Today I am one step away from facing a new stage of my recovery.

Post DETOX life and questions like: How to REMAIN clean? How not to fall back into bad habits? How not to WASTE all this job and effort I made those last 21 days?

My Clean guru, Dr. A. Junger says so wisely: “See what resonates with you, try things out, keep an open mind and a sense of humor, and above all, view your life as a fantastic journey where some of the biggest toxins you’ll encounter are actually the STRESS and WORRY created from trying to live too ‘perfectly’.”

Ta-da! Can you put it any better? So I say to myself today: “Kasia, relax, cheer up, it will be brilliant! Why shouldn’t it be?” …”As long as you avoid PERFECT!”

The notion of “perfect” is a huge thorn in my eye. I will touch on this subject later. (Sure I will!!!)

***

Now when you have seen my naughty mushroom noodles in the previous post, so delicious and still so DETOX-friendly, I thought I might as well show you few of my other KICS ASS dishes (do you notice how I slowly try to make you try this CLEAN stuff??? )

Chicken breast covered with sesame seeds fried in garlic oil served with cauliflower and parsnips (Pasternak/korzen pietruszki/palsternaka) pure (instead of mushed potatoes!) and raw, green salad (sugar snaps, avocado and fresh parsley):

Vegetable and chicken stir fry with soya sauce (forbidden during detox but I am a rebel!!) garlic and ginger. I also used a very cool product: seaweed noodles (“kluski” z wodorostow, sjögräsnudlar). Let me know if you want to learn more about them:

Raw salad with E.V.olive oil seasoned with fresh garlic, lemon zest, rosé pepper and apple cider vinegar. I also added quinoa, pumpkin and sesame seeds. This one actually looks better than it tasted ;)

The last one, a super tasty sallad made of raw letuce, cucumber and carrots and also stir fried garbanzo (cieciorka/kikärtor) and green and yellow beans which I “blanched” in a slightly sour dressing and mixed with the rest of ingredients. Covered with sesame and flax (siemie lniane/linfrön) seeds. Mmmmm:

I hope that my pictures made you hungry and soooo interested in CLEAN food.

As for me, I am exhausted   

Love, Rest and Clean Food to All.

I was going to write about the Zebra-effect, but it does not tickle me at all tonight.

Do I dare to write about how CALM I managed to be the whole day? Will it make tomorrow a day from hell? Will I jinx it?

I will take the risk.

I don’t really know what happened. I don’t know what it was that I had done differently.

Often times the weekends are most challenging for me. I find no space for myself mentally and I feel it is too much to do with all the people, all the food and all the fixing.

But today?

All the children were happy, kind and helpful. At least 2 of 3 were unplugged most of the day (not only during Earth Hour!) doing stuff together with us, running outside. There was this symbiosis and harmony above us.

And now the question is, was I calmer because the whole family was so harmonious or were they harmonious because I was calmer?

Last Saturday I destroyed my day by doing too much. I did not repeat the same mistake today. I even took a nap during the day and several breaks in the sun. Am I possibly getting wiser? Am I possibly starting to listen to what my physical body needs?

Harmony, I spread my arms wide open to welcome you. Please stay!

Love to All and goodnight.

Good things that already happened today:

I had my green juice, which was actually red because I still cannot resist those eco-beetroots!

I had enough mental peace (and that was early morning!) to let my 5-years-old “help” me to juice. Also we had a minute or two to play together and take a slow walk to the day care.

I had enough awareness with me to see a funny thing and take a picture of it (scroll down for result ;)

I managed to keep my heart beat SLOWLY all the way back home, which is seldom the case when I have things planned for the rest of the day.

I chose writing this post instead of washing my hair. That actually might have been a bad decision but I will have to live with or wear one of those:  

And now why do I think all those things happened and gave me a beautiful, mindful morning?

I see two reasons for that:

1. It is a lovely, bright and sunny day and birds are singing like crazy.
2. I took 10 minutes of my morning to MEDITATE. To start the day with SLOWING DOWN my thoughts rather than RUSHING them UP. To consciously choose my thoughts and mentally paint a picture of this day for myself.

This is something a stressed brain needs. Maybe even several times a day. To anchor my thoughts, to remind myself about conscious breathing. To focus of small GOOD things. Because nothing of that came naturally to me when I was stressed out. When my body was a machine to produce result, accomplish things. Because without them I thought I meant nothing.

I thought... If I thought that stuff was TRUE, maybe I can start THINKING and PRODUCING different kinds of thoughts and TRUTHS that are more beneficial and kind to me? I believe so. Now I do. One year ago I didn’t even know one could resonate this way.

And suddenly there was this new door, a new opportunity right in front of me:

Would you dare to pull the handle? Or at least stretch your hand and knock carefully?

Love and Sun to All.

Today I got reminded, again, how fragile my new constitution is. It has happened before so I should be trained in being flushed down the toilette. And I am somehow.

There were days when I seriously believed that I failed in recovering, just as I failed in everything else.

Today I know that this is how recovery looks like. One step forward, two steps back. Sometimes three or four, and a flush down the drain. For a while.

One therapy hour can use all the fuel I had saved for the entire day. This afternoon I closed the door behind me and I prayed quietly for someone to lead me home. I guess I prayed too quietly. But I came home...

Because today I am a Zebra. I do my race for life and then I rest, I charge my batteries. I let the healing process take its time. And the rest has to wait.

I am now also very aware of the thoughts I choose to believe in. Because they are the roots of my feelings. And I refuse to feel like crap anymore so I CHOOSE not to.

Do you THINK you can BELIEVE that?   

 Love to All.

Honestly, isn’t it kind of ugly to put yourself first? Before others?

As I see it now, putting anyone and anything else before you works only short term.

In order to create a sustainable life strategy for yourself you need to take care of YOU. And when you do it properly you can be a bottomless dwell of kindness and help for others.

When you fly next time try to listen to the security instructions carefully. What do they say about the oxygen masks? Put YOUR OWN on first so that you can assist anyone else around you. Even if it is your child! I thought it was a terrible, heartless idea at first. And then things happened in life and I had to revisit my own idea of right and wrong. In parenting. Working. Living (a harmonious!?!?) life.

Our children don’t need hero-parents. They need healthy examples of how they should take care of themselves.

I have always been a terrible example of just that. Until recently. I gave up bad conscious when I go and do YOGA one evening a week. Or when I stay home all alone a whole weekend and retreat within, REST, listen to silence. Every day I train myself in self-love. And self-respect. Because you have to respect yourself enough to see that you deserve attention from that kind person you are to others. But seldom your own self! Not true?

I like to think: When I say NO to one thing it gives me a chance to say YES to something else later on. One small NO now and then can be an investment into a bigger YES in the future. Isn’t that an excellent way to save yourself a lot of bitter thoughts of selfishness?

I think so. And it works LONG TERM!

We like long term. We like strategies that last. Even more, strategies that ADD to the quality of our life.

As I said, it was not always this way for me. I was nowhere near these notions of self-care until that other strategy actually left me “thorn and bleeding on the floor”.

Only recently, and with significant help from other people, I realized that I am worthy of wearing a sweetest sign of love. A heart.

I felt I was too huge and clumsy, and serious, respectable (!)… piece of iceberg to wear it.

But look now:

Nothing becomes a universal truth only because someone or something made you believe in it long enough. Think about it.

Love to All.

...to save myself today. And I did to some extent manage to DO less, to pause more and to say NO.

It is not always easy. My husband asked me during our after lunch tea break: "Are you sure it is only the burn out you are suffering from?" ;)

It may seam hilarious, but is it? 18 months and still so much left to do, or UNDO. Undo the evil I have done to myself, to my pure little defence system.

***

Big girls don't cry. Bite me!

Even stones surrender under too much pressure.

Reminds me of one of my favourite lyrics ever: "...under pressure we're cracking." Queen.

A Spotify link should follow this post. Let's see if it works :)

Det var en gång en liten pojke, vars mamma var ständigt trött och lättirriterad.

Hon hade ingen humor, eller livsglädje, eller lättsamhet i sitt sätt att vara.

Allt i pojkens okomplicerade liv var livsviktigt och dödsalvarligt i hans mammas ögon. Tandborstning, mat, kissblöjor, tom lek... mamma visste inte att man kunde vara flexibel, mjuk, glad... Att ta livet lite lättsamt har hon aldrig provat på.

Men pojken älskade sin mamma med en ren och ovilkorlig kärlek.

Men han hatade henne också. Han nöp och rev och drog i håret ibland, som han aldrig gjorde på någon annan.

Och mamman blev bara mer och mer ledsen, mer och mer frustrerad och skrek och puttade bort pojken i sin förtvivlan.

För inget var som mamman hoppades på att det skulle bli i hennes liv...

Till sist kom det en dag, eller kanske två, där mamma nådde botten av sin svaghet. Därifrån fanns det bara en riktning: uppåt.

Mamman ramlade i tusen små, äckliga bitar, för att sedan återuppstå som en ny människa, som lär sig på nytt att vara, att förtjäna sitt barns kärlek och inte ta något för givet.

Om det har funkat?

Det får vi se...

Känslan av att fortfarande vara under utmattning.

Känslan av att vara slut efter midsommar.

Känslan när man ska tillbaka till jobbet för första gången och socialträna i två veckor.

Känslan när någon håller på att flytta dagens möte.

Känslan när någon ber mig om en stor grej mot slutet av veckan, samma vecka som jag ska vara på jobbet.
Känslan av att se en vän inte orka vänta på att jag ska ha ork och dra iväg på ett äventyr som vi planerat tillsammans, med någon annan.

Känslan när jag tappar greppet och skriker på en trettonåring som vägrar att hjälpa till med diskmasinen och är sur.

Känslan av att inte ha någon röst kvar och vara panikslagen.

Det är dagen det, och klockan är inte ens 12.