This blog is about blending food and emotions properly. Both are necessary. Both can be tricky. Make food your ally for handling the inevitable bad feelings that come up.
What makes a good smoothie?
According to google's first turn up, fat content and high calorie content make a bad smoothie. I want to add to that list. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that a little instant gratification in the food court costs you more than just calories; it costs just a little bit of your soul's manifested energy that day. Seriously.
In order to address that claim, I want to give a real example of how a good smoothie/good meal gives your life much, much more. Let's begin with my breakfast and work back to dinner last night. I had a liquefied peach which I bought yesterday, water and lime juice, frozen strawberries and blueberries. I drank two glasses of it. I woke up still so gloomy that I thought I was going to break the habit of remembering as i ate. I remember worrying through that glass of soft red pulpy deliciousness that I wouldn't be able to let go of my worry. I remember hoping as I tore that peach apart, that I hadn't been too careless with my fingers ripping its flesh. I wanted to be joyful, but I was more like T.S. Eliot in reverse. "I deserve this good peach" feeling almost bitterly that my deepest needs were being ignored somehow by my dearest one. I sat on the couch, cup in hand, cell phone in the other, and listened about 5 times to his wonderful message. When the words finally sank in I left for a run. I succeeded in finishing the drink in an optimistic mood.
That smoothie wasn't half bad.
Sometimes food is the best thing you can do to calm and soothe yourself. It is wonderful when you can do this in the healthiest possible way. I made this cheap and extremely healthy meal under emotional duress.
Brown Lentils and carrots with Cumin and garlic
Curry Mung beans and Radishes with dried cranberries cooked in almond milk
Collard Greens with salt and pepper
I was happy to prepare the food. I cut the radishes into pretty circles and sprinkled the mung beans ontop right there on the cutting board. The circles and curved lines married sensually. Until then I had no idea that the curry would include both physical ingredients. I only know that radishes are good for the liver and that they were joining my meal somehow. Yet I was watching my thoughts carefully and sensing how lonely and left behind I felt as I cooked. I knew that I was putting these things into the food. I still am not sure how to cook properly with emotions as strong as loneliness and fear. I only know that they need to be digested when they are part of your everyday troubles. They need to be digested in a really healthy way. So my alchemy blends them with liver cleansing herbs and brainfood greens. I couldn't finish my thoughts on the particular topic that bothered me by the end of the meal, however, and even down to the last lentil I felt like I was still considering how to address my deep concern.
It wasn't until my run the next day that I really found my peace. I thought to myself as I was cooling down from the double trip around the reservoir, "What if it really is fine? What if I just let it go? " I finally accepted that there are some things outside of my control. But in the meantime all my disturbing feelings were met with good clean food. The choices I made supported my digestive tract, my liver, my bladder, my heart, my brain and my energy for life. The disturbing feelings subsided and I found myself nourished and at peace with the very same situation that had hurt me deeply with repetitive worry. Who knows? Maybe the food was being digested along with the thoughts, and bits of resolution were finding their way into my cells, glad for new energy. That, my friends, is success!!!
