by Caroline | Jul 8, 2015 | Lifestyle
I thought I’d write the first of the “Inspiring Women” series about someone who I think is the best role model of this generation.
If you havent heard of Gabrielle Bernstein go to her website or google her right now. I stumbled upon her glorious message on New Years Day 2014 and have been a diligent follower ever since. I was ready to deepen my spiritual practice, as well as jumpstart a lifestyle of positive thinking and creating miracles.
She is a teacher of A Course in Miracles, which is what ultimitely lead me to her. I had begun reading the course and wanted to understand it better. Gabby (we’re on a nickname basis now) breaks down the message from A Course in Miracles for everyone to understand. All boiled down it teaches transcending lower thoughts of hatred, judgement, and fear that come from the ego, and achieving a state of love, forgiveness and inner peace. But don’t assume that she’s some aging hippy dippy earth mother with gray hair down to her ankles, eating the bark off a tree (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). She fully lives in the real world, and does so in a fabulous wardrobe.
Her following called “spirit junkies” (of which I consider myself a part) is a group of higher minded individuals, looking for deeper meaning, peace and beauty in everyday life. Her active and uplifting content on all social media outlets makes her followers feel like they have a life coach/spiritual guru/wise girlfriend in the palm of their hand. Along with her beautiful instagram pictures of health foods, scenes of nature and adorable boho inspired outfits, she posts quotes that seem to be just what you need to hear at that very moment, such as “My light illuminates the world” and “Life is far more fun when you have faith in the guidance that is around you.”
She is also a best selling author of 4 books aimed at helping you achieve your best and most fulfilling life. They are all significant and enlightened messages, told in an easy to understand way. Get ready for “aha” moments.
Each week she posts blogs and video content on subjects such as meditation practices for manifesting abundance in our lives, how to mindfully handle difficult situations, and tips for growing your spiritual practice. The content is short, sweet and increadibly powerful.
Along with being a author, speaker and web entrepeneur, she is a Kundalini yoga and meditation teacher. She’s definitely up there on my “dream best friend list” right next to Jennerfer Lawrence and Emma Stone.
image from womenshealthmag.com
by Caroline | Jul 8, 2015 | Lifestyle
As fully immersed and loyal subjects of the social media kingdom we spend hours on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and various blogs and websites. But is this getting out of hand a bit? I started to wonder…
Am I a digital information hoarder?
I began following various yogis and food/wellness experts on these platforms to gain inspiration and knowledge to further enhance my own journey to improve my health and happiness. But what started out with good intentions, has turned into a type of obsession.
Can you relate?
Every free second I have, my brain is craving constant input. At any given moment I’ll have 10 tabs open in my browser.
Do you spend hours “window shopping” the internet without actually investing in much quality content?
So I came to a conclusion: The ways in which we communicate and connect these days are boiled down to a single picture, status update or 140 characters. This has conditioned out brains to not only accept this but crave it. When we spend 1-3 seconds looking at something do our brains begin to only respond to small quick bits of input?
Are we unknowingly deprogramming our brains from attending to something for longer than a minute? And in turn, are we craving bits of things without actually getting to something real and substantial?
I also wonder what it’s doing to our happiness because whether we realize it or not we are bombarded with opportunities to compare ourselves with others and it’s wreaking havoc on our ideas of reality and positive self worth.
We’re constantly evaluating our lives in comparison to others. Every time I see a cool yoga posture on instagram I think “I wish I could do that.” Or when a blog shows someone’s gorgeously decorated living room I think “I want my living room to look like that.” And food is the worst! Food pictures evoke thoughts such as “I should be eating more of that superfood” or “yeah right Pinterest, my reindeer cookies will never look like that!”
So, how can we reclaim a grounded outlook on the world, when the world we live in is dominated by social media?
- Remember that someone’s Instagram feed is their highlight reel. They don’t always prance around flower meadows in an expensive dress and heels with a full face of makeup. We’d all love to, but remember that girl also got out of bed that morning looking just like you, and she probably has her own insecurities too because, hey, were all human.
- Set healthy boundaries for yourself. I deleted the Facebook app on my phone. It was getting out of hand in a major way. Now I’m still connected, but I check it from my laptop every couple of days and spend no more than 10-15 minutes each time. I realized that I was missing out on absolutely nothing by scaling back. My big Aha moment: Facebook didn’t provide that much value for me in my daily life, aside from cute puppy videos.
- Pick one platform that’s your thing, and focus on that. It can get overwhelming with everything that’s out there. Personally, I love Instagram so I kept that on my phone and try to post regularly to that one. And the good thing is since it connects to your other social media outlets anyway I can still post to Facebook and twitter without actually logging on to either one.
- When you’re with your friends and family, be with them. I can’t tell you how much time I spent on my phone and laptop when I would get home from work. It put a wedge of disconnection between me and my loved ones with all of our faces buried in screens. Make family time truly family time.
I think that you’ll find that with these simple adjustments, your happiness and presence in your life will skyrocket.
by Caroline | Jul 8, 2015 | Self Care
So as my readers know I post a lot about health, wellness, good food, and nutrition. But in order to lead a healthful and balanced life, a large component which cannot be overlooked is spirituality.
I have found that the further I dive into the world of healthy living the more I see how important a connection to the higher self is an integral part of overall wellbeing.
Coming from a Jesuit education, where significance is placed on “care of the whole person” (mind body and spirit) it’s fitting that I find myself at a place in my life where I am placing significance on caring for my whole person, and writing about it here!
It’s easy to fall into the mindset that spirituality is too woo-woo and new-agey but let’s get real here. I’m not talking about organized religion. As author and medical intuitive Caroline Myss says, “Organized religion is a costume party and nothing but the politics of God.”
All major religions boil down to the same ideals: love, peace and kindness toward one another. They are just dressed up in costumes like judgement, hate and exclusivity.
Peel away all the nonsense that has been taught for the last couple centuries and we are looking at the teachings of Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed and other spiritual leaders, and realizing that they are all kinda the same.
So I want to dive in to better understand the connection between our spiritual health and our physical health, becuase my gut is telling me that they are way more related than we ever thought.
What are some ways in which you deepen your connection to spirit, your inner guide, the universe, God, Angels, or whatever you wanna call it?
by Caroline | Jul 8, 2015 | Recipes
I ask myself this question all the time. There are some basic rules of thumb that I follow when it comes to fruits and vegetables. But it’s easy to feel insane, as I often do, when we don’t have so much control over our food. Eating at restaurants and friends houses can be a challenge for people, like me, who are always reading labels and ingredients lists, wondering if this is organic or GMO-free (I know, if it gets any worse I probably should see a shrink). I’ve done a little research to set some boundaries I can feel at ease with. Certain foods are a no-no if they aren’t organic, some are a “try your best to get organic” while for others it doesn’t matter all that much.
#1: Know the Dirty Dozen. If buying organic is hard, then just go for the holy grail. These guys typically contain the highest levels of pesticide residue: apples, strawberries, grapes, celery, peaches/nectarines, spinach (including frozen and canned), peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, snap peas, potatoes and blueberries. So if you are going to buy only a few things organic, make it these ones.
#2: Clean 15. You can feel at ease knowing the clean 15, produce you don’t have to buy organic: avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, sweet peas (frozen), onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwi, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe (domestic), cauliflower, and sweet potatoes.
#3: Pick what you eat the most of and buy just those ones organic. These are the foods that are frequent fliers on your shopping list, and are consumed in your house on a weekly basis. So if you eat a lot of spinach, cucumbers, celery and apples, like I do, then always buy those organic, no exceptions. But if you hardly eat potatoes or snap peas, then once in a blue moon it’s ok to skip the organic if you have to.
#4: When dining at a restaurant try to let go of the anxiety of not knowing if your food is organic. It probably isn’t, unless they specially state it on the menu. This situation always gives me problems. There are essentially 3 choices here: 1) Don’t ever go out. Yea Right! 2) Go out but worry the whole time over what you cannot control. 3) Go out, chose healthy options when available, and allow yourself a day off from worrying. It’s not easy, I often find myself hovering around option number 2, but I’m trying to go with the third option more.
Part of what I am trying to do about easing my (and your) anxiety, is being ok with moderation. I’m writing this post as much for me as for you. It’s easy to get obsessed with reading alarmist articles and websites that scare the pants off of you. If I know one thing it’s that worrying is like junk food in your body. Anxiety messes with us physically and can cause as much damage as a big mack with fries. If I eat a non-organic apple one day and worry about it, then I’m causing more harm to my body then If I just ate the apple and didn’t give a crap. Happy shopping!
by Caroline | Jul 8, 2015 | Lifestyle
I love healthy cookbooks. I have to restrain myself at the book store because I want them all. It’s important that the recipes in a cookbook are realistic. I won’t buy one if each dish has a long list of ingredients that I have never heard of and multiple complex steps, resulting in a multi-hour process. As much as I love learning about new ingredients and experimenting in the kitchen, I know I will rarely use it, and only collect dust on the shelf. And lonely books are just sad.
One that I use consistently is Against All Grain by Danielle Walker. I keep it on my kitchen window sill because I use it so much. I have endless praise for Danielle and her paleo pioneering. Although I am not fully paleo I definitely lean in that direction, consuming far less wheat, grains, and processed foods than I used to. She creates easy to make recipes using ingredients I’ve heard of. Some of the recipes are more time consuming than others, but when you want to make your health a priority it’s a given you will spend some time in the kitchen.
A definite keeper from this book is her Banana Bread. I ended up making it into muffins because I coudn’t find a bread pan and I had a muffin tray right there. Even better! Perfect portions!
Dry Ingredients:
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
Wet Ingredients:
2 tbsp melted Coconut oil
4 eggs
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 banana mashed
1/2 cup coconut milk (you could also use almond milk if that is what you have)
Diretions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Mix coconut oil, eggs, honey, vanilla and vinegar in a bowl until combined.
- In a separate bowl combine coconut flour, almond flour, baking soda, and sea salt.
- In a third bowl mash the bananas and mix with coconut milk.
- Combine all three bowls, mixing until everything is combined nicely.
- Depending on whether you are cooking it in a bread pan or muffin tin cooking time will differ. If you are using a bread pan the book suggests 40-45 minutes. If you are using a muffin tin 15-20 minutes should do the trick.
Additional Suggestions:
With this recipe feel free to add on some other ingredients, whatever excites you. The book suggests chocolate chips. I used walnuts because to me banana bread has to have walnuts in it.
Also it is helpful to make sure that the eggs and other wet ingredients are close to room temperature. True story: melted coconut oil will solidify with mixed with comething cold (eggs that you just took out of the refrigerator). Learned that the hard way, which made mixing very difficult.
Anyway, they turned out great. I ate four as soon as they came out of the oven.
