Category Archives: Help Getting It Done

2COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Top 15 Weight Loss Posts

Healing The Underneath

I’ve been so tired this week.

Even as I write that, my mind wants to argue with me (You’re not really tired. Maybe you could get a little more sleep, but you haven’t been up all night at work, the schedule was lighter this week, you got to do telemedicine two days. It’s not like you’re going anywhere other than work and the grocery store, so you shouldn’t be tired.) But I am tired, and I know why. It’s not hormones and it’s not stress, and it’s not because too much is going on.

It’s my brain’s fault.

There has been a lot happening this week. And when there’s a lot to do, my tendency is to buckle down and take care of the work as quickly and efficiently as possible. Sounds appropriate, right? This week was when we emergently started our new homeschool teacher, my twins were on the last leg of preparing for their end-of-year exam, and we just about ran out of toilet paper. Yes, the struggle is real. Bringing a new employee into our home to orient to our homeschool program and our kids and our home at the end of the year has been a little rocky. The surge in COVID-19 cases is anticipated over the next two weeks by the expert estimates, and the changes in the medical office and hospital seem to come hour by hour (though the updates do come at least multiple times a day). So I’m still working to balance my responsibility to be informed and educated and to stay calm not engage in the what-if disaster mindset. I’m also trying to keep up with my coaching program and I almost missed an assignment this week during the churn of adjusting to all these changes.

None of this is the problem.

I know the answer!

The problem is how I’m thinking about it. Rather, it’s that I’m thinking in a negative way about it, and I’m fighting hard not to think that way. You know how I’ve said that you are the mother of your mind, and that you get to choose the thoughts you want to think? Well, that’s true. I can choose to remember that everything is going well and that nothing is wrong. I can count my blessings and use my gratitude journal to see all the good things that I have right now. Those are good things to do. It’s the fighting that is making me tired.

When I’ve taught about managing the mind, there’s a part that I’ve given less attention, both in teaching and in practice. I’ve taught to capture the thoughts, and choose intentionally what thoughts you want to think. Remember, the mind is wired to look for threat, and it’s very good at its job. So in the background, the mind is always scanning, trying to find what could be a problem. When it finds possible threats, it offers them up as thoughts. When I have a lot of things happening, there are a lot of thoughts coming up as those possible threats. And that feeling of threat or danger does not feel good. But what do you do with the unintentional thoughts, the scary ones? I’ve gotten pretty quick at countering the thoughts with “better” thinking, with looking for what is good, with arguing with my mind. What I’m not doing is listening, because I don’t want to feel uncomfortable and scared and threatened and worried. So I’m trying to skip to the “good” thoughts.

That doesn’t work. Here’s why: When the mind is offering thoughts, especially those that are meant to warn of danger, it means to be heard. When I try to push those warnings away because I know that I’m not really in immediate danger, my mind knows I’m not acknowledging the message. So the warnings get louder, and I work harder on my gratitude list, or focus on all that’s going well right now. My pushing and fighting is the part that is making me tired.

It’s not that I’m suggesting that you allow all the worries of your mind to overtake you. But ignoring them and pushing them away doesn’t work. If it did, I’d be all for it! I’m offering that you allow some airtime for your mind to be heard, to acknowledge the warnings and pay attention to those thoughts. Let them be there. Just sit and listen to your mind worry, maybe write down the thoughts so you can see them clearly, and before you do anything else, just breathe. Listen to the worry and fear. Breathe some more. Don’t try to change the thoughts or argue against them. You will not want to do this, because you will feel as thought the fear and worry will overwhelm you. It won’t. Actually, if you allow it, listen to it, let it have some space and acknowledge it, it will begin to fade. The fears may still be there, but they won’t be as loud. And when they return, you can listen and acknowledge, and they will fade again.

Let me help you see this in my example from the beginning of the post. Remember the words I used to describe my week? Struggle, churn, pushing, fighting, trying, buckle down, rocky. Aren’t you tired just reading them? Those are words I chose in my mind to describe my situation. Now, I can just try to put a positive spin on it, but my mind wants to think these thoughts. I need to listen and acknowledge it. Once I’ve done that, if I see that my way of thinking is producing a result I don’t want, then I can decide to choose a different way of thinking intentionally. But skipping over the warning thoughts isn’t intentional – it’s avoiding. And avoiding doesn’t work with the mind, because it’s very smart and persistent, and it’ll keep trying until it accomplishes its goal. The mind is amazing! So I’m listening and acknowledging. It’s uncomfortable, but it actually is less uncomfortable than resisting the thoughts, because they fade away when I listen instead of fight. And now I can choose the new way I want to think!

Choosing intentionally…

Have you tried to cover up uncomfortable thoughts with “better” ones? Have you tried to sit with the uncomfortable thoughts and acknowledge them? Please share your experiences in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

Learning To Face Overwhelm

Sometimes, it feels like life is a tidal wave, a tsunami threatening to come crashing down around me. This past week was one thing after another, until by the end it felt like everything was about to fall down on top of me. Let me tell you about it…

You know what’s about to happen…

Before we get to it, stay with me until the end to get the link to part one of my series on Boosting Your Immunity! Now, back to the story…

I started the week well. One day I needed to be in the office, and one day in the hospital, but the others I was able to do telemedicine. My schedule seemed planned out well, I was getting things done, and I thought I was managing decently. My mental state seemed better than most when I compared it to some of my colleagues and coworkers – at least I wasn’t feeling overly anxious about getting sick and I was able to see patients without constant worry. I’d developed a whole protocol for how to move about and disinfect/handwash/change shoes/remove outer clothes before I came home, and I felt good about protecting my family. It was hard to go out into work, but I was managing – at least, so I thought. What I’d really been doing was explaining to myself why everything would be ok and reminding myself that I was doing everything I could. But in the background, those corona fears were piling up on top of others, like whether we had enough food to last until the next grocery store run, and whether the kids were moving alone in their homeschool program on pace, and if my parents and his parents were safe and had what they need. And there were more. But I let them simmer in the background, bubbling quietly along. Then Saturday night I got a call to tell me that my substitute homeschool teacher was leaving at the end of the next week and was not going to finish the semester. Right before the end of the year presentations and exams.

I woke up at 530 Sunday morning, my mind racing. I had a list of to-dos running through my head, so I figured I’d better get up and get started. We had offered the permanent teacher position to a candidate but hadn’t finished references and background check, so that needed to be worked on. My website domain was about to expire and I had to update it – today. What was the schedule for the week? I had no day off scheduled, so how was I going to get everything done? I needed to make a plan. My mind was frantic, running around. I sat down to meditate, but it wouldn’t settle down. I read my bible; I prayed. That chest tightness feeling was still there. So I rushed downstairs to try to start checking things off my list as much as I could before virtual church.

It didn’t help. The site upgrade was more complicated than I thought, and customer service was no help. I was rushed and frustrated, and when the kids started milling about I was snappy with them. I told them I was frustrated with the thing I was trying to fix and apologized, then I fled back up to my closet to pray. I laid there on the floor and cried. How was this going to work out? What was I going to do? I still had to go to work, so what was going to happen to the kids and their school work? While I was crying and praying, I had this feeling of being submerged in the ocean, with the water up to my chin, just barely keeping afloat. As I stayed on my knees, I then saw myself carried high above the waters, seeing the vast expanse but not being touched by it. I didn’t know what it meant, but it felt better than almost drowning. I still felt overwhelmed, but I got up. It was time for church.

This time, my husband had designed a virtual service with worship songs and video. We had been meeting with our family group from church on Zoom, where we’d check in with each other and then listen to the sermon, talk some more and then go out separate ways. It was good for a few weeks, but the singing worship was missing and Perry figured out how get that added in to our virtual connection. We met in the meeting room, greeted each other and shared prayer requests and good news. Then he started the first video song.

The song was Oceans by Hillsong.

When the video for the song started, suddenly there were images of huge expanses of water flying by with rolling and crashing waves. And the lyrics said:

“You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand”

And…

“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior”

And I remembered my vision in the closet, alone almost drowning or carried high above the waves and waters. I knew that song was the explanation for me, to remind me that the challenges are God’s work, helping me to choose to grow, to trust, to persevere. I was so grateful, and I sang my heart out the whole song. But then the second song started – “Way Maker”. And it said:

“Way maker
Miracle worker
Promise keeper
Light in the darkness
My God
That is who you are”

I couldn’t sing. I just sobbed.

That’s exactly what I’d been missing. Yes, circumstances have happened, and I am in place to deal with them. But if all I do is run as hard as I can to get everything done and try to fix it all, I’ve missed the point. I’m not facing these challenges alone. Not only are these things happening to teach me, to grow me, to change me, but I don’t have to learn/grow/change in my own strength. The immense power that is God is what is given to me to do all that I have to do.

Did the worship fix everything? No. Worship isn’t magic. It’s praise and acknowledgement of the power that provides everything I have. So I left that time knowing that I was being challenged to grow under the pressures of life because I am loved. And I am supported in it. So now as I face the overwhelm, the tidal wave that I think is going to overtake me, I can sit and feel it, because I know it has a purpose. It reminds me that I am not alone, that I am becoming who I am meant to be.

That is a gift.

Next time, let’s talk about mind management tactics in overwhelm. I talked about prayer in this episode being my spiritual approach. Before I coach on overwhelm, please share some ways you already manage yourself in overwhelm in the comments below!

And as promised, here’s the link to part 1 of my YouTube video series on Boosting Your Immunity – Come see me!

4COMMENTS

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!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Inspirations

Lessons From The Road (How I Survived a Car Trip With My Family)

When my grandma passed away a few weeks ago, the memorial service was set for a few weeks later. Many of our family members had to travel from far away to get there, but we had a choice to make; buy six plane tickets or commit to a 7 1/2 hour drive with the four kids. It was a tough choice. Six plane tickets is ridiculously expensive, especially for a weekend trip, but a road trip with kids means a bunch of stops, finding meals on the road, and making sure they have packed enough entertainment to keep them busy and not driving me nuts the whole ride. A road trip meant the 7 1/2 hours would be at least 9-10 hours of traveling.

We chose the road trip.

We’ve done road trips for vacations before, and they’ve generally gone well. My husband thinks it’s because the kids are just good travelers. They are, for the most part. But I also know that the preparation and work that I put in before we get in that car make a huge difference in how the trip goes. Still, I’m not a huge fan of road trips, at least with the kids. I’ve always said I want the Star Trek days to hurry up and come so I can “beam myself” to wherever I’m going. That’s probably a reflection of my destination oriented mindset and my lack of appreciation for the journey, but we all have flaws. I’m working on that one!

Even with all the preparations and plans, this trip taught me a few things that made it even better, so I’m going to share them here with you. Hopefully, your next road trip will be even better because of it!

Sometimes, you have to stop for squishies.

I was the driver for the first leg of the trip. We left at 6 am, thinking we’d get ahead of most of the Atlanta traffic. Now, I don’t like to drive, especially in the dark, but I volunteered to drive that morning. Actually, I insisted. My honey had stayed up very late the night before and I wanted him to sleep for a few more hours before he got behind the wheel. I felt that was best for everyone, so I was in the driver’s seat when he came outside. We got the kids in and took off. My husband grabbed one of the kid’s squishy stuffed animal pillows and conked out.

Two hours later, we got caught in construction traffic on the other side of the city, and as we neared the more rural part of the drive, I decided we’d better get gas and stop for a bathroom break before we had fewer options. I saw a Walmart supercenter with a gas station ahead and drove up to the pumps. When my husband woke up, he told the kids how much he liked the squishy pillow and asked where it had come from. When they said Walmart, he grabbed his electric one wheeled scooter and made to take off to buy one for himself.

He almost started a riot.

The kids who didn’t have a big squishy immediately clamored to get one too. Now, we were already behind schedule, most of the trip was ahead, and this was supposed to be a quick bathroom break. I was tempted to be annoyed. But then I decided, Hey – get me one too! That was it. He took off, I gassed up the car and drove around to park so everyone could go in to the potty. When we got inside, he was standing in the stuffed animal aisle with couple hundred choices around. The kids jumped in to “help”, everyone negotiated for which squishie they wanted, and as providence would have it, they had exactly six different varieties. Everyone got one!

Now, did it make us later than planned? Yep. We were planning to get to my mother-in-law’s house for lunch, and we had to switch up the plan so they could eat when they were actually hungry instead of late afternoon. But you know what? We still visited with the family, we got a good lunch on the road anyway, and every time we look at those squishies, each of us smile and remember how we got them. Now, those squishies are part of our family memories and the delay in our trip was definitely worth that!

Bring too much to do.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but I’m not a fan of screens. Especially kids and screens. So even though the van has a TV, I try hard not to use it except on the tail end of road trips when everyone is just about over it. So before any road trip, we go to the library and load up on books and maybe a couple of DVDs. This time, I neglected to communicate a limit on the number of books that the kids could check out to the friend who had them on the library trip day.

These jokers came home with TWO of these.

I’m pretty sure they checked out books to the limit of my library card. We usually take one bag of books, mostly because we need room for packing other things. But here’s the messed up part: They left the books in the van and I didn’t see them until the morning we left. Yeah, they knew exactly what they were doing. They were packed in the back like sardines and it was too late for me to sort out what could be left behind. So the back seats were a hot mess the whole trip, because they had no room to maneuver and pens and notebooks and gifts from Nana and stuffies and blankies and squishy pillows were everywhere. I couldn’t even look in the back seat, and it was my job to manage them while he was driving.

But they didn’t complain that they were bored. And that, my friends, is the lesson. Next time they might want a little more room and may limit themselves, but they knew what they needed to be entertained. I had my books and work and things to keep me busy up front, so we did just fine. Was it a hot mess when we got home? Yep. And I made them clean it all out. All good!

No yelling in a metal box.

This is their rule. And I so appreciate it, because just like every other hyperactive sense I have (lights are too bright, the TV is too loud, something stinks, don’t you smell that?), my hearing is also on overdrive. Kids hollering in the backseat is a no-go. And even though they seem not to notice how loud they can be in the house, they do seem to get it in the car. So they remind each other when their volumes gets above a certain threshold, and I am so thankful for their rule.

Remember why you’re together.

This one is the simplest, but it’s easy to miss. Going on a road trip can be tedious, exhausting and just plain boring. It can fray your every last nerve and if you don’t watch out, everyone is crabby and snapping at each other by the end and all you want to do is make sure that you never, EVER do this again. But when I get close to thinking that way, I remind myself what we’re doing. We were going to say goodbye to my grandmother, to celebrate her life, and to gather her family close. One day, we won’t all be together this way. This time, even a road trip, is our life together. I can choose to be irritated and short tempered, or I can choose to cherish this time that I have all six of us together. I choose to be grateful. It makes all the difference!

Do you road trip with your family? What’s the most memorable thing that happened to you on a road trip? Please share in the comments below!

2COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Getting Past Hopeless

Sometimes, being a working mom feels impossible. Like, running-on-the hamster-wheel-and-going-absolutely-nowhere ridiculous.

Now don’t get me wrong – moms who stay at home or work at home don’t have it any easier. I lost my child care for a couple of days this week and spent my day of working from home with the kids, and since they’re homeschooled, I know exactly how crazy a work day at home with kids can be. Let me paint the picture for you…

Thursday morning was the day off. It poured rain all night and I tossed and turned with a sore neck throughout my sleep. When I dragged myself out of bed to the sound of more rain, I got through brushing my teeth and putting on some sweats before I went down to the kitchen. My phone alert went off to remind me that I had a coaching meeting in 10 minutes, so I told the kids to finish up breakfast and we would plan our schedule for the day in half an hour. While I was logging on to my meeting, the tornado warning came through on all the phones in the house. This was not a watch, people. The warning told us to take cover, so I grabbed my laptop and told the kids to bring their oatmeal bowls into the basement pantry immediately. After commands for silence during my meeting and threats of major consequences for any transgressors, I took my meeting.

Somewhere partway through the meeting, my son decided to go upstairs and get his breakfast. During a tornado warning. He had gotten up late because we were out at church last night and I told them all they could sleep in, so he had. When the warning came through, I’d just called him downstairs and he hadn’t gotten any food. When he was sitting there watching his sisters eat their oatmeal, he got upset because he was hungry and he just knew he couldn’t interrupt my meeting. So he left. Of course, I had to deal with his poor judgement (leaving the safe space during a tornado watch), attitude (because he didn’t think I’d help him eat because I was busy), and frustration (because he felt it wasn’t fair that everyone else was eating and he was hungry). All this before 10 am – the army has nothing on moms! So yeah, being a mom (working outside the home or not) is a lot.

Back to the hamster wheel… Now, I generally use my day off to do things like write a blog post, run errands, and manage the house. NOT homeschool the kids. But since that’s what needed to happen, I needed to combine my work and their work, as well as the care and feeding responsibilities into ONE DAY. I had a lesson plan from the teacher that went from 830 am to 430 pm, plus my list of things to do which included grocery shopping, a library trip for an overdue DVD, styling two girl’s hair, writing this post, cooking something for dinner, three phone interviews, picking up the house before the cleaning people come tomorrow, and making a few calls to get things arranged before our trip to my grandmother’s memorial service next weekend. Clearly, something wasn’t going to get done.

I was tempted to chuck the whole plan. I mean, the younger kids wouldn’t fail out of school because they missed two days of work, right? The big girl needed to get her speech right for the science fair presentation, but other than that I decided everything else was optional. So with that attitude, we planned the day – only the essentials, unless we were super efficient and could add the fun stuff. You know what helped me not fall over in a puddle of despair because the day wasn’t working out as planned? That coaching meeting in the midst of the tornado watch.

My coaching program officially starts in March. I’ve been having lots of thoughts about how I can’t add anything else to my schedule, and that I’m going to be wasting a lot of time and money on this program because I won’t be able to give it the attention it deserves. So I spent my coaching meeting exploring that thought process. What the coach helped me see was that the feeling I produce when I think that way is “hopeless”. I feel that way about getting things done, giving my kids what they need, what kind of humans I’m raising, and whether I’m doing anything well (particularly at home – work seems easier to do well!). That hopeless feeling is familiar – and it’s absolutely counterproductive to what I want and need to do. Hopeless produces nothing – no action, no inspiration, no plans, no results. And when I stay with hopeless, I show myself with my lack of results that I really can’t get done what I need to do. I’ve confirmed my original thought with the results I’ve gotten. The coach reminded me that time is for me to decide how to use – 10 minutes of focused action can be worth one hour of scattered running around. So I get to choose whether I have enough time, or whether I want to believe that I can’t fit anything else into my schedule. One makes me feel powerful and capable, and the other makes me feel weak and ineffective. My thoughts, my choice. And that’s the best thing ever, because the only person that can control my thoughts is me! The way out of hopeless is through my mind. So I’m practicing other thoughts, ones that produce the feelings and actions I need to get the results I want. I don’t feel hopeless now. I know it’ll come back, but the next time hopeless comes up for me, I can know that I brought it back with my thinking, and I can choose other thoughts that serve me better. That is the practice I’m choosing for me!

Have you ever realized that the way you feel is because of the thoughts you’re thinking? How do you feel when you know that your thoughts are completely your business and in your control? 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!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

What The Heck is a Vegan Thanksgiving?

When I talk about our vegan Thanksgiving plans, I keep getting the question, “What are you going to have in place of the turkey and the ham”? So I thought I’d better show you!

It’s funny. I used to make a big deal about the turkey every year. One year, I even bought one online from a heritage turkey farm to support heritage breed turkeys. I studied brine vs no brine, organic and free range birds, and what was the best way to come out with a juicy turkey. My herb compound butter to stuff under the skin was an absolute requirement for my Thanksgiving turkey. Alton Brown’s turkey video was on repeat every Thanksgiving holiday as I planned my approach. And the turkey was absolutely delicious, year after year. We had to do a second turkey one year because there were no leftovers! But you know what?

The turkey wasn’t really the centerpiece of the meal. Yes, it looked pretty, but we always served the dinner buffet-style, so the turkey was carved and placed along side the other dishes. And when I looked at everyone’s plate, most of the overfilled plates were taken up with all the sides – not the turkey or the ham. When I think back about what I wanted to eat most for Thanksgiving back in the day when the holiday was always at grandma’s house, it’s the side dishes that I remember. Cornbread stuffing made with Jiffy mix. Stewed tomatoes. Collard greens. Grandma’s butter beans.

My scratch-made gluten free herb cornbread stuffing…

A vegan Thanksgiving isn’t too far a leap from any other Thanksgiving. Yes, we used vegan butter in the cornbread and maple syrup in the cranberry sauce instead of the honey, but we had a true feast! Even without a ham and a turkey. My cousin brought so much food that I think three houses have leftovers for days. That’s one of the beautiful things about a huge family meal – you cook once and get to eat and not cook again for awhile!

We had a few items that you wouldn’t normally see at a traditional Thanksgiving meal though. First, my husband made BBQ jackfruit sliders – they were so good they are definitely gonna be on repeat next year! We also had a Gardein loaf, which was like a stuffed turkey breast, in case people wanted a “main dish” on their plate. But most of the rest was pretty traditional – and delicious! Keep reading: I’ll show you!

Perry’s BBQ jackfruit sliders and homemade slaw – delicious!

Auntie’s sweet potatoes and brown sugar topping – yum!

My roasted brussels and balsamic red onions

Homemade mushroom gravy – I wanted to drink it like soup!

Mango black bean salad, a gift from my African-American history author cousin!

Mashed cauliflower – one of many dishes by my dynamo beauty of a cousin!

Cranberries, two ways!

There are more pictures – but I don’t want to crash your phone!

At the end of all this eating and laughing and talking, I offered dessert. The kids jumped on it, but most everyone else was too full to even consider it. Too bad – my 10 year old daughter made a vegan almond flour chocolate cake with vegan buttercream icing and chocolate ganache that was ridiculous! So good! (I saved room – I planned to taste that cake!)

After eating, I had to add a little Parks family tradition to the mix. I found a huge paper tree with leaves big enough to write on at a school supply site some years ago, and when it came in the mail it was too lightweight to work with. I laminated the tree on a paper backing, and after painstakingly cutting out each colorful paper leaf, I laminated those and cut them out. Again. So every year, I unroll the tree and hang it up. Usually we sit down at the beginning of November during a family time and write down as many things as we can think of to be grateful for on the leaves, which we then stick on the tree. I never erase the leaves for two reasons: One, who has time for that when it’s time to take down November and set up the Christmas decorations? And two, it’s so sweet to reread what we were grateful for the prior year before re erase and write on the leaves again. This year, we saved the leaves and everyone who was at dinner got a leaf to write on and add to the tree.

We had such a good time – we want to do it again next year!

What kind of traditions do you have for your Thanksgiving? Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Recipes

Vegan Lunch! Tofu Jerky

If you’ve been reading along with me recently, you know that things have been a little crazy. I mean, life is pretty full and nonstop most of the time anyway, right? We have jobs and kids and school and home management and appointments and it just keeps going from there. Eating seems to get shoved in between all the other to-do’s and I’m always looking for ways to get things done better, faster, and more efficiently.

But…

While life is busy and there’s always lots to do, I’m committed to feeding myself and my family in a way that nourishes our bodies and our minds. For me, that means a whole foods, plant based diet. I’m not going for perfection – we went out for pizza (with vegan cheese!) on Sunday. But what I’m absolutely certain of is that if I don’t have good options for things to eat, I’m going to make bad choices. Like eating peanut M&Ms for lunch (yes, I’ve done that).

Peanut M&Ms – my kryptonite!

So, one thing I missed when we went plant based was having a meat protein on my salad at lunch. I used to do tuna or chicken strips. When I got rid of that, I still wanted something chewy in my salad or wrap. As I searched for options, I found a super easy substitute – tofu jerky!

Now, there are two ways to do this: One is as a snack, and the second is as a salad topping or sandwich filler. The snack is harder and more like meat jerky, but the way I make it leaves more chew than regular tofu but doesn’t make it tough. To my tofu haters: You might want to try this one. The texture is completely different than regular tofu because most of the moisture and sponginess is gone. My kiddos started making wrap sandwiches with it and now I’ve got to make more!

For those of you who have a fear of soy, I get it. The discussion around soy is fraught with concern and contains both good and bad information. Traditionally, diets that contain lots of soy have been correlated with health and longevity (think traditional Japanese food). The problem comes in when people eat lots of highly processed and chemical filled soy. There are studies that show that a whole foods, plant based diet including soy can be used to decrease prostate cancer gene expression.

If you’ve been told by your doctor to avoid soy products, then by all means do not eat this recipe. But when it comes to soy for most people, I have a few recommendations. First, only buy organic soy. This means that your soy isn’t genetically modified or treated with glyphosate (an herbicide called Round Up that’s linked to allergies, asthma and cancer, used on most nonorganic soy, corn and wheat). Also, eat soy that’s the more traditional, fermented and less processed forms like tofu, tempeh, and edamame instead of highly processed soy like milk.

When I first started looking for recipes on how to make this jerky, I found lots of recipes that had many ingredients to make a savory marinade. While those might be good, I was looking for something that was a lot less work but still tasted really good. So after I tried a couple of homemade marinades, I made a batch marinated in a bottled barbeque sauce I like. And voila – easy and delicious tofu jerky! Ready to make it? Here we go!

Ingredients

Barbeque sauce

Extra firm block tofu

If your tofu is stored in liquid, drain it and press any remaining liquid out of the block. If you find the ones wrapped without liquid, just skip to the next step.

Pretty dry…

Cut the tofu into strips. I cut them half length so they fit in the bag.

Put the strips into a zip top bag and pour the sauce over them, shaking the bag to coat. Let them soak in the frig for at least two hours. Overnight works too!

If you have a food dehydrator, dry the strips on a mat for four hours at 140 F. I leave a little extra sauce on them. If you don’t, dry them in the oven on the lowest heat (usually about 175 F) for 2-3 hours.

Before the dehydrator…

After the dehydrator…

Since these aren’t completely dry, I don’t leave them on the shelf like real jerky. Store them in the frig and use them cut up over a salad or stuffed into a tortilla wrapped around lettuce, tomato, pickles and vegan mayo. Delicious!

My working lunch between patients – a handful of salad from last night’s dinner, tofu and dressing. Delish!

How do you get quick healthy meals? Please share in the comments below!

2COMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Recipes

Get Your Greens! Grilled Bok Choy

It’s time for a new recipe!

I was sitting around and talking to one of the surgical assistants at the hospital this week while I was waiting to start a cesarean. She follows this blog and reminded me that I hadn’t done a recipe in a while. So Toya, this one’s for you!

I love my greens. All of them. Kale, collards, brussels, cabbages, lettuce, asparagus – I could just keep going, but we need to get to the recipe! I’m convinced that if you don’t like a particular veggie, you probably haven’t had it prepared well yet. One favorite in my kitchen is bok choy. It’s fresh and juicy and can be used raw or cooked, in salads, and in stir fries. I love to eat bok choy raw in and asian salad with cabbage and nuts – Trader Joe’s has an easy bagged version. Raw veggies generally provide more of the antioxidants and vitamins that can be destroyed in cooking. There are some fruits and veggies that cooking actually helps make some of their benefits more bioavailable (like lycopene in tomatoes, fiber in broccoli for cholesterol reduction). So I eat lots of raw food, and adding cooked veggies on top of my salad mixes it up and keeps things interesting!

Since it’s getting cold and I like to have more cooked food in winter, I’m cooking the bok choy today. To keep the most health benefits of the vegetables, you want to lightly cook them, no matter how you do it. If you boil veggies (not my favorite), lots of the benefits of the veggies end up in the water. And since I live in Georgia and the sun is out, I can use my grill! I love my grill. I’ve been known to grill through the winter, even once or twice in a light rain! So I’m going to grill this bok choy, and we’re gonna flavor it up and make it savory and delicious.

Ingredients

1-2 heads of bok choy, 4 if using baby bok choy

1/4 cup olive oil and butter, melted (I used vegan butter)

1 teaspoon garlic paste or fresh finely minced garlic

1/8 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

fresh ground black pepper to taste

Preheat your grill on high heat.

Trim and wash your bok choy. Just trim off the ends so the leaves stay attached and use a brush to wash off any dirt.

Just the ends…

Then cut them in half longwise.

Melt your butter and oil with the spices and brush on the surface of the bok choy.

Grill over high heat, allowing grill marks to form on one side and flipping to the other for 2-3 minutes. You don’t want to completely burn the leaves or overcook the juicy white ends.

After grilling, brush on the rest of your oil mixture and enjoy!

This was lunch the day I wrote this post – delicious!

What’s your favorite winter greens recipe? Please share in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Tossing The To-Do List

Who me? Y’all know I love making some to-do lists!

Well, I don’t really love the lists. It’s more of a love-hate relationship: I love not having the things I need to do rattle around in my brain and making me worry that I’ll miss something important, but I hate having this intimidating long list of things to do right in front of me on paper. That’s why I usually just keep a list of what I think I have to do today with me, and I mostly use my calendar for appointments and my work schedule. So what I did this week was very strange and a little intimidating and a very big experiment. Keep reading…

I like to think of myself as very efficient because I do a lot. I always have a running list of things to get done and I tend to fit them in where I can (before a hospital shift, during lunch time, early in the morning before the kids get up). Isn’t that how busy people get stuff done? So when i listened to a new coaching podcast by Brooke Castillo this week on getting rid of the to-do list, I was intrigued. Now, I had no intention of doing whatever she suggested. My to-do list keeps my life running. If I dumped it I’d miss a bunch of stuff, or my mind would spin out into incessant reminding me of what I need to get done at 3 am and I’d never sleep again! And since I like sleep and it’s easier for me to be nice when I’m rested, I’d rather not listen to my brain worry about what stuff I have to do if I could just write it all down and get some sleep. But, Brooke has been pretty insightful in other areas, so I decided I’d give this podcast a listen.

Interestingly, she starts by having you begin your week by writing a to-do list. But not the way I do it – by writing everything you can think of needing to do down, preferably on paper. If you are thinking about adding to your Christmas decorations and wanted to pull out the old ones to check on what you already have before you go shopping (even though it’s October and we haven’t even had Halloween yet!), that goes on the list. Write everything down, and when you think you’re done, ask your brain, “What else?” Do that until you can’t think of another thing.

It just kept growing and growing…

Then eliminate everything you don’t want to do.

Yeah, that seems hard. But if you’re going to do all these things, you’d better do them because you want to. Remember – you don’t have to do anything. You don’t even have to pay your taxes. You could have a lien put on your house or go to jail instead. Now, you can say, “Well, that means I have to pay my taxes or I’ll go to jail!” You could also choose to think, “I want to pay my taxes because I prefer to stay out of jail.” Subtle, but different. Which thought makes you feel more in control and peaceful? You get to choose the thought that serves you.

So go through the list and eliminate what you don’t want to be there. Think about what you really want and keep those things. Then here comes the hard part (What, the last part wasn’t hard enough?!). Put everything on your calendar. It doesn’t matter if you want to use a paper or electronic calendar, just fit it all in there. Assign the time you think it will take and then commit to when you’ll do it on calendar.

I can hear you now – what if I don’t know how long it will take? Pick the amount of time you think it will take to do the task and write it down. Here’s the challenge: Get it done in the time you set aside. You may want to get a task done absolutely perfectly and up to your highest standard. Resist the tendency toward perfectionism. B- work that gets done is better than A+ work that doesn’t. I know, you’re an A student. But is that getting the work done? Wouldn’t you like to have the clothes put away instead of waiting until you can completely reorganize the closet?

Here’s the final (and hardest step). Leave the list you made on paper and work from your calendar. Brooke says to throw away the list, but since this was my first week and I wrote it in a notebook I’ve been wanting to use, I didn’t trash my list (but I have been working only from my calendar). This is the key: Do what you scheduled when you scheduled it and use the time you allotted. Now, you are going to be tempted to want to do other things in the time you’ve scheduled to do the task. Facebook will be very attractive, you will get a phone call/text/email notification, you’ll remember you need to soak the beans for dinner right this minute. Do not allow distractions. Respect the time you planned with your rational brain and don’t let your primitive brain hijack the plan! That part of your brain will not want to stick with the plan and will try to get you to do something that seems better in the moment.

That’s what happened to me when I was scheduled to write this post. I didn’t want at all to get up early and write. It was dark, cold, and I was sleepy. All my brain kept telling me was that I had a whole day off and I surely could sleep a little longer and still get everything else done! Fortunately, my rational mind told me that I knew my brain would resist when I had to do something hard, and for some reason I scheduled myself this way. I had to trust that I did this to myself for a good reason. And now that I’ve gotten up and done the task, I feel accomplished and I remembered the reasons why I set the schedule this way. My sleepy brain was not to be trusted!

Remember, even if other things seem more interesting and urgent, your plan was for getting done what was important and mattered most to you. Keep your commitment to you. When you do that, you grow in your relationship with you and learn to trust and rely on yourself. That more than anything else, is worth the practice. When you know you can trust you to come through on your promises and your commitment to you is solid, you don’t worry that you’ll let yourself down or give up on you. That gives you a peace and confidence that you just don’t have when you aren’t sure that you’ll do what you say you will.

I have big plans for 2020. The reason why I tried this calendar work is because while I know that I’m efficient now, I will need to level up to get done what I’m planning. And I also get distracted by Etsy and Amazon and Facebook and email and all kinds of things I’d rather be playing with than getting my work done. I’m really good at justifying my Amazon shopping when I should be doing work because I’m saving myself a trip to the store, right? But when I see the time on the calendar that I’ve set aside for a task ticking away because I’m fooling around, that just doesn’t sit well with me. Time is like money – I have an amount to spend and it’s a resource. I think it’s more important than money, because I can’t make more time. So I value my time and want to spend it wisely. Getting the week planned out took a chunk of time, but especially as I finish my exam prep and get ready to travel to sit for the exam, the extra efficiency this week has already been helpful. So I’m going to keep it going!

Do you have a way to manage that keeps you on task? How do you manage your mind when it wants to take you off the plan? How are you with keeping commitments to yourself? Please share in the comments below!

«←8 9 10 11 12 → »