As I fall asleep tonight, we’ll be closing the door on one of our most challenging chapters as parents.
Over the past couple months, we’ve been struggling without steady childcare. It’s been a swirl of reasons; our usual sitters and nanny haven’t been available, the new sitter service we signed up for requires a month’s notice to get the time slots we needed. And so, we juggled. We juggled so hard. Balancing Leo on our laps as we took calls. Squeezing projects and obligations in during naptimes and after little Leo fell asleep at night. He spent so much time with me in the kitchen, watching the mixer, peering over the countertop from his perch in the sink, playing the drums of the jars in the pantry, or banging on the pots and pans as I struggled to keep things moving. Cooking is work, here, after all.
It was a horrible to feel that I didn’t have time to stop to play with him, to plop him on the floor with his favorite books and listen to him babble each page to himself. I’d heard about Mom Guilt but never imagined it could feel so heartbreaking. I never imagined feeling that work I love could feel so wrong.
In a regular week, I spend a lot of time cooking but never elaborately and only a tiny proportion of it for us and any shred of luxury or excitement fell by the wayside; our meals had to get quick, and simple just to get them on the table. But for as simple as they were, these were my own evidence to myself that I was doing something right – using ingredients from the farmer’s market to make our meals delicious and fresh (even if the InstantPot did most of the “cooking” while Leo and I were in the bathtub.)
This simple, fast Mung Bean Soup with Zipped Up Coconut Yogurt was one of my inventions one night when I was at a loss, hadn’t planned, and needed to pull something together with what we had on hand. It was fabulous. So much so that we made it three times more. So much so that even tiny Leo loved slurping the broth from a broad ramen soup spoon — the cutest. It has to be shared for this, and so many reasons.
This is one of the most important principles of Ayurvedic nutrition. Keep. It. Simple.
From an Ayurvedic perspective, our lives as humans are complicated enough – what will all the emotions, spiritual awakening and ego. Then we layer on modernity, with it’s zooming information speeds, insane levels of obligation, and always-on-mentality. And then for a few of us, we layer on parenthood with it’s incessant weighing of values, thinking in the present, and the distant future. And THEN, for yet another hardy subset, we give ourselves the label of athlete which means that we add a next-level amount of movement, challenge and stress for the body/mind/spirit to manage.
When we start to feel the swirl, we MUST keep our nutrition simple. To keep our digestion running strong. To keep our nervous systems calm. To keep the Gut-Brain axis shuttling positive, symbiotic messages to and from the thyroid. When we complicate our nourishment – say with overwhelming flavors, supplement interactions, difficult-to-digest food combinations and more, we only add to the long list of things our bodies need to “handle.” Which sometimes is the straw that breaks the camels back, as it were, sending us into states of dis-ease.
Quick little reminder here that even though spring is springing, it’s still kapha-season which means that keeping our foods warm and cooked is still the best way to serve our bodies, clear excess weight, and prepare our systems for a vibrant spring and summer. If you’re curious to learn more about how to make this seasonal shift for yourself, this little article will give you some pointers. And, if you’re curious how to change your eating patterns specifically with the seasons, check this one out too.
…doesn’t actually need much more of an introduction. I love it so so much because:
Over the past weeks, as it drizzles and snows, we’ve been gratefully tucking into bowls for dinner, or leftover servings for lunch, and feeling the warm and cozies even though our schedules have left us feeling out to dry.
Next week, our schedule gets back to normal and our support system returns in earnest. I’m looking forward to having a little more time to cook all of the more elaborate, fun and exciting things I’ve been longing to make this spring, but I’m also looking forward to making this soup whenever the spirit moves; a reminder of the gold star I’m giving myself for making the most out of a humble situation. A humble, glorious, grateful situation.
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