Post Holiday Smoothie

“The greatest wealth is health.”  Virgil

It’s not over yet.  The parties, the holidays, the fun.  And already maybe you are feeling like you consumed to much food and drink. It’s a natural thing.  I love smoothies. They are healthy, easy and fun to make.  They are delicious for breakfast, lunch, a snack or even a light dinner.  Here is one of my favorite.

Berry Banana Cleanser Smoothie

1 Frozen banana (it makes it more like ice cream texture, but you can use a non-frozen one too)

1/2 cup frozen (or not) blueberries blackberries or cherries

1/4 – 1/2 cup ice

1/2 cup milk

honey or agave nectar to taste

drink in the wellness.

Plunge into the new

“Be not the slave of your own past, plunge into the sublime seas, swim far, so you shall come back with self respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook  the old.  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Read and re-read and re-read again this saying of Emerson. It is true.  Free yourself from your past.  Do not let it keep you from becoming who you are supposed to be.  Learn from your past.   It is a part of you.  See that no matter what it has been part of the shaping of who you are today.  Take the good and leave the rest.  Spring forward now.  It is almost a new year.  Begin to ponder your newness and what the new year will bring.  Think ahead to the 1st and what you want to accomplish this year.  Think about what you want to be and change and who you want to be.  Plunge into the new, the upcoming, the beginning.  You can do all things.

Start wherever you are

“Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.”  -Native American Proverb

We need to get order in our lives.  It’s the craziest time of the year and order is out the window.  Money is almost extinct these days and the goose is not getting fat.  How to get order in your life:

Make a list of what is important to you.  Example:  time with the kids, making memories, relaxation, running, making art, writing, following your calling.  Make a list of what is important that has to happen. Example pay bills, make phone calls, go to the post office,  buy last minute gifts, go to the grocery, meal planning for the week.

Make a list of the week from now until Christmas (or choose a day) and give each day its own space for writing.  Write tasks throughout each day for both of the lists above.  Make sure you have time to do what you need to do for your spiritual time as well.   Plan the same way with your finances.

Remember to give yourself another chance when you mess up.  If order does not come naturally to you, it will take a few times to really learn this. Just start fresh.  Get a new pad of paper or a pretty journal.  Or take some sheets from the printer.  That is what I like best. Get a large 81/2 by 11 sheet of paper from the printer with plenty of room for making lists.  Start writing.  Start wherever you are.

Listen to what works for you.  Just begin to try to get some order.  You will feel better about yourself.  You will have more time to do other things, and you will probably not spend as much money.  Plan. Get order.

Reflect and ask

It is cruel to discover one’s own mediocrity only when it is too late. -W. Somerset Maugham

Reflections.  Some days are good reflection days. Today is such.

Ask the Universe to tell you what you need.  It might sound crazy but it’s true.  Believe that you have to ask.  Think about it. When you are in school and you don’t know how to do a problem, you ask.  When you are new at a job and you don’t know how to use the new equipment, you ask.  So when we get stuck in life, what should we do?  Ask!  Cry out to the Universe.  Pray.  Ask believing that you will receive an answer.  And you will.  Do not ask and doubt.  Believe.  You can do nothing unless you believe.  But the reason that so many of us don’t get what we want is because we don’t ask.  How can we hear an answer if we haven’t asked the question?

Today think about your life. If you are stuck in indecision then ask.  Take some time, even if it is when you are driving in the car, if that is your only alone time, to ask. Pray.  Think and meditate.  Trust that you will receive an answer and then go forward in your life as if you know what you will do.  Be positive.  The answer will come.

Prepare your body

“Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack.”  Henry Miller

The human body is amazing.  Stop to think about it.  We need to give more credit to our physical bodies for putting up with us.  I mean sometimes we are cruel to our bodies.  We expect them to just keep up with us.  We don’t take care of them and we abuse them.  Think of your mind, your soul, your spirit as separate from your physical body.  Your physical body is along for the ride.  It cannot separate from you.  Your physical body is a gift to you. Think of it that way.  And take care of your body like you would take care of something you really care about.  You are entrusted to this body you have.  Feed it well.  If it is hurt, think about how to help heal it.  Give it vitamin C and herbal treatments.  Don’t overfeed it bad food.  Don’t feed it if it’s not hungry.  Listen to what makes it feel better.  What kind of food does it do best on?  Does excess white sugar, white flour and gluten make it feel bad?  Then limit your intake of these.  Exercise!!  Your body needs it.  It craves it.  You cannot be good to your body if you are not exercising.    Speak well to your body.  Think well of it in your mind.  Purposefully think good thoughts of your body.  If you do not have positive feelings toward you body ask yourself why?  When the answer comes do what you have to do.  Eat well.  Exercise.  Think positive.  Treat your body like you love it.  It will respond and take care of you.

Be completely you.

“Risk more than others think is safe.  Care more than others think is wise.  Dream more than others think is practical.  Expect more than others think is possible.” -Cadet Maxim

Trust your instincts.  They lead you along.  Don’t be afraid.  Give and love.  You don’t have to  listen to the “higher ups”.  They don’t  know what’s best for you anyways, even though they think they do.  You do.  As you set yourself out in this world, remember that sometimes those who have been here longer get closed off and immune to the freshness of life.  Don’t let that stop you.  Be jubilant.  Don’t let anyone take away your joy, your cheer and your excitement for life.  I mean you’re just out of college,  you can do anything.  Anything!  Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re stupid.  They’re just jealous.  They are.  They let their fire go out.  They struggle to keep it alive.  I say let your fire burn.  Let it be great and rich. Go out and conquer your world.  Let the world be your canvas.  Run into it and create your art. Don’t be afraid.  Risk, care, love and laugh.  Be you.  The world needs you.  It needs your freshness and your vibrancy.  The world grows stale without it.

Make your Masterpiece

I owe my success to listening to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”  -G.K. Chesterton

What do you know?  What do you know that no one else knows about you?  I mean when do you finally wake up and realize that life is short and that each day is another opportunity for you to be great.  To do what you are called to do.  To grasp what is given to you and run with it.  To use your imagination and create your masterpiece.

I was listening to a radio program the other day on my way to work and it was talking about this one man’s masterpiece.  It got me thinking.  Thinking a lot.  We all create a masterpiece when we are here.  But I don’t think we necessarily know what it will be.  I mean we might think that we do, but in reality,  that part is up to the Universe.  Our job is to just do the work.  My mom used to put it like this when I was growing up.  Shelley, there are two sides of the tennis court, yours and Gods.  You play on your side of the tennis court and let God take care of the other side. You do your part and God does the God part.   I just do what I am supposed to do, and then whatever happens, happens.

Keep on.  Through the jungle of life,  keep on.  Through the marathon of days,  keep on.  Through the dysfunctionality of family, keep on.  One day at a time, keep on, do not lose focus of your vision.

This is to have succeeded

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived – this is to have succeeded.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is wrapped up in your holiday season this year?  If is like anyone’s there is turmoil inside the happiness, smiling faces, candies and cookies.  With the joy comes the sadness, the pain, the hurt, the suffering. Remember that whatever it is that comes to you this holiday season…comes for a reason.  The reason is life.  It is to make you stronger.  It is to make you richer.  Richer in thought, in body, in health.  It is to make you better.  Remember this and celebrate this part of it because it helps you get through the grime.  I mean some days are just rough.  Down in the dumps rough.  Some seasons of life are that way.  Just when you think things are looking up, you get hit with a crowbar in the face and all your front teeth fall out.  But guess what?  You have a dentist.  And they make great teeth these days.  I mean they are repairable and better then the teeth you had before anyways….

I mean, I guess what I’m trying to say is that life can ALWAYS be better, if you make it so.  It is up to you.  No matter how bad it may seem, put your chin up today.  Smile and go.  Because life does get better.  Life will follow you.  If you sulk, life sulks along beside you.  But if you get up and get on with it, your life gets on too.   It is all a part of the package deal of life.  With the greatness comes difficulty.  You get down, you get up, you get down, you get up, you get down, you get up.  Life is just getting up one more time than you get down.

Today choose to be up.  Choose to smile and laugh and live.  Just one day, no matter how crummy you feel, make yourself do this.  You will be amazed at how your day changes to follow your lead.  Decide and go.  No more pity parties. We are over those. It is now time to get up and live your life the way you intend it to be.

Facing your fears. again.

“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life-and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”  -Georgia O’Keeffe, artist

This is lesson to myself.  Speaking to myself for myself.  I’m making a list of the things I am scared to do.  Then I’m going to do them.  I mean, not things that are stupid, and just that I’m doing for doing sake.  I am talking about things that I know I should do that I keep myself from doing.  Things that keep me from growing into who I am supposed to be.

If you sit and think about it, we all have things that we are afraid to do.  Things that we think will just go away if we ignore them.  They don’t.  They come back again in another form.  We can’t get to the place in life we are supposed to be if we stay afraid.  I hate being afraid.  I hate that I am afraid of certain things.  I hate admitting that I am afraid.   But I figured out that it’s better to admit it and then go do it anyways.  Face it head on and smash it out of the water.  I mean whatever happens happens, right?  At least we did our part and that was to face it and do something about it and not just sit there and be called a chicken.

So today I’m making another list.  The “what I am afraid of”  list.  I’m writing it down.  Pasting it up.  Looking at it and realizing that I can do these things.  That I am strong.  That I will conquer them.  I don’t know the outcome but I know my ability, and I know that I will move forward on these things today in my life.

May your trail lead true

I’m into rivers still.  Water.  I found this river website and it totally drew me in.   Maybe it’s the upcoming wet we are going to get.  Whatever it is, I am into it. Nature is so in tune with us.  We are so in tune with nature.  We forget sometimes.  We look and look and search and search when the answer is right there, in nature, right smack in front of our faces, waiting for us to hear it and let it soak into our being.

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing.
May your rivers flow without end,
meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets’
towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl,
Through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone,
and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm
where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs,
where deer walk across the white sand beaches,
where storms come and go
as lightning clangs upon the high crags,
where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams
waits for you–
beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”  -Edward Abbey, Earth Prayers from Around the World

Take the words of this prayer and make them yours.  Let what Abbey is saying soak into your being.  Let it lead you on your trail, wherever it is that you are headed.  Believe that your journey has magnificence in it.  Believe there are fantastic wonders along the way.  Let nature lead, trust her and follow.