Thursday, 19 January 2017

bad love [other imperfections]

What leads an independent, adult, autonomous and free woman, to transform herself in an imprisoned being in the name of a supposed love?
What takes an independent and free man to perpetuate violent acts upon a woman in the name of a supposed love?

Every day we are confronted with news on women ravished, assaulted or even murdered by their husbands, lovers, boyfriends, in the name of an extreme love, of passional jealousy or any other strange reason that could never justify such hedious acts. Societies have been facilitating the use of violence, the diminution of woman towards the supremacy of man. The complaisance of the means of justice, the ordinarily of acts of evil and we have been letting evolution of human being to be ruled by money values, social and economic appearances, where everything is valid and nothing gets punished.

Are women also responsible of crimes committed against themselves? Being the mothers and educators of future chauvinist, egocentric and sociopath men? Are women far from their responsibilities in the growth of respectful, balanced and generous children, raised by patterns of individual freedom and companionship among couples?
Are men condemned to the stigma of a wild and animal behavior? Where sex rules and sentimental vulnerability is seen as “social leprosy”, where dominant posture seems to enfold them in manly, aggressive and dictatorial attitudes towards the so called feminine “weak sex”?
Or are we all responsible, some for omission and others for social and generational rooting?
Is the actual society the biggest responsible for the alienation of the right to love and be loved with no limits of affection or individual freedom incarceration, when exposes each person to an infinite number of violent, sanguinary, egocentric, warlike and xenophobic acts, class exclusion and extreme poverty?

All these questions run through my mind in a time when it gets more difficult each day to understand how can love be transformed into prison, hate, destructive jealousy, humiliation? What makes a man or a woman having pleasure in depleting their identical, their beloved ones, their life companion…? Why is it each day easier to whistle to the side, believing that certain problems only happen to others, to the weakest, the poorest or uncultured, the ones who suffer from some kind of psychosocial disturb?

Humanity have been living side by side with violence, with money and power affections, with the empowerment by ways of traffic and shady schemes. We have been educating ours through the concept that the strongest will survive, that any weapon used is justified, that respect and honor are obsolete concepts and that what we do inside walls doesn’t influence other people. Well, nothing is more wrong than to prize a society of selfishness, protected by unscrupulous laws, keeping antisocial and retrograde ideas, as we will be the victims of such precarious sustainability.

Does it make sense that love becomes a link of separation instead of being the highest force that allows the human being to evolve, keep it’s ancestry, to be a catalyzing force of energy and vital intelligence to our planet’s evolution? To me it doesn’t make sense, I can’t understand that human beings, similar amongst each other, are able to ostracize one another, fight with each other, compromise themselves to kill because they divert in opinions, in religion or faith, in gender... It doesn’t make sense to me that a man or a woman believe to be the owner of their partner's life, destroying them with words or actions, rapping physically or psychologically just because they feel superior in a shady hierarchy that society incentives to the delight of a greedy crowd for daily horrors of a reality show.

It’s imperative for me to keep believing that Love amongst people can’t never be sickly, abusive, cruel or hypnotic, as that is not Love, when it ends on a woman or man’s death!

by Nádia Prazeres

Friday, 13 January 2017

Diary of an [almost] healthy life ♥ smoothie recipe



This week passed especially quickly. The beginning was not the best with myself feeling poorly. I've been dedicated more to the [im]perfect store than to any other corner of my world. I haven't been much motivated for writing. Also, because of physical problems that have haunted me with uncertainties, it is often painful to be at the computer.

I try to understand life and what it wants from me. Test my willpower? Test my physical and emotional stamina? Every beginning of the year has been a real test of life. That must be why I have not been in such a hurry to finish the years as most people, quite the contrary, when it starts to treat me well is when it is ending.

I am fighting against the bad elements with the weapon I have: motivation to achieve my goals for 2017. Whoever said that changing the food style was easy,  it
is because one never did. Strangeness that it wasn't too difficult cutting some foods. I maintain a diverse diet, I continue to eat meat and fish, but in less quantity and with more fish options. I essentially introduced many more greens (in all ways and shapes), much more fruit, seeds, and nuts.

I am having a hard time finding the recipes that really satisfy me. Even those recipes that claim to be quick and easy to prepare seem to me far from ideal for a pace of life as intense as ours. I am gradually trying to know and understand ingredients and then trying to create and recreate new
really simple recipes that adapt to us and to our life. It has been time-consuming but an interesting and stimulating process too, there is so much to learn yet.

Today I am sharing one of the smoothies I have made that have helped me to go through the mornings without feeling hungry. A super simple and quick recipe to prepare. In this new kind of eating I decided to always have my blender handy and connected.

 
Ingredients:

♥ 5 blueberries
♥ 3 strawberries
♥ 5 raspberries
♥ 1 Greek natural yogurt (200gr)
♥ vanilla essence - I used about a centimeter of pod
♥ 1 tablespoon maple syrup
♥ 1 teaspoon chia seeds

Put all the ingredients in the blender. Mix for about 1 minut at full speed. Pour into a glass and decorate (optional).

To decorate (optional): 2 pecans and 1 small strawberry cut in small pieces, and 3 whole blueberries.

Bom apetite! ♥ Enjoy!