Category Archives: Blog

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Blog, Help Getting It Done, Inspirations

How To Boost Your Immunity

We’re living in some strange times right now…

You know, I had a whole ‘nother post planned for this week. But in the midst of COVID-19 and all the changes that are happening, as a lifestyle medicine and holistic physician, I feel a duty to share something to help. With all the news attention and the noise on social media, it can be easy to get swept up in a whirlwind of information. Unfortunately, most of the information is not constructive. The advice to observe social distancing and stay home as much as possible is paramount to slowing this pandemic. Good handwashing is an excellent practice to observe. But there aren’t many recommendations on what to do to try and stay healthy. And when we get a lot of information and no constructive actions to take, we can feel lost and even more worried than we already are.

Being able to manage our thoughts is absolutely critical to how we will experience this pandemic. And I’ll write more about this in the coming weeks. If you missed last week’s post, How Not To Panic, feel free to go back and catch up! But this week, I’d like to share the things that I do for myself and my family to keep our immunity strong and ready to fight! If you’ve been following me for awhile, you may have seen me share some of this. But I’m adding some new recommendations, so read on. Also, the link to my first YouTube video on my channel is at the end of the post – keep going!

Things To DO

Manage your stress

Your immune system starts to lose its power under excessive amounts of stress. We all have stress of some sort in our lives, and a little of it isn’t harmful. But the constant churn of danger messages in the background is like revving your car at high RPMs while you leave it in park – you’re gonna burn out the engine! Your brain is wired to detect danger to keep you safe. But that detection mechanism is designed to get you to move, so if the danger isn’t imminent and you don’t have to move immediately, then you can let your brain know that you are safe right now and that the message is noted. Good ways to manage stress: deep breathing with a full exhale, sitting quietly and looking out the window at nature, prayer, exercise, aromatherapy, and journaling. I may do a Facebook live on conscious breathing – it helps!

Get enough sleep

Now that many people are working from home, the commute is gone and we can get a little more time in bed. You might still be getting up early to manage the kids and set them up for their home school or digital learning days, but at least you don’t have the get-out-of-the-door hustle! It can be tempting to do things other than sleep in bed, like watching TV or playing on your phone, reading or getting work done on your computer. But too much of that activity can train your brain to treat the bed as a sleep optional zone and interfere with sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping once you get into bed, do a search on the internet for “sleep hygiene” and see if you can change any of your usual practices to help. If your mind is racing and worrying, keeping a journal or pad of paper by the bedside to scribble down your thoughts or to-dos can help unload the burden and allow you to sleep.

Eat whole foods

You knew I’d get to this one! Now that you’re home more, you can prepare more meals! Even if you don’t know how to cook many things from scratch, this is an excellent time to add a few recipes to your arsenal. Check out the section on recipes on this blog – most of my recipes are designed to be quick. And while you’re preparing meals, the more raw food you can eat, the better for your immunity. The fiber and enzymes in raw fruits and veggies help the immune system stay strong!

Put out a fruit bowl, keep a bag of prepared salad ready to go in the frig (just mix lettuces, chopped cucumber/carrot/pepper/celery or whatever you like and put it in a zip bag). Drop baby carrots on the side of the lunch plates. Make a lunch of hummus and fresh veggies. My kids ate hummus, bruschetta, eggplant dip, guacamole with crackers and veggies one day for their lunch this week. I made a massaged kale salad today that was incredible – took me ten minutes to prepare and was full of antioxidants, good fat, and thyroid gland supporting seasoning (I used a little seaweed sprinkle). So good!

Lunch!

Take a fiber supplement and a probiotic

I’m not usually big on recommending supplements. Not because I don’t believe in them, but because I don’t want to encourage the idea that supplements can fix a crappy diet and lifestyle. They can’t. But if you’re eating whole foods, mostly plants and want to go the extra mile, this is a good next step. I use an organic psyllium fiber supplement daily, a tablespoon in a big glass of water. I don’t have trouble with constipation, but this is an excellent practice if you do. The better you can eliminate the waste out of the colon, the less energy your body has to divert in clearing that out of you. Psyllium is a great broom for the colon – just sweeps the waste right out. You’ll find the “go” is much easier!

Gut health is your first line of defense against disease, along with your skin. The way bad things get in to your body is through your skin and mucus membranes (eyes, nose, mouth) and through your digestive system. If you are eating lots of processed and prepared food, your gut is not getting top of the line care. In addition to feeding yourself high quality foods, a probiotic can help put good bacteria that help you fight disease back into the place where it’s needed most – your intestines. When you shop for a supplement, look for the following things: a blend of different strains of bacteria including multiple types of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria, counts of at least 15 billion CFU (colony forming units) for adults, and GMP or NSF certification (these are companies that certify that what the bottle says is what’s inside. Supplements aren’t regulated, so you need independent certification.). I have a chewable probiotic for the kids too, because they don’t swallow pills yet. We also use elderberry syrup as an immune booster.

Support your liver

Your liver and kidneys do the incredibly hard work of detoxifying your body from all the exposures that come around you every day. So in addition to avoiding as many chemicals as you can and drinking lots of water, do what you can to support your liver. I love to make beet juice, so if you have a juicer you can juice 2 beets, 6 carrots, 2 apples and a small chunk of ginger, add the juice of one lemon and you have a great and delicious liver cleanser! Other foods to support the liver are grapefruit, berries, dark leafy and bitter greens, turmeric, and a cup of tea or coffee (please organic – don’t soak chemicals from conventional teas and coffee in hot water and drink them!).

My beet juice – yum!

Get outside

For now, social distancing can be done outside. I let my kids go on a walk in a park the other day. I didn’t let them play on the playground equipment since the virus can live on surfaces for a long time (and I wasn’t going to be able to disinfect the whole playground!). Playing in the backyard if you have one, walks in the neighborhood, waving at your neighbors from a distance all allow you to get out, clears the lungs out with fresh air, and get you a little exercise!

Stay connected

And not just on social media. We’ve been using virtual meeting platforms to do church with our family group, and my husband called his mom on one to see her and share my first YouTube video (The premiere is 8 pm, 3/20/2020 – Come see!) Social connection can be nourishing to our souls, and we need each other. Isolation can be damaging to our immunity and mental health. Even a non-shy introvert like myself needs people and connection. So call, video chat, email and reach out to your friends and family – we need each other more than ever right now!

Things NOT to do

There are things that cause the immune system to fray and unravel. The number one is unchecked stress, so if you are having trouble managing your anxiety alone, please get help. Many practitioners are doing virtual visits now, so you can explore this even as you stay at home. Staying up late binge watching shows limits your sleep, and excessive screen time exposes you to lots of blue light. Blue light impedes your natural melatonin release, which makes it harder for you to sleep. Don’t drink alcohol habitually – it also impairs the quality of your sleep later in the night, so even if you fall asleep, you wake up tired. Don’t eat much processed and fried foods (if at all) – you’ll own the weight gain when you get back out into the world, and your liver has to work overtime on processing that stuff.

Be careful…

I know things are challenging right now. But we can use this time as an opportunity to take even better care of ourselves and each other. Try these things above to keep yourselves healthy and let me know what you’re doing to boost your immunity and wellness in the comments below!

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Blog, Mind Management

How Not To Panic

In the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, it can be easy to get swept up in all the emotion and chaos. Being in healthcare, I thought I was immune to all that. I haven’t cleared out the stores for bleach and toilet paper, and I haven’t been hoarding face masks from work, but I started feeling a little worried this week. And I know exactly what triggered it…

Of course, like most physicians, I’ve been following the evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak closely. Not only do I want to do what I can to keep myself and my family safe, but I also have to know what to do if one of my patients thinks that they’ve been exposed. The hospitals and company I work for are sending regular reminds and updates, and I’m reading the CDC guidelines as they evolve. No problem. But two weeks ago I got a group text from a friend recommending that we all buy particulate respirators from a hardware store. Then I saw a video on Facebook that showed a guy saying the news media was lying to the public when they said that we didn’t know about coronavirus, when clearly it’s well known because it’s listed on the back of the lysol sanitizer wipes container!

Then I was asked for my recommendations on how to help keep our congregation at church safe.

Midweek service COVID-19 update…

So I offered to give a quick overview of the COVID-19 outbreak at church and I answered questions about it. And as I gave the most updated information, I knew (and said) that not only was the situation evolving very quickly, but also the numbers of cases were going to rise substantially because testing was becoming more widely available. So I knew that things were about to ramp up. Did that keep me totally calm?

Um, no. This whole thing kind of reminds me of being in medical school and taking microbiology. When we learned about all the bacteria and viruses and illnesses that come from becoming infected with them, most of us became expert hand washers and obsessive about cleanliness and avoiding other people’s germs. But after awhile, all that got to be exhausting, so most of us gave up that level of vigilance. Don’t get me wrong – we still all know that the danger is there and we are alert and careful for our patient’s sake. But many of us (me included!) act like we can’t catch anything. We get the flu shot because we’re required to have it at work, but we doubt that we’d get the flu anyway. It’s the pendulum swing back in the opposite direction.

So when I realized that our house probably did need to stock up on a few things like toilet paper and antibacterial wipes, folks had already cleared out the stores. And I wanted to reassure myself that I wasn’t too far behind in preparedness and that I hadn’t put my family in danger. So in addition to hearing the news reports on NPR in the car, I started looking into links on Facebook and reading posts from ER and infectious disease docs in my doctor Facebook groups. You’d think that would be okay. I mean, it’s good info from other physicians, many who are on the front line of treating the outbreak, so I’d be better equipped to deal with the situation, right? Well, that’s not what happened. I learned some things, and most of the info was very similar to what is being presented to the public minus some medical jargon. But the immersion into all this information and raising my vigilance also raised my anxiety. A lot.

For most people, fear of the unknown causes lots of anxiety. Our minds are wired to look for danger and threat, so when we don’t know what might happen, we fill in the gaps with our imagined worse case. For this sort of medical situation, doctors have a similar response, but for a different reason. We know the possible worse case scenario. We spent years in school studying all the ways a splinter or cut from shaving could kill you (exaggerated yes, but not much). That’s how we’re trained to think: What are all the possible outcomes from this thing, and how do we address it as quickly as possible to provide successful therapy? This is why immersion in this information about COVID-19 took me to a scary place in my mind – my brain is trained to do exactly that!

So when I was rolling around in my bed at 2 AM thinking of how to get the kids to use the sanitizer that I already have, meal planning to help boost our immunity, and wondering if that mild headache I probably had from tension was really the flu (or worse!), I knew that I’d gone too far. Yes, COVID-19 is a real thing, it’s more deadly than the flu, and it’s here in Georgia and probably everywhere in the US at this point. But being anxious wasn’t going to help. First, anxiety and worry is very likely to decrease my immunity, it was interfering with my sleep, and it feels really bad. I’d be willing to bet that you’ve felt some anxiety over this outbreak too. So how do we keep it all in perspective and avoid the panic? Here are a few thoughts and practices that helped me step back from the edge of the cliff…

Don’t keep minute to minute tabs on the outbreak.

The more time I spent in keeping up with every news report and article and announcement of the outbreak, the more anxious I felt. And really, the updates didn’t guide me to do anything differently. It’s not as though some new medication or vaccine was suddenly available and I could get it for my family. Once I had some supplies and a short talk with the kids about handwashing, eating well, and avoiding sick people, there wasn’t much else I could do. I’m not saying to ignore that this is happening, because you do want to know if there are new recommendations to follow, but once a day or so is probably enough to keep you informed and aware of any updates.

Remember the facts

This is a serious situation and we need to behave like it is. However, also remember that the flu has killed more people this flu season than COVID-19. Most people who catch COVID-19 don’t die, even though it’s more deadly than the flu. Children seem to be more mildly affected, so that helps me feel more reassured about my kids. Other epidemics like MERS and SARS have come and gone, and we have weathered those too. Just because a virus is around does not mean that you will catch it. Some with excellent immunity won’t contract the virus at all. I can do my part to get enough sleep, eat well, and manage my anxiety so that my immunity stays strong. I can do my part to help my family and myself stay safe by remaining at home to limit the spread of the outbreak.

Being anxious is just a feeling

I’m not suggesting that you allow your anxiety to build and ruin your sleep and your health. But resisting your anxiety is actually counterproductive. You have emotions because of your thoughts, and you can amplify your emotions by what you choose to think about. Your mind is trained to look for danger and point it out to you, so seeing something threatening is a protective mechanism that you have practiced for years. Focusing on the many possible outcomes can increase your fear and worry. If you’ve done what you can to prepare as best you can, then continuing to focus on scary outcomes just amplifies the fear.

I’m not saying to ignore the fear, because that actually makes it stronger. Your brain is still thinking the same thoughts, and it will speak louder to get your attention. In this situation, if you are thinking about the possibility of dying because of the COVID-19 infection, you may feel fear and anxiety. But recognize that for this moment now, you are not infected and what is making you suffer is the way you are thinking, The anxiety or fear you feel is just an emotion, a vibration in the body. The vibration can’t hurt you, even though you think that if you allow it that it will take you over and destroy you. But it won’t. That’s just your primitive brain trying to keep you safe. You can allow the feeling to be there. Sit with it for a few moments and notice it: Where is it in your body? Is it hot or cold? Do you feel tightness or is there a color to the feeling? When you give the emotion a moment to be watched and acknowledged, it will fade. It may return, but you’ve felt it and don’t have to be afraid of it, because it will fade again.

Life is meant to be lived.

You know, it’s possible that I could get in an accident on the highway and die on my way to work. I could develop a deadly infection from a needle stick injury during surgery. I could fall down the stairs while putting away the groceries, hit my head, bleed into my brain and die. But the fact that those things could happen do not prevent me from going to work, taking care of people, or leaving my house to run errands. Now, of course I want to be wise. I’m not going to travel to Italy or China right now. But am I going to cancel my vacation? Not unless something changes drastically before we go. I’m still buying groceries at the store. My son and I will still go to our mother-son retreat. These days are my life. I don’t want to die from a deadly infection – I’ve got a lot to do with this life while I’m here! But I’m as prepared as I can be to die when it’s time, so while I’m here I’m going to live and enjoy these days! Focusing on the good moments and the daily gifts, praying for protection and peace, and cultivating my gratitude, these are things that help me stay peaceful and calm. Then I’m able to enjoy this day!

Have you been really worried in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak? How do you keep yourself from panic? What practices do you observe that help you to be peaceful? Please share in the comments below!

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Blog, Mind Management

Are We Arguing?

Have you ever been to a Korean spa? Perry and I love to go, and unfortunately for us, so do the kids (love ’em, but it’s not as relaxing when you have to monitor their activities). There’s a new one here in a neighboring town, so we decided we’d scope it out alone and see how it compared to our favorite spot. For the kids, of course!

It was new and clean and beautiful. All the amenities were very similar, and it was really peaceful taking the day to move from sauna to sauna, to enjoy spending the rest time together, and to talk about random thoughts we were having.

Since we’d just come back from visiting with family, my mind was considering the changes in my family, especially in light of how things have changed over the years since wed all been together. My cousins’ children are all getting older, my father just turned eighty, there are different health issues and my aunt is now widowed.

This last one is what sent my mind spinning. My aunt and uncle were a pillar in my life growing up. My brother and I were always over their house, hanging with our cousins, eating up all the food, and watching The Making of Thriller. When my uncle died a few years ago, it was a terrible loss for everyone, but it was hard for me to even grasp how my aunt was living without my uncle. When we went down for the memorial she had recently sold her house and moved into a downtown apartment near to her friends in the city.

Aunt Barb is the blond beauty on the right…

So I started imaging what it would be like if I were in her position. Not to be morbid, but statistically speaking, I’m likely to outlive my husband. Where would I want to live? Where will my friends be living? If I live near the beach later in life like I dream of, will I be close to family? Will any of my kids be living nearby to help me when I’m ninety-seven years old like my grandmother was when she died?

When I shared these thoughts with my husband, he did not respond the way I had hoped. This is not his problem – he sees things the way he sees them. But I wanted him to see things my way. I wanted him to be concerned about the conflict between wanting to live in a beach house and still be somewhere my kids might choose to raise their families and grow their careers. I wanted him to want to be sure I was near family and friends who’d be close to me in my elder years, even if he was already gone. Now, of course he wants me to be taken care of. Yes, we have life insurance and we are doing what we can on our retirement plan. But his take on the situation is much more relaxed, because he has decided that he will just live where he has friends and will work on building relationships and serving in the church. Nice and simple. He may be absolutely right, and I’ve over-complicating things (which I tend to do). Truth? I don’t really know what I’ll do when and if the time comes to deal with any of this. Maybe letting my brain spin around in concern is just an exercise in futility and contributes to my anxiety. But his almost flippant response to my thoughts left an opening for my brain to offer up the thought that he doesn’t care about the things that I care about. And that thought led to me feeling alone and afraid of having to figure this all out alone. So I got angry – because anger is a familiar and less vulnerable place to land.

Yep, that’s “the don’t mess with me” face!

We went back and forth, me trying to explain my thoughts and him refuting them. I think he was trying to reassure me, but I felt dismissed. I got more and more upset until I told him that I didn’t want to spend anymore time arguing about this during our mini retreat together. Then the interesting part came: He said, “We’re not arguing. We’re just talking!”

He seemed genuinely surprised at my frustration. I was surprised that he didn’t think we were arguing, because I was positive that we were. Being surprised was a good thing, because it gave me a second to think: Why doesn’t he see this as an argument?

Now, in the past I would have decided that he was out of touch with reality and steamrolled ahead with my irritation. But asking myself the question why he didn’t see what I saw gave me a moment to reconsider – was this an argument? Why did I think it was? What makes me see this as an argument when he doesn’t?

Oh, right – it’s the thoughts I’m thinking!

While we were talking, I was thinking worried, anxious, how-am-I-going-to-be-ok thoughts. I was assuming life would be sad and scary and lonely when I’m older. He was trying to design a healthy, positive, best-case scenario for his later years. Here’s the key: He didn’t feel my fear or anxiety or sadness. Those feelings came from my thoughts, which he didn’t have. Since my thoughts produce my feelings, of course I felt those things. But he wasn’t thinking the same thoughts, so he wouldn’t feel those same feelings. So when he didn’t respond to the feelings he didn’t have the same way I was responding to the feelings I did have, I felt hurt because I decided that he didn’t care. All those feelings, and I produced them all with my thinking! It’s almost as though I was having a conversation with a script that he needed to follow, but I didn’t give him a copy to read. Have you ever done that?

I do it all the time. It’s called having a manual for someone else. You have a list of expectations and ways you want them to respond to you, but they don’t have the list. Of course things go off the rails! Here’s the good news: I have learned to identify much faster when I’m working with a manual situation. When I see it, I can step back and reconsider whether I want to stay with the frustration of expecting someone else to think the thoughts I expect them to think, or to communicate what I’m thinking and feeling and why. Then they get to think what they think, and I get to manage what I think. Would I prefer that my husband just agree with me on my fears about my elder years? Now that I think about it, not really. Him joining in on my downward spiral wouldn’t have helped. He could have tried to reassure me and tell me that he would do all sorts of things to make it be fine, but we all know that neither of us have a crystal ball. Even though his viewpoint was hard for me to see, it actually helped me. Mostly, it helped me understand that I can choose to think about this situation (or any other) in a different way if I want to. And that, my friends, is powerful!

Have you ever found yourself in an argument and the other person isn’t fighting with you? Have you ever had a manual for someone else? Please share in the comments below!

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Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

Who Makes A Relationship?

This past weekend was my grandmother’s memorial service. She was almost 98 years old when she died a few weeks ago.

Grandma was a wonderful woman and we all were sad to see her go, but 98 years? That’s a long life. So when we gathered in Florida for the service and scattering of her ashes, it was a time of mourning, but was also a time to remember all the good times we had with her and together over the course of her life. Really, it was a family reunion.

Growing up, there were a period of years when my grandmother’s three daughters and all of us cousins lived in the same town in Massachusetts within a few blocks of each other. Each daughter had two of us, and there were also two step cousins who were around a lot, so we rolled deep! Grandma and Grandpa also moved to Brookline for a few years, so we all spent time at each other houses. The cousins went to school together, hung out watching movies or playing games together, and had all the big holiday meals together. We spent lots of time this weekend laughing over memories of the times we had together and how grandma was the center of so many of those times. It ended up being a great time reconnecting, talking and bonding!

Me and my cousins…

I wasn’t sure it was going to be that way though. We all went to college in different states, and the last 20 years or so we’ve all been busy getting jobs and traveling and building families, so we haven’t been as close. I also remember one cousin making a comment one time I’ll never forget. This cousin remarked that I was such an overachiever that I wasn’t like the rest of them. It was said in fun, but I took it to heart. I had enough examples of me as an exception that I took this comment to be further confirmation that I wasn’t as much a part of the crew as everyone else.

When you add years of medical school and residency with no breaks, years went by where I didn’t travel back home or see my cousins. In some ways, medical training is like being in the military: The time away and sacrifices that are made directly impact the relationships with your family. At the time I didn’t think about it – I just put my head down and tried to survive the overwhelming amount of work and sleep deprivation. But when I’d see that I’d missed another weekend on Martha’s Vineyard, or a cousin got married and I couldn’t go, I felt further and further away. So when I got the call to attend the memorial service, I wondered if it would be awkward to be there with everyone. Was I going to be the odd one out again?

It’s never a fun thing to gather when a loved one dies. Getting family together can also bring out lots of historical dysfunction, so I get it when people dread family reunions. Old triggers and rivalries and hard feelings mixed with emotion over the loss can be a minefield. Add a little (or a lot!) of alcohol, and things can get hectic quick. But here’s what I figured out before I went: I am in charge of how I think about these relationships. When a little squabble broke out about who was speaking at the service, I stepped back to see each point of view. When I got around the group of cousins sitting around, talking and laughing and there were no more seats, I had a choice to make. Was I going to feel excluded, or was I going to pull up another chair and sit down with the group? Was I going to decide that there was no room for me, and I had been away too long to be close, or would I decide that I was always part of this cousin group?

Here’s the thing: It only takes one person to create the relationship. Stay with me, because I know that sounds crazy. If I had decided that I wasn’t close to my cousins and that we didn’t have much of a relationship any longer, then I would have pulled back further and acted in a way that was distant, further confirming my lack of closeness with my cousins. And truth here, they wouldn’t have known what was in my head. They can’t feel my feelings. But I can choose to cultivate the love and closeness I want in my own heart by thinking of them in ways that keep me feeling close. The key is in the thoughts I choose to think, and I am in control of that process. I chose to think of each of them with love. Once I got out of my own head and insecurities, I realized how the spouses of the cousins might have felt less included as well – I mean, they didn’t have the childhood memories with us at all!

The most fun moment of the weekend was when we gathered the night of the memorial service for dinner and family time. The little cousins decided to put on a “Cousins Got Talent” show, complete with team of hosts, technical director, and producer (y’all, we’ve got a lot of kids!). The kids did a great job and we took pictures and videos and celebrated the kids. Then my Aunt Barbara stepped in and challenged the OG cousins (us!) to do a performance for the family the way we did when we were kids at the holiday gatherings. After some grumbling, we got together in a room to come up with a plan. I figured out my suspicions were right when we had to drag a couple of spouses into the plan! We all got out there and lip synced and rapped different parts to Poison by Bell, Biv, Devoe (remember that one?!). It was hysterical! We’re still laughing over the video of us dancing around like a bunch of grown fools for our kids and parents.

The best moment for me was when the cousins were gathered privately to receive a gift from our grandmother. After it was over, we were being summoned to watch the talent show when someone called out, “Cousin group hug!”. The feeling of closeness and connection in that circle of six is something I will remember. If I hadn’t already decided to be close, I probably would have been the first to wiggle away in discomfort. Instead, because I’d already decided to be close, I thanked them all for our closeness, even though I’d missed so many years with them. They looked at me a little strangely, like “Well, of course!”. It may be the years apart didn’t bother them and I created the distance in my mind. For sure, I was able to create the closeness I wanted in my mind. Whatever everyone else thought and felt isn’t for me to know. But I feel close to them!

Have you ever realized that you created a whole situation because of how you thought about it? Have you ever changed how you thought about something and changed how you experienced it? Please share in the comments below!

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Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

Am I Gonna Go There?

I think I’m going through a phase…

About a year ago, I told my husband that I wanted to put a layer of red in my hair. Not anything permanent, mind you, but the trend toward fun colors in hair was back and I wanted to color the bottom half of my hair. I thought it would be fun, and maybe a little edgy. His comment? Actually, I thought it was rude, but funny. He said that he figured I’d never had a “rachet” phase in my life, so it was okay if I did it now. I punched him in the arm.

After I went to my hair stylist and figured out that what I really wanted would require stripping my hair, I started looking for alternative options. Of course, social media obliged and I found a washable colored hair wax. I bought red, blue, purple, white, and gold.

Yep, it’s blue. Actually, this one isn’t my favorite – I like the red and the gold reminds me of the blond highlights I had when I was in college. The colors have been fun and funky, but still not something I’d make permanent. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you’ve also probably seen my intention tattoos that I wear on my arms. Now, I don’t have any issue with real tattoos, but I don’t want permanent ink in my skin, just like I don’t want permanent color in my hair. Part of the issue is that I don’t want the exposure to the chemicals (there’s emerging info about hair chemical and a link to breast cancer), but also I just don’t have anything that I’d want to permanently etch into my skin. But temporary reminders based on how I want to think or be? That’s something I can use!

Last week I was preparing to go to my grandmother’s memorial service, making lists and packing. During a break, I was fooling around on a temporary tattoo website and I found one that made me think of my grandmother. She was a ballet dancer, and her spirit just left this world a few weeks ago. The image of a dancer inside the wings of a bird spoke to me, so I ordered it. I figured I’d wear it for the memorial service in her honor. She was 97 years old when she died.

When the tattoo arrived in the mail I was so excited! I’d used this brand before, but the application process was completely different. So I looked up the instruction video, followed the instructions, and applied the tattoo to my arm. It works kind of like henna, where you put the ink on your skin and the color develops fully in the next 24-36 hours. The directions said to avoid any excessive movement of sweating during the application, so I sat down to watch a documentary with the kids and wait quietly as instructed for 1 hour for the tattoo to develop.

Then my husband called.

I jumped up and left the room – I think it’s rude to talk on the phone while others are trying to listen to a show, so I wen into the kitchen to take the call. I saw the roses I bought earlier in day waiting to be cut and arranged, so while I was talking to him, I started on the flowers. In the middle of the call, I realized that I felt hot under the tattoo plastic wrap. I stopped what I was doing and sat back down to cool off, but it was too late – the tattoo ink was spreading under the wrap. I took it off and went to be hoping it wasn’t as bad as I thought, but in the morning the ink had developed into a blurry, fuzzy, indistinct dark mess.

Arrggghhh!

I was furious. It was completely my fault for not following instructions, but now I had this mess on my arm for the next 2 weeks, which wouldn’t generally be as big of an issue (just wear long sleeves), but I was going to the memorial service in Florida. To 80 degree weather. And, a little tattoo reminder of my grandmother is one thing – but this mess? I felt like a freak, getting ready to go to work to see patients with blue hair and a tattoo colored smear on my arm.

At first, I was just angry. I emailed the company to ask for suggestions for how to get it to fade more quickly. Then I tried to exfoliate my arm skin, which only made my arm itchy and red around the dark tattoo smudge. So I got a huge bandaid and covered as much as I could so it wouldn’t be seen when I pushed up my sleeves to examine patients through the day.

Then I tried to make the best of it. I showed the kids the messy tattoo and reminded them of the importance of following directions. I figured I was a good object lesson! Really though, I was still upset. Why didn’t I just sit there and be cool until the time was up? Then I started thinking the patients would see me in some sort of judgemental way, so I started feeling defensive. I had been going for cool and edgy, not full out crazy! The day ahead started to look negative and ugly, but I had to go anyway. So I went.

You know what saved me from spiraling totally out of control? I started thinking differently about it. I wish I could say it was a completely smooth, no issue kind of day, but it wasn’t. I reminded myself that I was washing the blue color out soon. Eventually, the mark on my arm would fade, and maybe the company would email me back with some suggestions for how to speed that process up. Even if I looked a little funky, I was still the same powerful, knowledgeable, excellent physician and my patients would be cared for in the best way – even with blue hair and the tattoo mistake. I got dressed in an outfit that complimented the blue shade in my hair and went to work.

I had a couple of moments through the day where I didn’t handle the normal crazy of the office with as much grace as I’d have liked. But they were rare, and certainly nowhere near what they could have been or would have been before I started actively managing my thoughts. I’m so grateful I’m learning how to manage my thinking, because I know the kind of day I would have created for myself when I let my brain control me. I didn’t get any magical suggestions from the tattoo company, but the bandaid worked well. Interestingly, several of my patients commented how much they liked the blue hair, and my nurses and colleagues also thought it was fun. It all worked out in the end.

For grandma…

Have you ever created a disaster of a day by the way you started the day? How’d you turn it around? Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Inspirations

A Decade In Review

Have you ever looked back over a year or two in your life? How about five years? Ever look back over a decade?

I almost never look back over the time that’s past in my life. It’s always go, go, go, from one thing to the next. Even when there are big milestones like graduations, my wedding, passing boards, I’ve been generally more focused on what’s to follow than where I’ve been or how I arrived to this place. Really, I think it’s almost abnormal how future minded I am. It seems like something I’ve decided to be proud of, like my mentality keeps me moving into more success and accomplishment, as if constantly moving on is the way I keep from being lazy.

But when I don’t take the time to experience the milestones, when I’m rushing through my life, I’m not actually living my life. I’m living in the future, which never actually arrives. I was listening to a podcast recently where the creator did a decade in review of her life and business and I thought, Wow – where was I ten years ago? How much has changed? You know, sometimes I can’t remember what I did yesterday, so my brain immediately tried to stop me from even trying to remember the past ten years, telling me I wouldn’t be able to remember that far back! But when I gently asked my mind to think back over these last ten years, some very interesting things started to come up. Let me tell you what I remembered…

Ten years ago, I hadn’t gotten to the big 4-0 yet. I was working full time as an OB/GYN and was mostly trying to figure out how to juggle work and raising a three year old and 1 year old twins. I had just gotten off the pregnancy weight after losing all my weight the first time when the oldest was a toddler. I hadn’t done any holistic nutrition training yet and we were still going through the drive through at McDonald’s after church for chicken mcnuggets for the kids because I was overwhelmed trying to feed three hungry little ones after service. I was still breastfeeding the twins. My medical practice was based completely in one county (instead of several like it is now).

We hadn’t started homeschooling yet. The kids were home with a wonderful nanny, and I was on call for 24 hours once a week at a hospital that was three minutes from my house. Since that time, our practice has been at three new hospitals, the latest one an hour and a half from my house in the Atlanta traffic. Back then, I had never done yoga and I didn’t know a thing about meditation, other than to think it was some impossible zen practice I’d never do. I hadn’t begun my grateful list, and I really didn’t know what a gratitude practice would do to change my life. This blog wasn’t even a thought in my mind. Ten years ago, I was finished having babies, my career was on rails (I thought!), and I figured that my husband could go back to school or expand his bible teaching or change jobs or do whatever he wanted, because I was finished changing things for me. Now all I had to do was figure out how to raise these babies!

Obviously, more than that happened over this decade. Now I have a teenager! I also had another baby, who we decided was a miracle gift from God to give my son a brother (the kids reminded me that we called him “Max”). After the ultrasound, we changed her name to Anora, because “Max” didn’t really fit our last baby girl. She’s a little light that I wouldn’t have predicted if you’d asked me about having another baby ten years ago. She’s a reading, talking, scooter riding whirlwind, and I can’t imagine life now without her!

Not to state the obvious, but I did start writing this blog, and I’ve had a weekly post out for the past three or so years – absolutely an accomplishment celebrate! I also completed my holistic nutrition health coaching certification and passed my Lifestyle Medicine boards. Meditation is a daily practice and I even have taught several classes on spiritual meditation to women at church. I do yoga and I walk outside most days of the week to keep my mind and body sane. I’ve grown as a coach and as a physician surgeon. We’ve now been homeschooling for 8 years and even with all the ups and downs and challenges, I’m so grateful that we have! Ten years ago, I had an sweet elderly dog that I adopted when I started medical school. She was my first (and I thought my last!) dog. Now we have a nine month old golden doodle puppy who follows me around whenever I’m home and boy, do I love her too!

In the past 10 years, my husband and I have weathered a job layoff, the loss of grandparents, and a third high risk pregnancy. We’ve also been able to visit the Amalfi coast of Italy, Barbados, and enjoyed a skiing trip in Denver. Our kids started going to overnight camp, and we’ve spent those weeks in the past few years kid-free. That’s something I couldn’t imagine ten years ago. We’ve gone through two major home improvement projects: We finished our basement to use (at least partly) as a classroom, and we replaced our deck with a sunroom (that doubles as my personal zen space and gets used WAY more than the deck ever did). So even our house looks different than when we moved here thirteen years ago!

My new green baby!

So many things happen in our lives, and with the speed we move it’s easy to miss it. I often feel like the things I want to see happen are moving with glacial speed and I want them to hurry up and happen already! If we don’t take time to acknowledge the events and accomplishments in our lives, they can pass by while we’re looking ahead to the next thing. Just sitting down to think about what happened in my life in the past decade has been therapeutic for me: I feel less rushed and hurried about getting the next thing done when I realize all the life I’ve lived, even just looking at the past 10 years. I can move forward with anticipation and confidence that what is coming is exactly what is meant to be, and while I don’t know all the details, it will be beautiful and hard and exactly what I need to become who I will be.

Have you ever done a decade-in-review? What happened to you in the last decade that you’ll remember forever? Please share in the comments below!

3COMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

When The Bad Things Happen

I almost lost my mind in the supermarket this week. I’ll explain…

For those of you who’ve been following, we’ve had a lot of churn in our homeschool teacher situation. Suffice it to say, for the past year I’ve been interviewing teachers and have had to deal with some turnover. It hasn’t been easy. Our teacher is both our kid’s education and our childcare, so that person is incredibly important in how our lives are managed. In the past year and a half, we’ve had three different teachers, after having had our last nanny-teacher for 8 years. Between reviewing resumes, interviews, background checks and signing contracts, the process of finding a person to do this work with us is taxing, to say the least.

Last week was busy but good. Perry and I had a church leadership seminar that started Friday night and went through Saturday. I had been looking forward to it because it gave us one night away from home together, kind of a mini retreat! We came home, hosted a sleepover for one of the kids, and got everyone to church on Sunday morning.

At 1150 am, a text from our teacher came through to both me and my husband. I didn’t see it, but he did when he checked his phone at the end of service. He took my hand, said we had an emergency, handed off the kids to someone at church, and took me into an empty room. The text said that our new teacher (who had been working for us for ONE WEEK), was unable to continue working because of an situation she was in. I was floored. We prayed together for our teacher and for help to get through the new upset in our life. We decided to go out into the congregation, ask for prayers from whomever we talked to, and talk to the kids about it when we got home.

As far as I was concerned, this was a disaster. Putting aside whatever awful thing our teacher was dealing with (which must have been horrible), what were we going to do for school? My eldest daughter was supposed to start her second semester of her program the next day. Both of us were working and we suddenly had no childcare for the foreseeabIe future. I felt like the ground just shifted under me.

We had to get a few things at the store to make dinner, so I ran into the Kroger on the way home. As I raced through the bakery section to get to the produce, I had the strangest experience. As I walked past the croissants and doughnuts and cookies, I envisioned myself ripping open all the packages and shoving doughnut after doughnut into my mouth. Y’all. I don’t even like store doughnuts – they taste like chemicals to me. I knew even as these crazy thoughts flew through my mind what was happening: I wanted to buffer.

What’s buffering?

Buffering is when you try to make a cushion between you and an uncomfortable thought. It’s a distraction, something that gets you away from focusing on the thing that is bothering you. It’s the reason people overeat, drown themselves in social media, drink too much, use drugs, binge watch TV or shop for things they don’t need. Buffering is an incredibly common coping mechanism for dealing with the hard things in our lives. So when I was in the middle of a sea of highly processed simple carbs, my mind decided that eating all of it was an excellent way to get away from the overwhelming feeling of fear I was feeling about our homeschool situation blowing up. The bad news? Buffering doesn’t work, at least not in the long run. The bad feeling still has to be dealt with, or it’s coming back, plus you have gained weight or have a hangover or you have debt you don’t want. The good news – I didn’t crack up in the store.

Good job, Mom!

We got through the day and got a (really wonderful!) temporary solution in place. A friend from church who was a school teacher offered to step in for the semester to help us out. God to the rescue! About 8 hours after the crisis began, we had a way to keep homeschooling, at least for the semester. But, even with that miraculous resolution, I woke up a couple of days later with terrible anxiety. I felt so much fear about the tenuous position we’re in depending on someone else to help us school our kids. Questions were flying around my mind and I just wanted to bury myself under the covers and not get up. I prayed, I tried to meditate, but I wasn’t feeling a lot better. You see, I’ve spent many years thinking very negatively. It’s only been in the past few years that I’ve been actively learning to manage my thoughts. For the most part, it’s been very helpful, learning to recognize the thoughts and turn them into thoughts that are more helpful and constructive. But after listening to coaching podcasts, I knew there was more work to be done. While I’m much quicker at working on changing the thoughts that cause me to feel badly, what I haven’t done is learn to sit with painful emotions. Why bother if I can change my thoughts? Because sometimes, it’s not that simple. Learning to feel the emotion and allow it to be present is what needs to come before trying to change the thoughts that bring the hard feelings. Running from the emotion and being afraid to feel it, rushing to change it before allowing it to be almost guarantees that it will come back.

I’d been resisting taking the time to feel difficult emotions and discomfort for a few weeks since I learned that I needed to do it. Taking time to sit with discomfort – it was on my list, but it seemed to keep falling off. I kept telling myself that I didn’t have time for all that, it would take too long, I needed to just get over it and keep it moving. Sound familiar?

Hmmm….

Fortunately, I had a coaching session at 7 am, so I had to get up. When I got on the call, I asked the coach to help me with feeling the fear. She walked me through identifying the sensation in my body as I thought the fearful thoughts. She had me put descriptive words to the feeling in my body, and then I sat there for a few moments feeling what the fear felt like. After about one minute, she asked me to decide if I felt the same, worse or better. And even in that little bit of time, I felt better. Not done completely, but better. It was as if the resistance I had to feeling the painful feeling just made it more frightening and bigger than it was. Did I really need to get over it and move on? Was it true that I didn’t have time to feel my feelings? Apparently not.

Life brings challenges. There are lots of things that we face that are hard, and we aren’t going to feel good all the time, even when we manage our minds well. Buffering doesn’t work and running from our feeling also doesn’t work. The way forward is through – through the emotions, through the thoughts, through the discomfort. It’s a practice, but even one good experience with it lets me know that I can do it again. And maybe I won’t want to binge eat doughnuts next time something hard happens!

Do you have a way that you buffer? What keeps you from feeling the uncomfortable feelings? Please share in the comments below!

4COMMENTS

Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management, Top 15 Weight Loss Posts

Are You Kind To You?

Happy New Year!

Here we are in 2020 and it’s back to the hustle. I’ve gotten two birthdays down, two to go (the oldest just turned thirteen and the youngest seven. The twins will be eleven at the end of the month!). I’ve been on call overnight at the hospital, the shopping and cooking and cleaning has to be done, and our new homeschool teacher has started. It’s been busy – and good.

I’ve certainly had lots of opportunities to work on managing my mind. This time of year, between holiday preparations and birthdays, I’m running at top speed. And I get tired of the pace, right around now. I’ve been busy with all this since Halloween, so I tend to start to feel like a break is needed, even though I know that I’ve got a little more to do before I get back to my normal frenetic pace. We’ve also had a lot of changes at work recently, so if you add all the busyness at home to the growing pains of change at work, my brain and body are both getting a workout!

Around 6:30 am a couple of mornings ago, I packed up my bags and was taking them to the car after working in the hospital overnight. On my way into work the day before, I had stopped by Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods to get the gluten free cupcake I needed for the baby’s birthday, so I picked up other groceries I needed for the house while I was there. Those two stores aren’t close to my house, so when I go into the city, I try to swing by and get what we need. I had stored the perishables in a refrigerator in the doctor’s lounge overnight and was carrying that bag, my purse, my computer bag, and a bundle of a dozen white roses I’d bought. As I entered the elevator, a woman saw the roses and commented that someone must like me!

That was a nice thought, right? Someone must appreciate me enough to have bought me roses. I didn’t know her, so I almost just agreed and let that comment pass. But I told her the truth. I replied, “Yeah, I like me – I bought these roses!” We both chuckled and I went down to the car and packed up.

My little red chariot...

I’ve been thinking about this little interaction ever since. Why did I tell her that I bought the roses? Why do people assume that someone else bought the flowers? Is it strange that I buy flowers for myself? Why am I spending my brain space on this? Actually, I know why the thought is hanging around: It’s because of my history around flowers. When I was dating and engaged and after I got married more than 16 years ago, a vase of fresh flowers in my house generally meant that I’d been given those flowers by my husband, and generally for special occasions like an anniversary or birthday. Of course, those events only happen twice a year, so fresh flowers were a rare occurrence. But I like flowers, and I said so to him, many times. And at one point he worked near a florist and brought me flowers for no reason at all, but it wasn’t as often as I would have liked. And I asked and lamented and pouted and nagged, but that didn’t bring more flowers to me. Mind you, my husband does a ton of other very generous and lovely things for me – but the flowers were a no-go. Who knows why?

So I was in a grocery store one day a few years ago and noticed that the flowers looked fresh and the prices were good. As I walked past the display, a little voice in my head said, “Buy some.” I argued with myself about it for a moment, but then decided that yes, I would get them. And after I got them home and cut the stems and put them in my hand-painted ceramic vase, I put them on my bedside table. Every time I looked at them or smelled the delicate scent, I felt a little pop of joy. So I decided that buying myself flowers was a good and inexpensive way to take care of my own happiness. It was an act of kindness to me. So I’ve continued to do it.

So why mention it to the woman on the elevator? Because I wanted her to know that someone else didn’t have to buy me flowers, that buying them for myself was a way to appreciate me. And hopefully, she might do the same or something similar for herself. As a mom and wife and friend and sister and daughter and (for me) a doctor, life is often consumed with taking care of others. And so many of us think that our needs come last, and that other people should do nice things for us. I’m learning to disagree with both thoughts. First, even though those who are dependent on me might need their needs to come before mine sometimes, it’s actually not ALL of the time. Sometimes, especially as they get older, they can wait. I can take a hot bath, I can eat my dinner before helping with a project (instead of eating a handful of nuts and drinking a glass of wine to hold off my hunger until they go to bed). I can buy myself flowers and make time for a mani/pedi, and I can take a few minutes to do the yoga that makes me feel so much better in my mind and my body.

Second, no one has to do nice things for me. Who said they should? If someone chooses to do something for you, we often think that it’s because we’ve done something worth noticing or that we are loved by them because of how we’ve treated them. But here’s the thing: When someone does something for you, it’s about them. They do something for you because of how they think about you, because they’re feeling generous, because they like something you did. How many times have you done the same for someone else? That was about you and how you were thinking of the person you were loving. We’ve all done many things, many acts of care and kindness that have gone unnoticed. Does that mean anything? It just means that you did something lovely and another didn’t outwardly acknowledge it. It doesn’t change your love or care, even if no one saw it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that if I want to be appreciated for the hard work I’m doing, then I’m just as good a person to do the appreciation as someone else. I can do something nice for me, I can thank myself for a job well done, and I can be in charge of how I feel about the service and care I give. If no one notices, I do. And that way, I do what I do because I want to give, and not because I feel compelled (God loves a cheerful giver – 2 Cor 9:7). If someone else does something nice for me, it’s extra. But they don’t have to – I can love on me. Besides, who knows better what encouraging words I want to hear than I do? Who knows I want flowers today better than me? No, I don’t get this right all the time. I fall back into my old way of thinking regularly and have to remind myself that I have a new way of thinking. It takes practice. But those white roses on my bedside table are a nice reminder!

How about you? How are you kind to yourself? What’s the most recent beautiful thing you did for yourself? Please share in the comments below!

Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

A New Take on The New Year

Does anyone else feel anxious about starting the New Year “right”?

I love the New Year – all the hope of a new start, a fresh beginning, leaving behind the struggles and disappointments of a tough year. It’s kind of the same feeling I get when I wake up in the morning. A fresh day brings the hope of all I might do and experience that day (even if I’m a little over ambitious sometimes!). A New Year is the same, but on steroids. There’s so much possibility! What could happen, what might I do?

One thing I like to do at the close of the year is to watch or read the year-in-review blogs and videos. The encapsulated view of the past year is inspiring, and often a little sad. The review of the year in politics usually makes me feel glad to be leaving the year behind! There’s often also a tribute to those who passed on that year and the young celebrities lost are always mentioned on the list. It’s tragic to know that such young lives are lost forever. And then I remember that I’m still here and even if I’ve lost someone, there’s still more life to live, even if it’s just today. And that feels hopeful too.

It bloomed New Year’s Day!

Even as I say my goodbyes to the past year and look forward to the year ahead, I always feel this nagging sense of urgency, as if I should do something to be ready for the New Year. Many are making their resolutions and I’ve said before that I don’t do that. Resolutions are meant to be broken (and usually are!). But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to start the year well. I want an intention, a direction, a plan to fulfill. In past years, I’ve prayed and meditated and listened for God’s direction and scriptures to keep close in the New Year. I’ll be doing that again.

But it doesn’t seem like enough, does it? Maybe it is and I’m getting myself worked up for nothing. But it’s going to be 2020! It could be I just like the symmetry of the number, or maybe the ending of the decade feels significant for some reason. I definitely feel like I ought to be making a big plan to start on January 1! I even bought a new planner, which I didn’t really need. I had a calendar already and I’ve been using my Google calendar more this year in efforts to stay synced up with my husband’s schedule. I even figured out how to sync my work calendar to my private calendar – no small feat for my tech-challenged self! So when I saw the intention calendar I didn’t really know if I needed it, but I felt like it was significant for me to have to make big moves in 2020. I know I made all that up in my head. I’ve bought these kind of planners before and they are so much work that the sheer intimidation of all those questions and blank pages usually means I don’t even start them, much less finish them. And I haven’t started this one either, and now I feel like I’m already behind, even though I bought the one without pre-printed dates!

All this comes from a self-created sense that I’m the designer of my upcoming year. Now I know that’s false. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or even if tomorrow is coming! All I have is today. Since I didn’t have to go to work today and I could do whatever I wanted with the day, I could have sat down with the calendar and worked away at creating my intentions for 2020. Let me tell you what I did instead…

Meditated

Put away all Christmas decor and swept the house clean

Sent the kids with their daddy to lunch and a movie

Looked through the 2020 intention planner and put it down

Read an old Oprah magazine

Watched a couple of year-in-review videos

Napped on the couch

Ate curry soup

Did some writing

Took the puppy to the dog park

That’s it. At some point I have to make dinner and that’ll be the end of the productive part of the day for me. The 2020 plan has already been written for me, and I actually know some of it. I’m starting some intensive training in March and building a business toward the end of the year, God willing. Here’s what I’ve come to terms with: The plan is not mine. I’m very excited about what I’m working toward, and I feel very much like 2020 is going to be a pivotal and challenging year, full of growth, change, discomfort and wonder. But I’m also very clear that I didn’t design the plan. I didn’t design 2019. I went back through my posts this year and did my own year-in-review. This is some of what I did this year:

I didn’t plan for all of that! As I looked back, I realized that it’s not my place to be the designer of my time: It’s my role to follow the path created for me. How? Through prayer and meditation, listening and following. So whether I fill out the intention calendar, write a bunch of affirmations, journal like crazy, or design a month-by-month plan for the new year, that’s not what determines the success of the year. What will determine how the year goes is how I show up in it, for the tasks set before me, for my family, for my friends, and for those who need what I have to give. That won’t be accomplished by a plan I design for the year. I’ll build that day by day as I stay connected to the God of my life. When I look back next year, I’ll see all that He built through me in 2020. And what a gift that will be!

How are you thinking about 2020? What are you doing to prepare for what’s coming for you? Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Recipes

Vegan Mushroom Gravy!

We made it through Christmas! Did you have a great time with your family and yummy food and opening gifts?

We had a wonderful Christmas morning, eating blueberry muffins my middle daughter made and seeing what gifts we all gave each other. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we enjoyed each other as the kids played with their new toys. But then I had to go to work, so I gave the heating instructions for the Christmas dinner to my husband, crossed my fingers, and headed out to the hospital

When I got home the next morning, the whole Christmas dinner had gone off without a hitch. He’d prepared the whole thing and packed all the food away neatly into the refrigerator. I’d made a gluten free cornbread stuffing for the baby and I had some of my mushroom gravy leftover in the freezer, so I was all ready to have my Christmas dinner for lunch. But they ate all the gravy! You can’t have stuffing without gravy! I was so disappointed. But then I realized that I had almost all the ingredients for the gravy and I was going to be next door to the grocery store late, so I decided a new batch of gravy was required.

Honestly, I don’t blame the kids for eating up all the gravy. It really is good enough to eat like a soup! And after you cut up the mushrooms and an onion, it’s just a little stirring and adjusting your seasonings. This recipe makes enough for a holiday meals, so now I have some in the frig and a bag in the freezer for later. I might pull it out another time to pour over potatoes or rice! Since so many of you asked for this recipe, here it is!

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil

8 oz baby portabella mushrooms, finely chopped

one onion, finely chopped

one tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced (can use dry if you don’t have fresh)

one teaspoon dried thyme

4-5 cups of good veggie broth (homemade if you’ve got it)

1/2 cup flour (I used einkorn to keep it low gluten)

1 tablespoon of dark miso (I used red miso)

1 teaspoon Better Than Bouillion mushroom base

1 teaspoon coconut aminos

2 tablespoons white wine (optional, but good)

First, chop your mushrooms, onions and herbs.

Then saute your onions and mushrooms in the hot oil in a large, deep skillet. Add your herbs after the veggies are softened.

Sprinkle the flour into the oil and veggies and stir until the flour is completely combined and the veggies are coated, 3-4 minutes.

Add the broth and whisk to combine. Bring to a simmer. The gravy will thicken as it cooks.

Add your miso, bouillion paste, coconut aminos and whisk to combine. Start light with these ingredients – these are your salt and you can always add more!

Add the white wine and stir to combine. Adjust your seasonings to taste and enjoy!

What was the best part of your Christmas dinner? Please share in the comments below!

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