Please Yourself

Exercise: Run, yoga and escalators
Food: Dates, banana ice cream tart, plus extra banana ice cream (ie just bananas), a few grapes

I am now the queen of raw recipes. Well I have been experimenting! I've had a burst of creativity. I made a 'cous cous' recipe yesterday. I processed a head of cauliflower minus the green bits, until it looked like fluffy cous cous. I then mixed in some shelled green peas, some corn from fresh and wild which I'm sure had been heated in some form and vacuum packed, but not bothered, it looked like a corn on the cob should look, I mixed it all up with Seggiano's raw pesto (I will get round to trying out my own recipe, but until then this is delicious and cheeseless!), and some mushrooms which I marinated in a little olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar. It looked like a cous cous dish and tasted yummy too. The funny thing was a colleague said to me 'your lunch looks so lovely, I wish I could eat it'.

I made another banana icecream tart this time with blackcurrants blended in, and then another plain banana one with an almond and date base. Get me! The base is basically how Lara bars are essentially made , but in different quantities of nuts and dates, and most with added spices. But this is the cheaper option and you can the ingredients that work for you.

I'll leave you with this quote that I swiped from Bob Proctors 'insight of the day' email

"That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong."
William J.H. Boetcker

Staying with this, I used to work for a business based in the owner's home. A good few years ago now. My boss was a lovely lady and it was just the three of us working there. She would bring us out biscuits, snacks etc. Then one day I decided I wasn't going to have any biscuits because I was on a health kick. Didn't feel great that I was chomping on biscuits everyday. It wasn't part of my eating style if you discount the occasional ploughing through of a packet of digestives! And even though I said to her 'no biscuits for me', even when it was just me she still wheeled them out. I have to say I felt under a lot of pressure to just eat them to appreciate her hospitality. But I didn't because one, it was important to me to get out of the daily biscuit habit, and two, if I had started eating them again it would have rendered my words meaningless and I would have lost some self-respect, if not her respect. Beacuse even when people try to either consciously or unconsciously sabotage your efforts they are actually grudgingly or maybe wholeheartedly admiring you. It's what inspiration is about. Have a think about someone who truly inspires you, it's usually someone who knows their path and is walking it, and they usually stand out from the crowd in more ways than one.

I think if we are inspired to do something we should especially do it. I believe this is because these are pointers for significant growth and focus in our lives. I also believe it's how we are meant to live, inspiring and inspired. This is the way of much happiness and fulfilment (happiness is a byproduct of fulfilment and not the other way round!). In the absence of that (being out of touch with our lives and the source of our lives) leaves us being 'fixers' doing things we 'ought to' 'should to' etc. This way is often accompanied by discontent, frustration and listlessness. In a nutshell we are more likely to succed at what we want to achieve when we are inspired to do it. I ask myself questions like an I inspired to eat raw, (Yes), am I inspired to give money to this cause, am I inspired to volunteer to help etc. I've found it a useful tool. Hope you do too!