NEW Blog!!

To those that are reading and following, I have started a new blogs. Two in fact. the first, Ha~Breath, I hope to turn into part of the wellness "business" I am creating. Though I hate using that word, business,  because it sounds so cold. Never the less, I hope to create something authentically from me as what I will contribute to this world, part of me and my passion for life. I have recipes, too. The other blog, Meditating Mermaid, is my musings on life. I am mermaid, if you didn't know, and writing from my heart is my therapy. Hardcore movement is my drug, my medication, but writing is my therapy. I will leave The Bendy Tree  and its subsequent blogs up, but for updated life movements and writings check my other places...Mahalo (Thank you) and Aloha!

*Other places you can find me.*

Ha~Breath on Facebook

Ha~Breath Eats

Meditating Mermaid Blog

Meditating Mermaid on Facebook

Find Me On Twitter

Meditating Mermaid Tumblr

Pintrest

Seeking The Need In Life

Recently I was recommended the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. Having never heard of it, nor read it before, I decided to find it. I had thought I would simply check it out from my local library but thought while visiting I would browse the used books section first. I always find some great finds and usually never over a dollar. Well, as I left the kids at the children's part of the library to play with the dollhouse and train table I thought to myself, "I want to find this book. I really need this book." The fact is I didn't want to have to wait for this book and read it at a later time. I wanted it now. I needed it now.

Much to my surprise, though I really shouldn't have been, there was the book. It should be said this is a book published in the 1970s so the chance of finding it wasn't that great yet there it was. In pretty great condition I might add and for only twenty-five cents. I couldn't have been happier. I just stood there for a moment a bit shocked. Then I looked at the woman next to me and just had to say something. "I just walked over here looking for this book and found it. Isn't that crazy?" She didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then she smiled and said, "It makes you wonder what would happen if we asked for bigger things in life all the time." I just stared at her in a dumbfounded kind of way. She told me to "have a nice day" and walked out the rear door of the library. I thought for a moment that I imagined her there but knew she had been real.

I didn't expect something so deep, and so seriously profound to happen at the library but it did. And it did make me stop and chew on what had happened. What if I really did ask for bigger things in life? What if what I thought myself worthy enough and important enough to ask for bigger things? I wanted this book. I strongly desired it and there it was. All I had to do was think about what I really wanted and then seek it. If I didn't find it then it wasn't there for me, not the right time. But I didn't fail. Failing would be me not seeking but it was there all the time. What a waste. What a true disappointment and failure that would be. Talk about serious regret.

I know I don't want to look back on my one life (though I do wonder if it is only just one) and regret anything. Sometimes we try things and it isn't always seen as successful. But what if by just wanting something, by listening to our need for something, and then going out and doing it we succeed. Just those actions makes us successful no matter the final outcome. That's what I want. To desire, to need, to want and then put it out there in the world and take the action to find it. The action to seek and take what's there. As my favorite author, Paulo Coelho, recently tweeted, " Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon : you will be surprised how often you get it."

And as for the book, well, it was very interesting too. I came away with a "you are who you are, embrace it, love it and then do something with it-even if it is way different than anything you have ever known".

Being Happy and Making The Best of Something Are Not The Same

There comes this time in life when you just have to jump. You have to speak up and be heard. You have to do the thing that scares you. The thing you know in your heart is so right on that the fear of not doing it scares you even more. Wrestling the demons that come with that. The feelings of pain, darkness, fear press in from all sides. But that "groundhog day" way of life is slowly rotting your soul and you know you will die if you don't simply get out. That's me. Well, that has been me. Never feeling worthy. Happiness? That was too much to ask for. I allowed myself to make the best of what I had even when I needed something more. I didn't dare allow myself to want more than that. To admit I needed more than that. Just try and make the best of it. But being happy and making the best of something are not the same. One let's you dream, the other kills it. Small, one-year old baby steps I am taking. But as anyone who has ever had a child, or at least observed a child, knows that little one goes from wobbling place to place and faster than can seem possible the toddler is running and climbing and jumping. For me that movement into my pain and darkness and fear is so much more freeing than running away from it...again. Living my life for someone one else, like it was mine was the most awful thing I have ever done. Not moving from that divine place in me that is me, just me, had made me starting to rot. Putrid bitterness and anger were the result. Not to mention complete and utter sadness. A grief that had lingered so long I felt destined to wear the black cloak for the rest of my life. It was so choking most days I didn't think I could breathe. But...I did. I kept on. Miserably kept on. But that is no longer. Loving myself is the best action I can do. That love for myself will spread into this life and go out. Knowing I am worthy of what this life is and who I am is such a divine knowledge. I am loved. I love me. I am worthy of all that have and all that I desire. Seeing that and knowing that is so healing. I move in love. Slowly but firmly.

Erwan La Corre's Post About Moving Naturally

I love this MovNat movement. I don't have money to attend their events but I don't really need to. I just need to move in a natural way, and as Erwan points out in his post this doesn't mean doing conventional fitness in the woods. It means moving like other animals have done, by instinct. The problem with that is that a lot of us have lost the way to know what that instinct is. We haven't lost it just can seem to feel or hear for the noise that has come in a muddled it. I love that we have it all within us just a matter of accessing it. Erwan's post was so perfect. Check it out!

Multiple Sclerosis and Artificial Sugar

    I noticed it yesterday as I started to walk to the car. I tried to walk, as I normally do, a straight path to the car. I couldn't. I continually walked into the grass. I blew it off that I was carrying too many things. I took the kids to the zoo and walked around for four hours and then went to ballet lessons for my eldest directly after. When I arrived home I took the dogs for a walk and then came home to eat dinner. While eating dinner I kept seeing light. I thought someone was flashing a light into the house. Nope, it was just me. My husband asked me to look at him and he told me my pupil was dilated. I got up to check my eye in the bathroom mirror and, yep, there it was. Shit. I knew something was wrong but ignored it. Sometimes it is so much easier to ignore something than to deal with it but sooner than later you have to deal with it.

    I am still eating Paleo, which is how I healed my body from my last major episode of MS. I even gave up my diet soda, caffeine, most forms of sugar, including fruit. What the hell? Well, within the past week I have added a scoop of caffeine to my decaf espresso and let the diet cokes creep back in to about one every other day. And to add to the misery of that I put heavy cream in my espresso two days in a row. Yes, not right but I did it. Why? Because I let myself believe it was o.k. and it tasted good. But you know what doesn't feel good? This limbo of wondering if what is happening is about to get worse. It's scary as hell.
 
    Thankfully, my family is on standby in case things do progress to something more crazy. For now, I am taking all that shit, and that is what it is, back out. Mercola.com is what helped me before and so I went there and found out this stuff. Makes sense. I will be so angry with myself if I caused this. Live and learn...again. Just writing for my own therapy so I don't close myself up and make it worse. Staying strong but I'm not trying to be a superhero.

1. Beating MS with a Paleo Diet

2. The horrors of aspartame

What If You Don't Have Money?

    The great thing about having a blog is you can write when things are bothering you. I have my own personal diary but sometimes putting what I write out there for others to read can be a good thing. Well, this isn't something from my personal diary, sorry if you were looking for something juicy, but it is something that has been heavy on my thoughts.
    As most know I am a big time carnivore. I have been following a "Paleo Diet" for over a year now. You know, the "Caveman Diet"? I hate fads but it seems that my eating like this just so happens to prelude the big boom of it. Damn it. I hate being lumped under a category. It doesn't sway me from eating the way I do, seeing as it is what has cured me of MS symptoms and made me so much stronger. Stronger than I have ever been and it has crossed over into the soulfulness that is me.
    That having been said, the fad is making it more and more difficult to see how others are eating in the same manner, and working out like me, and are making it all about money. I HATE THAT. Wait, do you understand what I am saying? I HATE THAT. Why does money have to interfere with so much? It takes something so simple and starts to destroy it.
    I have a budget that I have to live off of. I have two adults, three children, and two dogs that I must feed every day. 7 days a week. 365 days a year. Sometimes I am able to do local and organic food but not always. I also can't afford to join a gym to help build strength in my muscles. My money is spent on my food and other things my family needs. It's amazing how I am able to work my muscles for free and feed my entire family every day on a limited amount of money. To some it may seem like a lot, like me, but it might not seem like a lot for those that claim you need it to achieve it ALL.
    I don't need to belong to the latest big weighted gym or buy the latest bar or meat in a package. I lift a sandbag (a gift from a friend) at my house, as well as my own body weight (amazing tool we have already built in) and walk around the neighborhood, zoo, etc.  I meditate in my own home and listen to my heart. I have a set amount of money each month to buy food for the humans and dogs of our house and that's it. I'm o.k. with that. I like it like that. It doesn't complicate things. It keeps them simple. Simple is good. It allows me to do other things I like. It also makes me think about what I REALLY want. Less noise and stuff comes into my life.
    Everyone has their own way of doing things, I get that, but it is frustrating to think that spending money and doing this and that are what some say we need to equal greater success than those that don't do this and that. The biggest thing of life is to make yourself a better person, inside and out, so that will in turn make this life a greater life to live. I don't think money should be the top priority to make that happen. A friend of mine, Dave Parsons, is one living example at how successful and how happy one can be when we don't worry so much about the money part and follow our heart and do the work ourselves.  I also watched a video today that spoke exactly what I was feeling. It IS possible to be happy on little money and be successful doing it. Less harm to one another and less harm to the Earth.

Broth All Week in a Slowcooker

    In the colder months, especially living here in Pittsburgh, I tend to gravitate to having a constant warm drink in my hand all day. I don't drink caffeine so it's usually decaf tea or decaf espresso. But lately that just hasn't been cutting it. I wanted something like broth. So, I began making it more regularly. It was exactly what I needed but I never seemed to have enough, especially being that I switched our two labs to a grain free diet. (We are a member of Costco and they sell a grain free dry dog food. Our dogs go through about 35 pounds of dog food in about two weeks. It isn't as great as bones and meat and what not but it is better than the other crap they were eating. I do what I can afford). To make their dog food even better I add a bit of warmed stock or broth over their food. They're both epileptic and take medications that taste pretty nasty, so, I crush it over their food and pour the stock/broth on top. They happily eat it. Needless to say my stock/broth was going fast.
    Well, I happened to read about slow cooking broth all week in my slowcooker. I had never thought to do it. It's simple and it's brilliant. I felt almost giddy with my first batch because I knew what I ate I would be replacing and I would still have warm broth always at the ready. I poured it on the dogs' food and then poured myself a cup and added a clove of roasted garlic, a bit of parsley, and a sprinkling of sea salt and kelp flakes. Really good. My little ones weren't super keen on it and they were forced to drink four sips of theirs. They're used to the thickly flavored broth I give them with chicken soup. They drink the broth for days after. I threw on a pot of chicken soup and will let them eat that and I'll sip on the slowcooker goodness. I am also excited to see if I can do it with beef bones I have on hand as well. Thanks to Jenny over at Nourished Kitchen for sharing this ingenious idea for having broth ever at the ready! Her website is FULL of amazing recipes and ideas. I'm in love.