Cate Stillman

Friday Favorites (Links I Love)

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This is where I share inspiration from the week–podcasts, books, music, art, movies, food, and more!

FOOD

Alan and I made a fantastic new vegan gluten free soup recently in the Instantpot. Although I’m not much of a gadget person, since my mom gave me an Instantpot, (thanks, Mom!) we gave it a try and the soup was amazing. Honestly, I probably could’ve made the soup just as quickly on the stovetop. It’s not “instant” at all.

First you have to wait for the pressure to build (about 20 minutes), then it cooks (about 25 minutes for this particular soup), and then the pressure slowly releases (another 15 minutes). But it would come in handy if I was cooking several dishes at once and needed an extra burner.

Here is the soup recipe for Cozy Autumn Wild Rice Soup from Gimme Some Oven. This is one vegan soup that is so creamy and delicious it can fool the dairy eaters in your life.

BOOKS

I have four great books to share with you and I recommend all of them. Yes, all of them! They are like vitamins that will boost your nutrition in different ways.

Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon can be read in about an hour. If you’re an artist, maker, entrepreneur, influencer, etc., grab this book and prepare to be encouraged. Kleon’s ten ways are so helpful to be reminded of: The first one is that “Every Day is Groundhog Day”, meaning every day we start over. Have a to-do list and work through it.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra is also a shortish book. This book was the first I’ve read by Deepak Chopra, and it won’t be the last. The Laws include The Law of Pure Potentiality, The Law of Giving, and The Law of Intention and Desire. At the end of each chapter are several ways to practice and act upon what you’ve read. If you know you have inner work to do in order to develop a more mature character who can handle success, start with this book.

Body Thrive: Uplevel Your Body and Your Life by Cate Stillman is a 10-week introduction to Ayurveda. Since I am studying Ayurveda with Yoga Veda Institute, I absolutely wanted to read this to see what I was in for. In her straightforward, no-nonsense way, Cate shares ten ways to take your life to a higher level.

Where does she start? With earlier, lighter dinners, moves on to go to bed early, and start your day right. Ayurveda is super practical and gets right to work dealing with your habits and what needs to change in order to have a better life. If you need a wellness boost or want to learn more about Ayurveda, here is practical place to begin.

Emergence: Seven Steps For Radical Life Change by Derek Rydall is one of two books by this author I purchased this summer. There is so much in this book that was new to me and many things that aligned with what I learned while living much of my life in a Christian culture.

Some of the many valuable pieces of wisdom he shares on are: giving, generosity, visualization, and acting from where you want to be, not where you are. This book is great if you recognize you need to develop a more positive, grateful mind and attitude and if you have goals you are working toward but have a feeling it all starts with you. This book will show you the way!

PODCASTS

Brendon Burchard had a few recent podcast episodes that I listened to several times over: Developing Momentum helped me stay productive right before school started, and Take Back Your Morning are all about morning routines. This has been a theme in my life since starting Ayurveda school: I wrote about this topic in Monday’s post and did a Live video on Facebook about it last week.

OK, that’s it for now. I would love to hear about what’s inspired you this week.

Ayurveda and Abundance (My Journey)

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After completing nearly 43 trips around the sun, I know that the direction we are supposed to take at different points in our lives can seem unclear and even confusing. I mostly make choices based on what my intuition tells me and that usually serves me well. But once in a while, absolute clarity presents itself while I am decision-making and that is what happened to me recently.

And when things become clear, I can often see a thread of seemingly unconnected incidents, inklings, conversations, and thoughts can be connected and lead to a decision or new life choice.

So what am I even talking about? MY PATH TO AYURVEDA! It started when I enrolled in aromatherapy studies in early 2018. Various lessons referred to Ayurveda and everything I read made sense, seemed balanced, and like something I would want to learn about.

While studying for some aromatherapy classes late winter/early spring, I read about Ayurveda self-care tips and listened to a podcast (LifeSpa with John Douillard) that benefited my digestive health in a big way. I bought a few of the recommended herbs, began taking them after meals, and guess what? My digestion is about 98% better than it was before I started taking them. But more about these herbs in another post…

Then, about three weeks ago I began thinking of what I could add to my aromatherapy studies to round out my consulting services. I really wanted to be able to offer clients a whole life approach for helping them with their wellness goals. Traditional life coaching programs didn’t seem to have what I was searching for.

One evening, I typed in “holistic life coach” or “wellness coach” and stumbled upon Ayurveda programs. I signed up for a free three-hour course from Kerala Ayurveda and loved it. Right after that, I signed up for a three part mini-course from Cate Stillman at yogahealer.com. I recommend both of these schools based on what I learned in their free courses. I became obsessed with Ayurveda training and began researching other online schools. Of course, I had one minor obstacle: I couldn’t afford to enroll in any of them.

Around the same time, I had my friend Laurie Petrisin over for lunch and a painting afternoon. While we were painting, she shared how she listens to Wholetones by Michael Tyrell during prayer/meditation. Being curious, I looked up free music on Spotify that was in different frequencies and found several playlists. My favorite is 528 Hz, the frequency of transformation and miracles. Apparently it’s the same frequency that the sun emits!

I began listening to a playlist of 528 Hz when I was in the car and for a few minutes every day. I also purchased two books about abundance, which I am currently reading and gleaning much wisdom from, and will share with you when I’m done.

In my head, I knew Ayurveda school was out of the question right now because of my financial situation, but in my heart I felt full of anticipation and joy, like I was a child expecting Christmas morning to come. Really, I can’t explain it other than I wanted this so much and kept focusing on Ayurveda school and looking for free or inexpensive courses I might be able to take in the meantime.

Then, a couple of Saturdays ago, the idea of scholarships popped into my head. So I typed “Ayurveda scholarship” into the search bar. The first few results were unsuccessful, but I landed on Yoga Veda Institue which had a scholarship application. This was crazy because when I searched for aromatherapy scholarships and herbal studies scholarships last year, I never found anything. I though alternative health studies had no scholarship programs. I thought wrong!

So I spent a couple of hours on the application and clicked “Send”. For the next day and a half, I was full of anticipation and excitement and butterflies in my stomach. Late on Sunday night, I got an email from Yoga Veda informing me that I had received a 75% scholarship for their two year program!!! I was over the moon with gratitude and I still am! What made me so incredulous was that I was able to make the change in my mind and heart from “Oh, that only happens to other people” to “Why not me?”

If you have no idea what Ayurveda is, check out Cate Stillman’s book Body Thrive, which I’m reading right now and watch her free video mini-course at yogahealer.com. She brings an ancient tradition like Ayurveda into the 21st century and takes away a lot of the “woo-woo” that might lead you to dismiss it with a modern, skeptical wave of the hand.

Anyway, so the takeaway points here are: 1. That we all may have dreams that might seem impossible. But if you begin to stir up the inner desire for that dream and visualize where you want to go/what you want to do, listen to positive messages on the abundance mind and heart, who knows what might happen? Because, why not you, right?

2. My journey to Ayurveda was a process of hearing about it, learning about it, seeing an aspect of it work in my body (the herbs), finding out that there were programs, listening to music and messages about abundance and growing my faith level to believe it could happen to me, and then applying for the scholarship while facing the possibility of rejection. While I was living it, I didn’t see the dots connected, but looking back the path is clear. That’s always the way, right?