THE ‘BEST’ PUMPKIN-PIE SMOOTHIE
*Add a cup of romaine to get your greens in
**use pumpkin spice to taste if not using chai protein powder
Add all ingredients to high-speed blender and blend until thick, creamy and delicious!
Cheers!
People often talk about all the ways that they are enlightened and that they’ve arrived in life, but are they congruent?
I ask, do you want to take your life to the next level?
I mean really take your life to the next level?
Or do you want to just talk about it?
Talk about getting to the next level, like it’s the trending thing to do and puts you ‘in the know,’ shoulder-to-shoulder with others striving to the next level, or do you want to do what it really takes to get to the next level?
Physically? Professionally? Emotionally? Financially? Spiritually?
Every area of life.
I say this, your diet, your plate, IS a VERY powerful barometer of where your word matches your actions, or not.
Look at your plate, it reflects back to you your commitment to taking your life to the next level, or not.
Does your word match your actions?
Is your diet congruent to a higher level of being?
OR, do you indulge in the mind-blowing preponderance of nutrient-devoid choices of gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, blah, blah, blah processed foods and consider yourself healthy? Consider yourself successful?
Controversial?
NO doubt.
I’ve discovered that with diplomacy and great respect, I can talk about any topic considered taboo with you, but if I talk to you about what you are eating, ahhhh, that IS where very murky resistance rises.
Yes, and often quite virulent resistance.
But food DOES screw with our physical, emotional, mental and Spiritual wellbeing!
Our diet is straight up non-negotiable when it comes to wanting to really move to the next level and congruency makes ALL the difference!
I am reminded of this really great story that Anthony Robbins tells about a deal he was about to make. Actually two deals he wanted to make. He wanted to close on a big contract AND he wanted a date with the woman he was making the deal with, but he didn’t get either.
At the time, Robbins was a chronic nail biter, so when he extended his hand to shake on closing the deal, the woman noticed his chewed up nails, withdrew from the handshake and told him she could never do business with someone who had no self-control.
No deal.
No date.
Robbins deemed himself a ‘power player’ at the time, with the ability to influence and greatly impact others, but yet could not control his nail-biting obsession.
Does your plate and diet reflect back to you what Anthony Robbins’ one-time nail-biting obsession reflected back to him? Does your plate reflect back to you a lack of congruency to being fully empowered in your body, mind and Spirit?
Is your diet congruent to you moving to the next level of your life?
For me, Robbins told this story for one primary reason, to illustrate one way that his word did NOT match his actions as a teaching tool for us. That the congruency of our word to our actions, or lack there of, reflects back to us what we are really up to in our lives. That the results we are producing show us in tangible and literal ways how our word matches our actions, or not.
And the most badass thing about matching our actions with our word is, with every new empowered action we make to get to the next level, our congruency-muscle just keeps growing.
We can train and develop ourselves in every area of life and create great success, but if we can’t create healthy eating and lifestyle habits that mirror back to us our commitment to be our very best, Higher-level selves, do you think the results you produce now are sustainable? Do you think you can continue to produce lasting and beyond-your-wildest dreams results with poor health and no energy? Do you think your dreams-come true vision and goals will emerge from a half-baked commitment to help you get to your next level?
Like Robbins, where do you not get the date? The deal? Does congruency really matter?
Have you joined the ‘smoothie-revolution’ going on today?
Green smoothies ROCK! Oh, yeah!
When I make my green smoothie EVERY morning, I laugh and say to myself, “My goodness, it’s just not possible to get a breakfast as nutrient dense, with such a plethora of nutrition as my green smoothie offers!”
Green Smoothies can change your life nearly overnight because of the enormous health benefits they offer. Think of adding smoothies to your daily meal planning this way, ‘its what you add in, and what you take out.’ You add in nutrient-dense and take out nutrient devoid to literally change your life.
Smoothies are essentially a veggie, fruit and superfood shake — that’s it. Pure unadulterated, nutrient-dense goodness to fuel you as a meal replacement, or even a snack. Pure-nutrient dense goodness to totally sky-rocket your energy and rebuild your body!
NO. I am not talking about any one of the new fandangled powders or potions, which are inherently a poorer source of sustenance simply because they are processed. I am talking about raw, enzyme, vitamin and mineral-rich shakes laden with phytochemicals and antioxidants made from ingredients that offer live bio-available nutrition!
Here are my 5 top reasons why I say green smoothies ROCK (thought the list could be endless, really)… and very good reasons you should add them to your daily regiment:
Click here to get my Free Smoothie Guide to energize you and your life!
Cheers to your great health!
Do you ever feel stuck, like something is blocking you from feeling empowered in life? From feeling your very best self? From feeling like you can freely express yourself, emotions all in check? You know that ‘over-the-moon’ confidence and happiness and joy that those you admire most seem to exude, but it eludes you… and you just don’t know why?
And now you find yourself complaining about… this person giving you a hard time, or that person is so difficult. Perhaps your chronic complaint is you’re just flat-out exhausted, maybe even overwhelmed too. Maybe it’s your job, or your body, or your health, your spouse, your children, the weather? If not that, maybe it’s politics, or… you just can’t seem to even stick to healthy eating and healthy lifestyle practices?
You feel disempowered and stopped by endless reasons, but don’t know what to do.
Shift your feelings. Now. Because you say so. Because your CEO of your life, not whimsical and fleeting emotions.
These negative thoughts are NOT who you are. You are powerful and kind and good and the negativity holds you back from experiencing, expressing and BEING your personal best!
Choose to be powerful now. Just choose!
OK, I get it. You don’t know how to ‘just’ turn off this negative way of thinking. If you did, you would’ve by now. Right?
One very effective way to reclaim your power is,
Find your leverage.
Find your pain-spot.
Find a moment in your life that REALLY hurt you. Deeply. And go there. Yes, go there and get inside the pain and feel it… and then BLOW IT OPEN to the brilliant lesson it offered you and let it go. Feel the gift of the strength you gained from that experience. That IS your leverage.
Ah, but you will have to drop the “poor me” victim story to tap into your full expression of personal power.
You do get that you can’t own your power if you are a victim, right?
Let me give you an example:
Life offered me a GORGEOUS moment of GINORMOUS leverage when I had no family support and no where to go with my newborn son.
SNAP! Oh, yes, creative genius was reborn with that pain-spot!
That moment gifted me with a level of tenacity I challenge you is unmatched.
I cornered the market on creative genius at that moment in my life.
Heck, yeah I found a way to be mother.
I let go of the story of poor me and stepped into my power. With nothing. And I mean. Nothing.
I learned of Foster Care and VERY willingly placed my son in a foster home for 4 months.
It was A choice, my best choice, the choice that was better than no choice.
Choice, not chance, determines destiny.
I lived with a friend and her family.
I went back to work 1 week after I gave birth.
NO. I did NOT have a car.
Yes, my 18 & 19 year old friends picked me up everyday and drove me to visit my son, and then drove me to my waitressing job.
Against the doctors orders? Dangerous to my health you say? C’mon?
I learned to spit nails at that time. Spit nails? Frig, I made those nails. I made those nails and I spit those nails out!
NOTHING could stop me from achieving my role as mother.
My pain-spot?
Standing at the end of the hospital corridor watching Tina Marconi, a state-assigned Department of Children and Youth Services worker, carry my son out of the hospital. Of course I remember her name.
UNSTOPPABLE. I became UNSTOPPABLE.
Life offers us all moments to step into our power, or to be a victim. There is NO in between.
Every single moment we get to choose to BE powerful, or not.
In those moments I got to choose my power, or hold a story of limited possibility and weakness.
In your life, you got to choose your power, or hold a story of limited possibility and weakness.
CHOOSE YOUR POWER NOW. CHOOSE.
And the cool thing is, it really is that easy.
We choose. Right now. In this moment. We drop the limiting stories and step into our power to tap a Force that lives in us that is utterly unstoppable.
Drop the limiting stories and train yourself every moment, every day to own your power personal power.
Want to ‘play’ like you mean it? Want to cause a powerful shift in you life beyond the next best recipe? Want to find find freedom and FUN beyond the limiting stories that hold you back? Want to learn how to use ALL your life experiences to your advantage?
Hire me. As a Board Certified nutrition, lifestyle and success coach, I offer you 25+ years seeped in education, extensive training with cutting-edge leadership, training and development groups and advanced training in transformation, performance, communication, accountability and effective training methodologies. I offer you my new 28-Day Program, which closes September 13th at midnight, and 1:1 coaching. Both programs can happen via phone or Skype. 1:1 coaching can happen in person.
My mission: To empower smart people to live their life fully.
I grew up in middle America like most and large living, living BIG was not the norm. Like most families in our community, we ate dinner together, we went to church together and we went on vacations together. Really nice life. I mark my childhood as quite wonderful. Really.
And within this cultural norm, I learned that there were some things that I ‘should’ do, and somethings I shouldn’t do. I should go to college. I should find a nice man. I should get married and I should have 2 children, a boy and a girl. A white picket fence? C’mon. I’d be royalty then!
But within this world of shoulds, I dreamed of adventure, of maybe being a fashion-designer in NYC. I dreamed of traveling and meeting new and exciting and interesting people from far beyond my hometown. Heck, beyond my community, men were walking on the moon, women were burning their bras and… OMG… John F. Kennedy came to town! Beyond my world of shoulds, some people were living life really BIG!!
But, “who do you think you are” percolated ever so insidiously underneath the parameters of “be a good girl” and “do it this way.”
So, I, like many, was being taught to be both “normal,” AND to really go for it BIG!
But because I had NO role models to show me how to LIVE BIG, I slipped into the world of following societal expectations of me. Oh, yeah, straight-up, good and normal! Alas though, betrayal of my dreams for adventure and fun and excitement began its very quick demise.
And though life as a single-parent seemed perhaps different in some ways, I got fully on board of the “we do it like this” Stepford-wives train with a vengeance. Oh yes, I created a home from Better-Homes and Gardens. Interior designer this and Ivy-League school that. Imagine the most gorgeous icing-on-a-mud-pie life… I created it brilliantly.
And then this near violent moment came when I was walking my sweet little Shana, my dog of 17 years, near my home in Brookline, MA. Tears flowed uncontrollably. I remember this so vividly that it causes tears in my eyes to rise now as I write. I looked up at the sky and declared in that moment that I would NO longer put a lid on this thing within me that needed to express itself. It was a Sacred moment, no doubt, when Spirit rose up within me. (Have you ever had a Sacred moment like that, when you intuitively knew you needed to heed the dictate?)
I resigned from teaching and began my journey to recover my inner Light and personal power.
YES. Oh, yes, we most certainly do lose our personal power when we put a lid on who we are meant to be! Try as you might, can NOT mince that!
Though my journey has been a circuitous one, and though I plan on never getting off the new-learning path, I’ve learned to not only move far beyond the oppressive lid of “normal” and what you think is best for me, to creating GRAND adventure, and over-the-moon excitement… and dreams-come-true.
I highly endorse getting off the slow moving train of normal, and getting on the fast, FUN, exciting, adventurous train of living BIG and shining your bright Light.
Are there steps I can offer you? ABSOLUTELY. Hands down! Join me in my 6-Week BIGLIFE Starterkit group program. Think heal your body. Train Your Mind. For Unstoppable Success. Think a detox on steroids, with mind shift training exercises to produce results that last.
C’mon, you know focus IS non-negotiable when you want to produce really BIG results! Fortunately for me, my life taught me early on that I HAD to develop laser-focus IF I wanted to achieve anything of merit in my life.
Holding laser-focus is another matter for many of us, with all of the distractions that exist in our work spaces. For me, because my business is online, the very nature of my work requires that I frequently engage social media and the online-programs I offer. So, in a sense, distraction is built into my work. But I know you experience distractions in your work and life too, so we still share in common the challenges of creating focus to produce results.
If we don’t ratchet up our focus-game, we won’t accomplish nearly all that is possible. This I know for sure. Since implementing these 5 new things into my success-strategy-game, I’ve made HUGE differences in my performance and productivity.
MY 5 Tips to Create Laser-Focus:
I could NEVER have created what I have in my life thus far, without laser, single-pointed focus. I hope what I offer here helps you also rid avoidable distractions, to tighten up your focus, to produce all the results that you’ve been wanting!
Can’t expect to win, if we don’t play to win!
High School Dropout teaches High School? Wha??
This is a post about the transformative benefits of self-discipline and 100% responsibility, with the intention that my sharing offers the possibility of new openings and appreciation for self-discipline and my personal credo “putting off what I want now, for what I want most.”
So… this is not really a story about a high-school drop out teaching high school. But I guess it is. I did both. I dropped out of high school and I taught high school.
Say what?
How does that work?
Let’s begin with self-discipline.
I believe self-discipline is the most underrated code of behavior.
OK, Where to begin?
For me, the only place to begin any story from my past is inside the space only I can create for myself, and that is SELF-DISCIPLINE and 100% responsibility, or lack there of.
Suffice it to say, it was a very “event-filled” time of life for me. But more importantly, it was what I created for myself from all the events that unfolded, that I garnered a full scholarship from our country’s first women’s college, Mount Holyoke College (MHC). Yes. A full-scholarhsip. Full, though I did earn a GED.
The criteria at the time that I was accepted to MHC was to be able to demonstrate high motivation and ferocious tenacity in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity across time. OK, I could do that. But not so fast. I was NOT accepted on first application because I could not yet provide enough academic background for them to assess my capabilities and aptitude. (sigh)
But this IS when the force of self-discipline steam started to really amp up.
Though my mind let my dream of attending go, of what felt to me like “my” “Yale University” in the woods who “cared” for women, women like me, my heart never let go. Mary Lyon, the foundress of MHC, pulled at me even before I was accepted with her guiding words to alumnae, “go where no one else has gone, do what no one else has done.”
So with no solid academic foundation at all, I began to take classes at a nearby state university and took 1 or 2 class at a time and did nothing else. Nothing. I dove fully into my new world of academia with laser focus. I was determined and my determination required self-discipline on my part. Oh sure, I maintained some balance with family, work and fitness, but I knew that my weak academic background required full-throttle discipline on my part. This is very likely when my, um… kind of “freak of nature” obsession for self-development and self growth began to possess me.
What came first the chicken or the egg? What came first, the power of decision, the force of 100% responsibility or the strength of self-discipline? All important qualities to cultivate and grow, but the first two were ineffectual if I did not harness the strength of self-discipline. I could make really great choices, I could take on 100% responsibility, but with no follow through, what would I ever accomplish.
This “game” of sefl-actualization began to feel like a really fun puzzle to put together.
Personal development became my entertainment of choice and self-discipline, as a key player in this new game directed my course.
I went on to earn an MEd at Boston College and post-graduate work at Cornell. I earned certification at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and participated extensively in transformation, success and personal development work with Landmark Education and Robbins International. I’ve enlisted Spiritual directors, personal mentors, accountability partners, and literally 100s of success teachers. I studied with Dr. Bob Marshal and was certified in Quantum Reflex Analysis, which is a healing modality that incorporates both Eastern and Western philosophy. Heck, I walked on fire several times at Anthony Robbins events, traveled abroad and now I am building a business of contribution and service that is beyond the dreams I ever had.
What did I sacrifice? Immediate gratification?
Self-Discipline = Freedom
Self-Discipline is Non-Negotiable. I can create goals. I can intend to achieve this or achieve that all day long, but without self-disciplined follow through #fuuugetaboutit
Darren Hardy, editor of Success Magazine offered me a formula that really resonated with me because it was a formula I already learned. Hardy wrote in his book, “The Compound Effect,” “Small, smart choices + consistency + time = radical difference.”
For me, this formula says, I choose to forgo what I REALLY want right now. I CHOOSE to do what I know I need to do right now. Repeatedly. Over time, and I can create a life that literally “moves mountains.”
This game, this obsession to be the very best me I can be, while here in this one lifetime, with self-discipline guiding my every decision transformed my whole life.
Anthony Robbins says “success without fulfillment is failure.” By making small smart choices, repeatedly over time, I created the privileged opportunity to literally be of service in the world in ways that I know makes a difference beyond my one little life and is great FUN!
You’ve tried. You’ve failed. You’ve tried again, to no avail, but you are eager to “pick your game up.” You are eager to blow out all the reasons that continue to stop you from moving forward every step of the way. You are EAGER to drop all the reasons that get in your way to CHOOSE again, powerfully. Join me, August 28th to learn about 6 very integral “tools” you can add to the powerful force of self-discipline to shift the whole quality of your life. Register here.
Kindness is a quality of being that is simply flat out non-negotiable. If you think back to that one particular time when you experienced the sting of unkindness, that time that left you dumbfounded, literally speechless, you vowed in that moment to never, ever treat another human being so unsympathetically.
And yet “we” do. Why? Why would we treat another person so poorly, a person who has hopes and dreams, fears and challenges just like us? Why?
The scope of the answer to that question extends far beyond the purpose of my post. My intention is to offer you up some of the ways I’ve learned to cultivate kindness in my heart, especially for those who I have unwittingly allowed to mistreat me.
“One thing I know for sure” is people come into our lives to shine a light on the ways we need to grow. Straight up. The paradox is we often react harshly in word or thought to “them” or to ourselves, when in fact we “should” respond with a grateful heart for all the gifts of growth the experience offered us.
For me, kindness is totally non-negotiable. Like, totally!
I offer you a few things I do to create an inner quality of kindness. Does that mean I never falter? No. C’mon? But it does mean that I take my commitment to kindness on like I mean it. I train myself everyday to be kind because I believe it is a state of being that is essential in all our relationships.
Repeat these four phrases every day. Repeat them aloud or silently. Repeat them when you are driving, standing in the grocery line, or anytime really, but especially when you feel negativity rise within you about anything, but especially yourself. The verses are very healing and very heart softening.
Metta—Metta is one of life’s most beautiful and sweet meditative practices available to us. Also known as Loving-Kindness Meditation. “Metta” comes to us from the Buddhist tradition and is a blessing practice most beloved for it’s heart-opening and heart-softening qualities.
When we practice Metta, we send loving-kindness to ourselves first, and then we extend it out to all others, our benefactors, our loved-ones, “neutral others,” then to those who have challenged us, and then to all beings everywhere. As I learned from author of “Your Truest Self,” and Spiritual Director, Janice Lynne Lundy, we cannot send loving-kindness to others if our very own heart is blocked in some way. So we begin with self, and we do not proceed until we feel our heart pierced by love and forgiveness for our self.
The verses are seemingly benign in their brevity, but WAY more powerful beyond their measure.
The four verses are:
With our breath, we silently recite the verses for at least 5 minutes per day.
Surely we’ve all experienced the wrath of unkindness, and we may surely experience it again. But for me, I ask myself, who will I be to the face of unkindness? These exercises help me create the kind me I hope to be when I see you next.
Cherries & Change Smoothie
Simply add all ingredients into a Vitamix or high-speed blender. If needed, add water or nut milk to reach your desired thickness. Use organic produce whenever possible. You can add extra protein to any Smoothie by including either a scoop of your favorite plant-based protein powder or 3 tablespoons of hemp.
1 cup coconut, almond or hemp milk
½ avocado
1- 1½ cup fresh or frozen cherries
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
1 tablespoon chia seed
Blend and Enjoy!
Cheers!
Are sugar cravings bad? I was a sugar junkie, so I have a definite opinion about this question.
Sugar is the primary ingredient in the highly-regarded anti-inflammatory diet, and the cornerstone of my clean eating programs, that took me down as a young girl. (Yes, “took me down” absolutely means destroyed the whole quality of my life.) Sure, all of the other inflammatory foods that we remove on a clean eating diet contributed to my body breaking down, but I was a sugar addict. Hands down. What does that mean in a larger context, I was a sugar addict?
My body was riddled with candida—an overgrowth of yeast throughout my body. Candida is an imbalance of bad bacteria, to good bacteria in the body. Ha! That’s when I first heard the word poly-systemic. New vocab word—poly-systemic. Yup, poly-systemic meant that the yeast spread from my gut into the tissues of all the organs in my body. No wonder I was a hot mess! Yes. It was very bad. I had symptoms raging from cystic acne to chronic constipation, from poor digestion to chronic fear and sadness. And 25+ years ago Dr. William Crook, author of the Yeast Connection estimated that 80 million Americans had candida at that time, but didn’t know it. Hmm. Wonder how many million there are now, especially with the way most of us eat these days? Wonder if you are one of the lucky ones who does not have it, from among those 80 million—with inflation of course. I tried to figure out where and how this began for me. Why? I just wanted to pinpoint where this started so I could stop it from happening. I came up with all sorts of theories, but the bottom line is sugar NOT GOOD, or as my Dad would say, NG!
Sugar feeds candida. Candida loves sugar. Cancer loves sugar. ALL chronic disease loves sugar AND an acidic environment. Candida, cancer and chronic disease can NOT live in an alkaline environment. It’s a simple math equation really. Easy Peasy, right?
So is a little sugar OK once in a while? Is a little alcohol, gluten, dairy and caffeine OK once in a while? You tell me. Are you healthy? Are you happy? I mean are you healthy and happy in the ways that you wake up feeling energetic and on fire for your day—you just can’t wait to go and express your love for your family and friends and everyone you interact with in your life? Does kindness in your heart explode and you can’t wait to share it with everyone? Or do you experience low energy? Do you experience chronic bloating, headaches, bad breath, moodiness, slackened skin, even anger? Or maybe you have behaviors that feel far less that who you know yourself to be deep down, or just not you, but you just can’t help yourself? That is an acidic environment. That IS an acidic environment.
Until we stop the looping cycle of what came first, the low energy and poor health or the negative, less than our best thinking and behaving, I say keep your diet PRISTINE.
People like Jay Kordich and Kris Carr began to eat cooked vegan fare ONLY after they healed themselves. While they were sick with cancer and in healing mode, they kept their diet raw, very green and loaded with juice. Why? Because the raw food diet and juice-fasts are known to be the most healing protocols on the planet BECAUSE they alkalize the body. And if you ever get to talk to her, which I have once at the Tibet House in NYC, she will tell you that she was caught in this looping too. But today Kris Carr is one of the most gorgeous and vibrant voices in the health world! She, among other very luminous people in the world I move inspired me to create a personal credo a few years back “put off what I want now, for what I want most.”
Sugar? My vote? Don’t. Pretty compelling when the president of Sloan Kettering Hospital, the leading cancer research and treatment center on the planet opts out!
Interested in cutting out sugar? Take 1000 milligrams of a supplement, an amino acid called glutamine every 5 hours. It literally fools your body into thinking it’s getting sugar.
