Life recipes help us live above the clouds. What does above the clouds mean?

Imagine your thoughts and the experiences you face each day as clouds. You can let them clog you, overwhelm you or you can allow them to happen and move through and above them with grace back to clarity, peace, and bright blue sky above. 

Within all of us is the ability to feel peace and love and harmony. Life recipes help us move through life with more wholeness and harmony and fulfillment.

Life recipes are practical methods and affirmations to feel more centered, calm, and connected to ourselves and world around us. 

Listening to life recipes helps us break down big ideas and execute them in a practical, quick way.

Just like a food recipes make cooking delicious foods easy, life recipes make living wholeheartedly easy.

By following life recipes—in as little as 5 min a day—we tap into stillness and our essence that guides us into finding meaning in our everyday and wholeness and harmony in our mind, body, spirit, and soul.

Giving is a way to create meaning in our day. Little opportunities to help others, to serve, all are around us, coming up moment-to-moment. Simple acts to give a little bit of our time, patience, love, ourselves can go a long way to help someone, but in doing so it actually helps ourself.

Meet Janice Lodato, a mother of one who works full-time but also has a Reiki, grief coaching, and meditation instruction practice on the side. She is busy enough, why does she do the side work too? Helping others in this way actually fills her up, it energizes her.

We learn about Reiki, which is a light touch therapy from Japan that brings on a state of deep relaxation in people. When we’re relaxed, we heal better, heal faster, we think more clearly, we relate to people better, we are more creative.

While we know giving to others makes us feel good. We can’t give from an empty place, we must give to ourselves too. For Janice, it’s keeps up her own morning Reiki and running practices where nobody expects anything of her that fills her up so she can do this work that helps others and actually energizes her to do more.

Another thing that helps her center whenever overwhelm comes in is asking the question, “what’s important now.” When we’ve taken the time to fill ourselves up and we’re in a relaxed state, we can better answer that question and feel good about it. Knowing whats right looks different for everyone and we only know when we connect inside.

We discuss a lot with Janice:

• Parenting a tween
• Progressive education
• Taking cues from our children
• How Reiki helps others meditate

Thanks for joining as we hear hear this story about doing work that energizes us, and why feeling relaxed and connected inside is important as we meet our everydayeverymom Janice Lodato.

Life Recipe

1. Dream, Imagine, Consider all that needs to be done and all you hope to do.
2. Make a list, create a vision board
3. Prioritize. What's most important now.
4. Tell people about it.
5. Get help, those who can actually do parts of what needs to be done or who will hold you accountable and cheer you on.
6. Act
7. Celebrate your successes.
8. Reassess and go back to step 1.

The idea of giving ourselves up when become mothers doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because we have to take care of ourselves first, before we can take care of others.  We’re only as good as how we feel inside, our energy level, our mindset.

Meet Shanna O’Brien, mom of 3 who talks candidly about her struggle with losing weight, feeling unhappy, and just waiting for the day to end after having her third. She was looking on Facebook wondering why her life was such a mess when everyone else looked like they had it all together.

Then she made a shift. She started a nutritional cleansing program called Isagenix for weight loss and increased energy.

She lost the weight but she gained so much more. She learned that her weight struggle wasn’t about the weight at all, it never is.

She got deeper and her life is different now. She shares what it feels like to wake up happy. To have alignment in her life where she is the same person at work as at home as with her friends. It all blends.

We learn about the importance of nutrition and what a shift in diet did for her family. She noticed changes in her husband’s energy level and saw their relationship improve. She saw behavioral changes in her children, including two with autism. She can look back now and see how her anxiety impacted her whole family, how they fed off one another.

She realized motherhood isn’t about looking perfect and having it all put together. It’s about creating a life that works for you and embracing the messy and chaotic. 

What matters at the end of the day is if you and your family are feeling happy. Not happy in the picture posted to Facebook, but happy inside. For Shanna happiness is taking care of herself, her relationships, and helping others in a way she never thought she would.

You’ll love hearing Shanna’s story of following her heart and having her whole family feel and appreciate a shift in their home from her leap of faith.

Listen on iTunes.

Life Recipe: Take Care of yourself first

Just like the on an airplane, you have to put your oxygen mask on first on before anyone else's mask. We have to take care of ourself before we can take care of others.

Being a mom is hard work. The greatest thing. You're only as good as your energy, how you feel, your mindset. Motherhood shouldn’t hurt. It should be a happy time of your life. You have to make it that way and create it as your own. When you feel good inside you make better choices for yourself.

Books we discussed

Clean by Alejandro Junger

Miracle Morning for Transforming your Relationship by Hal Elrod, Stacy and Paul Martino and Honoree Corder

About Shanna

Shanna O'Brien is a married mom of 3, ages 4, 4 & 1. She is a native Oak Parker and while she left for a bit, she is back again, stirring things up. Shanna earned her BS at Western Illinois, and went on to receive her MSW at Loyola University. She taught special education at CPS & Melrose Park for years, and later stepped into adoption social work. Currently, Shanna is a professional network marketer at Isagenix and is freeing people from physical and financial pain. She thinks mommying while running a business is frustrating, chaotic & messy, but overwhelmingly fun.

Connect with Shanna

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/shanna.d.obrien

Isagenix page: http://shannaobrien1.isagenix.com/

Creative storytelling, tapping into our children's imaginations- Conscious Parenting Insight.

Above the Clouds are quick, daily insights on mindful being and conscious parenting, to create more meaningful moments with our families and feel more fulfillment and joy everyday.

Being present is being aware with what's happening around us, accepting it without judgement, and from this space we can choose differently.
We could be replaying over and over again something in our head that doesn't serve us anymore. And experiences keep coming up aligned with that thinking. With presence, we bring awareness back. Here we can choose love and kindness and compassion for ourselves and others, knowing we all are doing the best we can with the tools we have in each moment.

When we're present, we can remember to give ourselves a moment to breathe, space to reframe and choose differently, more in alignment to what we really want. We can create a new story so we attract experiences in alignment to that thinking. It helps us get through tough moments with more calm. And better appreciate the good things that come too. Take a moment and choose presence today.
If you need a reminder, look at children. They help us get present because it's where they are.

Above the Clouds - Mindful being and conscious parenting insights - are quick under 5 minute thoughts, reflections, and tips on being more mindful, present, and conscious in our parenting and in life. Check them out for a quick lift or to help you set an intention for the day to come back to to reset and re-center.

Learn more at www.everydayeverymom.com

Sometimes we feel alone or ashamed of feelings of anger, frustration or isolation that come up. Yet, these feelings are inside all of us and natural.

Just as natural as it is to have these feelings, are methods to treat them. Meditation, acupuncture, and reiki, to name a few are natural, ancient methods that can help restore balance in our body, mind, and spirit so we can feel centered and positive again.

Meet Annie Grimes Spindler, a mother of two daughters, and owner of Serenity Acupuncture, where she offers a wide range of women’s health services, specializing in women experiencing fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum stresses.

We learn about her practice of five-element acupuncture, which is based on the elements of fire, earth, metal, water, and wood that are in nature and each of us. She shares simple things we can do everyday to restore and harmonize these elements so we can feel more centered.

As a mom of two young daughters, treating new moms is close to her heart. She understands the exhaustion and intense feelings we can have as moms and wants us all to feel better and not afraid to ask for help with it. Its important because when moms feel stronger, happier, and more full of life, it spreads to the whole family. The children pick up on it, feel it, and learn to live that way too.

We discuss so much:

• How hard we can be on ourselves as moms and the importance of self-care
• Taking a step back every evening to reflect on the day and how it helps her feel like she accomplished more than she thought on her busy days
• Power of breath and pausing
• Looking at nature and following the energy of it (i.e., allowing ourself slow down in winter, to calm down and be still and peaceful as nature is in wintertime)
• Being okay with the juggle of our busy lives right now - why taking the plunge to do what you love is important

I hope you can sit down and relax as you hear Annie’s calming and soothing words. Maybe even take it as  as an invitation to treat yourself more kindly and start you own self-care practice. When we take care of ourselves, our children learn too that a positive well-being is our natural birthright and how we are meant to be living.

Listen on iTunes

Life Recipe: Five simple things to do everyday to stay in balance and in accordance to five elements of nature that are within our body

Making time for each of these things are important and will help us feel better. 

1. Fire - joy and happiness - take time to laugh. Laugh at something, laugh yourself and your kids. It’s so important to laugh everyday.
2. Earth - nurture yourself - self-care is so importat. Take care of yourself. Feel nourished in the meals that you eat. It’s not always easy to eat well. Enjoying your food, feeling nourished. enjoy and take in whatever you are being nourishd by. Nourish your soul and tell yourself you deserve this right now.
3. Metal - Take time to breathe. Meditation and mindfulness is so important. If you can’t take ten minutes to meditate, just breathe. When you’re in the car, your child’s screaming, just breathe. Find some inspiration everyday. Listen to song you love, feel inspired.
4. Water - We need water everyday. Take some time to drink water. It’s so important for our bodies.
5. Wood - Motivation, drive, movement. Exercise that wood element. Even if you can’t get to gym, move around, move your body.

"We ask a lot of ourselves and so having simple reminders that we can take can care of and expand our body, mind, and spirit everyday with these simple practices.” - Annie Spindler

About Annie

Annie is a Nationally Board Certified and Illinois State Licensed Acupuncturist.  She practices Worsley style Five Element Acupuncture and studied at Wu Hsing Tao School in Seattle, WA.  Her passion for Acupuncture came from receiving treatment for stress while in school at Bastyr University.  She immediately felt a connection with the ancient wisdom and healing power of this medicine.

Fertility, pregnancy and postpartum care are among Annie’s main interests.  She has seen, firsthand,  the relief that comes with treatment for new Moms.  Having a baby can be the most fulfilling experience we will ever have.  However, this time of joy may come with a whole set of new challenges.  Babies need Moms to be feeling comfortable and taken care of.  While most of the attention turns to the baby after the birth,  the mother still needs support and nourishment.  Acupuncture can help Moms feel grounded, centered, relaxed and happy.  And happy Moms make happy babies!

Connect with Annie

Website: http://serenityacu.com/

Email: [email protected]

How much does your mindset control our ability think and live with abundance? How confident do you feel communicating your value in work and in life?

Meet Tonya Rineer, a mom of three boys, who believes mindset is everything. 

As a money mindset coach and speaker, she gives women the tools to discover their value, think abundantly, gain control of their finances and supercharge their earning potential.

She challenges us to examine the vocabulary we use. We could be thinking and talking in a limiting way that's  actually preventing us from attracting what we want in life.

The first step to creating more abundance is to own where we are right now. We must accept that our choices got us to where we are today and that its its within our control - through our choices - to change our future. We can't control the negative things that have happened or will come up, we only control our reaction and how we choose to move forward.

Next, we have to articulate what we want in life. What does our dream personal, work, and family life look like.

Once we are clear on what we want, we can get a plan in place to get there. We have to take action from a place of purposeful intention. To know and trust in what we are moving toward.

We then have to allow ourselves to receive. We as moms have trouble with this one. 

We can't give and give to our work or our families without receiving—we'll feel empty inside. Filling ourselves up isn't selfish. It brings us joy and happiness and that's what leads to abundance—so we can give more to others.

We are all capable and deserve to live the life we desire. It just takes focus, action and a belief in ourself to make the day-to-day choices in the right direction.

She shares so much with us:

• Teaching our children about money. Challenging them to have an entrepreneurial spirit
• Talking through our experiences with our children - see everything we experience as a teaching moment
• Life recipe for creating boundaries when personal and business life blend too much
• Step-by-step attraction formula for getting what you want in life

Join us for an upbeat chat with Tonya, who shares a lot of laughs and the steps we need to take toward living an abundant life.

About Tonya

Tonya Rineer is the energy behind the Profit Party! She is an innovative Money Mindset Coach who helps women entrepreneurs discover their value, super-charge their profit potential and get off the financial roller coaster for good.

She is dedicated to revolutionizing the way women think and feel about money and business. Whether she is speaking, training or coaching, Tonya’s purpose shines through in all that she does!

Tonya’s action-oriented style gives women actionable tools to gain control of their finances, transform their beliefs about money and dramatically increase their income!

Connect with Tonya

Music by: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Love_Wins/"