Whether you believe in Mercury Retrograde or not, I feel like everyone I talk to is having an intense month.

I know the moon influences us; take a look at the tides (or an ER during a full moon) and there’s no denying that. And Mercury…well, whatever the reason, things have been a little lot crazy lately.

When things get fiery, how we nourish ourselves can make a big difference in our ability to cope.

For the next two weeks, Bryonie Wise and I will be sharing some ways you can nourish and calm yourself by adding a little juice to your day.

Kate says:

I have a love-hate relationship with coffee.

I’ll take it off the menu completely for months at a time, and that can be useful. When I hit a bit of doldrums, including 8 oz. of coffee in the morning is just what I need to help me focus and get motivated. But, often times, including caffeine in our lives gets habitual rather than medicinal.

I’ve found lately that I am so busy—internally and externally—that adding more coffee on top of that ends up being extra fuel on the brain fire instead of being helpful.

Balance is a good thing; our bodies want it. They let us know when we aren’t balanced, and if we pay attention they can show us how to restore that balance again.

The past two weeks I’ve been feeling off-balance, over-heated and fiery-brained. In other words, it’s July and it’s Mercury Retrograde. Yesterday, I found myself wide awake at midnight working on half a dozen different things and making headway on none of them. When we get to that place that feels like we are flooding our engines, we actually are. We have over-stimulated our adrenals and they need to be replenished.

Enter: Green Lemonade.

Most of us have heard or read that water and lemon is a great way to start the day. Adding greens in the mix, and other fruits or vegetables that nourish and balance the adrenals is just icing on the cake.

Step One: Gather your ingredients. Green lemonade is pretty variable. Sometimes I’ll throw cucumber in, and often mint or ginger. Today was mostly greens and lemon.

Step 2: Blend the greens.

I make my Green Lemonade in a blender, and I like to blend the greens with water first before adding anything else.

Step 3. Add a lemon (peeled) and a little sweet fruit (or Stevia) and blend again. This time around I added two apricots, which are high in iron and beta carotene.

Step 4. Enjoy!

This was definitely a good start to my morning. I had a small cup of coffee mid-morning, but didn’t have the wild energy and adrenal swings that accompany starting the day off with a few cups.

*****

Bryonie says:

Sometimes we ebb and sometimes we flow—and then there are the times when it feels like we are bashing our heads into a wall.

Enter Mercury Retrograde.

I know, I know; some of you may be rolling your eyes right now, thinking to yourselves, Oh, isn’t Mercury always in Retrograde—to which I will say, No—no, it fucking isn’t. And if you don’t feel what’s happening right now, then Buddha bless you.

For about a month or so after the cleanse Kate and I did, I was rocking juice and/or smoothies at least twice a day; balance, calm, practicing everyday and then: crash. 

My electronic devices have been wreaking havoc on my nerves (and wallet), travel has been frustrating, unpleasant and stressful (to say the least) and all of my personal relationships (especially the one with myself) are suffering. I work every hour that I’m not sleeping, I’ve forgotten what downward dog feels like in my body—and I can only imagine what it would be mean to have the day off and do nothing (the last time that happened I had a stomach flu and I still managed to edit.)

So there.

I know that we all have our shit to deal with; some days are golden and we want them to last forever and others, all we can think about is crawling into our beds and under our comforters.

While everything else feels like it’s floating in the ethers right now (or spinning out of control, depending on whether you are a glass half-empty, half-full kind of person), there are a few things that I are holding me to ground; daily juicing, as much sleep as I can muster (with a sleep mask!), teaching, baths, love and my dog.

I love the juice that Kate made and even just hearing about it started to make by brain cool; and, though I was on a huge coffee kick for ages before our cleanse, since, I’ve had coffee twice.

Both times, while it tasted delicious (with freshly made nut milk and some cinnamon) going in, it left me feeling like my head was going to explode. The end of the day never seemed to come and I literally couldn’t settle my body, mind or spirit.

I’ve switched to warm water, lemon and cayenne pepper most mornings, but today I wanted to try a variation of Kate’s magical Green Lemonade.

Here is my twist: lemons, limes, kale, banana, raspberries, water.

It was delicious, cooling and just the what I needed on a warm, sunny summer day.

(And, I know we’ll all get through this rough patch; I know that slowing down and caring for my health makes a huge difference in how I deal with the storms of life. While we’re looking after our brains and finding ways to cool them while still keeping them inspired, it’s also important to rest the body and the spirit.)

Follow the moment-by-moment details of our juicing adventures on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter with #kandbjuicecleanse.

Have any great juice recipes that make your heart beat quicker? We’d love to hear them!

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{Photo: via Pinterest}