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Are You Out of Balance? Pitta Mind-Body Inflammation

Cooling Pitta mind-body Inflammation with summer fruits and Jell-O — Jell-O doesn’t win nutrition points, but helps for a happy mind and Pitta cooled body (like these peach choux) 😋

I’m starting with Pitta mind-body inflammation for a series on mind-body awareness and creating more harmony and balance to the drum of your body-mind or mind-body.

Specifically, if you’re not sure what’s wrong, and at the least you’re feeling less than usual yourself, or internally having a unusually high moody out-of-sorts season, I’ve got you.

Because most mood issues are self-curable. And we all know people we’ve come across that are moody (…we would never admit our own occasions though 😊).

I didn’t grow up openly expressing moods other than tears, because we weren’t afforded the luxury to feel and express as much. In fact, you wouldn’t find anxious or frustration openly discussed in schools back then, as now acceptable highlighted sub-moods to happy or sad.

…And along those lines, anger or aggressive moods weren’t emotionally addressed, and that leads to Pitta mind-body inflammation. So, this week I start with Pitta mind-body where anger is a clear outward sign opportunity to address the inside expression.

Pitta tension runs high in the air in these ending summer days and school year starts. Transitions can test any of us.

At any moment we can have an off-balance reaction in our mind when something sets us off. But if that becomes a week and a season, then that becomes a mind-body problem we would endure.

BUT for better living… we should restore Pitta mind-body inflammation, so we can thrive and not just survive in this one life we get because we know better. Nice reminder, huh? 😉

Sometimes all we need is the awareness and knowledge to know what to do, that experience and age can help us with in wisdom.

And in today’s summer heat awareness, if you’re feeling overheated in mind or body, then you’re embracing some heavy Pitta compounding in this already Pitta season.

If it’s causing a problem when you observe in your self-witnessing thought life, then you want to cool it down.

See, the real problem is our shouting ego wants to act like everything is fine when it’s not. And in the act, sends bullhorn loud messages. 📢

But aware and outsmarting your ego, you can proactively restore and fix your moods by daily small-effort choices that takes little effort. It’s not immediate like winning the lottery or a trip around the world can do 🗺️, but it turns the tide in your mind-body.

You gradually restore back to equilibrium so you don’t spend more days in dissatisfied living or misery.

I learned this in one season when I had off-the charts high Pitta daily that I could look at a clock and know it was Pitta o’clock. And it wasn’t 5 o’clock, so jumping in a pool didn’t work in those hours.

And it was winter time, so an indoor pool would’ve been the only pool meditation option.

And in your case, you have a different makeup or one that’s unique to you.

A Vata body’s natural way is on the cooler side. With cooler season, bundling up in the winter with turtlenecks and dormant turtle moves would be aligned in balance. If you’re a Kapha, then you’re also running these cool tendencies, but less dry.

And following the temps was the drumbeat I moved to. Why am I pointing this out? Because you know you’re not in nature’s balance when you’re feeling different body temps going on that changes your tempo and moods.

See where I’m going with this?…

Sometimes you see guys in shorts in the winter, and you may think it’s the extra body hair like bears to keep grizzly warm, but usually it’s the high Pitta trait common in males that exude this. And instead of feeling cool-cold, it’s warm-hot, and that causes unsaid mood changes too.

…And this can happen to any of us as we all have traces of Pitta, Kapha, and Vata.

My work situation triggered that one specific winter where my Vata was outta whack and showing more obvious Pitta mind-body inflammation signs.

Knowing what your personal makeup is, and what your imbalances are is useful because then you can get a formula to confidently change the tide and not live in a season of unnecessary discomfort, that up to now you’ve written off as subtle moods.

And the first step is to know what’s on fire so you can reverse the effects and then enjoy this season in mind-body calm peace.

Cool The Heated Body-Mind Steps

Weather hot vs. cold may sound like small, silly talk, but it’s a good indicator of your balance temperature. It can definitely be more silently dangerous than stress because it takes a while to accumulate.

And stress triggers can be the cause of Pitta mind-body inflammation… like a low-heat slow pot simmering. And overheating is the fiery pan that can cause a fire.

Heated humans don’t pose environmental danger (unless we deliberately react badly). But we do possess the harmful characteristics that can overheat our bodies.

And at its worse can shutdown or shout out like in burnout.

And it can definitely feel fiery inside us (like when we bite into a hot chili pepper)…

We get clues when we have a short fuse for others’ behaviors that irritate us and cause us to be more opinionated or quick to judge.

…Or we can have outward skin inflammations like rashes, redness, or heartburn.

These are all different signs that your body shows you because it wants to cool down. That’s when you want to nip it in the bud so it doesn’t grow from one spot.

You want to team with your body and run in the opposite direction.

But the usual way is we keep unintentionally igniting our mind-body’s heat by not making changes.

And that’s what’s really needed as part of the prescribed cool down: all food, thought, and mind-body intake.

And doing the right steps prevent Pitta mind-body inflammation. You do have a say in the matter.

But when your body has reached a boiling point that’s common with our busy lives, these are the core body cool down prescriptions (that I think are worth repeating especially in the hot summer).

Intensity:

Athletes do this well because they’re more proned to experience inflammation and sport injuries putting themselves in tough body situations.

And when there’s red inflammation, there are two solutions: ice and ice water.

A cold dip is good, and as painful as that first freezing cold dip is to the skin’s touch, the body is screaming “more please!”

Running toward a bear could sound easier in the moment, but stay as long as you can bear. Our bodies are wiser than we are and will calm down when we calm it down.

And like a fire, what matters is:

Immediacy:

Ice as soon as possible. Don’t wait until you get home. Because inflammation grows and can spread into complicated areas if not attended to. You wouldn’t wait to put out a fire, so in the same way act fast on your body’s inflammation sign.

You may remember in school… if you got hurt in gym class, you went to the nurse’s office and she gave you immediate care. As adults, somehow we think getting through meetings or taking care of everyone else’s needs first is more important. Plus, our bodies were more resilient in those younger years.

Awareness:

If your inflammation is not getting better in a few days after icing that may need OTC relief, then take it seriously to seek more intense protocols or medical intervention as though your body is on fire. Because in a way, it is.

See it as your body’s cry for help. You’re not overreacting. And infections (that inflammations can turn into) are real and can happen at any time.

And in bi-directional effects, when you’ve taken care of your body, take care of your mind…

Running independently is a heated mind. When it’s so bad like in burnout or after the burn when you can’t take anymore… take the right steps so you snap out sooner and avoid a season of catchup from inflammation misery.

Prevention and quick restoration is a healthy decision and lifestyle choice you get to make.

🛒 You can checkout this list of 200 anti-inflammatory foods and/or purchase a comprehensive guide with specific food category lists, and learn what’s nutrition research important to know in anti-inflammatory foods and grocery shopping. 🌱

Peach Profiteroles

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, French

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 cup flour (combine bread and all purpose flour recommended)
1 tbsp butter (a small amount will do you for the lighter effect)
1/4 cup milk or nut milk
1-2 eggs (thick, smooth, and pipeable batter)
1 ripe peach
thick plain yogurt or Greek yogurt

Instructions

Cook flour, butter, and milk.
Let cool and add egg. If the batter isn't thick enough then add an additional egg.
Bake on 350°F for about 30-35 minutes.
Optional: brush a whisked egg (egg wash) for additional shine before baking.
Fill with yogurt and decorate with peach bits.

Night Meditation for Healthy Mindset Growth

Night Meditation for Healthy Mindset Growth with these starry night and dreamy cloud pop tarts may be what you need. Recipe below.Print Recipe

star and cloud jam pop tarts. — Night meditation inspiration with starry clouds and pop tart food inspiration bites ⭐️ ☁️ Recipe below…

Growing up, we learned wrong ideas that didn’t help us (that wasn’t our fault)… and today we can rewrite those thoughts with starry night meditation ⭐️ (…I have a bright mind reset idea below).

It’s good for us to know where all the muck began in childhood. If our caretakers or parents were part of the Lost Generation or older Baby Boomer generation, we know they didn’t have the self-aware knowledge we have today.

…They didn’t grow up with vulnerability as an acceptable way of life, so their lack of evolvement in those passed on areas is not their fault. Weakness used to be frowned upon and taking unacceptable initative and action (that’s acceptable today) would have been seen as scandals and drama back then.

Often growing up in those zeitgeists, people stayed close-minded and endured to their mental health demise. And what hurt mental health in individuals back then would still hurt today, but now we have society awareness and acceptance to be grateful for. 💝

And maybe your parents, grandparents, and caretakers still live with that mindset that they won’t shake off.

One book example that shares how trauma affects a family’s history is Maya Angelou’s Why the Caged Bird Sings. There we get an inside glimpse at understanding how toxicity can impact a person and influence others. .

So, we know where it comes from in passing generations, but that doesn’t help us navigate our next steps in our own complicated mind mess baggage.

In our today lives, we can only be in charge of our awareness. And in doing so, we forgive others and we don’t let those old ways infect us. We live our new normal way because life is meant to be joyful and rewarding even with the bumps.

And for today’s generation, we know that holding onto personal trauma in any form is self-destructive (and sabotaging at the least). It hurts us and in the relationships we have by what we intentionally and unintentionally do.

Unintentional damage can be done at any moment. Until we confront and restore what’s not working well… oh, and even better finding out the wound root cause… that’s when we lift our hovering clouds. And that gives us new life. Bringing light to darkness is the way out.

We work on healing our old brain that doesn’t forget or quit even after we’ve long moved on.

And if you didn’t have a perfect childhood (...yes, that’s most of us) or if you did live in one you want to relive, you’re still living in an imperfect world around you.

The imperfect reality is freeing because then you know that you lost something in translation that can be uncovered (inside you ❤️), once you breakthrough, that will make life even better in the mind-body connection. And then when you’re sensitized, you can get in the healthy habit of restoring your mind-body every time you feel your thoughts are off.

If you haven’t discovered your hidden sides hindering you from your best, this week is your time to explore. Put down the usual tasks or at least a few hours.

Making self-discovery a priority in your life saves you time from making the same mistakes. You improve your quality of life without having to spend a dime.

And with an inward deep-dive plunge, you can do this anywhere on this planet. Everybody has access.

🗝️ Reminder: you only get to do this life once and the sooner you uncover the hidden spots created by wounds, the more you get to live free for the rest of your life.

…So often we seek ways to gain external freedom away from our current life or work life, and for a better future, and we ignore what’s closest to us that’s also the most impactful… our mind freedom that we can change at any moment if we wanted to and know how.

And if we want to and don’t quite know how, night meditation is one of, if not the BEST time. 🕦

Because as you’re about to drift off or when you’re tired, you get closer to the Theta relaxed brain waves. Your conscious mind is less active… and your automatic and subconscious brain is more receptive. And we want to influence our back office brains as much as possible. 😉

So… to mind reset with night meditation:

Start with witnessing your thoughts and note when you felt inferior or less than during the day. Some call this the Impostor.

On any day, by midday, chances are you’ve come across self-sabotage thoughts already. And by night, you can scan for the thoughts in retrospect that you had in the day.

Think of what you have to gain if the worst did happen… maybe it’s more time on your hands or you allow space for new opportunities to come in as closed doors are shut.

…That’s mind freeing. Doze off with those positive and meditative-worthy thoughts. Get into your night meditation jam as a healthy habit that calms you to sleep.

And you can let that night meditation be your every night where you re-write your thoughts one day at a time. ✨

Low-Sugar Breakfast Tarts

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

Flour
Water
Light butter
Light sugar

Instructions

Make your pastry dough. use light ingredients (low sugar and butter) for a lighter pastry.
Roll our pastry dough to about 1/4 inch to 1/3 inch thick.
Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Cut out two per pop tart.
Add filling like raspberry jam or crushed fruit.
Add the second cut out dough pieces to the top and for "a filling sandwich." Use a fork to imprint and clamp down around the edges.
Bake at 350°F for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Prepare your glaze. Mix fresh raspberry and a 'lil jam to make more smooth consistency. Get your raspberry jam on! When pop tarts are cool, smear glaze on tops and add a mint leaf or your favorite green zhugh element.

If you like these, I invite you to check out the healthy whole wheat raspberry pop tarts and peach profiteroles

Pool Meditation Idea For Ego Daily Calm

Pool meditation is underrated. And so is sea salt therapy especially for cooling Pitta.

Pink Himalayan sea salt therapy for cooling.

One of the intentions of Meditation is to quiet the mind that’s always running. And that’s how I came to discover pool meditation.

In any meditation, the peace is in the silence. And I have a pool meditation idea that worked for me… and I’m passing on to you in case you want to give it a try!

BTW, I am the first to admit I’m not a good half-conscious meditator. I prefer to silence my mind awake fully conscious and eyes open. And whatever works for you, works!

Specifically isolating the mind’s ego is a good goal for your meditation 🎯

…Because we’re stuck with our ego for life, and good or bad, whether we’re meditating or not.

And our ego is a good part of why life goes back to the way it was after the recent meditation effect gradually wears off. Even if that’s just ennui (boredom) that the ego can turn into woes-me.

When we go back to our lives from peace and meditation, the ego snaps right back into active mode. And it wants to be right (not necessarily happy).

So it’s a great idea to enhance the calming meditation effects and have it last longer.

I tried this for the first time years ago when I was practicing how to be conscious of the mind-body connection.

…Long before my first meditation experiences (when photos were fuzzy and taken from snap cameras 😉). Like traditional meditation, we could sit still in a chair or Indian-style sitting position on the floor.

And today for any of us, ongoing calm can be the day and every day when focused and engaged in the moment (that’s part of our modern day self-awareness movement).

And long before my first meditation experience, I stepped into this calm discovery decades ago in an indoor swimming pool… 💭

In one temporary corporate job I held many moons ago, there were two great job benefits. The first one was leaving at 5 pm that was not a common occurrence in any modern work in the Western world. You probably know what I’m talkin’ about!

And the second benefit (and first ever perk for me) was use of the indoor pool attached to the conference center I worked in.

That summer, every weekday at 5 pm on the dot I got excited about my day change. I jumped into my swimsut and I transformed into my meditation calm.

The first few minutes in the pool cooled me off (both in mind and body). And the longer I stayed in, the more calm I felt. Even on the drive home I could feel the stress of the world melt away.

pool meditation with a rainbow decorated unicorn float is always fun!

I still felt alive when I got home, that’s not the usual feeling from an exhausting work day around work people. And on some days I had a second job to go to. I had caught my second wind in the pool environment.

I didn’t need any special breathing techniques or calming meditation narration. The pool created a naturally calming effect on the Pitta summer side of things that’s heightened in the heat.

When you step into a cooling pool, it does your body good. Your body recognizes the environment as healing. Yes, it’s a healing pool of water. And our bodies are mostly water, so it’s natural osmosis.

You cool down with the shimmering body of blue water around you, and take yourself out of the usual dry earth we’re mostly around. Your mind can travel a million miles away from your life.

So it’s also an escape. 💭

And that’s how calming pool meditation can be for you where you dip your toes in this tranquil setting. You slip away from the earthly troubles and enter a new realm. Not to mention the blue ripple color is mesmerizing, serene, and good for eye-open meditators like me (…and maybe you too 👀).

You get a part two in your day like you’re starting a new day in the same day. And sometimes a start over if the first half wasn’t so good or relaxing.

Some cool pool meditation tips:

Sit by the pool steps to start with so your body is partially in the water. Then gradually enter the pool water. For indoor pool meditation, I like to hang along the pool’s edge like I’m reading a book, but I’m actually reading the calm in myself. I’m just chillin’ and forgetful of time. 😊

You not only cool and calm from stress, you work on letting go of those negative thoughts that your ego feeds you non-stop throughout the 9-5 day. So you do yourself healthy good.

Also, pool meditation only works well in a quiet pool setting. Not an outdoor pool with splish splashing kids playing or a pool class with instructor and a headset.

You’d be better off under the shade of a tree or in a cool spot inside, but it won’t be the same as an inside pool. Hotels usually have these indoor pools that are almost always quiet.

…Then when you get back home, capture the way you felt.

This is an amazing power and tool that you have control over. You don’t have to wait until the next free day or moments you have. You just reset yourself in that pool calm place in your imagination.

Your body may even cool down just from the thought. That’s the healthy power of the mind-body. 🌱

You may even want to have a blue wavy color or pool photo in front of you as a reminder. Visual cues are so powerful to empower you. 🎉

In contrast, a bright photo or retro Barbie colors in front of you invigorates, that can just heat things up in your mind. Bright red is even more alarming than the color of hot chili peppers and fire trucks (but BLUE is a soothing color in all shades).

…If you’re a bit Kapha minded these days, maybe that’s what you need! 💕

We had a neon pink light outside the meditation room that looks like a photo developing room (…maybe you remember those where the negatives 🎞️turned to positives 📸?). And from this room, we came out as transformed half-asleep meditated beings 😉

You may never have this glowing experience that I had, BUT you can do your own meditation wherever you are… or test pool meditation and see if that’s your meditation jam. 🧘🏻‍♀️

And from there you can get your creative personal essence back in case you’re having a creative mental block or dry spell season of ideas… or searching for your life’s purpose. And this is just one of many techniques that can get your cool-calm-and collected swag back as a first step. 😎

Here’s one dessert you can enjoy.

Vitamin C Boost Tropical Fruit Plate

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

Tropical fruits, chopped
Meringue (or grit pie bottom)
1 15 ounce cream of coconut can

Instructions

For Pavolva, whip egg whites to make meringue base. Add to a pan that will be your presenting dish/pan or use a Silpat for easy transfer. Alternatively you can make a grits pie base that's quicker to bake, with grits, egg, and coconut oil that complements tropical fruit flavors.
Bake in 200°F oven until it feels solid and formed (like packed snow).
Decorate with fruit (dragonfruit, pineapple, passion fruit, and guava). If you want to use less fruit sugar or for a breakfast Pavlova, you can alternatively add berries and green bananas.
Pipe coconut cream (solid flesh of coconut)

Neck Yoga Exercises + Easy Coconut Cookies

One part of our body that gets ignored often is our neck. It’s like a shadow to our face. …so neck yoga is needed and the best poses are below.

And a recipe you’ll love that you can prepare in in 5 minutes and bake in 10-12 minutes.

Jump to Recipe

How to make easy coconut cookies below (that are so easy that NO recipe is needed!)

Our necks vary in length even though we have the same number of neck vertebrae as giraffes. 🦒And our neck sizes vary as do our Adam’s apples that are larger in males than females.

Our necks serve us to not just help support us in eating apples. 🍎Without our neck, we couldn’t use our brains. And we wouldn’t be connected to our body.

So regularly doing neck yoga exercises protect this vital body part and can work out some of the kinks from our bad computer postures and pillow sleeping habits.

Restoring your neck is a gentle way to get your groove back. And if you haven’t been in your yoga routine recently, this could be a good way to start again. Plus you can do it anywhere and everywhere. That can’t be said for many yoga poses.

And yoga is a great way to get your relaxation and breathing space back. 🧘🏻‍♀️

Sometimes all you need is just 5-10 minutes of yoga to reset your day and how you feel. So let’s begin… ⏲️

Take baby steps, Child’s pose is a great way to begin if you have floor space and a mat. It’s a calming move to set your relax neck intentions.

For neck yoga benefits, instead of tucking your neck down, try an Active Child’s pose where your neck is upward and out forward like the neck of a plane at take off ✈️

You can look at your pointed hands and fingers stretched forward on the mat. The intention can be to focus.

FYI, beginner poses like this are healthy good for anyone Advanced or Beginner.

You can use balancing (Hatha) poses. And go with a flow (Vinyasa) where you insert a Downward Dog in between the face down mat and face up poses… or anything you like if that’s too much or intimidating.

Yoga is flexible and hopefully when you do any yoga, you’ll become more joint-muscle flexible as one of the main benefits.

You’ll feel less soreness all around if any, and hear less joint cracking when you bend a certain way. Usually you’re benefitting more than one area at a time.

And the neck is no different.

But if you want to isolate the neck yoga exercise, moving your head side to side and from shoulder to shoulder like sunrise to sunset is a good regular practice. 🌅

It’s a healthy mantra to get you loose and let go of the unhealthy or tricky areas of your life situations. And yoga is great to manifest new habits and old thought patterns that don’t serve you any longer.

Making a tradition a habit is not a good idea if it keeps you stuck. And making a good habit a tradition is!

So now that you’re warmed up for neck yoga, here we go:

Front facing down mat:

1.Active Child’s pose

As mentioned start with the Active Child’s pose. If your tendency is looking down most the day, then this will carry a good stretch in your neck. Look as far up to the ceiling or sky as you can.

2. Table pose

This is a neutral pose that you can take into standing or front down poses. In Table pose, look up to the ceiling. Feel the back of the neck yoga stretch.

Besides yoga habits, another habit you can do is when you’re waiting in neutral, look up.

I do this when I’m waiting for the warm water to brew for tea making. Or when I’m filling the water filter with water.

Habit stacking neck yoga with waiting is a good idea. Even when you’re looking at your phone, try to get in the habit of holding your device up.

3. Mountain Pose 🏔️

You can ease into a Downward Dog and then stand up in Mountain Pose with hands in the air or prayer hands, and look up to your hands or ceiling.

3. Bow pose

Torso body facing down on the mat, bend your knees. With legs up in the air that you can move around, send your arms to your back and grab your ankles.

You’ll feel a nice stretch along your torso and back, and if you look up you really get to take advantage of the neck yoga bend.

Then transition to a seated position with Downward Dog if you like.

Bottom on the mat:

4. Boat Pose

Look up and legs up in the air so you’re in “V” shape with your bottom as your anchor. Your neck gets a nice stretch.

Instead of counting breaths, when you hold the pose, you could think of something today that you’re grateful for that you otherwise would’ve missed in a busier moment. That’ll add stress-drop points to your day. 🌻

5. Fish pose

This is a fun water animal pose. On your back, arch your back and let your head dangle downward so you’re looking at the wall behind you and upside down.

This is something you can do on your beach towel in case you’re on vacation 😉 And you can roll up your towel to use as a temporary pillow so your head drapes over the rollup (mimicking your neck yoga pose in Fish) that takes the pressure off your neck.

6. Seated Leg stretch

And finally to finish off, while seated you can stretch forward to touch your toes in front of you or as far as you can stretch.

Look up (and out as far as the eye can see) and you’ll feel the effects.

And after doing these 6 look up neck yoga poses, you’ll feel lighter.

And you could be ready for a treat like these summer light delights that are suprisingly healthy with superfood coconut goodness.

Coconut Cookies 🥥

Coconut lover? Move over macaroons (and macarons!). You’ll love these healthy, lower-fat cookies that need NO recipe or butter…

These healthy coconut toasted cookies are so easy to make with 4 ingredients and even less steps 👣: coconut flour (plus about a TBSP of AP flour), coconut oil, an egg, and shredded coconut.

Mix these ingredients together by hand and make a loose cookie dough that will have falling crumbs.

Shape into small circles, and bake on a no-stick baking sheet. Bake until sides are lightly toasted brown.

For the toasted coconut, if you want to be sure they don’t over toast while your cookie is still toasting 🥠, you can use this ‘lil trick:

Add shredded coconut to cookie tops about 5 minutes before the cookies are done. Then flip the cookies upside down on the baking sheet.

They look like crab cakes as an illusion. They’re coconut cookies.

And after you’ve been looking down on your baking tray, habit stack back to your look up neck yoga 🙆🏻‍♀️

Low-Sugar Coconut Flour Cookies

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 cup coconut flour
1 tbsp AP flour
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 large egg
1/4 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened
1 Tbsp shredded coconut, sweetened

God Winks Encouragement

God winks appear all the time and in front of us if we’re paying attention.

God often speaks in nature like in bright sunflower blooms 🌻 and occasional rainbow skies 🌈 And in science like the rare total eclipse 🌘 and even in a pair of daily ducks.

God winks in nature like these common pair of ducks. They are the many wonders that keep us wondering!

We also sometimes forget that God winks in our food where nature provides plant-based foods.

Like these authentic whole wheat zucchini fettuccine getting drying-ready for cooking (recipe below 🧡).

Jump to Recipe

I believe everyone needs encouragement in this life. It’s part of the healthy and happy journey. And one special form of encouragement that you may already turn to is the God winks that are specific to your life…

The daily favors, blessings, miracles… whatever you want to call it… like driving by a surprising display of flowers instead of the usual path to radiate the day 🌷

When something special, small or not happens in your day, you’re reminded that you’re watched over.

You know that you were given luck in some way by the Universe if you allow your beliefs to take you there and you push your ego aside that can thwart your efforts in your mind.

God is love and the ego is fear. And how you noodle yourself out of those times where it’s hard to see the love, will get you to more God winks sooner because you’ll see them. 👀

You see favor in life, whether you bypass a long line that was just there seconds before you got there. …Or, you’re lucky with your online submission that comes back favorable.

Your timing is perfect and the opportunity is for you. And that was no coincidence. That is meant to be encouraging to your day if you don’t miss it.

These can be a part of your every day, if you pay attention to the discernment message that the Universe sends. As you live longer and practice deciphering more you will get better at this!

In Christian living, it’s the Holy Spirit helping us out or the spirit in you.

There’s no mystery or woo-woo, it’s just the way it is on our planet and was established, all documented during Biblical times.

And we can this live out daily in our version of modern Biblical living if we choose.

An interesting thought: the book that made it in every hotel room (I worked in hotels) is full of good daily instruction.

Most of us don’t give it daily thought.

I know I didn’t for the first quarter of my life until the words came to life when I learned the content that helped align my life.

And in your life, the more wondering and connect the dots to the wonders and little miracles, the more you’ll see them and get God wink favors. Not everyone sees a rainbow in front of them. 🌈

And whether you do or don’t think you receive favor, your life will have ups and downs.

But if you know in the end that all will be well, that provides a sense of peace. And we all can use more of that if we want to live a life of meaning. Or when we feel discouraged.

So when things aren’t exactly working out the way you thought they would or you feel stuck, look up for the God winks. They will keep you going.

Align your prayerful thoughts and whether you speak them aloud or just think the thoughts especially while in public or around people.

When we stay on the channel of our daily, small thoughts that are mostly negative because it’s on the worldly level of this limited life, then we lose time with negative moods or emotions.

We keep ourselves from growing and getting to the next level. If we think and reach higher, we’re better off.

And we gain more then in the time it takes for us to try and do it by ourselves. If we plan about the future, that may not happen the way we thought if we don’t check in first with our heart and soul.

This is a simple exercise you can try.

Find something in your situations that has given you some tension or hasn’t worked out. You have several productive options. You can try again or look for a new solution.

An example is a tool that has broken. You can try to fix it. If you look at it from another angle, sometimes you figure it out.

But if you get upset or frustrated, then nothing gets accomplished. If you spend the same time praying, the solution comes to you.

It’s the same way you can pray off your worry, as Norman Vincent Peale taught in The Power of Positive Thinking.

It works because of your productive mindset and calm mood, but is also because of the higher-reaching power working in your life.

Another example, and one that was recent for me is new baking challenges. As someone who likes to experiment, not all bakes turn out. And when I wondered what happened, I use the bake as a lesson. It reminds me of what can go wrong. So instead of being disappointed, I see it as a way to grow.

Because in order to grow, there is always a struggle or sacrifice of sorts to varying degrees. You have to give up perfection or success in order to get better. You let go (or let God and reject ego).

Or you spend more time invested in learning than you thought. And this is how you get good and skilled at anything… by the failures and challenges. You don’t learn as much from the ones that turn out and where you get a few minutes of joy from right away. Never judge a book by its cover. Give things a second chance.

But joy does keep us encouraged and engaged in the balance of everything in life.

And these joyful pasta-ccines are very balanced with whole wheat and zucchini. 😋

Print Recipe

Zucchini Fettuccine Whole Wheat Pasta

This is a great homemade pasta making recipe to get your veggies in (or for picky eaters) or if you have a leftover zucchini you don't want to go bad. Homemade pasta is easy to make once you get the hang of it and you can enjoy same day! And as grocery prices rise on pasta, this is an economical way to get fresh pasta with ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen!

Course dinner, lunch

Cuisine American, Italian

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

blender or mortar and pestle (optional)
cup measuring cup (optional)
pasta machine or dough roller

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour (can use gluten-free flours) per serving
1 egg per serving
generous pinch of salt
1 zucchini, cooked and mashed

Instructions

Make a flour mound. Make a deep well with a spoon or the measuring cup you used. Add egg and salt.
Knead. Add blended zucchini to the pasta dough.
Make a dough disc. Let rest for at least 20 minutes.
Divide the disc into two halves. Roll out pasta as thin as you can without getting holes. If using a pasta machine, start on a medium/wide setting such as "5" and then run through thinner setting such as "3." That may be the thinnest setting.
If rolling by hand and dough roller, roll evenly to about 1/16".
Let strands dry out enough so you can still make a curled nest or can break (like packaged processed pasta). These took about 2 hours.
Cook like you would packaged pasta for about 20 minutes on medium heat for "al dente" pasta. Whole wheat pasta will take longer than other plain flour homemade pasta. You can store uncooked pasta in fridge for 2-3 days. Buon appetito!