SWEET SURRENDER

Karen Knowler interview

I signed up this week to listen to the free interviews that are happening at Rawkathon.  I honestly hadn't listened to any.  I was looking forward to the talks given by Matthew Monarch and Karen Knowler, but had the day wrong of when they would be interviewed, so I just got to catch the interview with Karen Knowler.

However her words really resonated with my experience right now and seemed to be just the thing I needed to hear.  For one thing, she talked a lot about connecting with your life's purpose and how raw foods can actually be a catalyst in this because of their affects.  Most people will say that raw foods help them to be more sensitive and deepen their awareness, which naturally will bring you to your core being- the truth of who you are.  I have found this to be true in my own life as well. 

I think sometimes when all this stuff comes up with raw foods there might be a reaction of whoa!, that's a little too intense, that's a little too true and I am not quite ready to feel that open and maybe your brain will trick you into thinking that maybe a little cooked food might be alright. 

These are the points that stood out to me because that is what is relevant in my life right now.  I am sure other folks viewing the program had other things that stole the spotlight. 

I have been struggling a lot with what exactly is my purpose here on earth.  I thought I knew or at least had some sense of direction, but lately it has all been a jumble in my mind.  I have been in prayer quite a lot over this lately.

Karen said that a lot of times raw foods will come into your life when you are feeling ready to make big shifts and I feel this happening but I am also feeling resistant too.  It is especially a bit overwhelming right now as I focus on finishing up a home study that has been about 3 years in the making and is quite intense for me as it requires me to explore all sorts of boundaries outside of my comfort zone.   It has been very enlightening to shedding light on how my brain works and the different thought patterns that have conditioned the person I am.  But as these things are challenged and as raw foods brings them into light even further, I really find myself crying out to God, "What is your purpose for me?"  But this is a whole other post in itself. 

Also, Karen talked about her own journey into raw foods and that it took her about five years to commit to 100% raw.  She said she kept banging her head into the wall with the thought "oh, a little cooked food won't really affect me."  Yet, it always does.  I feel like the same lesson is beating at my door.  It's o.k.  I accept where I am and I am on a slow path to raw foods, but I think that is where I am traveling to.  I know this past week, I have eaten more cooked foods than I have for several months and it is really affecting me.  I feel bloated, I have a couple blemishes, I feel tired.  And the cooked food I have been eaten would most certainly be dubbed "healthy" but it is just too much. 

The good news is that I am reversing my ways almost immediately for one week has certainly been long enough to show me that there is NO WAY that I will slip up into this.  I think it is a good lesson for me.  When you eat raw foods and you have a cooked meal here and there, I think it is true that you are feeling so good and clear that it doesn't really affect you all that much.  It does affect you in the way though that it invites cooked things into your life and they are strangely sneaky and will dominate quickly if you don't watch out!

So, I guess I am going to have to search deep about what a high raw diet over the winter will look like for me.  I have some ideas in mind and they are going to be implemented straight away.  I will share some of what I come up with on a different day. 

I suggest checking out Karen's website though and if you can find her video of her kale avocado salad, check it out.  It's one of my favorites!

I found a quote today that I liked while studying...

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.  If you want something new, do something new, especially when there are so many alternatives."  It's from a book with many contributing authors, so I am not sure who to give credit to.

no poo?

I am sure you have all had an experience similar to the one I am about to mention in your lives.  What happens is that you go about life doing your normal stuff and then one day, you learn about something new.  You might think to yourself, hmm, that's interesting.  And then all of the sudden you start noticing said thing EVERYWHERE and you can't believe that you hadn't learned about it sooner. 

This happened to me over the summer while learning about the no poo method of hair care.  Have you heard of it?  Aimee wrote a post that had a couple of good links to informative articles.  But basically what you do is stop using shampoo and conditioner on your hair. The belief is that your hair doesn't really need those things.  After a brief detoxing period (2 weeks- 2 months), your hair is supposed to become shiny, healthy, soft, and neutral smelling.  There are some things you can do to help stabilize your hair's natural oils and cut the grease while doing so.  Some of these things include massaging the scalp, rinsing with baking soda and/or apple cider vinegar, rinsing with lemon juice, even washing with honey or yogurt.

The idea intrigued me and I decided to give it a go.  I have been at it for about 9 weeks now.  I have to say that my hair does not really look FANTASTIC, but it doesn't really look bad either.  However, until this week, my hair had been feeling REALLY GROSS. I had to go get my hair cut during this time of detox and it was quite embarrassing and I think the hair stylist was pretty freaked out by me.  I promised to go back when my hair had its miraculous turn around that I am believing in.  I was not prepared for it to take this long though and I was wondering what was up.  I asked for some advice on the Raw Fu forum where no pooing is popular among some of its members.  I think what we discovered was that I was not wetting my hair enough - i.e. every day.  I normally don't and I think after my hair works itself out, I won't have to.  (Also after you get through the initial period of shampoo detox, you should be able to just wash with water most of the time.)  But to get your hair to start feeling good, it sounds like it's the best idea to at least rinse it every day.  This is somewhat of a pain for me because I have thick hair and it takes a while to dry.  But I have been wetting it every day this week and it is starting to feel better. 

I was also using the baking soda/ ACV rinse, but realized the baking soda was much too harsh for my scalp. It was starting to get itchy on top of it all!  One women recommended doing it only once a month and I was doing it a couple times a week, so I have stopped that and it has made a huge difference.  What I like the best, as odd as it sounds, is washing my hair with honey.  You just have to wash it out well.  Honey is very cleansing and was an ingredient in the shampoo that I was using before I gave it up.  I have used it to mask my face even, so I guess it is not that odd.  This week, though, I have been using mostly water. 

Last week, I was at my wit's end, but with the motivation of the Raw Fuers, I forged on.  This week, I feel a glimmer of hope that my hair will know what it means to be soft once again.  I do have to say though, that as soon as I did find out about the no poo movement, I immediately stopped using shampoo on Rowan.  His hair would definitely have the least amount of shampoo addiction out of all of us because a). I washed his hair infrequently anyway and b). it was always with a gentle, natural shampoo (SLS free, but not paraben free).  Anyhow, he has fine hair and it started to look great RIGHT AWAY- with a little body to it even.  Steve and I noticed a remarkable difference in appearance only Steve hadn't realized that we had stopped the shampoo.  Also, after Rowan slept at night, the back of his head would always turn fuzzy and I would have to wet it down.  Ever since we started the no poo on him, it hasn't been a problem.  Silas is in on it too and his hair has been looking nice too and feels soft.  So, through my boys, I do have hope. 

It will be very freeing though to not have to put shampoo or (any hair care products) into the budget and it feels nice to not have shampoo clutter on the shelves in the shower. 

So, I am keeping my fingers crossed to see what the next few weeks will bring. 

Stopping in to say hello!

Right now I am feeling tongue tied for words.  I have had such a long abscense from this space.  And with in that time so much living has been going on.  Moments that have passed like rapid fire through summer into late summer to now.  Is it really October?  How did that happen?

So, now I am here knowing full well that the next month holds still more flurry of activity especially as I, with fingers crossed, tie up the loose ends of my home study to mail in (come mid November).  And no matter how many ideas I brew up to share here, they will probaby slip away quickly just like these last several weeks. 

But I feel a new inspiration arising and so, I thought I would stop by to talk a little more about different ideas I have forming about the raw food diet.  I actually have started a raw foods blog, but that space has been as poorly tended as this garden I am attempting to grow.  Perhaps, I should only stick with one plot.  Or maybe one day all these food thoughts will move over to their new home and I will save this space for other things. 

So, right now I am participating in a 100 day Raw Fu Challenge created by Bunny Berry.  This has been a great experience.  There is a support forum where you can go talk raw foods and Bunny makes an inspirational video just about daily.  I think right now I am on day 70.  I started out eating about 100% probably for around 40 or so days, but since then I have been eating more and more cooked.  I slip back to the place that I seem to feel really comfortable at and this usually consitsts of a liquid or fruit breakfast followed by a raw lunch and then either a raw or cooked dinner. 

Around day 40, I actually decided to stop being so stubborn with myself and realized that if I wanted to make a cooked dinner, I should.  And here is the rationale behind that.  First of all I am a mom to two children.  Their eating patterns definitely far exceed any child on the standard american diet, but they are kids and they do love their Annie's mac and cheese or their panda bear licorice or "bars" (their favorite being Cliff).  And they did not start out eating raw.  Although, little Rowan came along while I was beginning my raw food journey and so, he definitely goes for the raw things more than his older brother.  Silas came along during my macrobiotic/ vegan stage, so he digs the miso soup and kale and kraut sandwiches or sheets of nori.  The problem I created in my mind though was that they were only going to pick at several raw dinners, so quite often I was making a raw dish for myself and up to two different cooked things for the little ones.  Rowan would maybe go for boiled corn on the cob, while Silas could eat brown rice noodles with flax oil, braggs and Nutritional yeast for every meal if I would left him.  And so, not only was I feeling a bit burnt out at meal times, I was feeling a bit guilty for not feeding my kids as much growing food as they should be eating.

Experimentation began.  One night I made a potato and green bean salad that is dressed with olive oil and apple cider vineagar, basil and red onion.  A favorite of last summer.  Some thoughts I had were that every produce item of the salad was either home grown or locally grown and all though it was cooked, I really didn't feel bad to eat cooked, local veggies.  Especailly ones that brought my whole family to the dinner table together.  It just felt so nice to me to share that connection and the fact that my children dig a meal like this is wonderful. 

Then came a delicious Armenian Lentil soup that had again all local and home grown veggies of the season with a nice very dark green mesculun mix salad.  Again my boys gobbeled it up and again, I felt united with my family.

Recently we had baked sweet potatoes and that same dark green salad (both times with a from scratch raw dressing) and that really hit the spot.

So, I am not really pushing for the cooked foods here.  I feel like I can enjoy these things because I do have such a high intake of raw foods in my diet and my body craves dark greens, so I usually have plenty of those as well. 

But at the same time, right now for me, it creates such a lovely balance to also allow for some cooked, seasonal foods. 

A couple of rules I try to hold fast to are

1). each day consume fresh green juice.  My new favorite is zucchini, celery, dark greens, and apples. YUM.  if fresh fruit isn't consumed, then a green smoothie.  When I was eating all raw, I could have green smoothies for several days and feel great, but when I have some cooked foods, I feel better with the juice or maybe both will be on the menu.

2) I also try to stop eating at 8:00, but I will drink tea at night and I am addicted to raw honey and a splash of soy milk in my tea (I am blushing here, but I can't do cow's dairy and rice milk just doesn't stay whole in hot liquids).  Some day I do hope to maybe make a second juice instead of drinking tea.  But I love the ritual of tea.

3) I also try to eat properly combined meals.  I do make exceptions as sometimes it is really hard to combine properly ALL the time, but I do feel like things digest better when I make the efforts- especially with cooked foods.  Do you know about this?  Fruits alone or with greens. Animal products only combined with non startchy veggies (no corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc).  Startches (beans, breads, rices, etc) only with veggies.  Bananas can go with nuts and dried fruits, etc.  These rules are easy for my brain to figure out, but for Steve it was more difficult and he would ask me often about proper combinations. 

One last point here, my diet has really cleaned up with the help of raw foods in my life.  I am gluten free (I haven't tried eating oats yet since I have eliminated gluten, but I do enjoy raw oatmeal, so I may try it out).  I eat VERY little dairy.  I do eat raw goat's milk cheese and seem to do fine with that.  I also was able to discover a corn sensitivity, so corn has been eliminated in the past couple of weeks and corn is in everything!  even baking powder.  I still think there is something that is bothering me in my diet, but I can't quite pinpoint it yet, but each elimination makes it clearer for me.  So, I feel like my cooked foods diet is really, really clean.  I can't even entertain the idea of many junk foods because I know I will feel rotten from it all. 

So, maybe in another post, I will talk about ideas for eating raw in the winter that I hope to incorporate this year. 

until then, blessings and thank you for stopping by.