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Totally Vibrant Life!
March 2008  *  Vol. 1, No. 1
  

Welcome to the first edition of Pure Jeevan's email newsletter,
Totally Vibrant Life!

My name is Wendi Dee and it's my pleasure to spend time creating this newsletter, the contents on our Web site, and our daily blog entries to possibly inspire some of you to more fully embrace your lives and to actively live life to the fullest every moment of every day. I hope to encourage you to live a more holistic life�focusing on all areas of the beautiful person you are. We are complex beings made up of our bodies, minds, spirits, and emotions. When we are balanced in all these areas, we feel at peace no matter what is happening around us. When one or more parts of our selves is neglected, or given more attention than the rest, peace is not possible. With each Pure Jeevan newsletter, I hope you�ll find yourself reviewing your life in a more holistic way�and finding a wealth of peace and happiness as you balance all aspects of your totally vibrant life!

Our topic for this issue is Goal Setting. Earlier this year I spent the weekend with a beautiful and loving spiritual teacher, Leela Mata, at her Peaceful Valley Ashram. [To learn more about Leela Mata and her ashram, please visit our blog entry introducing her to our readers.] My focus for this first issue was setting goals and I was pleasantly surprised when Leela Mata�s Satsang (a wisdom discourse) focused on Goal Setting. As a special gift for you, Leela Mata allowed me to videotape a summary of her goal setting discussion before I left the ashram. We wanted this newsletter and video to be available in January, but we had never experienced video editing before. Thanks to Jim for his hard work in figuring the video editing programs out! The video needed to be split into two small parts, both of which are below.

In these videos, Leela Mata discusses goal setting for spiritual as well as practical day-to-day life. She gives advice on how to go about attaining your goals, reminding you to celebrate accomplishments every single day. 

[TWO videos follow, below. If they do not show up in your email, you can visit the web version of this newsletter as archived on our web site, here. There you will be able to watch both videos.]

Goals are important. If we don�t know what we want, we are simply watching life go by. There�s nothing wrong with living that way, of course. However, if you feel a desire to make changes for yourself or the world around you, goal setting is going to help you make those changes.

Look at my before and after pictures. Do you think I could make such drastic, positive changes in my life without having set a goal? I doubt it! Setting a goal and knowing why you have created that goal for yourself is a very powerful step in seeing it realized.

How to Set and Meet Goals

1. Decide what it is you want. If goal setting is new to you, start off simple. Even simple goals help bring you closer to living the life you truly desire.
    
2. Write your goal down. Use specific language. Instead of writing �I want to lose weight,� try �I want to lose # pounds by a specific date.� I don�t actually advise you to set a weight-loss goal, however. I�ll soon be explaining why in our blog.
    
3. Figure out why you want to set and meet your goal. This is a very important step! If you don�t fully know why you want to achieve a goal, it�s too easy to lose your focus and allow your goal to fade away.
    
4. Visualize yourself succeeding with your goal. See yourself with the goal accomplished, experience how great it feels to have met the goal. Spend five minutes every morning reading your goal, visualizing it having been met, and sensing how it feels to have accomplished it.
    
5. Now comes the fun part! Break your goal into manageable steps. Based on Leela Mata�s discussion, Pure Jeevan has created a fun downloadable/printable Goal Ladder resource to help you with your goal setting! (Click here to access it.)

TASK TIME If you haven�t already done so, why not set some goals for yourself? Try to focus on your entire self (body, mind, spirit, and emotions), creating as many ladders needed to help you meet your goals. If you feel like sharing the goals you�ve set for yourself, we�d love to hear from you! If we can encourage you in any way to continue climbing your ladders, we�re more than happy to assist you!

 
PURE JEEVAN NEWS

The biggest news is that Pure Jeevan successfully launched our Web site and blog (journal) in January. The site has taken a little over eight months to conceptualize, design, and write. It was a labor of love, however, since we feel passionate about sharing our experiences with the raw food diet and what it has done for our lives. If you haven�t checked out our site yet, please do when you get some free time. Let us know what you think�we love hearing from our visitors!

Blog
 
Our blog has some regular features you�ll see each week. Here�s a quick summary of them, with links to each individual feature:

• Makin� It Monday: Every Monday we share a raw / living foods recipe with you that we�ve either made and loved in the past, or plan on makin� sometime soon!
   
• Take the Time Tuesday: Take the time to meet someone special. Each Tuesday we introduce you to an individual, or business, we think might be of interest to you.
   
• Weird Wednesday: Wednesdays are for strange news articles we think you may find interesting, or which may cause you to pause for a moment to think.
   
• Thankful Thursday: Thankful Thursdays are for sharing something we�re thankful for and we hope you�ll share something of your own, as well.
   
• Fun-Filled Friday: Fridays are all about fun�either having some that day or planning for some fun for the weekend or near future. We�ll share what we�re doing and we hope you�ll share what your plans are, as well!

You�ll also find that on our blog we share recipes, posts containing our thoughts on specific topics, and so much more. Our blog is the most active part of Pure Jeevan�s online presence. We hope you�ll take the time to read it. You can sign up to be automatically updated when we enter new posts by visiting our blog and entering your email address in the "subscribe" box on the right-hand side.

Services and Events

As requested by one of our readers, we will be formatting some of Pure Jeevan's Web site text (particularly the Going Raw Journal and Raw Foods 101 information) into a printable format for those who prefer reading text on paper, rather than a computer screen (and for those who don't have regular access to a computer). Once it's ready, we'll post a note on our blog. Thanks for your interest and we are happy to make the information available for you in another format.

Pure Jeevan organized some small events during January and February. Two of them were spiritual, with Leela Mata visiting from the Peaceful Valley Ashram to hold Satsang and Devaki visiting for a Kirtan Satsang. We also hosted a raw food potluck for the Pittsburgh Raw Food Meetup group.

Future events are being worked on. We'll be setting up some Raw Food Q&A Sessions in Pittsburgh to help those who are curious about raw foods, but want to talk with someone living the lifestyle. The Q&A sessions are a free, easy way to spread the word about raw foods and the health benefits that can come with a change in ones diet.

At the Raw Food Potluck, we were asked if we ever hold raw food events for groups of friends. Yes, but we require a group of six to eight individuals. We've updated the information on our site to include this service. Thank you for asking!  

As we mentioned in one of our first blog posts, Pure Jeevan met with Leela Mata at her Peaceful Valley Ashram to discuss the details for some 3-day Raw Food Spiritual Retreats for you during 2008! The details are finalized and we are proud to announce our first 3-Day Raw Food Spiritual Retreat, that will be held at the ashram from May 23-25, 2008. We've set this retreat up so that it's as affordable as possible. There's a significant savings if you sign up early, so be sure to check it out! We're also happy to announce that some raw food snack companies have offered to donate some of their products for the gift baskets that will be given to those attending the retreat. So far, Gopal's Health Foods, Love Street Living Foods, and Gnosis Chocolate have generously offered to supply us with samples. Keep an eye on the retreat page to see other companies that will be sharing delicious raw food snacks with those attending the retreat! Thanks so much, Gopal's, Love Street, and Gnosis!

 
TASTE JEEVAN

You are in for a real treat if you are a fan of vegetable stir fry! We've taken the Stir-Not-Fry idea from Matt Amsden's book, Rawvolution (one of our favorite raw food books), and stirred it up a bit more. We think we have come up with an even tastier Stir-Not-Fry (but Matt's is wonderful, so give his a try sometime)! If you try this recipe, we'd love to hear your comments and share them with others in our next newsletter.

Pure Jeevan's "Stir, Don't Fry"
	4-6 carrots 4 stalks celery 2 large broccoli stalks, peeled 2 bunches broccoli tops, chopped small 2 peppers (yellow and red) sliced very thin 3 scallions sliced/chopped thin 1 handful of sesame seeds Juice of one lemon 2-3 Tablespoons of olive oil Salt, to taste Nama Shoyu or Bragg's Amino Acids to taste 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1-2 cups snow peas
With a shredding device (hand held or food processor), shred the carrots, celery, and broccoli stalks. Add the remaining ingredients and stir, don't fry! You can let this sit for a while to soften the vegetables, or place it in the dehydrator on 105 degrees, to warm it up a tiny bit.

 
QUESTIONS

If you�ve viewed our site, can you share with us what you liked and didn�t like? We�d love to make it as user-friendly as possible. If you could please let us know what is and isn�t organized in ways that best serve you, we would very much appreciate your time in writing to us. Also, what do you think of our first newsletter. All feedback is greatly appreciated, so that we can make the next newsletter more of what our readers are looking for from us. You can contact me, directly, at [email protected].

Also, if there�s something you�d like us to include on the Web site, in our blog, or here in the newsletter, please let us know. We are always happy to answer any questions you may have, as well.

Thanks for reading!

Lots of love to all of you,

  Wendi
   XOXOXO