Feelings: A Survivor’s Tale

Recipe: Bonzai Spelt Pilaf

A mentor of mine always says to “lean to into your learning” and I always feel like this wisdom can also be applied to our feelings: “breathe into your feelings.” Whatever is there, the breath will take you into a deeper, richer experience – it will take you to a place of surrender, to the flow of your feelings, and ultimately, to your learning.

I like to think of the experience of our feelings much the like sediment at the bottom of a river: Rapids can stir it up and sometimes we have to allow ourselves to be swirled about. Once we move through the rough current (Breathe deep!), our feelings start to settle; clarity arrives, and we can once again see our way to the surface and make sense of what just happened to us. But we have to trust we will be okay (aka SURVIVE!), be present, and breathe our way through.

Now, a little piece of advice from a survivor of a recent emotional pummeling: to be clear, this “feeling our feelings” business is certainly not an enjoyable process. Satisfying and triumphant at the end, yes. Enjoyable? That’s a stretch– I hated every grueling and unpleasant moment of it! But hating the experience was also part of the experience; I gave myself permission to hate feeling my feelings. I acknowledged that I hated it, then proceeded to hate every second! It’s when we resist our experiences that we get caught up in the snags and start creating side stories about what’s going on – instead of just having a really uncomfortable feeling, we start to attached a story to it (I’m fat, I ate too much X so I’m a bad person vs. I have a really uncomfortable feeling right now and it really sucks!). If hating your feelings happens to be part of your experience, live it out honestly. Validate it for yourself, and I assure you that you’ll move through it with a lot more grace than you ever knew you had! Whatever way you find to be present for yourself and your emotions, breathe through. It won’t last forever. It will pass. Go spend time with the discomfort: breathe into your feelings and you will survive!

Unfortunately, not all of us live to tell a survivor’s tale….poor almonds….

 

But this recipe? A hit! This is comfort food at its best! I cannot take credit for this recipe, but I can take credit for devouring eating it and loving every bite! It’s a hearty nourishing dish that uses whole spelt berries cooked at a very low temperature for an hour or so; it turns out as more of a pilaf or risotto with so much flavour! Plus, what’s not to love about spelt berries. They are high in protein, they can hold their own in a pot (they don’t become mush like barley or rice) and they have a lovely chewy texture. Hmmmm hmmmm.

Bonzai Spelt Pilaf

1 cup spelt, rinsed (and pre-soaked in 2 cups of water for a few hours if possible)
3/4 cup canned crushed tomatoes
2/3 cup water (more if needed)
1 small zuchini, sliced
1/2 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 can black beans
1/2 tsp sea salt or to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp rosemary
2 tbsp olive oil
pepper

Rinse spelt and add to a large pot. Heat olive oil over medium heat and brown spelt with onions, garlic and spices. Add beans and zucchini, cook and stir. Add water and tomatoes, stir, cover and simmer for 1 hour on low heat. Stir periodically and add more water if it looks dry. Bonzai!

When those cookies come a’calling

Recipe: The “Tofu Layer” for OSG’s Lasagna

“Oh yooo hoooo…..over heee-eeeere!!!”

I try not to focus too much on food behaviours on this blog, and that’s because so little of why we eat actually has to do with food! But I did think it was time for a reminder that bringing consciousness to how or what we are eating can be an important source of information about what is going on for us emotionally. I’ve had a couple of moments this last week where I came home, felt tired, and wanted a big bowl of cereal to eat or a few cookies (oh yooo hoooo!) rather than a proper dinner. It was one of those times when a bowl of cereal wasn’t just a bowl of cereal. I wanted to sit with my food and find comfort in my “fullness.” Did I know I was using food for comfort? Yep. Did I want to stop? Not ‘til that bowl of cereal was gone!

The thing about developing awareness around our food is that we kinda have to ask some questions, and the more we ask them, the harder it becomes to engage in the behaviour. Whether I ate the cereal or not was irrelevant. I knew I still needed to reflect about what was going on for me and acknowledge that something was. If you are feeling clueless about why you are reaching for food, I can say that for me in many (but not all) instances, it’s often about feeling powerless or not heard. Either I’m not validating my own feelings, or I’m not using my voice to express them. Or, I have used my voice and still don’t feel heard, and need to make an adjustment to a given relationship (which could incite avoidance, dread or other forms of resistance, and possibly another bowl of cereal!).

So what’s going on for you? It’s time to have a check-in and bring some consciousness to what you are experiencing. It’s time to go inside and listen. Ask some questions. Hold a compassionate loving space for yourself, free from judgement or pressure for things to be anything other than what they are. Are your reasons for going for the food the same as mine? If not, what is it about for you?

I could be a brat and post a cookie recipe. But instead, I’m going to write about lasagna. Or I’m going to post a yummy photo and direct you to a great recipe. Angela Liddon’s recipe surpassed my vegan lasagna expectations and will not dissappoint. While she suggests adding a layer of crumbled veggie burger, I added some crumbled tofu that I marinated overnight. So as my meager contribution to this already stand-up recipe, I offer “the tofu layer.” Behold:

To All Yee Yay-Sayers

Recipe: Tofutti-Less Cream Cheese Icing

You may only get one shot at it, so you may as well be you. As I prepare to turn 30, I reflect on the ways I still say yes when I want to say no or when I silence a preference or opinion for fear of creating discomfort –  luckily I can say that happens less and less the older I get, but it still happens. All that “yay-saying” creates anger and resentment, and before we know it, we find ourselves seething at something (or someone!) totally unrelated! The resentment from our yay-saying ways can often mutate into passive aggressive behaviour as we struggle to regain the power we gave up when we didn’t give voice to our truth.

Do you think you could ask for what you want 100% of the time? Whether you get what you want 100% of the time isn’t the point. The point is that you think your needs and wants are worth advocating for and that they are important, that YOU are important. Even when someone tells us “no,” we are left empowered as we decide what that information means for us. It’s a win-win, really. With nothing to lose, are you still not going to ask for what you want?

Icing!! I want icing!! I like to have my cake, yes – but really, I just like my icing. People who have known me for years will know that it’s not uncommon to find me hunkering down at the end of the dinner table with a small piece of my favourite cake under an avalanche of icing (or a bowl of icing on the side!). Not cheap, hydrogenated icing, mind you – nay, I’m more interested in the cream cheesey icings of the world. I’ll have dairy cream cheese occasionally, but I have often used Tofutti, a soy vegan substitute. The problem with Tofutti is that it costs around $5 for a little tub: it was becoming harder and harder to afford to have my icing and eat it (mass -quantity-style) too! This is precisely why I came up with this recipe!

On Neutral Ground

Recipe: Angela Lidden’s Sticky Toffee Pudding (say what!?)

What does it mean to be in one’s neutral mind? I busted myself the other day pulling the neutral mind card: falling into the belief that being in one’s neutral mind means not reacting, maintaining composure, and “rising above” those inconvenient and uncomfortable  emotions that blindside us when we least expect it. In other words, my finger was hovering dangerously close to the old NUMB button! Similar to a spiritual bypass, thinking about the neutral mind in this way can pull us out of our authentic human experience in much the same way.

In our desire to achieve a neutral mind, we might deny, suppress, or otherwise numb ourselves to our feelings in the name of higher spiritual ground. In doing so, however, we halt the authentic flow of our process. So how can we hold a neutral mind and honour our emotions? Awareness. Did you know I was going to say that? The neutral mind is not about numbing out to our emotional experience. It’s about cultivating a non-judgmental (i.e., neutral) allowance of it and letting it run its natural course. It’s an opening up to flow, not a shutting down or damming up of what is. It is in this awareness, in saying “yes” to each moment as it presents itself, that grace is found. And besides all that, who wants to be a stone anyway?

The word “pudding” conjures up different associations for all of us. It could be the overly sweet chocolate Jello pudding pack your dad used to put in your school lunches without a spoon to eat it with (thanks, Dad!). It could be the rum-laden raison infested dense cake your grandma sets on fire after every Christmas dinner.  Or it could be, it just might be, the single most yummiest dessert you’ve ever tasted when you put the words “StickyToffee” in front of it. I decided to try out Angela’s recipe on 12 non-vegans last week and the table went wild; it was a show-stopper to say the least. A caramelly, moist, warm, gooey, cakey conglomerate nestled up beside a cold scoop of melty ice cream, drizzled with toffee sauce and finished with a sprinkling of toasted pecans. Need I say more? I don’t think that sentence could get any longer. I made a few changes to Angela’s recipe, such as subbing spelt flower and using a mix of brown sugar with raw cane sugar (simply because I ran out of brown sugar), but I think you’d be hard pressed to screw up this cake as its moistness lends itself to a large margin of delicious error.

Deduce, you say?

Recipe: Roasted Garlic Babaganoush

I had the pleasure of meeting someone over a month ago, whose humility and grace remains with me still. A fellow traveler on the road of self love, she asked the question “why is it that we are so quick to believe the negative things people say about us and so quick to write off the positive ones?” Like a detective looking for clues, we collect the evidence that supports our beliefs.

It got me thinking, not just about what I’m quick to believe about myself without evidence to back it up, but what I’m quick to believe about others as well. I was recently humbled when I indirectly implicated an acquaintance for something of mine that had gone missing, only to find the very object in question amongst my things minutes later. Rather than take some time, examine the evidence, and then form a conclusion, my mind instantly jumped to think the worst about that person. I felt horrible.

If we give others, as well as ourselves, the benefit of the doubt and allow for human fallibility or a simple misinterpretation of facts, we find we become much more conscious and neutral in how we approach such matters. When we can hold this space, we treat unsubstantiated beliefs with compassion. When all of the evidence eventually comes to light, this consciousness enables us to evaluate with clarity and choose our actions and our words with care.

What assumptions are you making, both about yourself and of others? Are you collecting objective facts, or are you jumping to a belief and looking for the evidence that supports that belief? Take time to consider where your mind wants to go and open it up for other truths to present themselves.

I like hummus, this is true. But give me babaganoush and the scale is instantly tipped! We had the ingenious idea to have a Mediterranean night, and so I of course got busy on this creation, which was voted “the best babaganoush of my life” by those seated ’round the table!

Roasted Garlic Babaganoush

2 medium eggplants

1 head of garlic

1/2 cup tahini

juice of two lemons

2 tsp sea salt

2 tbsp olive oil + drizzle for garlic

dash of chili powder

dash of cumin

1. Poke holes in your eggplants with a fork and roast for 1 hour at 350 degrees, until collapsed. At the same time, slice off the top of the head of garlic, place it over foil, and drizzle with olive oil.  Wrap foil around garlic and roast with the eggplant (about an hour).

2. Once done, allow garlic to cool, then squeeze out the goods. In a food processor, add the eggplant (I like mine skin and all, but you could just scoop out the pulp) and garlic, and blend together with the rest of the ingredients. Do not add more than a pinch of cumin, or its flavour will dominate. Remove and refrigerate until serving. Adjust salt to taste, but babaganoush should be on the saltier side.

Hold Me: In the Arms of Mother India

As much as we think we can or ought to “do it on our own” – sometimes we can’t. Sometimes we need to accept the love and care of another. In fact, we must count ourselves so very blessed to have such people in our lives. I have just spent the last few days very ill, and if it wasn’t for the assistance of my dear friend and travel companion, I don’t know what I would have done. Oddly enough, at this very moment, I am crying in a sleeping car at 3 in the morning on the way to Agra, feeling absolutely sick to my stomach, and missing my grandparents like crazy.

Some of us may be the nurturers to those in our lives, We are the people others turn to for comfort and reassurance that everything will be okay. We may forget what it feels like to have a mothering source of our own. We can surrender that role and allow ourselves to be nurtured. I have never been in a situation before where I had to be so dependent upon one person. I am so touched by such unconditional, reassuring, unselfish giving that my friend has imparted to me. I’m sure to her, this is just what friends do, and I am humbled further. Not only that, but in India, everyone is your mother. If you are sick, everyone knows you are sick. Even the touts don’t approach you, and all the ladies (and the men) offer their advice for recovery, check up on you in the night, pinch your cheeks, etc; there were many caring people who extended themselves in one way or another. I guess sometimes we need to be in a position where we are forced to surrender to the care of another. Even just knowing that someone cares for you, albeit near or far, is a beautiful thing. Give thanks for your care circle, both immediate, and the one that sends you the people and the circumstances you need at exactly the moment you need them.

There’ll be no food talk today, I’m afraid. I can’t even stand the thought of food, let alone approach the idea of cooking with any sort of enthusiasm. Stay tuned for when my appetite comes back cause I’m gonna be HUNGRY!! Like ANIMAL! xoxo

[Fore]Gone Conclusions

Recipe: Baked Apples with Cinnamon Cashew Cream

Just as we have our stories, we also have our endings. Many times we expect certain outcomes before they’ve even happened. Or we may react the same way to the same situation every time, and then be upset with ourselves in the same way for doing so. Our beliefs and actions can sometimes be so ingrained in us that we operate without recognizing that we have other options; it never occurs to us that there could be a different outcome to the same story, or better yet, a free fall – a complete surrender to what is real and true for you in that moment.

Say, for example, that every time you get together with certain individuals, you overeat and then you come home at the end of the evening and binge. This social scene isn’t really a “fit” for you, you feel inadequate, or are being triggered in some other way. As you sit there with these people, all you can really think about is what you are going to be eating once you step foot inside your house. And when you do finally come home, you go into autopilot and the night ends up with you feeling even worse about yourself….again.

Or, let’s say you go out and treat yourself to a massage or a yoga class, but rather than coming home and feeling good in your body and tucking yourself into bed, you come home and have a binge instead. This is because your story doesn’t involve you allowing yourself to feel good – this ending never even occurred to you. The only ending you know is the one that keeps confirming your story (i.e., “I’m fat,” “I have X eating disorder,” “I’m in some way not okay”).

What if we turned our stories into our very own “Choose Your Own Adventure” and we tried to visualize a different outcome to the usual way our predictable stories play themselves out? What if we went down a different path, and experienced a different outcome/reality?

With the above example, for instance, I might think about what a nice night at home after a massage might look like. It might involve curling up with a book and a cup of tea. Or a hot bath. Or maybe just hopping straight into bed, snuggling up under the covers. Can you picture it? We can’t always change our outcomes over night, but we can began to consider the possibility that we can live it out a different way. Even just this simple exercise of visualizing ourselves responding differently can plant a seed of what is possible for you and challenge your beliefs and behaviours around your current experiences. Give it a go and see what kinds of amazing conclusions you can fathom.

Baked Apples – who knew?? I have been baking apples straight for the last week. I love apple pies, crisps, crumbles – but after baking apples and letting the apples stand on their own, all that doe, sugar, and Earth Balance just seems unnecessary. Something happens in that baking process: some might call it “caramelization,” but I call it magic. The apples turn super sweet, which makes them not only a delicious dessert, but a fantastic sweetener to blend into puddings, spreads, and baking (also great for rounding out texture too!). Here’s one way I’ve been enjoying my baked apples lately, but there are many more which I hope to post about soon. By the way, pears are just as amazing!

Running

Recipe: Roasted Garlic Spread

I know what you’re thinking: this is a post about running to food and/or running from feelings. And you would not be wrong to think so, as that’s exactly the type of thing I would blog about; however, this post is ACTUALLY about running. That’s right: runners, shoe laces, cardio, sports bra – slappin’ on them shoes and hitting the trails – the real deal!

I started running again for the first time in four or so years, and for the first time ever, the desire to run was not motivated by the urgent need to burn off X number of calories or because I though my butt looked too big. My ears had started perking to various mentions of “running”, and a friend had recently mentioned how good it made her feel. My body started craving that exhilaration, the fresh air, the pumping of my heart, and the flowing of my blood. So a few weeks ago, I got out my runners, donned the running attire, and headed out with the pooch.

At first, it was really hard to approach running from a neutral place. As I got dressed with the intention to run, I noticed some of the old familiar ways of thinking about exercise in ED terms starting to surface and I had to resist the urge to size up my body in the mirror and think about what I could eat as a result of the calories I’d be burning! And the fearful part of me, the part that thinks that any day now all the hard work I’ve done on recovery will slip out from under me and I’ll be right back where I was, was telling me not to run. It was telling me I was re-entering the downward spiral into the vicious binge/purge cycle.

I decided to run anyway, on my own terms. I put zero expectations on myself: I dropped the idea that I had to run for X number of kilometres or minutes and decided I would run until I didn’t feel like running, and if I felt like walking, I would walk. There was no judgement, no right or wrong. The fact that I was running at all was a victory.

I’m really about trusting the body’s organic process. Just as my craving and tolerance for sweets has naturally lessened, I knew that when the time was right, my body would crave cardio again. If we listen and are receptive, we can trust that things just happen on their own time, without us trying to force them. So if it’s there for you, and it feels organic, why not explore a different way of being in your body? And, if it’s not, then don’t! While you’re at it, why not drop all the expectations and “shoulds” around it (I, in principle, tend not to do things with a “should” attached). Just as we can develop a healthy relationship with food, we can develop a healthy relationship with our body by simply listening to it.

Sometimes the simplest combinations can take us over the roof, of our palate, that is. This is so easy, but will take your bread eating experience to the next level. Roasting garlic is something you can do while you have the oven on cooking other things, if you think to do it. This spread is always nice to have on hand, so don’t feel like you have to plan ahead to make this. Just make it when it’s convenient. You won’t regret it!

Roasted Garlic Spread

1 bulb of garlic

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup Earth Balance spread

salt to taste

Pre-head oven to 375. Cut top off garlic head and drizzle some olive oil inside. Wrap in tin foil and bake for 45 min or until soft. Once cool enough to handle, squeeze out roasted garlic into Earth Balance and mash in with a fork. Then, slather on your favourite sourdough loaf and consume in large quantities.

Askin’ them questions

Recipe: Granolie in the Raw

Can I ask you something so you can ask you something? Are you giving to yourself? Are you actually taking the time to listen to what it is your body needs or what your soul is craving? So often the only way we feel we give to ourselves (and meet our own needs) is via the food that we eat. What’s that? You want a peanut butter pumpkin oat bar (you too??!)? You want some chocolate? Well, since you aren’t going to give yourself what you REALLY want or need, sure, let’s load up the plate.

Now hold on a moment. Before you wolf down that plate of so-called comfort, let’s take a second to ask ourselves some more questions: “What do you really want/need?” And the next one, the juicy one, is “why aren’t you giving THAT to yourself instead?”

In the face of a gazillion obligations, it can be hard to justify taking time out for ourselves to do something that refuels us or makes our heart light up (or lighten up!) – but do you really need to justify it? I mean seriously, how did all of those things somehow get to be more important than YOU!? And, let’s say you think they are, well how productive are you going to be after you consume that plate of whatever that you are using to convince yourself that your needs are getting met? Uh huh. That’s what I thought.

So go there. Ask the questions of yourself. And ask them with love, and care, and a genuine desire to take care of yourself. Your soul is hungry for something. Dig a little deeper and find out what it is, and then engage in healthy self-indulgence — the kind that doesn’t come with shame, guilt, and remorse. Isn’t it time we started allowing ourselves our needs and stepping up to meet them?

The Boundary Blowback

Recipe: Beet, Buckwheat, and Parsley Raw Pizza Crust(ish)

Many of us know the importance of setting boundaries: boundaries are how we take care of ourselves and communicate that our needs are important. We are entitled to assert boundaries without qualification or justification. Boundary setting gets easier the more we do it; we are often surprised by how receptive and respectful people are in response to them. Unfortunately, this is not always the case! The people with whom we set them with may not always like our boundaries, and that’s fine and normal. But sometimes we are met with raw anger, guilting, sulking, or a stream of emotionally charged reactions. This is what I call (cue the music) a ‘boundary blowback.’

If you are like me, these types of reactions might cause you to question your position or the validity of your needs, as the focus shifts from your needs/boundaries to the reaction of the person you are communicating with. A wise friend explained this as “de-selfing,” which happens when another person, via anger, guilt or other wounded behaviours, insinuates that our feelings are not important and that our position is negotiable. We start to wonder if the other person is right. Was I too harsh? Should I say yes instead? Maybe I could do x,y,z, just this once…..

The challenge in the face of blowback is to stand your ground. Acknowledge the feelings of the other, and then lock down on your boundary. You can even ask yourself “did I communicate with respect and sincerity? Did I make my position and my needs clear?” If you can answer yes to both of these questions, then you’ve done your groundwork; the reactions of others belong to them, not to us.

Setting boundaries takes courage. But what takes even more courage is holding firmly to your truth in the face of boundary blowback. Your needs ARE important, and are NOT negotiable. This is what looking after you is all about!

Beet, Buckwheat, and Parsley Raw Pizza Crust (ish)

What is negotiable, however, are the toppings you choose to put on this delectable raw pizza crust made from beets and buckwheat. Haha, I know what you’re thinking – “beets and buckwheat”? It doesn’t exactly call one home like “apple pie” – but this crust is a perfect and subtle base from some more poignant pizza toppings like pesto, sundried tomatoes sauce and cashew “cheese.” Think of this crust as the podium, and let the toppings do the talking, I say! This recipe is still in need of some fine tuning, but it was inspired by some raw pizza I had on a recent trip.