Fresh peach juice is a great cold summertime drink you can make with a summer glow or sunrise effect. 🌅 And if you want to make your drink taste like a peach pie without the fat calories, you can also do that with the steps below…
When you add enough cinnamon, you will get a delicious sweetness pairing that tastes like a peach pie or dessert. 🥧
A whole wheat peach galette is a whole way to get your peach-fill. 🍑
But you can also keep it cool (andthe hot oven off!) with an easy fresh cold peach juice drink.
Just add cinnamon that’s an Ayurvedic balancing spice for Vata that’s calming and sweet. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
There are two common types of cinnamon: Cassia and Ceylon.
For this drink, you’ll want to use the Cassia cinnamon that’s the common cinnamon spice you find in most grocery store spice aisles.
Even the easy to find Vietnamese cinnamon is more like the Cassia type.
It’s the tastier cinnamon version that is great for baking with. Ceylon is the more anti-inflammatory one good to add to drinks like tea or coffee.
And with Cassia cinnamon, this flavor paired drink will transform and turn into a peach pie… and maybe remind you a bit of old fashioned apple pie from the enhanced heavy sprinkle of cinnamon spice… 🥧 You’ll want to mix in a dollop and not a dust.
For the peach juice part: fresh peach juice is easy to make with a blender and when peaches are ripe and super soft. That usually takes time from when you buy from the market.
And that can be a good thing…
For a later date juice (or delay in making the juice), you can ripen in a controlled environment…
Put your peaches in your fridge fruit or crisper drawer that’s lower humidity than other parts of the fridge, where fruit will ripen faster and stay fresh. You can preserve your peaches for weeks.
When you’re ready to make your fresh peach juice drink, it will already be ready to serve cold because the peaches are cold.
Quicker Peach Ripening Method:
…Or if you keep peaches out at room temperature in a fruit bowl, they’ll ripen even faster if you’re ready to make your drink as they go from ripe to rot pretty quickly.
This way, you’ll chill your drink after making it.
Either ripening way works. It’s 6-of-one half-dozen the other as we used to say in catering. The mantra is the same and your preference liking.
…Make it slow or fast based on a calendar is the question.
Either way when you start the home fresh peach juice making process, a fresh peach drink can be on your menu as a next day chilled morning beverage instead of mango or orange juice…
That’s good for Vata variety.
And with peaches, you can also get a special sunrise effect when you add water that brightens the day. 🌅
A morning sunrise fresh peach juice drink.🌅
The simple steps are below 🍑
You can turn your juice into a refreshing sweet peach-ade with a little lemon juice instead of a tart lemonade.
Peach is an abundant seasonal summertime fruit favorite and staple. It’s bright, juicy, and high in Vitamin A and C antioxidants.
You can also make one other summertime favorite: old-fashioned porch peach sun tea… that’s a great way to celebrate a summer break! ☀️
Old Fashioned Summer Porch Tea from Fresh Peach Juice
You can take a large glass jar and brew old-fashioned summer tea that’s super easy to make. I’m pretty sure that comes from my adult southern roots living in the Carolinas. 😉
You would basically pour fresh water into a glass jar that has a lid. Then set the tea bags in the jar, using about 4 tea bags for a 6-cup or 3-pint jar.
A classic brisk tea like Lipton gives a super crisp or brisk tea taste.
The bags conveniently have strings, so you can easily tie the bag strings together and hang the labels over the top opening and then secure the lid.
Then set the jar outdoors on a patio that gets sun for at least part of the day. You don’t have to boil water.
And like magic 🪄, you have sun tea in about a day or two. You can leave outside longer for an even more raw, brisk tea taste.
When it’s done, refrigerate or add ice cubes and enjoy!
And finally, with peaches you can use also add fresh diced peaches into your drink or daytime Sangria mocktail for some zhugh and sunny hues.
How fun in the sun, right?
And if you’re peach inspired and don’t want to stop there (or still have extra peaches you don’t know what to do with), you can make a peach profiterole that could take the summer peach vibes to a whole ‘nother (baking) level! 🍑
Blend softened ripe peaches leaving about 1/3" or 1 cm to top of glass. You can add a little water if you prefer less concentrated juice. For peach pie drink: blend in cinnamon spice to taste.
For the sunrise effect, add fresh cold water to fill up to the top of the glass. Bottoms up!
Lemon strawberry parfait is a cool light summer treat for the senses and a sweet afternoon pick me up. Made with yogurt and eggs, this would make a great brunch waffles idea! 🎉
I love a delish layered dessert with a divine summer fruit pairing like strawberry and lemon (…you too?) that you can make year round in the day…
And night…
Luscious lemon parfait with berries.
This luscious, low-calorie parfait is better than any store pudding I’ve ever tried… and as healthy as a smoothie.
Here’s the ingredient low-down that makes this dessert healthy:
…Oh and I almost forgot that it’s happy too! Because a lemon color that’s more sunny than cool yellow makes me smile. ☀️
Lemon – this is the ingredient in many cooked dishes especially close by the Mediterranean. If there was a fruit as commonly used as butter, it would be a lemon. 🍋 Yes?
A fresh lemon is tart and acidic enough to make you want to pucker up.
Lemons are anti-inflammatory Vitamin C-rich fruits good for anti-cancer pink ribbon breakfast ideas. 💗
They’re also loaded with limonene that’s anti-stress, so calm-soothing… and that’s why we get happy with citrus scents around, like bergamot.
If the lemon color didn’t create a favorable emotion, the powerful lemon zest flavors in the curd are bound to make your lips curl. 😊
Then when you pair the tart with a sweet balanced flavor like a strawberry, you’re in for a divine food pairing marriage that won’t disappoint.
Strawberry – you can use frozen strawberries for this recipe and that’ll be useful for a later date when strawberries aren’t in season.
These days, it’s hard to tell which season we’re in by the temperatures outside and as we see summer fruits in the winter, and vice versa. With a freezer, you can freeze the effects and have a year-round grocery store with your fave foods. 🎉.
So you have options. Either you buy fresh and freeze or you can also buy a bag of frozen strawberries, like the kind you would use for smoothies.
Also, organic strawberries are in-season in the summer, and getting strawberries from your local farmers market is a good idea. Organic ones are the ones I would recommend eating as free from pesticides.
Plain Greek yogurt – when selecting yogurt, it’s best to take a look at the ingredients. With so many yogurt options, you can zero in on the lower sugar content tubs.
Whole milk texture consistency will work well with this recipe, but all plain yogurts will taste good. The star ingredients for this parfait is the lemon and strawberry (in case that wasn’t obvious).
Making the lemon curd is pretty easy too, but makes this parfait taste perfect.
For an extra citrus zing-y experience, add zest to the zhugh. Because afterall, zhugh is the zest of life… at least in food anyway.
For zing, there’s no better substitute in this lemon strawberry parfait than lime zest to compliment the lemon tart and strawberry sweetness… and bring out the balanced sweet paired dessert vibes in a cool lemon zig and lime zag way.
This is a divine pairing that's cooling, light, luscious, and healthy!
Course Dessert, Snack
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
lemon curd
frozen strawberry
Plain Greek yogurt (whole milk fat)
additional lemon zest for zhugh
lime zest (optional)
Instructions
Thaw frozen strawberry so that it's mushy and there's strawberry juice. Mash to the bottom of your glass. Then freeze again until ready to make the parfait.
Make your lemon curd and refrigerate until cold.
Add your lemon curd ontop the frozen or semi-frozen strawberry layer. You can de-thaw in the fridge a few hours before you're ready to eat.
Add yogurt to the top layer as it makes this snack luscious to enjoy! Zest with lemon for zing and also lime for a citrus twist!
Burnout is more common in the hot months and with modern Western style living.
This is where body heat, daily stress and nerves meet with our screaming mind-body limits. All while our bodies are keeping score.
I’m watching summer tennis scores that’s much more enjoyable. And you too can pause to enjoy a relaxing moment to get away from heated moments.
…I baked this relaxed and low-temperature oven strawberry-guava cheesecake with a ‘lil cafe while catching some tennis points. 🇫🇷
Strawberry cheesecake with a guava tropical twist. Recipe below 💕
With summer boiling over to year-round heat these climate change days, this can test us all. We can be more sensitive to our daily situations, and easily rattled with weather changes that affect our day.
Those days can kick up our Pitta and fire burning inside us. ☄️
And while heated moments are part of life, our life’s direction shouldn’t be.
One slow boiling source can be when we know we’re passionlessly working, and not doing our life’s work. This is how it is for most of us at some points.
Often it’s how we start off until we gather enough experience or fire in the belly to do something different that we’re wired for.
If we start to feel in limbo, going through the motions and not living a lifestyle we’re happy with, this eats at us and the stress often shows up in odd symptoms on the body in the the mind-body connection.
I know that’s how I felt when I worked in corporate management jobs in a bustling metro city area like Washington DC that’s a highly competitive work area. That’s where I grew up.
Being a local or not, finding work-life balance jobs there isn’t easy or in other places that are filled with movers and shakers who will do circles around you.
That’s when I found passion projects I pursued like scrapbooking as an outlet.
Being in a major metro city can often add additional stressful elements like commute time, turnover transitions, and higher costs of living.
The tradeoff is convenience as larger cities have more service-based businesses and infrastructure to make life better and more convenient.
But they can’t completely take away the daily stressors that add to accumulated stress. And that which can lead to burnout.
In burnout, basically your mind-body is telling you: you need to make changes or else your quality of life will dwindle as we carry you.
Burnout is often gradual like a simmering pot that hasn’t boiled over. It starts with symptoms like a common noticeable gray hair, pimple, or weight gain.
And then one day this grows into a health condition needing to be checked out, frustration or a short fuse, daily inner moods, or a panic attack to name a few inconveniences.
Those are all ways that our body’s alarm system gives us a wake-up call. Burnout symptoms are the body’s way of screaming “fire”in Ayurvedic Pitta terms.
In strong Pitta minds, it shows up as symptoms like being overly critical, blaming, and judging others. If we’re not paying attention or ignoring, this can be tolerable and we just keeping doing what we do.
But this can quickly turn into unhealthy ego-pride areas that can take over if allowed. We see this in road rage and people acting out in public who should know better but don’t.
And while that may not be us, we can have a fire inside us. Some people can be better at smoldering the fire from view, keeping it bottled inside in an unhealthy way.
One day there can be a blowup in another way from a fire buildup.
In burnout, that doesn’t often come from one isolated incident or situation.
A primary source can often be work. Sometimes close relationships. There can be a straw that breaks the camel’s back situation that pushes you over the edge.
The feeling can be like “I’m done (with this).” But, the reality can be you can’t leave just yet. And that’s where all sorts of unhealthy manifestations can harbor like resentment or depression.
In those seasons we’re no longer growing as we struggle with ourselves daily.
Burnout symptoms won’t change by themselves. One productive change you’re empowered to make is daily changes in your mind and body just where you are.
So that your cool, calm, and collected self can walk away from the burnout you had down the street.
Your mind and body are tools to help change your burnout symptoms.
I know this well in my journey because I have been there many times. Each time I thought I was doing something wrong: oh no, not again. 😳
Jobs always started off the same way in the honeymoon work period. You know, when you’re excited about going into work in a new promising role you’re impacting and contributing to.
You meet new people, learn new skills, and the new environment feels a little like you’re walking on Cloud 9 in la la land with your work badge and office space making you feel like you belong and are needed.
And you think: this could be the ONE from the dream of finding an employer who will treat you fairly and you’ll be happy to retire with doing work for them the rest of your working life.
So you start digging into your enjoyable work and proving yourself.
Gradually as the months go by, one day something shifts in the air and you no longer feel new or growing. You feel like you have the weight of performing your job and those around you counting on you as responsibilities now count and add up.
There’s an unseen point system and you’re aware you’re a primary player on the scoreboard. You feel stress above and on your shoulders, and daily neck yoga moves help to release tension.
There’s another point system in your body watching daily, but keeping quiet.
…And as some daily tasks that you didn’t mind before are now seen to you as a waste of time or draining you slowly.
Maybe you don’t have enough hours in the day to achieve what’s expected of you. Or too many work hours where you wonder why you don’t have more responsibilities.🤔
At some point you’re also put to the pinnacle test. There’s always stress involved. For me that was presenting in front of a Board of Directors where I felt my job was on the line each time.
But those type of situations in your career make you resilient and help build character for your next leg of the journey (that’ll be your life dream 💭).
Over the work years, I became more adaptable from a panic-attack-beginning to transforming worry and overcoming fear.
I learned something new about myself in each work experience challenge and problems that arose. Each shift was pointing me closer to my design and passions. And never did I think, I wish I could go back to any one place I was at.
The desires of my heart and maybe yours is to keep growing, live a balanced healthy and happy lifestyle away from the stress-filled work life.
…And to have something worthwhile at the end of the journey.
I didn’t want to accumulate all this time to be used toward the end when age and health typically is not on our side compared to in our 30s, 40s, and 50s.
And maybe that’s how you feel and what you’re looking for as life design.
Looking back, I realized it was a myth I told myself: that there was a good job out there and that would stay that way. And that I just had to keep looking.
Then I realized, that’s not the truth. Nothing stays the same for long and definitely not in a transient area that the world is.
I also realized work opportunities are always out there, but there’s only one me.
And there’s only one you.
And in my last corporate job, I distinctly remember hearing the whisper in my mind: you will not get this time back. This was after work hours when I was the only one in the office I could hear. And from that day on, nothing was the same.
And I know it may sound like I’m saying take more vacations if you’re unhappy or enduring your job.
Vacations can definitely help prevent and soothe early burnout symptoms.
But if the burnout has gone on too long, vacation can be a temporary distraction where you take your overly stressed mind and body condition along with you.
So then you’re not fully present and enjoying your vacation destination. Plus lines, counters, and flight delays can be stressful.
So you could also take a staycation and work on soothing yourself.
Burnout doesn’t care if you’re at home, near home, or on travel. Burnout is a tipping point where you can choose to do a radical change in mind-body lifestyle nursing yourself.
One burnout warning reminder is we should never ignore our symptoms because small symptom warnings can easily turn into inflammation of sorts when not addressed.
And those can turn to chronic inflammation that lead to the disease realities we’ve heard others have.
Ayurveda Daily Restoration in America
Sometimes we catch on, and other times we choose to ignore. In America, we’re not known for longevity records and that has a lot to do with our work lifestyles.
We’re also not taught health prevention anywhere along our journey.
We could have healthy minded parent influences, but their ideas fall by the wayside when our peers seem to be having the time of their lives who are not prioritizing health.
At work, we learn to do more and burn the midnight oil to get ahead and achieve more at all costs. And that goes against the body’s healthy balance desires.
So a goal commitment to ourselves can be to change any out-of-the-ordinary symptoms we notice within a week. We turn to restoration instead, so those symptoms don’t turn into weeks and months. Or grow out of hand.
You can see if you have a Pitta or any imbalances running by taking the body balance quiz.
And for any Pitta out-of-balance starters, a daily cooling activity is one restoring regimen. One easy way is I added guava for variety that has a tart and sweet taste, and very pretty pink color.
It’s fun to find new balancing fruits that have traveled across the tropics. If you’ve never tried, you could always start with a homemade fresh guava juice first.
Brain fog is a way to describe the forgetfulness nature that Ayurvedic Vata minds commonly daily express that we accept as part of us.
Brain fog accumulates in our daily lives.
In this article, you can learn all about brain fog from our daily environment and simple things we can tweak. You’ll also learn how brain fog isn’t always bad like when it’s from spiritual sources.
Brain fog is the general symptom description for not being able to think clearly.
Often this is when you want the mind to work for you.
Brain fog moments often shows up as confusion, lack of focus, or forgetfulness.
So brain fog would make sense as an explanation for simple memory blips.
But there’s more to this from a spiritual lens that I explain further below on how you can see it as a benefit and a blessing at times.
Because usually brain fog only has negative connotations in our practical culture.
And this article provides some healthy lifestyle tips to eliminate those daily negative brain fog aspects, plus presenting the balancing Vata brain fog positives (that’s a common built-in feature in our Vata mind nature).
In either positive or negative case, we don’t often sit around and analyze what’s going on with brain fog when our minds are in the clouded mist.
And what we experience is usually harmless, like forgetting eye glasses on our heads and looking everywhere for them.
While that can be comical, it’s extra minutes of distraction when the answer was sitting on you above your nose.
For daily routines and tasks, Vatas often create forgetfulness habits to set reminders and purposefully not forget.
High Vatas have active minds of worry-anxiety, more so than Pittas and Kaphas that can have other brain fog distractions.
This btw happened to me when I baked a healthy dessert for the morning and next morning. And the next morning, I forgot about all about it in my mind’s distraction.
A simple scenario like that happens to all of us at some point.
Peach biscuit. Recipe is below. 🍑
…And when I remembered the forgotten cool peach dessert, it was actually when I would appreciate the bite more after lunch so it could be an enjoyment positive experience.
In your daily life, if someone ever asks you why you didn’t do something and you answer I forgot, you often don’t get a lot of out-of-the-ordinary questioning.
Because forgetting is so normal.
Forgetting can also be healthy for us who like to control ideas. You let go of controlling your mind or the device in front of you that you’re tethered to.
This can invite in creativity inside us and help us let go of rigid ways.
But then there are also negatives such as cognitive decline brain fog instances we want to help prevent. It’s the “elephant in the room” but a diagnosis growing in our world, and that’s something we can be aware of and doing something about in our lives today.
Preventative Healthy Living Helps With Brain Fog
Brain fog can grow when we have these elements in our daily lives: high-processed foods, pesticides, phthalates, non-purified air, and mold, to name a few culprits in our modern lifestyles.
They alter our bodies and that affects our mind in the body-mind connection and in our mental health.
Processed foods for example become whole nutrient-stripped in the plant process (as in factory plant 🏭).
Organic plants 🌱 are better options where we don’t find the same trace levels of pesticides that are found in non-organic foods.
If you garden, you know what natural sprays you’ve used or not used in your care. And when you bake like I do, you know what ingredients you’ve added. You know the wholesomeness details.
In grocery stores, we see the ingredients in our carts we’ll be using to cook with or eat. And we can read labels.
But we don’t see the processes in-between, so this makes comparing foods an apples to oranges experience.
Cheese is an example. Rennet that is found in some parts of the world isn’t the pasteurized cheese process found along the shelf rows in our American grocery stores.
The goat and sheep’s cheese that the Sardinians farm and eat isn’t what we find in our guts.
And for daily coffee drinkers, switching to organic is good for preventative health as coffee is naturally high in mold.
Mold is a brain fog offender.
Organic coffee is considerably more expensive and more difficult to source, but it’s out there when you look and put your health first.
You can get resourceful and save money by buying whole roasts and then doing the grind work yourself. You can feel much more grounded like your coffee when you do. 😊
Daily clean air is also going to be healthy preventative help against the brain fog cause. Developing daily hayfever-like allergy symptoms is one common sign.
And building in more wellness habits and healthy intentions to your life is going to help you most in your sleep, health conditions, and mental fatigue. Yoga is one way to bring in more self-awareness intention.
When you calm and relax your mind and self that also brings down your stress and anxiety levels that help Vata brain fog.
Calming and Relaxing the Mind
Good answers and thoughts show up when the mind is calm and relaxed, and not anxious or worried like when running with high Vata brain fog symptoms.
When our minds are under stress, often we can’t think of the answer when put on the spot.
If we’re asked a Family Feud game show question like what is the first thing you do in the morning?, we can usually come up with an answer. And maybe one that lights up on the board.
But when someone asks us the same question in an interview where we know others will put judgment on what we say, we can’t come up with the answer under mind stress.
We could just give a safe answer.
…Or you may surprise yourself by blurting an answer that surprises you.
Those answers that pop up in memory unexpectedly often come from our spirit.
The answer that pops in our mind come from our deeper wisdom inside us.
We didn’t rack our brain for the answer. They just entered out of no where.
Those thoughts can be blessings when you connect-the-dots.
I’ve had a lot of time and spiritual experiences to teach me wisdom lessons learned to show me this.
Over time, the lessons gave me a different perspective to gain the deeper meaning behind those memory moment lapse blessings.
Once you know you can’t go back to not-knowing and wouldn’t want to as cracking the code secrets toward a happier life.
And you can notice when thought lapses land in aligned perfect timing.
That’s when it’s a spiritual miracle and blessing.
An example is we forget what we were going to say from our rational brain from losing our train of thought.
We get other thoughts that enter.
In groups I attended, we called these other thoughts: popcorn thoughts. These answers come from our heart as though we didn’t process the thought first.
If it’s a helpful suggestive thought, it’s often helpful for others to hear who need the suggestion.
If you can get over what others will think or any insecurities you have in those moments, and blurt out what you’re thinking, often it helps someone else.
You don’t necessarily know how it will help, but it does when you dare to stay vulnerable in sharing.
They are spiritual collaboration opportunities that are expressed when you speak them aloud. You can feel good about showing up.
In the same token, sometimes others blurt out something you needed that sticks with you. It’s the same when purposefully listening to a podcast or a message that you need.
So we’re giving back in a way.
We can all contribute and give back in the energy of life in this way and without much effort.
If you want more of these opportunities to show up and are willing to have your day rearranged in some way, ask quietly aloud or in self-talk: what can I do today to be helpful?
Then be prepared to be useful to others. 😊
And in daily life, these prompted thoughts and memories will show up more frequently if you pay attention (that’s an active move).
You could ignore and override those thoughts to stay on your linear agenda.
That’s how I was until I knew better.
As a planner, we don’t prefer going off course. But over the years, I grew to embrace impromptu thoughts entering, seeing this new spiritual perspective.
And maybe that would help you.
Spiritual impromptu thoughts help you align and redirect to a better way, day, and life. They lead to a life of more purpose, happiness, meaning, and fulfillment. 🎉
So you can be curious next time and openly ask yourself: why did I have ____ particular thought? And see if you get anything back as a thought.
Most likely you won’t immediately.
But that makes you consider another way of thinking and living that can be spirit-filled and coming from deeper inside of you that knows deeply what you want.
And you can stay curious and wondering until something clicks like it finally did for me.
So if we wonder about those spiritual impromptu thoughts, that opens the door to our exploring our spiritual wisdom inside us that isn’t brain fog.
This can be our new norm.
And for our daily mattering lives, we can invite in ad hoc thoughts in our mantras, meditation, and centering to help advise us on what to do next.
And as you can tell, I enjoy baking meditation where this dessert was dreamed up and you can enjoy making.✨
Vata active mind runs in high Vatas and imbalanced Vatas.
The mind overruns when we want to be done with our thoughts and the turmoil emotions that anxious, stressed, or worry thoughts can create in the mind-body connection.
This looks a bit like Pacman eating pellets that was a happy memory for me. And this low-sugar very Greek yogurt berry cheesecake recipe is one you can re-create. 🫐
This article is about how to deal with a Vata active mind that isn’t serving us.
When we’re confronted with ingested stress turmoil, we want to run from our mind especially when our ego dials up high fear trying to protect us from the world and our repeated hurt past experiences that have semblances in our current situation.
It’s not that severe, but our minds can overreact if we allow it to.
Because the ego serves us repeated warnings that can grow into anxiousness from our fearful thoughts.
The problem grows and can fester when our fear and associated negative thoughts have no where to go unless we successfully get them to take a hike and that satisfies our mind… or we get the feelings from I got this!
Otherwise we ride the trapped ego wave with our evolved human heads spinning in a brain fog cloud until exacerbated ego goes away or some other message distraction comes along to switch up what’s important.
We want to change our channel that can stubbornly stick around on its own.
The default is: we allow our ego to build drama in our lives until we exercise our right to put away the anxious thoughts.
We don’t have to delay our balance for more than a day or more than a few moments. We can practice shutting down our ego and getting better at our practice.
I didn’t start off as the poster child for this as I let repeated thoughts get to me.
But these days I recognize the offender right away and shut it down as soon as humanly possible.
You and I get to celebrate progress in us! 🤸🏻
The progress motivation can be as simple as wanting to enjoy life as much as possible.
We can do this if we know how to recognize and change the thought trajectory when an anxious triggering thought arises from a triggered situation or trauma.
Getting rid of a Vata active mind means having a new way with your new or current situation to get away from anxious thoughts and worry.
Developed fear or insecurity could have come from a past trauma situation, thoughts, or memories.
We can start practicing getting rid of unwanted emotions stirred up by an Vata active mind.
This is how it can go in a typical scenario…
A day can go by where we’re busy and caught up with those nagging thoughts as an under current theme.
We can delay doing something about it until the next day where we’ve confirmed we lost sleep because of the active mind in Vata.
We stayed up way too late in anxious-worry thoughts that’s now confirmed as stuck in our body’s energy.
So now we’re paying for it the day after feeling tired and bad in some way.
We want to get rest and sleep. We know that’s the formula to a healthy life that we want and productivity for our day.
And if we’re healthy, we can be more happy. If we’re happy, we do more in our lives that fuels more happiness. Plus, happy people live longer.
So ridding of an over active mind vs. calm mind isn’t just about feeling rested and better. It’s a protocol for a healthy well-being lifestyle.
It’s easy for us to tell others to not worry or be anxious. But when we’re confronted with our situations, we’re intimately wrapped up with our mind, the emotions, and thought implications of what if the worse happens?
This can show up in all kinds of other ego feeling-defeated flavors.
In those cases, one way I know that works is to have a backup plan so that the best happens coming from Plan A and you don’t have to resort to any backups.
Just having a backup plan shuts the ego down. (Remember: I got this!)
The best time to handle this is right now in this moment.
The tip again is coming up with a backup plan that satisfies you.
It’s not what you’re actually planning to do.
But things do happen in life, that you and your ego know from the past experiences and history that you have no control over.
So having a Plan B in your mind puts you and your (ego) mind at ease at the moment, as not putting more energy into worry, what-if, and other time sucking thoughts.
And in the rare instance that the situation outcome you don’t want to happen actually happens, you have a trampoline to fall on (your Plan B).
If you do this mental exercise for your Vata active mind, this puts your mind at rest.
And when you rest a Vata active mind, then you feel calm and can get on with your day.
You can enjoy the next moments instead of leaving worry on the table to be seen again later on in your thoughts without any real life evidence you need to be alarmed.
There’s no reason to be anxious or worried about anything not alarming, as it solves nothing and is unproductive.
Breaking this down: once you know what the anxious thought is about and determine it’s not clear and present danger, you can move into active mind management, such as having a mental Plan B.
The second thing you can do is have a specific mantra that becomes your outlook.
When anxious thoughts loom, you can refer to a mantra like: I know tomorrow will be better. It always is.
How can you convince you and your ego that’s true?
You have so many examples in the past of that truth. Find a supporting example in your past where the worry you had didn’t pan out, and you actually turned it into something better now that you have hindsight.
Remind your mind.
Because there’s 3 of you on your team: you, your mind, and your body.
When you have positive belief and conviction like “it always is” you’ve defeated ego because there’s no debating “always” in ego language. It’s like calling ego out.
That was ego’s ploy to turn “always” into a negative position such as it’s always going to be like this or it always will be raining.
But you’ve turned the always statement upside down on its head to a positive thought and belief that shuts ego up.
That’s how you fairly head wrestle with ego.
And, here’s how you can practice this:
Let’s use the weekend or your work days off as an example since you have more control over what you get to do or think on those days.
Say, today is Saturday and you’re stuck indoors with lousy weather and you had planned to relax today.
You didn’t sleep well because of anxious thoughts circling from the week before, so all that compounds and adds to your feeling deflated or defeated in some way in your day even though it’s your day off.
This isn’t how you wanted to spend part of your day.
But you can’t plan your thoughts and feelings in advance. What you can do now is prepare your better thoughts and feelings for tomorrow with these steps:
Start re-setting today. Think and repeat: tomorrow will be a new day.
Go to bed earlier tonight so you can get a good’s night rest (as you didn’t sleep well the previous night).
Plus, going to bed early keeps you from scrolling on your devices, overeating and overdrinking, and watching shows that make you feel bad or worse the next day.
So to recap: you’re productively going to bed early and you anticipate a better day tomorrow. And the next day (or Sunday), you wake up better rested compared to the lousy night you had before or on Friday.
That’s because you put a good intention the day and night before.
On Sunday, you’ve reset yourself and your thoughts. And hopefully you got more sleep.
You keep the mantra running in your mind: it’s a brand new day.
You have a new chance to feel productive and happy.
Plus, our minds loves to compare. And fresh-in-mind-memory was that yesterday wasn’t so great. Yesterday is over. So this new day is victory in comparison. 🎉
You could enjoy a cup of tea in peace and that makes you feel much better than turmoil yesterday.
Keep focusing on re-centering yourself in the moment.
The anxious fears of yesterday are put in the dust. Re-focus on your built-up love intentions today.
When the clouds lift, celebrate with singing, dancing, humming or whatever fancies you so you create a new recent happy memory.
Bring out more of the happy, creative person within you. Remove and lower unfocused Vata tendencies.
Keep doing this even if it takes a few days. Sometimes we need more than a night. The more you practice, the shorter the time becomes to bounce back.
You can choose to get out of self-pity, feeling anxious. or sad in a healthy and graceful way faster.
We can shorten the duration of regurgitating thoughts that don’t serve us. We can put them to bed after we realize they serve no helpful purpose and rob us of time and energy.
Robbing can show up as depressed moods, procrastination, self-loathing, blaming others, self-pity, etc.
I spent way too many seasons feeling self-pity. Especially if my seasons didn’t measure up comparing myself to culture’s standards, those around me, and the high-elated feelings on the flesh level.
Those created my next season lows in the hangover effect when they didn’t measure up.
I had the wrong set of wants that weren’t aligned with what would actually make me happy… me.
People, accomplishments, or things were crutches. It was me that could make me happy.
And it’s you that can make you happy.
If that doesn’t resonate now, know it’s now in your system to digest.
Welcome in your curiosity and questions that wonder about this idea. Maybe you wrestle with this a while. But by processing this, one day, you may find yourself happy with authentic you and who you’ve become that started with practicing quieting a Vata active mind.
Baking in a healthy and happy dessert like a berry cheesecake can start your daily happy.
