Stop Making Excuses and Start Creating!

Part of my dream includes living on a lake at the foot of some beautiful mountains. Not necessarily in Switzerland where this was taken, but who knows! 😉

Hi friends!

I hope you’ve all been having a splendid day. I’m finally back home after a whirlwind few weeks traveling around and I must say it feels good to be getting back into my routine and sleeping in my own bed once again. Two weeks on a pullout was starting to wreak havoc on my back, despite traveling with all my herbs and the coconut milk packed in my suitcase… yes, I’ve become one of those people and I’m not ashamed to admit it! Today’s post is more of the musing type as I talk a bit about my adventures over the last few weeks. So without further ado, let’s see what kinds of lessons I’ve learned bouncing about the continent.

Musings on Swimming

I had a wonderful time down south with my family, soaking up the sun and swimming every single day. One of the biggest things I learned in the last 3ish weeks is that my life and body feel infinitely better when I can swim every day. Now that I’m back in the Sass I’m not sure that every day will be possible, but I am going to take a step towards making it a reality by getting a monthly membership to the salt water pool at the U of S.

I find that swimming really soothes my brain. This is likely the case because when I’m in the water I’m constantly counting my strokes and all I hear is the sound of my breath bubbles and the water streaming by my ears. More so than any other form of meditation I’ve tried, swimming gets me to that beautiful place outside of my racing thoughts and giant to-do lists, which is so important for calming our brains and giving our bodies the chance to heal. Healing journeys never really end and that’s why it’s so important to find your “swimming meditation,” whatever that may be! So today I want you to get out there and if you haven’t found your happy place keep trying new things until you find whatever it is that makes your soul sing and soothes your spirit.

Toronto Adventures

My trip to Toronto helped rekindle my love and appreciation of truly fresh, from-scratch foods. Meghan Telpner and her husband Josh Gitalis are amazing teachers and I came home from the Culinary Nutrition Urban Retreat feeling super inspired! I’ve already started playing with making my own coconut milk kefir, I’m developing a 10 Day Delectably Divine Dietary Detox, and I’m inhaling my new books on fermentation and eating for beauty so that I can learn even more about how to heal our bodies and make them glow with food.

I think it’s so important to continue attending courses, classes, seminars, or retreats in your preferred field of study to keep the love alive and inspire you to continue creating from a place of authenticity and passion. I’m not going to lie, if I had unlimited funds I would be registered for two more courses, one on Clinical Supplementation and the other on the Psychology of Emotional Eating, but I think it’s just as important to know when to draw the line… for now anyway! 😉

Where I am

So all of these adventures and lessons have come about because of the choices that I’ve made that led me to the place where I decided to start my own business. If you ask my mother, she will tell you in no uncertain terms that I’ve never liked anyone telling me what to do, when I can eat, what time I have to be somewhere, or who I have to talk to. That does not a great employee make. I would often start jobs, love them for a few weeks or maybe even months then get bored or resentful that I was getting paid shit money to build someone else’s dreams. So I decided, hey if I’m going to be poor, I might as well be poor while pursuing my own passions and building my own business. And so I dove in and have been slowly but surely creating a successful consulting practice, booking speaking gigs, offering my services as a content consultant and editor, writing every day, creating online programs to spread the whole foods love, and hosting super fun cooking classes and workshops.

While I’m still not making as much as I was when I working beforehand, I wake up everyday excited to get to work, often starting before I’ve even made my brekky. I can also now travel when the opportunity presents itself while still being able to work. This ability to travel has always been my dream and meow so long as I have the interwebs, the world is my office!

When I tell people what I do, I get a lot of comments along the line of “Wow, that’s so cool but I could never do something like that” or “It must be nice not having a real job” or even “Your life is so much more exciting than mine.” To which I saw PSHAW! If you really want to live the life of your dreams you absolutely can. Just don’t go thinking it’s all sunshine and rainbows and 2-hour workdays because that is not the reality of the situation.

Create the Life of Your Dreams!

Now that I’ve suitably rambled on for a while I’d like to do a little exercise with you. Grab a pen and a piece of paper. Got it? Ok. Think about what you would do if you won the lottery today and never had to work again. Don’t overthink it just write down the very first thing that comes to mind.

Sweet work. Now it’s time to reflect on what it is you’ve written down. Is it a dream that you’ve had for a long time? If so, what’s stopping you from achieving it? Does it seem too big, too unrealistic, too dangerous or scary? Well maybe you’re looking at this dream like you have to accomplish the whole thing in one go. I’m going to tell you something absolutely revelatory… That’s not how it works!! Shocking, right?! That silly little cliché that Rome wasn’t built in a day exists for a reason. Achieving your goals, be they in your career, family, travel, or your health, happens when you put one foot in front of the other and do something every single day that takes you closer to the life, love, or body of your dreams. Maybe running your own business isn’t your thing, but I know you can find something that you’ve always thought was beyond your reach.

So say you want to travel the world. Start figuring out logically what you would have to do to make that a reality, then just do it! How much money would you have to save? Would you have to quit your job or could you work remotely as you travel? Could you bring the kids and homeschool them while giving them the education of a lifetime? There’s not usually much else realistically stopping you from creating an amazing life but the lie in your head telling you that you can’t do it. I’m here today to give you permission to tell that bastard to shut the hell up. You can do it. Now get out there and start building your dreams!

Cait xoxo