This past week I have been reminded about the many powerful benefits music has on us. What a huge positive impact it has on our lives – Imagine a world without music! Music is in our lives in so many ways. When we listen to music, it awakes all kinds of emotions in us – joy and happiness, sadness and sorrow. Music holds memories and music speaks to the heart. It connects us in a special way.
Where words fail, music speaks – Hans Christian Andersen Continue reading
We all strive to be happy and to live a fulfilling life. This means following your dreams, speaking your truth, daring to be authentic and stand up for who you are and what you believe in. Speaking your truth even though some may not like it.
That takes courage!
Courage – cour means heart in french. Courage means to listen to and follow your heart. Go out and do whatever it is you have to do to follow your heart, even when your knees are trembling and your heart is racing. That is daring greatly.
I know that feeling so well – don’t you? When it comes I remind myself, if I want to live a balanced fulfilled life I must, listen and I must dare.
When I am too scared to do it I really feel I am betraying myself and it creates imbalance, I feel discontent. Not that I always get what I go after, but I have to try.
Trying is a success in itself – because even if we fail, at least we tried. We feel the emotions that comes with failing, we let go and move forward.
“It is hard to fail , but it is worse never to have tried to succeed” Theodore Roosevelt
Dr. Brene Brown is a researcher of vulnerability and shame. When I think of courage I think of her. In her books she puts herself out there. She tells the world about her shame and her vulnerabilities and she shares from her heart.
Her new book Daring Greatly is about the courage to engage wholeheartedly in our lives. About embracing vulnerability and imperfections. About Daring Greatly.
“I failed my way to success” – Thomas Edison
This recipe is from a very dear and special friend of mine. She suffers from gluten allergy and therefore she is always looking for new and creative ways for eating healthy and gluten-free.
She gave me her recipe here for these “Healthy Energy Truffles” and I just love it. They are easy to make and can be put in the freezer and taken out to enjoy whenever and whereever you need a good healthy snack.
Perfect snack
They are full of goodness – seeds, raisins, cranberries, honey and chocolate chips.
1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
1 cup toasted sesame seeds
1 cup quinoa flakes
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup of cocoa powder – or 100g dark good quality chocolate
1 cup dried cranberries
2 cups of peanut butter (1 jar @ 500g)
1/2 cup of honey
1 cup of toasted sesame or coconut seeds to roll the truffles in. I used toasted sesame seeds and a bit of pumpkin seeds.
Everything is mixed well together and made into balls the size of a golf ball and finished of by rolling them in toasted sesame/ pumpkin or coconut. Keep what you need in the fridge and freeze the rest.
Served with a nice cup of tea
A really important part of life is friendship – Crucial!
Friendship means everything!
Nothing in the world as good as a deep belly -laugh with a great friend. And everything else we share:
Friendships are so precious. Friendships are life.
There is a saying:
“Show me your fiends and I will tell you who you are”
A new book written by Carlin Flora called “Friendfluence” – talks about how friendships make us who we are. It just came out and I can’t wait to read it!
Gretchen Rubin interviewed Carlin Flora about her new book, in Psychology Today – read the interview here
Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
It amazes me how much is possible when we take our own health into our own hands – so much can happen! It could happen that we might very well risk feeling better, energized, loose weight, lower our cholesterol, boost our immune system – and all naturally!
A little actually goes a long way – and can make a huge difference.
Health is everything – without it we have nothing.
When did you last spend 10 minutes doing absolutely nothing? Just 10 minutes?
We are busier than ever, running faster and faster, expecting more and more from ourselves.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
One of the ways I like to keep healthy by is making some of my meals with plant-based foods.
In general I try to be 80% plant-based as I feel my body thrives and feels content that way. So much so I could never go back to my old “regular” diet. I smile when I see my children eating more and more vegetables too.
Hey they do as you do, not as you say 🙂
This way of eating keeps my cholesterol levels down, naturally. I maintain my ideal weight. I have tons of energy all thorough the day. And the Meniere’s disease I once suffered from, has gone!
Yesterdays plant- based invention was this:
Moroccan Vegan Burger
Moroccan Vegan Burger with Spicy Homemade Harissa
3 medium sized yams – cooked until tender
2 cups of cooked quinoa
500 grams dark mushrooms
3 shallots
Olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
3 spoons of flaxseed meal
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Seasoned flour
Spice mix
small 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Small 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
Small 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
Small 1/2 teaspoon Allspice
1/2 teaspoon Cumin
Finely chop the shallots, rinse and chop the mushrooms – put the mushrooms into a hot frying pan with olive oil and fry until they are until golden brown. Add the chopped shallots and continue frying until they are tender. Add sea salt and freshly ground pepper.
In the blender put the de-skinned baked yams, the cooked quinoa, the cooked mushrooms, the spice mix, the freshly squeezed garlic, the sea salt and the freshly ground pepper-blend. Put the “burger” mixture into a bowl and add 3 tablespoons of flaxseed meal. The mixture is quite soft so it can be a little tricky to work with – you can put the mixture in the fridge for a couple of hours before you make them into patties so they can firm up a bit. Then turn them in seasoned flour like this:
Turn lightly in flour before frying
Gently fry the patties in olive oil until they are golden brown on both sides.
Serve on a good bun with homemade harissa sauce, slices of red onions and a handful of Arugula or mixed lettuce – (see recipe for homemade rolls here )
Homemade Spicy Harissa
Spicy Harissa Sauce
I love this sauce on anything – the perfect dip for any vegetable! But also good with fish, chicken, lamb, – well, as I said, anything 🙂
2-3 red peppers
1-3 cloves of garlic depending on how fierce you want it
1/4 cup of olive oil
Red chilli – I use 1/2 , how hot do you like it?
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
Juice of one lemon
Cut the peppers in halfs and bake them in the oven with the skin up until they are tender and the skin is beginning to get dark, actually almost almost black. Leave them to cool and then take off the skin.
Place all the ingredients in the blender and blend into a smooth sauce.
A healthy spicy bite
Green Smoothies are part of my daily health ritual. I love these green shots. I swear to them and joyfully make them every day!
I feel fantastic when I drink these green health boosters. It is an excellent and easy way to get your greens!
I am excited and look forward to a new and refreshing taste every day.
They take 2 minutes to make, so easy! I would never ever be able to chew my way thorough the amounts of greens and fruits that go in a smoothie, but I easily drink them and feel the goodness in every cell of my body. By drinking green smoothies I load my body with health. More about the Benefits of green smoothies.
Green Smoothies
A good handful of collard greens
2 apples
A chunk of pineapple
An orange
A generous handful of frozen mango
2 cups of water
Add it all to the blender and blend into a cool smooth and delicious drink.
Enjoy!
Something new and exciting in my life. I have signed up for Twitter a completely new world to me. Feel like Bambi on the ice actually, but I am determined to learn 🙂
If you are on Twitter I would LOVE to connect with you!
Happy Sunday!
I read this gorgeous poem yesterday, so powerful and beautiful it just swept my feet from under me. I want to share it with you……………….
Do you have any new years resolutions? Do you want to lose weight? Start doing yoga? Be more healthy? Start meditating? Stop procrastinating?
We all procrastinate to some extend and make excuses as to why today is not a good day to start that project you’ve been planning, stop smoking or eating healthily.
Some of us may procrastinate so much that important things in life never get done. Robbing us of our dreams and deeper longings, ultimately leaving us dissatisfied and depressed.
Today it is easier than ever to get distracted and seduced by procrastination. Busy lives, busy schedules, too much work, families, children and all the things that add up and make us desperately trying to make ends meet. On top of that there is social media, oh there’s a message on my Facebook, wonder who it’s from? Oops a text, wonder what it says? I should Google it and find out about ……. and click, click, click hours and hours have gone by and it is too late, I’ll do it tomorrow.
We become addicted to the news the likes and the comments, we want more of that feeling. The same with emails, text messages – we just need to see if there are any new mails any new messages any new likes, any world news we cannot live without – any rewards.
We know we are fooling ourselves and, in fact, wasting precious time away from what we intended to do, what really matters. This creates frustration and increases feelings of not following through, not doing good enough – so we try to repair that feeling with going back for more – a quick fix – of ice cream or Facebook.
The quick-fix happiness feeling is short-lived and followed by a feeling of inadequacy – a vicious circle.
I know in my own life I can make endless excuses – for not going out on that run, or not sitting down to meditate or finish the children’s book I have worked on for years. So is it because I really don’t want to run and stay fit? Don’t I want the book to be finished and get out in to the world? Yes, I do, I want it with all my heart, more than anything – it’s a longing, a passion, my deepest mission. So why do I procrastinate and do less important things? – Because there is always “real” work, there is always dishes that needs to be done, some washing to do or some clothes to fold, or some dinner plans to make, some children to drive, some phone calls to make …………….
Seen from a psycho-dynamic perspective, I know I have to look at what is underneath, I know that if I am self-sabotaging my goals, there is something underneath that needs my loving attention.
Key is embracing emotions – If we are stressed, if we feel sad somewhere deep down, if we are angry, because someone walked all over us – it’s time to go within, it’s time to confront those feelings inside. Maybe it’s time to talk. If we suppress some feeling, it stays in the body and creates stress and discomfort. It doesn’t just disappear because we turn the other cheek – it loads up within the body and creates havoc, it makes us want to eat more, procrastinate more, postpone more.
I know why I procrastinate finishing my book, or sitting down to meditate, even though these are really important to me – there are some issues I need to attend to first. For example, one of the things that I have to say goodbye to is that we have just sold our farm in Denmark, our home of many years, and we are starting a new chapter. Our children were raised there and it’s a place filled with many wonderful memories. This means there is grieving to be done, there are more tears and feelings I need to embrace. If I don’t do this, I know it will stay within my body and take my creativity, my happiness, my flow and it will ultimately sabotage my goals.
I recommend:
Once we embrace our emotions, all of them, we automatically get more energy and we want to be active, we want to eat better, we become more compassionate towards ourselves and the world and we make better choices for ourselves. This leading us to a feeling of contentedness and there will be no more procrastinations but an eager to get going.
Also read:
Anne Sture Tucker 