Tag: health

Happiness: Want to change your life? Expand your awareness, grow your Consciousness.

September 2, 2012

Dear Radiant Readers,

As the beautiful words of a profoundly spiritual scientist Albert Einstein say below, everything is Energy. You are energy, your world and life are energy, everything you touch, see and feel is energy. Why is that important? Because Focused energy, or Consciousness, has a power to change energy around. Therefore, you have a power to change you and your world, when you focus your Awareness.

We all get a little ( or a lot:P) unhappy with certain elements  in our lives and with ourselves also. Depending on who you are in terms of your awareness of self, there would be different ways in which you can make yourself happier.

I would like to talk about something that can apply to you no matter where you are from, how you live, what your habits are, whether you think you are a spiritual person or a “materialist”; what I would like to suggest is something that seems to benefit just about anybody.

I am talking about Awareness. Being Aware is different from thinking, one doesn’t have to Think in order to be Conscious. We can perceive a lot around us and not think about it. So, how do we get more awareness and how does it help us?

Let’s look at it from our everyday point of view: for instance, we are in a bad mood, in fact we woke up this way! No actual logical reason comes to mind as to why we are feeling this way, we just are!

Generally, we have several main ways of dealing with unpleasant emotions:

(1) Ignore and distract.

(2) Vent it, engage in it, fully express it.

(3) Analyse it by yourself or with a therapist (counsellor, psychiatrist, etc.)

(4) Seek a philosophical or spiritual approach to it.

(1) Consciously or not, we may choose not to delve too deeply into it or think about it, as sometimes there is just no time or desire to feel even worse! So we try to get ourselves to feel better by doing something else, such as watching a funny programme on TV, having  a cigarette, a sweet chocolate bar, anything really that triggers the endorphins or happy memories from before! And you know, most of the time it works! We forget about the feeling of unhappiness, carry on and smile with a brave face! Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that If, gentle reader, you are happy with this?

(2) We all know how this goes: we snap at colleagues or family at home, everything annoys us, the traffic, the bus, the people at work… everyone and anything can get to us.

(3) Analysing why we feel have certain emotions, does help, and it does bring more awareness into the “issues” or reasons behind them. However, I am not inviting you in this article to go digging into every one of your issues! Especially not, if knowing why you are upset today, doesn’t bring you closer to not being upset today! :D I.e. You figured it all out: your mother always told you that you were lazy and disorganised, which triggered an angry emotion in you during some incident yesterday, which is why you are annoyed this morning!  So, you know why, yet it doesn’t give you peace….We’ve been doing that for the last 50 years with psychiatry, and yes, sometimes it works, however, it’s hit and miss and largely depends on your therapist & not always so much on you. As when you encounter professionals that “don’t click it with you”, or their “methods” are not quite for you, it just won’t work.  Besides, we’ve got SO many unresolved traumatic issues… if we lived with them for 10, 20, 40 years, would we want to spend the next 10 or 20 years resolving all this? If not, then I suggest you try something else.

(4) The simplest way to begin to change how you feel for good, is to take control over how you feel. And it is certainly not by numbing your emotions, not entirely by digging and analysing either. Not by suppressing or forcing. Not by ignoring. Certainly Not by taking drugs that do the numbing and suppressing for you, so you don’t even have a chance to suppress them yourself!:) There is really no power for you in that. So, if not drugs and not everything else we mentioned, then what else is left there?? You can begin by finding something in you that is beyond all this drama and upsets. And no, it’s not a religion, it’s not even a spiritual following, it’s not “new age” stuff, it doesn’t even have to be a meditation… All you have to do is to simply be aware of what you feel. That is all. Well, almost :) Be aware without judgement, and have the awareness of the emotion in you, as in – notice that the emotion is… separate from You! It is trying to get you to be more upset, or express certain actions because you feel a certain emotion…However, is it really You? Or is it just the emotion in you? Watch it, and notice that it’s not you, who’s upset or angry or sad, you simply let sadness, anger or upset into you. And now you are aware of them in you.  You do not have to Engage into those emotions anymore. If you don’t want to! :) You have a choice now! You are not a victim of you being sad, you have the Power of awareness that you have an emotion in you, and hence You are not that Emotion, hence You don’t have to behave in the way that emotion behaves. Because it is not you, you have a choice to not engage into that particular emotion (frequency). :) You now have more Freedom.

Just be aware. Without judging how you feel. 
Simply acknowledge and observe the emotion in or around you.
This allows to become aware 
                  that the emotion is in you, but is not you.
You are simply aware or observing this emotion.

How do we do this without thinking? And won’t we get more upset if we focus on the sad emotions we have? No, if we acknowledge the emotions we have, as opposed to identify with them by saying that “I am”! As in, “I am annoyed”, or “I am angry”, we could notice the anger in us, and instead say to ourselves: “I have anger”, “I sense annoyance”. So, a good exercise would be to simply notice what emotions and feelings you have right now as you are reading this. Do you feel: tired, alert, happy, dissatisfied, joyous, upset, impatient? Whatever you feel, just have an awareness of what it is you are feeling. Whatever it is you sense right now about you inside, feel that emotion, sense it and “observe it internally” so to speak. Now notice that you are not One with the Emotion, otherwise, how would you look or observe something that is you? You are aware of the emotion IN you. So, here is You, and somewhere inside you or (sometimes) around you is this emotion you are sensing! If you acknowledge it and say to yourself: “I have this emotion”. You can then decide what to do with it or simply do nothing, but realise that you are free to choose any other emotion now, as this is NOT you, but simply a particular frequency of sadness, worry, upset, etc. in you. This alone bring more awareness into you. With this conscious awareness you can Choose, therefore you have more Power over how you feel and what frequencies or emotions you choose to “entertain”.  This works better than  feeling whatever it is that happens to “possess you” at any given time! When we repress these emotions or ignore them, we still haven’t acknowledged that they are there! And we allow them to continue to take some control over parts of us, because we have no true awareness of them. With Awareness comes Consciousness, and Consciousness is Power.

So, because what I am describing above is basically focus, you focus on what you sense within you. Awareness or Consciousness is Focused Energy. And only through intentional focus, you can more consciously expand your awareness and do it Much Faster, than if you leave it all to Life, environment or fate. There will come a time, when you will be forced to focus on you inside, as eventually, this lesson comes to all. All we need to do then is simply be aware of us. Become aware of as much as possible! And with this Focused awareness, come Great Discoveries and a Great Beautiful Power.

It is not a Force, it is your own true Power over your life and Your Conscious Evolution from within You.

Salvestrols in food: amazing nutrients that naturally kill cancer cells. How to get more of them in our diets.

August 13, 2012

SALVESTROLS naturally destroy cancerous cells. Modern plants no longer contain good amounts of salvestrols, even though they should! Read on to find out why and to see which plants are still likely to have good amounts of them today.

What they do: These amazing plant compounds destroy unhealthy cells – including cancer cells. They get activated by special enzymes, that are present in diseased cells only; and as a result of this “activation” kill off the sick cells.

Picking wild berries and wild edible plants can provide high levels of Salvestrols. Pictured wild forest strawberries in my garden (grown naturally without any inteference to allow high Salvestrols levels), which I successfully translplanted as a young “runner” from Wicklow mountains in Ireland.

How come we don’t have them in our food anymore? Plants produce salvestrols to fight their own diseases – when they get attacked by pests. In ordinary non-organic agriculture, we kill off pests with chemicals, so plants don’t get a chance to produce salvestrols. Secondly, our taste in food has been changing over the last century and a half towards sweeter vegetables and fruits, and salvestrols tend to be bitter in taste. So, older varieties  (heirloom) crops would naturally contain more salvestrols also.

Who discovered them: Two UK scientists: Gerry Potter (Professor of Medicinal Chemistry) and Dan Burke (Emeritus Professor of Pharmaceutical Metabolism and former head of the School of Pharmacy) were studying synthetic compounds that would fight disease and realised that many foods contain salvestrols as well. What surprised them was that plants that should naturally contain a lot of salvestrols – had very few. Further research showed why this is so (see above).

What you can do to ensure you are getting more salvestrols?
(A) Eat more ORGANIC and PERMACULTURE vegetables, fruits and berries – non-organic vegetables have much lower levels of salvestrols, sometimes none at all! Permaculture is the closest method to the way plants grow in the wild (and, incidentally, most ecologically sound and highest in production) – hence this “wilderness emulation” allows plants to develop highest levels of salvestrols – naturally, as there is minimum interference with pests and diseases! Next best step is Organic, as there is much less (or none) chemical exposure and overstimulation of plants to grow faster (which in chemical-driven agriculture gives plants less time to build a healthier immunity with salvestrols and many other beneficial phytochemicals!).

(B) Grapes (especially red) contain resveratrols (type of salvestrols), strawberries, tangerines, cranberries – Obviously Aim for Organic for best salvestrol levels. Bitter foods and herbs contain higher levels of salvestrols: bitter lettuces, dandelion leaves, millet (grain that cooks like rice you can buy it in health stores). Also, Swedish bitters that you can buy as a supplements in health stores.

(C) Start foraging (picking wild berries, fruits and edible plants in the wild). Caution: If you are unfamiliar with wild berries, please consult somebody who knows wild plants in your area or do a foraging course before picking, as some wild plants can be toxic.

(D) Grow Permaculturally or Organically (If you are into growing your own food). Permaculture method is the closest emulation of plants growing in the wild. Hence this way plants develop much higher levels of salvestrols!

(E) Ring or Visit SEED SAVERS (in your own country) – and ask for older [HEIRLOOM] varieties – which haven’t been commercially grown for 150-200 years! These older varieties of plants (like apples, pears and vegetables) naturally produce more salvestrols as opposed to modern plants that have been bred for sweeteness, whereas salvestrols tend to be more bitter. Keep retaining  the seeds from those varieties and keep re-growing annuals from your own seeds!

(F) Learn about bitter plants and wild edible plants and grow in your garden emulating the wild way in which it grew (respectfully, i.e. do not tear out the last remaining specimen out of your local forest!!!). Collect seeds or transplant from wild. Take a runner from a strawberry, a young billberry bush in an area where there are huge numbers of these plants already. Propagate in your garden for friends and family, no need to go back up the mountains or forest every time somebody else wants the same wild plant in their garden! Grow these plants as they grow in the wild, i.e. watch wht type of soil it grows on: acid (under conifers or on bog land), alkaline, sandy, heavy clay, rich in organic matter, etc. In the full sun (on a meadow) or under trees. Emulate similar conditions in the garden. Also, research into plant guilds or “mutually-beneficial plan groups”, i.e. plants that when grown together, benefit each other in ways of exchanging beneficial chemicals underground and through changing the soil composition. You will see these plant groups happily growing together in the wild, perhaps when you dig one wild plant that you intend to eat, dig or collect seeds of the neighbour plants, if both seem very “happy together”. Simply put: learn about permaculture plant guilds! :))

(G) If you are not into growing your own stuff: buy organic, buy from local permaculture growers! Enquire about local Organic or permaculture box schemes and/or markets! Or buy organic from supermarkets!

(H) Finally, you can supplement with Salvestrols – this may be of interest to you ESPECIALLY if somebody is quite sick. http://www.naturopharma.com/salvestrols (there are many websites that sell salvestrols, go by reviews, quality assurance, anecdotal evidence to find a good reputable brand).

In Conclusion…

Remember that NATURALLY – we are meant to have salvestrols – we’ve been eating them for as long as we’ve existed in this current state of evolution (Homo Sapience), and only over the LAST 100 years we stopped eating them almost entirely! This is bound to have an effect on us – apart from overwhelming toxicity, lack of minerals in our food (As it’s no longer in t long time the soils because of the mass-chemical farming), we lack many-many phytonutrients that are crucial to our health, which we are only starting to understand. It may take a very long time to FULLY scientifically describe everything that every single plant compound does – and in many cases, researchers don’t get paid for that kind of research, so it is unlikely that we will ever scientifically find out EVERYTHING that EVERY important phytonutrient does in the plant kingdom!
So, it all has been taken care of when plants live – naturally – as close to the natural order of things as possible, it’s in their DNA to grow and produce what we are meant to eat, if only we emulated how they grow in nature, and didn’t go AGAINST nature so much, we’d get food that is TRULY good for us on many levels we haven’t come close yet to understand!

Welcome, Radiant readers! : )

August 11, 2012

Dear Radiant Readers, welcome to the new blog on how you can get even more radiantly healthy, beautiful, energetic and balanced!

Here I’ll be sharing my simple tried-and-tested tips on radiant beauty; radiance-boosting exercise and nutrition; music, art, videos and thoughts that uplift, inspire and heal.

Coming soon: “Radiant Tip of the week”, “Radiance-boosting foods: what’s in season, cheap and delectable now?”,  “Wake up or how to energise yourself without caffeine.”..and many more! :)

Wishing you more of the Radiant You in your life!

Kamilla.