We are the change we are waiting for!

I’ve never really liked to travel by plane as a teenager and especially not when I was alone. A lot of fear involved in that! Now when I started to work, the work required me to do some trips to Portugal, Canada… so it obliged me somehow to take a different perspective on that and flights became more and more part of it.

I did love to come in contact with different people, cultures, hear about their journey and experiences of life. So I worked much more to overcome my fears and continue my journey, rather than trying to find another direction of the job, having to travel less.

In these travels, America became more and more, a frequent destination and made me come in contact with Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, Chicago… providing me with a good view of America. It created some kind of curiosity and it is always a pleasure meeting up with local people. Although quite often the ones I would have long conversations and contact with, would not be native Americans.

If there is one place that literally blew me away, out of all of them so far, it’s Washington, DC, that I had the privilege to go to, in 2013.

I guess it is the safest place in the US, there was really no place in the tourist area where I could go, that there wasn’t a security guy having his eyes on me, never seen that till such a level. Now I did feel safe there, walking around day and night. The biggest influences Washington, DC had on me, is due to its monuments and memorials.

I had heard of some historical events, now I didn't know much detail about them and walking around there, seeing these monuments and memorials, and at some of them getting a chance to talk with survivors, really provided me a completely different view of the US I had seen so far.

One that marked me very heavily, is the memorial wall for the Vietnam war, where the wall was huge and the names of the victims were written extremely small. I was extremely shocked by that and could not get how cruel people could be to have done something like that in history.

In a more positive direction, I was of course very inspired by all sorts of quotes around there from;

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion." - Abraham Lincoln

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." - Theodore Roosevelt

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

And probably the one I appreciate most,

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

All speeches I had heard from especially President Obama, started to make much more sense as well, after this personal discovery from my side. Although he told them for the American citizen, I think they can in fact rely to any kind of situation I find myself in.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” - Barack Obama.

If we believe in ourselves and start to make the change we would like to see in the world, we can create beautiful things!

I personally believe that a travel trip, or journey is much more inspiring by the people I’m with or get in contact with, than by the location I visit. So I’ve always preferred to travel with great people, rather than to what some might call great places. Now I do have to admit, that travel, whether alone or in good company, provides me a different point of view on the world and that alone can inspire very positively.

Thanks America and especially the people that crossed my journey, for showing me that inspiring direction!

I’ve made one of my best changes in my life so far in 2014, that can be read here!


#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #giveupfear #America #WashingtonDC #memorialwallVietnamwar #AbrahamLincoln #EleanorRoosevelt #TheodoreRoosevelt #FranklinDRoosevelt #RalphWaldoEmerson #MartinLutherKingJr #PresidentObama #BarackObama #change

Happiness in simplicity not complexity!

I realize that I’m quite often unconsciously projecting a future vision and that it is hard to go against it. In those visions, the most difficult, complex, look, or feel always like the ‘one and only truth’, which it quite often not is.

Related to food, I will quite often say, when I can eat that special dish, it will make me very happy. In reality, that dish doesn’t make me any happier than another one (or maybe just for a very short period), it is just my perception of it that makes it that way.

In this purpose, what I can do is more identify my real need instead of a well defined envisioned future. Concretely, instead of saying, I would like to eat a ‘RAW blueberry cheesecake’, rather wondering what kind of taste I am looking for (of course, if I can understand mentally why I want this, it’s even better, now I will let that aside for the moment) and relate it to that. So for this I could say, I’ve really a hunger, or an envy of something sweet. From there to look around, try to see or feel it, and embrace with a let go attitude everything that’s on the way.

If I come across an apple, bananas… or a RAW tiramisu, it’s all good and I’m grateful that I managed to find something for my sweet desire.

Without doing any projection or vision of the future, this exercise here above is way easier to do. I relate to it in the example here above for food, now I find it true for all other things in my life as well.

Let’s take the example in a couple relationship.

I’m happy with the relationship I’ve, now via all kinds of ways (movies, TV, social media…) I see examples of what might to seem even nicer.

So I start to dream, vision and imagine myself in that scenario (until there, no issues).

It’s when I start to get attached to it, as that being my only reference of happiness, that I’m going in the wrong direction.

I vision myself in that situation and link it to my happiness.

If I do that, I might then explain that to my partner so he clearly understands my desires, right?

Oh no, in the movie the partner didn’t need any explanations, so if my partner is not doing it the same way, how can I be happy?

I’ve been in the kind of situation here above, in all kinds of contexts quite often and the only take out of that I had was; ‘I was not present in the moment and have always been disappointed with the outcome’.

So today, I started to realize all this (made much easier after my changing food habits) that, of course I can hold on to a goal, now make it global, simple and leave much of room for creativity in it.

For the RAW blueberry cheesecake, make the goal looking for something sweet.

When interested in RAW food, make the goal to eat just a bit more whole foods, don’t go right away to make the RAW tiramisu.

For the couple relationship thing, make the goal just being together and talk/listen to each other.

For a holiday, make it just a disconnection with usual daily habits.

…

don’t go any further than the above, and have peace with what I quite often hear; ‘only future can tell’.

I should keep it simple, and realize that thru all kinds of simple things, happen great things that I could have never have imagined, that I managed to feel and live full consciously.

Life is beautiful, let go and enjoy all wonderful things very consciously in full happiness.

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #simplicity #happiness #conscious #presentmoment #stopprojecting

Are you or do you want to become a plant-based entrepreneur?

I once read about the Asian culture that they have some kind of network, in which all people have some direct connections (we could say very close good friends or family). If they want to get in contact or know more about people outside their direct connections, they work via the direct connections of their direct connection, in the form of introduction or recommendation. When I first heard about this more than 10 years ago, I found it very weird and a limiting slower way of living. Today, after my food changing habits, I do see some positive aspects in that, and it is something I try to apply more often, of course, most of the time in what I found a western way of doing it (I have some personal feeling of never wanting to bothering someone for my personal journey, books and technology somehow allow that today, besides that I will only in very rare cases ask for direct help, not sure if it is a good or bad thing...).

Meaning that every time I came in contact with somebody that was somehow active around plant based lifestyle, approaches I liked very much, that were very inspiring to me... I would look to their interest and resources, to get deeper into things and get educated myself on some subjects. The approach helped me very much as finding out quite fast about some amazing people and resources. When I read the amazing book from Tobias Leenaert, I felt so much inspired by it, that I made it a clear action item by going over all resources mentioned in the book.

In the resources, I would find a reference to a podcast The Plant-Based Entrepreneur Show. The subject and concept, sounded very interesting to me and when I looked more in detail into it, it was downloadable, so I definitely had to give it a try.

I’ve like I explained here, falling into listening to podcasts via Rich Roll.

What I liked very much about his podcast was besides the content, the quality of the audio, the fact that you can download them and especially allow me to listen to them offline whenever I want to (I’m not mister connected all the time like explained here). Every time I would look into a potential new interesting podcast, if they were not downloadable, I would very often only listen to one of them and not pursue that road.

So the podcast, The Plant-Based Entrepreneur Show looked all good. The first one I listened to, was of course Tobias Leenaert and quite fast Ken Spector, Meg and Komie Vora, Jodi Monelle... followed. All inspiring people I already heard or wanted to learn more about.

Being used to listen only to Rich Roll’s podcast so far, I’ve to admit that when I first listened to Jerry Server’s - The Plant-Based Entrepreneur Show podcast, I was a bit disappointed by the audio quality and by the very strict, clear articulating English by Jerry. It makes it of course very understandable, I found it just personally a bit less attractive to listen to, than listening to Rich talks, which sounds more rock and roll (of course just a matter of personal taste). Now something that surprised me very much and what a podcast in general is of course all about, is the content. Jerry really manages to get very interesting information out of these inspiring people and provide it via, a way to inspire others with very useful information. I’m even sure it provides that little push to those that would be hesitating in starting a Plant-Based business.

When I listened to the recent podcast’s with Moby and Nathan Runkle, 2 amazing guys, that also Rich has interviewed, it really showed me the nice and authentic way of Jerry to get other very interesting information to inspire as well. It made me personally realize that both podcasts are complementary to me, addressing different views and results in me having 2 podcasts I closely follow and try to grab out any inspiration I can get.

So if you are or want to become a Plant-Based Entrepreneur, I can strongly recommend to listen to Jerry’s podcast on http://www.theplantbasedentrepreneur.com/, great work and continues every time to inspire people all over the world including myself!

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #PlantBasedLlifestyle #TobiasLeenaert #ThePlantBasedEntrepreneurShow #podcast #RichRoll #KenSpector #MegVora # KomieVora #JodiMonelle #InspiringPeople #JerryServer #Moby #NathanRunkle

The Miracle Morning!

I’ve not always found the morning so miraculous. When I was a kid, I used to love to stay up late at night. I remember as a teenager loving to watch episodes of Beavis and Butthead...

...often at around 11 p.m. on MTV and that sometimes even would pass midnight. It looked to me then, that in the evening there was much more to happen, compared to the morning, when everything was dead. The morning after, I used to wake up when most of the time my parents would wake me up. During the week it would be to go to school and when there was no school, quite often it was for lunch at noon when everybody already awakened, judged that it was more than time for me to wake up. I cannot really say that I used to be a morning guy.

Later on, when I started to work, it didn’t really change. I used to know exactly how much time, I would need to do everything in the morning till arriving at work and I would calculate the time to wake up exactly based on that. No time for anything else during that period and arriving at work, I would definitely need my morning coffee (first pleasant thing of the day).

Work and family brought me into habits that made me move away of my times to stay in bed till noon. Now I was definitely not a morning guy then, if I could sleep longer, I would sleep longer. The only moment I would wake up very happy, is when I knew something, or special event was about to happen that day for which I was obliged to get up earlier (typically leave on holiday).

When I changed my food habits in 2014, like I explained here, my sleep quality improved and I started to realize some changes in the mornings as well. I started to explore with some morning rituals, that made me work towards a way more happier morning, and I actually really started to enjoy mornings.

In this process, a lovely colleague of mine talked me about the book ‘The Miracle Morning’ from Hal Elrod, which looked like coming at the right moment for me, I bought it right away, read it and it changed my mornings forever. For people interested in the subject, I really recommend the book.

I would personally summarize it as, when I start something, provide it a good start, completely in line with myself and built on that to realize the rest of it. Which is really what the morning is for the rest of the day. Provide it attention, enjoy that moment, make it a privileged moment of the day.

Ideally, I understand that I would live in line with the sunlight (which I try to apply during weekends and holidays), now for the other days, modern life doesn’t really allow that. So my morning ritual starts always at the same time during all seasons. The only difference is that in the summer I’ll do it outside in the garden, during mid-season outside or inside with windows open and in the winter completely inside.

My morning ritual today is;

• Wake up at 5:00 AM / 5:30 AM (majority of time with an alarm if I have obligations that day, the alarm is a sound that makes me happy to wake up, in my case ‘The Boo Radleys: Wake up boo!', not like the standard annoying alarm sounds)
• I drink a full glass of water, I drink it slowly and enjoy my body absorbing it.
• Walk around, open some windows, make up the bed and get some air.
• I prepare a morning drink with love for the family (based on lemon, ginger and 50°C heated water, mixed in the blender or cut in pieces if no blender available).(side note, we used to see this morning drink as a good replacement for the coffee, and the amount of ginger in the drink provides in fact the same discussions like the amount of coffee set in when making it, more of it making it stronger if required)
• I empty the dishwasher (seen as a service to the community of the house), increase my movement of the day, drink my morning drink and do that all that in a happy, grateful mood (even if I don’t feel full of energy e.g., I accept that I don’t feel full of energy, now it doesn’t influence my mood).
• I do a 10-15 minutes Yoga practice (a moment to connect with myself)
• I take a shower and get dressed.
• Prepare breakfast (well, we’ve a big fruit plate in the house, which is free for everybody to serve from when they want to, and I just grab the fruits that I really want that day out of the choice) to eat or take-away later in the day if I’m not hungry.
• A one hour drive to work, which I try to drive as conscious as possible (no radio or music), observing myself, just me driving and find peace with all thoughts or ideas that might come up in my head.This ritual is for me personally something that brings so much positivity to my day, that I actually enjoy it and that it is of no problem to wake up what I used to see before as the middle of the night.

Want to give it a try, here some easy propositions that might inspire;

• Make time for myself in the morning of something I would like to do! (can be exercising, taking air, walk, read, write…)
• Like reading, read ‘The Miracle Morning’ from Hal Elrod.
• Just write what’s in my head at that moment.
• A talk with my partner or family.
• A little guided morning meditation.

• A little Yoga flow.

• ...

All little steps that can make morning, creating a different day!

What are your morning habits, I would love to hear about them?

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #sleep #morningritual #enjoytheday #enjoywater #breatheair #TheMiracleMorning #HalElrod

Start with easy plant based food habits!

When I started this adventure back in 2014, everything looked like extremely difficult and I certainly never imagined to eat for a majority raw plants, like I do today.

When I talk about it today to people, that are considering a change in their food habits, they are surprised how easy I find it, and certainly compared to the big barrier they see from their side.

How will I make that food? Where will I find it? Will it taste good? Will I not…

All questions that make perfect sense and on which I find the answers pretty easy.
These answers have of course not always been so easy to me.

In 2014 I was very happy to discover HappyCow and find some restaurants that could help me with my new food habits. It was great to buy some cooking books with receipts that interested us and that allowed us to make different dishes, compared to the start where we just left all animal based products out of it and exchanged them with plant based alternatives.

It is step by step on our journey, that we arrive where we are, and go where we want to.

I explain here, how I gradually changed my food habits and always discovered more about myself on the journey.

I’ve made small changes and then reviewed how I felt about them.

Herewith some possibilities of small changes for starting the process that I’ve taken;

1. Increase vegetables in warm dishes (real vegetables, so not potatoes, french fries…). 
2. Reduce or ideally remove meat. 
3. Reduce or ideally remove fish. 
4. Take instead of regular breakfast (or lunch, probably more difficult), all fruits, those liked the most and as much as wanted. 
5. Remove bread and replace it with more vegetables. 
6. Eat at noon a good salad with all vegetables the once liked the most (ideally as close to whole food as possible, although for a start, could take some prepared ones to get a good transition in the papillae as well). 
7. Drink only water and infusions for hot drinks if prefered. 
8. Reduce or ideally remove refined sugar. 
9. Reduce or ideally remove milk. 
10. Reduce or ideally remove cheese (probably one of the most difficult ones to start with due to the addictive substances in cheese). 
11. ... 

I just took one of these little changes and reviewed how I felt afterwards.

All of the points here above (if done with no cheating), are points I felt a clear difference with.

I liked the difference and then tried out another one...

I know nobody, that made the change radically for everything overnight, so doing it, step by step, is maybe not such a bad start!

'The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.' Quote by Lao Tzu.

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #stepbystep #LaoTzu #smallchanges #happycow