By Alejandro Junger, MD on December 22, 2009
Forgive me for getting an Outkast song going through your head (my Clean Team is composed of super hip (they’ll love that!) music lovers so I’m getting quite an education) but your very own “so fresh and so clean” New Year begins with not only a catchy little beat but three very important R’s.
These R’s will be the tools for absolutely amazing vitality as well as an immune boost. They are: Remove, Restore and Rejuvenate, and here’s the super simple breakdown.
1. Remove toxins by avoiding processed/packaged food with additives and artificial sweeteners, beauty care products with ingredients you can’t pronounce, finding food and non-food items that are organic like fruits and vegetables, clothing, bedding, makeup, and pet supplies, buy or make your own eco-friendly cleaning products, and also look at removing common allergens from your diet such as dairy, bread, pasta, sugar, white rice/sugar and red meat.
2. Restore healthy bacteria in the gut (by using natural and often really delicious plant and herbal antimicrobials like garlic, lemon, olive oil, oregano oil, thyme and cayenne pepper) to help your body out as it tirelessly works to move all those toxins that we accumulate just by living, working and playing in this world of ours.
3. Rejuvenate by making time to rest both your body and your mind, with things like meditation, yoga, gentle walking or stretching, being outside whenever possible even if it’s just to watch some clouds float by or the snow fall through trees, taking a bath, reading, some form of creative activity, sharing space with loved ones, or simply being still for a few minutes every so often throughout your day. . .
A final tip that addresses all three of the above R’s is this:
Love those greens! Fresh green juices are one of the best ways to fill your body with incredible nutrition, easy to digest energy, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and a pleasant sensation of fullness that will help with maintaing the right weight for your own body. Greens (and especially in fresh juiced form) even help to generate feelings of comfort and being loved. Love from yourself for taking such good care of your wonderful body, but also, that feeling of being satiated and nourished creates a state of happiness and clarity in your brain (and also to your overall moods) both of which are so important in these long cold winter months. Seasonal Affective Disorder runs rampant and threatens to drive us all under the covers with a pound of chocolate, and unless it’s some sugar-free raw chocolate, you might be pleasantly surprised when silky, sexy, slightly sweet green juices become your “comfort food” of choice and the scales begin to tip in a lighter direction as a welcome side effect.
If you don’t happen to have a neighborhood juice bar don’t worry, because you can make delicious green juices without even having a juicer. With any high speed blender, you can make a thick “soup” and then using a simple nut milk bag (about $7) or even with a DIY cheesecloth one, you can strain out the pulp and be left with a glass full of yummy green nutrition to power you up through what promises to be an amazing New Year!
These simple things are the sexiest (and easiest) tools ever for reaching optimal health and vitality. You’ll have more energy and more time to fully experience the things you love and to begin actively participating in your incredibly vibrant life.
Warmth and love. . .
Dr. Alejandro Junger
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By Guest Blogger on October 20, 2009
Win a copy of Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s book, The Sky Begins At Your Feet, by being the tenth person to tweet a link to this blog @CrazySexyLife.
From the time I began writing like a maniac at age 14, writing has been my most constant spiritual companion, my way of praying for some clarity during the thickest tangles, and my source for finding answers, or at least, getting a better view of the questions. From the time I began writing, smack in the middle of my parents’ divorce, writing gave me a place to touch down on something more sacred — the act of creating — while being surrounded by court battles and fights over porcelain trinkets. In my memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet, during and after my long day’s journey into and through cancer, it was the act of writing that helped me as much as any deep-tissue massage, spinach casserole, or oncologist’s consoling words. Throughout all the challenges of my life — having children, losing a parent, finding new vocations and losing old ones, being too busy and feeling too empty, or simply having a decision to make more complex than what to eat for lunch — writing’s been my touchstone.
As someone raised Jewish — a religion that deeply values questioning everything, even to the point of wanting to pull your hair out over heated discussions about every nuance of the Torah — I’ve come to learn how a spiritual practice can be not so much a way of knowing, but as a way to dwell in not knowing, a place where the ground tends to give out. When I write, I find new ways to know, or to name what I always knew without having the words for it before, or to strip away coats of knowing that no longer fit.
Writing through loss especially — the loss of thinking I was immortal (or at least, not so mortal); the loss of various body parts; the loss of health, at least for a while; the deaths of my father, step-father and father-in-law — showed me how much spirit surrounded me in all directions. Writing at such moments, when the yearning for clarity and comfort outstrip all else, gives me back my life, and in this example, from The Sky Begins At Your Feet, writing helps me find new ways to love a changing and aging body and to reconnect with the vibrancy of the earth:
So I am trying to love my body for what it is right now. Let the love I feel for it – the tenderness for my moving fingers on the keyboard, the appreciation for the strength of my legs to carry me for miles on an early spring day, the wonder at the softness of my skin, the shapes I leave in the blankets. Let this love be enough. Let this love show me the way to sing the body electric, to write the body erotic. Let me learn this way of loving what’s imperfect from the land and sky around me, the best mirror to show us that what we do to our environment, we also do to ourselves. As well, the earth where I live is the best teacher when it comes to persevering through the seasons with the kind of grace that celebrates life, however it comes – in the icy wind mid-winter that makes the windows tremble, the explosion of lilac one particularly slow spring, the reddening grasses late fall, the black sheen of the crow mid-day when he shoots across the sky to examine the latest addition to our compost pile. Life just wants to live, so the old saying goes, and this desire makes for tremendous innovation…
So I open the door to the back deck, and stand outside in the middle of the night, watching the clouds travel past the waning moon, collapsed on one side because of the sun’s particular slant of light at this moment. I step outside again in the morning, the overgrown grass of early spring pouring over itself around the tilted cottonwood tree. The hills and wind around this home carrying their own losses and scars, and yet lit with a green both pale and fierce, quiet and shining, fully here at this moment and on the verge of changing completely. I return to earth and sky, continually coming home.
Writing is also a practice of returning to the body, to the earth, to the blank page of my life, and from this act of creating something of words, continually coming home. In that spirit, I offer readers this writing exercise to try on your own — just for your own eyes, and only if wish, to share with others too.
-Write a list of all you love in your life, feeling free to land on the small loves (chocolate pudding in my case) or big loves (spouses, children, best friends, land, memory, etc.). Keep adding to this list over time.
-Then take any item on the list that grabs your attention at the moment, and write the story how you came to love it/him/her/them. This list is also a great ongoing source of writing prompts; whenever you have a free 10-15 minutes, you can pluck something off the list, and write its story.
-When you feel ready or need to create your own form of prayer, begin with the phrase, “Let this love…” and fill in the words that come. When you run out of words, write down “Let this love…” again, and keep going. Let the rhythm of the writing, and of repeating this phrase, speak to and from your heart of what you need most at this moment.
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the Poet Laureate of Kansas and the author of ten books, including her recent memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet, and a new collection of poetry, Landed. Founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College (www.Goddard.edu), where she teaches, she also leads writing workshops widely, and with singer Kelley Hunt, leads writing and singing retreats, co-writes songs, and performs collaboratively. Her website is www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.
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By Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy on October 9, 2009
CSL: Your tagline says “Succulent Wild Woman”. What does that mean to you and how can women (and men?) find their own succulent wild person within?
Many years ago in San Francisco, I found these words etched into the cement on the sidewalk; Succulence is Powerful. I immediately resonated strongly with those words and shouted; “Yes! And I am a Succulent Wild Woman!” and went home and started a book with that title. A succulent is a plant that is self-nourishing, self-sustaining. It feeds itself water from the inside.
I believe and know that we can be like this too. Right after Succulent Wild Woman came out, I saw that so many men wanted to be involved. So I wrote The Bodacious Book of Succulence, which honored all the Succulent Wild Men that I knew, including my cat Jupiter! Being Succulent & Wild became a phenomenon all over the world, with people forming groups and connecting with each other. I continue to live, explore and create with magnificent succulence, as do countless others.
We all want rich, rare, eccentric, unusual lives, filled with adventure and juiciness. Succulent Wild people feel that every day. To find your own succulence, become aware that you are already succulent, just being human. Then consider reading one of my books or engage in one of my eprograms and “tune your dial” to the succulent channel. As you magnify and expand your experiences of succulence, you will notice yourself changing and growing from the inside out. You can then share that succulence with the world.
CSL: How do you feel creativity is related to mind and body wellness?
We are intrinsically creative and must express that in order to live an abundantly healthy life. Those creative expressions can take endless forms. Raising children is one of the most creative acts we can engage in. Changing your perspective to think of yourself as a creative person, and behaving that way, is tremendously valuable for nourishing your mind and body.
Every challenge there is, is solved by creative solutions. Every joy is expanded by our creativity. There is no end to our creativity!
CSL: Can you give our readers a few strategies they can use to awaken their creative spirit on a daily basis?
Commit to your creative spirit by experiencing creative things- tiny or large
Realize that you ARE creative already- you are born as a creative soul
Engage in practices that fill your soul- then share the overflow with the world
Avoid energies that drain you or drag you down- learn from them and then move on
Try new things all the time- be filled and fulfilled by what you experience
Invest in creativity- read, study, discuss creative things with creative thinking people
Vividness is a “creativity accelerator”- Find some
Energetically shift to a an active creative daily life-you are meant to live this way
CSL: For our readers who may not be familiar with your writing, what is your mission as an author and artist?
When I was ten years old, I declared that I wanted to be “a beacon of hope” for the world. I would now add this: To transparently share my life and gifts so that myself and others can be delighted, illuminated, refreshed and filled. May we all then share our creative abundance with the world.
CSL: Do you have any exciting new projects that you can share with us?
Yes! I am excited by so many upcoming projects. I am simultaneously creating 5 books, utilizing my micromovement method; 2 nonfiction, 2 children’s books and a memoir. One of the nonfiction books will be published in fall 2010 by New World Library. The working title is Glad for the Grief; Transforming Grief and Loss into Gift and Opportunity.
I’m also creating and developing more marvelous new eprograms, in addition to the 4 we’ve recently launched, which will be available at http://www.planetsark.com
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