Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Happy Gratitude in Paris

Happy gratitude is easy to find when your senses are heightened like in a city like Paris that has beauty, scents, and sights.

happy gratitude in front of Louvre Museum.

That’s one souvenir that is priceless. Even more valuable than the Mona Lisa.

It’s also a good time to reflect in happy gratitude for the life you’ve already had.

For me, I’m thankful for the travel I did pre-2020 that are joyfully stamped in my memories.

For self-care, I find solo travel to be one of the best ways to be reflective and grateful. You can find a new place to explore without compromise, and to find yourself and happy self in the process.

In May 2012, I did just that. I explored and got lost around Paris, France for a week. I could breathe in a different culture, and see a glimpse of how big this world is and how small a piece we are.

What you take with you on travel and in your life is your mind, body, and spirit. And that’s the part that gets impacted the most in travel.

For me (and maybe you), international travel is exciting with new sights, sounds, tastes, culture, people, and history.

And a city like Paris is nothing short of joyful sensory overload… But there are more similarities to American cities than dissimilarities.

The language is the biggest difference that jumps out the most.

The highlights are walking down boulevards, visiting museums, purchasing a Parisian beret and scarf, experiencing scents and tastes from all the beautiful boulangerie breads and pastries, and then finally making it one day to the iconic Eiffel Tower (as a dramatic climax).

When I had first arrived, I was sleep-deprived from the 6-hour time difference. But — the first day is magical as my eyes pop out of my head in wonderment. The happy center of my mind is hungry for more. And is reinforced with the scent of fresh quiche everywhere.

Walking up a classic cobblestone pedestrian street like Rue du Mouffetard was a great way to start.

The joy effect does wear off after a few days, and it took a few cappuccinos and seeing many sights.

These are a few gratitude notes I took away:

Balance.

Paris is a city of balance. You can sit in a café and “be,” and no one will rush you. You can watch the world walk by.

And you feel like you’re on top of the world like in balanced yoga poses.

You can stroll and sit along the Seine River, or relax in the garden parks (Jardin des Tuilleries).

Staying in the Latin Quarter area, I got away from the hustle and bustle tourist district and shopping-feel that the central Opera neighborhood has.

Beauty.

When you see peaceful Monet’s water lilies mural paintings at Musee de L’Orangerie, you get a new sense of appreciation… and then you just wanna lay on an outdoor chaise lounge so you can be mindful of your beautiful surroundings.

Beauty you can find in food elegance you can find in a bistro where everyday is brunch fare.

Life.

You can get your fill of vitality in the churches, as you visit the grand Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur.

You can hear church bells and see street performers playing accordions in between sites.

You also hear fluent French spoken with beautifully connected sounds. I appreciated my ability to speak broken French as my high school French teacher came to my conscious mind.

City of Lights.

In May, you realize that the Paris sun sets around 10 pm and that the global earth operates in different time zones.

With more daylight, you have a chance to experience and aspire to do more each day.

You realize how the world runs in different time zones and the Universe looks different from another perspective, but the lit sun stays constant.

Contentment.

I felt grateful (and content) for the gift of life and the uncertainty to get better answers than the ones I currently know with my limited knowledge.

I was grateful for the freedom and ability to travel by myself to build self-confidence.

I was thankful for the healthy intentions I have and the growth I had made up to the point. Nothing learned goes wasted.

I was thankful for the people I had met and who are a happy part of my life even if it was only for a season. Life is about the experiences, relationships, and becoming better people.

Then when it was time to go back home, I was looking forward to going back to the life I had that allowed me to take a week off to explore.

I journaled my experience in a scrapbook I created with warm and appreciative memories. I can re-live the thoughts and feelings I had at the time, any time in my mind.

With memorable trips like the one I took a decade ago, I realize I’m physically living in a different place, and in a different place in life now (as we’re constantly growing).

Since my Paris trip, I’ve opened my mind and world to seeing 9 additional countries.

There’s plenty of room for happy memories that’s a gift.

The happy gratitude part I cherish the most in every one of my travel adventures. And when in my return, it’s my turn in the airport line to pass through the American Immigration desk, and the man in the kiosk smiles and says, “Welcome Home.”

I celebrate with my American flag smoothie that’s found nowhere but home.

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Vitamins A-Z Checklist For Prevention and Balance

Vitamins can have a positive effect on your physical and mental health like sunscreen, where you’re better covered. For Vitamin A, it’s retinol for skin cell turnover and also a fat-soluble carotenoid that is needed for essential daily organ and body functions.

Vitamins are a healthy preventative measure.

In appreciating our bodies, we can keep them nourished as nature intended. And we can make it fun with our eat from the rainbow food where we get nutrients like vitamins and minerals.

Rainbow meringue pie recipe. — This rainbow grit pie recipe below 🌈

These days, deficiency in Vitamin D and iodine is common as we intake less cow’s milk and salt as we’re taught that they are harmful in large doses. Finding the right daily balance is not easy.

So then we learn the habits to cut out these foods and beverages.

And we end up with a deficiency that we can supplement. And it’s still complex to fine line balance as research findings are constantly evolving…

One day, one grocery item is on the good list. And the next, it has been replaced by another consumable item.

Vitamins Stay Constant

So then vitamins in powder, capsule, and gummies can be the supplement that fortifies and serve as a “just in case.” A multi-vitamin can be the catch all.

You may not think absorbed vitamins are helping as you don’t see immediate daily changes, but HOW I believe in them as a person that grew up with them, is as a backup to food nutrients that’s the primary source of vitamins.

I first learned about vitamin supplements when I was a child. We would take the generic brand Fred Flintstones candy vitamins that tasted like Pez candy. That’s similar to the gummy versions offered today.

Then when I was halfway through college, I took a semester off to learn more about high-absorption nutritional supplements through a health-conscious product company.

I volunteered for the American Cancer Society that was in my area backyard. “Eating Smart” promotional campaign posters were plastered around to get the word out about disease prevention.

Those experiences offered me the opportunity to learn deeper about health and free radicals (yeah, that was known for those interested in cutting-edge health trends and predictions)…

And so much so, I considered nutrition as a career major.

Back then the leading causes of death were heart disease and cancer (the same ones today). By taking antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E (ACE for short), you could prevent health issues down the road. Hey… not bad for pre-Millennial century knowledge.

Learning about the “good stuff” vitamins by default teaches you about placebo multivitamins having a low-to-no effect. They’re the inexpensive vitamins claiming A-Z still sitting on store shelves. They make us feel better about ourselves that improves mental health, but aren’t adding anything positive for our bodies.

So they are helping in some way no matter what.

You get to decide. And you are your best health advocate.

You get a sign you’ve taken a “placebo” vitamin if you have dark urine as an indicator that the pills weren’t absorbed by your body. So the quality of vitamins does make a difference. And liquid gel capsules are more absorbable than horse pill tablets.

Back then, I was drinking powdered supplement shakes before smoothies became a thing. We took a reusable plastic water bottle (yes, those existed!) with some water and shook the contents, which still works. Most of the shakes had a strong chalky taste, but they started a healthy breakfast drink movement.

Back then, the large Baby Boomer generations were the influencers like Millennials and Gen Z today. Predictions were found in books like Ken Dychtwald’s Age Wave.

Then the young to mid-adults helped to push the healthy eating movements today similar to fueling the healthy food shopping, plant-based, sustainable, and organic food movements. You can check out this page of 200 anti-inflammatory A-Z list of healthy foods.

Antioxidants were a known concept, but polyphenols today have made many live longer headlines. We drink more tea, coffee, and red wine for their polyphenols good health effects.

The fitness zeitgeist beliefs were precursors to cardio fitness and getting your heart rate up. Fitness teachers like Denise Austin taught through aerobic class tapes, a lot like how we create and watch YouTube videos today. Btw, she has been on interviews more recently and looks the exact same if not better!

These days, I would say you have to be more careful about what fitness channels you follow as anyone can teach a class. You can hurt yourself at any age, and even by doing simple stretching. Videos online don’t always show you the protective ways. And there’s not much discussion about post-workout regimens.

Cooling down and replenishing your body’s nutrients after a workout is important for recovery even if you’re only working out 10 minutes at a time.

You don’t hear much talk about minerals, but below I list a few that are vitally critical in a daily routine, and you may not be getting enough of in your life and diet…

Continue reading “Vitamins A-Z Checklist For Prevention and Balance”

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Mental Health Awareness Month For Your Wellness

Trees in May bloom can be a mental health awareness month reminder.

Mental Health Awareness Month is in May. But every day is an opportunity for wellness and mental health awareness for everyday people.

Mental health disorders and anxiety run rampant for people in our lives. In keeping wellness up, we can only do our part and be supportive of others and ensuring our own mental health is in order.

Mental Health Awareness Month is one of the several recognized events throughout the year to keep a reminder going.

And we can all check in on how we’re doing these days.

And others have strayed away from natural growth and becoming better and healthier, into less productive habits that lead to their self-inflicted destructive behavior patterns.

In some cases, this has led to a growing anxiety medication epidemic crisis in America. Too many people are taking them willingly like popping candy without questioning their doctor’s recommendation, and for longer than prescribed.

In college when I didn’t know any better, I took OTC sleeping pills for a semester. When I got off of them, I felt like I was drowning.

That was the wake up call that was needed to get me up and out of looking for a med crutch, when there is a choice to self-medicate and seek inner peace.

We’re all here to evolve and get better, but that’s up to each of us.

And some of the best remedies any of us can apply in Mental Health Awareness Month is wellness practices.

This can be in yoga, meditation, nature walks, and all of the above. Wellness and self-care is the best mind-body answer.

You’re the only one who can choose and do your better life. So for Mental Health Awareness Month (with emphasis on awareness), these are some ideas that you can implement for your healthy wellness lifestyle changes:

Healthy Wellness Lifestyle Changes You Can Make (For Mental Health Awareness Month)

And in your practice, you can get to the root of discovering the healthy you!

Through mind-body connection, maintaining both mental and physical health plays a big role.

When you’re aware that the mind-body directly communicate with each other, you can make positive changes to your life.

Let’s look at mental health (mind) and physical health (body) that we can influence in our wellness.

For physical health changes:

Many recurring or chronic flare-ups don’t have to be a regular or seasonal occurrence when you know the source.

With many interruptive symptoms, you can avoid them with better lifestyle choices and making healthy changes like having less stress in your life or purging past memory baggage.

And removing post-trauma that can stay invisible to you today, and be a part of your everyday.

And general symptoms such as eczema, acne, acid reflux, other GI tract, IBS issues, or sinus infections are preventable.

If you make a simple lifestyle adjustment, you can live more enjoyably, and prevent bothersome symptoms that can otherwise leave you worried, stressed, or moody.

Let me show you how simple these lifestyle changes can be.

Eczema – too much sugar can trigger eczema and food allergies, so finding alternatives. When you don’t eat sugar over time, your cravings can disappear as your tastes change. So slowly removing refined sugar and eating plant-based including fruits is a solution.

Acid reflux – a diet such with highly acidic foods and beverages, and wrong combinations of food eaten together can exacerbate. Using ACV with “the mother” as a food as medicine ingredient in your daily or weekly plan could benefit you. And changing up your meals as most of us eat the same categories of food. Adding more alkaline foods can do you good. For example, if we eat cheese, we tend to eat more than we need. Or we lean into tomato sauces when we could alternate with a butternut squash or other healthy alternative.

Sinus infections – we can’t do anything about the air we breathe in around us, but we can use a neti pot to clean out our nasal passages regularly to prevent sinus infections.

The preventative neti pot me saved me, a person who had experienced back to back sinus infections from a work environment that had mold behind the modern-built walls.

And like a magic potion (there’s no magic!), the prevention prescription for these annoying symptoms can be natural. If we can prevent ailments and nip-them-in-the-bud before they grow, then we don’t have to take medicine that hurts our microbiome.

Some of these “grandmother” and “old world” ways that are Ayurvedic ways, come from generations before us where modern medicine didn’t exist and the people then were able to live longer than they would have because they found natural solutions, like these:

A low sugar and balanced diet, apple cider vinegar, and sinus cleansing (neti pot). Those are pretty easy healthy fixes compared to the physical symptoms.

These changes are all healthy and easy to implement with a desire to change small habits.

We can pick up habits easily and unaware we don’t notice what we’re consuming, doing, or not doing. Being sensitive to our body’s “calling out” through imbalanced body symptoms can wake up our awareness.

For happiness-sadness mood swings:

Taking supplements such as the correct amount of daily Vitamin D3 can change your daily happiness.

Had I known this back when I was a teenager and young adult, my SAD (seasonal affective disorder) mood that came up every February (when naturally Vitamin D sunlight was far less) could have been better or non-existent if I took the right amount of Vit D. Proper vitamin and mineral nutrients are essential where some are daily critical.

And getting enough tryptophan from foods helps with your serotonin “happy hormones” where 90% is produced in your gut.

In our wellness age, we’re learning that a healthy gut is a happy life.

And finally taking the right amount of magnesium that most people don’t usually get enough of absorbed into their system or in their diet, can be helpful to relax a stressed, anxious, or worried mind-body.

For mental health disorders:

Feeling anxious, severe Impostor Syndrome, or prolonged depression can often be naturally altered. For those who are born healthy, we learn behaviors that if kept unaware to us, can turn into mental health disorders that affect daily life.

Getting your heart rate up in exercise, taking a shower, or getting outside to take a walk and appreciating those moments where you can see nature can help you stop wanting what you can’t have right now.

Our brains can be our worst enemies or best friends. You choose. Exercise ignites happy chemicals in your brain.

Your ego may influence you to overindulge or overinflate (e.g. overinflated ego). Be aware. And walk away from those thoughts with a nature walk or doing yoga.

Challenge your thoughts. They don’t always help so tell the ones that are not helpful, to take a hike! And you take your healthy hike outdoors. 😊

Walking away is better as there’s nothing more dangerous than an ego that’s unleashing thoughts affecting your counterproductive behavior. Catch your ego in the act in observation. And do the opposite. Find the loving and productive thoughts.

And one thought change at a time, changes your mind’s perspectives where you develop your happy, loving, and healthy mind for life.

If you have a situation or trial, find a positive to be gained. There is one if you look hard enough. On the other side of the rainbow, you will gain patience, resilience, self-control, and other traits that you couldn’t have learned otherwise or through other people’s lessons.

If you feel stuck in your current situation, you can try to come up with one step you could take today to change or start exploring a new direction?

In the beginning, a baby step is all it takes. Getting to the shower or your yoga mat even when you don’t feel like it. Do it anyway. And afterwards, you’ll feel much better.

And then you will have trained your mind to “just do it anyway” because it works! And the brain loves when it works, because that’s a sign of accomplishment and success.

Peace and wellness be with you.

A healthy wild cod with Vitamin D with a “3 Sisters” plant-based accompaniment is a good source of Vitamin A, K, protein, and fiber. Drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and the fat-soluble vitamins will absorb better.

Butternut Squash Three Sisters Fish Tacos

Pairing a 3 Sisters dish with fish tacos is a healthy dish.

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

Butternut squash
Black beans, canned
Corn, canned
Fish
Basil
Olive oil

Instructions

Cook your butternut squash until soft, then cut in half.
Cook until you can scoop out the squash.
Add the corn and beans drained from cans.
Cook fish and make salsa verde (basil and olive oil) or pesto (basil, olive oil, pine nuts).

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McDonald’s Breakfast Ideas You Can Make Healthy at Home

McDonald’s breakfast menu items is something many of us grew up with as it was fast and filling on-the-go. And decades later, it’s still a part of my Happy Meal youth memories.

With whatever opinion you have of McDonald’s, the golden arches is popular because it’s fast, inexpensive, and fills you up quick! The McDonald’s breakfast menu hasn’t changed much over the years and the 760-calorie Big Breakfast hasn’t changed much over the decades.

Everyone in America grew up seeing the golden arches. It’s also an American icon around the world and a convenient and consistent option if you’re on the road.

I haven’t had a need to drive-thru one in ages…

But, the fast-food franchise provides food value to millions each year. You wonder how they would cover the cost of ingredients with a McDonald’s breakfast dollar menu if they didn’t serve millions each year.

At home, you’re smart to make your healthy breakfast every morning, and they do have some great ones modeled after McDonald’s popular breakfast menu… yes, healthy options!

If you want to have a low-sugar breakfast, you pretty much have to come up with your own prepared menu meals where convenience is your fridge and pantry cupboards.

…And here’s how you can create your healthy-inspired McDonald’s breakfast without much effort. You can choose from the following high-fiber options…

Egg McMuffin – Sautee potatoes and scramble eggs and serve on sprouted Ezekiel bread (optional: add cheese). I think this version is so much more delish as it’s homemade and sprouted bread is wholeness… more nutrish than an English Muffin. And if you want to give a ‘Lil French gourmet taste, add a sprinkle of tarragon — that’s the secret ingredient that upscale restaurants use.

Hot Cake and Sausage – Make whole wheat or buckwheat-based pancakes and then add a drizzle of honey. Add bananas, blueberries, or dark chocolate chips with 70% or more cocoa. Skip the heavy sausage patty and make a high fiber black bean cake that can be so tasty and make you feel lighter (and keeping your morning routine bathroom life regular).

Sausage Burrito – Black beans and rice burrito is the same concept, and instead of a high-calorie corn tortilla filler, use a piece of whole wheat pita bread you can easily bake at home when you’re tired (or sprouted wheat) sprouted wheat toast to gain energy and fiber.

Strawberry Banana Smoothie – This is a newer item on the McDonald’s breakfast menu as smoothies didn’t become popular until after the 21st century began. It was all about the high calorie milk shake.

To a smoothie, add a frozen or fresh strawberries depending if they’re in season Add a banana that has fiber, and almond milk or oat milk. Or substitute the vanilla, strawberry, chocolate shakes with your favorite protein powder. In any of these options, the experience is like night and day to your body and the taste is not that different from a sugary smoothie.

Orange juice – OJ skip, O-K! The added concentrated sugar you and I grew up with doesn’t help your day. Combined sugar and acidity are hard on the stomach. Opt for a gentler to your gut option. Make your own fruit juices using a whole orange with water that only takes a few minutes. You can also make your own lemonade or limeade with whole fruit.

The best part is you probably won’t even like sugary fruit juices after you make the switch. You re-train your tastes and that helps your health and your daily moods as you don’t have additional sugar sitting in your system.

If you’re debating whether to eat something for breakfast, and planning to have a beverage other than water or milk, it’s a good idea to cushion your stomach lining with food first.

A typical American drink breakfast with coffee and OJ together with a meal is bad news for your stomach.

Regular coffee has high acidity and espresso is a no-no for sensitive stomachs. Cold brew coffee is better because of the process leaving less acidic grinds. Your stomach also hasn’t had a meal in 8 or so hours, so a snack is usually in order.

If you’re in the habit to feeding sugar cravings for your breakfast morning, make yourself a quick smoothie or prepare no-added refined sugar granola to munch on so you get your sugary fix without all the sugars loaded in pastries.

And if you’re a Vata 🙋🏻‍♀️, then you’re likely to want to switch up your foods from time to time and daily. If you’re not sure if that’s you, you can better know by this preference alone as Kapha and Pittas don’t need to constantly change up preferences. It’s not an ADD disorder in case that’s a worry.

The Vata breed simply prefers to have variety. So you can have a few options available to feed your Vata preferences and don’t get in a rut.

To Dairy or Not?

You can find shelf-stable almond, oat, and coconut milk is a good staple to have in your pantry. I found that having non-shelf stable milk around (besides being an evolving dairy no-no) was stressful with an expiration date where he milk can go to waste.

Making a parfait with a Greek yogurt with probiotics (good bacteria) is also a good start.

Toasting the morning with yogurt parfaits.

It’s all a balance. And that’s with sugar too…

Low Sugar Breakfast Foods:

Create a yogurt parfait with lower sugar and granola– Chobani Complete or Fage are around 7 grams of sugar per cup compared to double that amount or more. Then add dry oatmeal. Or if you take a few extra minutes, you can toast Quaker Oats Old Fashioned in your oven with honey as the binder.

To make granola cereal clusters, simply bake one layer on a baking sheet in your low-heated oven and mix with your favorite dried fruits like raisins a few spoonfuls of honey, and a drizzle of vegetable or canola oil (less is more). This becomes healthy-ish compared to high sugar cereals.

Believe me, for a sweet tooth like me (…is that you too?), I could eat a baked good and feel sweet happiness, but then as the effect wore off I’d be feeling bad because of all the leftover empty calories and indulgent skin-crawling sensation. This awareness seems to happen more as you age.

Many of us experience this as part of sugar’s dire consequences, and we don’t always immediately associate it with the sugar in our lives. Eating sugar unaware, if we’re not careful, can become an unhealthy habit. The more we indulge, the more we want.

A small sugary taste can be all you need to satiate your sweet tooth, but skipping sugar is the better option.

Or you could bake orange scones with no-added sugar.

You can also remember to do a weekly healthy drink, like a green tea smoothie so you can add more plant-based and yes, veggies to breakfast. That’s one you won’t find on a McDonald’s breakfast menu.

Green tea has caffeine and polyphenols that are good for heart health. You can add a dash of lime juice and a handful of wild blueberries for a spritzer. Or enjoy a simple green smoothie with banana or yogurt to thicken in a few minutes. And that can prep you for your veggie start like this Easy Veggie Breakfast Frittata.

…where both your mind and body start the day happy (with your new breakfast happy meal)! 😊

Easy Veggie Breakfast Frittata

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

eggs
toppings (favorite vegetables like mushrooms, olives, peppers)

Instructions

Cook eggs on a stovetop in a sautee pan until the edges have firmed.
Add toppings you like if they need to cook. If they simply need to be warmed up, add at the end before the next baking step.
Bake in oven at 325°F for at least 20 minutes, until firmly set, or edges start to brown.
Cut with a pizza roller or knife and enjoy!

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Life Abundance As the Natural Way

Life abundance is not by accident.

Life abundance is like a full plate like this seafood cocktail.

Do you believe in your life abundance? Or do you deep down think you need to work yourself to the bone in misery, possibly sacrificing health and relationships to gain the success you want?

What if you could be both happy and successful with a daily mind reset, thinking life is abundant?

Life abundance means getting a new tank every day and feeling fulfilled and inspired.

You look forward to getting up because you have a joyful purpose, belief, and hope. You have what you need and you use what you have. What you want changes, and you see that superficial is fleeting. Gaining that wise knowledge is reason to celebrate.

…Or maybe you just need a reminder. We all need reminders.

You can deepen meaning in each day, with your curiosity like the wonder of nature. You’re not disappointed with unmet expectations because you’re grateful for the unique life you have and that lets you accomplish more meaningful things.

If you watch outdoor nature in motion, you can see the abundance of birds. Every animal above and below ground has a role in the desert, forest, waters, and in your front or backyard.

David Attenborough’s Our Planet series shows you glimpses of this in wildlife survival and procreation.

On land, the desert trees are a sign that there’s water below to a thirsty elephant, and vultures above indicate food to land carnivores.

The abundant smaller fish feed the larger fish. Dolphins drive the smaller fish schools to feed the killer whales. Every animal has an enemy and an ally in its deep ocean ecosystem.

And the monkeys and the tigers and all the rest teach their young to hunt, defend, and start their own families. It’s fascinating to watch nature in action!

Like the remade 2019 movie Lion King, there’s a circle of life for every ecosystem. There’s survival and then there’s life abundance.

“Earth laughs in flowers.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never-ending procreation is a sign of the earth’s abundance. In human life, the earthly evidence is in the over 360,000 human births per day!

To keep surviving 365 days a year, the earth has abundant, renewable resources. At the top of the food chain, we humans decide how we use and take care of those resources to survive and thrive.

As individuals, we have a deep well of rich resources built within us if we look from the right perspectives. The wisdom others have learned is infinitely available with helpful tools and media resource guides such as self-help books or King Solomon’s wise written words.

He wrote the 31 Proverbs that perfectly fit in every day of the month.

When we’re younger we think this life is all about us. We can let our pride run our world much like the male lions until they are kicked out of the lion’s pride and left to defend and hunt for themselves.

In vulnerable humility, they’re missing the confidence.

They learn and mature and then can join back into the pride. A lion’s goal is met when they help others in their pride (group).

We’re similarly meant to help others. We also can be missing self-confidence and learn to give ourselves what we lack.

If we live privileged with pride, we can take abundance for granted. It’s a delicate balance.

With whatever life we were given that we didn’t have control over, we have a choice to make the most from where we are. We can seek the truths down to our authentic core.

When we give, we get. When we’re kind and compassionate, the Universe returns us gifts 10-fold. We weren’t perfect but we tried with a pure heart.

When we rise above our egos and the layer of ourselves where we’re missing wholeness and love (holding onto fear and insecurity), then we get to the heart of what this life is about.

We allow ourselves to align with the Universe to use our talents abundantly.

In between and in our learning stages we can power struggle with ourselves. What are our deep-rooted motivations telling us?

When we’re not ready, we could squander the opportunity. We could get in our way and feel like an Imposter.

If we stay in our pain, regrets, and comfort zones, then we can self-sabotage. If instead we take our trials and setbacks to help others, then we bypass the drama in our minds and can be very productive.

I didn’t discover I had a gift of writing to empower others until I was ready. I couldn’t in my 20s because I was still maturing and hurting.

And I couldn’t in my 30s because I was still in a power struggle and a victim mentality. I hadn’t grown up yet and seen the better way on the other side of self-defeat.

Through experience and life’s up and down circumstances, I discovered the more productive way. I wanted to release what was holding me back.

The sooner we get to our productive places, we can start reaping the abundant harvest. Maybe you’re in that place.

If so, be encouraged you can start later and still blossom quickly. The point is to bloom as soon as you know and to look for ways to connects the dots in life (to bloom).

If you live life going the traditional route to your culture, you could miss out on so much more that you could have had. What looks foolish to one person is knowledge to another person.

I would never go back to living on an emotional roller coaster ride and chasing after the wrong things. The worldwide pandemic was a way to show us what’s of the highest importance to us.

When I was 20, I was in college, and I thought I was invincible so no invisible force could have intruded and that could have been tragic thinking. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and you probably don’t know what you don’t know.

That’s why I pass on this message that your life can be so much more than the fun things you do and the nice things you get. We all want things, but we don’t always know what we really want that’ll make us happy as we didn’t create this life.

Life’s a secret in many ways because it’s not stagnant. You don’t see everything you need in one snapshot, with the naked eye or the original young lens that you were given.

You may not even see the hidden gems with a better prescription from years ago. You see it with new eyes and a fresh mind where life abundance is.

Life Abundance Signs You Could Look Out For:

Clues come from action. When you can reflect, see if what you’re doing checks any of these items…

It’s easy for you. There’s no double-minded confusion. You completed a specific task effortlessly.

It’s fruitful and growing. Your specific action produces and sometimes passively, without your time and energy.

You don’t feel like you’re missing out or that the ‘grass is greener’ on the other side. There’s nothing you’d rather be doing.

You feel grateful. You feel contentment and humility at your core for the situation you’ve been given.

You’re making an impact. Others are noticing your work or service, or you’re getting positive feedback.

You’re too busy looking ahead to look behind you. You’re on a mission and there’s nothing that can stop you. You sense what you’re doing is sustainable or will lead to the next growth stage.

You want to give in your overflow. You have more than what you need so you are generous in time, money, or efforts.

Your health is good and you look healthy. When you have a purpose that you get up for, your mind is happy and your skin radiates in the mind-body connection.

You let go and slow down on worry. Because you know you’re aligned with what you’re doing otherwise another opportunity would show up.

We all have harder days, but the point is to keep growing and stop to smell the roses.

The point is not to be sooo busy, counting what you did, and rushing through. That’s why I don’t have any numbering to the list above. I could stay open and keep adding ideas in our never-ending life abundance.

For today, keep doing what you’re doing until the next door opens and a worthwhile idea unfolds for you to take action on.

And gain more happiness.

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