By Molly Patrick
Dec 27, 2016,
It doesn’t matter how many (juicer-less) green juices we have a day. It doesn’t matter how often we do yoga. It doesn’t matter how plant based we eat.
We all get stuck. We all mess up. We all have painful truths that are hard to look at.
All of these things help to keep us balanced, strong, and healthy, but they aren’t the golden ticket for never fucking up.
No one is perfect, and we all have our stuff.
Maybe you’ve been binge eating.
Maybe you lied to someone you love.
Maybe you hide how much you really drink.
Maybe you did everything right, and you still feel like shit.
Maybe you’re stalking your ex.
Maybe you don’t eat as healthy as you tell people you do.
Maybe you’re depressed and unhappy, and you do everything you can to hide it from your people.
Maybe you didn’t want to say yes.
Maybe you’re addicted to alcohol or sugar.
Maybe you didn’t want to say no.
Maybe you’re a workaholic.
Maybe you did it for the wrong reasons.
Maybe your career is crumbling.
Maybe you were mean.
Maybe you want a divorce, and you don’t dare let the words slip from your lips.
Maybe you’re gay, and the thought of people finding out is enough to shit your pants.
Maybe you’re just shy of rock bottom.
We all have our stuff. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human.
The next time you feel a wave of emotion swelling up inside, don’t push it down. Don’t muzzle it. Don’t try to carry on with your day. Don’t run from it. Don’t wish it gone. Don’t reach for something to make it feel better.
Instead, stop whatever you’re doing, find a quiet place where you can be alone, and allow it to come. Let it swell up inside of you until it has no choice but to move its way out through you and spill over into the universe.
Let go.
Release.
Purge.
It might be ugly, and it might be painful. It might come with sobs of anger. It might come with screaming. It might come with crying until you have no more tears to cry. It might come with sounds that don’t sound human. Or it might be more subtle, a stomach ache, sweaty palms, quicker breathing.
This won’t be easy to sit with, but after your cathartic release, you’ll have a refreshing sense of calm, you’ll have clarity, and you’ll have a little more peace.
You also might have your answer.
Swallowing our issues and gulping them down is easier than running into the arms of discomfort and facing the very things that we keep stashed away and hidden from the world and even ourselves.
But sometimes, the only way to have a breakthrough is to first have a breakdown.
So stop fighting. Stop pushing away. Stop resisting. Stop swallowing it. Stop pretending it’s not there. Stop trying to make the hard part go away faster.
Take the counterintuitive path and ease into your tension. Accept your pain. Feel your discomfort. Welcome your fear. Greet your anxiety. Salute your embarrassment. Embrace your disappointment. Own your sadness. Make love to your anger.
Breakdown and then Breakthrough.
You are love. You are peace. You are beauty. You are strength.
And you are going to be okay.
When you’re ready to make peace with your food, sign up for our whole-food plant-based meal plans and start honoring your beautiful body and life.
Have you ever had a breakdown that eventually led to a breakthrough? Talk to me about it in the comments below.
If you don’t have a juicer but want to make green juice at home, today’s juicer-less green juice recipe will help you accomplish that.
Ingredients
- 1 cup water 235ml
- 2 apples cored and cut into chunks
- ½ cucumber cut into quarters (take off the peel if it feels waxy)
- 1 carrot cut into quarters
- 1 small beet or part of a big beet cut into quarters
- ½ of a lime peeled
- Big handful of leafy greens
- ¼ cup parsley 8g
- ¼ cup mint 8g
- 1 small piece of ginger about half the size of your thumb
Instructions
- Place the water into your blender.
- Wash and prep all of the ingredients and place them into a bowl (apple, cucumber, carrot, beet, leafy greens, parsley, mint and ginger).
- Place the ingredients into your blender, a small handful at a time and blend between handfuls (if you have a powerful blender, like a Vitamix or a Blendtec, you can add all of your ingredients at once). Blend until all of the ingredients are nice and blended. The mixture will be thick.
- Pour the mixture through a nut milk bag or paint strainer bag and squeeze all of the juice out of the bag (make sure you place a medium-sized bowl under the bag to catch the juice). Squeeze until the pulp is dry and there is no liquid left.
- Transfer the juice to a glass and drink with a straw. You can save the pulp in your freezer for crackers, baking or to thicken soups if you like. Or you can add it to your compost.
- This isn’t a science – you can play around with different combos and have fun with it!
Check out our guide on how to juice without a juicer for all the deets.
Wishing you a happy week. May it be filled with a much-needed breakthrough.
Xo
Molly
More on juicing
Stop junk food cravings and glow from the inside out with our 3-day juice fast.
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I have recently learned about the term juicing. I am new at this, but I am noticing that when I start my day with juices, I am full of energy.
I always try to eat balanced a diet. I hope this new recipe will help me a lot. It contains full of energy.
Very convenient when you don’t have a juicer or you’re too lazy to clean one 😀
I’m new to juicing so does the type of apple (Granny Smith vs Honeycrisp) really matter for overall flavor of the drink? Thanks ????
This piece is a year and a half old as I discover it today, but it is an enduring and timeless work of courage and love, spoken by the authority we can believe- someone who’s BEEN there. Thank you Molly Patrick for your straight shooting genius, and the excellent model of self empowerment we all need. Nicely nicely done. I want everyone to read this.
Hi Pam,
This is one of the best compliments I have ever received.
Thank you for the love – I feel it!
xo
Molly
Sounds delicious. Is there a reason why you wouldn’t eat all of it like a smoothie instead of just the juice?
Hi Michele, Thanks for stopping by. Great question. While juicing does remove fiber from the ingredients, juicing leaves most of the vitamins, minerals and other phytonutrients so it’s a faster way to consume concentrated amounts of these nutrients compared to chewing and digesting them all with the fiber (or even drinking them as a smoothie). This isn’t necessarily a benefit if you are already eating a super healthy dietary pattern with lots of varied whole plant foods, but for many people who struggle to get vegetables and greens in their daily diet, juicing is a way to get in important nutrients that they might otherwise miss out on. Also, juicing is a great way to use up a lot of vegetables you have on hand that are nearing the end of their refrigerator stay. There’s something invigorating about drinking freshly made green juice. ~Karen
Molly, this looks like one of my morning smoothies. What would the advantage be of straining the end result? I normally either blend till there is some chunk left or till it is very smooth and just eat/drink it all!
Thank you for the honesty and heart you put into the world.
Hi Melane,
Green juice doesn’t have the fiber so the nutrients are absorbed rather than digested.
This gives your body a quick shot of pure nutrients.
Smoothies are also good! One isn’t necessarily better than the other. I do both every day.
Cheers and thank you for the love!
Molly
It is easy to see that the amount of produce I put through my juicer is way more than I care to eat in a day and is not a combination I would find appealing if left in its whole form. It’s just too much, especially with the rest of my plant-based eating. But, juiced all together they create a wonderful symphony of flavors that fills my body and soul with pure liquid sunshine!