Sunday SELF - C. A. R. E. Reflection 🌷

SELF - C. 🧀 A. 🎄 R. 💫 E. 🌎

Cooking 🧀

My dad always says, “The most devastating food for your health is pizza.” 🍕

Now, if you’re ordering in a pizza from a restaurant or picking one up from the frozen food aisle… I’d have to agree with him.

But that’s because those aren’t actually pizza. They’re 85 ingredients, half chemicals you’ve never heard of. 10 different types of sugar… Wheat that was sprayed with glyphosate… Sauce that doesn’t even contain a tomato… You get the point.

When you make real pizza from scratch, you’ll see that you don’t add any sugar into your dough…

You don’t perform any science experiments to get chemicals into your sauce…

You realize you can eat pizza every single week and never once feel heavy, bloated, uncomfortable, or guilty…

✨ That’s a miracle if you ask me ✨

I’ve been eating so much pizza because it’s like the easiest meal to throw together and no one ever gets tired of pizza night.

The reason I’m sharing this recipe with you again, after already raving about it in my ebook, is because I have a groundbreaking update to my recipe…

I started making my own mozzarella cheese!

That was the one ingredient I never felt fully comfortable buying for this meal because even when I found this Organic Valley Mozzarella that said it was made with only milk from pasture-raised cows… it’s still a large food company so who really knows what conditions those cows are living in.

To make pizza night a breeze, I like to make the cheese and pizza dough on a Sunday so it’s ready to go for a meal later in the week. I store my dough ball in the freezer, then thaw it out on the counter the morning of the day I plan to use it, or put it in the fridge the night before.

To be able to eat pizza often without feeling like it’s unhealthy, I recommend staying away from buying any toppings from the grocery store.

Find your local farmers and pick up tomatoes, red onion, artichoke, bell peppers, garlic, and basil. You will notice the difference in both the way you feel AND in the flavor of your pizza when your ingredients are fresh from a local farm who cared for them naturally.

*Lately my favorite pizza is topped with tomato slices, chopped garlic, red onion, bell pepper (whatever color is growing in the garden), basil, and occasionally these basil and thyme marinated artichoke hearts from Thrive Market 🍅🧄🧅🫑🌿

I have never been a pizza dipped-in-ranch kind of girly… I actually never liked ranch at all, but now I realize it’s probably because store-bought ranch tastes crazy compared to homemade ranch.

So I tried this pizza dipped in homemade ranch and… I see the world so differently now 🦋💫😍 

I love it because it's not needed... but it's just a very nice bonus flavor in each bite.

Here’s how I make it:

As you’ve probably noticed, I use greek yogurt a ton for homemade sauces and in soup recipes. Now that I figured out homemade mozzarella, next week I plan to try making homemade yogurt from raw milk.

🫶 Let me know if you want to hear how that goes or if you’re tired of all the dairy recipes. I can give it a break too :)

As I’m trying to avoid the grocery store at all costs, I focus on whole food ingredients that I can get from a local farm so that means meat, dairy, and plants is all I’m working with🩵 🐄🥛🥚🍋🍇🍅🫑🥕🥒🥔

Art: Rethink traditions. Especially this time of year.

Do you have any yearly traditions?

When was the last time you analyzed that tradition for the current version of yourself?

So often we get caught up in doing things just because it’s the way it’s always been done or because we’re gripping onto a past version of ourselves, letting feelings of nostalgia keep us from growing into new chapters of life.

Be honest, does your yearly holiday tradition bring you more stress than joy? 

Maybe you run around trying to recreate these events while everyone else takes all your work for granted because it’s just what you do. It’s expected.

Or, you had the most magical birthday weekend in Napa that was so incredible, you couldn’t stand the thoughts about how you could ever top it. Will you ever feel that loved or celebrated again?

That fear caused you to create a tradition, every year from now on you’ll spend your birthday in Napa. Then the stress of dropping a thousand dollars every year no matter what is going on in your life takes away from the joy.

I did that a lot. I couldn't fully enjoy the beauty of the present experience because I was already planning how to recreate it again for the future. 

But what if future you doesn’t like the same things? What if you’re overplanning is blocking you from finding even better, more aligned experiences?

With the fall season bringing in a ton of holiday traditions, I encourage you to ask yourself, How would my current self enjoy this moment most?

Do I actually want to dress up for Halloween or is it just something everyone does and I feel like I have to? 

It’s up to you to create the life you love. Then to continue to create in ways that support who you are growing into. 

This past year, I’ve explored new places and prioritized practicing presence, soaking in each moment without rushing to plan the next thing.

In doing this I’ve realized a couple of locations that I feel most like myself while visiting. They feel like home. 

I might never have experienced them in the ways that I have recently if I stayed so stuck in my same few locations that I loved 5 years ago. 

Earth offers endless beauty and opportunities to explore it. You’re missing out if you get too locked into a busy routine and a stagnant cycle of predictability.

Think about how you can be creative this holiday season to bring in a sense of adventure, room for the unexpected, and deeper connections that best serve your current vision for your life.

Last Christmas my family did something we’ve never done:

My family has never been the artistic type… At all. This new activity was so out of our typical holiday traditions which is was made it so fun! We all got to work on something together and bond over our shared challenges throughout the process. 

Now, just because we enjoyed this last year doesn’t mean it’s something we must do every single year as our “Christmas painting tradition”. Forcing it like this takes all the fun out of it.

If we want to this year we will. If we don’t feel like it, we won’t. Leaving space for spontaneous experiences makes this time of year less stressful and more enjoyable 🥂

Reading: Moments of Grace by Neale Donald Walsh

If you’re in need of a dose of inspiration, a reminder of why you’re even here, a spark to guide you out of the fog… This book is perfect.

Each chapter contains a quick story from a real person explaining a time when they experienced a miracle. The author explains these Moments of Grace like this:

I spent about 10 minutes each morning reading one chapter until I finished the book. Since the stories are short, it’s the perfect way to start your day with a mini reminder of how beautifully life unfolds. 

There are no mistakes. It’s up to you to open your eyes to all that is available to you at every moment.

Here’s a snippet from a page at the end of the book that I feel is important:

BTW I got this book from the library to read for free, so if you don’t have a library card… It’s the best way to give books a try without having to buy.

I love a lot of books by this author and used the app from the public library to listen to many of his audiobooks for free. Highly recommend listening to these while out on your nature walks 🌿🌳🐞🌤️🚶‍♀️

Enthusiasm: Have you touched Earth today?

Skin to Earth contact is what I’m recommending to everyone lately for every single ailment, stressor, and issue 🌎

It seems too goofy to believe, but even as someone who lives out of the city, immersed more in nature than most people, I realized that even on days when I’d go out on multiple walks… I didn’t always touch the Earth.

My shoes blocked the healing frequencies I needed to keep my body, mind, and spirit healthy.

Our bodies are made from Earth. When we come in contact with it, we absorb Earth’s electrons which recharge and replenish your body’s natural balance. 

Since I moved here and started working from home, I’ve never struggled with sleep. I credit my deep 8-9 hours of sleep every night as one of the main reasons I’ve been healthier than ever these past 15 months.

That is until…. 2 weeks ago.

After having zero temptation to get involved in the world’s drama no matter how wild, stressful, horrible it’s been the past few years… somehow they got me. 

I blame the election coming up and all the Diddy news for my change in character where I started doom scrolling, watching video after video every evening. Then what do you know, I started having trouble falling and staying asleep. Duh.

I knew the problem right away, but I felt my spirit pulled by the energy of the collective making it harder to act out the change I knew I needed. 

Once I realized that I hadn’t actually been grounding every day no matter how much I sat outside or went on walks, I made one teeny tiny change. I went outside and intentionally took my shoes off and stood barefoot in the grass for a few minutes in the morning. 

Same day, I didn’t feel any desire to catch up with the political or celebrity news and slept like a baby.

The energy you allow in fully changes your personality and the way you feel. 

If you eat synthetic food-like substances, your body falls out of alignment with nature. 

If you never touch the Earth to align your frequency, you fall victim to the world’s drama.

You find yourself reactive, triggered, and attracting more drama into your life.

Your body has to work harder with the influx of unnatural exposures which leads to a weakened immune system, poor sleep, anxiety, and overall suffering health.

Anytime you’re feeling off, ground.

And for maintenance, ground. Every. Single. Day.

It’s what we’re all meant to do. 

Sending you so much joy for your week ahead! 🌞

🤍 Jaclyn