Posts tagged Health and Wellbeing
Nourishing Foods for Stomach Aches & Flu
onight was a rough evening for us, myself with stomach issues related to my celiac disease and my partner with the flu. So I stopped at the health food store on the way home from work and picked up some organic veggies to make juice and soup that would nourish our bodies.
Tummy Tamer Juice
found at The Renegade Health Show
1 cucumber
3 stalks celery
1/2 inch ginger
Instructions: Juice in a juicer.
Kale & No-Chicken Broth
I aimed for a little bit of blandness here so as not to upset our stomachs further. If you want to nurse a cold, adding garlic to this would be really wonderful.
8-10 cups no-chicken broth (I used 4 bullion cubes and water)
2 green onions, chopped
1 bunch kale, chopped & stems removed
Instructions: Boil together until kale is tender.
Being Kind to Yourself
hen I was at my massage therapy appointment the other day my therapist said she felt I had regressed since my last appointment and asked if I thought the craziness of the Holidays had contributed to my tenseness. For the first time ever I opened up to her and told her that I was going through trauma therapy and that we were starting to get into some things that were really hard. I felt this was the real reason I was so tense, since I had been anxious and stressed out by some of the things that were coming up. She lovingly said, “Well, that would explain why your left side is always more tense than your right. That’s where your heart is.”
Our bodies manifest trauma in so many different ways. Part of the therapy (both group and personal) that I’m going through is to help me understand and break down the ways that my body and mind react to and process this trauma. Each week we practice a new skill for understanding and dealing with triggers when they happen. In the middle of the written information for one of these skills was a small quiet sentence: “Doing this skill can be a huge challenge for trauma survivors, so be very kind and gentle with yourself!”
Huh. Being kind to myself…I realized that even though it seemed like I should understand this, I had absolutely no idea what that entailed. The thought kept coming back to me throughout the week and after my massage appointment. I started thinking about all the ways in which I am super hard on myself. I am very rigid with my ideas of how I think things should be and have little flexibility when they don’t go that way. I am really hard on myself about my body pain and often do things that aren’t helpful to give myself a temporary fix. I give up on things that don’t immediately grab me or that I don’t succeed at right away. I could go on and on. The point being: I fail epically at having compassion for myself.
As an experiment I thought about the idea of having compassion for my pain. What I discovered was that—just by changing my thinking from a negative viewpoint (of hurt and frustration) to a positive viewpoint (of compassion)—I reacted by caring for my pain (wanting to stretch and do yoga) rather than relying on the same destructive habits (cracking my neck and “beating up” on my back). I considered the other ways in which I could be kind to myself: not setting unrealistic expectations, allowing myself the freedom to be flexible, and even not being frustrated about not being compassionate with myself is compassion in itself!
This is still all very new to me and I have to really remind myself to slow down, challenge my perception, and enjoy the process. I would love to hear the things you do to be kind with yourself if you feel like sharing (as a reply, reblog, or by going to this post and leaving a comment below). ♥
ecause I have an intolerance to many sugars, finding breakfast cereal can be difficult as most are loaded with cane sugar. So finding something gluten-free on top of that makes my options very limited. Most of the time I just eat fruit for breakfast, but that can get boring really fast. I had been buying corn flakes that were fruit juice sweetened, but I’ve become increasingly aware of how much corn I consume in place of glutenous grains and I would like to eat things that have a little higher nutritional content.
When Bill and I went to my parents’ for Christmas, my mom had these quinoa flakes and we ate them for breakfast every morning we were there. I became a little addicted and have since been trying all kinds of different preparations for these.
Quinoa is considered to be a perfect protein, is high in dietary fiber, and is gluten-free and easy to digest—perfect for getting out of the corn flake rut. And one of my biggest cooking obsessions as of late is blueberry basil pancakes. So I thought I would try making this hot breakfast cereal with blueberries and basil and WOW it is good! Here’s how you do it.
Blueberry Basil Quinoa Breakfast Cereal (Vegan, Gluten-free, Sugar-free)
Ingredients (2 servings)
2/3 cup quinoa flakes
2 cups water**
handful of fresh blueberries
3-5 leaves of basil, chopped (depending on your taste and the size of the leaf)
maple syrup to taste
almond milk to taste (or another milk alternative)
Directions
Bring water to boil. Add quinoa flakes and immediately add blueberries and basil. Stir and allow to come back to a soft boil for 90 seconds. Remove from heat and let sit for a minute or two, this will allow the cereal to thicken. Stir in maple syrup and almond milk to taste. Enjoy!
**EDIT: For anyone who wrote this down earlier I totally spaced and put the wrong amount of water. I’ve changed it above.
Setting Routines
onight we welcome 2012! A new year is always exciting and like everyone else I love to make resolutions I have a hard time keeping. I don’t have a huge list of resolutions ready to spew out to you today, but I do have one intention for the next year that I wanted to share.
I’m a person who gets easily scattered without routine. I was reading a blog post by Miss Modish recently where she talks about how important her morning routine is to her. Essentially she wakes up in the morning and drinks a big glass of water, exercises (for at least 10 minutes but as long as an hour), showers, meditates, and eats breakfast. I thought this routine sounded perfect for me and would be something I could easily accomplish in the morning before I have to leave for work at 8am. I think if I could get up by 6 every morning I would have plenty of time.
I’m excited about the possibility of a routine like this making me a calmer and more centered person. Meditation is something that my group therapy centers heavily around and I have been struggling to find a time to do it every day. I also struggle to find time to do yoga, which has proven to be very beneficial to decreasing my body pain in the past.
Something that I’ve noticed about myself is that I tend to make everything an obligation which makes it so much more painful to accomplish. But it is good to remember that there are things that I want in my life and not allowing them to become a burden is really important.
One of our meditations that we work on is Metta, or the Lovingkindness Practice. It goes something like this:
May I be safe and loved.
May I be happy and healthy.
May I be kind and caring.
May I know all is well.
May you also know these things for yourself. Happy New Year!
