Holiatry (hoh lee a tree)

Holiatry (hoh lee a tree) or holism or wholism is engenders the case of the ENTIRE patient from all aspects including social, psychological, and physical. Basically, our insides, our outsides, and then how our little person that we created (us) shows up in the world. Let’s start by defining each of these three subjects, shall we?

Let’s start with physical because that is the easiest to define. It has everything to do with nourishment and movement. Basically, diet and exercise…but that sounds boring, right? I like nourishment and movement much better. Nourishment is anything you stick in your mouth, breathe in, or otherwise put on your skin. I believe that a whole food, plant-based diet is the best not only for our physical well-being and it makes me feel like a super-hero, but it also makes me a hero in saving animals and saving the planet. In other words, I’m out to save the world! Choosing to eat a whole foods, plant-based diet truly makes me feel like a superhero! Movement is defined differently for all of us. Mine is a bit on the aggressive side, but not as aggressive as kickboxers and the martial arts! Who knows? Maybe someday…but in the meantime I am a mountain bike enthusiast, a dabbler in running and spend a couple of short bursts in the gym and doing yoga. What do you do? It’s different for everyone and THERE IS NO WRONG WAY! Are you a walker, hiker, swimmer, surfer, cyclist, skier? I don’t care what it is…dance! But do something in the movement department!

Next comes psychological which to me sounds much more pleasant when you think of it as your mind and spirit. Your mind because of knowledge…any kind of knowledge. Formal education, life experiences, you name it. Everything having to do with learning and as you saw from my last post, I am a student 4 life! I don’t want to ever stop learning and becoming. The other is our precious spirits. You have a spiritual side of you whether you are in organized religion or not. Who or what is your higher power? I believe in God and those who know me or have been on my podcast know that, but I know we are not all in that cookie-cutter life. Whatever your religious practice…embrace it! Live it! Love it! Spirit also includes things like meditation, self-care, your soul, spending time with yourself to learn of your greatest desires. Sometimes your spiritual self just wants to let go and have some fun! Let yourself have recess!

That brings us to our third and last part of our whole – Social. Once you have yourself on a pretty even keel of physical and psychological, it’s time to share your love, knowledge, and service with the world! It’s time to show up in your companionships and relationships outside of yourself. A little bit of you given away creates lasting impressions and forges friendships that can change you for the better (or sometimes for the worst)…either way, they are learning experiences to teach you more about yourself and how to be a healthy contributor to your relationships. How do you show up in the world?

At Lauri’s Lemonade Stand, we are embarking on a journey to explore these three aspects of holiatry and how I can help you in the discovery of self and charging up to that next chapter of our lives with conviction and truth, confidence and love, and kick some serious ass! Bring it on! We’ll be ready!

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One of the funnest things I did before actually writing my goals down for 2017 was reflect on my past years of goal-setting. I have been printing out and posting on my bulletin board my yearly goals since 2010. I kept them in a tidy little file folder tucked away in one of my office drawers and hadn’t thought much about them other than to put the old ones in at the end of each year. Not this time.

It was so great to reflect on some of my goals and what I was into at that particular time. How my physical goals have changed from running a half marathon and now I’m racing mountain bikes. Saving for Boobs had been on my list, but 2 years later decided they would be a “BIG” pain and get in the way of my physical fitness goals. How many classes I wanted to finish to gain my high school diploma and how that goal came true in it’s entirety in 2012 when I graduated!

From knitting a blanket (yes, it’s still on there after three years) to completing a Shutterfly book. From spiritual goals that were met to eating right. It has been wonderful to reflect and introspect and ruminate over goals accomplished, goals that turned out not as important as I had thought in the moment and just how I’ve grown over the last 6 years navigating my 40’s. A crazy, mixed-up, wonderful, growth of a ride for sure.

What are some goals that were important to you at the time, but turned out less important as years passed?

What did you spend time on and wished you hadn’t? Now vice versa…wish you had spent more time on, but didn’t?

Accomplished any bucket list items lately? Can you add one this year?

Are your goals attainable in this year?

Now that you’ve Dreamed Big, and done a little Reflection, tune in next week to figure out how you can attain those goals by putting them into Bite-Size Chunks.

Don’t forget to leave a comment and let me know all about your goals and how your reflection of past goals have been for you. Love hearing from you!

Wrenches in the Trenches are not your average, every day kind of hiccups in life. It’s when you’re on a streak of them that they become wrenches in the trenches. The last couple weeks of mine have been definite wrenches in the trenches and it’s not ready to stop just yet. I’m going to share some of this with you only as example, not to be hugely negative. (I promise to end on a positive note!)

My Wrenches This Last Week

My husband and I own a business and while I’ve stepped mostly away to build up Lauri’s Lemonade Stand, I’m still pretty involved. Nothing at that business happens at a convenient time. For example, let’s have our production manager quit without notice and then all of a sudden all of our clients need their orders yesterday. Then two days later your part-timer calls in sick and the day after that your other one does as well. Because this business pays ALL of our bills right now, that means that not only do my husband and I drop everything to keep it going, but my daughter as well. Talk about a family business! And it hasn’t stopped.

My daughter has finished high school, finished a vocational school and only has two mock state board finals to complete before graduating and then taking the state boards on April 3rd. She called the school admin and set up two dates, but that admin didn’t tell the other admin and her dates got taken. Even though we had set up everything with everyone to be there so now we are scrambling to get her a new model (thermolysis – permanent hair removal – have to bring your own model) on the only two dates they have left and one is the day before state boards meaning that if she doesn’t pass, can’t take state boards.

And then there’s the rain. I love rain! But not when it has the possibility of bringing flash floods to recent burn areas or cancels our mountain bike race for the weekend for our local high school mountain bike team and we are scrambling for practices or possible spin classes. That also means canceling hotels, changing plans, re-booking hotels for the next race, etc. I got most of my money back, but others refused a refund.

Last one…then there’s my dumb thyroid and the needle biopsy that hurt like the dickens and bruised my neck only to have the results come back inconclusive and being sent out for genetic testing that will take weeks to get those results. Not freaking out, but definitely a wrench psychologically to have to wait.

Combatting the Wrenches

When life throws more than little hiccups your direction and there seems to be a steady stream, those are your wrenches in the trenches moments. Here’s what I do to combat feeling despair during these crazy life wrenches:

I do the best I can. I make a list and that list is filled with more stuff than I could ever accomplish in a day and I know it. I then write the numbers 1-3 of the things that are the most important and I start there. If I finish those three, I make another priority of the next 3. And then I let it go. Oh, I’ll get stressed, but I try to do my best and let the rest go.

I find at least one thing to be grateful for daily. There is something in every day and I write mine in a 5-year journal I keep at my bedside every night. Focusing on something good, writing down, and then I get bonus points if I share it with my hubby cause talking about that good thing makes me happy.

Look for the silver lining or the lesson learned. I truly believe that things happen for a reason. While our business is still struggling to get caught up, we are grateful to have hired a wonderful new production manager and am embracing the fact that we have lots of work to do which brings us monetary blessings like paying for our mortgage and eating. Kinda important things, right? My daughter was able to find a model for tomorrow and I firmly believe there’s a reason why her schedule got re-arranged. Maybe in finding the new model she’ll meet someone new. Maybe it will be good to do a mock final the day before her state boards so it will be fresh in her memory. I can’t always immediately see the blessing, but I’m on the look out for it! And the rain with the races? Turns out I only lost $6.84 cents for my hotel. I won’t be attending the re-scheduled race because my oldest daughter and my two grandbabies are coming for a visit and that fact alone will save me 6 hours of driving. That’s a blessing! I’m praying that we will not have flash floods, but I am grateful for the much-needed rain in California.

Last, but certainly not least. If all else fails, give up. Oh, I don’t mean permanently, but sometimes you need to just set everything aside, grab your favorite food and chick flick and zone out. Those problems aren’t going anywhere. Tell them all to take a time-out, re-group yourself and come at it fresh tomorrow.

Wrenches in the Trenches are inevitable, but they do pass. If you’re in one now, I feel ya. The struggle is real. Take heart, this too shall pass.

Please leave your comments below on this article. I would love to hear from you!

Vegans run the gamut from strictly raw, only eating eggs or fish oil supplements, SOS-free (salt, oil, sugar), paleo-type vegans to those who do this crazy vegan thing for health, the planet, or the love and welfare of animals. There is so much debate out there on what the right thing is from the science to the popularity. And there is so much shaming going on!!

The vegan who is earth-loving, tree-hugging, no-leather, won’t eat at a restaurant that even serves meat, never drinks from a plastic bottle…you get the idea who is shaming the vegan who is trying to just go meatless on Meatless Mondays. Today’s blog is to declare my stance on veganism from what I eat to what I wear and tell you that wherever you are in your journey, you are loved and you should be proud of the steps you take daily to do the best you can by you and your family, period.

I did not become vegan to save the planet or rescue animals…at first. I was in it for purely selfish reasons…I wanted to be the healthiest version of myself. Looking back, it was a small step by small step journey. It started with cutting our red meat and pork. I then learned that chicken was just as bad or even worse so it was back to being a vegetarian which I had dabbled in before coming pregnant with my last child a million and a half years ago.

Vegetarian was pretty easy. I was what they called lacto-ovo-vegetarian. I didn’t miss the meat a bit, but I was still eating dairy products and using eggs. It wasn’t until I read Brendan Brazier’s book, Thrive that I began to believe that it was possible to eat only plants and do what the book suggested…THRIVE! I’ve told this story before and remember lying in bed reading and leaning over to my husband and saying, “I think I need to do this” and him replying, “I don’t think I can go there with you” and I couldn’t blame him!

The thought of going vegan was scary! I could cook and I mean COOK! Chicken-fried steak with incredible gravy, white chocolate cheesecake with macadamia nuts and a pastry crust, key lime pie, quiche, pancakes…you name it! I later learned that this was the SAD diet (Standard American Diet) and it was killing us and most of the US population at large. What would I feed my family? How would I cook without dairy and eggs?

But Brendan Brazier wasn’t just an ordinary Joe like you or me, he was a professional Ironman Triathlete who was quite literally THRIVING on a plant-based diet without any animal products whatsoever. I continued to learn and found Scott Jurek, author of Eat & Run who was thriving on a plant-based diet and running ultra-marathons and 24-hour races – crazy! If those men could do it with the expectations they had on their bodies, I could most definitely do it!

The research began. Trust me when I say that I flubbed up A LOT! Some nights were disastrous and some were big hits, but I kept plugging away and never looked back. That was 5 years ago. I’ve learned a lot since then! I was certified in The Starch Solution by Dr. John McDougall and started teaching vegan cooking classes along with the science to back it up. I received a certificate in Plant-based Nutrition from eCornell University, and became a Certified Holistic Health Coach through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York.

I have taken classes from Chef AJ and began a Facebook page called VeganMormon that has almost 1000 followers that get posts from me daily. I joke that I should have named it VeganMormonRepublican because then I could offend just about everyone. Let’s face it…when it comes to conversations that ignite a defense mechanism almost immediately…let it start around food, religion, or politics! Right??

My actual diet has been refined and after speaking with leading experts in the field of nutrition realize that I am not alone. We are all constantly changing our minds on what we want to tweak next, but I do stand behind ZERO animal products. My diet is pretty simple these days. Delicious, but simple. No oil, no sugar, no processed food of any kind. I limit my flour to almost nothing to help with brain fog and my hypothyroidism. I just eat food…real food. Rice, potatoes, beans, greens, veggies, fruits, nuts, avocadoes, seeds…all amazing and wonderfully yummy foods.

Since becoming vegan I have watched powerfully moving films and documentaries like Forks Over Knives, Cowspiracy, and What the Health? I have subscribed to nutritionfacts.org with Dr. Michael Greger (even had the pleasure of speaking with him at a conference here in California..he is awesome!) and continue to read books and articles that will help not only me, but my audience on their journey. Try out the 21-Day Kickstart program with PCRM – uh-mazing!

I don’t buy leather products, but I didn’t throw out what I already owned because that just seemed silly to me. I know there are those out there that will judge me for that, but that’s on you. I don’t buy down pillows because I have seen how the down is “collected” and it’s gruesome. I don’t buy anything wool because despite what you may think about it not harming the sheep…guess what? It does.

I am not perfect as I still buy plastic containers or water bottles sometimes, but by me not eating meat or animal products I truly feel like a super-hero and that I’m saving the planet! Not to mention, saving a crazy amount of water! Where I was once vegan for purely selfish reasons, I am now out to save the world! By not consuming anything from an animal, I am more healthy for sure, I am not harming any animals, and I am quite literally helping to save our dear planet earth. Will you join me?

Wherever you are on your journey, I encourage you to soldier on. Keep up the good work and know that you have a safe place here to talk about it. If you are further along in your journey, DO NOT SHAME OTHERS because of where they are on their journey. Only reach out to help them with love, compassion, and kindness. If I had been shamed by others in the beginning there is no way I would have made it this far. Be encouraging. Be loving. Be careful with your words. Do your best and then help others to do their best.

Have questions for me about my vegan journey? Send me a message and I would be happy to answer, but please be kind! Bringing others down is not my goal and I don’t want to fight about it. You’re either in and curious, or you’re not and you stay silent. Don’t argue for argues sake. I will answer any questions that are respectful, curious, and can be helpful. Good luck wherever you find yourself on this crazy vegan path!!