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Everyday we have aspects of life we like and don’t like. There will always be people who don’t agree with you, or upset you because they don’t do things your way. But if you always fight for your perfect world, you’ll spend most of your life fighting battles.
It’s different when you’re dealing with friends and family. You want to get along with them, but what do you when you’re dating someone from a different culture? Are your parents going to boycott your invitation to the next family gathering because your boyfriend or girlfriend follows the same, but slightly different set of “God Rules & Guidelines” than they do? And what about that teenage pregnancy you never thought would happen in your family? Let’s not forget the younger brother who is using prescription drugs for non-medicinal reasons.
Too often, we let sensitive issues like these tear us apart. We think our way of thinking and beliefs are going to save our loved ones from doing something wrong for the rest of their life – but enforcing family patterns and cultural traditions may cause irreparable divides in relationships.
What are the benefits of choosing your battles with friends and family over sensitive issues?
1. Not every battle is worth fighting for. When you fight or argue over every confrontation, people will perceive you as a troublemaker. If you challenge only those issues that are truly personal and offensive to you, your opinions and disagreement will bear more weight, and people will listen.
2. Acceptance. Some battles you can never win, so why try? You can pull someone toward your own ideals, but eventually they will pull back to their own instincts. Therefore, have a spirit of acceptance when people’s ideals are different from yours.
3. Agree to disagree. This keeps the communication lines open and you never know when you’re going to need that person’s help, or be able to make a positive change in their life.
4. Know your boundaries. How much family drama are you going to put up with? Avoid getting in the middle of everything and allow yourself to say “no” without feeling guilty. You can’t be happy if everyone is leaning on you with his or her problems. You can’t fix everything. The clearer you are with your own boundaries, the happier you’ll be.
People closest to you are often the ones that push your buttons. You have to decide whether you want to be right or happy and realize happiness is not tied to perfection. It means you’ve decided to look beyond imperfections. Everyone’s perception of the truth is different. Your disaster could be perceived as “not a big deal” for the other person… so choose your battles wisely! Let others learn from their own mistakes.
Sadiqua Hamdan is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Liberation Wellness (www.Liberationwellnessblog.com) and other leading health and wellness resources. The combination of health and writing manifested itself after overcoming Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of cancer, at the age of 19. It still took her several years to value the importance of nutrition and started taking steps to cleanse the toxins from chemotherapy and radiation. Sadiqua enjoys traveling, cooking, researching, and connecting with people. She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Organizational Change. Sadiqua may be reached at sadiqua.hamdan@gmail.com
To schedule an interview with a representative of Liberation Wellness, call 800-327-9010.
Deborah Stockton began NICFA in 2007 as a means to the truth about local food and small farms at the national level, to educate and empower individuals and state groups to do the same, and put a face and voice on family farming in Congress.
In the political realm, we do this by making local food and small farms real to federal legislators with human relationships between farmers and consumers and their federal legislators.
Generally, until NICFA began working with federal legislators about local food and small farm issues, agriculture meant only industrial agriculture to Congress. We have begun to change that way of thinking.
The Liberation Wellness Hour Radio Show can be heard live each week on Saturday at 12noon EST and anytime on
There are some very basic precepts when it comes to making the healthy lifestyle change to regular activity and also maintaining the program over the course of time.
Get Moving – The single hardest part of any activity for those who are DE-conditioned is just getting started! Just like an airplane takes a lot of effort to get off the ground, the biggest step is simply to get going, don’t wait for the perfect day or for you to feel like exercising, just put one foot in front of the other and learn as you go!
Fun – One of the FUN-damentals of exercise is to do something you like, whether it is taking a walk, riding a bike, or exercising at home or in a gym, make sure you enjoy your activity, and it is something you can maintain over the long haul! Set the environment to your liking if working out at home, play music you like or listen to books on CD to learn while you burn!
Function – Having the ability to move your body so you can participate in everyday activities is truly one of the fundamental goals of fitness success. For most people, it doesn’t really matter how much weight they can lift, or how long they can run, but if they can put out the trash, go shopping for hours and not be in pain, enjoy activities with friends or families, this is the true essence of fitness and wellness. Be sure to employ some exercise that helps you actually function as a real-person in real-life situations.
New Sneakers – When you start a new fitness program a new set of appropriate sneakers is often a good idea as you will feel better in them and will hopefully put them to good use. Likewise a new fitness outfit appropriate for whatever activity you choose will often make us feel better about our exercise program like a uniform makes a soldier feel special! Do not underestimate the motivation many get from feeling they are dressed for whatever activity they are embarking on.
Get in the Habit – Studies have shown that after just 21 days habits are formed and if we just will ourselves to get with the program, after a period of time, the program will get with you!
Infrastructure – So very important is the friends and acquaintances we keep. If you have friends or family that don’t like to exercise you will have a hard time keeping up with a fitness activity. Humans are gregarious creatures and are absolutely influenced from our environment, so try to cultivate relationships with like-minded people who will help encourage your activity.
Personal Trainer – A Personal Trainer is one of the best investments in your fitness and well-being you can make. You should expect safe, effective, consistent exercise, as well as encouragement and motivation! Joining a support group like the Liberation Wellness Support Forum is also and excellent idea!
The moment one definitely commits oneself, Then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!” — W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition
And so reinforces the idea that a vision leads us to where we want to be—it’s the beginning of the creative process from which being, action and results follow.
What’s possible?
What’s possible?
If you take a minute to reflect deeply and answer that question chances are, you will be able to use that to “see” your vision. Robert Schuller says it beautifully, “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” When we can visualize what we are committed to, we engage with a future not yet in existence but one we are creating. Our focus shifts to our strengths, our power.
Once we see what is possible, a wall becomes a door—we realize the possibilities for our lives are endless and achievable. And the greatest beauty of all—this is true for every individual.
About two and a half centuries ago, several educated farmers had a vision for a country—a country where all men were created equal at a time in their cultural history when it was assumed God granted kings sovereignty over all other men. Yet these men had a vision. Jonathan Swift defines vision as “the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” These men “saw” something that did not exist and could only exist because of their vision.
They were the signers of the Declaration of Independence—they are the ones who birthed the modern idea of a free people and a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Just as these men “saw” what they wanted to create, so can each of us create a vision for ourselves and our lives…and begin to live into that future.
Visioning is great for everything from starting a new country or putting men on the moon, to what kind of parent you want to be, or what you’re going to eat for breakfast and literally anything and everything in between. It is from vision that all else flows.
From vision, we create who we are being. From our being flows our actions: what we need to do. From our actions flows our results: what we will have.
While this is all easier said than done, it is something, if cultivated and practiced, becomes second nature. In our own ways, we are each practiced in it. Making plans with someone, choosing the ingredients for a special dinner, picking out a gift for a loved one and imagining their reaction to it, are all examples of how we use visioning in everyday life. Visioning, or living into a future “we see”, dramatically impacts our thinking in the present. We can use this powerful tool to create wellness in our own lives and all around us.
To achieve a vision, we must also empower ourselves to take action in time. Dreaming about going out to your favorite restaurant is great, but
Make it real!
putting the date on our calendar pulls the dream from the realm of possibility into the realm of reality. It is through this technique, applied to any circumstance we want, that our vision becomes reality and our lives become an example of wellness.
Choosing a date in the future for a wellness goal, for example a weight loss goal, gives us our actions and our thinking in the present. It is far easier to give ourselves positive actions to take, than it is to not do something we’re in the habit of doing. By incorporating meal plans, exercise routines, and eating nutrient dense real foods, we are systematically creating positive steps towards our wellness goals…through “visioning”.
Perhaps you are not building a new country or putting men on the moon, but now it is your turn to envision your future. Take a moment to see what your own wellness goals are. Commit to these goals and make them real in time. Chances are, you will amaze yourself with what you are able to accomplish and how great you will feel doing so, with the powerful tool of visioning at your disposal.
Please share your visions. Remember, it helps inspire others!
Liz Reitzig is President of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association and Secretary of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association. Both organizations lobby for real food freedom. Liz is co-founder and partner in a local buying club and raises her four young children on real foods from local farms. She also serves as a Chapter Leader for the Weston A. Price Foundation.
The omega group of oils (3,6,9) are considered “essential” because our bodies cannot make them and they are part of every cell. But the total amount of EFA in the body is very small so the amount we need to consume is also likely very small, probably less than 4% of total caloric intake.
In fact, if you are already eating a real-food diet of pastured eggs, meat and raw milk and avoiding vegetable oils, you are most likely already getting all the EFAs you need and supplementation is not necessary. Also remember that cod liver oil and beef liver are high in EFAs.
But why has EFA supplementation become so popular?
Omega 3 supplementation was first advocated to prevent heart disease. Then for brain function (EPA/DHA). Interestingly, the study that got the ball rolling was of the Greenland Inuit Tribes that eat high fat diets (rich in omega 3 from seafood), yet had little heart disease. Of course the reason they had low rates of heart disease was because they were eating high fat, real food, diets. But since that doesn’t fit the paradigm that’s in vogue currently, an alternative explanation had to be made up to fit the paradigm.
Another Hidden Danger of EFAs
Hypothyroidism is an epidemic and one of the main reasons is most likely the high EFA intake in the form of omega 6 from vegetable oils. And the recent fad of omega 3 supplementation is just compounding the problem with more thyroid suppressing EFAs. How do we know EFAs suppress the thyroid? Back in the 1940s, meat producers experimented with coconut oil as an inexpensive animal feed. The problem they discovered was that it stimulated the animals thyroids and their appetites. It increased their activity levels and thus caloric requirements and made them lean, not fat. Corn and soy both contain omega 6 oils that suppress the animal’s thyroid and causes rapid weight gain on smaller amounts of feed–the holy grail of large-scale, industrial animal production (minimum input, maximum output).
Please let me know what you think about this.
Paul Ericson is a certified Liberation Wellness Educator and the Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader for Barrie, ON Canada
At this late point in history, we have a nation of people who face a tsunami of heart disease, diabetes, cancers of various kinds, and an obesity epidemic that is by all accounts making us the fattest nation in the history of the world!
How to correct this deficiency of health is to a large part the problem itself, as there is two distinct schools of thought about what is the definition of health, and how to attain it.
First of all we need to use terms that communicate the problem correctly, and unfortunately, terms are controlled by then Mainstream Media, who in turn is controlled by Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Government.
We actually have a Health Crisis in America, not a Health-Care crisis, as we are not lacking health-care so-called (medical insurance), but actually we’re lacking health!
We don’t have a lack of Gymnasiums in America, we have a lack of fitness. We don’t have too much junk food in America, we have too little truly healthy real food!
On one side of the fence is the medical system, that has a vested interest in having a continuous flow of sick people to make their business model work.
Also, the Pharmaceutical industry, which also has as ongoing need for people to never actually get well, but to become and remain sick and on medications.
This is simply how the medication business model works. Furthermore the BigPharma industry creates and develops new diseases and new drug products to cater to this new customer base, and has such good profit margins to work from, it can control public opinion through the Media as well as influence the Medical authorities and the Government. This is not new news to many in our nation, but many people refuse to believe this is happening.
Here is just a sample of how our so-called health care system is losing touch with reality…
One teacher is eating school lunch every day in 2010 to prove a point. Would you do that?
How can we feed our children healthfully and economically? And what in the world are we teaching our children when we put food in front of them that has little nutritional value or is high in fat and sodium or that we would not dare eat ourselves?
At SportFuel, we believe that cod liver oil is nature’s best source of vitamin D, besides the sun. Although it had a bad rap because of its taste and then the vitamin A toxicity scare, much research has come out in its favor. It is also available in capsules, so you can’t complain about the taste anymore! In response to Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council, a Weston A. Price leader, Chris Masterjohn, wrote a great blog post on his differing position on vitamin A and cod liver oil. Read here!
Jenny Westerkamp, RD is a registered dietitian and nutrition consultant for SportFuel and Eat Like the Pros, both based out of the Chicago suburbs. SportFuel is an integrative nutrition practice, while Eat Like the Pros is an organic meal delivery service. Jenny is also the co-founder of All Access Internships, a website dedicated to serving the dietetic student community. She enjoys writing about real food and has contributed a variety of websites, newsletters, online magazines, and blogs.
Liberation Wellness President and author of the Liberation Diet Kevin Brown will be one of the main speakers at the Pittsburgh farm to table conference, this event is huge so come on out if you are able!
On my recent trip to Japan I was served raw egg numerous times.
Tamago kake gohan
A basic way to eat raw egg in Japan is what’s called “tamago kake gohan” which means “egg sauce over rice”.
Tamago kake gohan
Raw egg dip
Another dish I was served was sautéed beef with the raw egg in its on small bowl.
Beef dipped in raw egg
Chicken and Rice
One day for lunch, we went to a place that only served chicken on rice–with a raw egg of course!
Chicken&rice, raw egg
Boiled Egg
Another common dish is “boiled egg”. Which we would call a soft boiled egg. And the way they are prepared is amazing. At a buffet there is a bowl of these boiled eggs, still in the shell. When you crack the egg to put in your little dish, the entire white, and yolk, comes out without any “scraping”. Every time. Then you add a thin sauce and some green onions.
Boiled Egg
Boiled egg is not fully raw, but the white is so runny it’s almost raw and the yolk of course is totally runny.
Fear of raw eggs
So why do the Japanese not fear raw eggs like we do in the west? Well one reason is that many of their eggs are still produced on small scale family farms and are thus still safe to eat raw. Another reason is that they understand the nutritional science behind eating raw eggs. The “problem” with eating raw eggs is a protein called avidin. Avidin binds to biotin. But of course egg yolks can be a rich source of biotin. The production methods in Japan produce dark orange yolks, rich in biotin. I personally think the US egg industry has been pushing the notion that eating raw eggs is bad for two reasons. First, their production methods produce eggs low in biotin. Second, raw eggs in the US are frequently contaminated with salmonella because of the poor production conditions. Cooking kills salmonella and inactivates avidin. Thus I wouldn’t recommend eating conventional eggs raw. Of course I wouldn’t recommend eating conventional eggs cooked or raw for other reasons. Like the battery production system is cruel.
Instead you should be eating eggs from pastured hens. Here is an interesting article about the nutritional differences of various egg production methods. You can get the nutritional data here. I get my pastured eggs from Funny Duck Farms. They are only $5 per dozen compared to $6.09 per dozen for “free-run” organic eggs at the grocery store. The yolks from Funny Duck Farms are dark orange while the more expensive organic eggs are a pale to medium yellow, more like the $1.79/doz. conventional eggs.
Kevin Brown
Sadiqua Hamdan
Debbie Wysocki
Paul Ericson
Maureen Diaz
Janet Demeter
Liz Reitzig
Lauren Snyder Grosz
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
let'spoon
Morley Robbins
Janet Stuck, ND, CNC, MH, CNHP, CWE, LE
John Chisholm
Dr. Richard Walicki
Nicole Rice
Margie King
emotionalyoga
truthinthepublicinterest
Beck Anderson, RYT 200
Jimmy Moore
rawmilk95
meljoy96
fromprocessedtopure
Joette Calabrese
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Everyday we have aspects of life we like and don’t like. There will always be people who don’t agree with you, or upset you because they don’t do things your way. But if you always fight for your perfect world, you’ll spend most of your life fighting battles.
