Baked Fish and Chips made healthy is a tasty way to make food count and enjoy the calories. Accompanied with a salty and tangy sour dip that has balanced tasty notes, what’s not to love?
It takes me back to travel and one special place memory from my time in U.K. 🇬🇧 hoppin’ in London Cabs after dramatically being re-routed from visiting the Mediterranean.
But, travel is always an adventure (…I think so anyway) and GOOD times…
…even if it’s serious business getting history (Stone Henge).
And then getting my bearings back up to food familiarities like these small BUT mighty food bites at Covent Garden near Westminster where I stayed…
Covent Garden salmon lox.…and scallops. I see a smile on this plate. 😋
…Even as big as London is, somehow I found the food. What a memory! 💕
And one memory dish that U.K. is famous for and you don’t have to look long and hard for there is Fish and Chips.🐟 … it’s as common as U.S. served crab cakes, corn on the cob, and potato chips. That’s a mouthful of “c’s” to say.
Saying Fish and Chips is much easier…
The common U.K. fishes sourced for the dish are salmon, cod, and haddock.
The healthiest fish are wild fish anywhere you source because the fish eat what they would in the wild… makes sense.
Most U.K. fish come from the shared seas in the North Atlantic and Norway.
Fresh salmon at the Bergen, Norway fish market.
My last fishy travel tale was in the Bergen, Norway fish market as I’m going down memory lane 🐟
…And in the U.S., we have our own fish markets. it’s common we source wild fish from the Northwest Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
But anywhere you are and anytime of the year, you can make your light (aka healthy) baked Fish and Chips.
And this lighter version pairs great for Wimbledon time 🎾
If you’re a fan, as you’re maybe catching points you can decide how you want to serve up your taters. An unsexy 5 lb bag of potatoes makes up points by being long lasting in your fridge and versatile for any spud dish…
And this healthy baked fish is served with waffle potato fries that doesn’t compromise taste or health… and is so simple to make.
Potato waffle fries are made with a little extra virgin oil love that’s healthy. You can use a waffle iron if you have one or you use a skillet and make potato hash or flat pancake potato shapes.
And if potatoes are not on your menu choice and you want a different style with the same basic ingredients in baked fish and chips, alternatively you can cook your fish with boiled potatoes.
This fish and potato dish is inspired from my hotel catering days. It has a French bistro vibe with capers and lemon sauce.
But if you just want to stick with the traditional fish and chips fare made healthy, enjoy this one recipe with no guilt.
Brush fish with olive oil to keep from drying. Add to oven at 325℉/165°C until fully baked.
For bread crumb topping, toast panko crumbs in a separate pan from fish. Set bread crumbs on the top oven shelf so they don't burn. They will toast brown in about 5 minutes or less on the top shelf.
Cook/soften your potatoes until they are mashable. Scoop out small balls about the same size and flatten. You can make the "chips" in a waffle iron or on a sautee pan with olive oil.
For the tartar sauce, mince the pickles and add to a blender with cottage cheese. Add a tiny bit of pickle juice for stronger flavor. You can do this in a Magic Bullet or similar easy blender.
Blueberry smoothie mornings start your day right with a brightening healthy boost. They can also make a great afternoon dessert with low or no added sugar other than natural fruit.
A dessert blueberry smoothie is super easy to put together in minutes. No baking needed and cool enough for hot temperature days.
And smoothie ingredients in this blueberry cheesecake one are simple and healthy. 🫐 So often we want something sweet in the day.
And instead of going for a high calorie and refined sugar shake or food dessert bite, a blueberry cheesecake smoothie could be the fix for our sweet tooth.
The sugar source is all-natural fruit.
The healthy notes:
Blueberries that have AA goodness in Anthocyanin Antioxidants.
And another great point with blueberries is there is no traces of fruit leftover. So you can enjoy the fruit and not have to think about disposing a seed or core, or recycling a can.
Blueberries are a super smart food choice for more reasons than one!
And this blueberry treat is combined with cottage cheese that gives a balanced cheese “cake” taste. Plus, you’re getting protein, B-vitamins (B-6, B-9, and b-12), calcium, and more.
Blending in a ripe peach 🍑 is the perfect pair (not pear 🍐).
Peaches have lycopene antioxidants like tomatoes. And for a tad more sweetness and Vitamin C, pineapple juice will do the trick.
Hope you give the blueberry smoothie a try and instead of being loaded down, enjoy the healthy energy. ✨
And if your body craves more sugar, adding a little maple syrup sweetness is a good balance to tip this over to the happy dessert edge you deserve while staying cool to your body.
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.
Character alignment reminds me of dogs and Cesar Milan’s Better Human, Better Dog National Geographic series that evolved from The Dog Whisperer series. This article is about how to get to your best self version with character development.
For starters, bringing in more joy like this fruity joy hibiscus mocktail can help us align with our day. 🌺
A Hibiscus Berry Mocktail is good for celebrating Mother’s Day and May’s calendar full of events such as the Met Gala where this year’s theme is flowers and the garden of time. This is an easy floral and balanced tea drink you can make at home and I think is a beauty in a classic martini glass. What do you think?🍸The recipe is below. 💕💜
And on that note… let’s begin with the dog analogy.
Dogs could be the first character that pops up in your daily mind especially if you have a Fido running around where you notice whether character intervention is needed 🐾
And in both Cesar Milan dog shows,we learn that each dog’s character comes with some breed born, individual learned, and universal dog traits. We also discover that bad behaviors and characters can be retrained and it’s usually the humans that need the training. 😅
It’s up to dog owners to follow through while exerting their calm assertive energy if they want a happy and peaceful life with their dogs. And that can be you or I, or any of us.
The opposite, undesired behaviors often stems from humans carrying around negative energy like fear as a dominant trait.
Dogs pick up on the human stress and misbehave. Essentially they feel chaos in them because they aren’t being led by a dog pack that is natural in the wild.
In domestic dogs at home, the same inborn traits are there but it’s our job to lead the pack if we want order and not chaos.
Training a dog to get into a calm surrender sit with wagging tail and lay down with tongue loosely hanging is the desired outcome state for a dog owner.
Then we can enjoy, pet, and play with dogs.
Dogs are naturally loving and loyal and ready to get in this submissive state.
They don’t hold grudges for long if at all to anything (even though we can project that on them).
Those points are a couple of the universal traits of why humans love dogs as pet family members.
And as a test, when they can get along with everyone in the family either two or four-legged, then it’s a match made in dog heaven.
…So now you have the gyst of how humans and dogs can better co-exist and blend together.
Finding compatibility among humans in human relationships is not as easy. Because of the disaccords when we want peace and harmony. It gets much more complicated because of our built-in human features and intellect.
We have complex minds and many more moods than probably there are English mood description words for.
We make daily micro decisions based on cognitive reasoning for understanding what’s on the screen in front of us.
Oh, and we have opposable thumbs so we can do more than our canine friends who can barely play with toys.
Dogs can bring us to a simpler lifestyle that’s healthy and healing for us from balancing our digital world vs. real life.
Our best calm surrender defense for ourselves and dogs is letting go of fear, negative, and non-peaceful thoughts.
That keeps us out of trouble. From miles away, dogs can pick up any excessive worrying “scent.”
Character Alignment Growth In Us
When we grow in our character alignment using our moral sensibilities, we can speed up growing out of old, past ways that don’t serve us.
Choosing and being able to live out a healthy, balanced lifestyle fosters an environment to live this good way that promotes longevity and a life well lived.
The sooner we can make healthy and balanced as a priority, the faster we can work on our character growth that’s aligned with who we are because we can pay attention better.
“Where attention goes, our energy (intention) flows.” – James Redfield
Living out two lives or multiple roles are examples of alignments that are not in order.
When you have to be somewhere because someone else relies on that, then you’re living out someone else’s need. That takes us away from our personal growth, but we can get back on the trail as easily as we hopped off.
When in character alignment, we also feel overall that we’re at peace with ourselves and that extends to what we’re doing. We’re not dissatisfied with what we do because we also get to show up as ourselves.
Consider those times when you were at ease and feeling like you were meant to be where you were, and not worrying.
In those moments, you’re calm and you produce more because you’re not second guessing your moves. You just naturally are attuned in your elements.
You’re also exuding the positive character traits of yourself, the one that others are attracted to.
When you’re in stressful environments, the opposite happens.
If you saw you coming, in truth you’d wanna probably run for the hills. 😉 Most of us have been there.
But that doesn’t have to happen often as we can always choose to rewrite our thoughts and our daily outcomes from our thoughts in our situations we find ourselves in.
In the tough moments, those are opportunities to grow and not fight with ourselves or lean into the old habits.
We can learn the lesson then and not repeat next week in a different situation.
A shortcut way is to challenge our own beliefs.
Are they helping us?
Do we believe we’re an underdog or not worthy? Do we believe we’re doomed or do we flip the script?
Because something is going to happen anyway, so why lose extra sleep over something you can’t do anything else about?
And when you find something positive that could come out of the situation no matter what, then you’re in an empowered position.
And that’s the healthy feeling you want.
An example: often we come across a problem that could start off as good or a challenge. But now confronted with an issue, finding an opportunity to address the problem-at-hand is a better way. And then after a while it goes away.
And then you can be glad that you were confronted with the potential problem because otherwise you would’ve not come up with this other better way.
Or it showed you something new you would not have seen about yourself or the situation.
Gradually we grow into our better, more wise character by these subtle and micro shifts in thinking and ways of doing things.
We become more patient, less selfish, and more content as side benefits.
Without trials or some stress in our lives, we wouldn’t have picked up these growth ways that all point to our character alignment that helps align our lives.
And like with any life skills, they can be more impactful than even a vocational skill you use as they are transferrable throughout life.
What We Can Do Today To Align Sooner
We can stop being so busy. When we cram everything into the waking hours we have available, we do the opposite.
We pretty much are leaving our lives up to our tasks and chosen activities that are not always aligned with our daily spiritual walk or purpose.
We can instead prioritize our lives as the only one we get. We can’t do over years but we can start over. And if we’re not doing what we know can be more impactful in our lives when we know or when we can, then we’re not aligning ourselves fully.
That doesn’t mean quit what you’re doing today, but the tea leaves are out.
And when they are, that means it’s just a matter of time before you can confront the truth set before you or choose to ignore.
Being brave and confronting is going to get you what you want if you take that risk that’s calculated because otherwise the deeper idea wouldn’t be planted inside you.
Ignoring our inner calling prevents us from getting closer to our aligned ways and purposes because of the four letter word… B-U-S-Y. When we’re too busy to get out of our busyness funk, we can’t think clearly. What could emerge stays hidden from our view.
And when we get to slower paced life seasons either by choice or have more time because of changes that happened to our lives, then we get an opportunity to see where we can improve our lives.
And maybe restart with a fresh start in certain areas.
We don’t have to continue what wasn’t working well or no longer serves where we’re aligned to now. That’s when we can feel lost, something missing, or misaligned.
That includes: relationships, work choices, training humans around us on how to treat us, our habits, attitudes, and outlook.
And one specific area that can help us grow this season is checking in on our pride that can often be a source of misalignment.
Character Alignment Grows Healthy Pride
If we have a dose of unhealthy pride in us that’s very common in modern culture, learning to strip those outward and deeper layers helps us in our relationship communication, motivations, and our healthy blood pressure.
We are healthier and happier as the cure to heavy pride is humility, that gives us the warm and fuzzy feelings inside us.
We feel good quietly in our soul, we’re building up our character, and people remember and respect us in a good way for that.
Compare that to the high pride that we air and we get claps and cheers, but those are short lived and forgotten in our digital era.
Pride is healthy when we’re proud of ourselves for making the finish line or achieving our accomplishments big or small. It’s a good thing we have goals! 🎉
And at the root of unhealthy pride are wrong motivations such as feeling superior over others that an unhealthy fed ego loves.
Pride can swallow us up when situations can tear us down. We want to build a stable environment inside us that’s content whether situations are good or not-so-great.
…What happens next doesn’t make or break you is the empowered feeling.
And then others recognize the humility energy and also give you the accomplishment credit.
You’ll enjoy your life the most that way and avoid the up and down roller coaster life that’s like Monday morning hangover dread after Friday afternoon joy and a weekend of eventful and relaxed bliss.
Dogs and Pride Analogy
…So back to our dogs that we can learn from. Dogs don’t act prideful as they don’t have that gene, but they can act dominant, as in trying to protect their owner and territory.
So in pride and dog analogies, if we build up humility in our dogs for their loving personality traits to come out then they show us their calm side that lets others get close and pet them.
And they respect us as the leader. That’s what we want in ourselves… to be a leader in our lives.
Even when we think we’re humble, there are still traces of unhealthy pride that can be lingering layers deep.
I discovered this in my life when I used to speed past a pedestrian crossway on a major road fare. No one in their right mind who didn’t have to, would cross walk at that dangerous intersection.
I had never seen anyone in my daily drive do so.
But one day, the flashing light beside the walkway suddenly came on without warning just before I drove up there. I had to slam my foot on the breaks. And while that wasn’t an unusual step to do and for the cars behind me, that was a wake up call for me.
In awareness, I realized I still had unhealthy pride in me that I thought I had worked hard to try to successfully rip out.
How was that incident related to character alignment?
Deeply rooted, I realized I hadn’t taken seriously enough the idea that you can’t be too thoughtful when it comes to signs and other people showing up suddenly out of the blue.
While I know that sounds a little silly and we can all act similarly in that way in our busy lives, when you are getting closer to character alignment in certain areas you’re introspective and observe small details in your life.
When I took that lesson to heart and how my initial reaction and outward layer disregarded other possibilities, I learned to humble myself more deeply in future situations by being more thoughtful and slowing down automatically before the intersection. That was a good alignment test.
And that gave me the peace, calm surrender, and self-control I needed for better humility growth and character alignment.
There are many other traits that similar lessons can apply to, but humility is one healthy trait can help your life out in so many ways.
As much as rescue dogs can be trained to become a new healthy dog, we have the ability too.
We can always make up for lost time in development areas we didn’t gain or need to re-learn.
Sometimes when we don’t have much or live simply, we see this better. And we turn inward and dig deep for help and answers.
This type of growth comes from the inside out that speeds up our progress. We’re each in our own marathon.
Starting with a desire to make specific changes marks the starting point.
After we’re aware, it’s in us and we have a high chance of succeeding as we aspire to make the change.
And then one day that’s usually after many tries, we are transformed into this new better way.
We can’t go back to the old way as it no longer fits us in character alignment.
Along those lines and in your journey, you can pick up good character alignment traits that help you in more ways than one and for the rest of your life.
That’s something to celebrate and look forward to in your bright future!
Shout out to the mom’s for Mother’s Day. This is a Hibiscus Berry Mocktail you can make that the moms and ladies can enjoy! 🌺
This is a pink and lavender celebratory and festive mocktail with healthy notes that any mom would love! The drink checks the boxes for the service and quality time love language mom as she kicks up her feet to sip on this special mocktail that can be made into a cocktail.
Course beverage
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Equipment
martini strainer or other strainer
Ingredients
blueberry tea
hibiscus tea
can of coconut cream (or heavy cream)
blueberries and strawberries
lavender tea bag
Instructions
Reserve the thickest part of the coconut cream. Then mix the thinner part of the cream to make a milk consistency that will be used for blending.
Combine brewed blueberry tea and hibiscus tea and milk consistency cream. Shake up and strain to create the lavender purple color layer. Optional: add berries to this layer if you wish.
Freeze the first layer.
Repeat the second step but omit the blueberry tea to make the pink color layer as red and white make pink. Optional: add berries to this layer if you wish.
Freeze the second layer.
Add the thick coconut cream to the top. Add a little of the milk consistency cream to make the thickness of choice.
Decorate with dried hibiscus and lavender tea leaves, and/or fresh fruit.
Enjoy and watch the drink change colors!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Btw, my mom was a dressmaker for most of her working career, so this pink and purple color celebrates her life well and fits into the Met Gala’s Garden of Time dress theme she would’ve liked.
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 😇
