In Chlorophyll I Trust, For Chocolate Cravings I Will Bust

Hey there, frisky critters. I’ve been slimed!

I can’t believe how I have upped the green quotient this week! I’m practically impressed with myself. I’ve fallen in love with one of the green supplements we’re using in the 6-Week Detox. As a multi-tasking, somewhat over-ambitious, self-employed, single-mother, being able to drop a blob of swamp scum in water and call it a meal is a luxury I can handle. To top it all off, by upping my greens I have completely handled my chocolate cravings. Amazing!

Those of you who were listening in on my consultation with Dr. Ritamarie know that I have to give up the chocolate for a while. Interesting reasons why, too, but a bit too juicy for the blog. You’ll have to listen in to the consultation if you want to know why.

I’m SOoooooOOOooo glad I’ve given myself this week to wean myself off a few foods. I’m both fascinated and shocked at how completely unconscious my food choices are sometimes. This detox is challenging me in so many ways. Last night MAC took me on a date. We just went to a cozy, nearby bistro where I ordered tea and a salad. He ordered other stuff that probably tasted great but were most certainly NOT on the menu. Thanks to the ho-ho-holy-cow-did-I-ever-eat-too-much disease of the holidays, I have been a bit more liberal than usual in my finger-dipping. Last night I observed myself putting back new boundaries and resisting the formerly-irresistible foods I’d been nibbling on. I admit that the most effective trick for me was massaging the cyst on the side of my cheek.

*sigh*

Why do we wait until there’s a problem before we prioritize our health? I guess prevention is a pretty good medicine. Feeling the little lump on my cheek is just a reminder to keep things in check. I’ve spent the week weaning myself off most things, but have until Monday to reach my 100% liquid diet ideal which I’ll be carrying out for the next 6 weeks.

**Several hours later…*

Oh oh! What a revelation.

MAC just left for New York for the weekend. Sitting here alone, I think I finally understand my relationship to food. Looks like I’ll be white-knuckling through the weekend. This detox is forcing me to make some pretty strong evaluations and observations about my food choices. Like this one:

You can eat all the great food, fancy superfoods and Omega fatty acids you want, but you if you don’t sit down, relax and CHEW, CHEW, CHEW your food, you’re wasting money, time and creating toxicity. So, simply practicing the art of eating, sitting and chewing with patience requires a rather significant act of discipline for me.

As for our 21-Day Challenge challenge, all this talk of detox doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for cleaning up your house and sorting your finances for the year! I recommend taking a bit of time to look through the categories we laid out at the beginning:

1. Attitude
2. Fitness/Activity
3. Spirituality/Creative Expression
4. Sensuality
5. Health
6. Family
7. Relationships
8. Beauty
9. Home
10. Money/Abundance.

Have you taken the time to review the different areas in your life? I had a 2-hour accounting meeting and a another one with my banker, so I can scratch the financial review off the list. This is definitely an area where I have a lot of room for improvement. (I seem to prefer focusing on the green stuff with chlorophyll in it.)

Since MAC is gone for the weekend, I’ll be focusing on some of my professional and personal goals. I’ll be spending some time going through clothes, and getting some of the things I need for my apartment. For those of you who are a bit more settled than I am, you may want to try our 30-Day Clutter Free Diva program. In order to help inspire you with your new year’s resolutions and start the year off right, we’ve put this program on a temporary half-price offer. It’s one of our best, but lesser-known programs. We just spend so darn much time talkin’ about food, we forget to talk about the declutter program, but it is an AMAZING program for anyone wanting to spiff up the home front.

In just a few moments we’ve got a support call for the 6-Week Detox.

I think I need it.

Love and loney vibes,

Tera

How to be a Clutter-Free Diva in 30 Days!

This morning, I listened to a speaker at my son’s school who talked about the difference between a house and a home, how to make a house a home, and the importance of cleaning out all of the “rooms” of our heart-home. During this talk, the Raw Divas Clutter-Free Diva program came to mind and the fabulously necessary related special they are offering until Saturday, September 27. A comment about our physical environment often being a reflection of our inner environment that I’ve heard from Karen Knowler also came to mind this morning. That’s why I really like the Divas’ world-wide invitation to be clutter-free by the New Year. Who doesn’t want to be cleaned out — inwardly and outwardly — before the start of a new year?

Just imagine kicking off 2009 with no “stuff”/no “gook” (whatever your definition of stuff and gook may be!)!!! Oh how I love the sound of that. But, you know, my goal is to be done with all things “unwanted” by Christmas. Hmmh, maybe I’ll even push that up to early December — the start of my 43rd year! Yes, that’s my new goal: A New Clutter-Free Me at 43.

On one of the audio clips that Jinjee Talifero has made available on TheGardenDiet.com, she talked about this shift that is taking place in the world — people moving further away from stuff/material things in an attempt to get closer to their real ‘stuff’ — their purpose, creative talents, service to others, and so on. Basically, as the Divas say: “Making Space for Something Better!”

Jinjee’s chat about this subject really hit home for me, because I am very much on a page of life attempting to not have my God-given energy and purpose zapped by the energy it takes to maintain many things in a house that have to be stored, re-organized, dusted, washed, etc. And, just think about how the removal of unnecessary items aligns with transforming a house into a home!

Maybe like me, you are feeling that the upkeep of too many things (especially what we rarely use) is entirely a waste of time, energy and space — physically and mentally. That time could be better spent exploring the outdoors with your family. There’s just so much more to life than material things! I think that scaling down significantly really can increase one’s desire to LIVE and not merely exist. Let’s choose to LIVE.

So, if you didn’t get a chance to read the Clutter Free e-mail that The Raw Divas, Tera and Amy, sent out on September 23, here it is again. About busting clutter in 30 days, they wrote:

“Well, it’s hard to believe but the end of another glorious year of love, life and adventure is just around the corner. Goes fast, doesn’t it?

As of today (9/23), we counted and there are 99 days until 2009. We like celebrating things like this, just for the fun of playing with numbers, so here’s our spontaneous, lucky number 9 sale. We’re taking $99 off the cost of our 30 Day Clutter Busting program for the next 99 hours. At 3:00pm EST on Saturday,this program will be back up to it’s regular price of
$198!BUT WAIT!There’s a catch.

When you go to the page:

ClutterFreeDiva.com

you’ll see that the price listed IS STILL $198. It’s only when you click and go to the shoppingcart that you’ll realize, it’s actually $99.Sneaky, huh?We don’t want just anybody to take advantage of these little diva treats, you know.So, make the most of those 99 days until 2009, and if you’ve got clutter to bust, Darlin’, now’s your chance!Mmmmmuah! You’re gorgeous!”

Yes, I agree, you are gorgeous — and just imagine how much more gorgeous your “home” (inner and outer) will be once you’ve busted that clutter away. So, have fun clutter busting! I know I will.

Loving the thought of a completely Clutter-Free Life and World and Hugs…….

Penny

Easter Bunnies Do NOT Lay Eggs!!

Can you believe we set the start date of the next Body Enlightenment System for the 22nd of March? That’s about as silly as the idea that Easter Bunnies lay eggs!

I was just thinking of the blissful fact that Spring will be in the air. I thought to myself, how WONDERFUL to start Spring off with a 24 hour fast and 30 days of cleansing and rejuvenation with an amazing group of women.

The only thing is, I’ve been getting a lot of emails about Easter dinners and chocolate bunnies and how these risk cramping the style of our detox and cleansing kick off!

I honestly didn’t even THINK about that! Which caused me to realize, that I have so completely disconnected myself from holiday feasts that even if it was Christmas or Easter or any other day, I wouldn’t even consider eating anything other than whatever fruits and veg and nibblies seemed to attract me most on that day.

I can remember the adjustments that took place internally while I was discovering raw food. I would realize again and again how every time I wanted to go and celebrate something, there was food involved. Every time there was a special occasion, the thing to do was go to the restaurant, or buy some intoxicatingly rich foods to “treat” ourselves.

Some treat! Looking back I think, “Where’s the celebration in that?” It took a bit of creativity at first, but I eventually learned to just find other ways to celebrate.

Most Christmas dinners finish up with a good proportion of the men passed out on the couch, hit by a digestive truck, while the women squawk over dishes and the fact that they ate too much. AGAIN! What about music, dancing, and playing in snow? What about sparkley stickers or an hour spent with a good book? These are valid and health-promoting methods of celebration.

Retraining our emotional and social patterns with food can take time, but eventually you’ll find yourself outside of the digestively disturbed matrix and forget it was ever a part of your life. There’s a sense of liberation when you realize you eat to feed your body and not to fulfill some pleasure that could never be met by food in the first place, or even worse indulge in some subconscious level of self punishment by overeating or eating foods that ultimately leave you weak, robbed of energy and lacking self-esteem.

Participants of our How to Get Rid of Cravings and Emotional Eating program are currently undergoing a 14 day cleanse. 7 of those days will be spent just eating meals of ONE SINGLE FOOD. That’s right. Just one single food. Like a meal of JUST grapes. Or a meal of JUST spinach.

Simplifying your eating habits is a good way to get you back in communication with your body. Awareness alone is a powerful thing and you can cultivate a lot more of it for yourself by choosing to simplify your meals. It allows you more control over your seemingly unconscious patterns.

They’re not unconscious, they’re reactive–and they’re tied to a history of experiences, memories and people that you may not even recall easily any more. Trying to tackle cravings with will power is like a long term adventure on a roller coaster. It’s only with grace, patience, awareness and by persistently working towards simplicity that you will gain the upper hand on self-destructive or health-compromising patterns of behavior.

If there’s anything we can do this week to encourage you to achieve your health goals and set yourself up for long term success, it would be to get more involved in our community of women. If you don’t have the funds to sign up for a program like the 30 Day Body Enlightenment System, or the program on How to Handle Cravings and Emotional Eating, then at least pop into our free community forum, The Powder Room and make a new friend.

If you’d like my recommendation, well go for the BES!! But there are only about 8 places left! This time, as many of you know, we’re focusing on just on food but on clearing out our closets, too! It’s not easy to put in life changes with our diet, if our environment pulls us down again faster than we can pull ourselves up. We’ll have some powerful tips and support making sure that this 30 Day Cleansing and Closet Cleaning Blitz is one of the best programs we’ve done yet.

To make sure that’s the case, for THIS TIME ONLY, each participant also receives an hour long consultation with yours truly where we get the chance to really address your personal issues that might be getting in the way of your success.

And, given that I totally overlooked Easter festivities and how these might impact the ease of getting started on the program, we’re postponing the start date by another week, so that means the start date will be the 29th of March instead of the 22nd.

And for those of you who have been following my romantic adventures, let’s just say I’m going to be detoxing like CRAZY next weekend, because I’m going on a chocolate mono meal starting TONIGHT!!!

Love and hugs and no more internet dating for me,

Tera “the Spinster” Warner