S3 E18 Mandatory May Mindset Mish-Mash

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello, Podcast Land. Welcome to the Comforting Voice Podcast. I'm your host Shastay, and I'm joined in the studio by Emmy the Minnie Macaw. And she's sitting here being sassy, and she had some of her birdie oatmeal, and uh she's kind of guarding the cigar box, really. But what about you? How was your weekend? Is your week off to a good start? Oh my gosh. Like I said, everything's busy, it just keeps getting busier, it's crazy. I love hanging out with you because it's my time to kind of unwind, slow down a little bit, take life at a little bit more leisure pace, and enjoy the moment for what it is. Alright, so let's get into it. Today is our mandatory May mishmash or May Mayhem or something when you have a burden involved. What are you doing, Emmy? What are you doing? Don't jump up and down on the keyboard. Come here. Eat your oatmeal. So, really, before we get rolling along here, let's get comfortable, settle in, kick back, and take a load off. Emmy is making her life mission to make a mess over here on my desk. And so, what we're gonna do right now is just take a second, relax, get comfortable, do whatever it is that you need to do so you don't have to worry about whatever it is that you worry about. It'll be there when we're done hanging out. It really will, whatever it is. So mush your pillow up into that shape you like best so you're really comfortable and flop around like a fish. Is it the right side or the left side or your back? Tummy sleeper, what's going on tonight? Figure that out. Somewhere in the mix, do a really good productive stretch, reach into your arms and legs, into your fingers and toes, and give all of those fingers and toes a wiggle and then release that stretch. Oh my gosh. And then follow that up. You know what's coming next. A couple at least two good deep breaths of air. Inhale slow, about the count of four, hold it about the count of four, and then exhale about the count of six. That's gonna do you a ton of good, trust me. Alright, and so now that you're comfortable, you've offloaded some stress and tension from the day, we're gonna see who's next on Join the Fun. And this is our ongoing salute to our listener base. We do three different countries from our listener base every week. I give you a few fun facts about those countries, and we're all happier for it, right? So first on our list for Join the Fun is Cambodia. Cambodia is home to one of the largest religious structures ever built. And I don't know if I'm gonna say this right. Angkor Wat originally constructed in the twelfth century. That's amazing. Cambodia has a unique floating village culture where entire communities live and move with the water throughout the year. Cambodia's flag is the only national flag in the world to feature a building highlighting its cultural heritage. So if you're joining the fund from Cambodia, you represent incredible heritage, adaptability, and a culture deeply connected to both history and water. Next on the list is Argentina. Argentina has one of the widest ranges of landscapes in the world from glaciers to deserts to grasslands. Argentina is the birthplace of the tango, a dance known for its emotion and storytelling through movement. Argentina has a strong tradition of shared meals and social gatherings where connection and conversation are central. So if you're joining the fun from Argentina, you represent emotional expression, natural diversity, and a culture that values connection and shared experience. And last on our list this week is Jordan. Jordan is home to the ancient city of Petra, carved directly into rose colored rock cliffs. The Dead Sea, located in Jordan, is one of the lowest points on the Earth's surface. Jordan is known for its strong tradition of hospitality where welcoming guests is an important culture value. So if you're joining the fun from Jordan, you represent ancient wonder, unique natural features, and a culture rooted in warmth and hospitality. That was fun. As I have learned with the pickle chicken, I already did the tea tag and fortune cookie draw, so we're gonna read those right now while the pickle chicken is chewing on my wrist. Your tea tag for the evening. If you are helping somebody, you are awakening somebody. And your fortune cookie slip. Beautiful things await you. Oh I like that one. Your lucky numbers from the back of the fortune cookie slip. Seven, ten, nineteen, thirty-eight, forty, and two. Good luck if you play number games. I hope you win big or at least win your money back. You can't you can't eat it any. Why were you hissing at the archive receptacle? I'm gonna deal with the pickle chicken. Let's check in with Lon and see what he's got for this week's got a minute.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Every day we can make choices instead of allowing the world to happen to us, we happen to the world. Each morning I have a choice to greet first light as another chance to get it right, to remind myself that I can start with a single moment, I can tell myself before anything else, I will make this my peaceful day, and then do so each moment at a time, and every night as the last light crawls down trees, I can choose to simply give in to fatigue, say things like, I'm tired, and have my subconscious follow that into the void, or I can remind myself that my subconscious is the architect, the creator of tomorrow's dreams, unfettered by everyday chaotic distractions. Before fading to black, I must learn to hand my mind a proverbial erector set with my ideas and things that I want to do, and then let it run wild. Thrive.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Awesome perspective, Lon. Thank you so much. And coincidentally, it falls in line with well, it's our first Tuesday of the month, so we're gonna talk about our ongoing anti-New Year Resolution project. Project You Do You Do What You Want, Be Yourself, Build Your Life. Call it whatever you want. It's your project, honestly. Anyway, instead of a New Year's resolution effort in January that you put all your effort into, you burn out in four days, and you fail miserably at, which most people do, and it's almost the expectation now, why not just have ongoing small little self-betterment stuff and add to it, add to the momentum. Um, get yourself where you want to be. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it's something you want to do for yourself. So, much like Lon suggested how he chooses to set his mind when he wakes up, when he goes to bed in those examples, I've been choosing to change my attitude, look at things from a different perspective, try to do a little better by myself in some small way, eating better, moving a little bit more in some small way, getting better at organization skills around the house so my clutter doesn't get away from me, tiny little baby steps on a whole bunch of stuff, and it's going pretty well. Some days you bomb out, and that's okay. You're just gonna have days like that. But as you've come to notice on this podcast, I periodically like to do cookbook reviews. So we're gonna do a couple really fun cookbook reviews for those of you who are looking for maybe interesting answers to food woes or something, or maybe you're trying to do something similar where you're making cooking easier, you're getting away from maybe junk food, cook for yourself. There's money to be saved in that. There really is. Eating out, you're not only paying for the food, you're paying for the labor to make it, and you're paying for the overhead of the facilities and all the utilities for the facilities. So there's a lot of extra money that goes into an entree. And is that the best use of your money? Well, you're probably gonna put in the same amount of time and have a better outcome, and it'll be better for you if you learn how to cook a few of your meals on your own. And um, I'm always about cutting corners and making it easy on myself. Oh my gosh, who isn't about that these days, right? So, one thing I've been playing with a lot, and I mentioned this a couple episodes back, I dusted off the slow cooker. I got the slow cooker out, and I've been making stuff in it, and I'm gonna start getting a little more fancy with the things I'm making. Start simple, guys. Start simple. If all you do is cook one really good main dish and then a salad or something, hey, you're still doing better than you did if you went to a restaurant or fast food. Okay. So the first cookbook I'm gonna talk about here, and you can get this off of Amazon.com. Look through it, you know, look at the reviews there and the description and everything. Uh, the Anti-Inflammatory Diet Slow Cooker Cookbook. Prep and go recipes for long-term healing. And I'm really prone to inflammation. A lot of us are. A lot of us seem puffy. We think we're, you know, getting a little bit overweight, something's going on there, and the the puffiness, the baby fat's not going away, right? You're working out or whatever. It could be inflammation. It looks and feels and behaves the same as this little bit of extra padding. So if that's the case, you get the inflammation under control. Well, gosh, that's when you lose a tremendous amount of weight all at once. So it's not weight you're losing, it's inflammation from your body reacting to something it shouldn't be reacting to. And it's basically all over swelling. It's not good for you. So if you get the right foods going into your body, your body doesn't try to figure out all those extra ingredients that it's reacting to that's making you retain water and not function at its best. Slows you down, gives you brain fog, makes you tired, zaps your your energy reserves, you're not at your sharpest. There's all sorts of stuff that goes with it. So it's it's always good to explore. And then when we think about healthier cooking, healthier recipes, we dread what that might taste like, don't we? Oh my gosh. Well, this makes it good. And it's only because it's real ingredients, it's real food, you're cooking it yourself, and you're not putting a whole bunch of extra junk in it you don't need. And uh yeah, check it out. So I'm gonna just go through a couple things with this, like I always do. Then you'll see how versatile something like a crock pot slow cooker can be. Okay, so first and foremost, there is a number of different breakfast entrees, and it's anything from sweet potato home fries to looks like there's a granola recipe, German chocolate cake protein oats. You've got a whole bunch of stuff in there for just for breakfast for your slow cooker. There's a section on just beans and grains. So that would that would probably work as some side dishes and stuff like that. Plant-based main dishes. Anything from stuffed sweet potatoes, uh minestrone soup. Looks like there's all different kinds of uh vegetables, a few different soups. There's a ton of different chicken, poultry recipes, meat recipes that's gonna be more of your beef. There's some lamb, uh, pork loin. So they have their meat separated out a little bit, sauces and staples, and desserts. And here again, everything's made in the slow cooker, and some of these look incredibly good, and I mean incredibly good. I haven't actually followed any of these to the letter yet, but I've taken some of the advice from this book and just been making, like I had told you, uh, chuck roasts, things of that nature. I made some soup once that was kind of based off of this. Really, really good to have on hand, and it's a set it and forget it effort. So you don't have a ton of prep. You don't have a ton of babysitting the dish from start to finish. Wonderful, wonderful thing to learn how to use, especially if you're burned out, if you're experiencing burnout, that sort of thing. So if you're just looking for all-over general health betterment ideas, this next one is interesting, and it's a 2023 book, but it doesn't mean that the recipes go bad, okay? And it's the anti-inflammatory diet plus the Mediterranean Diet Cookbook for Beginners, 200 over 200 recipes, but it's actually three books in one. And this one, it has a whole bunch of information on the Mediterranean diet. What is it? What will it do for you, why it's healthy, all the different conditions it can aid in making better. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and say that everything's a cure because everyone's body is different and everyone's you know walk through life is different, and our health statuses are different, but you can always improve things with the right fuel for your body. And the more pure and healthy the the fuel, the better it's gonna burn. We're really, really duped, especially in America, as to what's healthy. Companies can get away with a lot of incorrect, a lot of incorrect health information in the name of a profit. So this has um some other advices on following the Mediterranean diet and mindsets, that sort of thing. Just kind of mentions. But what's really interesting about this book, like I said, there's three sections. So book one is the Mediterranean diet, book two is the anti-inflammatory diet, and then book three is intermittent fasting, and that is all the rage right now. You hear about that a lot. I will tell you, you have to make sure it's something that's right for you. If you're a woman over the age of 40, it may not be in your best interest, but some women have great luck with it. Here again, everyone's different, but if you're already dealing with trying to get, you know, normality with other health stuff, make sure that that's the right path for you. It may not be right for you. So I'm not saying this is a cure-all for everybody for everything you're trying to achieve, but if it's a good fit, those are two books you may want to check out. And I don't think I gave the authors, so let's do them an honor here. Okay, so the anti-inflammatory diet slow cooker cookbook is by Madeline Given NC. And the anti-inflammatory diet plus Mediterranean Diet Cookbook for Beginners 2023 is by Taylor Remedies. But I am not sure if that's a pen name, if it's a brand name, uh, it could be a clever pen name. Um, and looking through the beginning of it, it doesn't really say uh there's something in the very beginning forward with the legal information. So, anyway, that's what's on the cover as an author name. And the I I have to say, the recipes look absolutely delicious in both cases. So whenever I present something to you that's, you know, a good for you kind of thing to consider, I'm not gonna make it a miserable effort. I promise. I love food, and I love food that tastes amazing. So there you go. There's a couple of cookbook efforts for you to check out if the shoe fits. And Emmy is chewing up some cardstock, she's very good at that. All right, so before I let you go for the evening and get about your week and encounter Wednesday, whatever it is that you've got on the agenda, let's just give you a gentle reminder. Check out comfortingvoice.com. We're just going to call that our headquarters. It's where you can listen to all the episodes if you want to listen to them there. I've got a follow button where you can drop down the you know big dogs and podcast apps to check out if that's appealing to you, if you don't already have an app that you prefer. I've got some other links there that are just fun. Check out the coloring books. These are all authored by me. My pen name for my coloring books is Saffron Eve. I've also got a Christmas line of coloring books, and they are the popular eight and a half by eight and a half, bold and easy, large print, and they're designed for relaxation, anti-anxiety, and there's no fine details, so it's really easy to just color and go. They are designed to just give you that satisfaction in what did I call it? Uh, meditation in movement, I think is what the term is. Don't forget the Thrive shop is there. That's where you're gonna get the best deal on the Thrive gear. And I've got some plans for some upcoming new pages on the website. So check back often. Again, that is comfortingvoice.com. And I think that's all I got for you this week. Oh my gosh, after that cookbook review, I think I'm ready to cook something. I'm gonna have to go to the grocery store. And I know what I forgot. So before we sign off, also on the website comfortingvoice.com, I've got a contact page there. That's where you can send some instant direct emails. You don't even have to remember an email address. Just send that right from the website. And there is a microphone there. If you're on a device that has a microphone, you can leave a voicemail. So all of your suggestions, your attaboy, your atta girl type comments, or if you've got some requests on topics, that's where you can leave that, the contact page or the voicemail option. And that is all done through the magic of the internet, so it's free. There's no charge. We'd love to hear from you. Alright, I think I'm finally out of talk to talk about. We'll catch you back here Friday as we continue Alice's adventures in Wonderland. And until then, sleep tight, good night, and bye-bye.