Loving Kindness
Don’t mind me- just co-regulating with this hedge…
One of my charges became frustrated on our walk to school this morning because I mentioned that they were signed up for a program for next year, which should not have come as a surprise. However, they then immediately asserted that they had no knowledge of this, and then WHOOSH, it exploded into a thing.
Neat.
This is the extent I will get into talking about my kids- this is even pushing it a bit, I realize (writing to show that life is messy, while also upholding privacy for those in my care, is a delicate balance)- but my walk home after we parted ways involved me working to regulate myself again, because, that immediate tension felt rough and unexpected. As a joke (oh, thank goodness for humor when we are trying to deflect our actual feelings…), I was throwing out this loving kindness meditation to every person I passed-
May you feel love.
May you feel peace.
May you not have to deal with fickle people today.
My husband is also traveling this week, and I am in full throttle mode in setting up my business (woot!), Lindsay Rhodes Coaching. I woke up this morning feeling like I was running. During my morning pages I was able to really write through what it was that I needed. I considered going to a barre class, a cardio-focused one, but my body gently signaled to me that what it really needs today is to slow down, not speed up.
So today I am turning to other forms of care. Yesterday I made myself this gorgeous salad. I do tend to really care for myself through food- I know that my inner critic is not running the show when I can slow down and nourish myself as a priority. When I can’t access this loving part of myself, it’s often because my inner critic Lucy is running the show. Self-awareness is the first step sometimes.
I mentioned how once you cook a lot from recipes you can whip up things and mix and match methods from different sources. For this one, there is a salad guide from Hello Nutritarian that includes an amazing way to bake sweet potato- in a bowl mix 1 Tbsp tahini, 1 Tbsp water, and ½ Tbsp lemon juice, throw in sweet potato cut into 1/4th thick disks, then bake at 375 (on a baking sheet w/ parchment paper) for 15 minutes (I actually extended mine to 25 minutes because I like mine well done!
My kids do not care for sweet potato, so when I realized I was in the mood for some during my weekly trip to Trader Joe’s on Sunday, I grabbed a couple, knowing that they would be just for me during this week of solo-parenting.
Another recipe I selected from was from the plantyou cookbook by Carleigh Bodrug. The way she preps chickpeas for the cool ranch kale salad (p.124) is amazing (and no oil). Mix the following ingredients into a large bowl and throw in a can of drained chickpeas-
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp cider vinegar
½ tsp salt
Pour chickpeas onto a prepped baking sheet and bake 25 minutes at 375, which, yay, is also the same temp for the sweet potatoes. They come out perfectly crunchy using this method- you would swear that they were roasted in oil, but nope!
This is how cooking for yourself can be easy. It didn’t take me long to prep the sweet potato and the chickpeas (I did it while listening to a coaching call, also swapping out a batch of laundry at some point during this dance). I noticed we had leftover dill and combined it with lemon juice, hummus, and water (also from the Hello Nutritarian) as a dressing, then I cut up everything else that I wanted and served it over mixed greens.
The more you cook, the easier this all is, and sooner than later you can embrace some versatility and go off of what you are truly in the mood for, while combining some of these techniques that you’ve tried in other recipes.
The Loving Kindness meditation also includes you.
May you feel love.
May you feel peace.
May you nourish yourself with food today.
We had these roasted potatoes from the “Oh She Glows Every Day” cookbook by Angela Liddon for our dinner- thankfully we were all on board for this one (who can say no to potatoes?)
