Last week I was in the hospital with a Crohn’s flare-up.
I required a blood transfusion from loss of blood and was heavily medicated with many things that I am now detoxing. Some I am still tapering off of. My weight has dropped significantly and it’s important that I am rebuilding myself with nutrients and lots of hydration.
I’m now staying with my friends in Southern California. I am grateful to be with them again. I am giving myself a retreat to heal myself and be healed and receive support from nurturing friends and food and community.
Being in the hospital around all the plugs, needles, cords, medicine, pain, etc. was not a happy time for the part of me that loves to have fun and be playful…
So I’m choosing to bring some fun into my healing so that I am enjoying every moment of this and getting the most out of it that I can.
Because I’m giving my insides a rest from having to do a lot of work with digestion as they’re healing, I’m doing what’s known as a Juice Feast – this means I can have as much as I want of any juice I choose to make out of fruits and veggies. It’s wonderful for sore insides because it’s very easy to absorb and assimilate.
So how to make this more fun for myself?
Here are some of the things I’m going to do to make this juicing experience more fun and creative:
- Draw a poster of my intestines and everything inside on a big piece of paper so that I can get intimately familiar with my parts and draw hearts on them and send them loving vibes several times a day as they are hanging on the wall.
- Create 3×5 cards with drawings of my favorite juice ingredients so I can see colorful representations of the foods that I enjoy the most. I can also deal them out like cards to create my ideal juice for that particular meal and make fun flavor combinations like a game.
- Design a little menu so that I can make sure I’m rotating foods and not having only watermelon juice or not enough spinach, etc. So I’ll be tracking how many different items I have in each day and I can know which I’m getting more of and less of. Still formulating in my mind how this chart will look/work.
- Host a Juice Party in 2 weeks. I’m going to invite my local friends over and have them bring some of their favorite things to put in juice and then we will put them all together and create delicious drinks for all of us to enjoy. I will have fancy glasses and straws and maybe party umbrellas. This will probably be combined with a game night where everyone brings their own game and we take turns playing them. (I love Bananagrams.)
- Draw a rainbow poster with pictures of the colorful fruits and veggies that go on each part of the spectrum. This will kind of go along with making sure that I’m having plenty of all the things from each of the categories and not having too much/too little of one thing.
Mmmm. Just listing these things out makes me feel so much more alive and ready to empower myself to take care of myself.
I’ll be getting out the markers, paper, crayons, and creativity on Wednesday as I spend this special time with myself.
Is there something creative you could draw or make a visual representation of that would help make taking care of yourself, your business, your family, your body – a little more fun and easy?
I love you. Thank you for being here.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Feel better Mona!! I know just how you are feeling, I can totally sympathize! I have a colonoscopy tomorrow so I am juice fasting today too! HUGS!
@Lauren – Thanks, sweetie. I know you get it and you’re doing your own awesome healing and maintenance. Keep up the great work and enjoy your life-giving juice today. It’s so good for you.
Good way to look at healing yourself, Mona! Enjoy your juice feasting. I love the Juicing Bible by Pat Crocker and my new Omega VRT330 juicer. Using it every morning to make my green juice. What kind of a juicer do you use?
Thanks for the book suggestion! I’m thinking of all sorts of things I want to read up and and learn. I’m at my friend’s right now using her Jack LaLane. It’s working great. Then I’m straining the juice in a paint bag ( or something like that from Home Depot) so I keep the juice really pure. Right now I don’t want lots of fiber going through my system.
What’s your favorite green drink recipe?
hey miss mona! you are so inspiring! i love your juice feasting. and i’m really thankful that you’ve written this post because i’m having the same issue with my stomach (sore insides) for different reasons and am having a really hard time finding things i can put in there. doesn’t feel like i can put fruit in there, but veggie juice is starting to feel plausible.
sending you lots of good healing vibes and enjoying the ones you are creating. thank you :0)
Lisa
@lisa Sweet one! Yes. I understand. Not all fruit will feel good. Juicing is wonderful with veggies if you are feeling up for it. Be gentle. Small amounts at first.
You may have read about some things related to keeping your system ALKALINE. Lemons (though they seem acidic) are actually alkaline producing when they get in the gut. So even if you don’t juice lemons, see how it sits with you to drink some water with lemon squeezed in. If you add a little Himalayan sea salt to the water also, it will give you important nutrients that we lack when there are sores inside because things aren’t getting absorbed properly.
If you make a veggie juice, get some FRESH aloe from a plant. Aloe is a beautiful thing for our insides. So incredibly healing. Scrape some out of a real plant and put it in a blender with some of the juice afterward. Add a little Himalayan salt (not table salt). Aloe is not the tastiest thing, but it can is very good for us. I’m drinking it daily.
You have my email address. Please call me and we can chat more if you wish. I love you.
Hey, Mona. This is so vivid and beautiful! I know the hospital has a job to do, but I’m proud of you for loving your body, not just “fixing” it. I’m sending you lots of warm and loving energy as you heal.
Thanks for the post!
Jennifer Hofmann´s last blog ..Update on the D-word – Getting out of debt
Mona,
You could do juicing the way you do it but keep in mind, it may not be the best quality juice you get. I did lots of research on the best juicers on the market and bought a Breville Elite for Christmas. I thought it was the BEST juicer. Turned out not to be so. Centrifugal juicers, the Jack Lalane included, do poor job in preserving the live nutrients in the produce they juice. Because of how powerful and quick they are, they tend to oxydise the juice and the heat kills many enzymes. The resulting juice gets separation and much foam on top. I experienced that with my Breville. Then someone on RFR mentioned having Hurom juicer and how much better it was than her old Breville Elite. I was captivated! Started looking into the Hurom and found another juicer, Omega VRT330, to be the newest state-of-the-art slow juicers.
The difference is that by juicing slow (which by the way is in no way slow), you get the most juice out of your produce without heat and oxidization. I hurried to Bed Bath & Beyond and returned the Breville, got my money back and ordered the Omega VRT330 that night. I have been using it every morning for the last 2 weeks. Mona, there is NO comparison in the quality of juice between the Breville and my Omega VRT330. It’s like night & day.
My favorite green juice recipe is posted on RFR picture today. I call it “My morning “coffee”. Check it out.
@Zoe Thank you for the tips on the juicer. I am currently without my own and am benefiting from the generosity of my friend and neighbor who is letting me use her juicer. When I am ready to get my own new juicer I will take everything you shared into consideration. Thanks for doing such great research for me. xoxo
What a cool plan! And how cool are posters? We should all make more posters.
Michelle´s last blog ..Don’t Fight your Brain, or How to Create an Outline in Ten Minutes
@Michelle – Agreed! Posters are awesome – especially ones we make ourselves. I went to Michael’s (craft store) today and got lots of great supplies to make things. This weekend will be my creative time for organizing these things. My version of the Super Bowl happens with colors!