourself every day – there’s no other way. There was a time when I would have pushed myself to the limit, over and over – whilst studying, whilst freelancing, whilst parenting – and you’re almost plea-bargaining with your body – ‘please let me just meet this deadline, or survive this job, or get through this day, and THEN I’ll rest’ – and your body honours it – but then you finish the work, and if you do not take that proper recuperative pause – that’s when your body plummets. I very rarely let myself get to that point now. If I find that I am more anxious and less in the moment – on my phone far more than I would normally be, and not wholly engaging in conversation with my family, for example – I know that something is not well in my mind. I need grounding. And when my temper is up and my sleep is disturbed, I know I’m holding on to stress that needs to be released.

So then what do you do to get back to how you want to feel?
Now, I work really hard not to get to that ‘line’ – I tend to do something restorative every single day. I feel so blessed to have learned the art of vedic meditation (I studied with Will Williams), and to have that amazing tool for life. It balances and grounds me more powerfully than anything else I’ve experienced. It’s as though all that baggage and clutter and the ‘ping ping ping’ of the brain is just reordered or discarded. You open your eyes to a world that is very calm, slow… and feel you can indeed cope. And not just cope, actually, really thrive. I am also a complete sucker for a deep hot bath – I love Neom and Aromatherapy Associates and Beatitude and Therapie, an early night with a cup of chai and a great book, and, I know we don’t talk about this very often, but sex is one of the best tension-busters we have. That physical release is so deeply balancing… we all need to feel blissed out – and I get that feeling from a great sound healing session, meditation, a wonderful restorative yoga session, and yep, sex too!

What are your plans, hopes and dreams for the future?
Oh, I really believe that dreams are what we’re made of… our incredible imaginations that look at the impossible and ask, ‘What if?’ I want to continue to build on the Balance Plan, and just get to a place where I have my fill of my family, my time to take in those sunsets, and a beautiful place to direct all of my creative energy… my husband and I are also working on our first book together, which is giving us SO much joy and excitement. It’s so nice to work on something that is so close to your heart, with someone who couldn’t be closer to your heart! We have our little book meetings – essentially discussions by candlelight while our children slumber – and just throw ideas around. To continue to write and create and to do so with my husband – that is the dream.

And finally, Eminé, what does living your best life mean to you?
Days filled with happiness and a thriving flourishing family – that’s it for me, always.

Eminé is Wellness Director at thinking woman’s monthly, Psychologies. She believes that holistic health – that seeks to join the dots between emotional, psychological, physical and digestive health – is the only sustainable and pleasurable way to ‘feel’ healthy. She is also co-founder of the Balance Plan, a celebration of life’s simplest natural pleasures. You can find her on Instagram as @thebalanceplan and @psydirector #360me.