Feeling gratitude in response to someone's loving action is a wonderful feeling. When we are aware that someone didn't have to 'do' something for us - but they chose to... it’s an honor that really makes your heart swell.

If parents are teachers - what are we teaching our children about gratitude?

Each night my son and I say a prayer. I never really prayed before having my son, but started when he was very little. I felt so humbled by being given the opportunity to grow and care for another human being – I really started to connect to the bigger picture and realize there must be a God, and that we are all equally God’s children.   

Each night we thank our creator for all the love, all the fun, all the food and all ‘the special'. My son loves to tell me what was special about his day. It's amazing to hear what it is that our children are grateful for! From having sunshine in the playground, to winning a game, having fun friends to play with, to having a yummy dinner or a nice snuggle with a sibling! 

When he resists saying the prayer, its usually a sign that he is upset about something. We then choose to talk about why he is angry and unwilling to say thank you. A lot can come out of those conversations too.

I recently bought a great book for his birthday, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Yesterday was the perfect day to get that book out and read about how some days are bad. I added in that unless we stop to look at why our law of attraction is bringing us opportunities to release these overwhelming emotions of sadness– we go on to create these situations no matter how hard we try to avoid them.

By the end of the book he had started to recognize his own his feelings more.

As his mother and direct influence – I also recognized and named my projected emotions of feeling unsettled and wanting to be rescued!

He feel asleep feeling a lot less confused, and with a smile on his tiny face.  I closed the bedroom door and knew I had a lot of my own emotions to own and process also. Emotional responsibility is a lifestyle!!

Sweet Dreams. xoxox

I am a perfect half of a complete soul created to enjoy constant bliss, love and creation. It is only errors in my soul that block this eternal experience and existence.

I am not my life.

My life is a perfect manifestation of my true soul desires. With humility and total honesty we can feel the truth that creates us. This is where we are able to take full responsibility for our feelings and experience complete change.

As our personal truths shift, error is released from our soul - allowing more love to flow in - thus altering our life immediately through our soul's manifestation of life around us.

This increased level of love in your soul then reflects out to everyone and everything around you - immediately allowing others to grow.

Only when you choose to stop the flow of love, will the connection stop. As soon as we choose to judge, project our emotions onto others rather than take responsibility for our own pain - the connection is lost.

At any time we have the opportunity to stop and own how we feel - and be prepared to open our hearts fully in order to experience these painful emotions that need to flow out of you - in order to make room for more love to flow in.

We have the freedom to choose everything that happens, especially the speed of our journey. But it is only when the pain gets sharp enough - that we choose ask for God's help.

God offers a supersonic, spiritual, superhighway... superior soul surgery... raising us so far and above our rusted realms of possibilities, tears tumble towards our hearts at the magnificence of our creator's cosmic creation.

They decide what clothes we buy, what food we eat, what holidays we go on, how we interact with our friends, families, and what relationship we have with our partners and with God.

Fear is something we think we understand - an emotional response to a percieved threat, perhaps a survival instinct for self preservation. However, if we make a list of ALL the things we fear it can often look like this: Scared of the dark; Scared of being alone; Scared of being hurt; Scared of heights; Scared of spiders... the list is endless. All of these fears come from personal truths we have about what will happen 'if'... personal truths are not always rational or 'correct' - but are powerful enough to drive our behavior.

Trauma creates fears locked deep within the limbic system of our brains - repressed emotions are also stored in cells of our bodies, (Trauma and the Body, Pat Ogden ).

Counseling and many types of therapy out there aim to release these emotions to dissolve symptoms that may have lead you to seek help - i.e. insomnia, impotence, back pain, cramps, recurring relationship issues, self esteem etc.

Emotions drive everything. Once you manage to trek through the veritable jungle of self deception emotions we employ (the intellectual justification of our behaviour or feelings) you really start to feel what's driving your behavior and feelings. Although confronting, this is such liberation.

To demonstrate, this is an excerpt from my journal after dealing with some HUGE feelings of SHAME, GRIEF, & FEAR... I cried on and off for a week, trying to feel what drives my need to feel special and put my need for this feeling before my family. I came up against deep grief, feeling petrified of being alone, fearing for my safety as a very small child... and as I started to release this child like emotion, I experienced it at the age it was created. I was in my cot! I still have a way to go, but this is the process I went through, & here's what I received...

Soul to Soul

My heart was open all day today! It brought up feelings of complete vulnerability, like a giraffe stretching out its neck and bending down to drink water - exposed to predators. Yet, I really enjoyed the capriciousness of this energetic connection with my partner. It had a beautifully innocent personality all of its own - incredible to feel.

I felt how constantly in flux we are with everything around us. I felt my soul's ability to express love as a colored stream of energy that reached out for my other half. Tenderly and nervously stretching out its tendrils to my soul mate. It reminded me of an 'emotional' graphic equalizer – showing our TRUE feelings of love towards one another in real time.

No intellectual reasoning for love, but TRUE love as it is felt and experienced.

The infinite awareness heightened by this connection allows you to remain present in each exchange - able to feel HONESTLY what you’re feeling.

If feelings of fear, shame, anger or grief start to control our heart and cloud our soul,the connection stops, hidden behind our shut down hearts.

It is the most beautiful transparent exchange of truth. There is NO hiding.

As soon as your desire for the other is interrupted by fear, or you are not humble - you will immediately feel distant from your partner or people around you.

A humble desire for honesty is required for any progression.

Ego is on mute, you are looking in the mirror. Complete honesty.

Any judgment then falls on you - you have to face yourself.

Confronting emotions triggered in response to the truth are exactly what need to be felt.These are the marks on our soul that need washing away – to reveal the pure joy that is within us all.

If I at any time expect my partner or loved ones to look after me or help me avoid painful feelings, I am out of truth. Loving support allows me to feel all of my emotions, in order to release suppressed emotions within my soul. As my heart stays open for longer - more love is able to flow in - and out.

Having experienced deep desire, longing, excitement and a pure innocent sexual connection – I can only feel feelings of wonder. I’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel - an answer to my prayers.

I have struggled with so much doubt and fears of having faith, this is a powerful, yet beautifully subtle feeling to have felt. I am honored to have been given the opportunity to feel brave enough to experience so much and remain humble and eager to learn how love really acts.

I prayed for opportunities to release emotions and gain insight. I expected an immediate epiphany, but forgot my soul had requested an event to be brought in through my law of attraction to help release this emotion. Every event that triggers deep seated emotion, are ALL answered prayers.

We choose how many times these events need to be repeated in order for us to get the message and deal with the blocked emotion!! Ain't THAT the truth!!!

This helps me stay in the emotion & cry it out - I feel gratitude for the opportunity to release this locked up pain.

The pain is an inevitable part of the prayer. Humility is key when choosing to experience painful feelings. Remember, these are all just FEELINGS they are NOT YOU.

Once they're out - they gone for good. You'll know when that is - if your law of attraction is no longer creating events to evoke that emotion - you've released it for good! The incredible law of attraction is demonstrated every second of every day, helping us grow and take responsibility for all of our feelings.

Nettles - The Holistic Health Hero of Our Wastelands

by Fiona  Hollis

Nettles, nettles everywhere! ‘Ouchy’ weeds that grow in and on anything. Resilient and persistent, nettles grow tall and proud in almost any location. This mysterious plant has some of the best security systems in place, designed to protect their precious leaves with millions of tiny syringes loaded with poison. A veritable electric fence of defense surrounds this plant.  Who would have thought this needle wielding warrior could be such a holistic health hero!

Aside from being a super plant - vitamin and mineral packed with many, many healing and therapeutic values - nettles are used to make paper, dye, rope, linen like fabric, and insect repellent. A green that serves many a need.

In England, there is an annual nettle eating competition at a pub called, The Bottle Inn. I called and asked them about the art of eating raw nettles - it seems that as the sting is only on the upper side of the leaf - the trick is to  fold the sides of the nettle in, and then roll the nettle up - so there is no upper side exposed to the mouth. I was a little confused, “Doesn’t the sting escape when chewed?” I asked… “Yes, sometimes  - your mouth goes kind of numb,” was the reply. If that option sounds a little unnecessarily traumatic, - why not make a smoothie, juice or tea?

Nettle tea is widely available - but to ensure optimum live food nutrition - greens are best eaten raw and straight from the earth. Now when I see nettles growing wildly in abundance, I marvel at how wonderful the earth is to give us such readily available sources of nutrients and goodness. Nettles are in fact our FREE vitamin reserve waiting silently for us to get with the program!

What do nettles do once they are in our system?

♥ High levels of chlorophyl, vitamin C, serotonin, histamine, acetyl-choline, minerals including iron, calcium and silica.

♥ Amphoteric effect on breast milk production - which means it regulates your milk flow. Nettles will stimulate mothers to make more milk if their flow is low, or reduced amounts if flow is excessive. Very, very, clever indeed.

♥ Blood tonic - their high levels of easily absorbed iron and chlorophyll are great for anaemia.

♥ Reduce blood sugar levels and stimulate circulation. This can support the treatment of diabetes.

♥ Nettles are a diuretic, great for the kidneys and liver and helps lower blood pressure. Help clear the blood of toxins and urates.

♥ Antihistamine - great for treating hay-fever allergies and reduce the severity of asthma attacks.

♥ Nettle tops make a tea for treating gout and arthritis - very good for the joints.

♥ Natural immunity booster with very high levels of anti-oxidant vitamin C.

When to harvest? Nettle tops (top 10-15cm) are best in spring - but if you keep your nettles cut back they will send up fresh shoots which you can then harvest through to Autumn. They will sting - so be careful and wear gloves. These can be frozen to use later in the year.

Eating raw nettles without getting stung

Blitzing them in your vita-mix with some fruit to make a yummy green smoothie will neutralise the sting and make for a super charged smoothie.

Infuse fresh nettle tops in a teapot for 10-15mins. Tastes much better than any nettle tea bag! If you don’t drink it all - use as a hair rinse and massage into the scalp to promote hair growth!

Do you feel EXTREME?: Utopian Ideals in a Modern World

By Fiona Hollis

Since joining the raw food community I’ve dealt with feelings of‘extremism’ and not quite fitting in. It starts with food and nutrition,then radiates into morality, philosophy and lifestyle.

Once on the other side of the fence, I labeled raw foodists ‘extreme’ in their living, driven by a cacao fueled aspiration to be 100% raw. My80% felt inferior - never mind the lows of winter months. I’d learned so much about food, and managed to heal my body - but where did I fit into this raw community?

Judgment - a pointer to how we feel about ourselves

Whilst watching an interview with David ‘Avocado’ Wolfe talking about getting B12 from ants which crawl into his raw honey, I had an attack of ‘raw judgment’. A bubble of extreme outrage popped inside of me - this raw food guru who I gleaned so much information from was suddenly eating ants? This raised new questions.Does raw = vegetarian - if not vegan… Where do ants fit in? Is there some sort of raw class system? My fear of being lowly ranked clearly did not stop me from judging others. For a period of time, David ‘Avocado’ Wolfe was, David ‘Anteater’ Wolfe.

Whilst doing his first 30 days raw challenge, my fiancé would heckle,‘Raw Hovis’, as I succumbed to a sandwich. I started looking at the Shazzies, Sarmas, and Karen Knowlers through different eyes, wondering if they were extreme in their discipline, and if they even remembered what a nacho tasted like?

Utopia

Recently I had ‘a moment’ of what felt like divine education. I was in the garden reflecting on my day, feeling so much gratitude to God for guiding and allowing me to create whatever it is I desire - regardless of how impossible it may have once felt. As I looked at the beautiful flowers in the sun parched earth - I marveled at how they survive such dry weather. Out of nowhere I saw a vision of how moisture is given tothe plants at night. God designed our planet to work in perfect harmony with everything around it. The sunshine is given to the earth during the daytime when life is awake. When life rests in the evening the weather changes and rain falls at the most perfect time for its life giving qualities to be absorbed. God gave us the potential for extreme perfection in all that we do by way of love and life.

Plants and trees provide more than enough food and nutrition to sustain healthy bodies, and allow our souls to thrive. There is no need for a cafeteria in the garden of Eden. This utopia we all recognize, is a vision of what was intended at source, what our planet once was. All around us grow wild foods: herbs, plants, flowers designed to suit our every need. Mallow, elder, dandelions, berries, hops, grasses, cleavers,birch - the list is endless. Sadly Western culture does not promote rawidealism. Wild food foraging is often a secondary option to thesupermarket or farmers market.

Displaced and unsatisfied we find ourselves craving the utopia that what was intended. As we awake to this primal knowing and allow our feelings to guide us, we start to see that there are new possibilities. Eating roast dinners, sandwiches, Mexican food, Indian food, haute cuisine are emotional instincts. Cooked food is what we’ve been brought up on, it comforts us. Suddenly choosing to eat raw in cold climates is not an obvious choice. However, this diet would be more accepted in hotter countries where fruits and nuts grow naturally. It’s our extreme desire to achieve our optimum vitality that can challenge other people.

Our version of reality

Way back when, through the pages of time, climate determined where we lived. People were indigenous and we ate according to our environment.Technology now heats our homes, fuels our cars and irrigates our barren land. Technology gives us international neighbors and global aspirations. We are able to unite in an unprecedented way, creating Facebook pages, twitter accounts, online events which serve to link us together by a common desire. People crave quality from their lives - raw goodness, not just illusions of goodness. These geographical human connections pave the way to increased expectation. “I prefer goji berries from the Himalayas rather than Canada…  some mangoes from Thailand…” The sudden need to eat out of season foods with huge carbon foot prints is pretty extreme,no?

The raw food community wants to connect to something. Many have a strong sense of morality and are predominantly vegan. In my vision, God gave us the gift of animals - provided to play perfect roles within the ecosystem and to teach us lessons of empathy and compassion and wonder.We were given the most exotic array of fruits, nuts and plants to eat.The clean bright flavors of raw food connect us to our planet, allowing us to feel why it is better to buy organic foods, you’re inner knowing steering you away from pesticides and chemicals that pollute the earth and our bodies. I now see raw foodists as extreme in their love for the planet and all life on it. Long live the extremists! (I have a hunch they will !)

Read more posts on Rawmom.com

What You Don’t Say Can Hurt You

- by Fiona Hollis  (London, England based, age 32)

Hello!

My name is Fiona, and I wanted to share with you how raw greens have helped transform my health.   January was my one year anniversary of healthy thyroid function. Woohooo!

In December 2008, I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. To my horror,I was told by my GP that surgery would probably be needed to remove 3/4of my thyroid gland, leaving me dependent on medication for the rest of my life. This didn’t feel like a road I wanted to go down at all.

I believe that, when working properly, our bodies are able to hea lthemselves. That all illness or dis-ease is caused by energy blockages within our bodies where emotions get trapped and repressed. I have not always thought this way - but since having my son my eyes have opened to the magical possibilities that are open tous if we dare to believe and see for ourselves.

Initially I thought I had flu, so thought I would let it run its course. After five days with a temperature of 40 C, the shakes, extreme brain pain and a buffet of horrendous symptoms, I decided to take my sorry self to the local GP. She took one look at me & suggested I see a specialist as my neck was very swollen & she was concerned it was thyroid cancer. My heart sank.

I knew deep down the goiter in my neck was blocked expression -clearly affecting my throat chakra. There was a key issue that had been bubbling to the surface of my mind for the last few months and the fear of expressing it to those around me was too great. I denied the need to confront it. The ‘thing’ I least wanted to say - had now backed me into a corner and was testing how much I was willing to stay in denial.

I now had no choice - and I could feel it in every painful cell. The emotions surrounding this admission were HUGE. The waves of shame,self-hatred, and despair I experienced as I spoke my truth was clearly what I had been avoiding. The day after I spoke my truth my goiter went down & I started my healing - and believe me it was the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me.

A friend introduced met o raw food, and lovingly e-mailed me advice and recipes to get me on my healing path to naturally reduce my thyroxine levels. Whilst Googling‘heal your own hyperthyroidism’ I stumbled upon an on-line community called ’Give it to me raw‘.Raw foodists had posted advice & real life experiences for managing thyroid conditions (amongst many other things). It seemed that cruciferous vegetables (green leafy veggies) were mother nature’s very own thyroxine suppressors - in particular kale.

I started drinking green juices every day as well as having green smoothies and raw food salads. From there, the key was being aware of all the different emotions that bubbled up. Amongst which were ‘Why am I doing this?’ and  ‘Surely it won’t work and everyone will think I’m mad’. I’ve since learned that a pinch of self-belief and a handful of faith are essential!

In my recovery, raw food gave me a clean slate to work from, whilst energising and cleansing me from the inside - releasing toxins and emotions - making me shiny and healthy! It energized and boosted my endocrine system and gave me a strong stable environment to experience the blocked emotions I allowed to come up and flow through me. This illness was my neon light pointing me in the direction of self-belief. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right? Every time I drink green juices and smoothies I feel like I’m filling my body with natural love. Then there’s Divine love - But that’s another topic altogether…

Read more from the Green Smoothie Queen blog

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