Summers Over!

Eat fresh. Eat local. Eat in season.
and...
Are You Addicted to Stress and Drama?

This month we celebrate the end of summer and the arrival of Fall...
The time of the Harvest.

And in Part 2, I ask... Are you or someone you know, addicted to Drama... an interesting thing to think about and change.

I have also updated my “Original Blog”. I forward the email of my blog to you all monthly... However if you click on this link:

www.TheUrbanShaman.blogspot.com

I have added some new features which include resources for Green Living, I have a link to see how Green your household is and how to be more efficient, music, art, and some of my groovy friends blogs.
They are listed under: “Other Groovy Souls and Helpful Sites”.
Please click on the link and be forwarded to and explore...The “NEW” Urban Shaman...

Please pass this information to your friends and family... Pass the Love around! Also, if you have any suggestions for future blogs... Use the “comments” button on the bottom of this months blog... or email me at: TheUrbanShaman@aol.com.

Life is not just a journey... make it an adventure! ENJOY!!!!...

Peace N' Blessings,
Gail Oliver


Eat fresh.
Eat local.
Eat in season.

Top 10 reasons to buy local:

1. Locally grown food tastes better. Food grown and sold locally is crisp, sweet, and loaded with flavor because it is picked less than 2 days before it reaches your hands. Produce flown or trucked in from California or Chile spends a week or longer in transition from field to plate, enough time for sugars to turn to starches, plant cells shrink, and produce to lose vitality.

2. Local produce is better for you. Studies show that fresh produce loses nutrients quickly once harvested. Food that is frozen or canned soon after harvest is more nutritious than "fresh" produce that spends a week on a truck or supermarket shelf. Locally grown food, purchased soon after harvest, retains its nutrients.

3. Local food preserves genetic diversity. Local farms tend to grow a large variety of plants, instead of only a limited number of varieties that can withstand the harvest and marketing process. This variety provides a harvest all season long, an array of brilliant colors and flavors, as well as preserves the genetic material from hundreds of years of human selection.

4. Local food is GMO-free. Since biotechnology companies currently only license to large factory-style farms, local farmers don't have access to genetically modified seed, and most of them wouldn't use it.

5. Local food supports local farm families. Direct markets, selling directly to consumers, cut out the middleman allowing local farmers to receive the full retail price for their food. With commodity prices at historic lows and farmers getting less than 10 cents of the retail food dollar, supporting local farms mean that farm families can afford to stay on the farm, doing the work they love.

6. Local food builds community. When you buy direct from the farmer, you are re-establishing a time-honored connection between the eater and the grower. Knowing the farmers gives you insight into the seasons, the weather, and the miracle of raising food. Relationships built on understanding and trust can thrive.

7. Local food preserves open space. As the value of direct-marketed fruits and vegetables increases, selling farmland for development becomes less likely. Lush fields of crops, meadows of wildflowers, and wild open landscapes will survive only as long as farms are financially viable. When you buy locally grown food, you are doing something proactive about preserving the agricultural landscape.

8. Local food keeps your taxes in check. Farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services, as opposed to suburban development. On average, for every $1 in revenue raised by residential development, governments must spend $1.17 on services, requiring higher taxes of all taxpayers. For each dollar of revenue raised by farm, forest, or open space, governments spend 34 cents on services.

9. Local food supports a clean environment and benefits wildlife. A well-managed family farm is a place where the resources of fertile soil and clean water are valued and diversity is welcomed. The habitat of a farm, with fields, meadows, woods, ponds and buildings, is the perfect environment for many species of wildlife, including bluebirds, killdeer, herons, bats, and rabbits.

10. Local food is about the future. By supporting local farmers today, you are helping to ensure that future generations will have access to nourishing, flavorful, abundant, farm fresh food. www.sustainablefoodcenter.org

Fall Harvest:

• Garlic, Leeks, Onions, Shallots
• Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage,
Cauliflower
• Belgian Endive, Chard, Escarole, Radicchio,
Spinach, Mushrooms
• Beets, Celery Root, Parsnips, Potatoes,
Radishes, Rutabagas, Turnips
• Artichokes, Bell Peppers, Eggplants,
Pumpkins, Winter Squashes
• Apples, Apricots, Grapes, Pears

Please check the listing under “Other Groovy Souls and Helpful Sites”, on my Blog Page... www.TheUrbanShaman.Blogspot.com
and click “Local Harvests in Your Area” to find the local farms and farmer’s markets in your area.

Low-sodium diet:
Why is processed food so salty?
Why do processed foods contain so much sodium?

Mayo Clinic dietitian Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D., and colleagues answer select questions from readers.

Answer: Salt (sodium chloride) helps prevent spoiling by drawing moisture out of food so bacteria can't grow. Salt also kills existing bacteria that might cause spoiling. At one time, salting was one of the only methods available to preserve food. But today, food manufacturers have many other preservation methods available — such as refrigeration, freezing, dehydration, irradiation and chemical preservatives.

So why do they continue to use salt?

There are many reasons. In addition to making food more flavorful, salt makes soups thicker, reduces dryness in crackers and pretzels, and increases sweetness in cakes and cookies. Salt also helps disguise metallic or chemical aftertaste in products such as soft drinks. Healthy adults need only between 1,500 and 2,400 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day. However, most Americans consume more than double that amount — due in large part to a heavy diet of processed foods.

To reduce sodium in your diet:

* Eat fewer processed foods such as potato chips, frozen dinners and cured meats.
* Choose foods labeled "low sodium" or "reduced sodium."
* Don't add salt to your food. Instead, use herbs and spices to flavor foods.
* Eat more unprocessed, fresh foods, such as fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats,
poultry, fish and unprocessed grains.

Keep in mind that if you have high blood pressure, are African-American, are older than age 50, or have a chronic condition such as kidney disease or diabetes, you should aim for less than 1,500 mg of sodium a day.

Are You Addicted to Stress and Drama?

How many of you are in situations that are not fulfilling, that don't support or nurture your spirits. This pertains to jobs, friendships, relationships and all facets of your life. All of life requires a sense of balance.

If everything we do is because we have to, where is the joy?

Do you put more importance on things we do for other people than the things
(if we have the time) we do for ourselves?

Is there something you would do differently than what you are doing now if you had the chance?

So what's stopping you?

If it was possible to do whatever you wanted to do with your life from this day forward, what would that be?

Trusting and believing in your self is a major accomplishment in our society now. With all the negative energy being spread worldwide it's hard to trust anything going on. But know, you can trust yourself to fulfill all your dreams!

I recently read this from Published in: Perspective Rant The Human Condition Thought on those addicted to drama... it stated ”If you focus on something long enough your vision will tunnel, the thing that you focus on will become the only thing that you can see. I just don’t get people who hone in on one thing going wrong in their life and ignore everything else that is going right”. hum...

Are You An Adrenaline Junkie?

Seems somewhere along the way people became addicted to drama and stress in their lives. We see it everyday. We all have friends that no matter the day, they have this unbelievable drama in their lives. They seem to thrive on it. Their whole being is drama... if they don’t have it they create it. Sometimes “we” don’t even realize we are creating unnecessary drama in our own lives.

Consciously or unconsciously, all human beings use adrenaline to create intensity. The intensity thus produced is then discharged through a variety of emotional states. These reactions may include anxiety or fear, anger or excitement. Regardless how they are expressed emotionally or physically, all these responses are fueled by adrenaline.

Used as a drug for this effect, adrenaline's intensity helps human beings repress the terror, and the wonder, of embracing their essential pain. That pain, at the deepest levels, rises from chronic or unresolved feelings of loss, abandonment, and disconnection. When the underlying reservoir of essential pain is significant, the individuals affected seem compelled, often unconsciously, to generate abnormal amounts of adrenaline to repress that pain.

The intensity of life becomes more vital than it's quality. That, in sum, is Adrenaline Addiction. Our society has mislabeled this entire process. We project the origins for this turmoil externally, and call it "stress". Individuals (and their guides) focus their attentions on reducing “job stress" or "economic stress" or "relationship stress" or what have you. In chemical dependency, for example, the source of this "stress" becomes "his drinking" or "her nagging."

Through the mechanism of the use of the term "stress", we become detached and insulated from reality. That truth is that we alone are ultimately responsible for our own choices. Thus, through adrenaline, we remain free to maintain unnaturally high levels of what has become required intensity. This process allows us to repress, at least temporarily, the emergence of our essential pain.

From, Addicted to Adrenaline.Copyright @ 1995 Larry I. Meadows

Got Healthy self esteem?

The truth is that we alone are ultimately responsible for our own choices. The only person we can control is ourselves. Trying to change another person to fit our needs and wants is like trying to teach a moose to fly.... It ain’t gonna happen. If we continue to stay in a partnerships that are not what is for our deepest good, not meeting our needs or wants... It is our direct attack on ourselves. You have to love yourself in order to have someone love you... If you are not invested in yourself, why would anyone else want to be.

The following is the result of, and happens as the need for adrenaline goes unchecked and you do not address your insecurities.

Are you a Drama Junkie?

If the following checklist looks familiar to you, you may be a drama junkie. In essence, it means that you are drawn to people and situations that get your adrenaline flowing both in the positive and the negative. The positive highs in relationships are primarily associated with the earliest enchantment phase of love, so those feelings are not sustainable at a high level over time. Once the initial enchantment period fades, the drama junkie has to find other ways to get his or her “fix.” The following are examples, behavior patterns, that indicate you or someone you love may have this issue:

* Automatic negative assumptions about other people’s motives without checking them out; i.e., someone cancels a date or outing because of work overload and you assume they don’t care or isn’t invested in the relationship; you escalate the situation by going out and acting out in a dramatic fashion

* Feeling consumed with other people’s drama; talking endlessly about other people’s dramas; reacting to other people’s dramas; at the end of the day, little was accomplished in your life plan because all the focus was on your toxic relationship(s)

* Inability to handle stress without acting out (i.e., drinking, calling ten friends to complain about what happened, overeating, bingeing/purging, etc.)

* Rapid, knee-jerk reactions when other people say or do things you don’t like; i.e., he says he’ll be there by 7:00 and shows up at 8:00; by then, you’ve left the house and gone drinking with your friends OR the minute he gets in the door you go into a tirade

* Feeling compelled to escalate in relationships when you feel wounded in some way; i.e., she says it’s girls night but stays out until 2:00 a.m. and comes home drunk; you immediately toss her out on the front lawn

* Compulsive behavior when under stress in a relationship; i.e., she won’t answer her phone, so you text message her with angry words for the next two hours, trying to provoke a response.

If you’re dating someone who fits any of the above profile, you too, may be a drama junkie. People who really want serenity in their lives and relationships are so turned off by this behavior that when it appears, they quickly move on.

If you feel hooked and stay connected to a chaotic person for more than a couple of weeks, then you have the same issue. What can you do about this?

First, take a giant step back and look at your life. Get real about what you want and where you are currently headed. Be willing to sacrifice some excitement in favor of stability.

Second, Be with like minded friends or those you would like to emulate while in the process of getting rid of the drama filled friends of old...toxic relationships...

Then: Put your focus on what you want to accomplish in your life: create a vision, have goals, have a plan. People who are focused on making a real contribution in the world, whether it’s through a professional vocation (i.e., doctor, nurse, attorney, etc.), a career (helping a business grow), or creating something meaningful (i.e., write a book, paint a picture, act in a play, perform or create music, etc.), have little time or energy for the cycle of drama.

©2007 Nina Atwood

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt