I grew up in a small town with a historic movie theater built in the 1920s and the projector there wasn't much newer, meaning that occasionally there would be unintentional intermissions during the show because a light bulb exploded or the film reel was stuck or broken or put in upside down, or in one memorable instance, loaded in the wrong order. I believe this theater now has modern trappings of the digital age, but in the free-wheeling 80s and 90s, going to the movies was its own adventure, never mind the feature!

The first time I saw the greatly anticipated third and final installment in the Back 2 the Future franchise, for example, the reels were loaded into the projector out of order. As the very subject of the movies is time travel, it took us, the confused audience, quite awhile to figure out what was happening. The theater finally offered a complete ordered showing of the movie following the complete disordered mix-up and we all got home very late that evening and thoroughly confused.

But what do the adventures of Marty and Doc have to do with self-help, the semi-cohesive theme of this blog?

We (the audience of the Select Theater in the summer of 1990) thought we were just watching a very confusing movie. "This is just how it is," we thought as we crunched our popcorn. But it wasn't the movie at all; it was the projector that was messed up. At the movies, as in life, we think we're seeing everything playing out in front of us just as it is, but it's really the projector that's running the whole show.

In the movie of our life, the projector is our mind and our thoughts are the lens through which we experience every emotion beamed onto the background of the world. What's really going to bake your noodle is the fact that the majority of craftsmanship of our projector lens is completed by the time we reach the sophisticated and informed age of 7*, honed by our interpretations of inputs we received from our families, our cultures, our backgrounds, and our experiences. The brain mostly operates in theta and alpha frequencies in these early years--the same as in hypnosis or deep meditation.

While your experiences before age 7 could have created a very positive view of money and healthy self-esteem that may be serving you well to this day, that is unfortunately not always the case. So if you saw your parents fighting over money just before they got divorced when you were 5, are you doomed to live a lonely, bankrupt life and have an adversarial relationship with money? Of course not! Though your lens was formed in those early years creating the foundation of your subconscious mind, you can make changes to it anytime you want to. In many cases, life does this for us as a new experience challenges an old belief that makes the old one less useful. 

But you can be the cause of changes, too--not just the effect. You can wipe down the lens. You can get a totally brand new one! You can buff out a scratch. You can swat the fly that keeps landing on it. The only trick is, you have to do this intentionally if you want to create an intentional result. The way you create intention is with your thoughts. And the shortcut to creating and believing the thoughts that you want is with a life coach.

And scene.

Are you are ready to change the movie on the screen, uplevel your life, and give your poor, painful, doomed thoughts the heave ho?! Let's work together and let's go! It would be an honor to be your coach! Click to go to my appointments page to schedule your free 20 minute consult call.

Every time you make a choice in life and decide how and when to execute that decision, you are being creative. You don't have to have a gallery showing or be a preeminent tap dancer to be creative; you are creating all the time--your thoughts and perceptions, your experiences. When we inject that innate creativity with our experiences, emotions, or some piece of our authentic selves, it becomes self-expression, a way of saying to the world "This is who I am. I am here. I matter."

• self-awareness: noticing what we are feeling and being able to name it
  
• mindfulness: noticing and identifying aspects of the external world and our bodies in the present moment 
• energetic release: the intentional catharsis of emotion through movement or other deliberate activity
  
• cognitive reappraisal: the ability to shift thoughts about a situation by simply changing the perspective from which it is viewed
  
• adaptability: resourceful problem solving and pivoting when a problem or blockage is perceived
  
• self-compassion: understanding that we are worthy of love and treating ourselves with care and gentleness in the face of perceived mistakes or failures
  
• emotional support: creating a robust and resourced, supportive "community," that may consist of yourself and/or others that you connect with

You may have heard of a handwriting analysis as a means to learn about your existing personality traits, but have you ever considered that your handwriting may also be a powerful tool for leaning into your future and transforming who you could become?

Alphabetician and psychologist Vimala Rodgers developed The Vimala Alphabet as a tool for fostering personal growth through the adoption of letter forms that she believes represent our noblest selves. Because our writing represents the way we think, Rodgers believes it must also be true that intentionally changing our writing to represent higher ideals and balanced energy will therefore transform the way we think. 

A graphologist, examines and analyzes existing handwriting to compile a list of personality traits of the writer. An alphabetician deals with the alphabet in some way. In the case of Rodgers, a pioneer in the field of hand-brain interconnectedness, she uses the intentional adoption of certain alphabetical forms as a means for teaching people to bring out the traits those letters represent in themselves.

Rodgers' "Vimala alphabet"

Regarding the letter T, for example, Rodgers has this to say: “In school most of us were taught to cross the stem midway down, which represents mediocrity, or ‘just be like everyone else and above all, don’t step out of that box!' Placing a vigorously drawn crossbar on top of the t stem releases blockages that have prevented your inner vision from coming to life.”

My first attempt at Vimala writing with Ts crossed on top!

In her book Your Handwriting Can Change Your Life, offers various insights on how the free-flowing cursive of her alphabet is in direct opposition to learned emotional imbalance. For example, printing instead of writing creates a fence that separates the letters from one another. People who block print (print in only uppercase letters), the majority of which are men, have turned that fence into a wall, to protect and hide talents that they may be afraid to express.

Rodgers' book contains many exercises for personal transformation through handwriting to reach a particular goal in life, but offers this one as a starting point:

• For 40 consecutive days, practice writing the initial of your first, full birth name (not nickname, even if you go by it) in upper and lower case, and words containing it, using the Vimala alphabet shown above
  
• Do the same with the first letter of your last name (at birth)
• Write for at least 15 minutes per day
  
• Write on UNlined paper to keep away from "in the box" and "safe" thinking
  
• Write in pen, which is indelible and declarative! 
• Do not skip a day
   
  
  
  

Want to explore more with Vimala handwriting? Susan Govorko, graduate of the Vimala Rodgers Institute and author of the Vimala alphabet guidebook Alphabet, Pen, and Ink, offers prompts for 40 days of journaling for personal growth through her web site of the same name:  Handwriting for Personal Growth at Alphabet, Pen, and Ink. Govorko also created this handout for referencing the Vimala letters.

If you are seeking personal transformation of any kind, but feel confused, blocked, stuck, or unsure where to begin, it would be my honor to work with you as your coach to help you help yourself!  I offer group courses, virtual organizing, feng shui consultations, and personalized coaching on your timeline to meet your needs. Visit the contact page of my site to book a session or send me a message to set up a discovery call.

Let's create a powerful magnet to attract more love and abundance to your life, layering one beautiful intention on top of another in physical form.

The intention is what matters, but by making that intention into something you can experience with your senses, you are reminded of it constantly, subconsciously, which is how you--all of us--operate about 95% of the time. Our habits and practiced beliefs run the show and give our prefrontal cortex time to rest or work on others things we're undecided on. 

This is not different from keeping your gym equipment where you can see and access it readily if you have an intention to work out more. In this case, you're preparing your environment for love and abundance and telling your mind to get to work creating more evidence for it with repetitions. Lift more weights at the gym, get stronger. Live in the frequency of love more, become more loving and attract more love. 

With this magnet, you're stating that you believe it exists and that it's available to you and we always get more of what we expect!

So are you ready to prepare your environment for more love and tell the universe you know it exists for you?! Let's do it!

Ingredients you'll need to make the love magnet:

• a clean (no labels!), clear jar of any size (the jar you select will determine the amounts you need of each of the other ingredients)
• salt for grounding and purifying your space (I'm using pink salt because pink is romantic! and i have it on hand, but you can use any kind)
  
• dried orange peel calls in health, cheer, and joy
• rosemary, a purifier, calls in clarity and prosperity and is great for fresh starts
• a red rose, pointing outward, calls in love and passion

Let's talk about washing your produce! There are a lot of reasons to do it and a lot of ways to do it effectively, so I am going to do my best to break it down into bite-sized pieces of information so you will be empowered to do it yourself as easily as you like with a fully-informed understanding of why and how you prefer to do it. Don't be daunted by the amount of information here. If you prefer, just believe me when I say: you should really wash all your produce. Then skip down to the bottom for an easy DIY recipe and be on your way. But if you really want to start with why, let's go!

Why do I wash produce?

A few weeks ago, my dear cousin Liz came for a visit and while I was doing my regular produce wash following my weekly grocery pick-up, she asked if this was a practice I had adopted since Covid or if I had always done it. Wow--had not even thought about that. Though washing away the germs du jour is certainly as good a reason as any, I have always washed produce because it's just really dirty.

I'm not one to sanitize every surface in my house or fear bacteria or digging in the dirt in the slightest; I regularly pick things off my shirt, or my own floor (only my own floor), and "taste test" them. So please hear me when I say: produce is pretty dang dirty. While washing of commercial produce has really come a long way in recent years, here are some of the things that might be on your produce:

• wax and sticker goo--even if you remove the sticker
  
• the residue of the hands of all the other people in the grocery store that handled it before you
• the residue of everything else in your grocery cart (I am a plastic bag hater and use them as never as possible, but even if you do use them, it does not magically guard your already dirty produce from getting dirtier, so you could really skip the bag...or bring a washable cloth one that is likely cleaner and definitely less disposable)
• the residue from all the transportation modalities its been through to get to you
• the pesticides and/or animal waste used in/near the growing of your food (even if you are buying strictly organic)
• dirt/sand (especially on leafy greens)
• bugs (especially if you are buying organic)

"But Mary, I *only* buy from the farmers' market and farmers I know!"  Well, that's amazing and congratulations on being an exceptional locavore, but plants are still grown in dirt (usually) and are still on this Monsanto-drenched earth, and are still presumably handled by a human. If you are exclusively eating produce grown in your own hydroponic greenhouse and picked by you or a robot, then by all means, ignore my advice. 

By the same token, I don't want to be a fear-monger. The benefits of eating some residual pesticides because you're cramming your face with only fruits and vegetables day and night far outweigh eschewing them for sterile, highly processed foods. But can we all agree that if we can easily avoid common pathogens, it's worth it? And removing sand is better for your teeth? And most of us don't really crave a diet of bugs? Perhaps to our detriment, but nevertheless...

Do I need to wash produce that I am going to peel anyway?

Yes. Washing prevents the transfer of whatever is on the produce to: your cutting board, your refrigerator, your knife, your hands, etc. I am going to break down the specifics of when and how to wash produce, but yes, wash all the things--even onions and garlic, especially if they are going to be consumed raw.

When do I wash produce?

Obviously you want to do it before handling and eating, but how much before? In all cases, you can't go wrong with washing it right before you eat it because you do not risk premature moldiness from excess moisture. However, for all the things that I can wash ahead, I prefer to so that when I am ready to consume them, there is no barrier to the resistance of an extra step (and my kids probably won't do it at all). It also saves time in prepping dinner. When I get home from the grocery store, I wash anything with a thicker, more durable or waxy peel immediately in a big batch before putting it in my fruit bowls, produce drawer, etc. I remove the sticker as I put it in to soak and know that if it has a sticker, it has probably not been washed. 

Wash immediately*: apples, avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, celery, bananas, melons, and citrus fruit, beets, cabbage (remove the outer leaves after washing and dry thoroughly), all kinds of squash, sweet potatoes, radishes, blueberries, cherries, grapes, strawberries, ginger root, artichokes, pineapple

Wash on demand: onions and garlic, mushrooms (usually), broccoli, carrots (even prewashed baby carrots), leafy greens, and potatoes (washing ahead is asking them to sprout/mold).

*I came up with this list after years of trial and error, inadvertently prematurely spoiling many wonderful produce items due to my love of batch efficiency, but when in doubt, wash just before consuming/handling. While I do wash strawberries immediately, I always use the spray method for these delicate berries and do not leave them to soak.

What do I wash produce with?

Okay get ready for this mind-blower: you can just use water--running or a soak. Yes, even the FDA says so (and discourages commercial produce wash). Add a little scrubbing action with a vegetable brush or from your fingers and you're in business. That said, you can really do better and with not much more effort than water. If you're going to wash it in the first place, why not try adding one/some of these ingredients to kill bacteria, dissolve wax and sticker residue, and draw out bugs more effectively?

• Lemon Juice: adding lemon juice to water to clean lemons is very meta. But seriously, this high-acid (2.0 pH, baby!) fruit is great at dissolving grime and grit and loosening dirt. Citric acid is known by chemists as a mild reducing agent, which means that it has the power to denature or unravel the proteins that make viruses function (ever made ceviche?). It can't kill everything, but dang, it's a powerhouse. Plus, it smells so nice!
  
• Vinegar: readily available and oh-so cheap, vinegar, like lemon juice is an acid (2.4 pH) that dissolves grime and grease and while super smelly, is also super mild and safe for use everywhere in your house and around all your people. Can it kill bacteria? Well, it's not proven as a disinfectant.
  
• Salt: salt is a great absorber and very powerful in combination with acids like lemon and vinegar. Salt is said to draw out bugs in produce, as well as absorb pesticides. It is also an abrasive/scouring agent, but you won't really use it in this capacity in a soak or spray.
  
• Baking Soda: ...is a kind of salt (sodium bicarbonate) and like salt, it is a great absorber, effective at dissolving grime and grease, and a powerful partner with an acid like lemon juice or vinegar (volcano anyone?)

What is the best method for washing produce: soak, spray, or rinse?

Dealer's choice! I like to bulk wash most of my produce in a soak as soon as I get home from the grocery store because I can do other things like put the rest of my groceries away while that happens. For on-demand washing, I find a spray more convenient...or I just run it under water (onions and mushrooms).

With all methods, dry thoroughly after cleaning and refrigerate as needed.

Recipes!

Soak:

Fill your sink with enough cold water to cover your produce. Add 1/4 cup vinegar and 2 T salt or baking soda. Let sit for at least 10-15 minutes before rinsing with cold running water and drying thoroughly.

Spray:

Put the following in a glass or plastic bottle (metal is not recommended as the acids will deteriorate it)- 1 cup water, 1 T baking soda or salt, 1 T lemon juice (or juice from half a lemon). Add produce to be washed to a colander and spray thoroughly all over. Let sit for 10-15 minutes before rinsing with cold water and drying thoroughly.