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Breathe:

More Kindness for Ourselves and Each Other

Fingers and Forgiveness on September 11

9/19/2016

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I heard a great teaching story from Sufi mystic, spiritual leader and professional musician Imam Yassir Chadly about how all of us – yes, including spiritual leaders, can be vulnerable to reactivity, and can transform our reactivity into forgiveness.

Imam Chadly was speaking at the Open-Faith Salon, at Jewish meditation center Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley at an event, “Ecumenical Exploration of Forgiveness,” exploring forgiveness from Jewish, Muslim/Sufi, Christian and native Hawaiian perspectives. The Open-Faith Salon is dedicated to the memory and legacy of our beloved teacher –- African-American, queer, deeply feminist, leader in Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities -- Sheikh Ibrahim Farajajé, “whose work to build bridges between different faith communities remains an inspiration to all who seek to create peace and understanding through interfaith dialogue,” according to the Open Faith Salon.


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Imam Chadly talked about being cut off by another driver. Like many of my favorite spiritual teachers, he made us laugh with clear observations, like noticing how difficult it is to drive at 5 in the evening “because everyone is hungry.” Reflecting on being cut off by the driver, he gave a concise and beautiful teaching about the impermanence of our thoughts and feelings, saying "I was very upset  because at the time I was very important."

I was very upset  because at the time I was very important.
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When the other driver gave him the finger, he responded in kind, and then immediately felt regret for his behavior and wanted to find the other driver to apologize. But the other driver had already gone, “so I had to give it to the One who has no beginning and no end”.

Imam Chadly suggests that we establish an annual Finger Day. “First time you wake up in the morning, give someone the finger. Then you buy a Hallmark Finger Day card. Next week, someone gives you the finger, you say, ‘Oh, sorry, that was last week. You're late.’ ”


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Knowing how people are, I can only imagine the responses to someone else hearing that they are too late for Finger Day. Yet telling MYSELF that I'm too late for Finger Day could be brilliant.

This warm and funny teaching reminds me of a classic intervention around worry, which is to schedule the worry. The assignment is to worry every day for example between 5 and 5:30. When worry arises at other times, the reminder is, oh, it's not the right time, Worry Time will be at 5 o'clock.

Happy Finger Day!




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With All Your Heart Elevation Soup

9/6/2016

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I asked the wonderful folks at Rockridge Pharmaca for supplements to prepare for a short trip at higher elevation. One of the suggestions, in addition to chlorophyll, L-leucine, and an extract of a mushroom that grows in the Himalayas, was CoQ10.

Web MD tells us that "Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is a substance similar to a vitamin. It is found in every cell of the body. Your body makes CoQ10, and your cells use it to produce energy your body needs for cell growth and maintenance. It also functions as an antioxidant, which protects the body from damage caused by harmful molecules."

I remembered the heart in the freezer. I know, it sounds like a terrible mashup of Edgar Allen Poe with a murder mystery. Says You on NPR sometimes has a segment like that of mashed up titles like, "The Telltale Heart in San Francisco."

As a vegetarian for 27 years, when I look at the abundance in my freezer of specially ordered pastured meat, I joke that it looks like the freezer is full of body parts after a crime.

Truthfully, the freezer is full of body parts, and these body parts were specifically chosen for their ability to nourish, heal, and sustain. Many of our teachers on nutrition and mental health such as Leslie Korn PhD, author of Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health, with whom I studied for a day again recently, speak to the benefits of high-quality animal protein for brain health. Bloggers such as medical biophysicist Sarah Ballantyne, Ph.D. at the Paleo Mom encourage the consumption of traditionally esteemed organ meats for healing digestive and autoimmune conditions.

As Rosa Schnyer and Bob Flaws say in Curing Depression Naturally with Chinese Medicine, "It is said that flesh foods are very "compassionate" to the human body. This word recognizes the fact that the animal's life has had to be sacrificed to produce this type of food. It also recognizes that, because such food is so close to the human body itself, it is especially nutritious. Therefore, when people suffer from… depression, eating some animal products usually is helpful and sometimes is downright necessary."  For years before I agreed to eat meat, my acupuncturist would remind me that in Chinese medicine, you eat the body part that is hurting you.

A little internet research reveals that beef hearts may be high in CoQ10, iron, and L-leucine. I wondered how heart could help people travel to a mountain. It makes intuitive sense that to give our brain more oxygen at elevation, a heart could possibly be a direct route.

This is a good place to remind you that I am not a doctor and this blog is not medical advice.  I also trust that you will find your own journey about if and when to include animal in your food.

Et voilà, a recipe for heart soup.


With All Your Heart Elevation Soup
The title "with all your heart" comes from a Jewish prayer called the Sh'ma, or Listen!, found in Deuteronomy 6: 4-9, which encourages us to love the holy "with all your heart," "b'kol l'vavcha."  "L'vavcha," your heart, contains the word "lev," heart, with a doubling, which is found in certain ancient Hebrew words, of the letter V . The B and the V sounds are spoken in a similar place in the lips and are very close in many languages, including Spanish and Hebrew. "L'vavcha," your heart, sounds like the beating of a heart, L-vav, l'bub, l'bub.

Based on a recipe for Crock Pot Beef Heart from Paleo in Comparison.

Defrost a pastured, organic beef heart in the fridge for 24 hours, in a bowl in case the package leaks.

Ingredients:

One heart
2-3 tablespoons tallow (beef fat), unrefined coconut oil, or a combination
one diced leek, green part only
one bunch diced green onion, green part only
one diced fennel bulb
one bunch carrots, about 6, cut into 4 pieces each

fennel stalks
1 cup Cabernet Sauvignon, other dry red wine, or water
1 cup beef bone broth or water
Himalayan salt or sea salt
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons finely diced fresh herbs, which could include Italian parsley, cilantro, and basil

The ingredients are compatible with the #SCD (Simple Carbohydrate Diet), #Low FODMAPs, #SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth), and #Autoimmune Protocol Diets, which are healing food plans for people healing from IBS, digestive conditions including post-travel, constipation, and autoimmune conditions.

Cooking is a very creative, intuitive practice once you become comfortable with it. This recipe is flavored with my intuitive approach, and the amounts may not be exacting, so feel free to change it as you like.

Directions:

Melt a combination of tallow and coconut oil in a pan large enough for the whole heart. I prefer the smell of coconut oil so added it to the tallow. Sear the heart at medium-high to high heat, turning with tongs so the sides brown, a couple of minutes per side. Pick up the whole heart with tongs and set it into a slow cooker or Instant Pot.

Dice the green part of the bunch of green onions into pieces, about a fourth to half inch long.

Dice the green part of the leek into pieces, about half inch to an inch long.

Dice the fennel bulb into pieces, about half inch to an inch long.

Fry the onion, leek, and fennel in the remaining tallow and coconut oil, adding more fat as necessary.

Chop the carrots in about four pieces the long way.

Add the carrots, fennel stalks, and the fried vegetables to the slow cooker.

Add 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, a teaspoon of Himalayan salt, a cup of Cabernet, and a cup of bone broth to the slow cooker. Add more filtered water to cover the heart and vegetables.

Cook for 8-10 hours on low, while you sleep, work, or rest. I imagine an Instant Pot would be much faster but I haven't tried it.

Discard the fennel stalks from the soup. Take the heart out with tongs and set it in a large bowl with a flat bottom. One side of the heart has a silvery, tough, somewhat translucent type of skin.  Cut the heart into 4-5 chunks with a knife and fork. Slice the silvery skin off each of these chunks, as possible. Cut the heart into bite-sized pieces, and return the pieces to the soup.

Dice the parsley, cilantro, and basil.

Serve hot soup garnished with diced herbs.

Makes about 6 cups, about four full or 8 small servings.

Eat a few times in preparation for travel to altitude or high elevation, the Sierra Mountains, Denver, Machu Picchu, or the Himalayas.

Eat with mindful reverence, with gratitude for the heart of the animal coming into contact with your heart.

Notice how you feel at your usual level, and notice how you feel when you travel to elevation. Or eat at sea level and elevate your awareness.





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Affordable Brain Food Education

5/3/2016

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Picture Image: Magic Mineral Broth from Rebecca Katz
I continue to find it amazing how food gives rise to brain health: energy, happiness, sexual zing, sleep.

A big part of the puzzle is access. What are some free or low-cost ways to find out about the abundance of information on food that is both pleasurable and brain-friendly?

Classes, talks, newsletters, blogs, and Facebook pages are great ways to get information, if you have reputable sources. Here are a couple of ideas.

Lifestyle Medicine:
Lessons from both Eastern & Western medicine: Herbs, Foods & Teas to create your healthiest self.
In this eight-week class at AIMC in Berkeley starting Saturday May 14, learn what Oriental Medicine and Western Medicine teach about seasonal eating, super foods, and herbs and teas that heal.

I enjoy following my Food as Medicine conference teacher Rebecca Katz, author of the Healthy Mind cookbook. You can sign up on her website for her newsletter, recipes, and upcoming online class. Here's a great recipe for a completely vegetarian mineral broth.



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Fermented Curtido...possibly a mood-booster?

11/25/2015

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Here's a wonderful-looking recipe for curtido, a naturally probiotic food from El Salvador. Traditional wisdom and some preliminary scientific studies point to the benefits of fermented foods for mental health, as gut health affects brain health. http://deliciouslyorganic.net/how-to-ferment-vegetables-sauerkraut/
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YUM! Mindful Eating, Mindful Nutrition: Eating with the Brain in Mind

9/1/2015

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Picture“Tuscan Plate and Eggplant” • Sally Baker Watercolors, click image for www.sallybaker.com
"YUM!"

My Food as Medicine conference teacher, chef and culinary translator tells fellow cookbook author Mollie Katzen in an interview that "yum" is an involuntary response to pleasure.
"Yum!" is a common response to her Everything Drizzle or Triple Triple Brittle in her book, The Healthy Mind Cookbook. "Yum" is so different, she says, than we expect to respond to healthy food, which we imagine as deprivation on the edge of sorrow and grief for what we are losing.

It can also be a delicious feeling to find new ways of understanding and caring for ourselves.

This next course combines the powers of mindful awareness and research-based brain nutrition.

Each class invites our inner wisdom to taste, perceive, and notice.

In the following week, we learn about the latest research related to the foods we have eaten and their potential impact on anxiety, pain, and sleep.

Eating with the brain in mind references my fascination with the current research on the role of nutrition, the gut organisms in the microbiome, and mental health. Did you know that serotonin is made in the belly?

As we eat many times a day, bringing kind awareness to eating is an opportunity to practice for all of us.

Mindful Nutrition means that instead of letting others decide, or just going by taste, we pay attention to which foods nourish us individually.

Next Class:
Tuesdays 9–11:15 am, 9/22-11/17/15
free orientation for class members and the public, Tuesday 9 am, 9/22/15

Sliding scale.

Early-bird pricing this week until 9/8/15.

Click here to register.

Interested but the class doesn’t work for your schedule?
Click here to learn about the benefits of individual mindful therapy for anxiety, pain, and insomnia and here to learn about weight loss and body acceptance counseling.

#mindfuleating #mindfulness #yum #sba  #mbsr #ibs

You can sign up for the classes here.

May you and all beings be nourished.


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Welcome

6/12/2015

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This is where you will find stress reduction tips and articles in future. Breathe and enjoy the silence.
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    Author

    Reba Connell teaches Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindful Eating classes in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland.

    She has completed several levels of study in teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including a professional training program under the direction of Dr. Saki Santorelli and Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and a training in teaching Mindful Eating, through UCSD.

    She is deeply engaged with science-based and traditional approaches to healing through food and self-care. Her trainings include Food As Medicine; The Gut Brain; and Preventing and Managing Chronic Inflammation: Special Focus: Nutritional Interventions.  She has been practicing meditation and yoga since 1999.

    Finding mindfulness, movement, and food to make big differences in her own healing from chronic pain, she feels called to share what she is learning with others and to help people make their own discoveries. She is committed to a feminist approach that honors all body shapes and sizes while collaborating in radiant wellness.

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