I sometimes have a sweet tooth and love taking things like this for lunch when it strikes. It is sweet, so I don’t eat it too often, but it will keep the sweet monster away for a bit! Try it!
I enjoy the discourses of Paramahamsa Nithyananda very much because he tries to break down the sutras he’s teaching into easy-to-digest chunks and usually injects some humor into them.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
“Life is nothing more than the future becoming the past…Where the future and past meet is the present moment.”
“Try and find out exactly what your ideology actually is. To keep your ideology and your life separate is hypocrisy. Whatever you call your ideology or religion, you must be willing to practice it completely in your life.”
“How long will you quantify love? Transform it into a quality of your being.”
“When bringing awareness to the chakras, do not try to exclude anything, because then those things will come and sit on you.”
“When you find yourself thinking about things that worry you, just stop! That’s all!”
“The root cause for all our suffering is thinking about ourselves too much. That’s all. You go on thinking everybody is watching you, they are judging you, you’re going to be in trouble today or tomorrow. Nobody cares.”
Visit the website at http://www.lifeblissfoundation.org or find his discourses on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/lifeblissfoundation.
Don’t ya just love how YouTube sticks some goofy-looking video still on your channel? I’m pretty sure I keep clicking on a different one, but no. There it is. Oh well. Anyway…
So…if you’ve implemented green smoothies into your diet, you should eventually notice some differences…maybe in your dietary choices. What have you noticed?
Now, is that a green smoothie or what?
I packed that Vita-Mix full of greens and fruit. But I do this because I usually make enough to take to work with me as well. That’s pretty much my daily lunch because I’ll tell you what…if you’re a busy hairstylist, you’ve gotta get some nutrition somehow. And I know for a fact it’s not easy to stop and eat unless you actually block out some time to do it. I’ve done that, too, but it’s not always easy to do. So my smoothie comes to work with me because it’s pretty easy to sip on it while you’re mixing your client’s color or in between clients or whatever. Sipping is easier than eating 
What do you take for lunch?
I made the most delicious spicy raw smoothie. And it was so simple:
1 banana
4 dates
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
sprinkle of ginger powder
pinch of sea salt
dash of vanilla
handful of raw pumpkin seeds
1 cup water
I let the Vita Mix run for about a minute or so to warm up the drink. What a delicious way to end the day.
Mmmmm….
I just wanted to show you the stuff I grab out of my fridge to throw together for lunch. This only took a few minutes and I was done. I just sprinkled a little fresh lemon juice over the veggies, a dash of extra virgin olive oil and a bit of oregano. That’s it. Very delicious!
Over the weekend while working at a hair show, I noticed I had gotten a strange rash on my face. Not too bad, but I had little red bumps, mostly on my cheeks and chin. Not itchy or anything, but my skin also felt dry. It looked like a contact dermatitis.
I have to say, during the hair show weekend, it’s crazy, crazy busy and chaotic. I didn’t drink as much water as I normally do and I, and most everyone else I worked with, was a bit dehydrated, so I’m sure that contributed to the dryness. But for the life of me, I couldn’t think of what was causing the rash. I thought maybe it was the detergent they used at the hotel to wash their linens and towels, but if that were the case, it seems I would have had it most everywhere else, too. But I didn’t. I couldn’t think of anything new I’d been using on my face or of anything I may have come in contact with, either.
Oh well. So yesterday, a couple days later, the skin on my face was extremely dry and flaking - the rash was gone but my skin looked awful. Not very attractive. So I made myself a facial mask to soothe, exfoliate and moisturize:
1/4 cup oatmeal - ground into a powder
2 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
Enough water to make a paste
I gently rubbed the mask into my skin and did a couple Sun Salutations, then meditated for about 20 minutes with the mask on my face. I rinsed it off with warm water and my face felt soft and smooth. I followed up with some coconut oil to moisturize.
A quick overview about what these ingredients do for the skin:
Oatmeal - gently exfoliates and soothes the skin and is often used to treat skin issues such as psoriasis and eczema.
Honey - a great anti-bacterial, excellent for acne-prone skin. Detoxifies the skin.
Olive Oil - source of vitamin E and helps seal moisture into the skin
Cocoa Powder - excellent antioxidant
Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.
Well, my most recent post was about a juice feast/fast I was going to start since I felt like I was coming down with a bug, but alas, the juicing proved to be a bit too much for as sick as I got.
Turned out I had a flu, and standing there juicing, juicing, juicing was too much to bear. I was too weak to do it. Man, did I hate to admit THAT to myself. Ugh! I did, however, manage to juice some oranges as that was about all I could stomach. And water. I had no appetite, anyway.
So, now that I’m feeling better, I’ve been blending up the green goodness of smoothies. I’ve got a hair show to work at this weekend, so I’m going to start thinking about the juice cleanse once that’s over with.
Aaahhh…no rest for the wicked…
Today I decided to document the first day of my juice fast. For about the past two weeks I’ve been feeling like I’ve been wanting to fast, and then a couple days ago I came down with the flu (or cold?) and thought it’s as good a time as any! My face feels like it’s been hit with a brick so I think a eucalyptus bath is in order.
Today I’m going to share one of my favorite meditation techniques. It isn’t the only one, by any means, but it’s the one I use when I need to quickly enter into an alpha state (for which you can train yourself into a shortcut…we’ll go into that later) and I also use this before I go to sleep to program what I want to work on while I sleep (more on that later, also).
I call this Countdown into Alpha.
You’ll be visualizing the colors of the chakras…red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. If it helps, you can also visualize the location of the chakras if you’re familiar with them. If not, don’t worry about that for now. It’s enough to see the colors.
First, get into a comfortable sitting position with your spine straight. You can also lie down, but if you’re tired, you may fall asleep.
Close your eyes. Start by taking a slow, deep breath through the nose. Exhale slowly through the mouth. Breathe like this three times but on the third time, hold the breath before exhaling. Now return to normal breath.
Relax every part of your body, beginning at the feet, moving up through the legs, through the tummy and back, through the shoulders, your arms, your hands. Relax your neck and your jaw. Relax your eyes.
When you inhale, visualize the color red. Keep visualizing a vibrant red as you breathe, feeling it pulsating all around you. Hold onto the color red for as many breaths as you like until you see the color become orange. Keep visualizing orange as you breathe until it becomes yellow. Pulsating, vibrant yellow changes to green. Feel the green surrounding you as you breathe. Breathe in the green. Notice the green changing to blue. Lovely, light blue, blue as turquoise. The blue dances around you as it changes into indigo. Indigo as the midnight sky. Feel the indigo shift and pulse as it becomes violet. Languish in the violet for a few moments.
Now, slowly count backward from ten. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. You’re now in your alpha state. Enjoy it. You’re fully awake and aware of your surroundings, but relaxed.
While you’re in alpha is a good time to work on things. Go into alpha whenever you’re looking for a solution to a problem. Ask questions, and listen for the answer while your mind is quiet. If you do the Countdown into Alpha meditation before you go to sleep, you can tell yourself to reveal answers during your dreaming state, you can tell yourself you’ll remember them, as well as tell yourself you will wake up refreshed and energetic. You can work on healing yourself and others while in alpha. You can work on manifestation.
To come out of alpha, simply count up from one to ten and slowly open your eyes. I usually say a short, sweet prayer of gratitude before opening my eyes.
Once you’ve become accustomed to how it feels to be in alpha, you can train yourself to instantly experience alpha in a pinch. I don’t like to use it as a substitute, but when I need to say, manifest a parking spot, I can do it You can too:
After you’ve gone into alpha by relaxing and counting down, you can create some sort of gesture to quickly take you into alpha without having to devote time for visualizing and counting down. For example, pull on your earlobe, touch the tips of your fingers with your thumbs, or whatever you can come up with. Any simple gesture will do, so long as it’s discreet. I’m sure you don’t want to do some elaborate gesturing ritual while standing in line at the grocery store.
Try it. I’m sure you’ll come up with your own visualizing techniques for the colors eventually. Please let me know how you do or what’s worked better for you.