Sushi: The Good and the Bad

In a recent radio interview, I was asked my opinion of eating Sushi so I thought I would share my findings:

      Benefits to eating Sushi

• Low in saturated fat and high in protein
• Omega 3 oils - Salmon, mackerel and sardine highest EPA and DHA fats

·         Nori (sea weed) contains a great source of minerals & Iodine found in the ocean. You'll also get the benefit of magnesium, calcium, iron, and antioxidant phytonutrients and folic acid from eating rolls wrapped in nori.

·         Veg out  Balance out your sushi feast and fill up on rolls made with yummy, nutritious vegetables - shiitake mushrooms, avocado, and cucumber are standard menu items at most sushi restaurants

·         Wasabi Good to counteract parasites in the digestive track

Risks to eating Sushi

• Unfortunately, people with type I or II diabetes should stay away from sushi, and stick to sashimi. Individuals with high blood pressure must limit their use of soy sauce.
• The horseradish called “wasabi” can be full of MSG and food colouring
• Pickled ginger has MSG and food colouring
• White gluttonous rice can be considered a processed carbohydrate that can be hard on your digestive system.

·         Calories: Since sushi ingredients get rolled up into such tiny packages, it's easy to think you're eating a tiny amount of calories and fat. One plain tuna roll can have less than 200 calories, but add in embellishments like mayonnaise, fried tempura bits, or cream cheese and you've got yourself one concentrated bundle of fat and calories. Eat one crunchy shrimp tempura roll, for instance, and you're gobbling over 500 calories and 20 g of fat!

·         Both soy sauce and wasabi are low-calorie condiments, but soy sauce can send sodium levels soaring and can have added sugar

·         Food borne illnesses: Eating uncooked fish can expose you to bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Roundworm, for example, is a threadlike parasite that can burrow into the stomach and cause painful symptoms that mimic appendicitis. Some kinds of sushi rolls include uncooked fish, but safe and reputable chefs use only fish that has been frozen. The deep freeze will kill off parasites, rendering the fish safer to consume. However, deep freezing will not kill bacteria – it will only stop or slow down its growth until the temperature warms up again. Eating raw fish inherently comes with an increased risk of food borne illness compared to eating cooked fish or Vegetarian options. (Sushi lovers should do colonics and parasite cleanse at least once per year)

·         Mercury levels: The open waters of rivers, lakes, and the sea expose fish to mercury, a known neurotoxin. When we, in turn, eat those fish, some of the mercury transfers to our bodies. Large, predatory fish tend to have the highest mercury levels.

·         Young children, pregnant women, and women planning to get pregnant are advised to minimize their consumption of these fish.

·         Make it a treat. Think of sushi as an occasional indulgence, rather than a staple meal in your diet. Keep it to a minimum.

Feeling Good

Some days when I wake up in the morning, I don’t want to do my yoga practice. I think it will be hard…too hard.

But if I lie down on my mat and begin to move in a way that feels good it’s easy.

‘IN A WAY THAT FEELS GOOD’ is the important part here. Not in a way that is supposed to feel good or in a way that I think might benefit me somehow or in a way that makes me a devoted student. My practice is EASY if I move in a way that truly FEELS GOOD.

If I take the limitations and goals out of the equation then my practice can be my time in the morning to simply feel good.

Laura

Lessons in Impermanence

Lessons in Impermanence

On October 5^th, I was standing in my living room when I looked out my window and saw a beautiful, full double rainbow. It was absolutely breathtaking. I walked onto my balcony and took several pictures and video and fully absorbed the moment.

It is moments like this that teach us a powerful lesson in impermanence. Rainbows are rare events and they are unbelievably beautiful, and they usually only last a few minutes. When I saw the double rainbow, I stopped everything I was doing and stood outside until it faded. I took in every moment and was completely present.

If we lived life knowing in every moment that everything is impermanent, would it change the way that we live? Would we slow down our minds so that we could listen 100% to what people are saying instead of thinking about what we’re going to say next in the conversation? Would you call the people that you love more often? Would you worry less and play more?

I also received a phone call from a friend this week who told me she had been in a car accident. She is a close friend of mine and I hadn’t spoken to her in awhile. Luckily, she was okay and walked away from the accident with only a bit of neck/shoulder pain. But, this experience made me appreciate her more and appreciate our friendship. Why had I taken so long to contact her?

This week, contemplate that everything is impermanent. Knowing this, will you live life the same way? Or, does it change everything in your world? Impermanence, especially our own impermanence, can be scary for some people to think about. But, there is also a beauty in it as well. Understanding this concept can be a key to being completely in the moment, in the ‘now,’ and doing the things that mean the most to us.

Shyra Rawson, Reiki Practitioner

Healing as a Community

Healing as a Community

On Friday, October 1^st, I attended the potluck at the Lotus Centre, followed by Kirtan with Brenda McMorrow on her ‘Love Abounds Tour.’

At the potluck, I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of interesting people. Everyone brought a vegan dish and the food was great! The Kirtan afterwards was so beautiful because of the energy from the music and also because a room full of people were all participating. There is something very powerful about 70+ people in a large yoga studio singing together. Some people even got up and danced.

Because I am new to London, having moved here in mid-August from Toronto, I feel that I am more open and observant now than I was a few months ago when I was in my comfort zone and in the communities that I knew in Toronto. The Lotus Centre is still relatively new to me, but I now truly appreciate the healing power of community.

In a community of like-minded people, we have the chance to express ourselves for who we truly are. We are appreciated for our own wisdom and knowledge. It is even more powerful to participate in healing circles as a community because sharing healing experiences creates strong bonds and makes us feel united and one with others. It makes us feel like we aren’t alone and that others are going through similar experiences.

Going to these events at the Lotus Centre inspired me to reflect more on community and what it means to be part of a community. Here are some questions that you can reflect upon this week:

·        What community/communities are I currently part of?

·        What do I get from being part of these communities?

·        What does my involvement with these communities say about me?

·        Do I relate to the people in my communities and do they relate with me?

·        Are there any communities that I would like to join?

·        Do I want to create any new communities?

Community can be a beautiful thing if we are part of communities that inspire us to be our best, authentic self. This week, appreciate the communities that you are part of, whether it is your group of friends, your family, your church, or places like the Lotus Centre. You are loved, and you are blessed.

Namaste.

Shyra Rawson
Reiki Practitioner

My Opinion on Opinions

Last Sunday our community gathered for our monthly Satsang - an evening of chanting, meditation and a talk on reducing stress. Vicky Chandler from the Wisdom Teashop led the meditation and the talk.

Her talk largely focused on the idea of letting things go in order to reduce stress. What I needed to hear in particular was that I could even let go of my opinions. My OPINIONS I thought…but that’s who I am, my opinions drive how I behave in the world, my opinions make up my personality and construct my values.

As her talk went on, I could see that my opinions are a large part of what causes suffering in my life. The idea of being right puts me in immediate conflict with someone who is (in my opinion) not right. The more I am attached to my ‘right-ness’ the more I become agitated when confronted with someone else’s opinion.

The looser I can be with my opinions, the more opportunity there is for me to be open and peaceful. I can still take (what is in my opinion) the best course of action through my life but I can be grateful for the variety of perspectives from the variety of people who enrich my life.

Thank you Vicky for your wisdom! And thank you to the community who was there to share the experience.

Laura

Sprouting Some Health!

Well it’s my day off and I’m sitting in the kitchen with my morning tea and wondering where I put my seeds. You would think that would be a thought you would have in the spring, planning my garden. But for me, it’s also a thought for the fall when the frigid arctic winds are rattling the windows. That’s right, you can still enjoy freshly organically-grown produce… and you don't even have to leave your home! It doesn't require long-range transportation from warmer or tropical climes nor energy-intensive greenhouses. (No wonder it has been around for thousands of years?) That’s what I’m going to do today.  Start growing my sprouts.

      Why Should I Sprout?

•         Organic 

•         Cooked beans can cause flatulence, sprouted beans are easy to digest

•         Cholesterol reducer

•         Starches convert to simple sugars = low glycaemic index

•         Proteins break down to amino acids = yes, plant protein

•         Enzymes activate and vitamins increase ten-fold

•         Minerals chelate or merge with protein in a way that increases their function.

•         A very good source of vitamin C and B vitamins

•         Also the iron is easily digested

•         Good preventive for Cancer or any disease really

Recipe for Mung Bean Sprouts

1/3 cup organic mung beans

•         Soak                5-12 hours (in a mason jar)

•         Rinse              3-5 times daily (put a cheese cloth over the jar and fasten with a    elastic, the best ones are the elastics you find on Broccoli)

•         Days               3-4

•         Length            1-3 inches (this means length of root before you can eat the sprout)

How to use:

Raw in salads

Add to cooked rice

Add to soups

In sandwiches to replace lettuce

If you have any sprouting questions, let me know!  We can grow sprouts together.  Give me a call at the Lotus Centre.

Suzanne Frenette, Colon Therapist and Thai Yoga Massage Therapist

Caught in the Rain

Caught in the Rain

On Thursday morning, I was caught in the rain. It was a good downpour and I had to catch the bus to go to the Lotus Centre for my Energy Exchange. I am a Reiki Practitioner at the Lotus Centre, but I also do Energy Exchange every Thursday in return for yoga. On my trip to the Lotus Centre on Thursday, I felt like I learned some good lessons from observing how people reacted to ‘being caught in the rain.’

As I stood and waited for the bus in the rain, early Thursday morning, I watched as cars zoomed by and water splashed on the sidewalk from the puddles, sometimes hitting pedestrians walking. I myself stepped back a few times into the bus shelter to avoid being hit with water off the road by the cars.

As I stepped back into the bus shelter one of these times, a man in the bus shelter grumbled:

‘I think they’re (the drivers) all trying to get us. I’d love to have them all stand on the sidewalk while I drive by and hit them with water!’

He was stuck in the rain and was angry about the drivers who didn’t seem to notice the pedestrians and blamed ‘them’ for his being wet.

Have you ever noticed that people say ‘they’ and ‘they did it’ a lot when they are angry in general but don’t have anyone to blame? I heard this a lot when I used to work in a call centre and people would say ‘you sent this’ and ‘you did this to me…’ It took me awhile to realize back then that it wasn’t really me that they were talking about. They were angry in general about something the company did (i.e. error on a bill) but they needed someone or something to receive this anger.

Later, on my walk to the Lotus Centre from Oxford, I noticed some more people who were ‘caught in the rain.’ One guy didn’t have an umbrella. It was interesting because he didn’t run, he didn’t even walk quickly. He just walked normally as the rain poured down on him. I realized at that moment, that he had complete acceptance of the situation. It was raining, he didn’t have an umbrella, and he was just in the moment and accepted it for what it was.

Moments like this make me think of the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. In this book, we are reminded that all we really have is this one moment. The past is gone, and the future isn’t here yet. All we have is NOW. While I observed the man walk through the rain in complete acceptance, I admired him. He could have ran (like many people would have done), he could have cursed his bad luck for ending up in the rain without an umbrella, but instead, he just walked and was completely in the moment.

The next question I asked myself is, if I only have THIS moment and I am caught in the rain, what is the best way to enjoy this? I had an umbrella but was going to be hit with water by passing cars no matter what I did. So, I held onto my umbrella and sang ‘Summertime’ (a favourite jazz tune) to myself as I enjoyed the view of the river as I passed over the bridge.

The biggest lesson that I learned on this trip to the Lotus Centre in the rain is that when life gives us a ‘downpour,’ it is us who decides how we react to it. We can curse our ‘bad luck;’ have acceptance and just move on; or we can shrug our shoulders and hum a tune, making the best of every situation that we experience.

- Shyra Rawson, Reiki Practitioner