Potato waffles are like being born again where you can’t turn them back to the mashed potato form they were before. And they’re so much better. Recipe below. 🧡
It’s a mysterious term that you don’t hear often. It’s a miracle and life changing event like being born. You only do it once by choice, if ever. And then usually as an adult. It’s a personal decision.
Similar to an important event like getting married or landing a dream job that can be highlighted milestones in your life, there’s no taking back.
And like the potato waffles pictured above that started out as another form of the same food, these spuds can’t go back to before. The recipe is below. 🧇
You can’t take back what’s already happened in the past and you can’t go back in your mother’s womb. Or in this born again case, back into your pre-born again old identity.
Once you’re born again, you’re alive with the spirit living inside you. In the Bible, it’s the same as the Holy Spirit. There are no accidents in becoming Born Again… like the miracle of life.
The story of your real life birth from your birth parents may have sounded like you were an accident oops! baby, but it was no spiritual accident.
And it’s another miracle.
In choosing to be Born Again, you won’t have signed up if you’re not ready.
The choice to be Born Again requires a level of maturity that you’ll know when, and your spirit will help prompt when.
Likely, it has been building up inside you. And one day a water baptism opportunity will show up and call you.
And if you do go through, no other earthly person would know whether you’re born again or not unless you told them or they witnessed your water baptism.
The event is the primary marked outward expression. It’s equivalent to an official wedded ceremony and is spiritual bonding bliss.
But unlike most marriage weddings, the dress code is casual wear like a tee-shirt that will get soaken wet and you will too, as you’d be fully immersed in water either in a bathtub of sorts or outdoors in the open waters.
I know this experience because that’s what happened to me. And as life is an adventure, I never set out for that mission.
I didn’t grow up religious either. This was something I grew into gradually. Never having been baptized before and then for the first time, that’s when my Born Again life began.
Born Again Feelings In the Beginning
It was an ordinary day with extraordinary impact. You never forget the day. You wonder how being submerged in a pool of warm water can be so profound. But it is.
And you’re never the same person you were, again. Because you apply meaning to what just happened in your ceremony.
For one, you get to be a butterfly experiencing more of life’s abundance compared to a caterpillar’s existence with even more limitations.
It has unforgettable, deep feelings like the day you experience a once-in-a-blue-moon total eclipse as it’s happening…
You feel chills and something deeper emotionally happening inside you that you can’t explain with logic and leaves you with a wave of tears and emotions.
Or when you see a painted sky where something is special in the air around you even if you’re the only one who notices.
And you know life is not just what you see in your daily busy life. You know there’s so much more meaning and that can make you want to discover more about yourself and your potential.
You know you were touched by the Universe in love and finding out what that means for your life can be the greater step.
When you’ve already been leading a spiritual life and have gained Biblical knowledge that precedes a baptism day, you know the source of what you’re experiencing.
You know there’s a spirit living inside you.
Referred sometimes as the wind or a dove 🕊️, it’s the same spirit that connects us all under the sun.
There’s an energy that connects us all.
It’s also the guided handed helper, comforter, and all-knowing messenger all rolled-up-in-one.
And those first few days and weeks after baptism, you’ll likely be intentional to live out life differently.
After The Born Again Honeymoon
But then after some time has passed, you’ll have forgotten your baptism event day like everything else in life.
The feelings wear off. And you’ll want to set reminders to what you want your life to be about post-baptism.
You’re back to your life reality, except you have a desire to do better and grow further.
You still carry the same mind as before (pre-baptism), and you’ll still make mistakes like all us humans do.
But now you are aware that you can lean into your deeper gut or heart feelings where your spirit is for higher answers, and trust those be the ones best if you want to live a life of meaning and purpose designed for you.
Pre-Born Again life, you may have called these gut instincts. They still show up as whispers or hunches, but now you’re aware they’re as real as you are.
So you’re now a little wiser and want to live the higher ways of living. You’ll want to learn from like-minded others and to help you with interpretations from the one resource manual guide (the Bible).
And as a new butterfly now, you went through a transformation. Your human wings are invisible as are your changes.
There’s no going back into your chrysalis.
You can choose to become more humble as you see through another higher lens.
Looking back, I could see that I acted pretty foolishly when I was younger, but I thought I was invincible and smart at the time.
And had I stayed as is, today those would be regrets… but I know I needed to go through those phases to get to the season of maturity needed. That’s usually how it is.
And then by learning lessons, never wanting to go back to those old ways that we’ve grown out of.
Been there, done that, got the kid T-shirt. And now I have an adult baptism shirt (and you can too).
What to Expect With A New Life
Expect to have favor in your daily walk if you maintain a deep relationship with your spirit and God. Also expect for you to be the change as nothing changes around you for certain prayers.
That goes for the details of ordinary daily life from when you walk out the door, run errands, are working, and then are back home.
You also give up some control of your life (yes, more than what you have been experiencing). But you gain more control in other areas explained below, as you keep reading.
And remember, none of us are in control anyway.
For me, that was the hardest part at first.
Letting go was not my strong suit. Because I did life on my terms my way as a strong-independent person.
I learned and was groomed that way since I was a kid.
I’m still fundamentally that person, but I exchanged control for a more fulfilling purposeful and creative life.
I started out my adult life mostly in the structured corporate work life. And had I not been made aligned with my identity (Born Again) and my second act of my life’s work, then I would’ve missed what was in the cards dreamt up for me before I was born.
Dreams I never had when I was younger.
What I did feel when I was younger and in my late-20s and early 30s, was that something was missing inside.
Daily life didn’t seem all that exciting even though I had a good job, health, stable work-life balance, side hustles, great relationships, a lakefront home, nice cars, and everything else that I thought I needed.
And yet I felt unfulfilled.
I thought there had to be more.
That didn’t feel like wisdom at the time. It felt like self-pity.
Then suddenly I lost a job and a career when the industry was wiped out.
About two years after that incident, I got Born Again.
And that’s when life got really quiet around me. I was working but the work was easy.
I found I had time to look at personal and spiritual development areas that I didn’t delve into before.
That’s part of the inner peace that comes with being Born Again, knowing that you’re provided for and having some direction to seek levels of growth.
You know when doors shut it’s not a coincidence and that forces you to keep looking in other directions. And when they do open, you’re magically aligned.
I had work situations like that which were problem-filled but since I was anointed to be there, they immediately got fixed without my fixing.
Those bittersweet open doors were short-lived.
But in those experiences, I starting realizing this life isn’t about what you do. It’s about what you’re becoming in this life.
And on the journey, you can be proud to look in the mirror at who you are that’s not just the aged person staring back.
You’ve transformed fear, anxiety, and worry that don’t have to take over and permeate life. Especially fear.
When I was a child I was afraid of everything from lightning, darkness, to boogie monsters. And then as an adult, the opportunity to exchange fear for love became part of the process.
We can grow away from those unproductive beliefs. When you take action to move toward love that’s part of being Born Again, then you choose to exchange those negative earthly feelings.
It’s also co-created, as you seek toward your growth desires and the spirit helps you from the inside.
You can count on that as the spirit isn’t earthly.
You’re never alone. Not for one moment. When you seek help, you get help, truth, and comforting answers. They may not match or exactly match what you thought you wanted.
But as your perspectives align with the higher ways, you know that they guarantee your highest and best use in this life. So don’t worry if you feel you’re blooming late. You and your spirit will help you grow and make up for lost time.
And you can use the weekend brunch potato waffles as a reminder that these waffles started as mashed potatoes, and became these plate tasty treats. You can find this potato waffle recipe, potato dip, and other brunch waffles.
Shadow work helps dig out the deeper things holding you back that may be hidden from view and you may not be aware of today.
Artwork is one metaphor for our lives. This spiral art piece brings out the light and shadows where you’re seeing only a partial angle. This can be what’s it like when we look in the mirror at ourselves, where we don’t see the light in our inner selves.This is a full view of the same art piece by Ellsworth Kelly that shows many more lines and color dimensions that can shine like us in our discoverable selves.
It’s work and discovery you do on yourself that pays off as you learn more about your inner self so you can better shine in your authentic and best you you’re meant to be.
And you can find your loving self and steer away from your darker sides that cast shadows in your life.
I know this from my own journey. I was a late bloomer for many years and areas of life. And just when things were coming together nicely, then all of the sudden around 35, I went into a now what do I do? season.
I was hit with a spiritual intervention and no roadmap life manual to help me along that season.
Life springs things on you where you have no concrete guide to follow. No one teaches you that a spiritual intervention can happen at any time in your life journey on your life blueprint that you don’t have access to.
A spiritual intervention is not commonly heard of but it does happen in this miracle we call Life.
And yeah, that’s what happened to me.
Before I get into the details, the reality is we’re not in as much control of our planned future as we want to think. We get to choose to believe in faith over what we think is our future based on our past and what we’re currently working on.
And believe that a greater force above has our back and a better plan.
And in my spun out-of-my control season, I ended up relocating back to where I came from when I had no plans or thoughts to do so. It was more shocking to me than to my friends and family who were happy to hear I was moving closer back to the area.
It was a healthy move, even though it was unconventional as spiritual changes and growth often are.
The days leading up to my move, the healthy marriage I was in fell apart because of the intervention reveals that made the step-to-step moves easier. There was sadness leaving, but no drama.
I ended up in a hospital with no physical health diagnosis. There was nothing wrong with me. What appeared as a mental breakdown I knew as a spiritual awakening. Is that how you diagnose inner voices? Apparently.
The immediate trauma reality I felt when I was released was the sting of the hospital bill. Ouch and oh btw, I would have to pack my life up today and start all over with new work, step back, and build a new adult life while the world around me kept going.
I couldn’t even tell you the songs playing on the radio waves then or what the major news headlines were going on.
Those few final days and weeks before were a total blur. I must’ve thrown out many scrapbook album memories in the preparation for my move. Discarding my past was a metaphor representation of how I felt with this new life ahead of me.
It was nothing less than an invisible higher force that took over and moved me one step at a time.
And I knew this as God co-creating and ordering my footsteps, who got in the car with me and drove me back to the area I had left.
It was surreal. My hand was on the wheel but he was unmistakenly the GPS, so I felt safe even though I was confused.
So there I was back to the area where I grew up with a higher plan that I expected would unfold. An old church friend God-wink coincidentally had a room available as her last roommate had just moved out.
Even though I was in the same area I grew up in, it seemed miles away from my growing up familiarities. This time around I was closer to the city and further away from the towns where many of my first memories of childhood and early adulthood were formed.
Some memories were accumulated past trauma from childhood and early adulthood that I needed shadow work for to help me discover forgiveness.
And others were happy memories from friendships and past experiences made.
It was a bittersweet come back. I was then recently laid off from a career job I had been at for years, so I had to lean on trust that I would be provided for during those recession years that wiped out businesses and the corporate tech industry I had just come from.
But this life changing event wasn’t about just a move, a job change, or a season transition. This was a life transformation.
I was entering a new way of life on earth that was foreign to me and the cascade of events leading up were so bizarre. Even though I felt secure under the Universe’s wing, I didn’t know how to start this new shaken up chapter of life.
Now what? kept coming up in my thoughts.
One of my first set of tests was letting go. I didn’t know how to surrender my old thinking ways. And that’s when I got really deep into introspection and shadow work and trying to figure out what happened on my own.
Miraculously, planted in me was the awareness of harmful ego ways. With a little freed up headspace from not being so busy, I became aware that I had healing work to do on myself. I had never paused before from work to successfully get to know the real me.
I went to church healing rooms to see if I could gain a little insight and closure. And got some comfort and was able to purge some past trauma. This was as close to therapy as I would get.
Life Before The Spiritual Intervention
I was always choosing to be busy and that was ingrained in me in the DC metro area culture I grew up in and was now back in. But this time around, my surroundings were quiet as my friends were grown up too. They were busy with their family and lives. I had to figure mine out.
My life looked nothing like most those I went to college with where they moved up the corporate ladder, settled down, and had a family. They lived close by but our world’s were far apart.
I felt alone in navigating what next, but I also felt optimistic that my life would take off because of the spiritual intervention experience I had lived out in the hospital that showed me some prophecies about work and relationships in my distance-off future.
I knew there was a plan but I just didn’t know when, how, and what the real life specifics were. And when some life pieces came to life, I recognized them later on as shown to me in prophecies.
Those were miracles, and it all sounds bizarre on paper, but that’s how it also felt. Beautiful and bizarre.
And at the end of the day, none of us know the uncertain future so nothing looked that unusual about me or my life from an outside onlooker.
One area I knew I could focus on building was my deeper spiritual self and building traits I would need and may have missed developing along the way.
Ego work was just the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned, I was in and grew up around America’s capital. This is an area filled with smart, affluent people where pride and ego are waved as invisible badges of honor, but now I was ready to get rid of those non-serving ways.
People outside or living there in short transition or temporary assignments don’t realize how strong the political daily air is there outside the news. And so much so that nobody talks about it there as common practice to not create further divides.
It’s a unique invisible bubble that rarely gets talked about as ego is not usually a subject matter of discussion.
So, now you know the situation better.
And a year before this new season’s reveal, I was made aware I was holding onto past trauma from childhood and an adult situation that created PTSD I had blindly been holding onto. That’s what a spiritual intervention and shadow work can help reveal.
I grew up under the house of an immigrant parent who had a dominant ego disorder that grew worse over time. And after I moved off to be on my own, I fell victim to a dangerous work situation in a brick and mortar business.
This all came to light in this revealing spiritual intervention season.
I realized my past situations grew my victim mentality. And that fed my ego that loves to hang onto woes me for my situations.
It’s the same ego that thrives on protecting our pride and does so much damage in all of us, showing up in all kinds of daily, harmful non-serving ways.
If you’ve worked around people long enough, you will have seen this and not necessarily know that it was their ego that created their undesirable behaviors.
Our ego is our shadow until we become aware. Bringing out your shadow into the light is the shadow work that can align you to your whole self where your life begins to unfold more purpose and meaning.
I became ego conscious-aware that my ego played me in my subconscious insecurities as it does for most unaware.
Before then, I could be emotionally triggered and all of the sudden be stricken with an ugly cry with my then-husband.
It was like a recurring sound bite scene from Love is Blind where the American dating participant, Chelsea, is crying “clingy?”
Clingy wasn’t my manifestation, but my ego reared its ugly head wanting me to be right and win in partner conflicts.
And instead I lost the debate and all conscious streams of thinking that came from allowing the ego game to be played in me.
I didn’t know how to shake off or walk away from my turmoil feelings that started out as harmless thoughts.
That was work I needed to do. A real life mirror partner had reflected back to me what I needed to work on.
I ignored those prompts until I became aware of the ego years later.
Today’s Lessons
Your old brain is still a part of you that you carry along wherever you go. When you’ve moved on, your past memories and old lessons learned never die.
They travel with you and show up on your vacations.
If you’ve ever seen couples or friends fighting on vacation and you wonder, what’s there to fight about on this dreamy once-in-a-lifetime beautiful serene blue ocean or castle fantasy backdrop?… it’s the ego rearing its ugly head into the situation.
At any time, your ego can take old information and create fear and exacerbate worry in your situations today and in the future that are related to your past. Bring love to the situation is the cure.
If you bring out love from your past situations to your present, it shows up in your calm emotions today and also in your healthy body.
Ego situations and how they play out look different for everyone. If we could pinpoint one situation for everyone we would have figured this out collectively. But ego is a trickster.
Some even refer to their ego as an imposter that shows up.
The outward sign is that it’s not reality happening even though it feels like it is to you or the person. You’re not being chased by a tiger, but it can feel that way with modern digital message triggers.
Unknowingly, you undetect where the havoc source is coming from as it’s subconscious.
You can’t see through those thick clouds and insecurities. And that can lead to knee-jerk reactions.
Another sign for everyone is an unhealthy ego acting up is rooted in negative thoughts about yourself or others like self-pity, self-loathing, or blaming others.
It’s Edging God Out. The opposite is love and being conscious.
An unhealthy ego moment is a twisted form of overprotection for your best interest where you lose, lose control, and those around you lose if they get intertwined.
Bottom line: it doesn’t come from love.
Everyone is best to walk away in peace rather than play the counterproductive ego games.
Becoming aware of ego’s ability to harm you and relationships today and healing your past with new rewritten loving narrative thought memories are two of the healthiest shadow work moves you can make.
On a larger scale, you can rid of victim mentality so you can live fully whole and healthy in the now. You can be happy for others and their progress as you are for your own.
The ego will try to make these darker sides invisible to you so you continue as is, but if your desire is to grow and be happy, you can outwit your ego and not play the games.
We all are damaged goods in some way because of this built-in ego feature that we have a choice to change. It’s no one’s fault.
And that’s why when you’ve been aware long enough you can forgive others for their unconsciousness and behaviors… and hope they will try to get informed, grow, become conscious, and be accountable for their behaviors.
The Healthy Shadow Work You Can Do Today
So many of us would benefit from shadow work.
For one, you could discover and change negative moods coming from inside you. You could learn more about what triggers you.
You can replace these non-serving moments with higher and loving words such as those found in the New Testament Scripture.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
A daily reminder verse to call out your ego thoughts front and center daily helps.
You can build lasting character traits such as those in Galatians 5: patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, peace, joy, and love. These are the higher living ways.
They can take deep inner work and the first step can be shadow work discovery.
Becoming self-aware is timeless and absolutely necessary for growth.
And knowing the ego never shuts off and can show up in many ways in our mind roles such as:
critic
judge
competitor
fighter
dictator
imposter
One role ego doesn’t play is peacemaker. When ego is behaving and healthy, it helps you to strive for healthy goals.
We need some healthy pride to push us along. Or if you’re in real danger, ego can help motivate you to protect you.
But the undealt with unhealthy daily ego critic sitting on one shoulder shouts loud thoughts that appear logical to you (or the person), while the whispering angel spirit in you is gentle and loving preferring humility over pride.
The more you practice the softer humility sides, the more you can see the harmful pride.
Ego is subtle to you…
If you have a balanced way or a sense of making good decisions usually, logic can appear as harmless as “everyone is doing that.”
In those thought moments, you have a choice to not be everyone and do what you know is best or loving when you know better. We all have a choice.
If your ego is fighting you, you can be prepared with spiritual weapons like the armor of God spelled out in Ephesians, and in renewing your mind.
The more preparation and practice you have, your discernment increases the next time and you grow.
Still wondering how the ego shows up?…
So, I used to let the ego run the show. The daily mind show that is where I accepted all thoughts to enter as mine.
Some days a whole day would go by with the same repeated past memories. That’s classic ego.
I didn’t know I could exercise changing my thoughts. That was revelation when I learned and how to replace the thoughts.
Even if you had a great childhood or life so far, your ego will at some point take something from your past and spin it to a negative thought even if others would see it as a healthy and happy moment. It’s in your control to change the narrative fed to you.
Being the observer of thoughts and not letting the thoughts play out after the thought movie reel has been played once is a good strategy, so you don’t lose a whole day of productivity and peace.
And then stay aware the next time. You can make a decision that there’s no room for the two of us as it’s cramping growth, and simply kick out your unhealthy ego. Don’t play the games.
Sometimes it take mental wresting strength to let the thoughts pass through without energizing them to replay. Be determined to do what you know will eventually work for you.
And as part of my light bulb moment discovery, I found that ego was not just once in a while playing havoc in our lives, it’s the source of most problems in our day.
Because the ego is a feature in all of us in this world. Behaviors are trickled down among other people involved and their operating egos.
Imagine if the leader of a group or business had ego issues that showed up. You could only imagine (or have experienced before) the tricked down dysfunctional effect in the management hierarchy.
This observation becomes more obvious when you know (or have been made aware like I may be stirring in you today).
You witness in your daily interactions with people… one minute they are agreeable and friendly and then one day the season ends and they turn out to be something else. They’re unaware they’re being played by their ego.
This happens in relationships all the time and is at the crux of partner power struggles.
Without the harmful ego aspects, our world would be a better place because we would be better acting humans, heal ourselves, and those around us.
But until my hospital incident, I didn’t know how destructive the subconscious and invisible ego is on our planet, in our lives, and in me.
Shadow work examples such as going to therapy or light journaling tools can help open the doors to discover more of your deeper and hidden self.
The answers are inside you so deeper spiritual self-help may help you like healing rooms did for me.
And in my spiritual intervention rebirth.
Leading up to that point, these shadow work resources helped and can help to open the awareness…
What Did Help and Can Help You in Shadow Work Discovery
Turning to some self-help books opened my eyes. One in particular, Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now is one of those books that comes alive in your when you’re ready for the message because your spirit lights it up.
It’s a deep book that you’re either ready for or not. You’ll know if you are because your eyes won’t glaze over the sentences. And when it’s an easy flow read, the chains have been released and the pain-body is exposed. The book is an experience. It can be so powerful that you may only need to read it once to gain the knowledge, and it’s forever in you.
That opened the spirit inside me like a lotus flower to make more room for awareness when my spiritual intervention season entered years later. 🪷
The Bible was another spiritual book I had as a tool. I had let the contents and words of Scripture occupy space and spill over inside me. 📖
You can re-read Scripture over and over again and find new tidbits of wisdom and helpful Biblical truth. You don’t get the same experience each time.
New words can jump off the page with meaning to you when you’re ready. Like my eyes skipped over the mysterious “spirit” word on the pages until I was ready.
The Bible is an instructional self-help life manual and is the only book that’s still being translated in so many languages.
Letting the higher words permeate to brain wash out all the muck that occupies the day for things that won’t matter in the years to come, is life giving.
Those are good starters.
And then be open and let your life’s journey unfold.
There’s so much more to this world and it’s inside you. As Deepak Chopra says, “the world is in you.”
“I am not in the world. The world is in me.” – Deepak Chopra
Doing deeper shadow work is underrated and will produce so much more in you and out of you as you impact the world with your greatness you were born with. 🎉
And can be born again with. Something to consider and maybe enjoy over an angel cake recipe 😇
Discernment helps grow us and protect mental health that’s so needed in our world. I learned about discernment in a confusing time in my life when I didn’t feel aligned.
Life can be like these two baked corn tortilla that look similar. But the one with craters and holes is healthy lime-treated, while the one with the pretty lines you’re more used to is not. You could be fooled by looks into believing which is better, and more discernment could help you choose the healthier and tastier choice on the left. 🌱
Early adult years, I was living out my old life daily with old ways I had learned. I was also blending in a newer life with a new group of mature adult friends I could bond and confide with.
…And you can probably relate with the different sets of circles you hang out in.
But unlike feeling well-rounded, I felt like I was living two separate lives at the same time during those seasons… because I had to leave the old ways that I shared with my former friends to move closer to the new ones.
Gossiping wasn’t a part of this new way that I had grown up around.
And the transition put me at odds for fitting in either groups. That’s how it can be when you’re not quite ready to leave an old identity and adopt a new personal growth one in front of you.
I had many brewing questions…
Discernment was an area of spiritual growth that kept coming up and I was curious about.
…So delving deeper, I soon discovered discernment and wisdom came from the same place that I was missing back then.
Wisdom was another area I was hoping to develop more of… wisdom is getting higher insight than what’s in daily headlines.
Leaning into the miracles and blessings of this world and Godly teachings grows us closer to our spirit.
And you can choose a different choice or path in life than the one you started in. That was my story as I started out with no religion in my life… but the journey of life showed me a spiritual path.
Wisdom vs. Smart Moves
Choosing another path led me to more wisdom. I started out doing the smart things I was influenced to do like get good grades, go to college, and start a career.
Looking back, I also remember when “work smarter, not harder” was a catchy phrase I grew up to in simpler times. But cutting corners isn’t wise. And years later, the cultural zeitgeist went back to hard work as good work, and good for realizing longterm dreams.
…That’s wisdom.
So from then, I separated the two: smart vs. wisdom. You need both for a great life you won’t regret and where you don’t wish you did most of it differently.
Misery is a choice and some sadly make.. But these days we have so many better choices available.
Using personal discernment and wisdom helps achieve those better desires, while smart is practical and gets the right things done.
With smarts, you use your daily thinking skills, while discernment uses your heart, gut, and spiritual mind.
If it’s easier to picture, you can think of being smart as using your frontal and left part of your brain and wisdom on the right side where your intuition is.
…Growing wisdom is one personal growth area that helps you with your better life outcomes you won’t regret. It’s an area that most of us aren’t developed in. But something you can develop (like a skill) and get better at when you use the deeper mind muscle.
The more strengthening discernment exercises you do in your daily life, the stronger the wisdom muscle becomes. This article is about how to exercise and practice better discernment in your daily life (that can be a good life skill tool you can have at your hip!).
Cultivating Discernment
Because remember with improved discernment, you get better at making wise decisions for yourself in your unique life.
Find quiet time and practice discernment.
And discernment is quiet like the wind. You look for it in your quiet moments, feelings, and thoughts. It’s not in your face.
When making a decision when you’re busy or distracted, listening to a noisier source like culture influences can be the deciding factor. Screaming headlines and popular trends are hard to miss while internal-gut feelings are easy to miss.
Practice discernment by thinking what’s a wise, longterm choice for forks in the road. And sleep on ideas or decisions you get to make. Find quiet time balance like you had when we were all in quarantine.
Let discernment be as natural for you as scrolling social media.
One effective way to grow discernment is to remove the blocks.
Discernment can be at odds with smart, popular cultural opinions and trends that often block out the whispering and opposing wise thoughts.
Popular culture doesn’t often reward wisdom that’s countercultural especially in younger cultures.
I know when I was younger and very easily influenced, I would listen to what everyone was doing first before listening to my own internal guide.
I thought: if everyone is doing it, how could it be wrong? But over years, I learned that was the wrong belief.
And yes, everyone (groupthink) can be wrong so it’s good to use your own judgment and developed discernment.
And that can be for any area in your unique life. If you live out your one-of-a-kind, good, and authentic ways without giving up, you will succeed in your life that you’re the star in. 🌟
Grow patience.
Another common block stems from wisdom-discernment being slow to show rewards. Being individually thoughtful is part of discernment which creates uncertainty because you’re not sure on your own.
It’s like making a long-term investment that you let sit on the sidelines versus making quick buys and sells for short wins. Then years later you see the abundance of fruit from your earlier decisions you were then-unsure about.
Those that take action and wait, win. They don’t miss out.
Waiting is part of the process for anything great. Slow cooking makes for a great stew over microwaving soups.
And yet in modern culture nobody wants to wait in areas where they’re eager to move forward in if they don’ have to. With more practice and confidence in your discernment skills, you can also get better with patience that helps your daily joyful temperament.
Invite in good thoughts.
Good discernment comes from wittling through your thoughts and only letting the good ones pass through. Reject the trashworthy thoughts after you figure out if they have any useful message for you. Sometimes that takes just a split-second decision.
Like a self-pity woes-me thought. You can just put those away.
Every day you have thoughts that enter that you have no control over. And you can decide what you do with them so they don’t decide for you.
You have complete control over rejecting thoughts. You can simply walk away in self-awareness. Or self-talk back saying, “I reject this thought.”
You can rewrite the thought narrative ending and your entire day! You can heal yourself in the moment if it was a hurtful memory.
And if unsure on a thought, you can sit on it to see how you feel later about it. You don’t have to do anything with them as they go nowhere unless you take action or have a reaction.
Write off thoughts (from your ego)
And for those ego thoughts that don’t serve you or others, you can write those off. You’re best to catch those often and not waste any more time than it takes to discern that those thoughts are not helping you.
They provide zero benefit to your life. And can add to the fear and irrational actions. And that further pushes your Fear buttons (aka false evidence appearing real).
If they’re truthfully there to serve as a warning, you will get more clues in your life. It won’t just be one thought that keeps pestering and doesn’t go away. You’ll see and hear it from various sources that build up the facts. Be like a jury trying to determine fact from fiction.
And sometimes warning thoughts are helpful. That’s where discernment comes in handy. You can decide for yourself if they are meant for you for a reason you can’t yet decipher.
…Sometimes out-of-the-blue you may get thoughts that are good reminders or new ideas that you can credit the Universe for in trying to help you.
What you let impact you, you also have degrees of control over. An example of this is what you let into your mind from what you watch on media.
You can flip the channel or walk away. You always have a choice in the matter. And there’s always headphones for noise barriers.
This can help you find your quiet time and mind peace as we enter a season of peace, Lenten peace, and Easter around the corner. 🐇
Enjoy this sour cherry bun recipe you can easily make into Hot Cross Buns.
Self-care wheel balance is heck-yeah! needed in the colder months when our unleashed Kaphas are in full-force…
Wheels in motion take you to where you want to go. A wheel can go slowly or fast, but no matter what speed its default is to move forward (unless you purposefully choose to reverse). And, this article is about moving you forward and bettering your life this season. 🎡
If you understand the nature of Ayurveda as our natural healthy design, then you’ll be able to use that insight for better self-care and restore natural seasonal imbalances.
Like on the exterior, if you have super dry skin every winter along with a skinny frame, then you’re likely a natural Vata body (and not a Kapha body). If you tend to hold extra body weight and metabolize slowly, then Kapha is your natural way. Both feel the cold extremities as traits.
And as natural as having a Kapha body, some of us are more Kapha minded. Or we get imbalanced with tired Kapha moods.
That’s sometimes how I feel in the mornings (when Delta sleep is more like it!).
We can have a Vata body and a Kapha mind (and vice versa) as a simple example. And, there are 9 organized combinations if we want to keep it simple. Because you may be one born dominant in two body or mind ways (doshas). And mind and body connect in the daily mind-body connection to how you think, act, and feel.
The good news is you can positively impact and gradually change what you don’t like by your lifestyle choices. It’s nature vs. nurture where nurture is what you’re living today.
…You don’t have to settle for what you’re born with as lesser personality and traits you want to change.
Genetics is a tougher one to influence and turn the rudder on, but not impossible… and lifestyle tweaks and choice prevention can completely change a lesser situation or a higher probability likelihood.
And so, this article is meant to help you connect-the-dots and live your best life you can today with better lifestyle choices!
I’m focusing on Kapha here because all of us have a little of Kapha going on and that can be heavy in this seasonal time of year (where we hear more cough-as life). 😷
But here I share what I learned circa 2008 that has stuck with me, and what’s newer that I applied starting in 2023 to support healthy daily living intentions and prevention.
…And we know a healthy body translates to a better happy day where we get to do more and make more choices on our terms!
Letting in self-care influences give us more daily joy and balance. When you add better sleep, energy, spiritual, and loveself-care into the equation, those move the needle forward. 🧭
A self-care wheel just like that can be the practical guide toward priorities tipping away from the heavy Kapha mind that makes it hard-to-get-going in the morning… or that makes you feel more depressed during colder seasons.
…Where growing up, we called this the SAD season (seasonal affective disorder). I went through this every February in my teens and early 20 years (when one that age should have had more energy). Lack of supplemental Vitamin D and sunshine affected the happy hormones we didn’t know much about back then. Winters were colder in the mid-Atlantic region where I grew up.
But, today we have more self-care knowledge and winters are warmer, and sometimes 70 degrees in some regions. So you can use the better products and circadian rhythm advice out there to your self-care wheel advantage.
…Plus, my healthy lessons learned (that btw get better with age 😉). Below is the skinny on what could help you get the self-care wheel balance you’re needing today.
✨ And these are some obvious Kapha Signs to look out for 👀that may be affecting you (and your self-care wheel):
Kapha Sign #1 (Sleep/energy):
Sleep and energy together because they are so closely knit together. 🧶
Do you find yourself needing more sleep in the cold weather seasons? Or maybe you’re consistently tired?
And that’s a bummer because less sleep means less time enjoying the day or being productive. Not enough sleep, you also lose free time and can lack energy as downsides.
Number of sleep hours are important, but better quality sleep is the better biohack way. And I share the best biohack routine I know and practice below. ⬇️
But for most days, when you get enough sleep, your body wakes up feeling energized. (Sleep + energy = 🤸🏻♂️)
You get better connected, cohesive thoughts. Because your body was able to fully recharge its batteries the night before.
Your daily energy ⚡️ is directly affected by how well you sleep. We all know that… and that’s why alarm clocks and caffeine are so popular in the morning.
…And getting less blue light in our eyes at night is up there too as newer healthy artificial habits.
We can also affect the energy systems inside us with better lifestyle choices, like: healthy food and drink choices, when we consume, and exercise.
Energy is not just physical and movement. Or calories.
…It’s also energy in the mind. Our minds can be slow and lethargic and that can be part of a Kapha imbalanced mind.
But there are other signs too… like, we’re not connecting energetically with others (who are energy).
We can have an invisible positive magnetic or negative repelling energy. That’s something visible in your life to consider that often gets missed in relationships and the community around us.
✅ Tips for daily sleep/energy ⚡️self-care wheel balance:
Give yourself more energy. You can listen to music that puts you in an energetic mood, get blood pumping through your veins doing your exercises, and doing a new activity that stimulates your mind. And give yourself daily healthy mind-body energy food.
Kapha Sign #2 (Spiritual):
When our Kaphas are off balance, there’s a domino effect, affecting: feelings, thoughts, and how much of our lit spiritual selves we let in. And these impact our daily actions.
The actions (or inactions) that accumulate pounds, things, emotions, and piles of things as examples are obvious exterior signs. They’re processed deeper in mind-thoughts that change our feelings and moods.
To change, it’s easier to look at the exterior signs (as mirrors and clues) to our inner going-ons that creates our world, so we can get more grounded and tap into our inner power.
If you find the clue that you’re accumulating in some way, the deeper source could be because you’re wanting to be alone and building up a wall from others. Or you’re just plain tired from picking up toys and piles, and cleaning up.
…The source isn’t as important as knowing that those are classic Kapha awareness imbalanced signs. And since we don’t want to exude growing unhealthy behavior that accumulates, we can change choices…
So, look around… have you accumulated things or have you stopped putting things away as much? Do you have unintentional messy piles, clothes, or toys left out for another day?
“Disorganized” and “clutter” (descriptions that can harshly rub like an abrasive scrubber as the elephant in the room) — usually go hand-in-hand because it’s the same mind feeding the non-serving abrasive message.
…And this can leave feelings of shame that can gradually turn into self-loathing if allowed. That’s sobering, but helpful because then we can be aware and fix what isn’t healthy.
✅ Tips for daily spiritual 🌟 self-care wheel balance:
Practice letting go. Ignore your heavy Kapha thoughts as this derails you from your this season’s purpose. This can sound challenging if you’ve never exercised this right to ignore any of your thoughts, but it’s so liberating!
Rewrite not-so-great thoughts if you never have (and do it over and over again if you have). Nip it in the bud when the thoughts arrive.
You can save time, money, and effort that your brain would otherwise send you to go spend on… like I’d be happier if I had ___ shopping item, ___ life, or ___ relationship.
Feeling content can do wonders for you if you can do that step.
Many years ago, I discovered that I didn’t have to accept my random thoughts that entered my mind. I could decisively ignore and even peacefully disagree. How was that the first time?… very weird.
…But when I practiced that habit, my life changed and I didn’t let the beaten down tracks play over and over again. The better track connect-the-dots and stops fictitious endings from forming.
With those positive step actions, I could walk away and then my better moods came back.
I could change my moody feelings and re-direct my perspectives. And you can too if that’s what you want…
Where and how are you on your mind and thought journey?
Here are the simple steps 👣
Recognize the thought: negative, unproductive thought (alert!)
The action: walk away
The walk away feeling: freedom vs. ego smothering protection and feeling bad about something, people, or myself
Repeat.
Kapha Sign #3 (Love):
Getting back or having healthy self-love is most important in matters of love and relationships. That’s how we also attract healthy relationships.
But, heavy imbalanced Kapha minds can have extremes: acting prickly toward people or relationships. Or acting needy and dependent to those who don’t reciprocate. These do the opposite of attracting (and sometimes wrongly attract opposites).
Smothering (or semi-mothering) can make others feel like a boundary is crossed, and can easily destroy a relationship.
When we expect others to make us happy, we set ourselves up for disappointment. So focusing on loving ourselves first allows us to energetically have an authentic overflow of love that pours out to others.
In self-care, we used to call this Me-Time that has become Me-Too as a form of love and healing.
✅ Tips for daily love ❤️ self-care wheel balance:
Be kind to yourself and your body, and tell your mind: “I am enough.”
Repeat saying to yourself: “I am loved” as a daily mantra.
******************************************
🧡 And FINALLY, from my newer lessons learned on the self-care wheel:
In 2023, I started intermittent fasting in my life for healthy gut reasons. But I found in my self-experiment (that I journaled about)… it also improved daily sleep, energy, and gave lighter mind-thoughts.
On those IF nights, sleep is better because the body doesn’t need to go to extra work to process food ontop of all its miracle daily resetting functions (…and why we need sleep in the first place!). And the liver doesn’t have to work hard to process beverages other than the mostly water clear kind. I like herbal teas.
So building in a weekly routine practice, I experienced not needing as much sleep and improved sleep quality.
👣 If you want to know how to optimize IF and Kapha metabolism for all the daily healthy benefits (and biohacking your body’s health), you can learn and read more about my journey.
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.
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 🧡).
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. 😋
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
1cupwhole wheat flour (can use gluten-free flours) per serving
1egg per serving
generous pinch of salt
1zucchini, 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!
