Election Day Thoughts, Radical Acceptance & Potatoes

Happy Election Day in the U.S.! This one’s a doozy! Although it feels like the last few have been doozies, the intensity is certainly ramped up for this one. Whatever your beliefs, I hope you have made your voice heard and voted for the future of these here United States of America.

The key insight I have to share on the election topic is related to health and mindset. It’s just to remind everyone to take a deep breath and focus on the United portion of United States or whatever country you live in. We can live united vs. polarized and divided.

I believe the media and politicians, for the most part, are all about drama, fear, and division these days. From a health, mindset, or wellness perspective… none of that feels good, none of that activates our parasympathetic nervous system (rest, relax, restore). It throws us into sympathetic nervous system mode (fight, flight, freeze, appease) . Less of that please.

I generally avoid polarizing media and politicians. I don’t watch the news and haven’t for decades. Give it a try for a week or two. Life gets a lot calmer. I find out about world events from others when it’s important. I pass on the heaping helping of fear & drama.

I believe we will make it through the next 4 years no matter who wins. Look at the last 8 years. We made it through with Republicans at the helm and we made it through with Democrats at the helm. (I do wish we had more/better options than our current 2 party system.) I believe we can make it through with grace and ease if we focus on kindness for all of humanity.

My vote sort of double counts in our household as Simon is British and is considered a legal resident alien in this country. He doesn’t get to vote as said alien. It is one of the reasons he is considering applying for US citizenship. His family in the UK actually called and checked in on our physical safety after elections one time, as even their news was predicting bedlam.

We survived. Our country survived. And we keep our focus on UNITED. Simon and I have a little saying, “Live your life and love your neighbor” and we focus on what a great world we can have if we all do that. We have had actual neighbors with all sorts of political beliefs… which they occasionally share or put signs in their yard professing.

We choose to focus on how kind, caring, and helpful our neighbors are. I truly believe that the vast majority of humans would always help out a fellow human in need. I was reminded of that when Hurricane Helene devastated areas of our state. I am sure you have seen the outpouring of donations, love, and kindness. It still brings tears to my eyes and opens my heart when I think of it.

That’s where I like to focus my thoughts and energy for my own wellness and that of everyone around me.

This Week’s Shot of MINDSET

Speaking of elections, I thought I would share a bit about RADICAL ACCEPTANCE this week and a small little journal that has turned out to be an absolute gem for me.

The concept of radical acceptance came to me intuitively as I was doing some Thought Work journaling on the topic of why I still sometimes reach for sweets to numb intense feelings. The insight that came was that I was not handling or accepting my life as it unfolds. Certain emotions or situations were sort of too much for my nervous system. I didn’t want to feel. I wanted to avoid, shove down, deal with it another day.

NOT good. Emotions are here to be seen, felt, recognized, allowed, and processed. That’s all they really need. I, like most of humanity, sometimes want to run for the hills when the uncomfortable emotions show up.

So I went to good ole Amazon since the actual term RADICAL ACCEPTANCE was being shown to me and emphasized as something for me to tackle. I did a little research and bought this journal.

Well, Dr. Schweitzer (my Great-Grandparents’ last name, see below for fun stories about them) let’s give this a whirl… It took me a bit to get into it as I was already doing other journaling. Once I started really steeping myself in each week’s topic, I felt immediate benefit. I could feel things shift in the area that I was focusing on each week.

The 10 areas covered in this journal related to Radical Acceptance are:

Practicing Gratitude
Embracing Discomfort
Allowing Happiness
Healthy Boundaries
Accepting Change
Asking for Help
Releasing Fear
Savage Forgiveness
Grounded Confidence
Growth Mindset

Now I am almost finished with all 10 weeks and the shift has been profound for me. This work is bringing out a kinder, gentler version of me. One who is… dare I say more ACCEPTING of life as it unfolds every day.

Another key thing that came to me was the concept of RELAXING as I accept life’s twists & turns. Not my strong point as a Type A driven kind of gal. This new belief came to me:

I relax and trust the journey of my life.

I balanced it with PSYCH-K®, which means it is a new belief for me at the subconscious level. My subconscious mind which has 1,000,000X the processing power of the conscious mind is ON. IT. reinforcing this new belief and finding evidence of it everywhere for me.

My conscious mind, which is slow and only active about 5% of the time is even starting to catch on and bring me back to this relaxation and trust when the old, well worn thought patterns of stress and overwhelm want to take over. I am consciously and subconsciously coming back to my new belief and it is calming and reassuring for me.

This Week’s Shot of HEALTH

Another topic to unite us all… POTATOES ! Who doesn’t love some nice rosemary roasted potatoes, creamy mashed potatoes, or fries on the side?? Simon and I eat a LOT of potatoes and stay at a trim, healthy BMI with no fear of carbs in sight. The trick is in how they are prepared and eating an overall healthy, clean, whole foods based diet.

Potatoes often get maligned due to ‘the company they keep’ as my mentor Dr. McDougall says. If you are eating french fries , potato chips, or loading up your tatties with butter, cheese, bacon, etc., you are getting your starch with lots of oils, saturated fats, and highly processed foods. This increases the calorie density, clogs the arteries, and makes those potatoes no bueno for health and weight loss.

There is a lot of hype about low carb, no carb, carnivore, etc. these days, but all of the science keeps coming back to Great-Grandma’s advice to eat more fruits & veggies and avoid ultraprocessed foods. If your Great-Grandma wouldn’t recognize the food or ingredient… don’t eat it!

My Great-Grandpa was a chicken farmer all his life in Kawkawlin, Michigan and lived to 100. He actually walked into his own 100th birthday party, sat down at the piano, and entertained everyone for over an hour. (Then died 3 months later basically because he decided he was done.)

He didn’t even like chicken and preferred all other meats. He and Great-Grandma had a huge garden and fruit orchard, ate TONS of fresh fruits & veggies and canned and preserved everything for produce all year round. When asked about his longevity, he gave credit to the same breakfast he ate every morning – oatmeal, an orange, and a cup of coffee. He was a plant based superstar before it was cool!

(Funny side note, Great-Grandpa had a rooster named Noodle Soup who he trained to do tricks. Noodle Soup would hop up on their front porch, Great-Grandpa would have him ‘speak’ or ‘play dead’ and my brother & I thought it was hilarious! )

Back to the spuds. If you have tried the low/no carb fads, you probably know it doesn’t take long to crave nothing but CARBS. Your body needs them. THIS ARTICLE gives you all of the latest science on why potatoes are very good for you. It also links to 50 awesome potatoes recipes if you want some tatties back in your life as part of a more plant based way of eating where you can have all of those starchy comfort food favorites.

Those Waffle Mashed Potatoes are looking pretty darned good! I may have to bust out my ceramic waffle maker and make some soon.

If you are interested in using the power of the mind to uplevel your life, I share mindset expertise every week, along with fun & insightful stories from my own life path from 80s hair band superfan to chemical engineer to health & mindset coach (what a journey!).

You will also see plenty of health promoting tips and recipes because I am blown away by the power of intermittent fasting + a healthy diet to prevent & reverse just about any health concern Mindset plays a big part in health and healing too, the power of the Mind Body connection is pretty mind blowing.