Your Body Is A Temple, continued…
If you missed part 1, click here to read it now.
There are a few questions we need to ask ourselves when thinking about our body as a temple, and I’ll give you 2 of them today:
1) Where are you holding yourself back? You want to let go of the boundaries and make a decision to commit to taking action on something that you have wanted to do to live healthier, yet have postponed it for a more convenient time or better circumstances. Create the circumstances now and remember that success likes speed – decide quickly that you already are who you want be (maybe just under a few layers) and that you deserve all the wellness in the world.
2) WHY are you choosing to make more conscious choices? Not just simple general things like having more energy and looking better – but WHY do you want to jump out of bed in the morning, have steady energy throughout the day and be ready to rest easily at night?
Consider what the little things are that will make a big difference in your life and WHY you want them. I suggest writing them down to get really clear and to be able to reflect back on them, sort of like a checklist journal. When you do this, it will feel so good to visually see your progress and know just how far you’ve come.
With health, most of us want to feel our absolute best all the time, yet it can at times feel far in the distance and not always readily achievable. I am here to show you just how much is possible and how close you are to attaining it for yourself. Many times, it’s just 1 decision away and you can choose that right now for yourself.
Sometimes when we are learning about a new to a way of living, we postpone making decisions that would ultimately benefit us, we get intimated feeling like we aren’t sure how to proceed to really make it work for us, we procrastinate and then just stay where we are, and don’t change a thing!
So consider that you grow when you are out of your comfort zone and decide what new attitude, mindset, or action you need to implement to go beyond where you’ve been, especially if you’ve been stuck or in a rut – and then, do it today. I’d like to emphasize that the best things come to those who are willing to learn new information, even if it’s an idea they haven’t heard before.
So if all this health stuff is confusing or overwhelming, know that you are presented with the material when you are ready to learn it. That’s just how the Universe works. There is a popular saying that the teacher presents itself when the student is ready to learn… so now may be a good time to shift whatever needs to be shifted and to let go of any excuses that have held you back in the past.
Finally, do what makes sense to YOU. Ask yourself if what you are hearing really resonates with you at the deepest level. Tune into that intuitive innate feeling that we were all born with! The power is within and I am here to remind you of the potential that is within you.
Your Body Is A Temple
Just think about that for a minute, really.
The idea of this is that when you treat your body with honor and respect, and embrace pure living, you take actions with the intention of healing.
You want to make choices wisely and to be picky with what goes into your body. Compromise is not an option if you want an abundantly thriving future. Don’t tolerate compromise when it comes to your health because our capacity to enjoy life is greatly lessened without it.
Your body is sacred and holds immense potential if you treat it in this way. You will reap great rewards with this mindset and emotional strategy that will continue for years to come because of the choices you made today. It’s time to commit to achieving a new level of health, to let go of the excuses and take full responsibility of your current state of health and appearance.
If it is not where you want it to be, then you are very fortunate that you hold 100% of the power to change what is needed to move forward and do something about it. If you really want something, realize that it can and will happen. We should expect the best when the changes we make are acted upon with effort, commitment, and perseverance.
And, you can’t forget about giving credit to yourself where it’s due: you are reading this article in its’ entirety, which is a demonstration that you care enough to gain inspiration and learn knowledge that has the potential to skyrocket your health. Pat yourself on your back just for showing up. A huge amount of success in any aspect of life begins with just showing up.
When you are looking to implement a new skill or bring on a new way of eating, you inevitably need to break out of your comfort zone to successfully achieve your goal – otherwise, you remain where you are, which may even be stagnant. I have found that no matter what the choice is, we really need to step beyond our comfort zone in order to grow and evolve. When you feel uncomfortable and are in the learning curve, you are moving upward, you’re reaching toward your big vision whatever that may be, you’re becoming more of who you want to be!
We tend to have negative inner self-talk and think that we don’t know what we’re doing, whether that’s taking on a new role within your company or embracing a new evolved way of eating. I have learned that if you push forward and act on it anyway, whether or not you have full confidence, the rewards will trickle in and eventually begin to pour in.
People are reluctant to make changes because many times they don’t know how to do what they want to do and are lacking confidence in moving forward – yet it’s this very decision that could bring them to the next level to where they want to be. So, step beyond where you’ve been before and continue with commitment, with learning, and acting in spite of fear… and your experiences and successes will be filled with insight and will compound immensely.
Click here to read part 2 of this article.
YOUR Questions Answered to Why You Should Use Edible Skincare
In response to the comments and questions of my previous article on why you should use edible skin and body care, I felt it would be helpful to answer these questions on the blog so everyone can benefit from the answers. 3 of the most common questions that came up were:
Question 1: If I only use tiny amounts of products (less than 2 teaspoons a day) and they don’t contain parabens and sodium lauryl sulfate (evil stuff), shouldn’t I be more concerned about the pound of less than ideal food (or whatever it is) in my daily intake more than my skin? Both are important I know, but it’s hard to make skincare my top priority when there are still so many dietary challenges to address (not vegan yet, not eating all organic yet). Read more
My Superfood Beauty Elixir Juice Cleanse (Days 3-6)!
What's Left After A Day Of Professional Pic Shooting For My Upcoming Superfood Beauty Elixir eBook
My super nutrition infused liquid cleanse lasted 6 full days and each was outstanding. I felt amazing physically, but what I mostly felt was an extreme heightened sense of clarity, deep reflection and quiet internal revelations. If there is any reason to cleanse, this has got to be it. Read more
My Superfood Beauty Elixir Juice Cleanse (Days 1 & 2)!
I’ve been ready to do some sort of a cleanse for several months now and have postponed it mostly intentionally. I did this because I wanted the weather to be gloriously warm when I made the shift to 100% liquid nutrition (although it really can be done anytime). I also wanted to be able to commit to eating less of my man’s raw Superfood kitchen creations and gourmet dinners, which are really hard to turn away. The meals he prepares are so mouth-watering and scrumptious, but I can survive on his Superfood smoothies and wild grass veggie drinks for now 
Read more
Why Should Your Skin & Body Care Be Edible?
I get this question often. I realize that everyone has priorities for how they spend their time, money, and efforts, and I’d like to share why I feel it’s critical that the products you apply to your skin should be helping you, even nourishing you, and certainly not hurting you.
Do all your personal products HAVE to be edible? Well, consider this: If you wouldn’t feel comfortable spooning them into your mouth, WHY are you using them? Your skin is your largest organ and it drinks up everything that you put on it! If 1 of your products is mostly clean (aka: label claims ‘natural’ – which means NOTHING by the way), but has a couple genetically-modified ingredients, fats that go rancid easily and fewer organic ingredients than you’d think for such a ‘natural’ product… remind me why you would put this crap onto your naturally beautiful skin? Read more
The 5 Minute Invigorating Beauty Ritual For Lessening Cellulite (+ MUCH more)
And that’s just for starters!
Dry Skin Brushing is a newer habit for me, yet already, I crave it now that I’ve had a taste of it. I used to wonder if it would really make a difference. Now that I have taken the brush that has been sitting on the counter for too long, I can see what all the talk is about. Stimulation of the skin sets in motion natural healing pathways within your body. How amazing is that? If you do regular body exfoliants and dry skin brushing, you’re on your way to achieving stunning skin in a short amount of time!
In case you haven’t heard what the benefits are for dry skin brushing, I’ll list them here. Even just reading a few of these will make you want to brush you skin for 5 minutes each day, whenever it fits into your schedule – yet ideally first thing in the morning! My advice: make a great effort to squeeze it into your busy day. Your legs, arms and torso will tingle with energy and you’ll actually FEEL increased circulation throughout your body temple.
* Lessens cellulite
* Increases normal healing processes throughout the body
* Cleanses the lymphatic system
* Encourages your body’s discharge of metabolic wastes
* Removes dead skin layers
* Strengthens the immune system
* Stimulates the hormone and oil-producing glands
* Helps with muscle tone and more even distribution of fat deposits
* Tightens the skin preventing premature aging
* Tones the skin and body
* Rejuvenates the nervous system by stimulating nerve endings in the skin
* Stimulates circulation
* Improves the function of the nervous system
* Helps digestion
* Helps your skin to absorb nutrients and breathe by eliminating clogged pores
* Improve skin texture and cell renewal
* Enhance the detoxification process
* Prevent colds and sickness by eliminating toxins via the skin
* ‘Anti-aging’ practice; restores soft, supple skin at any age
* It feels invigorating and enlivening!
How to dry skin brush ~ You want to be dry and naked, prior to taking a bath or shower. Brush yourself starting at your feet, in long stokes toward your heart with a natural brush with or without a handle. Go over every part of your body and feel rejuvenated!
Skin brushing will enhance your health significantly! There are seemingly countless reasons to explore this simple beauty ritual that leads to dramatic and desired results. Keep it up for 30 days to really see and experience the changes.
Question for YOU: Do you dry skin brush and have you noticed any of the benefits listed above?
Living Earth Beauty ~ THE Place to Shop for Raw, Vegan, Organic Skincare
I was blessed enough to manifest two phenomenal friends into my life at the Raw Spirit Festival in June of 2009. Jed and Jill Bickford came with their bright beauty to my vendor booth for my raw Superfood edible skincare line. They were glowing, which was relatively surprising because we were on a windy, dirty campground and everyone looked a little rugged. The 3 of us made an instant connection and expressed our un-compromised values for face, skin and body care. They showed such great appreciation of my work which was absolutely heart-warming as not everyone has expressed the deepest understanding for the purest, most nutrient-dense skincare ever. Oooh, the revolution is coming =)
Jed and Jill (how cute, right?) were in the works of creating a gorgeous website and business where they planned to sell only the most pure, best quality, exceptional skincare lines the held to superior standards. Not many of us are out there doing this so it was exciting to see them doing their diligent research and sorting through the haystack.
I was fortunate to receive a sample gift basket several months later with a plethora of products I had been anxiously wanting to try! When the package was delivered, I was (in perfect timing) on my way out the door with my man to his mom’s place on the coast and we were making a stop to load up with spring water first. In the 15 minutes spent driving down Mt Tamalpais from our place to the spring, I had ripped open that beauty package that contained youthening goodies and felt the vibrancy and love that overflowed as I unwrapped each product (quickly, like on Christmas)! I layered on all the potions, oils, serums and lip balms from Living Libations and the car smelled divine. Slipped into an ISUN serum sedation. I slathered myself with body butters from Simply Divine Botanicals and almost slipped out the door at our stop at the spring I was so silky.
Although I handcraft quite similar products myself (multiplied in intensity and nutrient-density), it was quite indulgent and exhilarating to get a perfectly wrapped, sweet-smelling, goodie box – special, just for me! I adore most everything I’ve used, especially the goodies created by Nadine Artemis, creator of Living Libations, and you can guess that my expectations were positively blown away! And so, I realized yet again for LEB, that their labor of love was flying beyond their wildest dreams (now that is exhilarating!) and their business was launched and had come to where it was today. Living Earth Beauty brings raw, vegan, organic products, cosmetics, and more to your door to make YOU feel like the (Edible) Goddess you are. This is THE place to shop for skincare products so good for you, your body joyously drinks up every morsel of nutrition you’re feeding it.
I highly recommend that you treat yourself to an experience like I had – not only do you deserve it, but you will love the offerings so much! My link to their site is: Raw Goddess Beauty – because, that’s exactly what they bring, and thank the Goddesses they do! Once some logistics are in place, you will see my extraordinary skincare line being sold on their site as well. Til then, you can order direct via email (ediblegoddess@gmail.com). I will review each and every product I have purchased and received from Living Earth Beauty in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for abundant beauty my friends =)
Guest Blog Post on Natural Beauty by Angelina Elliott
Today’s guest post is written exclusively for the Edible Goddess blog by Angelina Elliott, a best selling author, Master Herbalist, and Raw Vegan Chef (among much else!). To read more about Angelina, check out her sensational blog!
I was raised on beauty. My mother was a model and always emphasized the importance of taking care of your skin. I would watch her do her beauty routine and emulate her in every way. I grew up traveling and living overseas. I was completely hooked on French beauty magazines. I loved how French women always looked so fresh and beautiful. My mom used to tell me that French women had the most beautiful breasts in the world so I always thought to myself, when I grow up I will have the most beautiful everything in the world. I was a kid, but that didn’t stop me from manifesting beauty in my life. I would sit and dream up all kinds of things to put on my face and that led to a life long passion of making masks and other beauty treatments. I was obsessed with coming up with the very best formulas.
My love of beauty also led me to a life of clean living. I quickly learned that the better you ate, the prettier you woke up. Fruits and veggies give glowing skin whereas Oreo cookies and soda give you pimples and dull lack luster skin! Who wants that? I was an avid lover of fruits. I ate berries all the time and I was a complete orangearian! I loved, loved, loved oranges! We had an orange grove behind our house where I would play for hours on end and eat oranges until the cows came home. I am convinced that oranges are essential for woman’s health. For one thing, they look like mammary glands and another, they are full of vitamin C. What a combo! I used to love to rub the excess orange juice on my skin and wear it. Actually, this is where my idea for Wearing Your Food came from and the start of my book co-authored with Shannon Leone, Get Naked And Wear Your Food. I loved the way my skin looked after a day of oranges. Considering I was just a kid, it is amazing to think back on these times and realize I was so in tune with beauty and nature and the direct link between beauty and nature.
I love nature, I always have. There’s something truly magical about being deep in nature, with only the sounds of the wind, trees, birds, and small creatures. Plants have always inspired, fascinated, and delighted me. When I think beauty, I don’t think of beauty counters in malls or even the finest skin care available in spas. Instead, I turn to nature to look for the gift of beauty. For example, seaweed is legendary among Japanese women for beauty. Pearls are legendary among Chinese women. In Africa, Shea Butter is legendary among women. If you take notice all over the world from ancient times to now, you will find that the greatest beauty secrets point to nature. Cleopatra for example taught me to never take a bath without some sort of beautifying ingredient like honey and milk (for me, it was always soy milk because soy milk believe it or not is one of the most beautifying agents out there. It increases collagen and elastin in the skin). Cleopatra was all about using beautifying agents from nature. My Italian heritage taught me to eat lots of olives for beauty on the inside and to use olive oil on the outside. My Irish heritage taught me to look to the Fairy Folk for inspiration.
All of this has led me to where I am now. Although, I have worked in the finest spas & had access to professional skin care lines that as an Aesthetician that would make your head spin, I still look nature for all of my beauty needs. After all, if you really look at the latest research on anti-aging creams, potions, lotions, serums etc, you will always find something from nature in the line up. The only difference between using that and say using your own concoctions is this: you are getting it first hand, fresh, alive, and the way nature intended it, not adulterated with unpronounceable names, preservatives, cancer causing chemicals, etc.. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that feeding my skin.
Oh yes, there’s the factor right there, FEEDING YOUR SKIN. Perhaps, I should back up just a bit here and mention that whatever we put on the skin, we are eating and drinking that substance, because the skin is the largest organ in the body and it absorbs anything and everything. If you load it with chemicals, it will start to age and die off. People think that aging is natural, yet aging is a result of what you have ingested in your life that is out of balance. Aging truly is a disease. All diseases can be summed up easily by realizing that disease starts with bad food and beverage choices, chemicals in the body, chemicals in your living environment, and toxic thinking. When we clean up these areas of our lives, including our thinking, we start to get younger, It’s really as simple as that! We as human beings though have to make everything harder than it is. It is in our nature to do this, to analyze and dissect everything.
When I was three years old, I made up my mind to never grow old and never die. People throughout my life have made fun of me for this concept and yet what I notice is this: my thinking pattern has kept me young, vibrant, and full of playful enthusiastic and bubbly energy. People younger than me now look older than me and I am simply staying ageless. It is an inside job all the way around & I am convinced of this. It is important to realize that it takes discipline not to buy into what everyone else is saying and doing, but the rewards are great! I will leave you with my fabulous beauty routine to inspire you, although you don’t have to do all that I do, as I realize this can be intimidating to those first starting out. Just stick with whatever you choose to do and you will be miles ahead of where you were before. You have to start somewhere or you will be nowhere!
My semi-typical beauty routine, sometimes it fluctuates as I am always experimenting and perfecting ~
In the AM, I cleanse my face with oatmeal, honey, and grapefruit: 1/2 cup oats mixed with equal parts of honey (I only use locally harvested, cruelty free honey from farmers I know) and slowly mix in 1/2 a grapefruit
I use gentle circular motions on my face and then rinse with warm water. I quickly splash my face with cold water.
I love a blend of jojoba, cacao butter, coconut oil, shea butter, grapeseed, olive, almond and avocado oil as my morning massage oil. I massage my skin gently and then tissue off the excess oil. I use aloe vera mixed with comfrey as my lifting serum, let that sit and then use a home-made organic moisturizer. I spray my face with home-made rose water and I am ready for the day!
In the PM, I do a pretty extensive routine on my face that includes a mask and a bath in honey and soy milk or honey and cacao butter. I cleanse my face with lemon at night – just lemon and warm water. It is important to note, that the warmer the better for opening up the pores prior to the honey treatment. I place gently warmed honey on my skin and let it sit on my skin for about an hour. I rinse the honey off with warm water and then run an ice cube all over my face. After this, I mash up bananas and place that all over my skin for 30 -40 minutes and rinse this off with warm water. Then, I warm up some coconut oil and cacao butter and massage the warm oil into your skin and leave on overnight.
During the week I also make and use various masks for my skin, alternate my flower waters that I make, and I do regular scrubs for my skin.
Ancient Secrets to Sleek, Slender & Sexy Thighs
My new #1 favorite way to instantly feel sexier and to seriously have leaner thighs in less time than you would have ever thought possible, is to… begin a Gua Sha routine! The picture posted here is a blend I made with a small amount of fair trade, organic coffee that’s been ground into a powder – I combined the heavy oil application of Gua Sha with my handcrafted body exfoliation scrubs. Using coffee is not part of this ancient healing technique, yet using coffee externally has tons of great benefits! Read more
