Making Sense Of Me!

The last few weeks I’ve posted on the idea of “Making Sense of Men”.

I don’t quite know how to say this, without sounding a bit silly, but, as I had been warned, within about 24 hours of my last post about feeling great with independence, Mr. Right smacked me upside the head like a pickup truck out of nowhere.

I think I mentioned I’ve been doing a bit of self-reflection–looking at how the decisions I’ve made in relationships have ultimately lead to some, well… less than ideal circumstances. And it’s not easy to look back on your choices and wonder, “Why on EARTH!?!…”

One of my life’s mottos is:

“Never regret yesterday, life is in you today and you create your tomorrow.”

How true. So while I’ve not been willing to beat myself up for some of my choices, I have been wanting to get clarity on WHY certain decisions were made and how to stop repeating irrational patterns.

I’ve done a lot of that kind of work on myself recently, and it’s clear that my life has taken a complete 180 degree turn.

So, what about this “Making Sense of Men” thing?

Well, frankly, having received the materials in the mail, they leave me uninspired.

Why?

Because I think what’s more important than someone’s interpretation of what “men” need or what “women” need–I think what’s more important than these gendered generalizations–is the power of communication, and an ability to decide.

I think when you DECIDE what you want for yourself in relationship to another person, and when you’re willing to communicate about what is needed and wanted BEFORE you jump into things, to really find out if this is a team that can survive and support each other in powerful ways, then I don’t know what more you really need.

These things and the willingness to constantly co-create a relationship seem like the missing ingredients in a powerful relationship.

I believe people really can create the lives they WANT for themselves–not just survive and trudge through life. I think once I started Making Sense of Me, the right man just POOF! appeared. (Ildiko was right, he showed up faster than she could type her little message!)

Okay… so, I’ve got some unopened CDs and understanding men to send back in the mail and a green juice to make this morning.

Isn’t life neat when you get a few more things into perspective.

Love and hugs,

Tera

"How Do I Get My Kids To Eat More Fruit?"

Hi Raw Moms!

I’m a raw foodie mama of three gorgeous girls! I’m raising them mostly raw vegan as well. I’m having trouble with my two year old as she will eat anything green, and loves seeds but WILL NOT eat fruit unless it is blended in a smoothie… isn’t that funny???!!! She’s always been this way. Even when she first started eating solids she flat out refused baby food of any kind and opted for noodles / quinoa and smoothies (even green smoothies!).

Any ideas of how I can get her try a piece of fruit???

Thanks!
Jennifer, Jana (2), Naia & Ananda (14 weeks)
(Check out Jennifer’s Story below)

Shannon Says…

Hi Jennifer,

Things we fear will become the lifelong legacy of our children if we tend to make an issue of it instead of understanding that it really is a passing phase. Now I know it can seem odd to you that your daughter won’t eat a whole fruit unless blended, and yes, this phase has been going on a while and may continue a while longer, but the important thing to keep in mind as a mom is always the Big Picture.

In this case that is that she IS getting great nutrition- and in her wisdom she is wanting it in the most digestible and balanced form- the Green Smoothie. It is NATURAL for us moms to compare our children to others, but we do so at our and our children’s peril because it causes so much stress all around. I used to be a Nanny to a family of 5 girls and 1 boy- 2 deaf and 1 Autistic.

The boy ate from Organic Baby Food Jars until he was 8!!! It used to drive his parents crazy. I never worried because he was gaining weight and his health never faltered.

Do you want to know when he finally chose to break this little habit?

When he went to school he would NOT eat until he came home because he didn’t want the other kids to see. But at around 7 or 8 when he started to have kids over on play dates, he had nowhere to hide! He just dropped his baby food diet on his own due to peer pressure that he himself felt.

For the next year, I am giving you permission to give yourself permission to give your daughter permission to allow what is- allow your daughter to continue to make her very clear and not unhealthy food choices when it comes to preferring blended fruits over whole fruits…in fact, I would encourage you to go one step further and RELISH your daughter’s uncanny ability to intuit what she needs here. Celebrate her clarity and your blessings.

With much love and enjoyment,

Shannon

Ardis Says…

Dear Jennifer,

I think it’s great you are raising your 3 beautiful daughters raw! It sounds like, since your 2 year old will eat her fruit in the form of smoothies, loves greens and seeds, she is getting a wonderfully nutritious and well-rounded diet. As for getting her to eat an actual piece of fruit, a couple tricks that have worked for me are:

Get her involved! When making her smoothie, let her put the chopped pieces in the blender. Take bites as you go along – “mmmm, mango! mmm banana!” Maybe she’ll want to take nibbles as you go along, too.

Just keep offering her a wide variety of fruit as an option (particularly when she’s really hungry), but without any pressure. You might be surprised to find that on the 15th offering she actually accepts! My son does this all the time. For example, he would never touch tomatoes, and I actually stopped offering them to him. But recently, he saw some cherry tomatoes and devoured almost an entire pint! Now he can’t get enough. It also helps to make sure the fruit is perfectly ripe and in season; children’s intuitions about these things are really strong.

I hope some of this helps. But for now, it sounds like you’re doing a great job!

Love, Ardis

Tips from Tera

Skewers and kebabs make for amazing fruit sculptures. While I can’t easily find any pictures right now, I know that my very first cookbook as a young girl had spiders made from peach halves, carrot shavings for legs, and clove buds for eyes! There was a mouse, too, made out of half a pear!

Playing with your food is perfectly acceptable, Mom. Get your muffin to build fruits sculptures and peek around online to see what you can find about making animal shapes out of fruit.

I think the other advice from moms are great, too. Also, exercise, getting outside and running definitely increases the desire for fruit. When your little muffin starts to get more physically active and working up a sweat, the hunger for fruit will come, I’m sure.

Keep us posted, my dear!

Love and hugs,
Tera

Summer Homeschooling Idea For Kids: Love Bugs!

I have always found that we fear the things we do not understand. Since summer is in full swing, and bugs are everywhere, why not take this opportunity to inform you little ones about bugs. I’m always a bit saddened when I see kids squealing in fear around bugs. They just need to understand a little bit more about them, and this squeamish fear can quickly transform itself into curious fascination.

I loved these little tidbits about bugs that Angela forwarded me the other day! Enjoy! And read it to your kids!

By Angela Elliott, Author of Alive in Five

Did you know that for every person, there are at least 200 million bugs? In every square mile of dirt, there are more bugs than there are people in the world.

Bugs are pretty cool when you think about it.

Take dragonflies for example: they squirt water out one end to shoot themselves forward like an airplane. They can catch thousands of mosquitoes by making a basket with their legs. Ants work together in a colony to look for food, build their homes, and care for their babies. Bees work together to make honey and can lift and pull 300 times their own body weight!

When a bee finds food, it flies back to the hive and tells the other bees where the food is by doing a dance in a certain direction and at a certain speed. How about those amazing caterpillars? They turn themselves into beautiful butterflies. How cool is that?

OK, I’ll admit that there are some nasty bugs out there…. Like the flea. Even though they can be nasty, they can sure do a neat trick! Did you know that fleas can jump 100 times their own body length and they always land backwards? That would be like us jumping up to the top of those tall buildings downtown.
Did any of you see A Bug’s Life? In the movie, one little bug had the courage to be different and brave enough to help his entire colony. The greatest message in the movie was that we can accomplish anything if we have the courage and if we all just work together to do the right thing.

I guess if you really think about it, we can learn a lot from the insects around us. When you see a cockroach on your floor or a flea bites you on the leg, you may wish we didn’t have bugs, but without bugs, butterflies and silkworms, all the plants would not get pollinated and you wouldn’t have any chocolate, peaches, apples and other yummy things to eat? Not to mention, the world would be a much dirtier place, because believe it or not, bugs clean up after us.

Spend some time learning more about the bugs in your environment and see what you can learn from the ways they work and live together. Bugs are hard working little critters and definitely worthy of being called our “friends!” So careful where you walk and bring a magnifying glass next time you go to the park!

Happy Summer!!

-Angela

3 Simple Steps To Get Clutter Under Control

By Vanessa Stewart, the Clutter Free Diva

Does the clutter & chaos in your living space feel like it’s taking over your life?

Are you feeling tired, confused and overwhelmed by it all?

Would you like to have a sense of peace, calmness and control in your life?

If you’re like most people, you’ve answered YES to more than one of the above questions! In today’s busy and hectic world, we tend to gather way too much clutter. It may be in the form of paper, books, toys, clothes, or who knows what. The big question is…”What do I do with ALL this “stuff ?”

Clutter most often represents delayed decisions.

Today I’d like to give you a few “Helpful Tips” to help you make the “decision”. Take back the control, add peace & calm as well as become more in love with your home again!

1. Schedule “de-clutter time”
Set aside a block of uninterrupted time, even 15 minutes a day will go a long way. Use a ticking timer to keep track, you can always re-set it if you want to do more!

2. Pick One Area
Decide on an area to tackle. Be real; set a goal that will allow you to see progress. It may be a drawer, closet or even a small room. When you start small, you are more likely to do it!

3. Evaluate your belongings
Walk thru your home or office and take a “look” at what you have. Are your belongings enriching or draining you? You want to be surrounded only by the things that you love, need and use.

Simple Steps to De-clutter your life!

ASK THESE 3 SIMPLE QUESTIONS:

Do I LOVE it?Do I need it?Do I use it?

And just for final measure…

How is it serving me in my life today? If it isn’t, and you didn’t answer YES to the 3 questions, it’s time to it let go! Give back!

Once you decide what you no longer need, don’t just throw it away. Give the items to a homeless shelter, or like-minded organization. This act of “sharing” will give you a sense of abundance and doing good in the world, it’s a win-win for everyone!

Clutter free kisses,
Vanessa

Vanessa Stewart is a certified Professional Organizer and Feng Shui Consultant. Her main goal in life is to “help people fall in love with their homes & offices all over again!” And she’s also our Clutter Free Diva!! Her 30 Day Clutter Busting program will be coming out in juuuust a few weeks, so watch for it!!

Sometimes Life Throws Us Unexpected Surprises. Be Ready To Catch Them When They Come!

By Jennifer Kleinberg My story into RAW starts when I was 21 and I went out one night with some friends and someone at the club drugged me with homemade ecstasy which caused me to go into seizure. The seizures went on for months, several and often many times a day resulting in me having to move in with my parents and be under constant supervision. The neurologists told my parents that as far as they could tell the damage was permanent although they could not quite pinpoint the origin of the convulsions. I got under regular Chiropractic care as well weekly acupuncture and started to detox my highly animal protein based diet into a diet more focused on greens and fresh foods. Within 3 months I was able to get around on my own and started to care for myself a little more at a time. I found local government funding and eventually convinced them into funding my flight and part of my tuition to school. The day I left, my mother refused to come to the airport but I told her not to worry – I believed in the innate power of my body to heal itself.

After a few years in school and on / off a vegetarian diet I married my sweetheart – Adam, who cared for me while I was ill. He had been a vegetarian / vegan for 12 years and he coached me into living a more healthy, sustainable and balanced diet.

We were living in Holland when I became pregnant with our first daughter – Jana. It was in the first months of her pregnancy that I began to research the best possible diet for pregnancy which would be easy to assimilate, provide the most nutrients, and the most energy. That is when I stumbled onto the THE GARDEN DIET. A website by a family of raw foodists with remarkable health and 4 beautiful, vibrant children. (They now have 6 I believe). They inspired me and I’ll never forget my initial reaction to reading Jinjee’s story – I thought, “WOW. THIS IS ME. THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR.” I shared the testimonials with my husband and together we began down the path toward live food. I researched further and discovered the Living Light Institute – the worlds’ premier raw vegan chef school. I set it in my mind that I was going to attend the school and become a Raw Vegan Chef – SOME HOW, SOME WAY, SOME DAY. I kept the image in my mind and meditated on its’ fruition.

It was nearly 18 months later that my dream was realized and, 4 months pregnant with twins and with my 18 month old daughter in tow went to Fort Bragg, CA for the two month intensive Chef Training Program. Graduating was one of the happiest accomplishments in my life. You can imagine how taxing 7- 12 hours a day in the kitchen on your feet 6 or 7 days a week with no days off for 2 months is when your pregnant with twins – let alone with an 18 month old to care for when I went back to my room and no help. BUT WE DID IT! Many of my classmates frequently commented on how much energy I had and how enthusiastic I was. I told them that I attribute my energy to my highly Raw Vegan diet and found when I ate cooked food during this time I felt PREGNANT!

Shortly after I returned from Fort Bragg I was approached by a photographer for Pregnancy Magazine and asked to do a test shoot which resulted in me being on the cover of two magazines and getting representation by FORD (as the first pregnant model they have ever hired) and also by Expecting Models – the agency for the T.V. show RUNWAY MOMS.

At 34 weeks pregnant I went into labor. Our dates were off, and we were expecting one full term very large baby. We had plans to deliver the baby at a Birthing Center in San Francisco attended by a midwife. Although we did not know we were expecting twins I had my suspicions but was reassured by our midwife that I was too small to be pregnant with twins. I had gained 28 lbs with this pregnancy at the time. My labor was long, hard and I had several convulsions due to the tremendous physical stress as my body was not ready to give birth but as we learned later – little Ananda was in distress and had initiated labor to save her life. When our Naia was born we all stared at her in shock – SHE WAS SOOO TINY! THERE WAS NO WAY THAT WAS THE ONLY BABY IN THAT HUGE BELLY!

Our midwife, who was not licenced to deliver twins or preemies in her center, called out to the assistant for help shouting “This baby is Premature – very, premature! I need an ambulance and oxygen NOW!” I felt movement in my belly and said to the Doula “There’s another baby… I can feel it!” My midwife who was giving my daughter oxygen yelled back “THAT’S JUST YOUR PLACENTA” I said, “Placentas Don’t have elbows! AHHHHHHHH!!!!” And Ananda (Bliss) was born, breach, in the sac, with the cord wrapped twice around her little neck. She was blue. My midwife didn’t miss a beat – GOD BLESS HER. She handed Naia over to her attending and dropped to her knees, ripping open her sac and unraveling the cord and when I heard a yelp, I knew my little girl was okay.

We were rushed off to the hospital, two ambulances, a fire truck, our attending friends and 7 burly fire fighters in our entourage. My poor husband – spinning around and flipping back and forth from crying to laughter went with our daughters to be sure that they were properly cared for while a friend went with me. The Doctors informed us that the babies had a twin to twin blood transfusion where Naia had sent Ananda just enough blood to help her survive her journey into the world. AMAZING.

The Doctors said that it was also amazing was that the babies were breathing on there own and seemed to be just fine! They were taken aback (and even rechecked me several times) that I had no rips or tears, and left the hospital in good health the next day. My husband later asked the doctors what the chances were if we had known we were having twins, that one was breach with the cord around her neck and with me having convulsions -of us having a natural, drug and Cesarean free birth in the hospital? They all answered unanimously “ABSOLUTELY NONE.”

My husband and I know that although to the general public and medical minded our birth story is a MIRACLE we give the credit to our lifestyle choices and practices. Highly Raw Vegan Diet + Chiropractic + Meditation + Regular Exercise = Extraordinary Healthy and Functioning Nervous System which was responsible not only for my healing from seizures but for the Miraculous Healthy Birth of my undiagnosed, premature twins.

GO RAW! GET ADJUSTED! LOVE THE LIFE YOU LIVE!

Many Blessings,
The Kleinberg Family – Adam, Jennifer, Jana, Naia & Ananda