Living a Life In-Spirit

06/28/2010

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I’ve been wanting to blog about Dr. Wayne Dyer for sometime, so I’m happy to finally be writing this post!  I was first introduced to Wayne Dyer several years ago when a dear friend of mine told me about one of his audio CD’s that she thought would help me with where I was at in my life.  Listening to, Secrets of an Inspirational Life really helped me as I was making a transformational shift in my life from what Dr. Dyer calls the shift the morning to the afternoon of your life.  If you feel inspired to check out this CD, then I highly recommend you do so as I know you will not be disappointed.  The following quote that he shares by Carl Jung helped me understand and have clarity as I was going through that difficult time.  

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.” - Carl Gustav Jung
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Healing the Wounds of the Past

06/27/2010

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This week has been difficult – I’ve had all six of my kids all day and will for three more weeks this summer.  We’re all trying to get used to each other again, since we normally only have them all together on the weekends.  Needless to say, we’ve had a full house and quite an interesting time with everyone getting along.  Monday was the worst day of them all, but I think as long as we stay busy the next two weeks will go much smoother.  If you have any tips for the long summer weeks please pass them along!  It also helped me to remember yet again that each and every one of my children is a representation of me and they each trigger a part of myself that I still don’t love and accept.  
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Herbal Allergy Relief

06/19/2010

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I’ve had seasonal allergies most of my life.  Growing up I remember taking all sorts of different allergy medications – some worked, some did not.  The summer months are probably my least favorite because I am usually sneezing, blowing my nose, and trying not to itch my eyes.  The three years that I ate a strict raw food diet I had NO allergies – none.  I loved being able to go outdoors and not have to stuff my pockets with tissues!  I almost forgot that I ever had allergies, until I started to ease up on my strict diet and introduce some cooked food into my diet.  Well this year I’ve had allergies, although they aren't as bad as they've been in the past. Some days are worse than others and those bad days have left me annoyed and frustrated.  I don’t want to use an over the counter medication and the past weeks I’ve been experimenting with herbs and essential oils to find relief.  As I’ve mentioned before, I love HerbMentor and on that website there is Village Herbalist course that teaches about colds, flus, hay fever and allergies.  I finally decided to sit down and listen to it a couple weeks ago and was amazed at the wealth of information I received.  I took notes and have been experimenting with the suggestions and recipes that were shared.
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Healthy Peanut Butter Bars

06/17/2010

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This recipe is so delicious and is great to satisfy those sugar cravings.  There is no sugar and no cooking which makes this even better to make in the summer months.  After the bars are set up I like to cut them up and store in the freezer.  There are three different layers so it takes a little bit of time to make but easy and definitely worth the time spent making them.  Because of the coconut oil these bars are rather heat sensitive so you want to keep them in the fridge or freezer until you are ready to eat.

Healthy Peanut Butter Bars

Crust Layer:
3 cups oats 
3 cups raw almonds
¾ cup coconut oil
10 dates
¾ cup honey or agave
Put oats in food processor until broken up thoroughly then remove to another bowl, set aside.  Next process almonds in food processor until broken up then add coconut oil and process until almond butter consistency forms.  Add dates and process again until it no longer has date chunks.  Be careful to not process too much or the mixture will become super oily.  Next add honey or agave and process until incorporated.  Add this mixture to the ground oats and stir until you have a crumbly mixture.   Grease a large cookie sheet with coconut oil then press the crust mixture into the pan until even. Put it in the fridge while you do the next layer.

Peanut Butter layer: ½ cup hot tap water
2 cups natural peanut butter
1 cup honey
2 TBSP. vanilla
Add peanut butter and honey to the food processor and begin to mix.  Slowly add the hot water as it is mixing.  Stop as soon as it is creamy looking.  Pour this mixture onto the crust in the pan. Spread it around to all corners and put it back in the fridge while you make the chocolate layer.

Chocolate Layer:
2 cups coconut oil
1 cup cocoa powder
1 cup agave
Put all ingredients in a saucepan over extremely low heat on the stove.  You don’t want to cook the mixture, but heat it enough so the oil will melt and everything is mixed and smooth.  Remove from heat and spread on the first two layers and put back in the fridge or in the freezer at this point.
Allow bars to solidify for up to 2 hours then remove  and cut into squares with a pizza cutter.   Put squares into Ziploc freezer bags and store in freezer until ready to eat.

 

 

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DIY Father's Day Card

06/07/2010

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I’m featured on CraziBeautiful this week.  I created a DIY Father’s Day card as well as have several cards that are for sale in my Etsy shop.  You can check out the article here.  I also got a new shop banner this week from my dear friend DeLynn.  Let me know what you think of the banner.  DeLynn is an amazing photographer as well as a genius at Photoshop.  You can check out her work here.  She took our family pictures as well so if you are need of a photographer you should check her out!

I’m in Park City right now and plan on reading the Handmade Marketplace and get some ideas for my shop.  I also have a list of topics that I’ve been wanting to write about so hopefully you’ll see some more posts here at www.discoveringmytruth.com about how I'm trying to get rid of my allergies with herbs, vegan baby food recipes, owning your voice and power as a woman, and more! 
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The Handmade Marketplace

06/03/2010

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Do you ever just know when you are going win something?  I was on Prudent Baby awhile ago and she was offering a giveaway for The Handmade Marketplace.  That day I was struggling with my Etsy shop and how I could improve my marketing to increase my sales.  I saw this book and knew it could help me so I entered the giveaway.  As I was submitting my information I just knew somehow that I was going to win.  Well, I forgot about it and for a week or so I didn’t read any updates in my Google Reader.  The only way I found out I won was because I was checking my shop stats on Google Analytics and saw a lot of hits from Prudent Baby.  I was bewildered as to why and did some research and found out that I won the contest and she had a link to my Etsy shop on her site.  Wahoo!  The reason I’m posting this today is because I finally received my book yesterday!  I can’t wait to read it and implement Kari’s ideas.  Next week we’re going to Park City because my hubby has a business trip and they said I could come along with the kids so now I have something to read.  I struggle with how busy I want to be with selling my cards.  I’m a full-time mom and I want to keep it that way.  I don’t want to be so busy that I neglect my family.  I want to sell my cards online because I think it’s more manageable for me in this stage of my life than going around town trying to sell my stuff.  I get overwhelmed with that idea and so for now I’ve decided that selling online is the best avenue for me.  Problem is I don’t know how to online market and there is a lot more that I’m self teaching myself about when it comes to business.   I think ultimately I want to have a steady and consistent part-time business.  I was feeling down yet again this week about my lack of sales and was rejuvenated and excited to keep pushing forward after finding the book in my mailbox.  I'm realizing yet again that I just need to take it one day at a time, as in all things I'm discovering.

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The Proverbial Band Wagon...

06/02/2010

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I guess you could say that I’ve fallen off the band wagon.  Most people use this metaphor when talking about dieting but in this instance I guess you could say I’ve fallen off the love band wagon.  Just ten days ago I wrote, It’s All About the Love blog post, expressing how much love I was feeling and that I really understood the gift of charity.  Unfortunately those amazing feelings didn’t last long I’m sad to admit.  I was feeling really good for a couple days and then I allowed the doubt, fear, and anger creep back into my heart.  I was really making a conscious effort to pray and to constantly express my gratitude and ask for help in staying in my heart for several days.  Now I’m sitting here ten days later realizing that I’m listening to my head voice and submitting to doubt and fear.  Part of me wonders what the hell went wrong, I thought I was going to feel like this forever??  Another part of me knows that this is the cycle that we all go through and hopes that those moments of love and peace will last longer and the moments of doubt and fear will be less and less. 

A good indicator that we aren’t living in our heart is taking personal inventory in how our thoughts are making us feel.  Are our thoughts making us sad, doubtful, fearful, angry, distrusting, or envious?   If so it’s an amazing internal indicator that what we are thinking isn’t inspired by the Divine.  God wants us to be happy, full of love, creative, inspired, grateful and joyful.  Admittedly again, I know that my thoughts have not been God inspired.  Sometimes I get in my head and I spin and spin with negative thoughts and scenarios.  This has been what I’ve been doing as of late and I’m glad that I can realize it and stop being so stubborn and hard hearted.  Sometimes I just want to stay in that negative place because I’m more comfortable that way.  When I think about that though, it’s sad that I would believe deep down that being negative is more comfortable and safe than letting in love.

I am human and thus I make a lot of mistakes.  I was also made in the image of God and so I am also very capable of turning that negativity around with the help of my Savior.  I guess I’m really just writing for me right now and that I need to take my own advice…I’m grateful that I was able to record my feelings the other day because it’s helping me right now to soften my cold heart.  Part of this process requires a lot of repentance.  For me it also involves a lot of crying and allowing myself to feel my broken heart.  It also involves casting out the lies that I have been telling myself that aren’t making me happy.  The most glorious part of this process is finally surrendering to Love and letting in the Divine.  It really feels so much better to be soft.  The truth is I’m really scared and I feel extremely vulnerable being in my heart.   

What it comes down to is I’m training myself to think…to watch my thoughts…to plant positive seeds in my mind.  I’ve realized that a big part of this for me is positive affirmations.  Sadly I haven’t been doing affirmations as much as I have in the past and I can tell a difference.  I went on a walk alone this weekend and remembered how I used to go on affirmation walks several months ago. These walks consisted of me repeating affirmations in my mind the entire way.  “I love and accept myself” used to be my internal mantra. This past weekend I walked and was thinking about my internal struggle to stay in my heart lately and how this struggle comes down to me still not loving myself.  I decided to say this affirmation while walking and was amazed at all the negative self  talk that began to arise.  I spent the remainder of my walk in prayer, repenting for listening to lies again, and asking for help in realizing my power and beauty as a women and daughter of God.  
In addition to positive affirmation, visualization is also a tool that helps me stay in my heart.  I lamented to a friend once that I really struggle with positive imaging and visualization. She shared her same struggle but also expressed how she could visualize and create all sorts of negative scenarios in her head about herself, her husband, or others.  She wisely said that if we can create all sorts of negative untrue scenarios in our heads, then we posses the power to visualize, we are just doing it with the power of fear and doubt!  Well that made sense to me and I decided to stop telling myself that I can’t visualize – because clearly I can, I’ve just been going about it all wrong.  Yet again, I have succumbed to negative imaging and visualization.  I realized it tonight because I was feeling pretty crummy about myself.  I recalled this conversation and immediately realized that I’ve had a very negative internal dialogue going on inside of me.  I’m grateful to see this so I can repent of doing it and then ask for help in visualizing the things that I DO want in my life.  I really need a lot of love even though it scares me out of my mind sometimes to be loved; it’s really what I want.  Thank you to all of you who love, support, and encourage me. 
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