Listening and Dreaming

When Dana was 6 years old, she came home one day, very sad.  She said, “I wish I look like other girls in my class (she was the only Asian girl, and the majority of girls in her class are Anglo-Saxon descents).”  This wasn’t the first time she made similar remarks.  Having read the book, “How to listen so your child will talk and how to talk so your child will listen (by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish)”, I was finally ready to address this problem.  I sat her down at the couch and got a pencil and paper.  I said, “Imagine that we have magic to change your look, what would you want to change?”  We went from hair color, eyes, nose, all the way down to skin color.  It turned out that she was okay with her eyes, nose and mouth (Whew!).  The only features that she wanted to change were hair color and skin color.  That made her a little bit happier.  Then I said, “I wish that I had the magic to give you what you want, but if you want, you could dye your hair when you grow up.”  She smiled and that was the end of her wanting to be like a white girl.  Well, nowadays, her wishes and wants focus more on body type and sizes of thigh, legs and waist, but that’s another story.

What really worked here are two things, one is that I acknowledged her needs and she felt being understood.  Without being heard and understood, a child couldn’t get over her emotion to look at the problem more objectively.  The other is that we found the supporting evidence mentioned in the “thought lie detector” from the book of “More than saying I love you” by Andrea Goodman Weiner (which I mentioned in blog 2).  Through analyzing and actually going through all the parts that she might want to change, we got the supporting evidence that things were not “that” bad as she had imagined.  We are often too busy to listen to what our child is trying to tell us and too eager to solve the problem for him/her.  In my very short time of studying to be a counselor and my personal experiences with my family, I learned that you couldn’t just hand a solution to someone.  It would almost always be rejected if that person is still dealing with his/her emotions.  Then frustration comes in on both sides.  When we face another adult’s worries and complaints, we are more able to use empathic listening and support her to come to a solution on her own.  Shouldn’t we try to do it with our children, too? 

Green Smoothies

In the past, my breakfast usually consisted of one cup of milk and a slice of toast with cheese.  After cutting off dairy, it became one cup of soymilk and a slice of toast with nut butter. Then, it was one cup of almond milk and slices of apples or grains cereal (the kind that you can actually see the seeds and grains, not those sugary version).  Since my husband gets up earlier and I am a night owl, he usually just heats up a cup of milk and then grab a frozen muffin for his breakfast.  Ever since going down this path of healthy eating, it bothers me to think of him eating muffins every morning.  Besides, my girls would munch on muffins for snack or breakfast, just because they are tasty and easy to get.  The following is the story of how I make green smoothies our staple breakfast, 6 days/week for us adults, and one day/week for the girls.

When I first mentioned green smoothies, everyone in my family wrinkled their nose in disgust.  I was in doubt myself, whether I could tolerate the (imagined) weird flavor.  I decided to try my first green smoothies at Jamba Juice and it wasn’t bad.  It’s actually quite sweet, even though it’s green.  Then I used my $20 blender to make some pretty “benign” version, spinach, banana, water, avocado and apples.  They turned out well and my family is okay with that.  With that success, I started serving green smoothies twice a week, usually on the weekend when we eat less vegetables.

If you’ve been reading green smoothie girl blog (http://greensmoothiegirl.com/)

or other healthy eating website, you must have heard of Vitamix and/or Blendtec.  Those are my dream blenders but they are quite expensive as compared to the regular ones.  After my husband got ulcer and the medication cost $500, my desire to make green smoothies grew stronger.  Besides, my digestive system was growing weaker, too.  I couldn’t eat too much meat or beans without feeling the indigestion.  When the stir-fry vegetables are chewy, I’m also having a hard time eating it.  Therefore, I couldn’t tolerate kale well, no matter how nutritious it is. At the end of last August, when I saw Costco had Vitamix on sale, I bought it after getting my husband’s consent of drinking green smoothies for breakfast.  My plan was to get up as early as he does and make green smoothies for both of us.

With the powerful Vitamix, I become more adventurous.  I use a variety of raw veggies for the smoothies, not just spinach and lettuce.  Every morning I make 4.5 cups of green smoothies.  He takes 1.5 cups while I drink the rest.  Sometimes I save one cup for the girls to share after school.  On Saturdays, the whole family drink at least one cup of green smoothies for breakfast.  The effect?  My nails are growing faster and stronger.  I have more energy and less craving for caffeine.  Coffee used to be my vice and I loved it, not only for energy but also the aroma, the taste, and the “I can conquer the world” caffeine effect.  I had no intention of quitting coffee before I started my green smoothies journey.  A couple of months into drinking green smoothies, however, I found out that if I get enough sleep that day and drink green smoothies, I don’t need coffee for energy and I don’t have headache (the common withdrawal symptom)!  Since I don’t usually get enough sleep on the weekdays, I drink green teas.  I now only drink coffee once a week, on Saturdays, when my husband and I sit in the coffee shop, waiting for the girls to get out of Chinese school.  I know green tea still contains caffeine but at least, I sleep better at night when I don’t drink coffee.  I still have coffee at home but I rarely have the desire to drink it.

You might want to know what I put in my green smoothies, well here is the staple ingredients, with some extras below:

Mix greens (or lettuce), kales, parsley, chard, cucumber, celery, avocado (or chia seeds), ginger roots, banana, pear (or apple), water kefir

Extra: cilantro, beet roots (cooked or raw), doTerra OnGuard essential oil, carrot tops, lime/lemon juice, flax seeds.