My First Blog Giveaway! And the Power of Perspective

If I can get blogger to co-operate - here goes with my first ever blog giveaway!

I am so grateful to Amazing Grass for their generosity in sending me so many samples to try out - hope you saw my series of reviews for them last week. Now, we're teaming up for a giveaway! 

More on that in a moment - first, today's reflection on self love - 'How do you witness the power of perspective in your life? Do you currently face something where your perspective could make a difference?

Awe and gratitude to Tina once again for a wonderfully-crafted series of reflections, that have been such a powerful tool in my own work on becoming my best - and we are just coming to the end of our first week.

Cauliflower leaves look so huge in the perspective of chives and carrots. And the thought of the frozen months makes all this fecundity so treasured…

Perspective… We all have our true north, but even true north has its declination. I love that Tina has brought in 'perspective' as a part of this invitation to find our true north. Self love is all about finding the best expression of our own gifts, but perspective invites us to acknowledge that this expression is flexible in different contexts.

I feel that my 'true north' is my poetry writing, and that everything else I do feeds into it somehow. But, as Alaska's Writer Laureate Nancy Lord advised us in the closing speech of the Kachemak Bay Writers Conference back in June, it's good to do 'other writerly things' as well as just writing. Perspective tells me that I can't realistically expect to have wonderful poems springing forth fully formed like Athena from Zeus' head every single day, nor that the process of revision will be as delightful in every case as I often find it to be. 'Other writerly things' include reading, even reading the occasional low-brow genre novel (amazing the kinds of poetic ideas that come from excursions of those kinds), walking in nature, blogging, gardening, interacting with other writers. 

A sense of perspective also dulls the aching edge of perfectionism. Since we are all coming from different perspectives, it's foolish for me to think that everyone who reads my work is going to love it - indeed, it encourages me to stop and think about whether I even want it to appeal to everyone!

The realization that it's OK to have preferences has come very late to me, and it's a precious freedom.

Raspberries are full-on here. I put a handful, that I'd just harvested, in my smoothie this morning, with chia-sweet, a ts of flax, pea protein powder, almond-brazil milk, herbal tea (reishi and fo-ti and chai rooibos), maca and wheatgrass juice. I love how the Vita-Mix can handle all those little seeds and the wonderful, thick, smooth texture of the smoothie!

Because that is how I love to make my smoothies, I chose Amazing Grass' superfood powders to give away (as opposed to the 'made up' meal replacements and energy bars) - I think the superfood powders are just a wonderful 'ingredient' that also stand alone just mixed with water. And so, I'm giving away an 8.5 oz bottle of the 'original' green superfood powder 

and another of the chocolate flavor. 

The chocolate flavor tastes out of this world to me; the original flavor is great too (but not quite chocolate!) but it doesn't have the oat fiber that I, for one, have to treat with caution, so I think it's an even more super product.

Please enter this giveaway and take your chance to enjoy Amazing Grass' great products and generosity!

To Enter:

1 - Mandatory - leave a comment below telling me why you want to win this.

2 - Visit Amazing Grass' website and leave a comment back here telling me which products interest you the most.

3 - Tweet this giveaway with a link and reference me @Ela_HG - and leave a comment here telling me you've done so.

4 - Follow Amazing Grass on twitter and leave a comment here telling me you've done so.

5 - Mention this giveaway on your blog - and leave five entries here saying you've done so.

I'm going to run this for a week and announce the winner next Tuesday. Good luck and thanks!