Jing Zinga
It all begins with an idea.
Join Mason and Flavour Babe, Charlotte, in Topanga, California where they created this lovely drink together while enjoying the expansive views.
Perfectly refreshing JING recipe to welcome in summer for our friends in the southern hemisphere, or wave goodbye for our friends in the north. Either way you slice it, this watermelon infused refresher will leave both your adrenals and your spirit topped up and feeling good.
INGREDIENTS
CORE INGREDIENTS
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1 heaped tsp of JING
2 cups of chopped up watermelon
1 thumb of ginger sliced across the grain
5 - 6 leaves of a fresh aromatic- lemon balm, mint, lemon verbena or basil
Zest of half a lemon
Whole lemon peeled and cut into chunks
Handful of ice
Five or six pink peppercorns
Pinch of sea salt
METHOD
STEP 1
Into blender at high speed for 1 minute
STEP 2
Pour into flutes 🍉
STEP 3
Voila!
Original post: Superfeast
Why Fluidity is the Key to Meaningful Self-care
As a qualified naturopathic nutritionist with three years of study and countless hours of additional training behind me, I also have a solid understanding of biology: the roles certain nutrients play and the bio-chemical processes in the body they influence.
I have supported hundreds of women at different life-stages with issues ranging from premenstrual dysphoric disorder (a severe form of premenstrual syndrome) to endometriosis, fertility, pregnancy and postnatal health as well as perimenopause, anxiety and acne.
So you’d think that my own self-care practices and nutritional habits would be solid, science-based and established. And for the most part, they are. But they are also fluid, intuitive and often in flux. And sometimes they fall by the wayside.
My personal approach to nutrition and self-care today is different to what it was even a couple of years ago, and what I’ve learned translates into my nutrition practice. I’ll explain how.
MY STORY
I grew up in a single-parent family in London in the 1980s with a health-conscious mum who was into naturopathy and organic food. I still remember the distinctive smell of our local health food shop where we’d go to stock up on nuts, carob bars and natural remedies. School packed lunches were made up of carrot sticks and dried fruit. When I had access to ‘forbidden’ crisps and chocolate at friends’ parties I over-indulged. Looking back, I can see this fostered a relationship with food where I saw things in binary terms – ‘good or bad’, ‘all or nothing’.
Fast forward to secondary school when for the first time I had more freedom over my food choices. It was the 90s and trips to the chip-shop and cigarettes at the bus stop were the vibe. I was more concerned with looking waif-like than with the fact that my periods were so excruciating I needed prescription painkillers every month. What I was eating (and smoking) was clearly having an effect. But it never occurred to me that food and my lifestyle choices were contributing to this hormonal hurricane.
The years that followed in my late teens and my early 20s were all about going out. Food was simply fuel and I got all the exercise I needed by dancing until dawn. I continued to suffer with my periods and also developed acne. But I was having fun and I wanted quick fixes. So the contraceptive pill managed my periods and I used a series of increasingly strong medications for my skin.
It wasn’t until my late 20s when I started to make the link between what I ate, my lifestyle choices and the way I felt in my body and mind. Like so many who have made a career change into the health and wellness sphere, the impetus for me was my experience of resolving my own health issues.
At that point in my life I wasn’t partying much any more. Now my lack of sleep and poor diet were the result of a stressful job that consumed my every waking hour. The hormonal imbalances and skin issues continued, and I knew I had to make some changes. I saw a nutritional therapist, felt profound improvements within a few months and was so inspired by what I’d experienced that I decided to get a new, less demanding job and study nutrition part-time.
While I was studying, I veered into what I now recognise as orthorexia – an obsession with eating and living healthily. As I was learning more and more about physiology and pathologies, I became puritanical about everything my body absorbed. My focus on healthy eating grew increasingly restrictive and I returned to my old binary view of foods as ‘good or bad’. While in some ways I was highly functioning, I was also rigid and controlling.
Fast forward to 2022, now with two children and my own nutrition practice. I am in a very different place; my own fluid journey with food and self-care has led me to a greater understanding of my own needs, and greater self-compassion that enables me to prioritise them. Crucially, it’s led me to a place of balance. I eat greens every day and prioritise rest. But I also love dancing, cocktails and coffee. I bring this theory and practice to my work with clients.
HERE’S WHAT I’VE LEARNT:
YOUR STORY IS THE STARTING POINT
The fact that we are all individuals goes without saying. But we need to take our own personal story into account when we’re thinking about where we are now – in health and in life.
Telling my own story illustrates how I’ve got to the place I am now. That story – the medications, food habits, stressors and changing life stages, attitudes and beliefs – is something I take into account when I consider my own nutritional and lifestyle needs in the present. With my clients, this means looking back as far as their experience in utero.
Our nutritional and lifestyle needs are as individual and unique as we are.
EMBRACE THE EBB AND FLOW
Life is not static, it’s unpredictable. Things can change in a heartbeat. It can be a grind one moment and soon after can feel effortless and flowing.
This means that sometimes we have the headspace to plan our meals, schedule our exercise and do gua sha daily. And sometimes we operate on autopilot.
Having a baseline of ways you look after yourself which can be adapted for times when you can give more is the key to consistency. For example:
committing to moving every day – whether it’s in a 90 minute yoga practice or a walk around the block.
having strategies to help you unwind that you can use anytime, any-place.
making sure you meet your basic nutritional needs every day.
These can be thought of as the minimum requirements, the non-negotiables. And central to all of this is self-compassion. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re only doing the baseline. Every day brings a new opportunity to do something nourishing for yourself within the context you’re living in.
CONSIDER THE LIFE YOU WANT TO LEAD
Sometimes we need to really consider what motivates us. How do you want to feel in your body and mind? And what do you want to be able to do in your life?
Maybe your mood swings are impacting on your close relationships, and you need to be able to better regulate your emotions. Maybe your libido has disappeared and you desperately want it back. It could be that you crave the energy to be able to dance all night or take up running. Or you want to take on extra commitments without feeling overwhelmed.
Having real-life goals in mind makes nutrition and lifestyle changes feel less abstract and more meaningful. It gives them a context, which is a great motivator.
SELF CARE IS NOT AN INDULGENCE
We need to move away from the idea of self care as a commercialised concept – all bubble baths and scented candles. Self care is about actions we take to look after ourselves so we can do what we need and want to do in our homes, work-places, communities and the wider world. Whether it’s time alone, sleep, good nutrition, fresh air, sensory pleasure, being with friends, (or indeed a bubble bath and a scented candle), self-care isn’t a treat. It’s oxygen for our well-being that allows us to function optimally for ourselves and for others.
In the words of the great African-American feminist poet Audre Lorde ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.’ Seeing self care through this lens places it in a far more radical realm – and something that must not be reserved for those with privilege.
I see self-care as something closely linked to self-compassion. It helps us navigate life’s ebbs and flows and embraces the significance of our personal stories.
JOY IS ESSENTIAL
In fact, it is a birthright. It may be fleeting and it may need to be cultivated. But joy is a component of a healthy body and mind. Our feelings are not confined to our brains – they affect us physically too; from our breathing, to our posture, and how we experience our senses.
I encourage my clients to introduce a daily practice that brings them joy. Listening to or dancing to music you love, laughing with children or friends, being in nature, eating a delicious meal. Engaging in the here and now, being present in the moment. Because really, that’s what living is about.
Original post: And Bloom
How Meditation Taught Me the Art of Adaptability
Sometimes events force us to be adaptable, but through meditation we can appreciate the benefits of proactively being adaptable.
Adaptability is something that’s always relevant but maybe more so now than ever. Whatever your plans were for 2020 they likely didn’t involve not being able to leave your house for months on end.
I had an early lesson in the benefits of adaptability in my schooldays.
When I was finishing high school in Bristol in the UK, I wanted to study English literature at university. I’d been a late bloomer when it came to reading, but by 18 I was in love books and put in applications to six universities.
But my last year of school was a tough one for many reason. About midway through the year, my mum died suddenly after an accident and my life was turned upside down.
I was all over the shop trying to deal with this tragic situation but still wanted to keep going with my studies. My mum was very successful academically – she’d studied at Oxford and worked as an academic editor for Cambridge University – and I wanted to make her proud by following in her footsteps by studying English.
At a certain point in the year, people started receiving offers from universities which were usually contingent on getting certain grade in the final exams. One day I received the first letter in the post and got really excited opening it – I knew it was going to have a big impact on my future.
It was a rejection.
This was a real shock. I’d never failed at anything important before and I thought I’d put together a strong application. I was predicted good grades, but there it was in black and white – a rejection. It was from one of the universities I didn’t really want to go to anyway, but it was still a setback.
And then the letters kept coming – a few days or weeks apart, but relentless, one after the next after the next.
It got to the point where there was only one university left – my reserve choice, one I knew I’d easily get into based on my predicted grades.
But I got rejected again.
I’ve never found out what happened but I must have made a spelling mistake in the form or something stupid like that.
My options were then very limited – wait until I had my results and go into what’s called clearing to get a place at one of the less prestigious universities or wait another year to apply again.
I didn’t want to wait as my original plan was to get started right away. But I decided to take a year out – and in the end I was very glad I did.
It meant that when I did get to uni, I was a year older and more mature – although still not very mature! And I was better able to make the most of the experience.
I also gained some priceless life experience in the real world in my year off – I had my first proper job working full time in a restaurant and got to travel all across Europe with a friend and spend more than two months partying in Spain.
How meditation fosters adaptability
The Vedic lesson here is that we can rarely see the bigger picture when events are happening. We create plans and try to rigidly stick to them, but the universe often has other plans.
What we learn through meditation is how to be adaptable. Every time we meditate we flex our adaptability muscles. We find ourselves lost in thought and rather than getting frustrated that we couldn’t clear our minds, we accept that the thinking is a fundamental part of the stress release process, even if that’s not the meditation we wanted.
The world will throw up barriers and push us off our paths every step of the way, but if we stay open and adaptable we’ll realise that the roads we end up on are more interesting and fulfilling than the ones we would have chosen.
Learning to React With Grace: A Lesson in Fluidity
For someone like me, someone who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), it can be very difficult to learn the lesson of fluidity. “Going with the flow” takes real skills, and not everyone can easily sit back and watch life happen around them without trying to control it. Regardless, living takes a balance, and while it is important to get involved and take the reins of your own life from time to time, there are also times you must listen to the universe, trust that everything that is supposed to come to you will come to you, and gracefully and fluidly “go with the flow.”
This lesson was eloquently presented to me during my Exploration 27 program at Robert’s Mountain Retreat, and I’d love to share that story with you in hopes that it may help you in the same way it helped me.
It was mid-way through my week in X27, and I was relaxed, reaching deeper into more expanded states of consciousness than I had visited in quite some time. I was, thankfully, in a good headspace. Shortly after my return home, I would be leaving again to go to Mexico for a press trip. I had put in a bunch of time preparing for this trip. I also had decided not to go to the out-of-town premiere of the movie I just produced, as it conflicted with the press trip.
I did something I probably shouldn’t have done. I checked my phone, immediately inviting the stressors of the world back into my life.
As I sat during my break on this particular day during X27, I did something I probably shouldn’t have done. I checked my phone, immediately inviting the stressors of the world back into my life. As I pulled up my email, I saw a notice from my agency contact canceling me from the press trip due to an increase in COVID cases. I was devastated. I had spent so much time prepping for this trip and, as someone with OCD, I have a really hard time accepting when plans change at the last minute. Plus, I had blown off my premiere for this trip.
Why was I so upset? Did my stress really come from my plans abruptly changing? ... I decided to breathe, accept the change, and gracefully go with the flow...
Suddenly, I disrupted my process and began getting upset. In an attempt to fix the premiere issue, I quickly and efficiently booked my flight to the premiere to ensure I would, at least, be able to do that since the press trip had been canceled. Then, I tried to analyze why I was getting so upset. I have been to Mexico many times before. It’s not like I wouldn’t go again. Why was I so upset? Did my stress really come from my plans abruptly changing? I decided to breathe, accept the change, and gracefully go with the flow as much as I could. It’s not like I could change the situation by reacting poorly to it. After a bit, I calmed myself down and got back into the depths of the program.
Everything happens for a reason. The universe does, to some extent, have a plan for us.
The next day, it all came together as I got an email saying, “Never mind. I got you ladies in!” I asked if they could accommodate bringing me in a day late so I could make my premiere now, since I booked the flight. They were happy to. Suddenly, it all made sense. Everything happens for a reason. The universe does, to some extent, have a plan for us. It must be fated for me to attend this premiere, as I never would have if I hadn’t been canceled for that day. Now, suddenly, I was able to fit everything into my schedule with ease.
Be responsive to the universe’s signs. If you are fluid and react with grace to the world around you, it is likely everything will work out the way it should.
Clearly, everything happens for a reason. Be responsive to the universe’s signs. If you are fluid and react with grace to the world around you, it is likely everything will work out the way it should. Doors close sometimes because they were not meant for you. And the ones that open next could be even more beneficial for you at this given time.
I was reminded, fluidity and flow are very important in life. Keep this in mind, the next time you receive bad news and maybe you will see it differently; perhaps even as an opportunity!
Original blog: Monroe Institute