These colors make my so happy. It brings light and life into my day. It tells me food can be a medicine, specially when I need to take care of myself well. In days or weeks when it has been too busy or too overwhelming. When I have experienced too much stress. To simply take time and prepare a dish that does me well. A moment that shows me that all is fine and will be fine. To sit and simply enjoy the beauty of all these colors, of the life force off all these beautiful ingredients.
Carrot salad with plant based mayonaise, lots of home grown sprouts, steamed sweat potatoes with some coconut oil, amino’s and cayenne to bring warmth, raw beet hummus, salad and my favorite red bell pepper dressing, avocado and spirulina from the farm in France. All this goodness on one plate!
Sometimes life can suddenly be so busy that I hardly feel that I am breathing. It tells me I need to take some time to unwind, to take care of myself, to find a quiet moment to reconnect with myself again. It is funny how aware I can be of myself in certain moments, especially when I have a lot of time and feel peaceful, and suddenly experience those other moments that I am completely taken by all the activities and things that I give myself to do. That ‘the world’ is asking me to do. Why is it so hard to find that balance? Slowly, slowly, I learn to read the signs when things get overwhelming and the situation is asking me to take a step back. It all sounds so easy, but how confrontational it can be as well. To experience my own limits…often just a bit more quickly than I would prefer it to be. We all know it, the feeling of running all the time and being overwhelmed and thinking there is nothing you could do.
I am observing that I judge myself and others about being stressed. Why do I do that? What is it that it is forbidden to feel stressed? To be so judgemental about it? It seems that I am so convinced that it is a bad thing to have that I don’t allow it. Slowly slowly I become more aware that it really is part of life. I just have to find a way to deal with it to let it soften and release it out of my system so it does not make me ill.
I am also learning to feel my limits more clearly and act upon it when I need to. Not easy since I prefer to please people and accomodate everything around me, as peaceful as I can. Now I am learning to softly communicate to take a step back to find myself again, to connect to my deeper levels to make sure not to get too overwhelmed. Not to loose myself am be disconnected. It brings vulnerability and strength in the same time. It brings emotions and harmony in the same time. It brings anger, dissappointment, impatience and empathy in the same time.
THE VOICE OF YOUR OWN SOUL
‘When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life. It is deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness. All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul. It is always there and the more deeply you learn to listen, the greater surprises and discoveries that will unfold. To enter into the gentleness of your own soul changes the tone and quality of your life. Your life is no longer consumed by hunger for the next event, experience or achievement. You learn to come down from the treadmill and walk on the earth. You gain a new respect for yourself and others and you learn to see how wonderfully precious this one life is. You begin to see through the enchanting veils of illusion that you had taken for reality. You no longer squander yourself on things and situations that deplete your essence. You know now that your true source is not outside you. Your soul is your true source and a new energy and passion awakens in you’.
John O’Donohue
Excerpt from BEAUTY
Kilmalkedar Church / Co. Kerry
Photo: © Ann Cahill