THE YUMMY WAY PODCAST

In today's episode we talking about how we find and live from each of our own integrity to true self verses out of obligation or deferring to some perceived authority. It's amazing how quickly we can defer to a so-called authority, when a seeming crisis happens and loose touch with your genuine personal experience. So often, at times like this, we give authority figures the power to tell us how we should feel. It's almost like ‘shit man, I've been going along doing fine, and now I've got this ‘problem' that now I've got to fix.'And if you get obsessive about it, your life gets really small. Life becomes about a problem to be fixed — rather than a life to be lived.If you're loosing your center of peace, and fixating on the so-called problem, it feels icky. You're no longer receiving life as it comes in and flowing with life, you're identifying with the problem or problem fixing. For instance, I've got a heart condition, so now that becomes a new identity. But once we notice that tightening around the problem fixing identity, we can readjust by accepting that this new experience is now part of my new reality. We've got to remember that ultimately we are the greatest authority for our lives — we've got our yummy-stat, showing us if we've compromised our personal power, and giving it to an authority outside ourselves — it feels icky. Sure they can offer valuable information and suggestions. It is our responsibility to bring that information to counsel with our inner being that has our best interest —always!There's no chance the wrong thing is happening. Pay attention to where you are resisting the actuality of your current situation… relax & let go… Accept what is, because that is the gift this present moment is offering you. You can only live in this moment. Taking predictive action, because an authority said if you don't do this, then that will happen, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Does it feel loving and joyful to move in that direction? Or is fear of consequences motivating you?Being aware of your yummy-stat constantly redirecting you to you inner truth, your true authority is crucial. When you do, you can deal with any situation that occurs — even a heart condition, a broken back or cancer. Nothing is ever happening you can't deal with with with acceptance and love. If it's your experience, you have what it takes to deal with it. Period.Every experience is divine. Being who you are is your only job in this life. Accepting yourself as you are lets you live authentically — you are at home with yourself and you can live from love. You're no longer trying to get something from life — you're serving the moment given you right now and you can love all of it. https://theyummyway.com/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09RND74PHhttps://www.facebook.com/danetpalmerauthor

We're always living with uncertainty. We just think we have control. None of us really know what's going to happen next. We only have now and we have the ability to be fully present and actively alive and awake to what is happening right now. Am I resisting and spinning a story of future catastrophe, or am I accepting what's happening now, with Love and Joy?Living with cancer constantly brings this point home. We have a tendency to predict and plan, imagining we can mitigate our personal, fearful possible future scenarios. But they aren't reality. That's imagination. The ego's job is to create problems to solve — to predict catastrophic outcomes. If you've identified yourself as a problem-solver, you're always making up problems to solve. All problems are only problems because we've rejected reality and we've labeled what's happening as a problem. But that's just mental gymnastics. In actuality, you're fine. Right here and now. You're dealing. This is life. There's always another way of looking at your situation. To think, “perhaps, life is really going my way right now — how might that way be?”Lar shares about a situation at work where he initially resisted, but then opened his mind to this perspective that YES! This is just what I wanted! Thank you! Everything goes my way!And I share about some of the mental gymnastics I got up to doing some yummy book launch parties and surrendering to the flow of each present moment.Each of us is writing our own story and each story is ALL our stories… We are humankind and we are glorious!!!Once you get away from the ego running things and you really look at what's important, and what's the reality of what's happening. And you're not trying to make something happen —you're not trying to meet some criteria. — You're just experiencing the all-ness of what you get to experience — It's absolutely YUMMY exactly as it is!If you can just keep in mind, that there is no chance the wrong thing is happening — none of us know what that will be — you can live in uncertainty with equanimity…Life is aways confirming that you're right where you're supposed to be and it's easy to see  if you're open to seeing it.Life is going your way — if you're not experiencing that, you're just getting in they way of experiencing it, with your mental gymnastics.We share the way we work with emotions that arise, say, while watching television, and how we allow emotions to arise, own them, and in taking responsibility, we question our beliefs and decisions… and how we bring choice and transformation into our conversation and lives.Thanks for joining us for another yummy conversation about living The Yummy Way! And recognizing when we're not.. and turning the dial toward accountability so you can live present in the moment you are in. — Being fully in the present moment is death to the ego. Because Love and ego can't occupy the same space.Love & present Joy, is the yummy way! It is our joy to share them with you. We'd love to hear from you!https://theyummyway.com/

In today's podcast episode we're talking about how we're constantly getting derailed from presence in the moment we're in, by jumping into reacting to the stimuli in front of us as if we're actually part of it. We leave our presence in favor of judgement about what should or shouldn't be happening — or what so-and-so shouldn't or should be saying. But it's not even our reality. The moment in front of you is reality. What's happening right here and now. For example, what's actually happening is you are sitting holding your phone and looking at the screen and reading your newsfeed. Perhaps you're doomscrolling what's happening in Ukraine or the political scene or what someone posted on FB.You're noticing you're feeling upset about what your reading. Because you don't like what you're reading. You make judgements about the thing you're reading as if you're a participant in the scenario you're reading about. You're taking sides mentally. Now, you tell someone else about it as if it is a real thing. But the actuality of you're reality is that you're sitting looking at a phone screen and the rest is imagination, based on your conditioned beliefs and sense of self.  Lar talks about a situation he read about on his newsfeed and how he instantly judged the situation and what that said about who persons involved were. But by bringing it to the light of awareness and into conversation, he saw the short-term payoff of self-righteous judgement, and furthermore, he was able to see that his judgment was a reaction based in a set of fearful beliefs about what ‘might' happen if they are right. But with further exploration, we were able to see that imaging what should and shouldn't happen is a fantasy to give us a false sense of control over what we actually have no control over. It's way outside of being present and accounting to your immediate choice of how we want to experience what's happening. When you notice that you're caught up in the scenario, as if it is your reality, that's a prefect opportunity to see where it is you are holding yourself.What's happening is not what's bothering you — What you thinking about it, is what's bothering you. But what's happening is actually always innocent. Life is happening, and what we're experiencing is our reaction to the information coming into our moment and we decide whether we're going to bother ourselves with it or not. By accepting it all, our hearts become available to add love to the collective energy pool.Judgment can seem automatic — especially when we're doomscrolling our newsfeeds, right?But reality is this moment. You're reading information on a screen.  It's just words on a screen, actually. You're having a reaction to what you're reading,  you can notice your attaching your identity to what you think is a ‘right side' of it, and that tells you that you have a belief that there's a right and wrong. You can ask yourself: how much do you want to attach to that stance?  How much peace are you willing to sacrifice to that ‘rightness?' In order to restore yourself to peace, you have to accept all of it. Accepting lets your whole being come into play. And with it, the ability to make a choice that is more aligned with your whole being — your essential being.Experiences happen and as they happen, if we let them move though us — that's experiencing life. Love is a power that needs nothing else. We have this moment before us, and our experience of it. Ask yourself, in each given moment, what is your integrity? Remind yourself:It's not my business to condone or to judge. It's my business to accept reality as it is in my reality. But I can be conscientious about where I'm coming from and what I'm going to do with it. https://theyummyway.com/

In today's episode we're talking the emotional journey we're experiencing living with cancer and about staying in the conversation as emotions shift and change. Low grade depression, grief, moments of elation and the constant acceptance of life as it's showing up at this moment. Lar talks about some specifics in his physical health and his responses: confusion, resistance, surrender and ultimately acceptance. He talks about how the docs immediately offered antidepressants to manage his moods. What we did with this is bring it into our ongoing conversation. It's like once you become aware of something, you realize you're already allowing it, so now you can actively accept what is. We invite everything into conversation. Here we question what the true motives are behind choices we're making on a daily basis. Am I using my cancer to avoid things I think I should be doing — or even things I want to do, but don't seem to be taking any action toward? Or do I actually have depression? By bringing it all into the conversation an ease about it takes over. In accepting that yes, I maybe I am depressed and that has been using up vital energy — that's the way of it right now.The cool thing about facing and owning that depression is part of what's going on —that it shifts the energy — ever so slightly, but continually none the less.The result has been a renewed simplicity in naturally taking small incremental actions we're now feeling aligned with… And that is enough.The energy is now circulating. It might be a completely different pace than what you're use to, but this is the now normal — and this now normal will shift again. Accepting the shifting and changing is key. Everything is about accepting what is —right here and right now. We can't control what cancer's doing. But we can make choices about the attitude by which we approach it.  By being in the present moment and being willingly intimate with what's happening, we notice all the little subtleties than can easily be passed over. Just acknowledging what's happening stops what the ego's trying to do. The ego's job is to take you out of the present moment and create an imaginary problem, that it can get you to fixate on fixing something.  It's not just depression, it's grief about an imagined future that perpetuates the cycle. But acknowledging it, brings us back to presence. Once present, we see this is fine. It is enough. We are living with it. We've just accepted the BOLD invitation from cancer to be extremely present moment focused and now we can laugh about the tendency to futurize…Noticing this ego dance dispels it's power, and brings you back to the present moment. That, we can deal with. We can be with what's happening emotionally, embrace it and all answers to come. And sometimes, there are no answers. And you're always embracing the unknown. Part of life's dance we've been experiencing simultaneously has been my experience being an author and bringing a new book into the world. There's a lot more unknown than known for me. Bringing myself present when I notice myself getting caught up in ‘what I need to to' and away from the excitement of the journey, has been a big part our conversation as well. Bringing it into our conversation brings me back to the knowledge that only the right thing is going to happen. Because joy is my guide. Everything goes my way. If it doesn't feel yummy, I'm out of alignment with my true self — the yummy loving being that is ME! By breathing, presencing and bringing myself back to myself, and inviting the circumstances that lend themselves to being out of alignment, into our conversation, it brings everything back to the present and we laugh about the crazy shit the mind gets up to.Just as it is with cancer in our lives! https://theyummyway.com

Lyn Gregory — my experience of reading the book  —the comprehensive and cohesive elegant way you strung together the moments of your life created something that is really just such an exquisite memoir …  You toss off nuggets that are so profound that happen, and while I'm reeling from the truth of that moment and the truth of what you've realized, and you're already onto the next sentence — and I'm like, I've got to stop and really absorb this. So, even though this was such a compelling and propulsive read, I had to slow down, so I felt like could really, totally understand all the levels of which this was impacting me.There are things you share, where I felt like, like with meditation, where you share the internal surrender that is necessary in meditation, to find the peace we seek. One of the characters you create so vividly on the page is Betty. You can feel the love in every sentence of that relationship where you take her wisdom and integrate it into your life. About living every moment fully. You distill things to their essence. Moira Novak — The action happens immediately - it's like a James Bond movie. There's so many moment that are impactful. I had to slow down so purposefully. I teach mindfulness, and started putting down the ways you show us the moment to moment practice of mindfulness.  And it doesn't feel like being pushed and pulled into a way of thinking but this was a happening. The intellectual understanding and embodiment of how you practice it and showing it in the simplicity. You don't make a doing of the surrendering, but there is a letting go process. You're very vulnerable about saying this is a lot of work, but it's not the kind of work you can do in a rush. It's an every day,  moment by moment awareness of what you were experiencing, non-judgmentally. Willing to be kind to yourself.  If anything, I'd say this is a lesson in self-compassion. The work is inside. There was a passage that struck me so much that I kept rereading it that it impacted me so much, I wrote it down. You said, “About attending first to the love and joy of my own being so that the overflow is available for others.” We only have to give to others, what is overflowing in us. We see that time and time again throughout the book. I learned so much about how give myself self-compassion without feeling week. I loved how you baptized yourself in the shower — the willingness to accept that grace from the Divine. Brian Harris — I was able to live the transformation through your story — it's like the owners manual for changing your perception and and life. It's like a step -by-step guide through example. It is all so inspiring for anyone trying to change — this is going to be that catalyst for for a lot of people. You made a lot of decisions at critical moments in your life that, you were able to tune into your inner guidance system to make these decisions that accelerated your spiritual growth and evolution, that we're routing for you every step of the way. People that read this will be able to relate to, if not the horrific experiences specifically, but the lessons they can gain through reading your process, without going through all themselves.Patricia York — You lay down your life and accept a new one. You show by your example, how transformation happens. The imagery is so beautiful, the metaphor and symbolism you use, is what makes the reader stop and show down and fall in love with this moment with the author. What I say was that surrender isn't just giving in, it is saying ‘I don't know how to do this.' I makes the reader want what you have. I love the smell imagery, and how that ties to how you relate it with Betty. There's not a lot of exposition, it's just beautiful, simple statements that make you stop and think about.I loved your dedication in your book. You claim being the amazing woman she always knew you were.

Keri Maughan — the overarching theme of redemption, underpinnings of reconciliation and redemption with the other characters; mother, father, children. Each character has their own redemption story. The tapestry of life  is being rewoven. You systematically show us how to recognized truth. The truth within ourself — how you feel inside speaks to you about your truth.More than a one-time read —It's a formula for personal integrity. “Pure Love leans us toward integrity.” Show up for yourself, then you can show up for others. Speaks to the raw ugliness of life all of living life in its depth and surrender coming into hope and reconciliation with the Divine. There is a formula to come to yourself and be whole again. The thematic is one of love and acceptance. Of redemption and reconciliation and transformation for every character. The letter to the Divine, the honesty and surrender and willingness to be made new. Recognition of Divine Love and letting love in. The relationship with your children — accepting their anger. Debunking the lies of childhood and self deception, accept and forgive and heal.Cynthia Holman-Schmidt — the Raw honesty throughout. The miracle of forgiveness and healing with Dad. The bond through A Course in Miracles. The truth is the truth and come from many sources. The commitment to the morning date with God. The yummy-stat guide, yummy is feeling aligned. The equitable transformation of both parties in relationships. Accepting that everyone is just doing the best they can.Emma Dugal — They heroine's journey — transformation and alchemy — it's the journey from shame to love. I makes one feel like if she can do it, so can I. The relationship with Betty, the breaking down false beliefs and allowing understanding and love. Doesn't mean you rollover, but to stand up and have your voice when its necessary. And claim your power.The crux of it is the reconciliation with God. Healing the shame — You've  woven this tapestry of this story of your perception  Shar Pittman — you're my Betty and following your path has led me to redemption and permission to be myself and love it. Reconcile what we do when our child is harmedThe book is like a guide. How you see each person as a savior. Love is the answer. This is a book for the recovery community. You show us how ‘if I'm not the problem, there is no solution.' You show how your perception is everything. Take ownership, and use the tools to change perception. Aligning with love — And choosing to see things through love.Also the them of “Everything goes my way.” No matter what's happening — it's trust in Life.This book will be a study of  transformation for others. It is an invitation for others to find their own connection to the Divine — it's a non-threatening permission to ask for help and accept it. 

Today we thought we'd talk about miracles. We've heard that word thrown around a lot since we started living with cancer in our lives. Especially since we decided to discontinue treatment and let cancer take its natural course. There is this idea that we should fighting cancer to the bitter end, waiting for the BIG ultimate miracle — being cancer free. Like life without cancer is somehow superior or valid or more favorable, than life with cancer.  It has been interesting to note people's reactions to mortality when it's staring them in the face, when it's someone you know. Like people telling us, ‘Keep fighting, don't give up. Why are you stopping treatment? You have to keep fighting. You have to fight and you have to pray for the miracle.'We found it interesting the use of the word miracle… Like a miracle is only a miracle when it gives you the unbelievable. When it results in something no one foresaw — where all you could do was hope and pray that this result would happen. But you have to keep praying for it because… you never know… it could happen. And you have to battle reality to get there. This whole idea of cancer as a battle to be fought cheats you of seeing it — the way we've chosen to — as a dance with life when cancer is part of it. If what life has brought us is cancer, and we resist — make a battle out of it, thinking we can force the outcome we want — we cheat ourselves from accepting, wholeheartedly, the actuality of living with cancer — embracing each step we're guided toward, be it operations, immunotherapy, chemo — and no more treatment, and being fully present and together, sharing each moment exactly as it is.This is what we have chosen to do, from the first moment of recognizing something was amiss, to the current acceptance that treatment is no longer viable for us — we've chosen to accept and love what we have, being present to the joys, frustrations, pains, awarenesses and the love we share, appreciating each moment. That is the MIRACLE we've been living in!!! Why would we waste one moment of the life we have right now, hoping for something in the future that's going to change everything, when we're experiencing miracles on a daily basis, of acceptance and love and joy and peace — and living LIFE!That's what living the yummy way is. The miracle of looking at what life gives us, like grief and change and forgiving… and looking at it with love. The miracle is being able to look at it, put aside resentments and false personas we been carrying with us all this time, and realize ‘oh, I don't have to carry that any more.' Do I want to keep parceling out forgiveness, holding onto a self-righteous grudge, when I could let it go right now — and be at peace?It just so happens that cancer is the catalyst that brought home to us, to present choice: ‘if I'm going to do this, it might as well be right now!' This moment could be your catalyst moment, a moment of urgency to ask yourself, why am I carrying around self-righteous grudges when I could be at peace. Be honest. It might seem to feel good for a quick cheap hit of superiority. But it doesn't really feel yummy. Or peaceful. The miracle is choosing to shift from resentment to love. From personas to authenticity. The miracle is seeing that everything that happens, there is a way to look at it with love and appreciation. The miracle is being seeing that it couldn't go any other way than the way its it.And loving reality just as it is.Thank you for joining us for another yummy conversation about living the yummy way — joyously loving each moment in reality as it is, right here, right now.https://theyummyway.com/

The crux of the yummy way philosophy is accepting life just exactly as it is, however it is showing up in each present moment — no matter what arises.  And loving every aspect of it — because that's what you've got! It is really recognizing that it is the only way to live in equanimity with life — in the pulse of life itself. Acceptance is only way to live in peace and joy. Regardless of any particular circumstance. Even cancer. What is, is what is. Resistance to accepting it is ultimately (as the Borg would say) futile. This brings us to the topic we've chosen to discuss in the upcoming series of podcasts, this one being the first. Living with cancer — the yummy way. Lar was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer nearly three years ago. We've been living with cancer each moment and it has been accepting it fully as part of the dance with life we've been invited into, allows us to live each moment with grace. Grace that each is the whole of life. To see each moment as a miracle of life itself — grateful to be living it. So, whatever feelings arise, we feel them as part of the dance, such as life is, when cancer comes to visit, and stays. Part of the dance is not inching when resistance show up —  the temptation to be afraid, to hope, to want it somehow be something different than it is… These become the springboard for deep conversation, processing, and ultimately surrender of the resistance, so we can see what really is — Life doing what it's doing, right here and now. There is such sweetness in surrendering resistance to what is. A serene peace that we've found incredible by simply showing up with our truth with each other, moment by moment, day by day, week after week — living life fully through treatments, while the body breaks down, recovers a bit, and then adjusts to each new reality as cancer does what it does. In today's podcast, Lar shares his experience since the recent prognosis that treatment is no longer viable. The treatment had become more toxic to the body, than the cancer.  That is the reality. Accepting reality as it actually is right now and making the decision to discontinue treatment,  and to let cancer take its natural coarse. For us, finding that place of acceptance brings grace to live each moment, without the wishful thinking that robs us of presence.  The whole ‘battle with cancer' storyline is such a crock. It's perpetuated by modern medicine and the fear of death,  keeps us from presence. None of us are getting out of this gig alive. The body's natural course leads to death.  Being authentically honest with ourselves in each moment is crucial to acceptance. Become aware of the patterns of our programming and notice how we feel when we aren't being true to ourselves, our love, and the dignity of living authentically… to speak our truth, because that is what's honest. Once we do, we can allow others the dignity to their response and not attach some fabricated personal responsibility to what they do with the information.What are you living with that you are denying in part, hoping for something different than what is?  Can you pause a moment and accept what is, because it is what is? What if this were you last day on earth? How would it change the choices you make with your time and the people in your life? It could be…Would you be totally, honestly authentically you? Why not make today that day?We're going to continue to share our conversations with each other and our experience with living with cancer in the upcoming episodes — so stay tuned. Have a yummy day!https://theyummyway.com/

In today's podcast we're discussing the importance of cultivating self-reflection to increase both self-awareness and dismantle old patterns of reaction that no longer serve us. You're going along feeling perfectly fine, peaceful, being in the moment, seemingly flowing with life, then BAM! All of the sudden something happen and you feel like you've go to take a stand, you got to make your point, defend yourself or your position — be right…Is it really because what you're taking a stand on or defending is really so important to you or is it because you have run up against unconscious conditioned beliefs you don't want to look at? Self-awareness comes from noticing — and then reflecting on what's really going on when we get activated by something that happens or someone says something and we feel ourselves getting defensive or wanting to distract or avoid the actuality of the moment before us. These moments when we ‘get activated' are messages from our true being, inviting us to pause and reflect, and to ask ourselves questions like: Why do I feel so defensive right now? What belief is being threatened? Where did it come from? Is it happening now? Or is it an old stand based in a moment (or several) in the past that I have not let go, and now this little thing or conversation feels bigger than it really is?Self-reflection is simply being willing to pause and realize, “This is an old script. Let me look at it in context of this present moment in my life. The script is telling me I have to defend or whatever,… then seeing one thing and asking yourself is that really true? Then you peel back that layer and ask is that really true?”If we don't take a moment and ask ourselves, “what's really going on here?” We let fear, defensiveness and justification not only drive this moment's conversation, but all future conversations when this same topic arises … Just like it has for so many years in past. And we use the same excuse for behaving in a way that feels icky and doesn't ever really satisfy because we are not actually dealing with reality, but a story we've designed to protect ourselves from the pain we felt in the past, which we haven't let go and let the energy move through.  Once you see that the past is gone,  you realize it can't influence you unless you don't let it go. But you can always let it go. Once you see it, releasing it is ultimately inevitable if you want to be free to be true to yourself and the moment you're in.Reason will tell you, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't serve you anymore. You take a breath, relax, and release the energy stored as stress inside. And your energy starts flowing and it is available for you to create an new relationship with this same topic, with out judgement getting in the way. Our conversation takes us into how we get activated by stuff that we see happening around us — the political scene, the pandemic, climate change, our neighbor, a friend, and recognizing that we're actually powerless over so much what's happening. But we get activated and all self-righteous about it. But the thing is, it just perception. I'm activated based on my perception of what's right and wrong and what that says about us. But we're just defending against the feeling of powerlessness. Shit's just happening. It's a constant. It's not a problem for me unless I make it my problem. The question is, “do I want to be at peace with life or not?” By accepting what's happening from a place of love, of unity, of peace, we have access to our own point of power within ourselves.  Then we can be free to be authentically ourselves. This is why self reflection is so crucial to living a yummy life. Getting activated is actually a gift of self reflection, resulting in more self-awareness.

In today's podcast we're talking about vulnerability. How often do we enter encounters with others from a preconceived idea of what we think the situation requires of us and then play the role we believe we need to play to get approval or acceptance? Do you filter your authentic self based on the mental constructs you've built from past perceptions which make you feel less vulnerable? Do you hide your most authentic self?Why?Perhaps you've been vulnerably honestly yourself in the past and it wasn't received with love or kindness. Or maybe you've even felt it was used against you. So you create a belief that if you are authentically and honestly yourself, it's going to come back to bite you in the ass. You tell yourself you can't be totally honest and open because you're going to get in trouble if you do. And this justifies playing a role based on past perception, rather than just showing up and being you. The thing is, what you've done is given something or someone outside yourself to determine your okayness. If we're waiting for the outside world to show us enough acceptance and non-judgement to tell us it's safe to be ourselves, then we are at the mercy of circumstances and people.  Honesty is missing in this equation. So everyone is role-playing and nothing truly authentic and present is happening because it's all being run through ‘fear of vulnerability' filters. Living vulnerably as your authentic self requires self-awareness and self trust. Know thy self. This is the first step in shifting from externally based operating, to showing up in as you truly are, openly expressing yourself honestly and trusting yourself to handle what happens. The key is paying attention the way the energies feel inside. Becoming really intimate with them is the gift of waking up to our true authentic self. These energies are always telling us if we're coming from love or fear, by the way we feel. Yummy or icky?What we call our yummy-stat. When we're in fear of being ourself, the energy tightens up. And the experience life is offering can't flow through us. It feels icky. It's telling us we're about to be less than wholly true to ourselves. What it really gets down to is letting go of the outcome of what will happen when we're honestly us... If we're looking outside ourselves for validation then we're never going to know our own worth. If we want to know ourselves in all the situations in our lives, we have to take the risk to be authentically ourselves, tell our truth as fast as we're aware what it is, and let the chips fall where they may. When we  love ourselves, we know that whatever happens, we can trust ourselves to deal with it. Our worth isn't attached to the outcome, but center within our being. We've always already won because we're not waiting on something outside ourselves to prove our worthiness.  This is why our yummy-stat is so powerful. As soon as we feel that tightening, icky feeling inside, we know that we are stepping away from authenticity, and trying to control our vulnerability. We can pause, soften around the perception construct in our belief system, and recenter back in our true self. It is only from this place of authentically being ourselves that we get to experience the fullness of the the experience life is offering us in any given moment.Life is vulnerable. We never know what's going to happen. The story that we can control that is a lie. It's nothing to be afraid of. The more you tell the truth and be true to yourself, the more it becomes the only way that feels right. Only by being you can you know the innate joy that lets all outcomes be acceptable. You can't help but love yourself, when you're showing up for you. This is the upside of living from vulnerability as your authentic self.  

 Life happens. It is the ever flowing energy of creation appearing as everything happening. It's not personal. But we make it personal by bothering ourselves — by deciding we don't like what's happening.If we like what's happening we flow with it. The experience comes in and the energy flows through us and we experience the event, emotions and thoughts that come and go moment to moment. This is the purpose of our lives — to experience our lives.But what about when we don't like what's happening. If what's happening doesn't meet the criteria we've placed on it to make us feel okay inside, we resist. When we resist, we trap the resistant energy inside and it creates inner pain points we try desperately to avoid activating. Yes?If you're taking what's happening personally, you know you've attached your okayness to the externals going a certain way for you to feel okay.We have these moments of enlightenment where we recognize the truth within us, and we feel like everything has now changed. Then at some point, a similar thing happens and we find ourselves reacting in the old way we did before we had our moment of enlightenment and we think, “Shit! Why am I reacting this way? I thought I was done with this. I already got this. I know the truth.”What can we do?What we have a tendency to do is to judge ourselves for ‘doing that thing again.'But we're not the reaction. We're the one noticing that we're reacting. Behind the reaction, is our self — The aware being we are which is untouched by reactions, beliefs and judgements.That moment we notice, we also know we aren't the reaction, but the one noticing it. So we can decide not to bother ourself with it.We can relax and rest in our aware being —behind the story we've been telling ourselves and let the life force move through.If we pause in that moment when we realize, “shit I'm doing it again— that thing I do when I don't like what's happening,” and soften behind it instead of attaching our identity to the reaction — we can relax and simply notice — and in the noticing, rather than defining ourselves as the reactor, which traps the resistant energy inside, we can rest in the awareness behind it and let it flow through… and flow with life rather than resist.What's happening isn't really bothersome unless you've decided that you need it to go a different way for you to feel okay inside. That guy going 50 miles an hour in the fast lane isn't your problem. Your problem is that you're bothering yourself with it.The key to working with these moments of enlightenment, is when you see your tendency to react in the old script,  ask yourself, “Do I really want to bother myself with what's happening or let it go.The more we do this the freer we are to simply experience life — to fully experience all the currents of  the ever-changing life showing up perfectly as it is, in this moment, especially for us to experience and appreciate. We don't ‘need' to do anything with it. Just not bother ourselves with wishing it were different. It's not. This is it! This moment is yours!Simply let it come in, feel its immensity, and let it flow on…Have a yummy day!

In today's episode we're talking about what our criteria for success is, and how that effects our present moment happiness. When we compare how we see our lives to how we see the lives of the icons we revere, we are bound to come up short. The truth is, we only have our perception of what their life is like. And perception is a fickle thing, depending on our own personal filters and mental programming. This is why it is so important to question what we believe and why we set the standards we do for ourselves. What is your definition of success? What standards have you subscribe to, whether consciously or unconsciously? Where did you get that idea? Who are the icons you want or try to emulate?  How much do you compare yourself to those icons you revere? Do you feel less compared to them? What do you believe reaching that iconic state will give you? Do you have your happiness tied to achieving that future state or end product? Are you trading your present joy for some promised outcome by the so-called experts in your preferred field?What is it about being rich or famous or put on a pedestal in our field, that makes us want to ‘be like that'?We can only be ourselves anyway. Wishing it were different only causes internal stress. We always know if we're being true to ourselves, or trying to be something we're not in the hopes that down the road we'll like ourselves better, by the way we feel. Right? Here at THE YUMMY WAY we call that our ‘yummy-stat'. —That internal barometer that guides us toward our true north in our individual lives.Knowing and embracing your own way of doing things — delighting in what brings you joy is crucial to enjoying the journey, moment to moment. It's what keeps life exciting and personally rewarding as we go along. Sure make goals. But don't have your idea of success tied to outcomes. Don't let what someone else's life looks like on the outside determine how you measure your success or happiness. It never works. Externals never make us happy. Reaching a goal feels good. By it isn't the acquisition of the goal that gives us happiness. Contrary to what we've been told. Happiness is our natural state. When we're striving we're in stress. When we stop striving, the relief to our system is palpable. It feels good. We feel happy. That is until our ego or success-progamming tells us that's not enough and sends us on another quest for more. Yes?This moment is truly all we have to  work with. Regardless of what we believe. Have you ever lived in any moment but the one you are in? No.It's all in how we're looking at life.Is ife happening to you? Or is life happening for you? When you look at life as a gift — like whatever comes your way is ‘for' you to be happy, it changes the way you make choices. Making the moment to moment choice to love and accept ‘what is' wholeheartedly and choose to find the joy in it, is my definition of a successful life.Isn't the reason you want that money, that fame, that perfect relationship or whatever your definition of success is — isn't the reason you want that because you believe it will make you happy? If ultimately happiness is the goal, why not choose to be happy with the moment you are in —accepting all the current circumstance and events coming together to make this particular moment happen for you — then moment to moment, let that joy guide the choices you make for what's next?Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

What keeps us from staying present in the actuality of what's happening, moment to moment? In today's episode we're talking about shame and recognizing it for what it is — a program in our mind which discounts the actuality of our current experience, because of beliefs we've adopted that tell us what make us worthy of love, acceptance and the right to be who we are right here and now. Shame is always sponsored by a ‘should.' Have you noticed? This should have gone like that our I should have acted differently, etc.  ‘Should' is never in present tense. It is based in belief in cultural norms. Shame comes when we belief that something is wrong with us. We've bought into what those around us have told us is the right way to be and we feel like we're not making the grade. It comes down to how we've been indoctrinated, and much we've internalized that indoctrination. Something happens, and rather than accept it and keep moving, we pull our energy inward and withdraw from honest participation in the moment because of a feeling of unworthiness. We personalize it as something that says something about our value and lovability.So shame is something we're all familiar with, right? It seems immediate, yes? But it is really  secondary to the beliefs we have about who we are supposed to be versus who we really are — moment to moment. Shame is the feeling that tells us that we are out of sync with the truth of who we are as love. It is based in fear. The fear is that if we're vulnerable and honest with another, they can use that truth as a weapon against us.  But it is only harmful if we still believe that the truth can hurt us. Shame requires secrecy to keep it in tact.When we feel shame arise, we can see it as an invitation to examine the beliefs we are harboring, reevaluate, and rather than withdraw into ourselves, we can express the feelings, the thoughts, the beliefs that are choking us up, moving the energy along so we can see that what's happening is not actually personal. Shame makes us afraid to be ourselves. But the crazy thing is that if we are out loud about what we're experiencing, it brings us present and we actually create a new base from which we operate — one of authentic vulnerability and personal power. The secret to dissolving shame is being willing to be vulnerable and honest when we want to withdraw and hold back from engaging. What we find is that as soon as share what what we want to keep secret — what we're feeling and thinking —with another human being we realize it is us that has been giving shame all the power to cut us off from the human race.  You can't be authentically yourself and hold onto your shame for long. Because when you're being authentic, you're just being yourself in that moment. For example, I might be thinking/ feeling, “shit I'm ashamed I didn't know this sooner.” But the second I say, “I'm feeling ashamed I didn't know this sooner,” the feeling changes. As soon as I disclose what I'm thinking and feeling— as soon as I take that hot feeling inside and breath it through with my words, with my connection with another human being, love rises up with that sharing and I instantly have an new experience of myself — one that is real and powerful with self-ownership.  Not only does it make me feel differently about myself, it offers the other person a chance to experience empathy and connection on a new level. Being honest about our shame when it arises takes the charge out of it. Authenticity is the great connector. Sharing the truth of our own experience is the only chance we have of being truly present and connected with someone else. When I'm owning my feelings, my perspective, I am simultaneously allowing you yours. This connects us in our humanness and love has a chance to take the lead.

Okay first off —get this out of the way … We experimented with using video this time around and uhm, the video didn't take. Ultimately we decided that what feels yummy, for now, is to stay with our regular format for the podcast. In today's podcast episode we're talking about accepting life exactly as it is and what part we play in making legit choices while still accepting the inevitability that what life is bringing us as part of our particular life path. When faced with a ‘big scare' like COVID or cancer, the tendency is to lead with fear — to compulsively look for data that will appease the feeling of powerlessness we have.  We think the ‘right' data will mitigate the fears we have.  Our mind's can go crazy looking for data -who's right and who's wrong. But what's underneath all of that is the fear of death… The fear of lack of control…The truth is, we have no control. And we all have a terminal condition. It's called life. We're all going to die. Ultimately that's the biggie. We're afraid of dying. Yet it is, like the saying goes, inevitable.  We're all going to die. We all have a terminal condition. When death comes, it comes. It could be a freak accident or an undiagnosed illness or a heart attack … And whether we want to believe it or not, there is nothing we can do to prevent its coming. Will we be ready? Not if we're constantly leaving the present moment in fear of  fantasies of future disasters we're trying to stave off. Our minds spin stories of future what-if's. And we leave the presence of our own being in the current moment we're in — the only moment that is actually accurate. Now is the only moment that can give us honest data — our own experience.This dynamic is the same conversation with life we're always presented with.  I'm not saying we don't gather information so that we can come to a place where we have clarity of mind. Maybe follow controls — but not out of fear, but from a place of self-love. What feels like the most loving things for us to do right now.The key for me is where am doing life from. Am I reacting to circumstances or am I flowing with life — accepting what is, because that's what is, and making present moment decisions that feel ‘right' and ‘true' for me? If I'm reacting in fear, it controls my choice. But by accepting the actuality of what's happening, I can make choices that feel most loving for me. And the wild thing is, is that that's always the best way I can serve my fellow beings. There's so much we don't know. But what we do know, is the knowing of our own experience. And it's never going to lie to us. We can get all the data we need for right now — by presencing ourselves in the moment we're in. It just takes a moment — take a breath  and presence yourself in the moment. Once you have your own presence you can choose what feels most loving — what feels yummy — right now. We make choices that feel more life-giving in the moment. Can we let go of everything we think is wrong or we fear in right now, and come back home to ourselves — back to the yummy space inside? Yes! 

In today's episode we're talking about giving and receiving.  It's really a matter of where we're coming from, both in the giving and receiving. Are we coming from love, joy and the natural extension of sharing that comes from that? Or are we giving and receiving with the expectation of  getting  something in return?Like if you give someone something, you expect them to say thank you, yes? Why?So often, when we give, we have an agenda attached. We give and expect a response that validates us. Do we give out of guilt, expectation or obligation? Do we expect certain gifts or behaviors from others as proof  of their love of care?There are so many social norms that can get in the way giving for the simple joy of the experience of giving. It's Christmas, Valentines Day, birthdays, etc., so there's like this built-in expectation that if we love someone, we'll give them something special to prove we thought of them.  Right? Most of us have had moments when we recognized an inner resistance to these social norms. Generosity is a natural part of our human condition — of our divine condition — of the natural out-flowing of love, which seeks to share and join with another. Expectation robs us of the opportunity for our natural generosity to come up for us. We might act, but our heart isn't fully engaged. Can you relate? It feels yummy to give, yes? That's the gift we're already receiving. Whether it's a behavior, a gesture or a physical gift, it is always our heart we are giving. Are we giving it away?  What we want to emphasize is the dynamic energy of giving and receiving with love.  When you change your behavior because somebody expects it of you, you are robbing  yourself, and them, of the real you. When someone or social norms seem to ask a particular behavior from you, you can step back, step away from the context, and find what's true and authentic within. And accept that request from a genuine place of gratitude and love. And then respond in joy and generosity. Let's talk a minute about receiving. Every gift, be it monetary, a smile, a gesture or behavior, is really an extension of love. It might come through looking like a call for love — like when someone is expecting something from you. But it is alway love looking to meet itself within the exchange. True receiving is never about the gift someone is giving or doing thing they want you to do — it is receiving the person with love. Receiving is never about the thing or the request. It is about receiving the person's extension of themselves. If someone is offering anything to you, eye to eye contact, a gift, a smile, a hand, an opinion — anything that someone is extending, to just receive it as a gift of unity together is the greatest joy. The thing doesn't matter. The person the does. That is what receiving is for. That is what giving is for. There are always two things going on when we are having an exchange with someone. There is the response of our inner being that recognizes the chance for unity. Then there's this ego or programmed response that jumps in and judges the exchange.  And if we listen to that voice in our head we miss the authentic experience being gifted us in that moment. Finally, we all just want to be seen and accepted and loved just for who we are! This is the purpose all giving and receiving. If we let social norm expectations or our judgement of what we think someone else's motivation for giving is, we miss the true exchange possible. It feels yummy just to receive everything from everyone and every single way we are being gifted life in countless ways. Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” ~Winston ChurchillToday we're talking about failure.  When the topic of failure came into my email. I immediately noticed a resistance to the label, “failure.” Hummm…. There's something here for me to look at…Failure. It's just a freakin' word! A label I've given meaning and attached value to. Failure is such a loaded word — I like ‘course correction' better. Take a check for yourself. Notice if you, too,  are uncomfortable with the word ‘failure.' Why is that? Because somewhere in our past, we learned to believe it said something about who we and how well we're living our lives, right?  Can you relate?When I notice a glitch like this to a particular word or something, I like to stop and walk it back to the simplicity of facts, rather than the emotional reaction to them. For me, stopping and copping to failing at something is a crucial step toward opening my mind to seeing the situation in a whole new way. Anytime I resist, I know it is an invitation from life to drop an old construct I have, and open my mind and heart to seeing it a different way — one that speaks to a fun adventure inside me. For this reason I knew ‘failure' was the perfect topic for this week's discussion. When I look at the actuality of my life, I see how failure has play a role in every life-changing event in my life. Now failure has a different texture to it. And I see that I've already found a new way of looking at failure as a springboard that has encouraged me to dust myself off and try something new. I had one of those amazing  ‘aha' moments this week … and I'm still totally in awe of the shift in me!I was listening to a podcast and it's like all the sudden I realized I've been wrong about how I have been seeing this authoring and marketing thing!It started with the thought, “I'm failing at this authoring thing.” The next thought was, “is it true?” Then, “what is it about this situation that I'm failing at?” Marketing! Holy shit! I've been wrong about how I'm seeing this! What's so crazy is that I've been avoiding it like the plague — and now see it it was an adventure in disguise the whole time. I just was looking through the eyes of an old, unexamined belief. Now I see what I thought as failure as way of opening myself to new options, to learning and fresh experiences. There's a whole different way of looking at it, a ton of things to learn and try — a whole new adventure to go on! One I'd don't want to miss! Anytime you say yes to anything worth doing, there will be risk and stakes. Risk plus stakes means failure is on the table. It is a relentless part of anything worth doing. Has to be. Saying yes to a something great that holds the potential of awesomeness also means saying yes to the possibility of it failing. And actually, to tons of little failures necessary for course correction. I'm looking at failing now, as ‘here's this one thing' that isn't going to work.  So, I'm checking that method off and trying something new. This is what I'm doing with marketing my books. I can't wait to see what happens next.The only way we can succeed in any endeavor is to accept failure as not only an option, but a necessary part of the equation.  So failure is just another name for the way we course correct. Where in your life are you being invited to course correct — to open your mind to seeing another way of doing something?  Or maybe even, to scrap what you're doing, so something else has room to come to you?Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

Today we're talking about what we value and why. What do we believe makes us happy? Do we have it attached to things like money and status?Money plays a huge role in the collective belief that more will make us happy. We spend so much of our lives living to an internal script dictating what we need to acquire or accomplish, the status or wealth that we believe that once acquired will bring us happiness. Right?What role does money play in your idea of happiness?In today's episode  we share about when we got together and the very different perspectives we had about what happiness is.Lar had all the trappings, the material things, the finer things in life. I had love and an inner joy and none of the trappings. This coming together was a catalyst for a complete re-evaluation of old ideas and beliefs about what abundance and happiness are, and a surrender of the old storyline in favor of living present to the moment to moment life we've been given. Lar shares about his transformation from the material world to the world of Love. Funny thing too, something we saw up close and personal — Everything necessary remains.  What serves the purpose of love and joy comes to us in ways we could never have imagined through the old storyline of striving and acquisition. From the base of love and acceptance of life just as it is, we realize that we always have what we need. Each present moment is happiness-ready.  If only we don't resist because we believe something else would be better, we can realize how abundant life already is.The thing is, as long as we can transfer our happiness onto trappings, we often won't take the journey inward toward true abundance.Life is so generous. It is always bringing us opportunities to pause the trajectory we're on that isn't bringing us happiness, and invites us surrender and live a true and authentic life.What is your idea of abundance? When we have abundance twisted up in material values outside ourselves, nothing is ever enough. We believe that striving is crucial to get to happiness someplace down the road. But what if that's just a misperception? Can you drop the story you've been telling yourself and check within for what is essentially you? When every ‘thing' is stripped away, what remains is our being.  It is our ability to choose how we see, how we feel, and what we bring to the world that is authentically us. The purpose of life is to be happy... Isn't that why we do whatever it is we do? Even when we're in conflict, don't we believe that having the upper hand will make us happy?  Ultimately, everything we choose to do, we believe will somehow bring us happiness. Why not start with being happy, now? Let go of your story for just now, and find out for yourself.The yummy way is saying yes to what is, right here and now.  Regardless of what your storyline is, if you are resisting what is… thinking you need more of something to be happy, it's a signal from life to pause and let go of the storyline... and see that you are enough. In an instant you can feel that release of letting go of the story you've been telling and just be… and see that life is abundant and you can be at ease with whatever is going on. Take a breath.Let go.Feel the aliveness of being — the quiet joy that happiness resides within you now.Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

Lar and I recorded this on Father's Day. Lar's in New Mexico and I'm in Utah. So saying Happy Father's Day, Lar, looks like me filling him in on the latest events happening with our kids and grandkids and the appreciation we have all been expressing with each other about what a powerful champion he has been (and continues to be) in their lives. It feels good to join in a conversation that celebrates our union and bring this podcast cast to life week after week.I was telling him that being in Salt Lake, visiting my old stomping grounds has felt profound for me. What made it so poignant this time around, is that I just finished writing a memoir shipped it to the publisher, Mandala Tree Publishing,  a couple of days ago. So I'm kind of in a reflective and appreciative mood for the part this setting and the events in my life that took place in this city that ultimately transformed me and my life. I'm looking through the eyes of now, where forgiveness and love have transformed the way I revisit my old neighborhood. JOY is my predominate feeling now. Course, that's the yummy way. And it all started for me here, in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Anyway,  it got me thinking about how often we revisit old haunts and don't see through the fresh eyes of today, this moment. How present to now are you when you revisit things from your past?Lar shares how hanging onto an old perspective of a place where he was teaching made it near impossible to be open to what was actually in front of him. We're so sure we understand the past and what to bring into the future, that it interferes with seeing the actuality of what's happening now.  When we cling to our perspectives, we overlay our past on the present don't see what real. We cheat ourselves of being present and having the presence of mind to deal with what's happening. We have to be willing to let go of our old storyline so a new world can unfold. With things beginning to open up and things are seemingly getting “back to normal” we've become accustomed to living with the pandemic in our lives. We have a deeper sense of our inner-connectedness. Many of us said during the long weeks of quarantine that we don't want to go back to the way things were with such tremendous divisiveness. But are we taking the steps necessary to make sure that this experience with the global pandemic transforms our world with the lessons we learned and the actions we take? Here are a few questions to keep in mind as you move into your old neighborhood, so to speak, and into your new world:What will I do differently for things to be ‘better' then before?How can I find creative solutions that unify rather than divide?How can I not overthink, but rather collaborate to bring new life to old environments.What must I take more seriously?What would be better served to take more ‘lightly'?What must I let go of?What can I now embrace that I resisted before? No matter what shows up on a daily basis, be it a celebration of life — like with Vivi's birthday party,  or the moments when heartbreak strikes — like someone you love getting seriously hurt and you're completely powerless… Can we be present and welcome it all? Can we allow and champion each of our feelings, so we can be available to act with presence and not just some canned response we think we're suppose to be like? Have a yummy week and a yummy day!

 “Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better!" - Ingrid BergmanLar and I are just arriving at the ‘prime' of our lives as far as I'm concerned. It's funny how as we age that number of what prime changes. Especially the more we live in the present moment. I can honestly say, “This moment is the prime of my life!” Not only because I know that this moment is the only moment there is — so why cheat myself by thinking the past was the prime, when this moment is the only one I have and have ever had. So it's the prime of my life because I want it that way!This time of our lives is the only time we have to live in. So why look back? Why tell yourself you're too old for this or that? If you hear yourself saying something like this, check inside to see what your beliefs around age are. Are those beliefs inhibiting your ability to be present in the situation with all the circumstances that go with this present prime? Why do we try to hang on to this illusion of youth? Why not settle in to the ‘you' you actually are right now? Accept it all as it is. That feels yummy!Lar tells us about his relationship with his beautiful head of hair, and the loss of it, both with age and radiation treatments. He finally bit the bullet and shaved his head. He tells me he looks in the mirror and sees this old guy.  And that's what started us talking about what age really is. What we see, or the changes our body's go through as a natural course of living a life, doesn't really reflect how we feel inside. We're always the same age inside. The same me that looks in the mirror now is the same one that was looking in the mirror when I was 21 or even three years old discovering the mirror for the first time. Isn't that the truth for all of us? We, as a society, worship youth.  And too often as we grow older we try desperately to hold on to that youthful appearance. We need to ask ourselves why? We think we want to do something because we think it means something — but it's never about what we think it means.  What is it we're trying to get? If it's not for the joy of it, reconsider. Check your motives. How we look changes as we age, and we never really see reality. What we see doesn't really reflect who we actually are, right? The only thing we really know is our own experience. If you are love, you are beautiful.  When you're happy, beauty shines from within. As we age time mutates, yes? We find ourselves saying, was that last year, or ten years ago or yesterday? But there's also this sweet slowing down and appreciating life moment to moment that happens. It's beautiful. As we age we quit trying to control everything and our values become more and more about appreciating the moments we're living. We quit driving for what we think success or perfection is and listen to life. I love what Cindy Joseph said, “Aging is just another name for living.”Love the life you have right now — that's the yummy way! “Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which you were born.” Albert Einstein 

Have you ever spent more time getting ready for something than you did actually doing the something? You have this great idea. You want to start or create something.  You want to try something and you don't much about it. We research, look at stuff, gathering information and we would hopefully at sometime, we feel comfortable enough to then do it. Right?It's that “hoping to be comfortable enough to start” place we discussing in today's podcast.Preparation is good. Having the knowledge is good. Understanding is good. Information can be valuable and even help us feel more confident. But at some point we have to take a leap of faith in ourselves and just do it.We're never going to feel completely ready to take a leap of faith. That why it's a leap of faith. We're never totally comfortable leaping into the unknown. That feeling on the edge of starting something is palpable. It is the intersection of excitement — of joy & fear.  If you've ever gone rock climbing and repelled off the top — that's the feeling!This is where often, rather than leap and just do the thing, because we don't feel ready, we do more research, more ‘prep' to hopefully dampen the fear part of that equation.  Prep can only take you so far. Prep will never match the actuality of doing the thing.  I've forgotten tons of great idea projects I had that never got off the ground because I got lost in ‘getting ready' until the idea no longer felt exciting or feasible. Can you relate?What's behind this?  Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown. Getting ready is comfortable, because no actual leap has taken place. Getting ready is fun, because there is no commitment in place. Getting ready is distracting, because when you think that you don't know what you are doing, you focus on all the things you don't know yet instead of picking one and starting.  It feels productive, but it never really gets you anywhere. There's a fine line between preparing ourselves and being in the moment, and saying, “Okay I'm going to let go of expectations.” “I'm going to let go of what my bar of success is.” “The reason I'm doing this is because I want to try something new.” That is reason enough. To try the new thing for the experience of trying the new thing. For the present moment experience of ourselves taking the leap.When I look back on some of the greatest moments of my life, they all started with a leap of faith.How about you? Do you get stuck in analysis paralysis? What are you waiting for?It's crucial to be honest with ourselves about what we're up to with over-preparing. There's always an expert we can give our power to to buy ourselves a few more moment of delay, of procrastination.  But only experience changes our relationship with the unknown of trying something new.Kids live in the adventure of taking leaps of faith. They are great teachers for us to remember we can leap before we feel ready.  Every leap of faith builds our faith in ourselves. It teaches us to trust ourselves to be flexible and adapt to new information. We learn to trust our intuition instead of relying on ‘experts' that aren't even in our unique situation.  When we trust ourselves we can be in the moment and respond to what life is presenting us with honestly. This is where real communication with life takes place. Stop waiting to be ready and take a leap of faith now! You're worth it!

“We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be” ~ Grant MorrisonLar and I have been watching all the Marvel movies lately and it that triggered a conversation about what it is we love about superheroes. Lar, the consummate geek that he is, immersed himself in superhero comics. He introduced me to a whole new world —seen through superhero eyes. Superhero  icons symbolize the hope that someone can and will stand up to do the right thing, and that we humans have the potential to do be extraordinary — to think and act in a bigger way than the norm.  Superhero's inspire something super within us. Why do we love superheroes so much? Because they speak to something deep inside of us. That part of us that is unique and extraordinary that rises up in times of crisis — or whenever we are truly being ourselves. It is living in integrity with our truth, standing for what we know is right and good. Forgiveness is a superpower each of us have. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to forgive — to let go of grudges and see that what others have done isn't personal. But we take it personally and punish ourselves with it. Choosing to forgive releases the past and lets us be present to what's actually happening. Forgiveness unleashes access to our other superpowers. Things like love and kindness, joy and integrity. Just like the classic movie characters, inside of each of us, we have a little bit of all the characters we see in the world. A little villain or passive bystander or victim waiting to be rescued. We need to own all of these aspects as part of the human condition. When we do, it helps us soften our attitude and perception of others when we see them acting in less than ideal ways. And we all have a superhero self that wants to stand up and do the right thing. To lend a helping hand, give blood,  food, shelter... a smile, an encouragement or a hug.  When we're in our superhero selves we aren't judging who needs help. Whoever needs the help is who we give what we have to give to. Lar tells a story from his childhood about how all his neighbors rose up as superhero's during wild fire season in California. It creates amazing synergy. We've seen this so much throughout the pandemic. Like the singer in Italy that serenaded the world from his balcony — from this one superhero act, balconies became a place of synergy where we cheered on the superhero's on the frontlines. Talk about superheroes!!! We're attracted to superhero icon because they speak to the deepest, most yummy part of ourselves. They invites us to live in our integrity with who we are.  What we do comes from where we're holding ourselves within. We all want to be the superhero's of our lives. Being a superhero is being authentically ourselves and choosing to hold to the yummy vibration of love each and every present moment. When we feel yummy, it's infectious. It's an energy that gets magnified and draws others in.  Being my yummy self is my greatest superpower. Be a superhero —Smile and stay in the space of love in spite of the outcome. Trusting that who you are is the greatest gift you have to give.

In today's podcast, as sort of an update, we begin by sharing how we've unleashed our creativity by recognizing when the tension created by our ‘inner-perfectionist,' by dismissing its dictates, softening the tension, and unleashing our creativity instead. Lar's been painting like crazy and I've been having fun letting ideas unfold as I put my finger on the keyboard. I love it — Our home is a buzz of creativity — where love and joy are the predominate vibration.I've been filled with the simple delight of living as a love-based human.  And that's the springboard for today's topic. Love is a way of seeing the world and our place in it. It is choosing to see life as an interconnected whole. It is an invitation to live in the joyful flow with life. Being a love based human is choosing to love — to see through the eyes of love. It is recognizing that anything that interferes with that yummy experience is a belief — a mental program that pits us against the world or each other. Choosing love first unleashes our inner joy naturally. And that joy guides us toward what our highest contributions are to the whole.Love is the creative force of the universe. It is natural to love. Watch kids. They are open and receptive. You don't see them doing job interviews on the playground before choosing who they play with. The kids around them are the ones. To be living as a love based human, we must choose to pay attention to what's going on inside us. The way you know that you're not, it doesn't feel good. Period. When we feel tension, a judgement or fear has become predominate in our psyche. We don't even have to know what the stimulus was or be clear on what the belief program is or where it come from. We simply have to notice that our life force is being held hostage and the flow has stopped. And deal with the actual energy inside of us. We can soften behind the tension and that's like a release valve. We can ease into the presence of our own being which is intrinsically love based. Love is always inviting us back into ourselves. It's always already there for us because love is who we are. We just have to want it more than we want to be right about our opinions. We have to be willing to pay more attention to what's happening inside than what's happening externally. When we do, what we see before us looks different. We're looking for the common ground behind our differences — because now we're seeing from the eyes of love.  Have a yummy week & a yummy day!!!

I borrowed this title idea from an inspirational book I recently read called Creativity Over Perfection by Heather Lee Dyer. Lar and I were having a conversation about the justifications and excuses we make to ourselves about why we aren't creating ( or doing anything we want to do for that matter) and what's behind it. Most of us can relate to the label perfectionist. I grew up thinking it was a good thing... something to aspire to. I had the unrealistic idea I had to do things perfectly or I was doing it wrong. Failure was not an option. “Do it right or don't do it at all.”  This set the stage to believe that we have to be good at everything we do or we're a failure. So we procrastinate. Or don't try at all. Afraid to try and fail.  This brings up a whole other set of questions about what success is. We want to be happy —that is ultimately what success is... but we get stuck on the criteria we've set up — the things we tell ourselves we need to accomplish and the results that will prove our worth.  Yes? This takes all the joy out of creating because we aren't living in the present moment — we're futurizing our happiness. We talked about all the ways we put off doing what we love because we've made it something else in our mind.Whenever we want to create something and we don't, isn't it perfectionism behind our hesitation? We procrastinate because we are afraid. We think our creating has to result in some preconceived outcome. We measure our creativity off of external criteria we learn about and suddenly the joy is squeezed out of our creative act. Lar loves to paint. He's been painting since he was a child. It delights him to put paint to canvas.  He loves to see  ‘pieces of me' in each of his paintings.  —“I paint because I like painting.” FOR THE PRESENT MOMENT JOY OF IT!In today's episode Lar and I share how perfectionism has gotten in the way of this simple act that has given us so much joy throughout his life. Throughout our explorative conversation, I immediately saw how this discussion totally applied to me as well. That's the yummy thing about having a wholly honest and open relationship... whatever life is teaching one of us is also meant for the other — we just need to be open and willing to receive. I started writing simply for the joy of it.  An idea would start to tickle my heart and my mind would say, “Let's see what this is all about — pick up a pencil or put your fingers on a keyboard and have an adventure. I love the experience of putting words on a page and the joy of seeing how ideas come together — how ideas flow and take on a life of their own — how they teach me what is most precious in my heart by the way they unfold through the process of writing. As I  became an author and started identifying myself with the labels of ‘author' & ‘writer,' something subtly started to change. My writing had an agenda. And I found myself resisting. I'd sit down, agenda in tact, and I'd find I was reaching for the right way —the right formation of ideas...  When I'm trying or efforting, the flow is no longer available to me. The joy happens in the intersection of ideas and the desire to enter the unknown to see what unfolds on the page, or whatever medium that we feel drawn to. Joy will give us our own right way!This is the secret to life — Do what we want to do, this moment, for the JOY of it. When we do the thing we're doing for the JOY of doing it it really can't go wrong. The reward is in joy of expression.  https://theyummyway.com/

Today I'm being joined by Emma and Genevieve. Today's podcast episode came out of a conversation Emma and I were having about how we deal with diverse perspectives in conversations with others. She brought up her relationship with her daughter Genevieve and how they have created a space of openness, acceptance, and love in which to truly communicate. I've invited them to join me to have a conversation about it on the podcast. Emma and Genny have based their conversations, even when addressing diverse perspectives, on unconditional love and acceptance. And that has afforded them a unique perspective to share with us today. I think most of us can agree that we, as a global community, are in a place of major transition. With the pandemic and social and political unrest, we have had a unique opportunity to take a good look at the way we've been doing things - and allow for transformation.We, each of us, are one piece of the global puzzle. Each of us has something to contribute. But we can't come together as long as we maintain concrete perspectives. How do we hold a space of acceptance for all opinions to be shared and considered? We have to be willing to be wrong about what think is so. Often when we come together and say we want to have an honest conversation with someone whose perspective feels foreign to us. We say we want communication but deep down, we have an agenda. We think we're going to bring them around to our way of thinking. We are unwilling to let go of being right. True communication must be fluid - and this requires setting aside opinions in favor of connection.  When we hold a space of acceptance we can look beneath the issues and find common ground.Being willing to be wrong can be the fertile ground on which we build new, creative, fluid ideas that lead to unforeseen paths forward.When we realize that beneath our closely held perspectives we have common goals where we are already united, we can begin to share our given perspectives from a place where both parties feel safe to be vulnerable and  find their voice. Fear is at the base of us holding fast to our position.  But with the goal of finding unity and common ground, we're given the chance to share our fears and find that as diverse as our opinions may be, our fears are coming from the same place. We want to feel safe to be vulnerable and share our truth.  It takes courage -- courage that rises through listening and finding our voice.  As we speak our whole truth - sharing our fears as well as desires for transformation, we can learn and grow and expand our minds and hearts. This is fertile ground for something new and creative to begin to happen. Things we could never have considered prior flow naturally into the conversation for consideration. The true goal of the conversation isn't the issues themselves. The priority must be connection first. Then true communication can begin. Really listening - letting go of what you think is right -- being willing to consider that maybe there is another way of looking at it that is equally as valuable, changes everything.  It is respecting the other's ideas and feelings with the dignity due each and every one of us. You can almost feel the energy shift and make room for something new to be born. Issues will get handled if the connection is handled.Listening and finding your voice. Telling our own truth gives others permission to do the same. As we each are self-reflective and embrace diverse perspectives we take courageous steps toward co-creating our new world. Thanks for joining us. Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

"Expectations are premeditated resentments."  True or false?In today's episode, Lar and I are discussing expectations and the affect they have on our relationships and life itself.Expectations are a form of magical thinking brought over from childhood when we couldn't distinguish our own associations and what happened. Like we're upset with a sibling who get hurt and we think our anger caused it.There a so many ways that we have expectations. Expectations that things will work out a certain way. But what happen when those expectation don't? We develop expectations due to social norms as grow up. And when we attach meaning to those expectations being met we create a subtle barrier to all other possibilities. We grow up believing that it's legit to expect people to behave according to social norms. And that leads to blame and resentment. Expectations like anything else can lead to positive outcomes — For instance, I wake up each day and spend the first few hours in stillness and love —what I call having coffee with the Divine, letting the peace and joy of presence fill me and set my day for presence — in openness and love. — It makes sense after years of this ritual that I expect to have a yummy experience — because my previous experiences have shown me that the expectation is reasonable.  But too often expectations come out of a dissatisfaction with where we are and we determine what need to happen so we'll be happy or feel successful and then set an expectation on the events or people in our lives to fill it. We attach meaning to to the outcome and when the expectation isn't met we feel we've failed or that someone else, some system, partner or team has failed us. We forget that we have given everything all the meaning it has for us. And attaching our happiness to expectations of a certain outcome takes us out of present time and cuts us off from the fluidity of working in concert with life as it arises moment by moment. In relationships expectations can lead lack of communication. It leads us to making assumptions about how that the person will meet them.  Then we extend our withdraw our love according to whether or not the person meets them. That's not love. It is condition. It is not only unrealistic, it is a set up for resentment. Love is unconditional —  expectation free.  For instance, if we believe ‘if you love me, you'll support me in everything I do.” And if you don't —you don't love me. But what about when I'm acting in way that is out of integrity? Or as Lar says, ‘when I'm being a dick.' Love asks us to reach beyond expectations and into the present moment — letting the current circumstances and our true feelings to alter our responses so that communication stays open. Expecting life to always turn out the way you want is guaranteed to lead to disappointment because life will not always turn out the way you want it to. And when those unfulfilled expectations involve the failure of other people to behave the way you expect them to, the disappointment leads to resentment.You've all heard my mantra: “Everything goes my way.”Where today's topic is concerned, *Everything goes my way' because I accept what is. and leave expectation where it belongs — somewhere in the fantasy world.The opportunity of each experience is to know ourselves better. We can use moments where we feel icky — like seeing that we have had an expectation that things will go a certain way — it is an opportunity to look within and uncover our reason for the expectation and our attaching happiness to it — then choose again. Choose to be present and flow with the actuality of what is unfolding right here and now. Thanks for joining us. Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

In today's episode we're discussing what's going on with us when we caught up in worry.For me, in  looking at what's really going on when I worry, I realized that worry is about being unwilling to be present with myself with the current circumstances I'm in — and feeling the uncertainty of what might happen next.It is a way of creating fantasies of possible future outcomes — which promise you a sense of control. But it never works. Worry is an attempt to try to control the uncertainty of how life is playing out —rather than accepting and embracing what's happening.If you really look at what's going on in your mind when you're worrying you see that worry is never about what's actually happening. It is always about what's not happening. It is a mental game playing with what-if scenarios.We like thinking we're the master of our universe. Worry is about trying to be in control. We think that worrying will help us prepare — to predict so we can control the outcome. We can't. Life is going to go how it is going to go. So ask yourself honestly — has worry ever given you control? Really?  Now ask yourself — ‘Is there anything that will ever change as a result of my worrying about it?Lar suggests that worry is part of the planning. It is part of preparing for all the possible things that could go wrong. Here's where we want to get honest about how we feel. Is worrying causing anxiety because we think there is only one outcome that is acceptable?  Planning can be really useful. But worry happens when we take it personally. We attach our worth to the possible outcome. We place standard of acceptability to the outcome and that can keep us from taking action. If we're worrying or planning to attempt to create an acceptable outcome, we are rejecting all the other possible outcomes that life might have in store for us. Letting go of the outcome is the antidote to letting go of worry.Worry is one of those things in our collective program that we've attached to relationships and how much we love someone. Things like — If you love someone, won't you worry about them? Doesn't that prove how much you love them?But how does worry really contribute to a loving relationship? Worry is a substitute for having faith in the person and trusting the flow of life.I'm reflecting on how often this topic came up when we were unschooling the boys. Worry keeps me from being present — and truly available for whatever happens. But having faith in them and their relationship with life, let's me be their champion. If we give up worry, we get to create new standards for success. Things like are we happy? Do we love ourselves and others?  Bottomline, there's nothing to worry about. Remember that joy is our natural state. And anything that takes us away from that, is not actually useful. If you're caught in a loop of worry, take a moment to be mindful. Here a little exercise you can use:Pause and take 7 -10 long slow deep breathsZero into mindful practice. Your feet on the ground. What your hands are doing? What can you see? the colors and textured around you... What sounds do you hear?Notice where the tension in your body is and deliberately soften and let go of the tension. If you can't locate something specific, try progressive muscle relaxation— start at your feet; tighten and release, move to calves — tighten & release and so forth. Use the breath to deliberately become more present and in touch with you natural state of joy. Thanks for joining us again. Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

In today's episode, we're discussing a topic sent in by one of you. — The idea of using spiritual lingo or concepts to justify not addressing what's really going on. It struck a point with us. Having been on a so-called spiritual path much of our lives, we've seen this pattern often.  Where we or other people use spiritual lingo to not deal with the actuality of what's really going on with us. One label that has become popular in recent years is Spiritual Bypassing.  “A spiritual bypass or spiritual bypassing is a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks”.Sometimes people use the spiritual terminology to take a position of superiority, to get their way, or to manipulate the conversation away from the actuality of what's really happening presently.  A semi-new ‘spiritual term being used to describe this is ‘Spiritual Narcissism.' “The belief that your spiritual wisdom makes you more special than others. It can be used to shield yourself from criticism, to impress others, or to enhance your-self-esteem and feel good about yourself.”Some signs of spiritual bypassing or spiritual narcissism:Not focusing on the here and now; living in a spiritual realm much of the time.Overemphasizing the positive and avoiding the negative.Being self-righteous about the concept of enlightenment.Being overly detached.Being overly idealistic.Having feelings of entitlement.Exhibiting frequent anger.Engaging in cognitive dissonance — when two or more beliefs we have contradict each other. Being overly compassionate.Pretending that everything is okay when it's not.If I'm hiding what I'm doing and using spiritual concepts to justify it, that's a clue that I'm using spirituality to sidestep dealing with the actuality of what's really happening. It's how we use spiritual concepts to avoid dealing with difficult truths of life that face us sometimes. But the truth is that we're living in a world filled with ego-driven narcissistic and difficult behavior -  it can make us feel powerless, angry and afraid. These responses are the actuality of our life in the current moment. How we respond is an invitation to look within ourselves. Too often we put the blame for our feelings on the situation or persons involved and then use spiritual concepts to elevate ourselves above it.We get these spiritual ideas of love, peace and light. Then when something happens and we feel hurt and angry or feel betrayed, but we feel like we shouldn't feel the way we do. So we use these ‘higher' concepts to bypass these difficult emotions, and with it, the opportunity to look more deeply at our beliefs and fears and issues that we are coming to the surface. We're ignoring the invitation from life, from our true self, to look deeper within ourselves. And to experience true intimacy with the others involved.What we're really doing is using our ‘spiritual identity' to disconnect from ourselves and intimacy with the other people involved. We can't be present and project a spiritual image at the same time. Everything that happens is an invitation to know ourselves better —to embrace all the aspects of ourselves so we can question the beliefs that make us want to run away from the present experience.  Love looks. Fear looks away. We hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we enjoyed bring it to you.Have a yummy week & a yummy day!!!

Last week I posted that it looked like Lar had become my regular co-host on the podcast. It's like the universe laughed and said, “Uh, when did you start being in charge? ... Like the saying goes. We make plans, and God laughs... So the other day, my sister, Keri and I were having a conversation about an article in the New York Times we'd both read that morning about Negativity in News media and right away it felt like a conversation to bring to the mic and do a podcast on. So I've invited Keri, which she graciously agreed, to join me at the mic today.From that original conversation Keri did some research that showed that negative news reporting there is a reason for it. She discovered is that there has been a lot of negative-bias research done. One  point she resonated with and shares is that negativity as a greater potency and saliency because we've become so accustomed to the common and greater number of positive events in our lives.She points out that in much of our lives we take for granted the great number of things that commonly go right on a daily basis. So we don't give them the potency that negativity does. The cultivation of that kind of thinking begins to permeate through us. Depending on our upbringing and social circles and personal work, influences how negative news impacts our lives.She shares an old Russian proverb that says, “A teaspoon of tar in a barrel of honey isn't the same as a teaspoon of honey in a barrel of tar.” The visual of that brings her point home.Then, she gives the example of finding a cockroach in your food — how that can alter our whole experience of eating lunch, right?We talk about how the potency of negative press feeds into social personas we cultivate — almost as if we are trying to offset the negativity we see elsewhere with a persona that says ‘I'm not like that.‘  The saliency of negative news is a distraction from our personal conflicts and feelings. But we can use this as a signal to look within. To see what we're getting from distracting ourselves these addictive outlets — either negative news or exclusively positive posting.With social media we we get to pick and choose how we want to be seen by others. We tend to create these positive personas and share images reflecting the way we want to be seen, using filters and tech designed for it. Keri shares the impact she has seen with her clients —how their inner world is reflecting the same issues we see in the world. It feeds into what's being called ‘toxic positivity' — the belief that no matter how dire or difficult a situation is, people should maintain a positive mindset. Denying what is, and trying to create something that isn't.We see all these positive posts of lives working out so well and feel ashamed ours isn't like that. We feel it's not okay to be not okay. So we share just the things that make it look like we're doing okay. We see all these negative news post, which we believe and feel afraid and insecure. Then, we see all these bright and shining lives in social media and we feel distanced from both and all alone. But, haven't you noticed that whenever you read a post where someone vulnerably shares their fears, it touches the vulnerability within us. Authenticity is attractive. What we want to do is cultivate a space of self-awareness and be honest about what we're getting out of the various news feeds we migrate toward and what that is inviting us to look at within ourselves.  When we notice the compulsion to distract from our lives through media feeds, if we can pause and ask what is my motivation behind this. What am I being invited to look at in myself and my life. If peace is my goal, pausing becomes more and more automatic. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.Have a yummy week & a yummy day!!!

How often have you said yes when you didn't want to — or agreed with someone just to not make waves, when you feel deep inside that it isn't true for you? Or you speak up, you say no, but then you feel guilty afterward?  What is behind the guilt? Guilt is a signal that we aren't taking full responsibility for our own truth — accepting that what happened happened — and now it's past.In today's podcast episode, Lar and I talk about standing in our truth,  and how we learned to change the way we have conversations both with each other and the people in our lives in the various roles we play. For me,  what was behind feeling guilty for standing up for myself was the same thing that kept me from speaking up in the first place. Bottom-line, I valued the other person's opinion of me more than I valued my own. I had my self-worth attached to whether or not they liked me, approved of me,  or saw me in a favorable light. — And  the crazy part is, I couldn't actually know how they felt or saw me —just what I imagined was going on with them.  Yet I attached my worth to it.  I felt powerless because I wasn't dealing with reality. Reality is the event and my truth in any given situation. That's what I am responsible for. Your opinion and/or the way you see me, it none of my business. When I made the commitment to love myself, it meant that I'd have to brave telling the truth, so I could hold onto my dignity and self-worth — which is the only way I have the inner strength to deal with the fall out when I changed the long established pattern of deferring to others, staying silent, and doing things I didn't really want to do. Then to forgive myself for the guilt seemed to follow immediately after. It's scary to change long held patterns. It feels raw. It feels vulnerable. It feels like stepping into a new skin that must be worn in before it's comfortable. When my mind started replaying the moment of speaking up for myself and feeling guilty about it,  I found that the fear of loss of their approval  was nipping at my heels.  So, I began to give myself the approval, forgiveness and love I used to seek outside myself.  This softened-up that new skin and stretched me to fill it out. One thing is crucial. When we choose to go down this road of being true to ourselves and speaking up — We have to be clear that when we speak our own truth, what the other person does with it is NONE OF OUR BUSINESS! They get to do what they want with it.  If they leave — they leave. If they get mad — they get mad. It's their right. It's not personal. We don't have to make their response about us! If what they do with it violates us, we can walk away. Dignity intact.We have to keep reminding ourselves that dignity is the right of every human being.  Only from a place of honesty can we have a real conversation. The rest is a manipulation for agreement. Though it does it feel so scary to stand in our own truth,  it is empowering.  And that power comes with a responsibility to act in integrity with our truth.  But because it's scary,  we tell ourselves a story we've learned since childhood that ‘good' people agree.  Good people do what's ask of them. Good people stay silent. Because we fear we might alienate the one whose opinion differs from our truth, we agree and compromise being true to our own worth  in favor of the approval from that person or something outside ourselves.In today's conversation we talk about the ways we've found to bring our worth and power back where it belongs — with ourselves.  When we do this, we find we can allow other person the dignity to stand in their own truth and quit taking it personally when it differs from ours. Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

‘The new normal' is a buzz phrase we've all become accustomed to hearing this year. We've used it in discussing the transitions and making adjustments because of the pandemic. In today's episode we're talking about diving deep into our relationship with ourselves and how we come to terms with who we have become as we accept change and let it transform us into a new version of ourselves.What identities from the past, about who you are, are you holding tight to, that is keeping you from transforming into a new version of yourself?In order to be at peace and happy with our new normal, we have to let go of our old identity — what we imagined would be happening and reframe what is true for us, now. As everyone is now getting vaccinating, it's like there is a feeling in the air that we're getting back to normal. But to really let change transform us, we must let our past ideas of what who we are in our work, contributions and relationships — and who we are to ourselves.We talk about when Lar was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and the internal inquiry we took living with the reality of having cancer in our lives. The question we found ourselves running up against was: How do I reconcile this new me and be in the moment and not attach it to an outcome that things will get back to the ‘old normal' when the cancer is gone? How often do we sacrifice the living moment we're actually in, because we have attached to an outcome we feel will be better than the circumstances we're living with? We get news like we have cancer and we decide that the goal is to be cancer free, and it sets the fullness of our happiness off in an imagined future. Or Covid hits and we decide that when it's over — when there's a vaccine — this will be better than what is now and we can let ourselves be truly happy when that happens. It sets up an underlying dissatisfaction with what's happening and diminishes our present joy.I've noticed I've been doing this with the vaccine. As soon as people started vaccinating, I started making plans to get back to normal with travel and visiting. I found myself hoping I'd get that message for an appointment, and a disappointment when it didn't come. This for me it is an invitation to surrender to the actuality of what is happening here and now and welcoming my current circumstances with an open heart and mind. Now I'm okay with however it goes. When or if I am to get vaccinated will happen when or if it happens. I don't need to tie up my life force in a fantasy that that thing will make me happier than what I'm living with now. This frees my energy to appreciate the gift of the moment before me.There is a contracting energy that comes with waiting for the thing we want to happen. It takes us mentally away from presence and into hope. When we lean into faith that life is looking out for us — that what is happening is a gift from life — we open ourselves to transform with the continual changes always occurring in our lives. Thanks for joining us. Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

In today's episode, we're addressing  another topic one of you ask us to discuss. We talking about the difference between giving-up and surrender. Surrender is a way of living in harmony with life, just as it is. Accepting that whatever is happening holds a gift for us. It's happening. Surrendering is going with the natural flow. Surrendering is choosing to look at the situation from a place of love.Surrender is saying YES to life just as it is.  When we surrender, we stay open. If we find resistance, surrendering is seeing even that resistance as an opportunity to turn inward — to look at beliefs and expectation we hold and to find a place of peace inside that lets as accept the actuality of now. It is letting go of our expectation and beliefs that say something different ‘should' be happening. It isn't. So surrendering into accepting is the first order of business to live in the flow of life — and ultimately to enjoying each present moment — to be happy no matter what. It is freeing and joyful. Giving-up is saying NO to life. It is saying I will not accept this. It's saying I'm not going to learn anything. When we give-up, we hold tight to our pain or grievance and we close ourselves off from seeing and experiencing all other possibilities life might be bringing our way.If we cling to our belief that something needs to go a certain way, we give up choices. It in-prisons us to that thing we're giving up. It, or they, become something where we won't let love in. And we drag that resistance into the next present moment, and so on...Giving-up is withhold our life force hostage to resistance. Giving-up sets up a pattern of self-justifying that we perpetuate in next situation, etc. Giving-up is really holding on. We have to continue to  justify our choice to give-up on parts of our life. It saying that surrendering won't look action-wise. We might take exactly the same actions in a situation. But with surrender is staying open, rather than cutting ourselves, and the others involved from  all other possible. Surrender includes moments where we just give up the fight with our should's. We give-up the ‘have-to' so we let life flow in a way that is meant for us. It is surrendering to the tides of our life force — sometime, that means pausing and resting and not pushing a should agenda. Then being patient. Life is flowing. If we're meant to do something, when we're living in surrender, the wave of joy that lets us move from acceptance and love.We choose to trust life and surrender to its flow in joy.Hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.Have a yummy week and a yummy day!!!

In today's episode, we're discussing that thing that happens when we feel defensive.  Someone says something, and their opinion feels like a personal threat to us. We feel compelled to correct them; set the record straight. It seems totally justified. After all we're not being seen or heard properly or we wouldn't need to set them straight. Right? We lash out and attack what we perceive to be an attack on us. Right? When we feel our personal identity is under attack, we feel threatened.  Defense is an attempt to blame someone else for our uncomfortable feelings. We decide we know how they are going to react. And that justifies defending and attacking back — which often looks like proving our point, and trying to get them to agree with us, or at least back off. We actually believe this will keep our ‘good' self image intact. Bottom line, we're attached to the personal identities we've built up.Identity and authentic self are not the same thing. Feeling defensive is a clue as to which one we're operating from. One is true. The other, false. When we're maintaining an identity, it is the opposite of communication. It is manipulation. Not just of the one we're trying to win over, but ourselves. Because, in truth, it is never about the other person. What they are saying or doing has nothing to do with us. Unless we make it about us. And it's never the real us, which needs no defense. We all have the innate right and freedom to be who we are; however we want to be. But if we look beneath defense we see it is always fear behind defense. Fear that that we'll be seen as deficient in some way. Fear that what we have to offer won't be received with respect, acceptance and praise. Fear that we are not enough. Why not pause and take a look within? It's your life. To be true to you, choose you.We have to make a choice. We can't defend an identity and be authentic at the same time. Authenticity stems from a deep sense of love, of accepting and trusting ourselves, which leads to trusting others.  What's happening is just what's happening. —It's not personal. Until we make it about us. Opinion is just opinion until it's MY opinion we're talking about. Money is just money, unless we're talking about MY money. Relationship is just relationship, unless MY relationship is involved. Speaking of relationships, the buck stops here. All of our relationships are really an extension of our relationship with ourselves. If we believe others have expectations of us, it reflects the expectations we have of ourselves, and subsequently everyone else. If we lie or keep secrets because we believe the other will be upset, we're fostering a relationship based on fear and assumptions. Assumptions are a barrier to communication. So the way around it is to tell the whole truth; the fears you're harboring and the assumptions you're making as well as the desire to see beyond them and the hope that you'll be seen and loved.Why not be honest?  It's your life after all.  Only you can bring the love, acceptance and honesty you want to have into your life, by being it. That's love. Love is big enough to hold all things, accept all things and creates a space for real communication to happen.  It is the only way to deal straight on, so real acceptance can take place.  Be honest. Tell the truth as you understand it at the time and let the chips fall as they may. This is the living conversation we can be engaged in with everyone, regardless of the circumstances. If I want intimacy, I must bring who I am right now to the conversation. We hope you enjoy our conversation as it weaves in and around these dynamics, and how we have come to understand our own lives and dismantling identities we've built up, in favor of living from a place of truth, self-respect and love. Have a yummy week & a yummy day!

In today's episode we talk about what we do with ourselves when we experience pain in our lives, be it physical or psychological. Initially we want to resist. We don't like pain. We want to fix it or get rid of it. And this causes suffering. Then, if we are of the mindset that our thoughts create reality, we judge that something has gone wrong. We feel guilty. We blame ourselves, judging that we must have done something, or we believe something that has caused the painful occurrence to happen. And this cycle become our total focus. Giving us a sense of reality that feels shitty. And we're to blame. That is hell. But what is that really? Plain and simple — It is RESISTANCE to what is!It is a delay tactic, a way to avoid looking at the pain and accepting it as part of what is right now. But what if we just stay present in our body?  Pain is a sensation we're experiencing. What if we stay present and accept the actuality of what's really happening? Notice you have a sensation and welcome it.  Notice the tendency to resist. Notice what your mind does with pain when it resists accepting it.  Notice if it triggers guilt and see that the guilt tightens the grip of pain. It doesn't loosen it. It adds a story to the immediacy of your experience. The guilt story and self-blame are a distraction from welcoming the sensation as it is — Sensation. It sets off a series of judgments and rejection of what is and now that pain is suffering. Guilt is not a real emotion. It is a signal that you are punishing yourself based on faulty belief that you can control reality. It is a side-effect of rejecting our present experience. The second you realize guilt has arrived, rather than let it assign your marching orders of how to fix or get rid of what you think you don't want or can't live with, you can choose to let go of the desire to attack yourself and the present moment with it. Instead, realize you are living with whatever it is. You have always been able to live with what life brings your way — or you'd be dead now. Don't make up a painful story about how it's too much this time, causing you further suffering. Just notice. By noticing it you can stop the cycle in its tracks.Shit's going to happen. It's arrogant to believe you control the mysterious forces of the universe. If pain is happening, it is an invitation to move deeper into the awareness of your changeless, essential being. But you can't as long as you resist what's happening. Welcome first. Aware that you are the not the pain or the knee-jerk guilt. But the one aware of it. This is your essential self, where love and joy already reside. Notice the feeling of being victimized and realize it is an attack on the awareness of your essential being which is love. Love welcomes everything.The thing that happened, happened. I'm not in charge of all the forces of the universe. But I am in charge of accepting or resisting it. Resistance makes it impossible to see the whole picture of our life. Pain is just one sensation — one part of our dance with life.  If guilt arises, we can see it is a signal that we are resisting what is. We can then pause and welcome the sensation, with love. Love that we've noticed our resistance, and choose to forgive the idea that we are guilty. Nothing is wrong unless we make it wrong in our minds. When our child falls down and skins her knee — We instinctively kiss it better. I think our initial immediate response is right. Pour Love into it!  Our so-called troubles are not in the way — they are the way. Choose to see EVERYTHING AS A GIFT — Kiss your boo-boos and get on with the dance. The steps might look different with the present condition you have accepted. But through acceptance, love leads the dance and it is joyful and freeing.Thanks for joining us for another yummy conversation.

In this week's episode Lar and I talk about the key to living a life of present joy which  ultimately is unconditional happiness. That key is to accept  present moment reality just as it is, in whatever form it shows up, regardless of circumstance. .Isn't that really what we all want? To be okay with whatever happens? It's happening anyway. Our resistance to it only clouds our ability to see with clarity. But more than that, when we don't accept it because we think we want something else, we don't feel good. Our happiness eludes us. We've got happiness attached to an imaginary future that isn't real.We meet each moment either with love or fear. Love accepts. Fear resists.Take a check for yourself. Reality is  what happening right here, right now. It is not our thoughts about it. Or our reactions to it. Those can either be in concert with the Flow of life or in resistance to it. The dance is to see where we get in our own way of experiencing present joy, and to choose to let go in favor of acceptance. Most of us have it upside-down. We hold a set of beliefs of how things should go, how people should behave and what should happen, which we have determined need to happen for us to feel good in our current circumstances. And then we expect life to give us that or we'll withhold our love from the moment we're in, thinking it should be different than it is. These judgement make acceptance seem impossible. It is what it is. That statement, as cliché as it might seem, is still the way of it. Life is brand new each moment. That is reality. Reality is the actuality of what is happening right now in the current moment, just as it is. Accepting our current circumstance is the way we find what is true for us. If we experience joy and peace we are in concert with the nature of our being.  We're in the flow. If we want to say YES to life, we must accept that there are energetic, life-giving forces beyond what we have a grasp on, that bringing this particular set of circumstances, in this moment, just for us. It let's us see that every experience, and person is a gift for us to experience the love we are. And if need be, to let go of the beliefs we have that get in the way of receiving that gift and becoming a part of extending it. We're not in control of the particular set of circumstances. There are innumerable energetic forces, ideas, desires, fears and love's that make up the world as it unfolds moment to moment. What shows up in the moment before each of us is where we have a chance to effect our experience. Will we accept, so we can love and enjoy the experience we're given? Or will we resist, letting fear or judgement define the moment the same way we've been doing in the past, which hasn't made us happy?When we experience resistance it is because we have a belief we've drug in from the past about what are the acceptable circumstances for us to be okay with what's happening. We are in a constant energetic conversation with life itself. Whatever is showing up in each of our lives, we've actually invited on some energetic level, or it would not be happening. We have to first be honest with ourselves. Now we can be present with another. Our presence is our greatest gift. This is love. Nothing can break love.  It's never about the other person. What I am experiencing is always my responsibility. We are free to love, or judge or blame, but only acceptance and love will set my joy free. So I can see the situation with fresh eyes. We only get what we give. The gift is in the giving. It feels yummy to love. It feels icky to judge. Reality is simple. It's  what's happening in this moment, undefined by us. It is never a mental game, although we can make a game of letting go of our resistance to what's happening and opening our mind

Lar joins me at the mic again for this week's podcast. We talk about what it has been like to be educated The Yummy Way, where joy and interest lead the education process. We  share a little of our history, mostly Lar does, and what it has been like to let go of our old ideas of what education is so our children could really learn from a place of joy, exploration, curiosity and wonder.We talk about dismantling our beliefs about what education is... About letting go of traditional education models & fostering natural learning with our children.Lar shares his story about education, how he came to re-evaluate what he thought was necessary for education, and open his mind to the actuality where the learning is happening. The truth is, we only really learn what we want to learn. Freedom is our inherent right and natural state of being, as is curiosity and a hunger to learn, and play, explore, invent, build, fail and succeed. We ultimately chose Unschooling or Child-led learning because it felt like what was naturally already happening.  We discuss being present with our children so we are able to see where the learning is already taking place and to foster their ability to grow and learn what they want to learn.As parents we are our children's partners - hanging out with our kids, watching them play video games, or playing with them... We are part of the world our children invent.  We are the ‘Yes posse” not another ‘no' in their lives. We are their champions for our children to explore their own interests and the providers of supporting materials to do so.The characteristics as human beings we want our children to come out of their education experience, show up naturally, and blossom -- Things like self-confidence, a sense of agency and autonomy, responsibility for themselves, enjoying learning and courageously go for it. They are explorers, creators, inventors, and builders where they expect somethings not to work out, so they try something else - all for the joy of it!! Success and failure aren't concepts  but rather malleable aspects of the learning process and taken in stride with a sense of knowing themselves better. It has been amazing standing back and letting the child feel the victory of a project working out or the disappointment of it failing and troubleshooting another way... We became students, ourselves involved in the process of learning and growing and enjoying life together.Thank you for joining us. Have a yummy week and a yummy day!!!

Parenthood is ashram. Our children are our gurus.What if our children come ready-made for the challenges and choices and consequence of those choices as they arise in their lives. If we don't interfere by trying to mold them into what we think they should be, what might they teach us? What if our job is to see them, and love them and be their champions so they can truly flourish, creating the lives that are uniquely theirs? Can we be their companions rather than their bullies? That's what we're doing when we try to mold our children and their lives into what we think they should be. We call it love. But it's really fear, played out as control.In today's podcast, my partner, Lar, joins me in another yummy conversation about living the yummy way, letting love and trust guide our relationships. Today we're discussing the art parenthood. We talk about the way we were raised, the fundamental beliefs we learned and being willing to question and find the truth for ourselves. We talk about honesty and being willing to be cop to our fears and faults, and to forgive — not behind closed doors, but in the company of one another. Everything that happens is part of our learning, loving and living as equal contributors, children and adults alike. This is family.Parenthood isn't about parenting. It is about grace and trust. It's about finding our true identity as a parent and letting our children find and express their true identity... We are in relationship to help each other be true to ourselves and by extension, to each other.Be present.Love first. Follow our joy as guide. If it doesn't feel yummy, we're out of alignment with our true nature.Be honest, tell the truth as it resides currently for us, trusting ourselves and the other. Lean into trusting where our children choose to discover themselves. Managing our own fears when they come up, so we don't push them off on the kids. It is learning together, the art of  friendship — being companions in this life we're living together. These are the cornerstones of yummy parenting.Our happiness is essential. We model whether we realize it or not. Our children learn from us every second of every day: our presence, our being, what we do, how we react, what we are going through, how we relate to them, to others, to our self. Our happiness fosters their happiness.It is who we are they learn from. Not what we say. It is our presence that has the most impact. Are we being true to ourselves? This is their model, thus allowing them to be true to themselves.Being authentic as a parent requires we examine the beliefs and ideas about parenthood we learned from childhood and reevaluate each, using the touchstone of love and trust — It requires we forgive the past, letting go of that programming so we can live authentically in the present with our children, seeing what is actually there, instead of projecting a set of ‘should be' believes and attitudes on to them. Parenthood is an choice to trust deeply — in the truest knowing of our hearts, where we are all united with one another. To trust that divinity plays a role in everything that happens and that each of us is part of the mystery unfolding as the current situations and circumstances of our lives.  Parenthood is an ongoing quest to see what is unique to each child and foster what brings them joy, so we can understand each other as whole beings. Ultimately, we are here to BE UNIQUELY WHO WE ARE... This is the great lesson and gift of parenthood. 

“The very center of your heart is where life begins – the most beautiful place on earth.” – Rumi“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” -Rumi & ACIMIn this week's episode I have invited my yummy life partner in joy and love, my husband Lar. for a conversation about how we have learned to live a life of Love and truth. We talk about how we met and how we let love teach us what relationship is — where love is at the heart of how we share who we are with one another.  We talk about being honest as primary. About receiving, and accepting one another unconditionally, trusting love to teach us what relationship is for us. To put love at the forefront — when shit happen, we just stay in the room, stay in the conversation, until love finds us.We talk about living in integrity. Where our words and actions are aligned. And ultimately letting love lead. Relationship is recognizing our shared being — which is LOVE.  The truth is that we truly are already in relationship with everyone and everything. Can you feel that recognition? If not, some belief, something in your personal, programmed matrix, is getting in the way and it is painting a picture of limitation and separation on what you see. We talk about how whatever life throws at us, we can accept it just as it is. We can always look with Love and see anything and everyone as a gift from life. A chance to see where we resist, where we hold fear, threat and judgement in our minds. To forgive and let love show us another way to view the situation. Lar shares his experience of finding out he had stage 4 kidney cancer and how he, and we, chose to accept it, and to trust we'd be guided through loving each moment with cancer in our lives. We accept what is, welcome it all with a wholehearted YES, what now? And let love show us the next step. This is living the yummy way. It's not that we won't have shit come up. We will. We do. It is what we choose to do with it, where the alchemy happens. Love is always asking us to pause, take stalk and choose in to this present moment.  Whatever the situation is, no matter how seemingly difficult it might appear, it contains within it a gift — a recognition of the beliefs we hold, the fears and judgements getting in the way of peace of mind, a chance to forgive, to love and welcome — to see our shared being with everyone and everything, to tune into our innate joy and love. We can let go of that initial reaction and open our mind to another way of seeing. Love will find us through our willingness. I thank Lar for sharing this yummy conversation with me and all of you. I loved it. It's so fun to see what happens when we accept the shifts and changes that come our way and open up to new possibilities. Like with this Yummy Way podcast... Can't wait to see what show up next...Have a yummy week & a yummy day!!!

“I have decided to stick with LOVE. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”  ~Martin Luther King Jr. In today's episode it seems fitting to reflect on the life modeled by Martin Luther King, who choose love over fear, light over darkness and unity for all. Today my yummy friend Shar joins me for a  rift conversation about the ideas he represents and what those ideas mean for us right now. Shar shares her experience as a teenager during the years Martin Luther King was a vibrant unifying figure in our nation and the seeming chaos at the time and reflects on how history repeats itself, calling it a collective ‘call for love' we are being ask to answer with LOVE.History, through the ages, as well as our lives does repeat itself... that's the groovy thing about life, it is neutral. It will keep giving us chances to see where our thoughts and beliefs are out of alignment with love, wholeness and peace — until we see it for what it is and make the choice for love. It starts with each of us. Starting with identifying with the love we are. Then standing for love in the midst whatever is going on. Standing in our true being first. Then emanating forth a vibratory field of love and wholeness, whether it is an argument, a pandemic, political unrest, the quest for equality and love, we are the gift we bring. We are the answer. We are the love.Shar shares the prayer she begins her morning coffee date with the Divine with. It goes something like this: “Divine Love, let me set aside everything I think I know about you, about myself, others and life itself, so that I might have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me to see the truth. Let me know what to do, where to go, what to say and to whom.” We can answer this collective call for love by taking 100% responsibility for how we choose to see the world, ourselves and everything. It opens us to presence here and now. We see that we are not victims because love is who we are; love is always the answer... so return to love is the prime directive. We'll wrap with the words of Martin Luther King Jr:“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~Martin Luther  King Jr.“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.Have a yummy week & a yummy day!!!

“Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward whatever way they like.” ~Lao TzuIn today's episode, we're talking about living in the flow. Accepting each moment exactly as it is, is living in the flow. Fear causes resistance to what is. We see in the world what we carry in our hearts. The world reflects what we expect to see. What is your premise? Love or fear? From love we can flow with life, however, it shows up. But if we're locked in the prison of fear, defense becomes our modus operandi. And It hurts. It hurts to always be on the defensive. What if we start with a neutral perspective? Life is innocent. What happens? Life is innocent, we give it all the meaning it has for us. We can elect to love no matter what. It might not be easy. In fact, it might feel impossible at times. But let me ask you this. Is there anyone or anything in your life you love and will love no matter what? A child, a pet, beautiful sunsets, the ocean, sunshine, the smile from a stranger on a crowded bus… Unconditional love is our primary set point. When nothing we believe is getting in the way, we love… it feels whole, and compete just loving for the joy of it. This is how flow feels. Loving for the joy of it. It feels yummy. Love is our natural set-point. By accepting the moment just as it is, we can breathe through resistance, forgive our judgments - the beliefs we projected out and seen on someone else. Settle into the love within and pay it forward. It feels icky to judge. It feels yummy to forgive and set love free. And even yummier to pay Love forward, no matter what.Check out today's blog post on this topic: https://theyummyway.com/2021/01/12/how-do-you-flow-with-life/

Welcome to 2021, a Joyous New Year of possibility. What are you choosing to do with it? Many of us are feeling inspired to make this a new kind of year, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of 2020, we feel a fresh aliveness to be more authentically US going forward. We have a heighten awareness of our innate connectedness — one of the gifts 2020 brought us. Are we committed to choose to operate from a deeper awareness of how our perceptions and therefore actions affect the whole? What commitments and practices are we making to ourselves that will bolster transformation for ourselves, our community and planet? For some of us it is beginning a daily awareness to find an inner set-point point of love, peace and joy. Can we make the commitment to do ONE thing that calls us home to our true being each and every day.?Perhaps show up to a Divine coffee date, first thing every morning — giving yourself to the awareness of Loves presence within and surrounding you each day prior to anything else?Perhaps you've decided to do the lessons of A Course in Miracles this year — maybe using my book Coffee With the Divine: A Yummy Guide to Daily Miracles as a companion to assist with the application off the principle in your own life. If this is your desire and you want to join many others do in it together you can pick up a copy at: https://books2read.com/coffeewiththedivine.  The Foundation for Inner Peace is a wonderful source to read A Course in Miracles online: https://acim.org/workbook-lessons-overview/Poetry can often reach us in ways nothing else quite touches. Perhaps deciding to read one poem each day as part of your spiritual or awareness practice is what speaks to you. Some poets that have and continue to inspire us are: David Whyte, Rumi, Mary Oliver, and Hafiz. We read poetry from a different place inside ourselves that expands us to a deeper understanding life and how we see life, opening us to new vistas. What poetry speaks to you? Please share on one of the Facebook groups or in an email, danet@theyummyway.com or parker@theyummyway.What new habits have you chosen to implement this year that feed your soul?  What will you commit yourself to? Let this be a year of creating habits of choosing love, peace, appreciation and joy, Perhaps there are books you've heard about and haven't yet read that you've been meaning to get to.  What books will you let transform you this year? Some suggestion we're making, along with the ones referred to above are Micheal Singer's book The Untethered Soul & The Surrender Experiment, Katie Byron's books like Loving What Is. Mark Nepo's worksWhat will you let speak to you? What are some books that inspire you? Please share.Let's take a deep breath right now and become fully aware of the breath, and as goes in, let our awareness go with it inward, feeling our heart beating love and bring a smile to our face on the exhale.... Feels yummy! Right? If the idea of joining with a community creating new habits of returning to love, joy, peace, and unity, you can click this link: https://tremendous-maker-6627.ck.page/12bfd96e7a . Or hop on over to our Facebook groups, Living the Yummy Way or Divine Coffee Date group. You can join our weekly Sunday 7am (MST) Zoom gathering if you're going through the lessons of ACIM and Coffee With the Divine, find it here: https://zoom.us/j/92529654689. 

 “Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” ~RumiThis Rumi quote summarizes the way  we've chosen to view this year — as if everything is rigged in our favor.  Or as I like to say, “Everything goes my way.”  — Even if I can't see how at the time — life is bringing me the best possible circumstances to grow, and love — to let go of resistance, to forgive and see things differently. To choose love over fear, trust instead of worry. 2020 has been a year where the importance of choosing to see the miracle behind circumstances and gratitude where heartache seems to prevail, has been like a breathing organism.Another mantra for this year many of us have perhaps taken deeply to heart, is Einstein's famous quote: “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” The choice to see everything as a miracle is to trust. To find joy in each opportunity to connect in  new ways where we can extend a little kindness, gratitude and love.2020 has been a year that will go down in the history books; globally, as well as personally. How will you frame it in your memory bank? In today's episode, we share some of our favorite moments in 2020. The things that inspire us and things we've relied on, gone back to for joy, understanding and guidance while navigating the winds of change and setting sail in the seemingly choppy waters on this ocean of life we all share.We talk about the Matrix trilogy, martial arts and the greats like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee  and how we let media open us and inspire us to look more deeply at our belief system, push the bar and free our minds so we can open and see things differently. What are some movies or other media that have inspired you? What are your yummy take-always? How do you integrate the joys and lessons into going forward from 2020 into 2021?No matter how you've framed 2020,  this year has transformed you. All of us have been transform. The world has been transformed. As we wrap up this year, let our hearts be alive with miracles.  Thanks everyone  for joining is in The Yummy Way. We love you!

How do you feel about Christmas season? Like there's magic in the air? The feeling that miracles are happening all around us?This feeling belongs to us. This Holiday magic feeling can be a point of reference for all year round. Albert Einstein once said, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” This ‘everything is a miracle' mindset seems to come alive at Christmas time — like it's more readily available for us to give ourselves permission to lean into faith and trust and goodwill toward all.But it's a choice of how we want to see.  How do we see our choices? As mistakes or wrong in some way? Mistakes are really just experiences. Judging the experience as wrong invites a mental narrative to play on a negative loop of judgement and regret. The situation you've called a problem is already past, but you're giving it free play in your mind. While life is still moving forward.But we can pause the moment we notice the icky feeling inside or the negative spin in our head. Notice we're noticing and celebrate noticing. Doesn't that feel good? Use the breath. You can't focus on your breath and listen to the negative narrative at the same time. So pausing and taking breath, placing your full attention on your breath, is like a reset button. Give yourself an inner hug for noticing and choosing presence over regurgitating the so-called mistake one more time. Find one thing you see right now that you can appreciate and feel the shift inside ... keep going, one present moment at a time shifting your entire energy field from fear (regret) to love.  This is the miracle available at all times. This is our Holiday Mindset.

As we come to the close of 2020, how will we hold it in our hearts and memories? There is no question that part of that will be how we met with changes and happenings beyond our control.  We've all faced the changes, but in what way? Will it be filed as one of hardship and challenges, or will we think of it as a time of rising resilience and fortitude? Of greater awareness of our shared being, our global community as one organism, and of opening our limited view of personal safety and opinions to include how our choices impact the whole?Will we look at it as one of loss or growth? What have we gained? As we say goodbye to 2020 and say yes to 2021, what do we need to let go of, grieve, forgive and accept the lessons born of change and challenge?  In so many ways, 2020 has been a rebirthing of a new paradigm of living, of connecting and experiencing creativity in new ways. Like Marvel's character, daredevil, our senses have been heightened. Perhaps we've become acutely aware of the little joys that we've taken for granted in the past with new appreciation, and have learned the art of appreciating the moment before us just as it is, now. Choosing to practice mindfulness  — accepting and appreciating our aliveness, seeing how we can extend that energy forth. We've learned to pause and turn within, to be more deliberate in questioning our automatic resisting and reactions to what happens. To let go of our resistance and remember we are love. Taking the seemingly broken pieces of our lives and filling them with gold. Like the art of Kintsugi; where we recognize our shared  history and visibly incorporate the gold or love repair into the new piece instead of disguising it. Our 2021 container will be woven with the attitudes we've chosen. Let it be golden with honesty, love and union.  Our so-called flaws are our gateway to creating the beautiful diversity interwoven in the universal tapestry of life. This is perfection.  Not the good/bad, right/wrong judgments. But the transmutation of them to see our universality. If we just feel into the energy of the changes in which we're invited to participate, we see where our judgments limit us. As we open and accept, allowing ourselves to transformed by it, we become gold artisans.Each moment is precious. 2020 has given us the gift of presence in a new way. Time and routine has slowed enough for us to feel our truth as well as our self-assigned limitations and translate those moments through love.Think of three things; attitudes, fears, judgments you want to leave in 2020. What are three gifts you've received in 2020; accepting and loving, more fully appreciating. The small things, the way you've become more mindful, generous and aware. Let's lay 2020 to rest, awake to new possibilities and interconnectedness born of our shared experience accepted and loved. Have a yummy week and a yummy day!

We are constantly making predictions based on our particular set of beliefs. We interpret what we think we see or hear, and then act as though we know what's going to happen. We let those assumptions make us afraid, insecure, or worried as if what we assume is real... But, we never actually know what will unfold in the next moment. We have this moment before us. This here, now. This is what we have - one moment at a time - source by the life force - the magnificent mystery that weaves our creative heart with the heartbeat of the whole living, breathing organism which includes all... ever-creating anew, with every idea and emotion and connection within the whole consciousness and rippling through each and everything - as our shared being. It is Love loving ...In today's episode, we're just talking about how we play psychic with our lives. And how vital it is we practice the simple basics of mindfulness - living the yummy way. The basics are the practice and ultimately, our way of being in the world and our lives. Are we present, aware of what is actually happening in the moment we're living, or are we caught up in a story? The basic practice of presencing ourselves in our being, mindful of the actuality of what's happening now all around us, before us, and within us. Are we mindful when our mind distracts us with shoulds or what-ifs or other predictions?We encounter the moment, which is fresh and alive with possibility, and the mind immediately begins interpreting what it is and what it means through the filter of our particular set of beliefs and fears. Simultaneously, we're having an energetic response inviting us to notice if the story our mind is telling us is actually in line with our true nature and the actuality of what's happening. I call it our yummystat - a signal from our being to pause and presence ourselves. If we're in prediction, we're not in reality. It is a 'no' to what is. That causes tension in our energy field. If we don't directly address and release that tension, we adapt to that tense state. And it starts to seem normal to be a little tense all the time. Pause right now and notice. Are you in resistance or allowance. Are you saying yes to what is? Or are you saying no, I want something else. Thinking or predicting so future or circumstance that you want, accept and say yes, this is fine. That no alters the way we see what's before us. Constricting our vision to our fearful belief system. But yes is simply feeling how you're already here in league with all the elements of the universe which brought this moment to you, so you're open to new possibilities. We can presence ourselves and notice - notice what's happening, both within, the tension and flow, softening and releasing and easing and feeling our being pulse  - this is love, peace and flow, which is our joy and happiness.Life is constantly gifting us signals to pause, sink into now and let love and joy reframe the moment for us. It could be a line in an email, a bumpersticker, a song.  Most of us have allowed music and song to transport us out of an anxious mental state, suspending time and letting creation have its way with us. In fact, we can use this method deliberately — because we love ourselves...Here are a couple of songs by Jordan Smith which do it for me:Only Love: https://youtu.be/XvltAd3waAcStand in the Light: https://youtu.be/gDrOVOoTjRUWhat's yours?

Are you living in integrity with our deepest truth? Are you aware of what your integrity is in relation to your business, your relationships, yourself?In today's episode we're discussing entrepreneurship and the different mindsets we have. What sparks joy for one person might not strike your fancy. Knowing your integrity and following that thread can keep us from trying to fit into a mindset that isn't just right for us. Are we owning what sparks joy for us and how it seeds our gifts? — Trusting the gifts we offer with others, and trusting that the Pulse of Live is always guiding us toward the wellbeing of the whole?We don't need to manipulate circumstances for a desired outcome. If we are loving the experience of creating, building, producing and communicating, for the sake of creating and knowing ourselves better as creators, communicators, builders and producers, we are living in fulfillment every step of the way.Each of our lives is a gift to the whole. We are intrinsically connected. We share the same being with all of life. What sparks joy and interest is an invitation from life. Your way is the best way for you! Can we lean into the trust in life in this intrinsic connection with everyone and everything?Take a moment to PAUSE and notice where you're holding yourself.  Join us for a pause walkthrough together toward the end of the podcast. Smile and say yes to moment, this day before us... 

Every moment is a conversation with life.  In today's episode, we're discussing the way we stay in conversation with life and apprenticing ourselves to the whole of life happening for us, all around us, and within us. Life happening is our conscious contact with everyone and everything. Are we present or are we giving into the impulse to distract from this conscious contact, the raw vulnerability with life and know ourselves more intimately?What is our relationship and experience with the grand mystery of life? Are we in touch with the magnificent magnetic life force all around with awe and wonder and appreciation?What is our relationship and experience with the actuality of this moment before me? Am I in touch with the thoughts running through my mind and the feelings being generated? Am I noticing? Do I take the pause I'm invited into, and choosing for myself what dance I want to take with the moment I'm being given? This is the art of mindfulness. What is my experience, my relationship with myself, with the love I am? Can I feel the heartbeat of my pulse with the pulse of life — The dance is where we intersect with the mystery.How do I see myself in my relationship with others? It's never about the other person. It is how I choose to see...What is my point of viewing? Is it love or fear/worry?  The choice is always ours. Love feels yummy. It is present. It is presence. Fear or worry are always associated with past learning projected into the moment and future. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good because we're not present with what is... we're overlaying judgment, and anticipating something that's not actually happening. Icky.Mindfulness is simply the art of noticing life as is. It feels good to notice. It is an act of love. We can appreciate noticing and let appreciation expand... and it changes the way we're seeing the situation we're in. From appreciation we operate differently with others. We see ourselves in them and more readily choose kindness over judgment or distraction. A wonderful way to establish ourselves in a continual conversation with life is to begin our day with love and appreciation — giving our first few moments to appreciating our lives... every detail ... Let that energy flow forth like a light on the path before us...I love this quote from Mark Nepo:“... walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry...”

Hey yummy Friends -- We're doing another episode on the fly today...“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” ~Mary OliverThis quote from the poet Mary Oliver really sums up the invitation from life we're discussing in today's episode. Parker is in Vegas with his brother -- a spontaneous opportunity for a long-awaited reunion. YAY!When we're living attuned to the pulse and flow of life, accepting what comes and goes, spontaneity is natural. We're open and trusting and we can feel the movement toward the yummy adventure around the corner. We move with the flow, trusting life to handle the details of how. In today's episode, we're talking about living from a place of total acceptance and surrender, living in trust with life... feeling into the pulse of aliveness and flowing with life rather than resisting. So we're not talking about resigning ourselves to circumstances, but rather accepting the whole of all that shows up in our lives - in this moment before us now as a gift. Even if we notice resistance, that is a gift telling us something about what we believe is true about ourselves and the world -- resistance tells us we're attached to our story of how things should be, rather than accepting the actuality of Now. And it feels icky.But we can always turn the dial on our yummy-stat from icky to yummy by tuning within, to the center of love and acceptance, where we have already allowed the circumstances before us - where life pulses within us and flows with the wholeness of all that is... Feel the aliveness of presence? Yummy,  yes?!Are we accepting the actuality of the current global wholeness we share and honoring and respecting this collective experience we're having? Are we adding love or fear to the energy pool? Trust or judgment? where we hold ourselves is where we hold the world and vice-versa. Are we present here and now? Or are we resisting because of our attachment to an identity that is no longer serving us?Can we let life be what it is and we allow ourselves to be continually transformed by it?This is living in acceptance, surrender, and trust. It is a present moment decision to be with life,  rather than trying to control it. That's like the global life lesson of 2020, yes? We have very little control over so much, but we always get to choose our perception, and how we respond... these are the seeds we plant in the whole energetic garden of life. Now is it.The truth is that none of us are promised tomorrow, we just assume it'll be there for us. Now is everything! Now is alive... Surrender, accept, and trust - that's the yummy way!“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~ Mary Oliver

Hi yummy Friends! We're back! It feels great to invite you all again to join us in a yummy conversation about living a yummy life.With all that's happening in the world right now, the opportunity to focus inward has never been more vital. Life happens. Change is constant. We have a tendency to judge those changes as either good or bad... then look outside ourselves for justification for those judgments. But can we remain still - the eye of the storm?When we notice our environment in flux, how can we be the changeless center, while everything around us does what it does? By making a decision to be mindful of our state of being... Tunning to our center where love and acceptance reside.When we realize we've been judging and justifying based on external stimuli, we can let that icky feeling be a call back to our center. We can forgive the idea that we think we know how things should go... We can be grateful that we notice the glitch in our matrix of love, forgive and let it go, allowing love to fill our being.Why not accept and extend love and appreciation? Why not add that yummy vibration to our universal energy pool? We don't have to look far to see the interconnectedness we share. As we presence ourselves in the moment, we can choose the frequency we resonate at and make love, acceptance, and forgiveness our contribution to the whole.Oh, and hey, if you haven't heard yet my book, Coffee With The Divine: A Yummy Guide to Daily Miracles will be available to get soon... If you've thought about starting a yummy daily practice at the beginning of the year - If you're planning to do the lessons from A Course in Miracles - This book will be a yummy, simplistic companion. If you are interested in getting on the waitlist to be notified when it goes live, let us know. What if we all join in this yummy, mindful way to affect the change happening in the world?

In this weeks episodes we're talking about accepting things just as they are as we ride the changing waves of our lives and meeting this current moment with presence.As I've been with my father's wife and my sister, I've been privileged to witness to my father's volumes of writings, his correspondence, and journals of self discovery, forgivenesses and healing and love for understanding life. It's incredible and humbling and joyous. We are always us, being what we are and living from our being. But we often identify with the activities of our lives and becoming something more or acquiring something which we feel will improve our lives and forget our being; which is where is our happiness already resides. In our being peace is...We've both been immersed in change and riding the waves of life as it shows up and going with the flow and noticing where we want to resist and choose to ease back into the pulse of life and be with what is, fully. Can we rest in the infinite patience of here now? Yes.Here now is this delicious taste of our divinity aware of life happening. We are that. Life is happening. Not to us, but for us. What's happening is for us to dance with the pulse of life itself. Here we feel our inner-connectedness. As we deepen to the awareness of our being behind and within the activities of life happening, we recognize our pulse is the same pulse of all life happening right here, right now, for all of us. When we resist, we zero our focus to what's not happening and it feels icky, we think something needs to change outside of ourselves so we can be happy or at peace. We have placed an agenda on life happening ‘our' way. That ‘our way' gets in the way of ‘the' way. The icky feeling is the zen-bell reminding us we've dissociated from our true being. We can always pause and breathe and let go of ‘our' agenda and see what really is - in the immediacy, of what's actually happening. We soften and feel the pulse of life, that is our being, and it opens us to accepting what is, as it is. Can we let love show us our next step or to wait and not step till the impulse is full and joyous? This is the yummy dance with life just as it is. 

Changes. Change is constant, yes? The question is do we resist or flow with change? Resting feels icky. Flowing with change feels yummy. It's going to change anyway. It is our presence which is consistent. We are the constant. Not our bodies — our being. We are the awareness, aware of life moving and changing and bringing our life experiences.  Each moment we are aware. What are we aware of? Can we simply notice? Be aware that we are the one that knows our experience, whatever it may be, however life shows up here and now?It's actually easier to flow than resist. Trusting Life is always moving toward our best interest allows us to flow with life as it shifts and changes. There is only here and now. Life is always going our way. Presencing ourselves allows us to see the perfection of the moment we're in and trust allows to access to the information that will best serve the moment; whether it be what to do, what to say or be silent and listen. That's our intersection with the grand mystery of Life. It's fun to just move into the changes and work with life as it shows up. What am I am being invited into? What feels right? Which way to go and what works with this new set of circumstance? Change invites us into the immediacy of our lives here and now. It is a yummy practice in presence and trust.We are always in the right place at the right time. We couldn't be any place but here and now, so there's no possibility the wrong thing is happening. How do we know? Because this is what's happening. It is our presence that allows us to pulse with life just as it is.Saying yes to what is, keeps our hearts open and we feel alive with the pulse of life. It's like each moment is a gift we get to unwrap and enjoy with delight.As soon as we attach an agenda to what's happening we step away from presence and resistance is inevitable. When we notice we're beginning to resist, we feel the glitch inside. This is a signal we have added our own agenda to life's and life is inviting us to let go and trust. We can pause and breath and notice we're actually okay here and now. And we can just breath into that okayness, feeling the stop in the flow ease. Now we can look again at what's happening from a place of ease open to new possibilities. This week let's attune to the ways life is going our way...

When we're faced with death, whether it is a diagnosis or death of a loved one, we can let it be an invitation from life to remember that this present moment is the only moment. We can pause and consider anywhere we're holding a grievance, death reminds us tomorrow doesn't belong to us - just this moment.What have we put off, thinking there's always time - there might not be. The time for love is now. The time for forgiveness is now - for peace and sharing our joy for living. Our Presence...What have you put off that is keeping you from being fully present and alive in this moment now, with the people in your life and how you truly want to spend your moments. Thank you for being part of the yummy conversation of living in present joy! We love you!Have a yummy week & a yummy day!