Raw Salad Dressings

With Thanksgiving coming up next week, I wanted to share my idea of a raw salad dressing with you. I have tried one salad dressing called Liquid Gold Elixir from page 102 of The Raw Food Detox Diet and I didn't like it. It called for lemon juice, garlic cloves, ginger, soy sauce, raw honey and olive oil. To me the lemon and soy sauce were too strong of a taste. I don't really care that much for oil and vinegar salad dressings and the taste of this one was similar to that. I like Ranch salad dressing on my salads. On page 113 of The Raw Food Detox Diet there is a recipe for Raw Ranch Dressing but I haven't tried to make it yet.

I started experimenting and came up with the following recipe with avocados that I especially like. That is the fun part of eating raw---experimenting with new ways of combining foods.

Avocado Salad Dressing:

In a blender, combine the following ingredients and Pulse until well blended.
2 avocados
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup water
1 teaspoon (or to taste) McCormick Lemon and Herb Seasoning
6 Tablespoons (more or less to suit your taste) honey

Store in the refrigerator. You can also add any other herbs that you like. So far, I have added dill weed and celery seeds.

Avocados are good and good for you. I am working to include more raw foods into my diet. Stephen Hopson from Adversity University ( http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com/2008/11/20/end-of-the-week-gratitude-theme-53/ )has been my inspiration for including more raw foods into my diet.

The Singleton clan is coming to our house for Thanksgiving. They haven't been here in two years for Thanksgiving so the house is getting a thorough reorganizing and cleaning. I am looking forward to their visit. I am still making the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner for everyone else. I will eat my salads and raw veggies and fruits along with a Quorn meatless and soy-free turk'y roast that I bought for myself. With The Raw Food Detox Diet, I can still have the turk'y roast as long as I eat it for supper. Natalia Rose uses food combining in her book. I was already familiar with the concept of food combining from years ago.

To all of my American readers, I wish for you a glorious Thanksgiving Day with family and friends.
Patricia

A Week Of Introspection

I don't get my feelings hurt by another person very often because somethings just aren't that important. Today I did and I immediately felt tears come to my eyes and start to fall. As a person who was raised to not feel, I don't always know what to do. Just letting myself cry seems wrong to me somehow so I stop the tears.

It seems this has been a week of introspection. Here are the thoughts that have been going through my mind. Maybe some of you have the answers. I don't.

When the tears started, I was feeling left out and unworthy and little---little as in a disappointed child, a hurt child who was feeling left out and not good enough. Even writing this, the tears want to come. Why does it always come back to the inner child who obviously still hasn't healed? I guess that I just answered part of the question. How long does it take to heal the inner child? Will she ever be completely healed? Will she always be hanging around waiting for someone else to come along and hurt her? I don't know how to change any of that. As much work as I have done on myself, the inner feelings still wait in ambush to spring out of hiding when she is given the next opportunity to express her hurt. It isn't as if the hurt hasn't been expressed over and over again through the years of counseling and talking. Does it ever completely go away or change to joy and laughter? Can you have joy and laughter without the hurt and tears?

Is it as simple as making a decision to stop hurting? Is it as simple as deciding to not feel empty and worthless any more? If I decide to just feel happy am I being true to myself or am I just in denial of what I really feel?

I can feel like I am happier than I have ever been for awhile. Then sadness starts to creep in. Is this the way life is because we live in a world of duality as some religions teach. Can you really be happy all the time? I haven't found that to be true for me.

Can I stop myself from getting my feelings hurt by a simple decision to not feel that way? Am I not being true to myself by not feeling hurt and let down? Feelings are such a mystery to me.
Patricia

The Power Of Your Words

"There is power in the words that we speak. Whether we speak words of encouragement and wisdom to one another or words that bring tears to someone's eyes, we acknowledge the power of words." From Marianne Williamson on A Course in Miracles at Oprah.

The above statement by Marianne Williamson and A Course in Miracles is true whether you are speaking those words to others or speaking those words to yourself. My words to myself over the past few days have been very negative with the result that I feel like someone has died inside of me. What is the topic that I have been dealing with in my mind the last few days? Judgments about myself that I was afraid a friend might make if she came to visit as she planned to do to see our Fall colors this week.

I have an older friend who wants to come to visit and see our gorgeous Fall colors. I am supposed to call her and let her know what it is the right time---when the colors are at their peak. Well that is this week. I haven't called her---why? Because my house is a mess. It is not up to company, by whose standards---mine. In my heart, I know that my friend isn't coming to visit my house. She is coming to visit me and no matter how bad my house looks, she won't say anything about it.

So where is the judgment coming from? Inside of my head, I hear my dad telling me how bad of a housekeeper and person I am. I am not a good housekeeper. I am a collector of things and of information so I have books and papers in stacks around my computer, my bookshelves and the couch where I sit at night to read and watch TV. I know that doesn't make me a bad person except that I still sometimes hear that voice in my head that says I am. Most of the time, it doesn't bother me and I know it isn't true. Other times, like this week, it does get to me. There are other things that I would rather do than housekeeping all the time. So I collect and stack until even I can't ignore it any longer, then I sort and put away and throw away and clean until all of the stacks are gone. Then I start all over again. I am not really lazy. There are just so many other things that I would rather be doing.

Now you know my biggest secret that you didn't know (unless you have visited my house unannounced). It doesn't bother me as much as it used to. I have learned that my friends will love me anyway no matter what my house looks like.

Why am I writing this? I started out fearing being judged by my friend. Then as I worked it out in my head, I realized that the judgments weren't about my friend. They were about me. Some part of me is still judging me by the standards that came from my dad when I was a child. I bought into his garbage then and I still am today. Yes, I could be a better housekeeper. I could hire someone to help out if I needed to. That isn't the real issue.

The real issue is the value that I put on myself, how I feel about myself inside. The real issue is the words spoken inside my head that still say "I am a bad person because . . ." I am not a bad person because of what my house looks like or doesn't look like. Any person that judges me for what my house looks like isn't a real friend anyway. I don't have any friends that judge me that way. I was doing it to myself, again. It always surprises me, these days, when I find a negative tape from my childhood that is still affecting me as an adult. This is another instance where I just need to love myself though the hurt until I can know that I am a good, loving person no matter what my background of abuse is. I will not continue to be a victim of that childhood.

Do you still have any of these tapes that occasionally catch you by surprise?
Patricia

Dream Interpretation

One day last week I had a dream that I want to share with you. I didn't write it down immediately or at all until now. That is one of the first things you will learn in a Dream Class is to write down your dreams as soon as you wake up and remember it. Because I didn't write it down I have lost a lot of the details. What I do remember is important to me. Here goes:

I remember that Daniel (my spouse) was with me on a bus with a small group of people. We filled the back half of the bus. The front half was empty except for the male bus driver. I only remember two of the other people. One was a curly, dark-haired little boy of maybe 9-10 years old. (I don't actually remember him being on the bus until later in the dream.) The other person that I recognise is one of my younger aunts. (She is only one year older than me.) I know that Daniel and I are on vacation.

The first part of the dream, once we get off the bus, I have lost the memory of. I know that the group was walking somewhere and that the little boy causes trouble of some kind. I remember thinking he was being really mean. I didn't like him. That is all that I remember of that part of the dream.

For the next part of the dream, we are back on the bus, still sitting in the last half of the bus. Daniel decides that it is time that we go somewhere else and decides that he is going to drive us. He is in the driver seat and I am standing beside him in the isle. I am not afraid but I do tell him that he is driving too fast. (I know what is going to happen next.) I keep telling him to slow down and he ignores me. Next we come over a small hill and see that the bridge isn't there over the water. My feeling is that the bridge has somehow submerged. There are a group of people nearby. I think some were on the bridge as it submerged. I don't have a clear picture of this part. The submerging is just a feeling that I had about the scene. I think the people were maybe soldiers but I am not sure. They weren't panicked. They were orderly.

Daniel finally sees that he needs to slow the bus down but it is too late. The forward momentum carries us into the water. I see the bus submerging and everyone in the water. We all start to come out of the water. In the way of dreams, I know I was in the water and then I was back on shore looking at the water. Most of the people are out of the water with me. A person comes out of the water to my right. Next I am aware of Daniel on the shore and my aunt on my right side. I see the curly haired little boy just barely under the water. He is staring upward. My aunt and I each step forward into the water to pull the little boy out. My aunt takes his right arm and I take his left arm and pull him out.

The little boy immediately attaches himself to me. His arms and legs are wrapped around my chest and he is holding on so tight that I feel that we are almost merging as one. At this point I woke up. I could still feel that little boy wrapped around my chest as if he were real.


Just writing down this dream now so much symbolism came back to me that I had almost forgotten. All week this dream has stayed with me in the background of my mind. Two important things jumped out at me.

(1.) I didn't wake myself up before hitting the water. For years, I have had variations of dreams of coming around a curve or over a hill and the water being across the road. Until the past two years, I would wake myself up before hitting the water. I have always had a strong fear of drowning. Two years ago I started sometimes going into the water before waking myself up. In this dream, I was in the bus totally submerged in the water. I also chose to go back into the water to help the little boy out.

(2.) The little boy represented a disowned, shadow part of myself. When I first saw him in the dream, he was doing something to get into trouble. The child in me didn't get into trouble. I strived to be the perfect child throughout my childhood. It was less painful and less dangerous if I was the good daughter. I shut down the independent, adventurous, mischievious child, the troublemaker. I didn't let myself be any of those. In letting the little boy cling to me and even merge with the adult me, I have reconnected with that shadow child that is a part of me. I feel really good about that.

I took a dream class about eight years ago and loved it. I was blessed to have a wonderful teacher that taught me that everybody in your dreams represent some part of yourself. Vehicles are about the way you move through your life. Some books on dreams can give you good information. Some don't. I go with what feels right for me personally in interpreting my dreams. You are the only person who knows what your dreams really mean. Books can help but they don't know your symbols and what they mean to you personally.

One of the books that I own mainly because it was on sale at my local bookstore is called The Complete Dream Dictionary written by Pamela Ball. It tells me that "A bus journey is that part of our lives where we are aware of the need to be on the move, but particularly to be with other people, with whom we have a common aim. Such a journey has to do with our public image." (page 142)

(page 140) "The whole symbolism of driving in dreams is particularly obvious. It represents our basic urges, wants, needs and ambitions. If we are driving we are usually in control, though we may be aware of our own inadequacies, particularly if we do not drive in everyday life. If we are uncomfortable when someone else is driving we may not believe in that person, and may not wish to be dependent on them. When someone else takes over, we become passive." Well, until about twelve years ago, I didn't drive in my every day life. My husband did all the driving. I was definitely in the passive mode then. Daniel could represent my own aggressive, stubborn male half who thinks he is always in control and doesn't take direction from others very well. So maybe, I need to listen to my feminine, passive side more in traveling through life. Both sides have value.

(page 138) "Driving into water can be interpreted as trying to find the parts of ourselves which we have suppressed. It can also suggest taking risks which we might not normally do.
Drowning indicates that we may not be in control of our emotions properly and may be in a situation where we can be overcome by them. We are pushing ourselves to the limit.
Floods, being by their nature chaotic and destructive, symbolise the uncontrollable 'welling up' of emotion which can destroy our known way of life. Eventually there has to be some sort of cleansing process."

The above interpretations agree with what I learned in my dream class about my water dreams. In interpreting dreams, you can go into great detail or you can go with the feelings that you bring out of the dream. I do believe that our dreams can teach us a lot about ourselves if we are willing to work with them. I could have gone into a lot of the other details of the dream such as why was everybody sitting in just the last half of the bus? I just wanted to give you a taste what it is like to look at your dreams. There is valuable information in our dreams. I hope this gives you a nudge to start recording and looking at your own dreams. Happy dreams.
Patricia

Raw Food Diet Adventure

Recently Stephen Hopson of Adversity University has been on a raw food diet. I have experiemented with eating sprouts and raw foods myself in the past. I even took a class just before Christmas last year. The food was wonderful. I just didn't stick with it.

Some of you know that I have been a vegetarian for about 11 years. You might ask what is the difference between being a vegetarian and eating raw foods. Being a vegetarian, I cook most of my foods just like all of you meat eaters. I love soups in just about any form, especially in the fall and winter months.

Well, reading Stephen's articles on his raw food adventure has inspired me to give eating raw foods another look. The book that Stephen used and I bought a copy of this past week is
The Raw Food Detox Diet
written by Natalia Rose. The subtitle to the book says "The Five-Step Plan For Vibrant Health and Maximum Weight Loss." Natalia Rose is a "nutritionist and founder of the Raw Food Detox Weight Loss Program."

I love that I can go on the internet and research any topic that comes to mind and find information that is useful. I did that with Raw Foods. I found and also purchased two DVD's to use for inspiration and information in this new journey.

The DVD Simply Raw, Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days
"chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet consisting entirely of vegan, organic, live, raw foods in order to reverse diabetes naturally. The participants are challenged to give up meat, diary, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, and even cooked food - as well as go without their loved ones and many of their creature comforts - for 30 days. The results are amazing." (The above quote came from the back of the DVD cover.) After watching the DVD, I was inspired.

The second DVD that I purchased, I haven't finished watching yet. It is called
Raw For Life, The Ultimate Encyclopedia Of The Raw Food Lifestyle.
This is a two disc set that includes interviews of 30 experts.

I am still reading The Raw Food Detox Diet. I also bought another book by Natalia Rose called Raw Food Life Force Energy and a book by Jeremy A. Safron called The Raw Truth The Art of Preparing Living Foods.

As you can see, I have a lot of reading ahead of me. That is how I always approach live. I love the search for knowledge. I never approach any new endeavor half-heartedly. I love digging in and finding new information. I read somewhere that it is a trait of most Saggittarians.

I have also subscribed to several raw food newsletters this week. One of those that Stephen recommended is called Raw Success written by Matt Monarch and found at http://mattmonarch.blogspot.com/ .

You can find Stephen Hopson's articles on his own raw food adventure at the following links:

Update on the Raw Food 30-Day Experiment
http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com/2008/10/08/update-on-the-raw-food-30-day-experiment/

Raw Food Journey: Let's Clear Up Some Myths
http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com/2008/10/12/raw-food-journey-lets-clear-up-some-myths/

End of the Week Gratitude Theme #50
http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com/2008/10/24/end-of-the-week-gratitude-theme-50/

Be sure to check out Stephen's articles.

I am not going to eat 100% raw foods. That is not my goal. For me that just isn't a factor right now. I love my coffee and soups too much. I also love cheese. I will reduce the amounts right now. Cheese is just about the only dairy that I do still eat with an occasional ice cream. I use goat milk in my coffee because I am lactose-intolerant. I know how cheese affects me and I still choose to eat it. I will begin to substitute goat cheese more for the dairy cheese but I don't see myself totally giving up cheese at this point. That could change in the future. Natalia Rose does not make going 100% raw a requirement of her diet. For most of us, that is totally unrealistic, at least in the beginning. I am going to ease into this change. I am looking forward to making some of the recipes in her book.

Like Stephen, I will keep you posted with my changes. As of this morning, I have already lost one and one-fourth pounds from just one day on the diet. I had Stephen's Favorite Green Smoothie drink yesterday and today. You will find his recipe for this in the last link above. My kitchen is stocked with a huge salad that I made yesterday and lots of other fruits and veggies to be consumed over the next few days.

I hope that all of you are having a really great day. The Autumn weather we have been experiencing here in Arkansas lately has been invigorating. Autumn is my favorite season.
Patricia

Poem - You Can Fly. . . But That Cocoon Has Got To Go!

This has long been one of my favorite poems. I don't know where I first saw it or who the author is but I wanted to share it with you.


YOU CAN FLY. . . BUT THAT COCOON HAS GOT TO GO!

And I don't think it was talking about butterflies.

But the risk--oh, the risk of leaving the swaddling
warmth of a cocoon. My cocoon. My status quo.
My. . . deadening security.
To leave the known,
no matter how confining it may be--for an unknown,
a totally new lifestyle--
oh, the risk!

Lord, my cocoon chafes, sometimes. But I know its
restrictions. And it's scarey to consider the awful
implications of flight. I'm leery of heights. (Even
your heights.)
But, Lord, I could see so much wider, clearer
from heights.
And there's an exhilaration about flight that I
have always longed for.
I want to fly. . .
if I could just have the cocoon to come back to.
Butterflies can't.
Probably butterflies don't even want to--
once they've tasted flight.

It's the risk that makes me hesitate.
The knowing I can't come back to the warm, undemanding
status quo.

Lord. . . about butterflies. . .
the cocoon has only two choices--
risk
or die
What about me?
If I refuse to risk,
do I, too, die inside, still wrapped in the swaddling
web?

Lord?

Author Unknown

Let me know what you think about this poem?
Patricia

Responsibility and Adult Children of Alcoholics

From "Opening our Hearts, Transforming our Losses," Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 2007, page 61:

"If we were in the role of defending or protecting other family members, we may have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for those around us. Blaming ourselves for the alcoholic's behavior can weaken our self-esteem and lead us to believe that every conflict is our fault. Likewise, if we assume others are out to hurt us, we might habitually guard ourselves against real or imagined threats.

'I felt personally responsible for everyone's unacceptable behavior.'

Often the coping mechanisms we learned as children in order to survive get in the way of our developing meaningful and trusting relationships as adults. Identifying how we were affected by alcoholism is not about blaming the alcoholic or other family members for all our problems. Rather, it's about taking responsibility for our struggles so we can begin to heal. As children, we may not have had the power to change our circumstances. Now that we are adults, we can make that decision for ourselves."


I could take the above statement, "I felt personally responsible for everyone's unacceptable behavior." a step further and say the I felt personally responsible for everything that went on in my world and for everybody that was in my world. Because of my dad being a dictator when I was a child, I felt so out of control of my life. The result was that when I left home, I stepped into that dictator role and became a control freak. When I first started working on myself in Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) and Al-Anon, that was the first thing that I discovered about myself. I was a control freak.

Where did the control freak come from? She came out of my feeling responsible for everything and everybody. She came from my fears of failure of being responsible. For the first half of my life or more, fear was the main emotion in my mind and in my body. Fear was in control of my life. I certainly wasn't.

Responsible wasn't what I was. Super-responsible was what I strived to be. That meant if you came into my sphere of life, I tried to fix you and whatever your problems were. I didn't do it in a mean way. I just wanted to help. That was what I told myself and you, if you asked. You see, my feeling good about myself came from helping you. If I could fix you then I had some value in this life other than just taking up space. I didn't know that I was telling you, by my actions, that you were too stupid to think and act for yourself. Al-Anon taught me that, when I was ready to hear it.

That was the day that I stopped doing everything for my children and husband. Of course, being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic that meant I went to the other extreme. Instead of doing everything for them, I did nothing for at least a year or more before I realized that wasn't healthy either. Of course, I wasn't home much either. When I wasn't working with my husband on a parking lot, I was probably in an Al-Anon or ACA meeting or reading a book about being an ACA. Going to meetings all of the time was also an extreme, maybe a healthier extreme but still an extreme. I went to a lot of meetings over the next 10 years. Finally I realized that there were some things that I could do that weren't me being controlling or super-responsible. They were appropriate things for a parent to do for their children. Doing extremes of behavior and feelings is a characteristic of being an Adult Child. It is called All or Nothing Thinking.

I am talking about my life from the view of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, but these issues are the same for an Adult Child of any kind of dysfunction. Dysfunction is always fear-based.
Patricia

Related Articles:

Let Go And Let God---Al-Anon Slogan
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/02/let-go-and-let-god-al-anon-slogan.html

Boundaries And Inappropriate Behaviors
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/04/boundaries-and-inappropriate-behaviors.html

Growing Up With Alcoholism In The Family
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/09/growing-up-with-alcoholism-in-family.html