| “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” -Dr. Wayne Dyer |
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Sometimes as proud, busy, schedules-filling Americans, we are more concerned with being productive, instead of living the good life.
Last week, I was very in touch with all of my earthly possessions (especially since they are scattered about my floor in the new apartment). I was reminded that life is about more than making money and acquiring more things. In the light of an earthquake in Italy and flooding in Louisiana, life is about much more than our earthly possessions and status.
There is a lot of pleasure and joy to be found in experiences. Simple experiences such as a pleasant dinner with your family, going to play at the pool, accidentally stumbling upon a free outdoor concert, or getting an ice cream cone on a warm summer night.
Clearly, it is necessary to make money in order to keep a roof over your head and food on the table, but perhaps there is more opportunity to simply enjoy life?
I believe this concept is well summed up by Dr. Wayne Dyer in an excerpt from Change Your Thoughts to Change Your Life:
“Be a good animal and move freely, unencumbered with thoughts about where you should be and how you should be acting. For instance, imagine yourself as an otter just living your “otterness.” You’re not good or bad, beautiful or ugly, a hard worker or a slacker… You’re simply an otter, moving through the water or on the land freely, peacefully, playfully and without judgments.”
Food for thought:
Take a moment to be present today. Notice a beautiful flower or delight in a pleasant conversation at the office.
As a client reminded me last week, “After all, doing nothing is one of the best parts of being human.”
Recipe of the Week: CrockPot Thai Steak Salad
With back-to-school routines on the mind, we all need a little more help in the kitchen. That’s where the slow cooker comes in handy!
Normally, we think CrockPots are for cold weather… Put the tender cooked steak with a peanut-hoisein sauce on chopped greens and bam! You’ve got a yummy summer-time dinner.
This week’s recipe, CrockPot Thai Steak Salad is brought to you by thefoodcharlatan.com.
Life is too short to not treat ourselves, especially in those really special, not-going-to-happen-everyday moments. Gretchen Rubin, author of Better Than Before, is a big fan of “treats” and so am I! She says that a treat can be anything that makes you happy. It can be a new book, extra time to meditate, a phone call with a pal or of course a yummy food or drink.
The key to treating ourselves in a well-balanced manner is to not let food treats creep into our everyday moments. This is tricky, right?? It is really easy to get in the habit of ending every meal with something sweet. I like how Eve Schaub puts it in her book Year of No Sugar. She says something along the lines of ‘not eating dessert after dinner feels like going to a movie and leaving right before the happy ending.’ Can you relate? Yep, me too. Eating a sweet after every meal is a hard habit to break but it’s an important one to think about.
Melissa Hartwig, creator of the whole30 program has a good rule of thumb. She calls it the one bite rule and it basically means don’t be afraid to stop at one bite if that food isn’t all that you thought it was cracked up to be. She says, “the only reason to indulge in a less healthy treat in the first place is if it’s so incredibly, deliciously worth it that you’re willing to accept the less healthy consequences as a trade-off for getting romantic with this treat.”
So for me those (two) s’mores that I ate were totally worth it! I savored every bite and took in the moment! And I loved watching my 3 year old do the same!! But I don’t want to reintroduce the sugar dragon in my life on a nightly basis. I sleep better and feel better without it.
So….here are some questions for you to ponder….
1. What makes you happy? What one considers a treat, may not be what you consider a treat. So knowing yourself is important! Make a list of at least 3 things that make you happy.
2. Which food treats are super special and worth every calorie? Is it your momma’s homemade pumpkin pie? Is it a latte from your favorite coffee shop that you enjoy with a friend? What makes them special to you?
3. What foods are you eating regularly that you could really pass up? Store bought cookies? Ice cream after dinner every night? Stale doughnuts at the office? Do they really taste good? Are they really special?
4. What non-food treats can you enjoy more often?
if nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies
Stuff! Stuff everywhere! It’s moving week, and I’m not a huge fan of change.
As the story goes, when I attended preschool, it came time to transition from pre-K to kindergarten and I did not handle myself with grace and kindness.
Back then, when a child was acting out the teachers would give the child a bear hug from behind to help calm them down. Here comes five-year-old Lucy acting out because she had to switch schools, make new friends, adopt a new routine, and get used to new teachers – all in the same week! So I kind of freaked out.
The caring and brave teacher comes up and gives me a bear hug from behind, wrapping her arms around my arms and body with the hope of calming me down. Instead, this seemed to make matters worse so I bit the teacher. My mom will confirm I was not regularly biting people. Needless to say, this story goes down in history as a preliminary example of how I handle change.
I am proud to report that I have not bitten anyone all week! Below you’ll find some ideas for your own well-balanced transition back into the school year.
Strategies for Managing Change and Getting Back into a Groove:
- Put first things first. In a move, our family’s rule of thumb is to unpack the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom first. When you have food to eat, a place to wash up, a bed to sleep and clothes on your back you are okay. If you aren’t unpacking but still in midst of a change, consider focusing on keeping these areas tidy and ready for your new routine.
- Ease back into it. When starting a new routine, consider doing a few practice rounds of going to bed earlier, packing lunches the night before and taking those 5-10 minutes of meditation or prayer time during the day to center yourself.
- Practice gratitude. In times of change I often start to feel a “not wanting” sensation – not wanting to unpack boxes, not wanting to deal with the change of address situation, etc. This is the mind’s natural tendency to resist change. Whenever I noticed this coming over me I stop and think of 5 things I’m grateful for.
- Don’t forget the magical power of list making to keep you on track. From my awesome brother-in-law, Jamie “Wunderlist is good for general list keeping. We share a couple of lists like the Home Depot and pre-vacation list.We use AnyList for food shopping. It lets you keep a list of favorites for quick staples shopping and you can create recipe lists which allow you to add all items for a specific dish. And it will put stuff into categories like Produce, Frozen, Meat, Canned Goods, etc.”
Food for thought:
The only constant in life is change.
Whether it’s a change by your design or by a greater power, let us view these as opportunities to reset and become more well-balanced.
It’s 8pm. My husband is working the late shift. I just put the kids to bed. It was far from the peaceful scene I once pictured in my head before having kids. You know… sweet snuggles, fun bubble baths and sweet hugs and kisses before I leave the room. Don’t get me wrong there was some of that but not without plenty of struggles. Like the sprinting after my child who is running from me the moment I mention bath time, the frantic ‘oh crap where’d the paci go’ search, the argument over which pajamas to put on (the clean ones or the ones she has worn 5x in a row already), the shame from losing my temper, the cries for attention when I only have 2 hands and 1 lap, and the long lasting pleading, screaming, whiny finale I hear when I finally say, “it’s time to go to bed.”
Sigh. I close the door. While I still hear crying I walk down the stairs and look around at my messy house. I see dishes to do, toys to clean, emails to return, projects to work on…. ugh..I just can’t. It’s too much and I feel like I just ran a marathon! So, I open the pantry and I treat myself to some cookies. Just one more. And another. I can’t stop. Oh look… the package is gone. This is embarrassing.
Hello. My name is Kristen and I am a recovering perfectionist. I never thought I would admit to overindulging in a moment of weakness. To start out my blog post telling you about the far from perfect bedtime scene in my house. But I can share this with you now because I’ve learned to have compassion for myself, to realize that I’m only human, to look at my failures as lessons and to not let my failures define me.
Turns out that a requirement for being a human is to be imperfect. Which means FAILING is just part of the whole process. Well-balanced eating (and well-balanced living for that matter) is not fail proof because at the end of the day no matter what plan we decide to follow we are only human and this is real life.
Too often we expect the journey to be picture perfect and we don’t plan 
for the struggles. It doesn’t matter the number of mistakes, slips, failures – no matter what you call them – that you have, it’s how you embrace them and what you do next that matter the most. Lucy and I like to call them LESSONS because there is always something you can learn or a way you can grow from something not going the way you hoped. We can get a lot further if we embrace the struggle, have compassion for ourselves and never let our set-backs define us. Learn, love, grow and keep on, keeping on. What “lessons” have you learned lately?
Here is some food for thought:
What areas in your life did you imagine to be picture perfect?
What mistakes, slips, failures in your life can you embrace a little more? What lessons can you learn?
Do you beat yourself up for making mistakes? What can you do to show yourself more compassion when you mess up? (Journaling and positive affirmations work wonders for me!)
Are you letting your mistakes define you or hold you back? Instead, what can you do to grow?
If you are persistent, you will get it. If you are consistent, you will keep it.
I spend my spare time at the YMCA of Durham or Chapel Hill. I like to tell people if I’m not outside playing in the woods, I prefer to be playing at the YMCA.
Given my regular presence at the Y, I have the opportunity to see and get to know other people that workout there too. Some of you might remember Bendy Al, who typically works out between 1 – 3 PM. Then there are the highly motivated morning folks getting their sweat on between 5:30 – 8 AM – y’all are crazy and I love it! Not surprisingly, there’s quite the rush around 5 PM for people coming in after work.
If we’ve learned nothing else about making habits over the last 6 weeks, we know the most important part of establishing a habit is consistency. The people that regularly include exercise are the ones that show up around the same time at least a few days per week.
Steps to workout success
Step 1
Identify your energy peak zone – Do you feel energized in the morning or afternoon? What’s your most productive hours of the day?
Step 2
Pick together or flying solo – Decide if you enjoy exercising with a friend, in a group or prefer to use it as your “me time” to listen to some jams and zone out.
Step 3
Decide inside or outside – Some people are highly unmotivated to go to the gym but really enjoy walking in the park or around their neighborhood. That counts too! There are plenty of hiking trails around these parts in North Carolina to explore.
Step 4
Put it on your calendar – Most appointments we put on the calendar become priory. Take a look at yours and find a time to schedule the workouts.
Step 5
Track your awesomeness! My secret reward at the end of the day is to check my iPhone health apps and see how many steps I got that day. If it’s less than 10,000 I can usually take a walk around the block to get there. Maybe you have a Fitbit to keep you motivated? Or perhaps you’d prefer to track based on how your clothes fit or how much weight you can bench press now versus 3 months ago.
Food for thought:
You can’t wish or hope your way into regular exercise or a fit body.
Using the steps above you can create your ideal workout plan and make it happen!
Recipe of the Week: Mason Jar Greek Chicken Salad
It’s moving week!!! (I’m not going far, just back towards SouthPoint)
That means I’m going to need some easy grab-and-go meals. These mason jar salads can be prepared at the start of the week and will stay fresh 5-7 days in the fridge.
This week’s recipe, How to Make Greek Chicken Mason Jar Salad is brought to you by organizeyourselfskinny.com and youtube.com.
