Wake up – it is 2012

January 9th, 2012

- and your life is beginning again now.

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

Are you well on your way to get started on your intentions and your goals for 2012?

One thing I love beyond anything is the enthusiasm of something new. The excitement to do something new or differently, the hopes and desires for growth, and the curiosity for what might come your way. What I am indicating here is having movement in life, allowing the process of progress, letting your expectations take a hike and instead be in the present moment to see what you can make of it. What is the best you can do at any given moment, what is the best you can eat, what is the most kind you can be, the most loving, the most giving, the most grateful, the most caring…– I think you get it.

Life is a process of becoming. Progress is the nature of change. Goals can be helpful for some but a trigger that reminds of failure for others – so let’s call it desire, vision, and intentions. Make sure your intentions are not a mental measuring tool but rather a heartfelt desire for something you believe it. Our goals and intentions for 2012, need to be created from the heart. Make sure you are not creating your goals based on what you did not do well enough in the past. Accept where you are now, embrace who you are, and go from there towards your very own future.

So what am I really talking about here? I am talking about starting out on 2012 differently this time. Instead of doing what you always do; make promises to yourself and those around you, starting out full speed ahead only to find yourself not living up to your own unrealistic and too high expectations. Some even avoid the New Year resolutions because of past disappointments. Of course I often see this relative to health, dieting and exercise resolutions. Many feel lack of self-respect and hope because of the many promises they have made to themselves in the past, only to face the so-called failure of another diet.

So let’s wake up here to what it is really about: Get in touch with your inner self and learn to feed yourself, your body, and your soul. To fee you is more that just what is on your plate…I mean; eat from the inside out, eat from your heart, eat in a way that supports you, eat well so you can do what you want to do for 2012, and eat in a way that you can feel good about too. And self-care of course is not just about eating, it is about taking really good care of yourself, honoring your body, feeling and embracing your emotions, and letting your soul guide you.

Diets don’t work but life-changes do. We need to change both our choices and our habits, and it needs to be in a process that our body, mind, and soul can keep in touch with. What really works is a good deep look inside at the “why” you want to make changes. Change happens because we want to make them, not because we feel we have to. Sure it might feel as if you have no choice, but it still needs to be your choice for it to become a positive motivation. Once it is what you truly want it becomes part of who you are, how you do things, what you believe in, how you think, how you act and re-act.

So; take note of your intentions and why they matter to you.

The best you can do for yourself in 2012 is to learn to live in a way that feels true and authentic to you.

I often feel that we expect change and new beginnings to feel different, but the reality is that the first day in 2012 is not so different from that last day in 2011 unless you make it so.

So I just want to say this again: ask yourself; what do you want for 2012 and why? It makes a far more interesting journey to pursue something that you feel passionate about and have a reason to do, rather than working for something you feel you should do. Check in with your value system, what you believe in, and create your intentions from there. Go forward with compassion for everything you do instead of beating yourself up for everything you don’t do. Do more of what you do well, what makes you sing and dance, and stop focusing on what you are not good enough at.

Wake up, love yourself more, and eat well; beautiful, locally grown, cared for foods; hey – the worst thing that can happen is that you will feel and live better in 2012.

Enjoy your Self.

 

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Holiday Balance

December 17th, 2011

Balancing Food - photo: Torkil Stavdal

Balance for the Holidays can sound like an impossible feat.  For some it is the battle between eating or not. For most it is a constant inner dialog at the Holiday dinner table. But it really depends on what you mean by balance. Most think of balance as a perfect calm, with no disturbances and no excess of any kind. If this is what you strive for; read on because that is not what I think of as balance. Balance is to navigate, observe, and make choices that create a win-win situation for you.

Between food, treats, holiday parties, family gatherings, and the stress of shopping for gifts, the holiday season is one of the most stressful of the year. Many also find themselves with a void, missing loved ones, alone, and that can leave us even more prone to sinful indulgences to pamper the Self.

  • If you feel sad during this time, allow yourself to feel the sadness and remember the loved ones you are missing and know that you only miss them so much because of the love you have shared with them.
  • If you feel alone, allow yourself to feel the aloneness and check in to see if it is because you want to retreat or because you don’t feel comfortable going out among others without a “partner in crime”. There are many events to participate in on your own, being alone and being on your own is two very different states of being.
  • If you are stressed, anxious, and nervous, check in to see if you are creating too much pressure on yourself with expectations beyond what is realistic for you.

Ah yes – that holiday season. It is supposed to be so delightful, but it is bittersweet too.

Let’s also talk about what balanced eating is for the Holidays. Or maybe let’s start with what it is not.

It is not about being perfect and saying no to everything that comes your way, which is not on your daily “diet”. And by the way, diet is not some list of good and bad foods that you “should” adhere to, but rather a collection of preferred daily food choices. So already there we get off to a crooked start if you expect of yourself to stick to “your diet” during the holidays! Not because you have no will-power but because the Holiday season is something completely different than everyday life and the Holiday foods are for celebration and therefore not the same foods as you would normally eat. Hence the struggle for many. How to navigate, avoid temptation, not give into binges, and indulgences. These are the thoughts that cause a lot of anxiety around the dinner table on the Holidays.

But does that mean you cannot be healthy during the holidays though? No it does not. You can be healthy too. This is not an either-or situation, it is an AND! There are many healthy choices that you can incorporate and since balance is relative that is where we will start.

  1. Water – the most simple and easy solution. Drink water first thing in the am and no matter what you will already feel better, cleaner, and more refreshed.
  2. Get your sleep. Sleep helps restore, but it also helps you not being tired. When you are tired you are more prone to crave coffee and sweets, which is not helpful for you to feel your best.
  3. Eat breakfast. You need something to start you off on a good day. And when I say breakfast I mean exactly that. Break the fast of 12 hours with a good meal for the day. Oatmeal is probably the easiest for most people, but a poached egg or soft scramble might also feel good, if the meal the night before was heavier. Omit the bread though and add veggies instead.
  4. Stay off the bottle and stick to a glass or two. Unless of course it is a water bottle we are talking about. Drinking too much will leave its trace the day after and it is much harder to be good to yourself with good healthy choices, when you are feeling lousy.
  5. Have green vegetable juices or wheatgrass shots. It helps you alkalize and balance out the excess fats and sugars that often come along with a Holiday meal.
  6. Add more greens. Always add green vegetables, extra side dishes of green stuff, and try for every meal. It helps the overall well being and that will help you feel more balanced. If you have a sugar craving, have a fresh carrot or beet/carrot juice. It is cleansing and sweet at the same time.
  7. Proportions not portions. If you add more of the green stuff and take less of the starchy stuff, keep meat at one serving, and share dessert, you are already doing good and well for yourself.
  8. Chew well and take your time. Holidays are about sharing food, but also sharing time. So spend the time sharing time, and spend much more time eating, so you can indulge in the time sharing and tasting your food. Quality over quantity you can also more simply call it.
  9. Remember that you can have a taste of something, and you don’t have to eat the whole thing to try it out. That way you have more room to taste more and eat less.

And the last piece; embrace your Self, practice self-compassion, kind self-nourishment and nurture. The Holidays are for you as well, you don’t have to give up yourself to be there for and with others, because they feel the same way and in the end, we just all want to be loved, feel acknowledge, and accepted. You can start with you.

Happy and Healthy Holidays.

 

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The Adult within Me.

November 4th, 2011

I am now 10 years into my adulthood. I am nearing 50 so you might wonder what I mean by that.

Respectively 11 and 10 years ago my parents died, but I have just walked through the doorway of a decade and it is now 10 years since I am no longer someone’s child and have had to be the adult in my own life. The transition might sound strange to someone who has not yet lost a parent, but a wise woman told me today; “Once the parents cross over, the child in us go through the most profound initation of a lifetime to walk with the adult in us”. Well that is the initiation I entered 10 years ago and I am still learning how to navigate it.

I was my father’s daughter. We were tight, close, and very much in sync. He was my rock in so many ways. We shared dreams about exploring the world, ideas about how to invent stuff, thoughts about what to create in life, and visions about what we could do, and who we could become. Especially me; I was dreaming up a storm and he inspired me, supported me, taught me how to dare, and what it means to have the courage to move forward. He showed me how to believe and have faith in myself and my ideas. And to do it anyway, even if it all seemed impossible at first sight. He always said; “What will you do if you fail? Ok, then you know how to handle that, so go do it”. What that also means is, that he encouraged me not to be afraid of failure. That to fail is part of going for your dreams, trying new things, exploring what is and what it can become. I have never had a fear of failure because of this, and I always have a back-up plan in case I fail. You can of course argue that there is no such thing as failure since attempts might work out or not but either way it is part of the learning process. We would never have learned to walk if we were afraid of falling.

However, with all these lessons on life, what I found after he passed was that now all I had left to count on for this life courage and inspiration was myself. I was no longer married, my mother was gone the year earlier, and she was also more the nurturer rather than the supporter of my inner go-getter. She was the one who instead had fear and did not dare. The complexity of my parents was the complexity of my childhood and for that matter my upbringing and therefore my life eduction. I had obviously learned about life from the outside world too, though as an only child, I had been very much the center of attention in my family and did not have a lot of good experiences to build on with kids outside my own little safe world. But that is another story.

So what I had to face was that I now was the one to handle both the dynamics of what my mother had given me in life lessons, and what my dad had given me as well. I would have to go out into the world and create my own. I still had two grandmothers at the time, and they were indeed loving elders, but they were not the wise elders who could guide me on the way, which is what I was craving.

As I started on my journey to become my own adult and no longer the child of my parents, I faced a lot of challenges I had not expected. I expected the grief and to be missing them of course. But what I did not expect was that I had to face my own demons of self-worth, fear versus courage, can I be loved, will I be safe, will someone come save me if I cannot do it alone, can I take care of myself, and….what happened to all the dreams I had for the future, which had included my parents and the plans we had made together about how they would grow old.

I realized that all these thoughts and feelings were now mine to face alone. I had to be my own adult, encourage myself to keep going, find the courage to face the fears, be strong enough to believe I could do it and vulnerable enough to lovingly care for myself, love to be with myself to not feel lonely, and have faith even in the seemingly impossible adventures before me. I had to find it in me to keep moving, growing, developing emotionally, and create a safe life for myself. There was no one to take the load off my shoulders, support me when I was feeling low or tired. But most of all, there were no longer elders in my life, I was now the elder to myself.

I realized how this modern life of ours has separated us so much from community. In life we need elders, we need teachers, and we need support around us. We need to belong and we need to contribute.

What inspires me today is the same curiosity that I have had my entire life from when I was a little girl. My dad always encouraged that in me and he was still curious until the last day of his life. We spend his last months together getting me ready to be my own adult. I know that now. Everything he taught me during my life about how to be in the world I still have within me, it lives in my heart and in my soul. My demon only lives in my head and I will take up the fight with him any day so I can hold on to all the lessons that my parents and life has brought me. My elder lives within me too. I can take on my world and my life.

 

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Breasts, health, self-love, and care.

October 18th, 2011

This month is breast cancer awareness month. I have been debating with myself if and what to write about it. Since I started this whole “health thing” for myself as a very young woman because of breast cancer in my family, and because it became the reason for me starting Path for Life, I am hereby deciding that I should write something. So…this is what I believe in about breast cancer awareness and prevention.

I believe; that our food choices make us more or less healthy. There is no doubt in my mind that some foods are much more cancer causing that others. I avoid dairy like the plague; lucky for me I am also lactose intolerant so my body completely supports me in that choice. But dairy is also both a natural, and if not organic, an added growth hormone (mother’s milk for a cow), it is basically saturated fat and sugar, which cancer cells love, and it affects estrogen. Any question why to avoid it? Not for me. I have not had dairy as part of my regular diet since I was a teenager and being nearly 50 (1 year to go) I have absolutely no calcium or bone density issues, and I actually also believe that dairy cause such problems rather than help them. I asked my doctor as a teen about MS, since I was concerned I was going to end up like my aunt, who was dying from her MS at the time, and he told me to just stop having dairy and I would be fine. That started me thinking, looking, reading, and avoiding dairy.

I believe; that we need to avoid toxins since the breasts are very “lymph system related”. I do not take anything into my body that nature does not provide naturally. It is very simple to me, if it is not found in nature my body would not know what to do with it. This basically means no processed food, no food with stuff added, no pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, nor food coloring, and no ingredients that I cannot recognize the name of on the label as actually being of or from food.

Coffee, wine, and chocolate. Love it but …I love myself more. I do have a little of these delights from time to time, but I regard them as a wonderful and precious delights since I respect my body’s ability to handle these substances in small quantities and of high quality. I admittedly do not have attachments to these items anymore, but it was indeed work to come to a place of balance with these treats, the work of understanding what a true treat is for me, and the work of accepting what these treats represented emotionally for me.

I believe; that it is important to understand what my physical body needs and what makes it function optimally, how it feels at its best, and how I boost my immune and detoxification system. The foods I choose on a daily basis are high in fiber, high in vegetables, and especially high in cruciferous anti-cancer fighting energy, and choose mostly vegetable based protein. I drink pure water and green tea, I eat my meals in as much peace as possible. I honor when I am full as well as when I am hungry. And I cook. My mother always told me, you will learn how to cook when you need to. Well, I need to, so I do it. When it is not possible to make my own food I still choose good food and eat healthy though, since that is what I want for me, my body, and my future health.

I also believe; that food is not the whole story when it comes to breast health and breast cancer. The emotional aspect is huge. I am told by my doctors that my family history pretty much assures me that I will get breast cancer. Well, they are not looking at my history at all. And they are certainly not looking at my history compared to the history of the women in my family. Not only did they all eat a diet high in processed and refined sugar and flour, dairy, coffee, and chocolate, but they were also women who were very emotionally stuck in their anger. They did not show it much though but that is what is part of the stuckness.

I hear from many women, who have gone through treatment of breast-cancer, that they learned something about themselves in the process. They learned that they felt their needs were inferior to others in their life, who came first on the priority list. A typical “mother problem” really; take care of my children and husband first, me last. Even women without such family dynamics might still find themselves in the circles of friends and jobs where their life choices did not count as much as the needs of others. Or at least they felt this way. Some felt they could not live their life’s dream or pursue their own self-expression and creative interests.

I have to pose the question if that is the dynamic in our life that we ourselves create so we can take an honest look and see if there isn’t another way? Why do I say that? Because we all have choices. We choose that others come first, we choose that we matter less, and it does not have to be so. We have learned this belief system somewhere along the way, we are not born to believe it. We as women have through generations been taught to believe in the social system that put women second, so it is no surprise that we feel we have to fight for our right to take care of ourselves. We can heal if we love ourselves, allow our inner child to be nurtured, our inner princess to be appreciated, honor ourselves, and for that matter experience all our emotions such as being sad, mad, happy, pursue our dreams, live our full potential AND we can still exist within the dynamics of honoring our relationships and those around us.

The “and” is what many learn from their breast cancer.  We can give more love to others when we love ourselves, we can receive move love when we love ourselves, and we can express our innermost needs when we can love and acknowledge ourselves for having them.

My hope is that we as women can learn this without breast cancer – that is the awareness we should call upon this month. Self-love awareness month I would like to call it.

 

 

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Honor the Memories of Love

September 11th, 2011

In Memory Of...

As I am sitting here this morning on 9/11 I think back on this morning 10 years ago, remembering those who lost life. I was on my way to the hospital where my father was dying. As I walked into the hospital I saw on the TV screens that something had happened. I walked into his room saying exactly that. Something has happened. He turned on the TV, which he had stopped watching a couple of weeks prior as he prepared to die. We saw the first tower having been hit. As 20 min. had passed I said, it must be an accident, if it was a terrorist attack something else would have happened by now; and that was the exact moment the next plane hit. We were in shock as we watched and it felt as if the world stood still in that moment.

All day we kept watching to see if my dear friend Tim, a firefighter, would be seen on the screen. He had gone there as one of the first responders on his day off. My dad ended up not dying that week. He held on for another 2 months needing to know that he could leave this world and his daughter would be safe. But for those days we spoke a lot about life. We spoke about how little we cherish life as it comes. With the good and the bad.

I am sure many that lost their life on 9/11 would agree with my dad and I. That we spend too much time worrying about getting it right and performing our best, when really what we need to spend time on is being with each other and sharing our lives in love and honor of our selves and each other. During my father’s last months we agreed on one thing very clearly.

All that is left at the end is LOVE. Who we have shared our life with, the memories, and how much we have forgiven and given. How much we have received and embraced.

As I acknowledge the trauma that 9/11 has caused many, I also hope that this 10 year memorial will bring back the memories of LOVE.

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Balancing and Growing

August 15th, 2011

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

 

Our health is so much more than just doing all the healthy things we define as “healthy”. We eat a certain way when we are being good, we exercise to not feel guilty, and we work hard to be acknowledged for what we do. And something is missing… What is often missing is how we feel, inside, in our bodies, in our being. We do feel healthy when we do all the right things, sure. But do we DO all the right things all the time? Probably not; and having to is not my point either actually! How we feel is far more about being nourished that it is about doing the right thing.

My question to you is: how are you? We use that question all the time and the answer to that question normally comes back with a long list of what we have been doing. But how do you feel? I am asking you about your physical state, sure, but what about your emotional state? How happy are you, how fulfilled are you, how satisfied are you, how stabile do you feel, how secure are you in your daily life? All these feelings affect your physical health but they are based in your emotional health. So you can actually will yourself to do all the right things, but still not be at your optimal health or feel very good.

Mind-Body medicine has researched and shown that your emotions drive your health, not only because it drives your choices, but rather because emotional stress and trauma can become manifestations of disease in your body! I am not here to tell you that your thoughts make you ill. That would just cause you to have fear of your own thoughts and reject your own emotions, which is often what I hear people say they “have to” do because of their fear of the “Law of Attraction”. I don’t see it that way. To me it is obvious that who we are and what we feel needs to be acknowledged, and loved…really! Think about how often you actually reject yourself and your emotions. Either you numb yourself out with food or other activities that create a distance to your feelings, or you tell yourself you are being silly, or worse…stupid.

Or you tell yourself to get a grip, that your feelings do not matter, and you are just being too sensitive…?

You might have heard the expression: your shadow. Your shadow self is the part of you that you are hiding, ashamed of, or simply reject and wish was not you. Well, guess what. It is! And we better get used to it so we can start accepting who we are instead of trying to change ourselves. Sure there is room for “improvement”. Or shall we call it growth? The way I see it is that we grow every day. Hopefully at least. But the part of us that we don’t accept, and don’t love, becomes the shadow and the ignored self. Basically it can mean that you don’t grow that part of you and instead it is the part of you that always holds you back and keeps you stuck.

So, it is time to grow. Which means it is time to starting accepting yourself and loving all of you !

Think of a plant. When you take good care of your plant you check in on it on a regular basis. And even if every leaf is not perfect, you still love it. You might even care more for the part of the plant that is having a hard time. Does it it need anything? Is it getting too much of something that makes it stressed? Does it have shelter from the sun? Do you feed it just right? Water it on a regular basis? Do you even talk nicely to it?

It is very much of a balancing act to nourish and nurture yourself. Be ok with that! If it came naturally we would all be doing it without effort. You might not be born with green thumbs but you can learn how to take care of your own inner plant, and you might even see it flower!

 

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Loss, Grief, and Love

May 30th, 2011

My Parents in Love some years before I entered the world.

I lost my mother 11 years ago today. So today is quite a Memorial Day for me and a strange coincidence. But nice! Maybe more so because it is Memorial Day today, or maybe because I am now going into the next set of 10 years after her death, but today I think of her even more than I remember doing over the last couple of years past. Don’t get me wrong, I have not forgotten her all these other years. It has felt less like grief though, since I have always focused on celebrating her life on this day. Maybe because today is Memorial Day and for some that means BBQ’s and an extra day off, for some it gives us the day off to reflect. Reflect back on those we have lost. Maybe it is because of waking up to rain and she hated rainy days. I actually love them because they make me think of her. But today I felt so much grief and loss.

Normally I am quite at peace with my loss. She is not the only one, I lost my father the year later, and then on of my grandmothers the year after that. And a year before this whole thing started to happen I had lost a marriage. So loss is something I am quite seasoned at.

Grief is another thing. I have always looked at my grief as “sweet”. It has helped me be at peace with everything. I am not asking “why”? At least not very often and when I find myself doing so I hurry up and say, “this has nothing to do with me”. I am not being left and punished here, but rather somehow it was their time to go. Even when it does not make sense to me that they could not stick around to see me today, I can find some peace with that. I practice letting go of the idea that their life should be attached to mine. It also has me arguing for everything they did have in their lives before they passed and I focus on that instead of everything they missed out on. That also helps me, because I thereby shift my perspective from my own grief and sense of being left by them to a compassion for them and their loss instead.

I focus on the memories I have had with them and all the moments we did get to share. With that the grief feels much sweeter instead of tormenting.

Of course I have my many moments of wishing they were still here. Some days I miss my mother because I would love to talk to her when I feel sad, share happy news, and have her help me as I age. Nearing 50 I feel as if I could use her thoughts on becoming a woman, menopause and all that jazz. I also often need business advise from my dad and encouraging support to have the courage to move forward. I ask them for it anyway though even if I cannot call them. In a way I guess I do, I just don’t need to pick up the phone to do so. It gives me peace to still speak with them when I need them. It might sound strange to those who have not lost loved ones. But for those of you who have, I think you know what I mean. We are not crazy, we are just communicating on a heart and soul level, rather than via email and phone.

With 11 years today passing since her death, she would be 75 next month, but I still remember her as being the 64 she was when she died. I have an eternally young mother, which is actually funny because we are getting closer and closer in age as I age.

My mother died from complications from her breast-cancer treatment, which is why it was a complete shock and unexpected on this mid-morning 11 years ago, while I was at work.

It has become what changed my life. Her breast-cancers (3 of them) and her death. It has in many ways become my gift. Most of my adult life has been about living in the awareness of how I can be the most healthy I can be to fend off the high risk of breast-cancer, that I supposedly have by family history.

With that I have created a new life of health for myself and work to teach others how to take better care of themselves through nourishment. Both for more health, but also for prevention. Emotional eating and emotional health.

It feels as if it is what I was born to do, but it was not what I did for a living until both my parents died from cancer 1 year apart that it became obvious to me. In many ways I thank them every day and pay homage to them for getting me on this path. That is another way I see the grief as sweet. It got me here and I can only appreciate where I am right now.

In the end, we only grieve those we love. So grief to me is love. And love is what their deaths taught me and if there is anything I can do for them now it is to live my life from love and gratitude.

I got to speak with my mother over the phone right before she was carried away in the ambulance and I could not get to tell her I love you. I have regretted that ever since. I know that is what I wanted to tell her, so I tell her often now. I was at my dad’s side when he passed and his last words were “I love you”. I feel so blessed that I could have that to carry with me forever. I have both of them and their love with me every day.

Still, 11 years and counting, I have also somehow stopped counting. They will be with me all along. And that makes me smile, with love. I might still have tears of grief but they are from love and that is all that matters.

I learned that from their deaths and that is the greatest gift to take with me.
Love is all that matters in the end.

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Thy Food Thy Medicine

April 15th, 2011

Where did we go so wrong along the way? We use medication to keep us going instead of food. Food is our most basic tool we have for health. But no. We pop a tablet as soon as we have as much as the beginning of a headache instead of asking; “why is my headache here?” Instead we can adjust if we look to see what might be causing it. Granted we sometimes need medication but we have become so used to using medication for anything that seems to be bugging us instead of changing what is causing the “bugging”.

That is where the holistic medicine comes in to play. We use food for healing because often it is exactly the wrong use of food that has made us imbalanced to being with and with that causing us to become ill. The root cause of the symptom is often completely different from the symptom.

Western medicine will treat the surface symptom so to speak, eastern medicine will treat what causes the symptom. That is one of the reasons I love eastern philosophy and chinese medicine. It goes back to us as human beings and it creates a pathway for us to heal our bodies. It is a way of listening instead of fixing. We go inward into the body and listen for what it tells us rather than using our head to figure out how to “control the damage”. This way we as human beings are part of our own healing. This is why I love the work I do, I become part of my clients inner life to figure out what is manifesting on the outside and help the person going back in there on their own to learn how to master their own health, and with that – their life.

But back to food as your medicine: If we can agree that we already know that some foods are healthy and we know some are not. What creates the difference in our health is that of living with healthy choices or living in health. It is the consistency with which you make your healthy choices. Does that make sense?

Health is accumulative and we can add to our daily health with every choice we make. And just so you know. We make 1000′s of choices everyday without thinking much about it. Wouldn’t it be nice if eating healthy and treating yourself with kindness and good nourishment was as natural a habit as all the other daily choices you make?

One of the problems we have is often too little time. Taking the time to choose well, or not having access to proper food. I know it is tough to prioritize health over what you have to do. But when I put it like that, does it seem reasonable that you sacrifice your health to live a busy life? Not really right? If we can create health as a basic part of us, and who you are, then we will also naturally choose with health in mind. Effort yes, but easy never was the path to growing your health. I think many of my clients feel defeated before they come see me and feel they cannot make a change. I don’t think it is because they cannot make healthy changes, but because they have believed it is supposed to be easy. That is what the illusion of the crash diet promise us.

It takes both practice, awareness, and self-compassion in the beginning before it is a natural part of us and fully implemented. It is essential to learn to connect to and see your healthy self in your future life, which then makes it possible for you to continuously commit and choose your health over whatever you can just grab for now. It is that underlying awareness and commitment that health is asking of you.

That is also what helps you choose the healthier snack over the allure of sweets. What makes you have the menus from healthier food place available to you instead of menus from fast food and junk food delivery restaurants? It is also what makes you choose your lunch before you end up starving and choosing poorly because of it.

Suffer now or suffer more later is the argument. Take a few minutes now to get good food even if it is a bit more time for your lunch break, shop and cook your dinner instead of ordering in, and bring the rest for lunch. Time spend eating well now is time saved being well later. For ideas to cook healthy and fast www.pathforlifefood.com

But – the food industry does not make it easier for us.
They fill up packaged foods and snacks with the perfect combination of sugar, salt, and fat, knowing that they can hit the sensors in your brain to kick you into a food-high of happiness and with that an addiction to their products.
Not real happiness of course. Just the sensation of it. Like what the advertising industry would like us to buy into as well. Happiness via food and snacks.

Everywhere we turn there are advertisements for food, snacks, and soda that will have us believe it will bring us companionship and happiness. And we are easy targets. Tired, exhausted, stressed, and many unhappy with an unfulfilled daily life based on having little time away from making a living.

Bottom line – it is not all your fault.
But you are the one who needs to make the difference!

How and what you eat becomes how you feel,
how you live becomes how you care for yourself,
and it all adds up to how you thrive.

Today and in your future health.

So – Treat yourself to wellness with nourishment and kindness.
Let thy food be thy medicine. Thereby saying.
Eat well for your health and you will be your own medicine.

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

 

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The Power of Slow, Snow, and Tea-Time

December 27th, 2010

Right now we are pretty much snowed in here in NYC. Stuck inside with time on your hands, instead of being busy doing the daily routines that were planned on for today: That gives us time to reflect on time with a nice cup of tea.

Normally here in NYC, and everywhere else too, we stress, we rush, we exhaust ourselves all week. Part of our busy life indeed. But when do we get some downtime like the one today, full of snow to keep us quiet? On the weekends? Not really.

Our downtime and weekends are often used for running errands and catching up. Sounds familiar?

We live in fear that we will not be on top of things, we are anxious that time is running out. Relatively speaking I guess that it is true, but there are actually studies that teach us that available time is relative to how we spend it. Or rather, how we count it.

Sure, there are deadlines. Things we have to do by a certain time. We can however slow down time by not looking at the clock all the time. Yes. Times is relative to how you think of it.

Actually, the Power of Slow is not so much about slowing down as much as it is about taking time. How is that for a “being caught between a rock and a hard place”? It is not really about spending more time doing the same thing, it is about paying attention, being aware, and being in the moment of what we are doing. Often we rush ahead only to get there and then realize we missed something, have to go back or do it over.

Slow is also about quality. The choices we make based on the quality of time versus the speed. The quality of ingredients in our food versus the time it takes to get on our plate. Or the time we take to eat it. We only cheat ourselves if we choose poor quality fast food since we will be hungry soon again and instead have to spend time again to get more food, more money, and again time to eat it.

Apart from the fact that we work more optimally, if we take a break every so often. Our brain needs it. Our body needs food for fuel. Your soul needs some space to breathe. This all creates and environment where you can be more efficient in what you do…and it might just end up costing you less time after all.

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

Our relationship with time is crucial to changing our relationship with ourselves and others. We tend to let time run our life rather than spending our time living our life.

Ask some simple questions of yourself to help you find your boundaries of time and how you spend it or if it spends you. When it comes to self-nourishment we need to be able to do both. Be efficient, get things done, AND take care of ourselves.

1. Why is a task so important to you and how have you chosen it? We often feel that others have given us a task and a deadline and not realizing that we have a choice to agree with it or not. When we don’t see it as our choice we tend to feel depleted by it rather than empowered.

2. Who has decided on the time frame for it and are you in agreement? If you are not in agreement it means you don’t feel you are able to do it. That poses a problem for your stress. If you believe you can do something you are empowered.

3. How can you take care of yourself AND do what you have to do? You use your time well when know what you need to complete a task or project. This includes food (it is your fuel), time to recover as in sleep or a walk, and time to think (step away for a moment). These all ways that allows you to still move towards the completion of a task, but you take care of your care at the same time.

We often make a choice between Self and a project or a task that has to be done. We have to realize that we are the resource that gets us to the final completion so we have to practice self-care in the process. We cannot step on ourselves to reach higher. We can reach higher by supporting ourselves.

Taking time, spending time with our Self. That is time well spent. Everyone needs some quality time. Everyone needs some slow-down time too. Creating balance is essential.

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Spice of Life

October 5th, 2010

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

Living life large is not always a matter of more. The simple and small things in life can add some spice. We have become so accustomed to being entertained at any moment that even the small wonders are not so wonderful anymore. We are busy and stressed and don’t stop to pay mindful attention to the subtle values in life.

The same goes for our food. We use too much salt and kill the natural taste of the food. Herbs and spices can be a delicate and subtle enhancement to the taste of the food, rather than be the taste. We need to slow down and take the time enjoy every little bite to even notice these small hints of both flavor and aroma.

Life seems to be similar for many. The subtle nuances of our personalities and our moods. Our emotions flowing through us tend to be suppressed as we fear they will cause us pain rather than more life. Yes. More life. Emotions are the beauty of our personalities, our life expressed, our inner soul open. The spice of life comes in small moments.

Going inward is often painful at first. Until we learn that we are safe to explore what we feel and we will be accepted and loved if we are so by ourselves. The spice of life is within us, the experiences we have are our perception. So is our taste of food.

We can use spices and herbs to enhance our experience of the foods and it can be either gentle or more intense. We can also use them for healing. The heritage of spices and herbs for healing goes further back than our western well known medicine. Probably considered witchcraft in ancient days, it is considered New Age or strange by some now. But many find that adding herbs and spices to a meal can help not only enhance the experience of the food but can also enhance the food as your medicine.

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

Many herbs and spices are anti-inflammatory. Some are more heating and some are more cooling. Salt is a mineral so it is not in this category. Granted we need salt. But good quality sea salt. Not processed and refined salt. And even though we need it, a little bit still goes a long way. This is another one of those: less is more!

These are some of  the 15 most used healing spices and herbs in our kitchen:

1. Basil can relieve gas and soothe stomach upsets and has a calming effect, which has been shown to help ease muscle spasms.

2. Cayenne pepper is a hot red powder made from tropical chili peppers. It contains alkaloid capsaicin, which relieves pain by blocking the chemicals that send pain messages to the brain. It perks up appetite, improves digestion and relieves gas, nausea, and indigestion. The herb can also break up phlegm to help prevent and treat coughs, colds and bronchitis.

3. Cinnamon has shown to help balance blood sugar and it has a tranquilizing effect that helps reduce anxiety and stress. It can also help kill a variety of illness causing bacteria, including the dreaded E.coli, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus.

4. Clove calms pain and is even endorsed by the FDA  for tooth ache. Clove is one the spices that can improve blood sugar and insulin balance.

5. Dill can be been used to soothe the digestive tract and treat heartburn, colic and gas. Dill (and parsley) is rich in chlorophyll which is a good health agent…but also makes it useful in treating bad breath.

6. Fennel is known to ease bloating, gas pains, and digestive spasms in the small and large intestines. It can also reduce bad breath and body odor that comes from the intestines. For breast feeding women it can also increase the milk flow.

7. Garlic can help lower cholesterol and blood pressure and as well help prevent blood clots. It therefore helps reduce the risk of developing atherosclerosis. Garlic is both an anti-inflammtory, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral so it helps fight infections like the flu and colds. It has also shown to be effective against digestive ailments and diarrhea.

8. Ginger helps with nausea and motion sickness. Ginger also helps digestion by stimulating saliva flow, can relieve vomiting and ease pain from gas and diarrhea. It is anti-inflammatory and helps lower cholesterol. It might also be useful as a pain reliever.

9. Mint is an excellent stomach tonic to help with nausea and vomiting. It also helps digestion and calms stomach muscle spasms, relieves bloating, and can ease hiccups. Peppermint fights bacteria and viruses and can reduce spasms in the airways. Mint affects pain receptors making it useful in reducing headaches. Mint helps boost mental alertness as well…so have a mint tea instead of your coffee in the afternoon.

10. Oregano contains several compounds that can soothe coughs and has antibacterial properties to help reduce body odor. It helps un-knot the muscles in the digestive tract to relieve digestion and it is also one of the spices that helps lower blood pressure.

11. Parsley is a diuretic herb so it helps prevent kidney stones and bladder infections. It can also relieve bloating during menstruation. It is an effective breath freshener because it contains high levels of chlorophyll, also making it a high anti-oxidant choice.

12. Rosemary is high in antioxidants and is also antibacterial. Traditionally it is used to ease asthma and may also help ease breast pain.

13. Sage are both antiseptic and antibiotic, so it can help fight infections. Sage helps with symptoms of menopause, night sweats and hot-flashes. Because of its estrogenic action and tannins it can help against perspiration. Lab studies indicate that sage may boost insulin, making it a good herb for diabetics.

14. Thyme increases blood-flow to the skin and relaxes respiratory muscles which makes it helpful for treating bronchitis. It is also believed that the scent of thyme is a mood enhancer.

15. Turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties which helps many of our health issues today. It helps lower cholesterol and can soothe arthritis and other joint inflammation issues.  It is also very high in antioxidants.

A good source for reading more about herbs: http://www.whfoods.com
and http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/healing-herbs.html

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