Monthly Menu - October, 2005

Menu can also be viewed at www.cafeportmoody.com

A vision without a task is but a dream
A task without a vision is drudgery
A task with a vision is the hope of the world
-- inscription on a church in Sussex, England circa 1730
 

While money can lead you to feel rich, feeling rich can lead you to money.
-- Alan Cohen
 

This Month's Specials:

 

Inspiration Soup

Nutrition with Awareness - by Dr. Kira Frketich ND

     I am sitting in a hot classroom high in the mountains of California.  I watch as Paul Pitchford, author of ‘Healing with Whole Foods’ and my nutritional guru, turns from the three words he’s written on the blackboard. 

I’m looking at the board slightly confused.  Paul has made a short list:

1) Awareness, 2) Exercise, and 3) Nutrition.  I’m confused about why nutrition is last on the list when it’s the reason I’ve traveled so long to get here!  Paul goes onto explain that you can eat the best food in the world, but without awareness you lack the groundedness to direct it.  Conversely, if you don’t eat well, your awareness practices and spirit are hindered and you are not as able to reach your highest potential. 

Paul explained to us over and over during the 2 weeks that everyone needs some sort of awareness in their life so that they can make choices that are in line with their developing soul.  He would also say that the diet each of us chooses to eat is perfect for life we choose to live.  If we want a high-stress, anxiety-ridden life, we eat lots of simple carbohydrates, drink lots of coffee, and crave sweets especially chocolate.  If we want a sedentary, couch potato life, we gravitate to heavy meats, chips, and fast foods.  It’s the old saying revisited, “you are what you eat”. 

 That’s why things like meditation, T’ai Chi, Qi Gong, yoga, prayer, and going to see Dr. Kevin are on the list of every person I work with now.  I’ve always understood that we need an internal reason to guide us to healthy food choices.  Paul has helped me take another step in this direction, and to see the beauty of the connectedness in it all. 

                                                                       

Thoughts on a Half-Shell

‘Super’woman! - by Satu Springer

     ‘Super’woman.  Who is she? She is everywoman who tries to do it all herself.  She is ‘super’mom, ‘super’wife, ‘super’employee, ‘super’daughter, ‘super’sister, ‘super’aunt and ‘super’ friend.  She is the living, breathing model of selflessness, embodying all the values, pressures and “shoulds” of her family and society.  She was me! Is she you?

     Over the past many weeks I have had the opportunity of witnessing several ‘super’women in action.  I recognized myself in so many of them, that I was inspired to write about my experience with the ‘super’woman phenomenon!

     ‘Super’woman!  Wow!  What a huge and empowering concept! Right?   Wrong!!!

     Being ‘Super’woman, was almost the death of me.  I don’t mean physical death, but emotional and spiritual death.  I needed so badly to be someone or something for everyone else, that I totally neglected me.  I was ‘super’ employee working long stressful hours proving my worth to the company.  I was ‘super’ wife, taking on the financial and organizational responsibility at home, proving my worth to my husband.  I was ‘super’ hostess, organizing social functions and entertaining, proving my worth to my peers.  I was ‘super’ daughter, supporting my parents through their divorce and fixing some other challenges for them.  I was ‘super’ friend, being there to lend a hand or an ear, racing to the rescue whenever the call came.   I was super busy and super exhausted!!!

     I had been working for many years to understand and let go of the need to be someone for everyone, but it wasn’t until last year that I realized that I was using my ‘super’ness to define myself.  I realized that deep down I believed that without being ‘super’ something, I was nobody! I had no value to anyone, including myself.  Wow!  That’s a pretty huge belief; a pretty huge motivator to be ‘super’!

     This year, through my counseling program, at Clearmind, I discovered how wrong I was!  I had created that belief in my own head and it wasn’t true.  When I first figured this out, I wasn’t quite sure about it, so I put it to the test.  I stopped being something for everyone and was just me, just to see what would happen.  I started connecting more and more with my innate knowledge of who me was and acted from that place.  Wow!  How amazing!  

     I actually started asking for help with stuff (not just physical and organizational stuff, emotional stuff too!).  It was great, not only did the pressure come off me, but people responded happily.  In fact some even preferred being asked because it welcomed them into my life and made me more approachable.   I couldn’t believe it!

     I started sharing all of me; my thoughts, fears and emotions.  In the past I kept all that to myself, preferring not to burden anyone with it.   What a relief not to be alone with all of it anymore!  And Surprise! Surprise! The people that I shared with did not run away, instead they wanted to know more.  They wanted to know the real me!!

     I relaxed a little and stopped doing things perfectly, once again relieving some of my life pressure. Interestingly people hardly noticed the difference and those that did were pleased, because it took the pressure off them to do things perfectly too.  Again somehow relaxing, welcomed people into my life.

     I also gave time to myself, by slowing down and not racing to do things for people and not rescuing them.  Instead I supported and encouraged them to figure things out on their own. This doesn’t mean I stopped caring or helping when needed.  It just means I stopped fixing it all for them.  Although it created some tension at first, it has resulted in some amazing changes in the people I love.  In fact one person told me that, although at first she had been totally annoyed that I no longer responded to her as I had in the past, she was now eternally grateful, as my not rescuing her had empowered her, allowing her to find the gifts of her true self.  Wow! That proved to me that I was on the right track.  Not only was I gifting myself with time and less pressure, I was gifting others as well.

     I could go on and on with various examples of how being just me, has blessed my life, but the biggest blessing by far has been that I have come to understand the error in my past belief about my value.  I now believe that I have huge value, without my self imposed “super” designation! That I have value in just being me!  That there is no greater gift, for both myself and others, than following my innate knowing or internal spirit guidance and being true to me!

     So for all you ‘super’woman (or ‘super’men) out there, I encourage you to hang up your capes and join me in experiencing the joy and wonder of our true selves.

 

Calendar

 

Sweet Web Pudding

The Spiritual Cinema Circle - Excellent product & service.  Everyone is jumping on the Circle's bandwagon - Deepak Chopra, the producers of "What the Bleep...", etc. , its an AMAZING service!  A DVD filled with in-spirational content.  Try one month and see what I mean. 

 

After Dinner Reading

For the first (and possibly last) time, I am including irreverent humor in my Menu this month.  Enjoy!

The following are from a book called Disorder in the Courts - things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place:

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
_____________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the car impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
 

News & Views

2 Studies Find Flu Treatments Fall Far Short - By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, International Herald Tribune
    ROME, Sept. 21 - Just as governments around the world are stockpiling millions of doses of flu vaccine and antiviral drugs in anticipation of a potential influenza pandemic, two new surprising research papers to be published Thursday have found that such treatments are far less effective than previously thought.
    "The studies published today reinforce the shortcomings of our efforts to control influenza," wrote Dr. Guan Yi, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, in an editorial that accompanied the papers. The two studies were published early online by The Lancet, the London-based medical publication, because of their important implications for the coming flu season.
    In one paper, international researchers analyzed all the data from patient studies on the flu vaccine performed worldwide in the last 37 years and discovered that vaccines showed at best a "modest" ability to prevent influenza or its complications in elderly people.
    "The runaway 100 percent effectiveness that's touted by proponents was nowhere to be seen," said Tom Jefferson, a researcher in Rome with the Cochrane Vaccine Fields project, an international consortium of scientists who perform systematic reviews of research data.
    "There is a wild overestimation of the impact of these vaccines in the community," he said. "In the case of a pandemic, we are unsure from the data whether these vaccines would work on the elderly."
    In the second paper, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found that influenza viruses, particularly those from the dreaded bird flu strain, had developed high rates of resistance to the only class of cheap antiviral drugs available - drugs mainly used to treat flu once patients have caught it. These resistance rates have increased rapidly since 2003, particularly in Asia.
    "We were alarmed to find such a dramatic increase in drug resistance in circulating human influenza viruses in recent years," said Dr. Rick Bright of the disease control centers. "Our report has broad implications for agencies and governments planning to stockpile these drugs for epidemic and pandemic strains of influenza."
<story continued here>

 

Questions at the Café

Is Avian Flu a possible pandemic or media hype?

 

Any Questions, Comments or to subscribe yourself or a friend, please email:  kevin@cafeportmoody.com