Raw for 30 days

In a quest to cure my arthritis pain and heal my body I have gone on a deep, mostly internal search for what my body wants and needs to heal. No one could be more surprised than myself when I was lead to raw food. I started with a 4 day Master Cleanse, which resulted in the disappearance of years of chronic sinusitis and allergies. I am loving the food. I feel satisfied and more than that, my energy has never been better (in the last 20 years, anyway). No more need for afternoon naps and my blood pressure is normal and my allergies are still gone, in a couple of weeks and the weight is coming off in a healthy way...no counting calories or measuring or deprivation. I am having a blast exploring this whole world of fruits and vegetables. This summer I read the book, "Animal, Vegetable, Mirlacle", in which the author claimed that local organic produce was so much more tasty than the grocery store variety. I was skeptical, but I have found she is right. The funny thing, I wouldn't think twice about paying $4 for a bag of cookies, but why would I wince at paying $3 pound for organic local produce? which usually is a wnole lot more food and amazingly juicy.

Some of the research I did brought me to study the information presented by the institute that made this video. I think it's amazing, and although I don't have diabetes, if I did, I'd be signing up to go to Arizona. For me, I plan to be off all prescription meds. I am off of 2 out of 3 and hope to drop the 3rd in the next month. Take a minute to watch this fun video...



Now, it's not my intent to be on a soap box, and it may not be for everyone, but for me, it is just perfect. I love that it solves my problem of being too lazy to cook. Most of it I can make ahead, and if not, it takes only a few minutes. If worse comes to worse, I can grab some fruit and nuts. I LOVE and look forward to my satisfying green smoothie in the morning and my afternoon dates if a sweet tooth comes up. And there are always the raw chocolate ice cream I can literally whip up in one minute if I need it. Like the lady in the video, I have an addiction to food and a love affair with food. It has been used for every reason BUT nutrition my entire life and I am humbled and grateful that I have discovered it is possible to renew my vigor and stop the degenerative process in my body and eat amazing tasting food, as much as I want. I am not suffering or using white knuckles to stay away from junk. I think with my body finally getting the enzymes and nutrients it craves and getting off the addictive stuff it doesn't take control to eat right. Eating right, for all the right reasons just works for me. It's ironic that it took this much pain for me to make it, but no regret.....all in good time.

Freedom

"When you become aware that your thinking has a life of its own, you will never make a prison of your own perception."

"When your thinking is locked in false certainty or negativity it puts so many interesting and vital areas of life out of your reach. You live impoverished in the midst of your own abundance."

"Belief should liberate your life. The reduction of the wild eternity of your life into a harsh divine project is a blasphemy against the call of your soul."

"Expectation is resentment waiting to happen."

"When you look at the different conflicts in your life, you will find that they are placed where the contradictions cross each other, the nail where two intimate, but conflicting realities criss-cross."

From Anama Cara, By John O'Donahue

Better Than a Snickers? Really!!!

My new morning breakfast has been an experiment in Green Smoothies, which are all the rage for health conscious people. Each morning is a grand experiment and I'm always shocked how AMAZING they taste considering that it is at least 50% kale and spinach or chard. It's the time of the month when I crave sweet and heavy food, so this morning I thought rather than the typical fruit and greens I'd see what I could concoct in the way of chocolate.

I had to take a picture because I'm as shocked as anyone that this bright green thing tastes like a chocolate shake. I used about 4 cups of spinach, water, ice, about 5 kale leaves and 3 dates and about 2-3 T. raw Cacao powder and about a T. of agave nectar. If you haven't heard of Cacao, it is the healthy part of the cocoa bean they use to make chocolate and it is raw rather than cooked or processed like cocoa powder and it is full of antioxidants and minerals. So, you can have your chocolate and get health benefits too...

Thought for any old day

I found this statement on someone's blog and liked it enough to write it down. Sorry I can't remember who to give credit to:

"A challenge may not be easy, but it can be joyful. A challenge is something that can be embraced even from the beginning. A challenge, while it can be difficult, does not include the added dimension of resistance.

A struggle is being in one place and needing to be in another. A struggle is not only difficult, but it is a burden. A struggle is a challenge that is filled with resistance. A struggle is not fun at all."

Defense is the first act of war......

This quote, by Byron Katie, one of my teachers hit me square between the eyebrows. Guilty as charged. My mind flooded with all the times I felt the need to defend or protect myself, and see that the simple act of defending myself escalated things disproportionately. I stand in humility and openness and forgiveness for myself...tears fill my eyes. I am willing to see, to look closely at this in my life; to see that it is caused by me putting labels on places and people as good or bad, nice or mean. My imagination rewinds back to some of my earliest memories of times I felt the need to defend myself. It's human nature, and absolutely necessary at times, but also, there were times when my reaction was more knee-jerk and stronger and perhaps even completely unnecessary. I am learning to give people permission to think poorly of me without rushing to fix their opinion, or change my behavior.

So, I ask the question tonight...can I receive whatever comes toward me with equanimity and let it sit and settle in before moving my mouth or my heart? Can I be quiet and still enough as life comes around and toward me to see and hear the truth? I want to be able to listen so deeply that what I hear is the message between the words, or see the truth of the heart of the person before I act.

My Own Two Feet

I was so looking forward to our week at the beach last month, and was so disappointed, when my "good knee" started aching unexpectedly. By the end of the week I was quite uncomfortable, not helped by the fact that I had refused to honor the pain or give up my plan to spend as much time as my heart desired walking the beach, in the sand. My Warrior Archetype dies hard...if ever.

An MRI has confirmed a similar diagnosis to the other knee, but with several cysts and some damage to the ACL in addition. It's been a frustrating, slower recovery. Sometimes my mind raced forward way too far to be reliable, trying to imagine what the future holds for me. For me, the most frustrating part of this is before this pain started I was riding my bicycle almost daily to work and for fun and was back into my Yoga practice several times a week and in my mind, healed and building strength. I felt unstoppable.

I couldn't sleep tonight.....so I got up at midnight for some water and wandered to the computer to catch up on some friends blogging while I sipped. I read a friend's beautifully written account of her emotionally and physically painful weekend as her body purged another layer of trauma related to childhood sexual abuse. Something in her words lifted a veil and I suddenly understand an important element if I am to heal this knee.

Tonight, or should I say this morning, I understand. While there are physical reasons it hurts as defined by the MRI, I have come to see that my emotional space can play a role. How else could I have progressed to having 'moderate arthritis' and be completely pain free until recently, when this process obviously started way before this year?

So, I am being asked, and I am not clear of the answer:

Am I ready to STAND ON MY OWN TWO FEET?

Do I believe I can STAND ON MY OWN TWO FEET?



While much is scheduled to change for me financially in the next 6 months and the bank is once again breathing down my neck for payments that I won't be able to argue with, I have some important choices to make in order to keep a roof over our heads in the year 2009 as we await the repair of our townhome. I've been spending way too much time mulling my options around in my head, and until I get clear, this is going to be a stubborn, slow healing.


Part of me knows that it is not time to worry now, and just as the solutions have always appeared, they will again. But another part of me wants to know how it will all work out, and is trying to reason through whether I jump in faith and land firmly on my own two feet or go for other options. Crazy....the ego.

So.....off to bed I go with the question; Am I ready to stand fully, and firmly in the knowledge that I CAN stand on my own two feet, regardless of unknowns? 5:30am comes too quickly, so a quiet mind is what I desire.

A Bedtime Story...take 20 minutes

If you want a quick, but informative "Food for Thought" go to


The Story of Stuff

It'll make you think, hopefully.........

Loving You!!!!!!!!

Leaving Flat Land

This has been my experience, which I attribute the beginning of to be using the CD's from Centerpointe research in 2002.

If you want to know more about their mind health program, go to:

Centerpointe.com

They offer a one year money back guarantee with their introductory CD program, so there is nothing to lose, if you want to experience new levels of healing and happiness in your life.

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