Category: Healthy Living

Categories
Healthy Food

Lemon Harvest Week

  • lemons lemons
  • grapefruit size !
  • Sushi bento
  • Oh!nigiri:)
  • Fresh !
  • Soaps
  • So fun
  • Using more herbs in cooking
  • And Homemade raspberry jam from Portland! Thank you J !

It’s been a long long time since I visited this place – it’s humble beginning was that it used to be just a little Japanese grocery store out of an emptied bowling alley started by a hard working Japanese farmer immigrant who literally had nothing other than the deligent work ethics and business acumen.

Now it’s expanded to two sites in Berkeley still a Bezerkeley full of problems and … dreams for a better tomorrow. People’s park is a urban tent camp of the homeless who needs a bit more than just shelter. They need rehabilitation from dependencies and trauma – even from decades ago, it’s always been an urban blight but sadly gotten worse. Turning away, we drove up to the Claremont area with million and up dollar homes to find that bakery with the scrumptous pastries – shaking our heads, it’s a shame it’s a shame then we go off to the pleasant parts of town. Feeling quite quilty and hypocritical but in self defense, we cannot get ourselves be overtaken by the darkness and malaise … making the shift to think more constructively so it’s not just a pity, fear and disdain party seeing the stark divide between the have-nots and the entitled – even here, the most progressive and liberal town in America. Still, I know that everyone who comes across the hungry and the homeless will carry that thought and in his/her own way, try to live with that awareness – an awareness that things have to improve. We can’t each change the the world overnight and solve the world’s problems but we can live each day in our own way to help by remaining fiercely aware … to be conscious and with a consience.

Categories
Beautiful People Healthy Living

All in favor of NVC

“As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well-being. When we receive messages with this awareness, we never feel dehumanized by what others have to say to us. We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves. ”

Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

This is an interesting take …during this challenging times when increasing numbers suffer from anxiety and depression, how would this idea be interpreted ? It could be that many have come to face to face with the undeniable truth … a recognizion of having lived a pre- pandemic, so called “normal” life that was actually NOT so authentic – have we been living a life true to ourselves? Or – have some of us merely faking it ? Complicit in role-playing and living a fake life to please others at the expense of one’s own deeper needs and wants … could it be that ?

“My theory is that we get depressed because we’re not getting what we want, and we’re not getting what we want because we have never been taught to get what we want. Instead, we’ve been taught to be good little boys and girls and good mothers and fathers. If we’re going to be one of those good things, better get used to being depressed. Depression is the reward we get for being “good.” But, if you want to feel better, I’d like you to clarify what you would like people to do to make life more wonderful for you.”

Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

When one’s own mortality is felt to be fragile, when lives and relationships appear fleeting, the world out of control, what is it that one can trust and depend on ? What’s still within our own control? What is forever to be trusted and relied upon ?

A dear friend who recently had a huge setback of a loss said to me earnestly ” You know, I only have maybe another XX good years left if I am lucky … so I want to spend them with family and friends like you …”.

Yes. Our needs are sifted, filtered, and distilled, wants are clearly defined, and our heart and soul untethered to seek what’s authentic and real. Out of fear, we had been fooling ourselves leading a distracted life – but the Pandemic has reminded us this: We don’t have eternity on this earth. Life on earth is quite finite; So we come to relish each breath, each hour, each day as life as we know it is no longer guaranteed – so with that in mind – gratitude for today, this life. Our intentions are clearer; we know what we want. We cannot afford to waste or play a game, act in a charade, winging at this thing called life. We live it like our lives depends on it in full awareness.

Categories
Healthy Activities Healthy Living Yoga

Wearing N95 at a hospital

Feeling sad for a senior with no escort in a long line … thinking about my frail mom and my heart aches. I am not alone.

Who needs Laughter Yoga just about now? Beautiful practice I can either refer to those in the field or comically work with you – just msg wagayoga@gmail.com for your therapy today:)

Yoga is not about stretching in prezel poses – yes, it’s about stretching to make space where cramped but more than anything, it’s a beautiful practice to find JOY and reconnect with the inherent light we all have within.