Sprouting time again!

I missed having my sprouts yesterday so I took some alfalfa and broccoli seeds and put them in bowls to soak over night.

This morning I rinsed them well and put them in the sprouting box:

From now on I rinse them twice a day and in three to four days we can enjoy fresh sprouts! 
Do you sprout to? What are your favourite sprouts?

Back on Facebook again.

Yesterday I posted on my Facebook page again. It has almost been 4 years ago since I last posted! I realize how much I miss the beautiful community there. I'm not very active on Facebook myself anymore, I'm hanging around on Instagram instead but I miss the questions and the interactivity that I used to have on my Facebook page. I love to get some response otherwise it feels like I'm not talking to anybody.

We had a very sunny morning here today and even the cats enjoyed the sun. I started with a celery juice:

After that I had a fruit, berry and greens smoothie.

For lunch we enjoyed chickpeas and spinach served with rice.

Focus - throughout the day.

Good evening!

I hope you have had a lovely Friday. I started my day with yoga and meditation to be prepared to meet the challenges during the day. It can be challenges with relationships, with lack of my own motivation and so on. That's why it's so great to start the day in a prepared and focused way. As a project manager I wouldn't start a project without any preparations and I should actually value every day to be important enough to be fully prepared. This life is precious. Something to value high. And we should respect ourselves enough to make the best out of every day.

Me enjoying a smoothie this morning. I filmed 3 meditations today. One in English and two in Swedish. It's been over four years since I edited and posted videos though so I have to kind of start over again. What video editing program should I use? And so on.

Greens, greens, greens.

I confess. I'm filling up with lots of greens at the moment. Just look at this lunch plate:

Where is the food!?!?!? Ha, ha, ha. We cook almost all of our meals from scratch because we like it that way. I also want it to be simple to have a mixed salad to the meal. Therefore we buy this bag with mixed organic leafy greens. It comes rinsed and it's perfect to throw on your plate!

Smoothie!

You know I've said it before. Dont't be afraid of fruit but don't forget about your leafy greens either!

My container is stuffed with bananas, strawberries and blueberries!

On top of that I put barley grass powder and lots of leafy greens! 

After that I just add water and blend! This smoothie is loaded with energy and nutrients. What more can we ask for? Oh yes, it tastes delicious as well! 

My Tuesday.

Charlie had a fever yesterday so we stayed at home today too. His appetite return at dinner time so tomorrow I think he will be ready to go outside and play. When we are ill our bodies wants to focus on fighting the virus. Not be forced to eat. Charlie often prefers fruits and raw veggies when he is ill and the old Jessica would have been a bit worried about that. Now I know better and I also know that the appetite will return. Honestly I don't know any child who loves eating healthy as Charlie does. One reason is that he is used to eat healthy since he was a baby and another is that we never force him to eat. Since Mattias and I are on a healthy diet he has also always eaten what we eat. No special "child food". I see so many around me giving their children a boring tasting child food while they are eating something more tasty and delicous. When I started feeding Charlie something else than breast milk when he was a baby it was fruit. Children loves fruit! Fruit are also one of the healthiest food on the planet. It is so, so sad that so many people don't eat fruit because of "all" the sugar it contains. Download a simple app called cron-o-meter and start education yourself on all the nutrients you find in fruit. Your body will love you!

Before Mattias went to work I went for a run. It was quite a tough one because it was hard to run in the snow today. The snow was hard and soft at the same time so it was like running in sand. It was a really good workout for my legs though.

Charlie and I played with lego and did yoga today. After I had put Charlie to bed I meditated. So today I have done all of the three things I believe is an important foundation in my life: running, yoga and mediation.

My beautiful boy doing his version of meditation.
 

Yoga and meditation saved my day today.

Yesterday something happened to me that made me feel like I was overrun by a bulldozer. I took this feeling with me into bed. Unfortunately I was too tired to change any feelings or mindset so I hade a restless sleep with very strange dreams. Naturally when I woke up the feeling was still there. I felt exhausted and I didn't want to leave my bed. But I did Kundaliniyoga with asanas, breathing excercises and some chanting and it transformed my feeling. I went out of the bed and made myself a celery juice. I decided to go for a run in the winter landscape. This strengthened me even more and the day that started so bad changed to a good one.

This evening my mother called. Apparently she is having a manic period. She is bipolar. She also suffers from schizofrenia and some other diagnoses. She was telling me things that I know aren't true. And suddenly she shifts and talks like everything is normal. Like someone in the early stage of dementia I guess. If I hadn't made an effort to really change the way I felt this morning this most likely would have been too much for me to handle. Now it makes me sad but not devastated. Yoga and meditation doesn't put up shields around us that makes us like non-feeling zoombies. Instead it makes us feel our emotions without losing our mind and our stability.

How yoga and meditation can change us.

Yoga means everything. It gets me through the shifts of life. It's like my home. A safe place where I always can go back to when I forget what is most important in my life. And to me yoga and meditation goes together. Today I started with a grounding and calming meditation. I was about to teach it in my class this evening so I did it this morning to feel and be able to share my personal experience with that meditation. In Kundaliniyoga there are more than 1500 different meditations so there is a meditation for everything! All we have to do is to do them. To experience a real shift in our lives we need to meditate on a regular basis. If you sit down in meditation you will feel lots of different things. So you can't really tell after just one session. But when you do it regularly you start seing a shift in yourself. You will get more aware of your thoughts. You will be quick to detect negative thoughts and then you will also be able to shift them. Because you have to be aware of something to be able to make a change.


Why we are recommended to do yoga and meditation in the morning is because that will lay the foundation for the rest of your day. You will be much more prepared to meet the challenges during the day. Just think about it, imagine that you stress the first thing you do. You rush away to school or the office or what ever you do. You are tense. You bump into somebody else who started her day the same way. You start yelling at each other. Perhaps not loud, maybe just in your head. But the damage is done anyway.
Now go back and start the day over again. Start with yoga and meditation. This will make you feel balanced, focused and yet relaxed. When you bump into that lady you will not start yelling and you will not be offended by her yelling. That's how yoga and meditation works and it changes you.

Wednesdays means a day off with Charlie!

Hi there! I love my Wednesdays with Charlie. On these Wednesdays we try to have no schedule but enjoy the day as it unfolds. We often stay in bed a bit longer and sometimes we read books in the bed. Often Charlie orders an early breakfast consisting of grapes and dates. We enjoy smoothies together and cook delicous  plant based meals. Today we tried a papaya for the first time! There are not many things that makes me so happy as eating a ripe juicy tropical fruit. I can truly feel that we are meant
to eat fruit.



Before lunch we went out to play in the snow and had sooo much fun!

These days are totally de-stressing for the whole family. No deadlines and no rush. Like a very welcome break in the middle of the week! On these days it's also easier for Mattias who goes to work. He can just think about himself in the morning and he can work late if he desires. Or come home  when the dinner is served. On Thursdays Mattias is home with Charlie and that's why it's perfect for me to have my yoga classes un Thursdays for example.

And of course this is just wonderful for Charlie! Being with mom and dad. Play with his own toys. Just be. Be able to express all his feelings. Because he, like all of us, often play roles when we are not at home. He has to act in a certain way. He might not show all his tears and anger. But with his family he is totally safe to express all his feelings which is very important when it comes to building ones self esteem.

I hope this will inspire you to take that time off. To be with your children. Because they grow so fast. Me and my older boys father did the same thing with them when they were younger and I don't regret it for a second.

Recharge.

I love spending time in the forest. Here in Sweden the forest shifts with every season and I really love it. Now, in the winter, many of the trees are sleeping. I think that is a beautiful thing to learn from. This is the season when we should rest more and accept the fact that the energy will not be the same as during the rest of the seasons. It is a cycle. To be in full bloom we need to rest.

Nevertheless I can always count on the forest when I need to boost my energy. Actually it doesn't matter if it is heavy rains and the rest of the world looks grey. I always feel uplifted while in the forrest. And to get an extra deep boost I combine it with a run.

These photos were taken during my lunch break today. 

Yoga Thursday.

I just gave my second yoga class in my newest group. It is such a blessing to watch them leave with relaxed faces and bodies. To watch the shift taking place fills my heart with love. All of them are women and as women we are created to give. Give life and give love. Nurture. But in a yoga class they get to focus totally on them selves. They get to give back to them selves. Refill. In Kundaliniyoga there is always a longer rest. And giving yourself the opportunity to just lay down on your back for up to 10 minutes is luxurious. I recall when I was pregnant with my second son and I went to prenatal yoga. I recall thinking that the rest was the best part of the whole yoga class! 

On my way home from the yoga class I listened to the Rich Roll podcast. Rich is one of the best interviewers I've heard. It is more like a conversation than an interview.

When I came home Mattias had made a delicious dinner. He had his day off with Charlie today. I love the fact that Mattias and I take one day off each every week to be with Charlie. Tomorrow Charlie will go to his daycare mom and I will work with Pearls of Yoga.