Unleasing Your Potential

The Oxford English Dictionary defines potential as “having or showing the capacity to develop into something in the future”. This definition certainly speaks to me. Many people believe that some things are totally out of their reach and because of these limiting beliefs, stop striving to achieve their goals. There may be no truth in the statement that anything is possible for anybody. For example, if you are a wheelchair user, it may be a very difficult feat for you to run a marathon, but you could certainly wheel one. This leaves it more realistic to say that anything is possible, for anybody, on their own terms. This now brings in the whole concept of a person’s potential, something that I believe is very overused and much mis-understood.

We all have potential to be something in the future and that future is ever changing. In years gone by, it was thought that the life we were born into was the only life you could live. This, thank goodness, has become a very outdated way of thinking. However, some people are very happy with their lot and would not change it even if they could. This I believe is a very important point to remember when considering your own potential. I ask you now to reread the definition again and again until it has well and truly sunk in and is fully registered with you. You can indeed be anything you would like to be, within your own parameters, but it will take new ways of thinking and behaving from you. You will need to know how to set goals and achieve them before you can achieve that potential. If you keep going down the same road, you will get the same result, so once you’ve identified the potential that you would like to move into, then I believe you will find the following goal setting strategy very helpful in helping you achieve that potential.

Goal Setting – Learning How To Set Goal
Focussing on the final outcome of a goal when it seems very far away can be overwhelming. This in turn can lead to a disheartening effect. It will be a lot easier if you break your goal down into mini goals. For example, you could set outcomes that you would like to achieve in certain time periods. Let’s say your plan is to achieve your goal in one year, you could break this into 12 sections representing the twelve months. For me, my health is something that I place great importance upon and therefore is one of my top 3 life goals. This is because without your health, you pretty much will have difficulty achieving any of the other goals in your life without it. So setting a goal like eating more health enhancing living food will move you towards this goal. This will mean being organised and not just grabbing the first thing that is put in front of you because you’ve let yourself get so hungry, your blood sugars will tell you to eat something, anything and quick! You could decide to make a new vegetarian dish every month for your family, which would also move you towards this goal. If you decide to take out all processed foods from your diet over night, you are setting yourself up for failure. This is because we need to get organised when we want to achieve a goal. If you have no idea how to cook a healthy meal, then you will resort back to your old ways of eating pretty quickly. Once you are back in your old and very comfortable way of eating, you will tell yourself that this is actually the way of eating that suits you best….all because you failed to plan! So each month set sub goals for yourself. Continue to keep your final outcome in your mind and subdivide your mini goals within the time framework that suits you.

Some questions to ask before setting your personal goals.
If we don’t know what we truly desire in life, it is difficult to create a situation where it can happen. Tuning into nature, regular physical exercise and quite contemplative time are ways that can help restore the connection to who we truly are.

• What do I really enjoy doing?
I love this one because most people forget that what they enjoy doing will bring them most pleasure….Note to self: must dance more!

• What am I passionate about?
Is there a topic that you feel very drawn towards and one that you find yourself speaking up about in particular? This will also serve as a good guide for you and will help you set clearer goals. No point in becoming the chairperson of the bingo club, if you’re really find nothing of interest in bingo.

• What makes me feel alive?
When I eat good food, I feel amazing and this is a feeling that I like reproducing. What makes you feel alive? Walking, nature, meeting friends, writing, painting. Do take some time to figure this out.

• What do I want out of life?
Ask yourself what do you value? Money, fame, family, community status, peace…..Asking
yourself these simple questions will help you get clear on exactly what your life is about for
you.

• Where do I want to be in five, ten years time?
This question will help you get organised. If deep down you would like to own a house in the country, and you live in an apartment in the city, then maybe you could take some visits to the country at the weekend and keep it alive your heart and mind.

• What are my core values? (what’s important to me?)
This is extremely important for you to figure out. As I’ve mentioned above, health is one of my top 3 goals. This makes many of my decisions around staying healthy much easier. It makes exercising pleasurable rather than a chore. Figuring out what’s important to you will help get really clear on what direction your life will take.

• Who are the people I admire?
Doing this exercise, you will be able to see what qualities these people have that you admire. Once you’ve done that, you can then consider taking on some of their qualities.

• Who are my role models?
This is similar to the above except once you’ve identified these people you can now become more of a copy cat. If they’ve been successful in a particular career, then you can be too. If it has been achieved by one person on the planet, then it can be achieved by you too. I have a sister who really admired a particular actress. The actress was particularly funny, and my sister became very funny too. In fact, it was uncanny how like her she became. You do not have to become the person fully, but you can certainly take on aspects that might work for you and also look at how they achieved their life goals and work with that.

• If I only had a year to live, what would I like to accomplish?
Isn’t this a great question? I still ask myself this to keep myself on track. It is so easy to get caught up with the day to day grind of life that we forget to stop, step back and see if we’ve set our sails in the right direction, living daily by focussing on what’s important to us. What would your year look like?

SMART Goals
If you remember nothing else from this article, do remember the following and put it up on your fridge.

SMART goals are – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-framed.

• Work off of lists and mark the items by their importance.
• Do the toughest things on your list first. This will give you a sense of freedom and you will be surprised at how quickly you will get through the easier tasks.
• Delegate tasks to others when possible
• Surround yourself by experts. You cannot do everything yourself.

While all this is going on, it is important to set time aside just for you; outside of your personal commitments. Treat yourself to a massage, reiki treatment or just a walk in nature. It is in these quite moments that your greatest bursts of inspiration have space to come in.

To your good health and empowerment!

Ruth.

Edible Ireland

We're fighting back!

Goji Energy Bars

Goji Energy Bars
1 cup pine nuts
1 cup buckwheat
1/4 agave
1 cup almonds
Water
Dried gojis(as many a you would like)

Put pine nuts, soaked buckwheat, pumpkin seeds, almonds and so goji berries into a blender or food processor and blend. In a bowl, mix these ingredients with the agave and add a little water to moisten and add more dried goji berries.

Mold the mixture into energy bars. Use cookie molds or make balls with your hands or make compact energy bars. Let sit for a while before you dig in.

I will be making these over the coming days and will pop up a photo for you.

They're great for the kids too!

Going for Goji

Good things come in small packages and gojis are the perfect example of this.

Goji berries grow on a bush that develops something like a vine. These bombastic little berries range in colour from pale yellow to deep red. It is the deep red that are most available in our European shops and will set your energy on fire when you start eating them regularly.

They are an incredibly hardy little plant that can grown in very harsh dry desserts as they can in the tropics. Energerically, this is a great sign. You wouldn't want to support something that drops over at the first sign of trouble would you?

Benefits of goji
1. They are great for helping you deal with stress. In the Chinese medical system, gojis strengthen the adrenals and kidneys. In our modern world, most peoples' adrenals are very overworked, so adding a handful of goji berries to your diet will help them greatly. Eating more goji berries will lead to better strength and stamina and also a better ability to deal with stress and I know that I, for one, am always happy to have a good dose of stress buster foods daily.

2. A seventy year old person will produce one tenth of the amount of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) that is generated by a twenty year old. This means that the older your get, the more your physical body will deteriorate, meaning lower levels of energy and muscle mass. By boosting the amount of HGH you produce, can help you look younger and feel more alive. You do want to look younger and feel more alive don't you?? Well, going for gojis will help you do just that.

3. Antioxidants protect our DNA from free radical damage. DNA damage opens the door to lots of illness and accelerates aging. David Wolfe reminds us that while our bodies are designed to continually repair themselves, they can become ovewhelmed by too many free radicals as we age. Goji berries are another one of natures richest source of antioxidant carotenoids (lots more than carrots by the way). Could I be so bold as to say, the more antioxidants you eat, the longer you will life?? Absolutely!

4. If your eyesight is not what it used to be, then eating more gojis could be the answer. Gojis contain two antioxidants; zeaxanthin and lutein that are essential for healty eyesight. Free radicals attack the eyes and these two antioxidants help repair the damage. I'm not suggesting you throw away your glasses just yet, but I am suggesting that you could simply have a pack of gojis in the car and simply let your had visit the bag a few times a day. Could this be the secret to why Irish Eyes are always smiling?? That definitely merits another blog entry......

The Best Way to Use Goji Berries
Snacking Bags
I love having the foods that I want to eat, close to hand as I really do not like feeling hungry (unless I am on Day 1 of one of my detoxes...that, I can accept), so I keep a bag of gojis in my car ready to eat. If you don't like them on their own, the add some 70% cacao chocolate drops, plus a few broken cashew pieces into the bargain. Now, you'll definitely like them.

Gogi Water
I know David Wolfe suggests adding them to your drinking water, but I personally am not fond of this method. However, if it works for you, go for it. Incorporate gojis whatever way you can.

Smoothies
I add gojis to my smoothies, particularly if I haven't already used much fruit. If this is a method you like, it's best to soak them before you add them to your blender.

Power Bars
I will be adding a lovely recipe for goji energy bars that should help you get started making these snacks for yourself and your family. They are a super way of making sure you get this superfood into your diet.

Desserts
Feel free to add gojis to your desserts and biscuits too (especially if they're raw). Add them to your cheesecake mixtures and sprinkle them over your strawberries and fruit salads.

I'd like to make one final point about gojis and any superfood in general. Having them twice one week and then not again for another three weeks, will not be enough to gain the benefits that I have outlined above. Like any new lifestyle choice, it must be practiced regularly to fully reap the rewards. Going for Gojis is best taken in a daily dose.

I hope you have found this blog entry helpful and will enjoy including these wonderful berries into your diet.

To your incredible health!

KG.

Goji Coconut Balls

Goji Coconut Balls

1 cup shredded coconut flakes
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1 1/4 cup hempseed
1/2 cup goji berry powder (I grind my gogi berries in a coffee grinder)
1 1/2 cup goji berries
1 cup tocotrienols (mechanically powdered rice bran that can be left out)
2 1/2 Tbsps. raw honey
1 pinch of celtic sea salt

Method
Grind seeds and nuts separately in a coffee grinder, then add the remainding ingredients to a high-speed blender or food processor and blend until turned into a mush. Roll this into balls and then refrigerate.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Coconuts Can Save Your Life

The first time I ran into anything coconutty was via a well known bar that is sold in Europe called a Bounty bar. These delicious chocolate covered sticky coconut treats, became an absolute favourite of mine. However, when I realised that my almost daily indulgences were causing my skin to itch and my chest to wheeze, I was devasted and I thought I'd never find anything similar again. Little did I know how untrue that was. It was during one of my nutrition courses that my favourite treat was about to become an old favourite of mine again, but without all the processed rubbish.

I am all to aware that for some, the taste of coconut is just a no no, but in writing this small piece I hope to appeal to those inner tropical paradisers among you who think it's as wonderful as I do, but also to appeal to those who find its taste less than palatable. I do hope you will reconsider after reading the following.

In Sanskrit, the coconut palm is know as "kalpa vriksha", meaning "the tree that supplies all that is needed to live". According to David Wolfe, no matter how badly you have treated your body, or what you have done, fresh young coconut flesh, coconut water and coconut cream/oil can save your life.

Coconut Cream and Coconut Oil
This causes some confusion in many raw food recipes, but really the two are interchangable and they are both extremely beneficial to your health.

The coconut oil is made by grinding the mature hard, white coconut meat into a coconut cream and extracting the oil out separately. Even though we would expect coconut oil to be a liquid, coconut oil will be solid at room temperature, but will become liquid when heated. For maximum nutritional benefits, the oil should be used raw. For the oil to remain raw, it must be extracted using a temperature no greater than 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

By weight, coconut oil has fewer calories than any other fat source and unlike the cholesterol soaked, long chain, saturated animal fats found in meat and dairy products, coconut cream and oil are made of raw saturated fats containing mostly medium chain fatty acids that the body can metabolise efficiently and convert to easily to energy. So just remember, not all saturated fats are bad for you.

Coconut cream is sometimes referred to as coconut butter. Coconut cream/butter is make from the hardened white flesh of the coconut. This meat is shredded and collected and put through stone grinders. Over a period of about 24 hours the meat is broken down into a type of nut butter which is what we have termed coconut cream. Nutritionally there is very little difference between a fat and an oil and they can both be used interchangeably.

More great news about coconut oil/cream is that they contain absoultely no cholesterol and can actaully help balance cholesterol levels. Recently coconut oil received recognition by many health professionals and has even been dubbed the "diet fat" because it helps the body to beak up accumulated fats in the system and metabolize them.

If that isn't enough to sway you, hopefully, the following benefits from are from coconut product in general:

Benefits
1. They are incredibly valuable to the immune system as they contain many antiviral, antifungal and antimicrobial saturated fatty acids.

2. They improve the absorption of many fat soluble vitamins (A,D,E and K).

3.The improve the blood sugar levels by lessening the sympthoms of hypoglycemia.

4. They consist of 90% saturated fat (medium chain) - essential building blocks for every cell in the human body.

Ways of Getting Coconut into the Diet.

Coconut Water

Young coconut water is almost identical to human blood plasma and therefore makes an excellent universal donor.

It is also excellent for rehydration and makes a wonderful base for your smoothies.

It is also an excellent tonic for all ages and for infants in particular.

Coconut water is easily available in health food stores nowadays, which makes this wonderful product more accessible than ever.

Coconut for Cooking

Using coconut oil for all your cooking needs is the most valuable piece of information I learned many years ago. Coconut oil is the most stable oil (of any known butter/oil) at high temperatures. This means that you should definitely throw away the sunflower oils and good quality olive oils for cooking. When most oils are heated to the high temperatures needed for cooking they become carcinogenic, with the exception of coconut oil. This is one change to your kitchen cupboards I suggest you make.

Coconut Cream/Oil for Desserts

This is my favourite way of using coconut products. I just adore making raw desserts with coconut oil/cream and dessicated coconut. I have already posted my raw macrons on this site, but the following is another great dessert that was created by Sandy B from Chocolate Face.

Goji Coconut Balls
1 cup shredded coconut flakes
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1 1/4 cup hempseed
1/2 cup goji berry powder (I grind my gogi berries in a coffee grinder)
1 1/2 cup goji berries
1 cup tocotrienols (mechanically powdered rice bran that can be left out)
2 1/2 Tbsps. raw honey
1 pinch of celtic sea salt

Method
Grind seeds and nuts separately in a coffee grinder, then add the remainding ingredients to a high-speed blender or food processor and blend until turned into a mush. Roll this into balls and then refrigerate.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Stinkin Thinkin

When I was studying for my B.A. degree, I was introduced to a concept called "The Ghost in the Machine". This was used to explain how the body could be influenced by the mind, without making too obvious a reference to the much mistrusted idea of "a soul" and was based on the work of the philosopher, Rene Descartes. There was much speculation about how something that was not mechanistic in nature i.e. our thoughts, could actully affect something that was not only mechanistic but chemical and biological too. Of course in today's world we know only too well that our thoughts carry powerful consequences.

Is it true that the mind can not tell the difference between something that is imagined and something that is real? Amazingly, the answer to this question is yes. When explaining this concept, most people ask you to imagine a sable tooth tiger in close range to you, however, I believe choosing something more personal to you is better for encouraging the right response. So I now invite you to choose your own example of something that might illicit a physical response from your body. Personally, if I think of being locked into a particularly small room, my beathing begins to quicken, until I change the image. To be honest, I usually change this fairly rapidly as I do not like to spend much time in this state. Don't spend too long here, it's just to make the point about how our mind/thoughts affect our body.

Where am I going with all this? I want to help you see that while we may not be fully aware that our thinking controls much of how we spend our day, it does. Our thinking also has more to do with the food choices we make than we realise. It is also said that 95% of our thinking is unconscious. Wow! perhaps you would like to reflect on that for just a short moment. 95%. What a staggering number! This basically means that until you become aware of something, it may be very difficult if not impossible to change it. Difficult, but not impossible.

With many of my clients, one of the first questions I ask them is to outline their top three values. If I don't hear that health is up there in the top three, I ask them to put it there. Good health is one of my top three goals in my own life as I know and value it more than anything else. If it's ever been taken away from you, you will know exactly what I mean when I say this.

However, even though I really value my health, some days my thinkin is so stinkin that it really is only fit for the rubbish heap. Am i alone in this? I think not. It is in these off days that I find myself at the chipper door ordering a single of chips and a veggie burger (was I not listening in the hydrogenated fats lecture!!). After eating, I feel a sense of stillness, almost as if someone has put a muzzle on me. Listening carefully for my motor mouth mind, I can no longer detect any stinkin thinkin. It has been silenced. Actually, I no longer think or feel anything. It is unlikely that we will reach for the mung bean sprouts when we are in this state of mind, and yet, it is almost exactly what we need. Yes, I did just say that!

So what do I suggest you do when it attacks? My suggestion is to run with it, but if you are at home when it hits, at least have your kitchen filled with whole and healthy foods that will lessen the impact. If all you can find are Kimberly Mikadoes(and coconut creams:)), then guess what you're going to much on?? You got it in one. And if you are not at home and happen to be passing the chipper and there's absolutely no way your Ghost in the Machine is letting you away with anything less than a single, then only have one, make it a small bag and do not get the the extra scoop! Oh, and have a handful of sprouts when you get home.

No one is immune to these bouts of madness, but as anyone will know who has started a diet (not a favourite word of mine), when these stinkin thinkin attacks, the chips are eaten, washed down with diet coke and a few squares of dark chocolate that has turned into a whole bar and sure I've ruined it now I might as well finish the Ben and Jerry's and start again tomorrow..but when tomorrow comes, guess who's forgotten to go shopping!

I suggest you, stand strong and stare down your stinkin thinkin...Why? because you're worth it!