Author: The Galavanting Gastronome

Love writing about food and travel (www.thegalavantinggastronome.com) and my conversations with God (https://gitanjali.yoga). Born and raised in India. Sailor's daughter. Travel is in my DNA. Married to a scientist, who is a chemist professionally and in every other culinary way. Food, coffee, cocktails, BBQ, smoked meats, rubs, sauces...he experiments with it all - with way more wins than misses. We love the outdoors. Hiking, kayaking and camping make us happy. We are equal opportunity foodies. We love hole-in-the-wall little mom and pop places, and multi-coursed Michelin star meals as well. And, we love talking about what we love about the food, drink, coffee and anything else we get to try.

The Storm before the Calm

by The Galavanting Gastronome, posted in Inspiration

You cannot plant seeds or plants into soil that hasn’t been stirred up or amended. You cannot stick seeds for new growth into existing soil beds that already have plants growing. There is no space or nutrients for this new growth. In the same way in order for you to have growth, in order to step into the next best thing, you too need to be stirred up, amended and woken up from your status quo so that you can Be, Do, Have the next best thing in your life. It feels like the storm before the calm for you because you’re being shaken out of your reverie. Human nature doesn’t like change. It is resisted. Hence change has to come in a way that makes it a necessary one, often one that is seemingly out of your control. However the more self aware you get, the more you will realize that you do get early warning signs about the change. You usually ignore or overlook them because they aren’t as painful or uncomfortable. Only once we get to that level of discomfort where it is untenable, then that is when you are willing to change. Your job is to get hyper aware and heed the early warning signs for yourself and then change will become second nature and you won’t resist it; rather you will welcome it. 

Pause

by The Galavanting Gastronome, posted in Inspiration

Music is formed not just with continuous notes. It is often the rest between notes that makes it more dramatic or memorable. Meditation is the pause between thoughts, sleep is the pause for your body, breathing is the pause that enables you to access creativity and information. You can access all that you need to access from within instead of relying on anything outside of yourself. Much like the cycle of the moon and waves has an ebb and flow- so too does your body have the need to retreat and recover- to restore, rejuvenate, regenerate and then reengage with the world. Human beings often try and go, go, go without regard to the natural rhythm of their lives and bodies. The human body can adapt to a lot, and has adapted to going constantly as well. 

However there is a natural threshold- which if you cross- will make your body slow down and force the pause. 

Simple ways to be mindful of this pause is to allow yourself 4×4 breathing (inhale to the count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4) 4-6 times a day. This simple yet effective exercise will build in pauses and additionally provide life-giving oxygen to your body making it stronger both mentally and physically. Go ahead and try this for 28 days and see if you have affected change in your life. 

I Am Divine

by The Galavanting Gastronome, posted in Inspiration

Wow this has been quite a year! God’s calling up a lot of angels. Lucky them. Yes it’s sad to lose someone we love and revere. I think this is an opportunity for us to pause and reflect why death impacts us the way it does? Why does death bring us together in a way that nothing else does? In these past many months there’s been so much angst, negativity, frustration, fear, hate spewed both on and off line. What if, just for one day, instead of the lower vibration emotions, we all engaged in higher vibration emotions? What if we were grateful to be alive? What if we wondered what we’re to learn about ourselves from the passing of someone we love and adore? What if we believed that they’re not gone? That they just outgrew their physical body and that their soul has a greater calling than this shell of a human body can contain? What if their death is here to show us that they, just like we are — human, and have huge human potential? That instead of revering them, we revered ourselves as the child of God, the extension of God, the perfection of God that we all are! What if we’re not meant to save the world, rather just to be a beacon of light and hope to show the world how to save itself! Because everyone of us, if we just took care of the square footage around our own two feet, if we just worried about how WE showed up in the world, if we just worried about how we behaved and are perceived – I have to believe that magic is possible! Regardless– it’s what I choose to believe! I’ll take care of me, my vibe, my emotions, my words, my thoughts, and how I show up in the world, and as a result, my corner of the world is better for it– not because I did anything TO or FOR anyone else- after all that’s not my job…my job is to be the best version of me, and the rest will magically fall into place. Because I’m an expression of God. I Am Joy. I Am Divine. I Am love.