Fruits and vegetables hit different in the Summer. Watermelon, Strawberries, and lettuce in season taste amazing. It’s like seasonally growing when nature intended makes the plants happier, which in turn makes the parts we eat delectable. This summer salad is one of my favorites! All the different flavors create a party in your mouth. Better yet, it’s packed with vitamins and nutrients that will leave you feeling your best!
Don’t underestimate the power of mindset work to change the entire trajectory of your life. It may seem like minute changes, but one day you’ll look back and everything will be different.
Time is our most valuable resource. We all want to work efficiently. Here are three hacks to work smarter, not harder.
These breakfast tacos are what dreams are made of. They look fancy but are simple to make, which is my favorite type of meal. The charred corn tortilla is a game changer 🙌🏼.
I crave flexibility as much as I crave routine. There comes a point when doing the same thing day in and day out becomes exhausting and mundane. I have found it vital to my mental health to regularly switch my environment. I love to immerse myself in new places and participate in different activities from my usual. For me, this switches my perspective and keeps my mindset positive. I love immersing myself in different cultures, being around people who think differently than me.
Life is beautiful. There is laughter, there is love, there is pleasure, but there is also pain. There are times when you wake up in the morning and you don’t know how you could possibly go on. Moments so horrible that they steal the breath from your body. Relentlessly it will seem, wave after wave will keep coming. Knocking you down into the glass-like sand until you feel one with the jagged rocks and sticky mud on the sea floor.
When this happens, and I say when not if, when this happens you have two options. You can stay on that sea floor and become a victim of your circumstances. You can become a sea creature of the depths and learn to navigate in a world with no light. You can let your environment suck the color from your skin and the light from your eyes. You can grow gills in your neck. Constantly starving and fighting for what little sustenance there is down in the trenches. Or, you can fight your way back to the top. You can look around at the darkness and determine that you, in fact, do not belong at the bottom of the ocean. You can get out from under the oppressive weight of the sea. You can decide that you like the way your skin glistens in the sun.
Once you decide you do not belong at the bottom, you will have to embark on the fight of your life. You have to claw your way through the layers of the sea, all the while feeling like your lungs will burst from lack of oxygen. They’ll be times you’ll think the surface is close only to find it’s still far from reach. You’ll want to give up. You’ll think growing gills and living in a sunless world wouldn’t be so bad. It would be easier to simply sink back down to the bottom. You’ll doubt you have what it takes to make it to the surface. You’ll forget what you are fighting for and why the sun on your skin felt so good.
But what sets apart a victim and a victor is not that victims have doubts and fears and victors don’t. Everyone will doubt. Everyone will fear. Everyone at some point will curse the hard road laid out before them. The difference is victims let those thoughts sink them. A victor may get to the bottom, may even drift back down after trying to get to the top, but they will keep swimming up. They’ll keep swimming through the water that feels like mud until their muscles are carved of steel. The victor knows who they are, they know they belong in the sun. And no matter how long it takes, they’ll fight on until they feel it on their skin again.
Meals don’t always have to be time consuming and complex. Sandwiches allow you to eat healthy on a budget, are easy to make, require little clean up, and keep you satisfied and energized. So many wins in one easy package!
People talk about the beginning, the pivotal moment that made everything change. People talk about the end, the dream that finally came to fruition or the failure that knocked them down. But people rarely talk about the messy middle. The middle isn’t a rush of inspiration that makes you change the trajectory of your life. It’s not reaching the top of a mountain and gazing gloriously at the view and it’s not a crash to rock bottom. The middle is a slow, steady, painful, uphill trek through thick mud with falls along the way and few moments of reprieve.
When talking about transitional periods on his podcast, Mark Groves said “I started to think on transitions. Recognizing how hard it is to carry the space in the middle. And I think so much of our transitions are cut short because we can’t sit in the space of expansion. We can’t sit in the space of trusting that we’re going to arrive. Trusting that we are going to catch up.” Mark proposed the following question: “can you sit in the space that your soul has drawn you towards and just trust?”
Ego work is tricky. There are numerous trains of thought around the topic. There are people who have no idea what an ego is or how it plays out in their lives. This is dangerous. It’s hard to work with something if you do not even know it’s at play. Some want to overcome their egos. But this puts you at odds with a part of yourself. I used to think like this. I used to have no idea what an ego was or how and why it was functioning. If I felt threatened or hurt, I’d be consumed with anger and resentment. I’d do everything I could to keep the people or things trying to hurt me at bay. Once I learned what my ego was, I tried not to let it rule the show or make the decisions, I wanted to be “better” than my ego. The irony of this egotistical statement is not lost on me.
But then I had a breakthrough. I realized my ego wasn’t trying to ruin my life. It was not a “bad” thing. It’s a part of myself trying to protect me in the simplest way I know how. Our egos are built in protection. They are devices of love, not something to resent or beat into submission.
I have found a way to work with my ego and I’ll let you in on the secret. Try it out and see if it benefits you. I listen to everything my ego says. I listen to and acknowledge my initial reaction to a situation. I’ve found that this initial strong reaction, especially to things that are unsettling, is usually my ego at work. It’s my inner self trying to look out for me, trying to keep me safe. We don’t have to ignore our egos or shove them into the ground.
I listen to what my ego has to say. I acknowledge if it’s upset and dive deeper as to why. I accept my initial feelings and initial calls to action for what they are, valid. But then, instead of letting myself blindly react to the person or then event that stirred my ego, I breathe and look deeper inside myself. I go deeper than my protective ego and figure out why I am feeling the way I am. I dive deep into my feelings. I evaluate and consider how I actually want to respond and what desired outcome I genuinely want to walk away with.
By doing this, I am acknowledging and listening to my ego. Ego’s don’t get upset for no reason; they provide us with important information if we take the time to listen. Then I mindfully and intentionally respond in a way that is going to serve my higher good and is aligned with who I am as a person.
I’ll give you an example to show you this method at work. If an individual is rude to me, my ego usually wants to argue with that person. It wants to let them know they cannot be rude to me; this is a valid feeling and reaction. But instead of letting my Ego respond that way right away, I take time to think. I ask myself important questions. Who is this stranger? What benefits will I get from this interaction? Could they be having a bad day? Usually people who are mean to others have inner turmoil going on. Do I want to stoop to this person’s level and take on the energy they are putting out or do I want to move on with my life? There are times when I do want to speak out against the situation. But there are also times, much more often, where silence is the strongest response. This keeps my inner peace and lets the aggravated party be alone in their negativity without dragging me down with it.
I always have my ego in my corner, willing to protect me. But the more confident I have become, the less I need it.
