Whispers of Hope – Karen Lynn-Chlup

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Conscious Mindfulness

In the mist of your daily routine, what are your thoughts?  What are your intentions?  How do you treat others and come across? Do you treat others with the same carefulness or attentiveness as you would a wounded bird whose wing is broken?  Do you mindfully treat them with kindness?  Or do you treat them like an alligator waiting to snap at the first gazelle that you see?  Do you speak with a biting tongue? And growl at people because of your wounded dreams, thoughts, and ideas?  Do you make other people plead for their existence because you are inflexible, unyielding, and uncompassionate?

Let’s mindfully think about our true nature for a minute. No one is judging, but us. We can either use it as a tool to make us more gentle and good-hearted, understanding and compassionate, or we can beat ourselves up and bring out all our worst characteristics. We can beat others up for our inability to like and accept ourselves, we can waste our own precious energy and time by being cruel, or, we can belittle, insult, minimize those because we can’t look and change ourselves.

Which do you choose today?

How Do You Show Care and Concern

John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” writes about a family in the great depression who loses everything and heads west to California.   On their journey, they meet many people like themselves.   It was hard times for everyone; just like it is for many today.  The difference being, that those generations helped one other.  They helped each other emotionally.  They helped each other mentally, and they helped each other to have food in their stomachs. People who had a little extra would go out of their way to help.

The definition of caring in Webster’s Dictionary means: kind, showing care and concern, looking out for and being fond of.

What makes you want to give of yourself?  What moves you to be concerned? What compels you to do something nice for another human being? What makes you look out for a person who sincerely needs help? What makes you dig deep down inside to sweeten another person’s life palette from hardship?

It’s so easy not to care now a day, conversely, it is also easy to impose an arbitrary idea on someone else.  The essence is figuring out how to truly care from within, out, and to not only assist others in a way that an individual wants and needs, but to genuinely and sincerely mean it.

Humor and Warmth

To quote Maya Angelou:”we must have humor in our lives, and warmth and giving.” How do you see warmth and giving in your life?  Is it visually pretty?  Do vibrant colors come to your mind eye?   Does a warm feeling take over your breath and body like the ebb and flow of a beautiful ocean wave?   Do healing thoughts come to your being?

Miss Maya, as I affectingly call her to myself, is one of my most favorite poets and authors.  I find myself in contemplation from her words; thinking and meditation, digesting and absorbing what these words actually mean. One by one I swallow and suck up the out-reach hand these words have to offer.

Do you reach out in the same way as I?  Grabbing hold of the good these words have to give us.  Do you spread light and joy from these words? Or, do you react in the opposite? Do you tense up?  Do you get anxious when these words are spoken?  Why, then, do these words turn into a hot flame of anger? Why do they upset you?

I have thought about the meaning of words and how they affect me and others.  Why they take on the shape they do, and why words that are positive to one person can be so negative, daunting and upsetting to another.  What is it for you? Have you found the warmth, humor, and giving within your life, today?

 

What is Your Voice Saying

What does your voice sound like?  Is it calm and inviting like Pavarotti the opera singer? Does it engage people?  Does it work in your favor by having a positive energy force?   Do you bring this positive nature forward to carry out the work you wish to do?  Do you work well with others?  Are you a team leader, have innovative ideas and do well under pressure? Is your attitude uplifting, cooperative, and willing to compromise?

Or does it irritate, offend, and insult like a hawk and its warlike aggressive behavior? Would you say you come across whining, blaming others, and always having to be right?  Additionally, do you come across in a doom or gloomful kind of manner?  Can you handle corrective citizen by just listening- Can you take what others have to say?  Are you willing to take the necessary steps and action to grow from your lessons just learnt?  What is your energy level like? Are you tired before you even get started in the morning?  Did you stay up all night listening to your voice in your head?  Did it keep going on and on complaining about what this person said and didn’t say?

Does your voice work for you?  Is it a useful tool to help you get ahead? Or, does it extinguish your light and what you stand for?  Do you fight to forge forward in your life’s’ endeavors?  Or are you wasting your precious time and others’?  Does it affect your productivity and the way you move forward in the universe? Is it an effective tool or one that hinders? Better yet, does it drain peoples’ energy?

If your voice does any of the above, you are not alone.  You have a chance every day to work on yourself to become a better person. To gain the qualities you truly posses-

No one said it was going to be easy.  But if you work on it a day at a time, and take the necessary steps one must to change, you will be so happy.  You will feel so content within.  You will have mastered the yin and yang of  your true self.

How Do I Navigate My Life

In your life, do you sit passively on the sidelines?  Do you sit back and watch the world go by?  Do you often look out into the oceans water wondering how you are going to master the obstacles in your life?  Do you ask yourself how you are going to make your life happen?   And when!  Do you reach out to others in the things you are interested in so that you can move forward?

Do you see people taking on jobs or positions you wished you could have, or are capable of handling?

What’s holding you back?  What can you do to change your circumstances?  How can you rise above?

Are the people around you telling you that you cannot succeed?  What happens inside your being?  Do you fight and stand up for your rights, or do you plop down onto the couch and wither away in sadness and depression? Do you let those thoughts win?

It’s worth believing in you.  For one, you build your own self-confidence and self-esteem.  You take on new ideas, inviting challenges, and by engaging yourself with new people and activity you hear your own voice. You start to like what you see.  You have experienced something new.  You are making choices on your own.  You are not frittering your life away. And, you are not listening to those who once told you, you couldn’t.

Is it worth stepping outside the box?  Is it worth trying?  Is it worth feeling good about yourself?

Blueberry Bread

This gluten free bread is VERY yummy in the tummy.  I took a muffin recipe and developed a masterpiece.

2 cups gluten free buckwheat flour and an (extra 1/4 cup for the blueberries )

1 cup frozen blueberries rinsed and drained

¼ cup coconut oil, or safflower oil

¼ cup honey

1 egg = 1 tablespoon flax seed and ¼ cup water with a smidgen more

½ teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk

1/3 cup arrow root

 

1.   Mix ¼ extra cup of buckwheat flour with the blueberries and let stand for 1 hour.

2.  Preheat oven to 425 F.  Cream the oil and honey together.  Beat until light and fluffy.

3.   Cook the flax seed with water till it has the consistency of eggs.  About 5 minutes on a low to medium flame stirring constantly not to burn.  Add the flax mixture to the oil and honey. Then sift together the remaining flour, arrow root, salt, baking powder, as you add it to the oil and flaxseed mixture alternately with the milk, starting and finishing with the flour.  Fold in the floured berries last.

4.  Pour into a greased loaf pan of Canola Non-stick spray oil and sprinkled buckwheat flour.

5.  Bake about 60 minutes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apricot Nut Bread

Here is another delicious recipe for you

 

½ cup dried apricots

2 cups gluten free flour (buckwheat, oat, brown rice)

2 teaespoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg= 1 tablespoon flaxseed and ¼ c water plus a smidgen over, lightly beaten

½ honey

2 teaspoons  safflower oil or coconut oil

¾ teaspoon salt

3/4 cup orange juice

1 cup Brazil nuts (chopped)

½ tablespoon Cinnamon or (to taste)

½ tablespoon Coriander or (to taste)

½ teaspoon Orange flavoring

2 teaspoons Orange Peel

 

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Soak apricots for ½ hour, and then chop.  Beat eggs or stir in flax mixture with the honey and oil.  Stir well. Next,
  2. Sift flower with dry ingredients.  Baking powder, soda, and salt.  Add Brazil nuts and apricots.  Then, mix well
  3. Pour into a loaf pan that has been sprayed with a non stick cooking oil spray and a TBS of your gluten flour.  Bake until toothpick comes clean when  pierced in the center, about 1 hour.

 

  1.            A.  Remember honey can be substituted for all natural 100% fruit jams.

B.  And, a pure unsweetened applesauce or apple butter can be use to moisten the consistency even more.  Add to taste.  Its optional.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Made Prune, Raisin Bread

Home Made Prune, Raisin Bread

Now that I have explained the basics in my other two posts, let’s get started! Remember this is for you- so, to life!

1 cup whole prunes and 1 cup raisins                ½ cup honey

1 cup gluten free buckwheat flour                   1 teaspoon salt

1 cup gluten free oat flour                              4 teaspoons Hains gluten free baking powder

½ cup gluten free brown rice flour                  1 cup almond milk, or, unsweetened hemp-

Add some gluten free oat flakes                          milk or unsweetened coconut milk

1/3 cup arrowroot                                           1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons gur gur                                      1 tablespoon canola oil

3 eggs = 9 tablespoons water and 3 tablespoons flaxseeds

  1. Soak prunes and raisins in cold water for about a half hour to an hour. Drain and remove prune pits, and chop.
  2. Mix all dry ingredients together and wet with wet. Then blend together and mix well.
  3. Add the prunes and raisins to the melted canola oil and honey.
  4. Bring Mix water and flax seed in sauce pan to boil.  About 3 to 5 minutes omit if using real eggs.
  5. Put in greased loaf pan, let stand 25 minutes in warm place.
  6. Preheat over 350 F. and bake about one hour
  7. If you want a bigger loaf double recipe

Preparing the Dough

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Allergy Awareness

Allergy Awareness

For years, every time I ate something with wheat, dairy, eggs, yeast, or gluten, my body would violently react.  I would get black eyes, my stomach would blow up, and my nose would get terribly stuffy!  I would feel miserable after suffering the severe consequence of a compromised immune system for decades.

Somehow I knew instinctively that I was different and something was terribly wrong.  The human body was made to enjoy foods- not battle them-

But no one would believe me.  Family members thought I was crazy!  I even went to a young doctor in his thirties, who told me my body was suppose to blow up-  That made absolutely no sense to me.  I knew that, that was wrong advice- perhaps my Cerebral Palsy could be part of the cause. Perhaps it had something to do with the DPT shot given me at infantcy.  I did not know for sure- or to what extent.  But I was not going to give up!  I kept searching for answers.

Through reading, I saw in black and white where it stated that sometimes the digestive system and swallowing could be affected in people with C.P. (Cerebral Palsy.)  What about those who did not have Cerebral Palsy and those who have Celiac Disease?

Well, for the last 2 years, I have been on the road to recovery.  I have eliminated all the foods I am allergic to, go for acupuncture, and, I  work one-on-one with a naturopathic doctor that truly understands and cares-   I have been searching out, baking, and trying new recipes.

Because I was asked to write a blog for all of you, I have agreed.  Know that you are not alone anymore!  You are in good company and there is someone else out there that truly understands what you are going through.

Stay tune.  There’s more to come…