What’s been on my mind all day is how can I express gratitude without saying ‘thank you’?

These words just haven’t been able to cut it today. Since I woke up this morning, I’ve had this awareness and clarity to this feeling I will endevour to explain to you…

This morning, my good pal Susan & I drove to her house after yoga, where she was kind enough to share with me her organic bounty of juicable fruits and veg…. and what a treatful morning we had. I was filled with a feeling similar to when my Papa used to give me 20p every Sunday, and I’d put it in my bank & watch it fill up slowly. I felt rich, and safe & lucky then. Today, this feeling was similar but it was more pronounced than the  kid-in-a-sweet-shop feeling though.First, I thought it was a feeling from having freedom of choice, but it’s taken until now to work out what was involved in this feeling. There was a safety & an excitement.Subconsciously, I explored it all day long with every juice I made.  This is how my juice feast rolled today:

First I had a simple watermelon juice. (Susan helped me make this one) She took care to wash the skin, and slice it into small enough pieces to fit through the juicer. It was such a treat to have someone prepare the fruit ready for juicing. I noticed her efforts; we both know the drill of juicing well enough that we didn’t say a lot.  We didn’t speak very much, but there it was, this attitude of gratitude, and that combined with a really sweet yummy melon made for a delicious juice.  This time the gratitude I understood in the form of mutual appreciation. For the melon, the process, and each other.

Next, we had a blueberry, apple & ginger juice. I made this juice alone, and it was a different experience. I couldn’t ask what Susan wanted, we were both busy in our own jobs and it wasn’t easy to verbally communicate. To me, the fruit & veg belonged to Susan, and that meant she had ownership over what each juice would contain.  I went ahead and made the best juice I knew how whilst she was busy. Instead of hoping she’d be happy with what I made, I just knew. There it was again, the attitude of gratitude. This time in the form of mutual trust.

Next juice we had was a Green Meanie; the best I’ve had for a while actually.  I made this juice alone & before I started to push things through the juicer, Susan came through & open the fridge and I thought she was going to take out what I could use. Instead, as normal she said to me, use whatever you like. I made us a juice from apples, spinach, celery, cucumber, parsley, a little rocket & some ginger. It was SO delicious. And more so, because it was made, surrounded by this attitude of gratitude. Sue offered an abundance of ingredients, trust in my ability & freedom of choice. I offered an abundance of time, enthusiasm & experience.  The combination made for an awesome juice. This time, it was laced with mutual generosity.

Each time I made a juice at Sue’s house, something in me wanted to save some ingredients for later. It’s in my nature to make food go further than an average person would imagine. It’s part of catering, and I have to challenge myself often with thinking differently than this. This is a juice feast, not a fast, and so what I reminded myself of today is the difference between quality & quantity. Juice Feasting is the perfect marriage of both.

Fearless abundance is what I mean; not squirreling stuff away for the rainy day that might never come. Life can be like this too.  Today taught me that gratitude is an expression of love and can exist always, in every single action.

As a chef, I love to make people feel great by feeding them & food is one way to express gratitude, but there’s a whole lot more to it. Today the combination of freedom, acceptance, appreciation, trust & generosity, reinforced that I choose to live my life with an attitude of gratitude. I will continue to love everything I make in the kitchen this week, for myself & others as much as I can,. Each time I notice this 20p feeling, I will do as I did today, I won’t speak, I’ll just feel it. That to me sounds like an ideal way to spend the day…. in a love bath.

To me, gratitude is a very true form of love. And so, I challenge you tomorrow to juice every bit of the special ingredients, to wear your favourite jumper, to treat yourself as well as you know how. Give to yourself, give to others, without fear of resources running out. Ask for what you require, look after yourself and enjoy exploring your own attitude towards gratitude.

Today has given me insight beyond measure.

My brain is feasting. My body is feasting. My adrenal glands are involuntarily fasting. My mind is alert and stimulated as always, but my body is slower. It’s tired, and my brain hasn’t slowed down yet, so I’m just watching it, running all over the place. Pure chaos.  My friend is taking part in the juice feast now, and as I’m writing she’s making juice for both of us, and I’m very grateful for her efforts. I’m tired & at times like this I love when somebody helps me to look after myself. A good reminder of unconditional love is to be grateful. In particular, for service. Service to our purpose in life, service to each other and service to ourselves.

With that on my mind as I woke up today, I decided to serve myself.  My mental choice was to continue on this path of lightening my load. Physically, mentally & spiritually. In very real terms, I own a lot of things & today I threw lots of them away. I thought it’d be confronting for me to be throwing away the belongings that for my whole life have shaped who I am. It has proved difficult for me in the past. We as humans, have such an attachment to stuff. It’s not the first time I’ve done this, in order to confront who I am. I allocated 2 hours and told myself I can’t stop until I’ve thrown 100 things away. My whole life I’ve hoarded. Everything & anything. Sometimes I even collected boxes of empty boxes because they were just too nice for the bin. Then I started a catering business. 7 fridges and 2 freezers take up a fair amount of space. Something’s shifted in me now. The more I cleanse and pay attention to myself, the less stuff I desire. So today I put a whole lot of things into boxes and took them to charity, to the Salvation Army & to the tip. It was so easy -I urge you to throw away some items. Just open the kitchen drawer and get rid of your spare spoons or something. 10 items, and ask yourself; do I need these things? Are they making me happy? Are they contributing to my life or taking something from me?

So yes, this was liberating, and fairly easy. The physical clutter clearing is always very rewarding. And now, as I’d expected, there’s a gap in my being that used to be filled with stuff. I am choosing to focus on enjoying having this clear empty space in my life, and I’m in no hurry to fill it up again.

This got me thinking today, before we had our meet up with our juicing crew; when you’ve no belongings left to tidy & clean, and arrange & enjoy, & there’s no veg to chop, lunches to be had, there’s not a lot of ways to distract from our inner selves…

And so inwardly, I’m bracing myself for a decluttering of a different sort; the emotional kind. And outwardly I’m talking to my peers about physical cleansing, in particular the benefits of barley grass and the title of this blog is what came out my mouth.

To expand a little; some kisses are soft, gentle & nice, some snogs are more passionate, pack a punch if you like, and are more intense. Both options are great. Sometimes both, but it all depend on what you choose, what you want & what you ask for.

Whilst we were all drinking coconut water & barley grass this afternoon, Susan explained that honey can be used sparingly during juice feasting. I saw the relief in some faces, it was interesting to observe, especially as we all sipped our green juices.  Taking a medicine or a tonic at a time of cleansing is a quick fix. I know honey is my quick fix for this feast.

You see, barley grass never fails to make me aware of sensation in my liver. So I’ll sit here with a pot of delicious honey in front of me for a wee while longer & struggle with my mind set. I can tell myself I’m eating the honey as a harmless treat, I can consider if I eat it will I feel I’ve failed, or I can just leave it there and sit with my thoughts. Because it’s not just about the honey. Thinking about honey, is a nice distraction from the quiet persistent twinges from my liver, thanks to that lovely barley grass. Thank you to my clever mind for easing me into what I imagine could be an interesting liver cleanse. I’ll stick with the barley grass for now, I’m not sure my liver is ready for more than a little kiss at the moment. After all, the sensations are a wee message that my liver needs a break too; it’s trying to eliminate what it doesn’t want. Just like I did with my stuff today…

So I give you some food for thought here, not for the belly:

Consider what can you throw away, what can you eliminate?  What’s not serving you anymore?

Recognise it, thank it & let it go…

Hello & welcome to my world. My intention with this blog is to communicate with you what inspires me and gives me purpose in my life. I want to inspire you to live the life you want to.  Just now I am passionate about so many different things and  I can’t wait to share these with you. I know that my purpose in life is to experience & share love, to serve others & to inspire whoever I meet to make conscious choices, all steering towards a life of infinite love & joy.  I believe there are a million ways to experience this, and I feel very grateful to have this opportunity to write about the experiences, food, thoughts, feelings and people that shape my world. I do hope you find what you are looking for in my words & enjoy these snippets of my life….

I am starting a 7 day juice feast tomorrow and so today I have been preparing mentally for what might lie ahead.

My whole world is based around food at the moment, you’ll see as time goes on. Food is my chosen vehicle. I load it with love, and good juju & feed it to people. It’s my job you see, and my passion. I talk about it, I love it, I order it, I design recipes, I chop it, I blend it, I eat it, I dream about it, I feed others it and now for the next 7 days, I’ll be looking at my relationship to food with a new perspective, and I’m quite aware this’ll take patience, disipline and focus.

I am by no means an expert in nutrition but I will share with you what works for me during this week, and I’ll be sure to tell you the truth. The highs and lows. I’ll write to you from the heart & I can tell you now in my heart that all I know is that I am very grateful for radical honesty, great pals, cups of tea, decent honey & the colonic hydrotherapy session I had today. This is how I started my juice feast…

I wanted to give my body the best start to this process. It’s a bit like wearing the right boots when you walk up a big hill; it’s possible to do this in running shoes or high heels, but a lot more pleasant in decent boots, that support your feet and ankles.

My intention with this juice feast is to break old behaviour patterns & introduce new ones. To break behavioural habits taht no longer help me out. A clean colon is a great foundation for maximum benefits from juice.

So with that in mind I booked myself a colonic session to start as I mean to go on. To lay the foundations, so to speak.

At  Cleanse in Edinburgh this afternoon, I felt things move around inside my body, more than ever before. I felt my colon contracting, working independantly, and I felt proud. My body was doing what it’s meant to. It was looking after itself and ridding me of waste matter. And I was looking after my body, by resting, cleansing my colon and addressing my attitude & emotions.  I felt the need to close my eyes and concentrate; to look inward. I realised that to be able to acknowledge how I felt, my body & mind had to be communicating with each other and working together. Hurray. For me, this was a huge realisation and a true sign that I’m putting in the work and getting results. I’m striving for balance, you see. I focused on breathing in joy, and letting go waste matter that no longer serves me. I focused on letting go of old behaviour patterns, and I left the session feeling lighter, clearer & fairly wiped out.

I am glad to have the job I have. I am glad I can explore the idea that colon cleansing & detoxing can change my life. My colonic sessions. diet & lifestyle at the moment are showing me all sides to myself. My body,mind & soul. I am glad that I’ve created the opportunity to practice what I am preaching at the moment… clear your mind, cleanse your body. It’s all part of loving ourselves from the inside out. And like all the good things in life, this is simple but not always easy. It helps me a lot to focus on the positives. And right now that’s my cosy bed and one of my favourite bedtime tunes….

I think Joni Mitchell is just so cool…. she inspires me because she sings about what she feels. She’s clear and I want to be too.

That’s all for now, I welcome your thoughts, feedback & ideas,

love Lorna x