On this episode of the Vegan Life Coach Podcast our goal is to help you see problems from a very different angle than you’re used to.

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In the book, The Power of Now” Eckart Tolle says, “NOW is all we have.”

That does not mean we shouldn’t have goals for the future. It means that on our path to our goals, we can be present, live in gratitude, operate from a place of abundance, and put the positive energy out that we want to get back.

When it comes to problems, all too often we think, “Once I __________, I’ll be happy, at peace, and/or free from stress… Once I lose weight, land the right job, or find my soulmate everything will be butterflies and rainbows.

We tend to think that one day we could be free from problems… Like there’s a magical place that we would get to and we would then be happy and free.

What if we changed that thinking and began to explore our problems from a different angle? What if we acknowledged that there is an underlying issue. For many of our Vegan Life Coach Academy members, the root cause of unhappiness is the core belief, “I’m not enough.”

So many people are longing for the day that they can feel whole. 

When you don’t feel whole, you feel incomplete, when the reality is that you are already whole.

If you really think about it, there is no “arrival.” You’re never going to arrive at this magical place where you’re free from all problems.

When you’re single for example, you have one set of problems. You may dislike dating and think that if you found the right guy to marry everything would be fantastic in your life. But then, when you find that guy, and you do get married, have you “arrived” and have no more problems?

Of course not! You’ve simply arrived at a whole new set of problems!

Why are we running around so stressed and anxious all the time, trying to solve our problems as quickly as possible? What if we accepted the fact that once one problem is solved, there is going to be a new problem that arises. It’s just going to be a different problem. This is called life! 

We call it the human experience… Having a problem, facing it, learning, evolving, and then having new tools to use for the next problem.

So let’s take a deep breath here.

Problems are simply our own perception of a situation. Problems are created in the mind. In fact, the mind is the only place problems exist.

What’s a problem for one person could be an ideal circumstance for another.

If you’re somebody who doesn’t want children and you get pregnant that’s a problem, right ?

If you’re dying for kids however, and you get pregnant, it could be the happiest day of your life.

What happens is that our perceived problems cause negative emotions, and we are afraid of negative emotion. So what do we do? We fight.  We fight to make those problems go away.  We fight because we think freedom is on the other side of that problem, but that’s not the case. 

Instead, what if we learned to perceive situations in a way that will allow us to grow. What if we acknowledged, accepted, and even embraced the problems we have, because without them we wouldn’t be human. Without problems we wouldn’t exist… We’d be dead!

 So,  how do we change our perspective on a situation? 

We use the tool that we teach at Vegan Life Coach Academy… the Self-Empowerment Coaching System (episode 7).

The Self-Empowerment Coaching System is based on the idea that we have the power to write a different story for ourselves, and our lives, including our problems. SECS helps us learn how we can perceive our “problems”  in a productive way and take action to solve them.

So, remind yourself… Problems are forever. Take a deep breath. Feel yourself relax a bit. There’s no big rush!

 We don’t have to walk around in a hurry all day every day flying by the seat of our pants trying to solve the current problem because there’s just gonna be another one waiting for you once you solve the current one.

It’s called life! I wake up every morning feeling grateful to be alive. Do you?

In closing, let’s take some notes from Albert Einstein who said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Becoming the master of our minds, including our perception of our problems, will completely transform our lives!

We hope this episode and tips we shared save you time as you stock your pantry, fridge, and freezer with staples so that you can eat healthy, delicious, and nutritious meals conveniently.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Vegan Life Coach Academy | Episode 17: The Busyness Trap

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On today’s show Stephanie and I are talking about pantry vegan staples and our tips and tricks.

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*Links mentioned in the episode are at the bottom of this page.

On today’s show Stephanie and I are talking about pantry staples and our tips and tricks. Our goal for this episode is that you’ll put to use the tips and tricks that we provide to help you eat your healthiest, most delicious meals. We all live full lives, and this episode is going to help you implement easy practices so that you are set up for success with the food already in your kitchen, particularly staples in your pantry and fridge. 

If you have ever wondered what you would find in Stephanie’s or my pantry, what vegan staples we can’t live without, or what tips we have surrounding how to stock your pantry, fridge, or freezer with staples then this episode is for you. 

Some episodes here on The Vegan Life Coach Academy are heavier topics but some weeks, like today’s episode, are lighter episodes. We kick off this episode with a lightning round where we ask each other five questions that the other must respond to quickly, without thinking. Then we share our biggest, most helpful pantry and staples tips and tricks. 

I love how Stephanie organizes the grocery list for our Vegan Life Coach Academy members. On one side, she puts the pantry list and then on the other side, the produce. Both can be staples, but one can be stocked ahead of time and the other, we have to get fresh every week. Organizing the list in this way allows us to think about what we need to keep in the kitchen and pantry, or the refrigerator every week. 

Stephanie always picks a few meals that she is going to have throughout the week, and she chooses them in a way that she can re-purpose them, but there are certain vegan foods that she always have on hand… Staples. So when she organizes her grocery list, she organizes it just that way. She puts them in terms of produce and the things she knows she’s going to have to restock because they don’t keep. And then on the other side, she puts her pantry list and those are usually the staples that she knows that she is going to need. 

Then she goes into her pantry area and looks for them. She buys lots of items like chickpeas, and quinoa in bulk. And then she checks each week to make sure that she doesn’t need to replenish them. She notes, not to forget spices. And that’s the way she does it. Genius, right? 

There are certain non-perishables that I eat every week and it’s so much easier when I buy in bulk too, even though it’s just Christian and I. I know I’m going to eat chickpeas and black beans, all the different legumes. When I purchase those items in bulk my weekly grocery list is so much smaller. It just makes things so much easier. I definitely recommend stocking up on the non-perishables that you know you’ll be consuming each week. 

The way I organize my list, and the way we have our staples list for Vegan Life Coach Academy is by category. We have our nuts, seeds and berries as one category now, frozen foods is another one. However, you can only go as big as your freezer allows.  That’s the only problem there. We usually have more cabinet space or a storage space, but the freezer is a fantastic place to keep berries. I think sometimes frozen food gets a bad rap, but frozen veggies, frozen fruits are really great staples to keep on hand.

That is how we organize our staples, now let’s move on to some tips surrounding them. 

Ella Tip #1:

Organize your fridge so that when you open the door, you see the things that you want to choose first that are the healthiest food.

Refrigerators are set up to put unhealthy foods in front of us because we have the drawers, the crisper, where you want to put the produce and then they are hidden away in the drawer. Well, forget all of that. I want all my whole foods at eye level, I want to see the celery and the lettuce and the avocados and the tomatoes, I want to see all the whole foods right when I open the door. Then I want to slip in those drawers things like:  vegan cheeses, vegan Mayo, vegan meats beyond meat, those sort of things. Anything that I would consider a treat. I want to put those away, where I have to work a little harder to get to them. 

Stephanie Tip #1:

My tip for people who are transitioning to vegan with families that are not transitioning with them is to do a similar thing. Put those foods away into places where you don’t necessarily see them. My kids are vegan at home, but I don’t restrict them out and I do not ban people from bringing food in. So those items always go into the bottom drawer and those things that I don’t necessarily want to eat all the time that they do. For example: we have almonds, and chocolate pudding right now that goes into a drawer because if I see that first thing, I am definitely going to want that before the broccoli. 

Ella Tip #2:

My second tip is to cut vegetables right away. I love to bring home different dips and hummus but if I bring a big thing of celery and I put the celery whole into the refrigerator, the chance of that getting eaten when I’m in a hurry and I just need a quick snack is going to be slim.  I’m not going to take the celery out, wash it, cut it. I’m going to probably choose something else. So my trick is, when I get home from the grocery store with celery, and I’m just using that as one example, I immediately just go ahead and cut it, wash it. I put it in a big Tupperware with water. It seems to stay really well there. 

Stephanie Tip #2:

My biggest time-saver is to decide how much time you want to spend meal- prepping and really give yourself that permission to say, “I really only want to spend 30 minutes meal- prepping. Or I really only want to spend an hour meal-prepping.” When you box yourself into meal-prepping, it becomes a drudgery, and eventually you’re going to give it up. My biggest time-savers are those vegan foods that take a lot of time to cook. I cook beans, quinoa, and do some veggie prep on the weekends and that’s it. I don’t do anything else. 

We hope this episode and tips we shared save you time as you stock your pantry, fridge, and freezer with staples so that you can eat healthy, delicious, and nutritious meals conveniently.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Vegan Life Coach Academy | Episode 17: The Busyness Trap

CONNECT WITH US!

Grab the valuable gift we have for you HERE.

Have a question you’d like us to answer, or feedback you’d like to give us (we love hearing from you!)? Leave us a voice (or written) message HERE.

Interested in receiving a free coaching session to air on an upcoming episode? Apply HERE.