Love is all you need: Ruby Red Juice

I used to think that love is all you need. Love was enough, would fix anything, transform, nurture, save and secure. Love conquered, rescued, nursed, took care, listened, asked and held. Love could envelop, wrapping you in cotton wool while setting you free at the same time. What a magical world love lived in.

As a kid, I thought these things because it's what princes did in cartoons and Fred Astaire did for Ginger Rogers. I'd watch the longing and the bliss play out on screen as she carried out all the tap shift moves he did, only backwards. As a teenager, I read books about protagonists searching for something in themselves, in their lives, overcoming battles in their world and in their minds and understood that it was love for their beliefs, for another, for their country or for themselves that drove them beyond fear and into courage. I listened to music that stirred feelings in my soul of the joy and pain that love caused in and out of daily routines, how it led to Bon Iver hiding away in a forest for a year only to burst out of the woods reborn with a new voice, pain and joy hand in hand. I listened to JJ Cale and BB King and Nina Simone, Fleetwood Mac and The Frames. They all taught me the shifting waves and tides that were inherent in the concept of love.

I understood, even then, that love wasn't as simple as two red curves dipping to a sharp, singular and well directed point at its end. It wasn't soft, precise perfection. Love had folds, curves, hidden angles and unexpected lulls. And love hurt. I knew that it hurt the most when it was unrequited. I clearly remember studying a Shakespearean sonnet at school, aged fourteen and learning the word, though I already knew what it meant. Unreturned, unloved, uncared for. It's what all those blues songs I listened to were ever about. It's all I ever worried about.

My definition of love was always manifold but my definition always pertained to my perspective. You see, my definition was everything I was willing to give a person I loved. I give everything of myself to those I love because I don't know any other way. It comes naturally to me to be that loving and caring. I feel empty when I don't. The problem is when I give so much to others to the point where they start to think my reserves are everlasting, that the love I have to give to friends, family and a partner are limitless, the reserve magically ongoing. So it came as a surprise to many when I would simply shudder, stall and stop, like a tired old van. Stop interacting, feeling, giving, loving. I'd gather my resources quickly so I could continue to support, care, listen and help so that they would all feel incredibly loved again.

I repeated this pattern because I was proud to be all about the love. So why was the one thing that I did naturally, with enthusiasm, pride and great energy, slowly but surely bringing me down? I've floated the idea around in my murky mind a lot in the last few years and always swam up to the surface, out of breath and without any answers. Until last week.

Writing my post last week, admitting to myself and everyone I love the true details of my depression and anxiety gave me the answers I was looking for to the great blue debate going on in my head. For so long, everything was about fear. Fear of unrequited love, misunderstanding, lost friendships, isolation and loneliness. By clicking the publish button, I challenged my biggest fear of all; telling people I loved the true extent of my problem. This act transformed and elevated the level of love I have in my life. Friends, family, workmates and travel buddies got in touch from near and far, publicly and privately to tell me how much they loved me. I received one message, call and text after another and two words shone through each and every message: brave and love.

And then I realised. I understood what had been bringing me down. I had been ignoring two basic needs: to admit to my friends how much their voicing of their love to me was important and how much I had neglected to love and appreciate myself. I would listen to the black king on his throne residing in my mind; the voice of unreasonable and cruel reasoning who told me no matter how much love I sent out, it would be unrequited. No matter how much I created, it wouldn't be good enough. No matter how much I cared, it wouldn't make a difference and no matter how much I tried to truly believe that I was worthy, loved, appreciated, cared for and unique, I was not good enough.

There is no way that I would ever speak to another person I love the way I allow that voice to speak to me. I would defend a loved one with my life if another spoke to them in that way, with those words and those sentiments. So why would I not encourage such praise and love and respect to be directed at me? Why would I not put the same thought, energy and care into myself and the unique person I am? Why wouldn't I just be myself?

The beautiful words of love I received from all over kick-started something unexpected. I'd like to get to know myself again, to learn what animates me, makes me smile, sing and create. I'd like to become friends with myself. Love is not just about prince charming or your passions. Each love quote is not about the other man or woman in your life. It starts with you. I don't think it's about finding a man I can lose myself in when I look into his eyes for a sense of recognition, understanding and acceptance. It's about looking at myself in the mirror and recognizing and embracing the person looking back at me. The black and the white. The dark and the light.

Today's recipe is about embracing that love. Beetroot looks like a forbidding, hard and unwelcoming vegetable but when eaten fresh, it has the most beautiful and earthly sweet and fragrant taste. The juice always looks so vibrant and energizing. It's like the perfect mix of masculine sturdiness and feminine vibrancy. Before the frost arrived, I dug up the last of my beetroot from the garden. Dark, rustic, ruby red, covered in wholesome clay, all the growth and energy that they had absorbed from the damp clay and the sunshine of the summer was captured in each round. I made this juice to capture the last of the autumn and to remember that energy comes from the sun and the air but also from below the surface, in the darkness and when mixed, the combination is vibrant and electric. Something to remember.

Ingredients:
Serves 2
1 fresh beetroot
2 apples
1 large chunk fresh ginger
1 pear
1 lemon

Method:
Wash all the fruit, peel the beetroot and chop them into manageable sizes for your juicer. Juice, add ice, serve and relax.


To everyone that sent their love my way, thank you x

Self Love Take 2: Lent and setting intentions

I hope you all had a lovely self love day on Saturday and some of what I said sunk in. Here I am writing this post, which has been playing in the back of my mind since Saturday, and I'm dying with the flu. Yes, I looked after myself over the weekend. There were salads, juices, tea, soup and bed rest. Sometimes, the body decides that despite all of that, it's just not enough and so here I am, typing up part of the blog before I can take photos because, frankly, the thoughts of doing the entire post as well as grappling with the time I've given myself, is doing my head in and I want to take care of myself.

This post has had serious editing changes in the last day and a half. What started as a post for a raspberry pancakes recipe turned into a much needed stop and think out loud, type out loud situation. The pancake recipe will arrive soon but I've decided not to push on past where I'm at and instead explore the thoughts whizzing around in my head that have been there for weeks. The thoughts that have been telling me to slow the f*>k down, to think about waves, sunsets and rest. So that's what I'm gonna do.

Those of you who read my blogs know that I don't claim to be some super smiley, happy, yoga bendy hippy. Not that there is anything wrong with any of those labels but was I'm saying is that I am just me and some days, that involves not being my full self, not having the complete fill of energy and exuberance that I would love to have each and every day. I was delighted to look at Instagram today and see a beautifully simple photograph by Tara's bakerhands of a mess of bowls and spoons in the sink. Her post was about doing your best and reminding ourselves that not everything is perfect and picturesque. I try and show this in my photos too. More and more on my blog and my life, my intention is to be authentic, just me, as I am that day in that moment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but the intention is set.

Photo courtesy of Tara Jensen at Bakerhands. Follow the link above to her beautiful page.

For years, I've had this other intention of having a healthy life where yoga, its bends, curves, postures and breaths align with my life and become an integral part. At different periods of my life, this has happened and I've felt amazing, like something just clicked. Then yoga became something I 'should' do, something I would drag around with me in my head. Now I find yoga sprouting up out of the earth like an inquisitive little seedling in my life and I want to nurture it rather than let it grow out of control or to try and control the hell out of it.

I'm not in the least bit religious but as kids Lent was a big part of our year for three reasons.
1. You could give up something that was unhealthy
2. you could eat as many pancakes as you liked before starting Lent and
3. Easter and all its magic followed.
This year for Lent, I've decided on a few definitive things.

1. I'm going vegan for Lent. I've been mainly vegetarian for January and February and with the exception of eggs (raised locally and organically by my awesome friend Deirdre from work), I want to try being vegan for Lent as a way to get ready for the growing season in the months ahead.

2. Although I'm giving up other animal products, I don't want Lent to just be about removing things from my life so I'm adding yoga. 30 days of yoga in fact with Yoga with Adriene. She's very chilled out but challenging and best part is she says awesome and jokes a lot in her classes. This way I feel like I'm giving up unnecessary stress and it feels good.

3. I am setting an intention for the rest of Lent to take a look at my life and remove the unwanted, unnecessary stresses, like a cleaning for the heart and the head. These last two months of organizing and then finally moving house have been fantastic and I haven't got enough words to describe how happy I am in my little house. I'm tired though, really tired and now that I've conquered the bills and the swap overs,  it's time for some well deserved rest.

In all my rambling for this post, I guess what I'm outlining is that with self love and taking care of myself, it's necessary not just to remove the stuff that doesn't work for me but to place it with some good stuff. Right now that includes good food, good yoga, good intentions and good rest.

If you were looking for a pancake recipe today, I did make them for the awesome Éadaoin but when she came over, between sickness, chats and declining light, we just decided to eat our weight in them rather than take photos and post on time. Cheeky of me I know but I will post it some other time and there will still be a recipe on Saturday.

This lent, take some time to warm your soul. Don't just punish yourself by removing something you actually love. My focus is going to be me time, rest and getting ready for the energy that Spring has in store for us. What's yours?