I learned a new word this week! Discrimination. Well, I learned a new meaning to this word. I have always associated it with racial prejudice, inequality, chauvinism, ageism, favoritism. All those yucky words that sadly still populate our daily lives.

A teacher was talking about a dietary cleanse she was on and how it just bloomed her discrimination muscle. What?! She went on about how this cleanse has helped her clean out many other things in her life that weren’t serving her. We were encouraged to find areas in our life where we could practice discrimination. I kind of thought she was nutso using that word so many times. I went home and looked it up.

Ding-ding-ding! 2 meanings! I’m a smart cookie and, unflatteringly, am often a know-it-all, but I love learning new things and this current lesson really speaks to me. Taking a new look at the word discrimination gives us an opportunity to disempower the negative history of the word. It’s also an important opportunity to think about our own unfair practices towards others.

discrimination, noun

1. the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people

2. the ability to recognize the difference between things that are of good quality and those that are not

I am going to bloom MY discrimination muscle! I want to look more closely at my associations and activities. I want to examine my habits. So often we do things out of obligation, out of conditioning, because we are worried about the opinion of others. We curate these lives that aren’t true to who we want to be. I have a bad habit of saying yes! Do you want to go to this thing? Yes. Can you work this job? Yes. Will you support my project? Yes. Are you interested in contributing to this? Yes. Do you have time for this? Yes. Yes. Yes.

At heart, I know I am a YES person. I get it from my sweet Dad. If anyone needs something done, ask Sam. He’ll lend you the thing, pick you up, take you there, give you the money, open up his home, feed you his lunch. It was amazing growing up with a man that provided the example of generosity and saying yes in every situation. He was an only child and I think as an adult he finds great joy in sharing everything. If he was a superhero, his super power would be generosity and his emblem would be a big YES! on his chest.

I don’t want to lose my generosity, I want to make it really pure and potent. I feel like this lesson in discrimination and learning to pick and choose will empower the choices I make. My NO’s will come from a place of truth and wanting to clear out the things my heart really isn’t into. And my YES’s will have real value. Using discernment, I will be with the people I love the most, doing the jobs that bring me the most abundance and creativity, and my actions won’t be frivolous or mediocre. My choices will be intentional and life will be getting the very best version of me. I will be refining Lisa Adams to a higher quality.

My teacher sharing about her cleanse struck another chord with me, I used to have a problem with cleanses. By problem I mean I was addicted to them. It was at a time in my life of feeling small and unloved so I made myself as small as possible by losing weight. I put my body through continuous juice cleanses, Master Cleanses, overuse of laxative teas, and plain old not eating. I think many of us have disordered eating tendencies and today's society is full of many opportunities to not only make too many ‘bad’ choices, but to overdo it on the ‘good’ choices. Discrimination.

In the spirit of picking ‘good’ choices, today I am sharing a recipe that is plain fun and delicious. A healthy choice that feels like a treat. I didn’t invent the Hot Pink Smoothie - there are many versions out there. This is my take on it inspired by my friend Melissa and her young son Teddy.