The Circle of Wellness with Diana
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Welcome to my first monthly newsletter!
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| We’re deep into the Fall season, with colors turning all shades of red, brown, and yellow. Those are earth colors. Our northern hemisphere is grounding and setting before the cold begins. This is also a late harvest season, a time when you count the crops that have reached their full maturity. What was once green and new is now turning back into earth soil, fortifying it with nutrients of wisdom and experience to let all future leaves start their own journey.
Questions to ponder: How are you nesting and grounding yourself this Fall, and what results and accomplishments are under review in your life right now? What thoughts, actions, and memories have you planted this year? Were you bold, fearless, and successful in your triumph moments, and were you kind, loving, and forgiving of yourself in your times of losses and necessary growth? What legacy are you leaving behind this year? What have you learned and what can you teach others that you think you do well now?
Spend some time outside this month, connecting to nature as it’s slowly going into hibernation, observing its processes of losses and disconnections as a part of life. Our lives are full of cycles of death and rebirth. Loss is as valuable as birth as it leads to a space being secured for something new coming. Accept and honor losses in all their power and magnitude. They’re like great magicians, transforming themselves into beautiful flowers and butterflies to inhabit a new garden. |
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| I’m currently accepting new clients for psychotherapy and Personal Development remote sessions. All current clients receive a 20% discount for Personal Development or MARI services, and newsletter subscribers receive a 10% discount as new clients. |
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On a personal note, my family welcomed a new addition in September – a now 6 month-old Australian Labradoodle named Afina. She’s a fun and rambunctious girl, as puppies always are, so, if you sometimes hear some commotion during sessions, please forgive our sassy attitude. And, I love seeing your cats or dogs making sudden appearances on a screen too.
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| October was breast cancer awareness month. No matter how advanced science and medicine are nowadays, some breakthroughs can’t come fast enough. This fascinating study mentions a promising new treatment for breast cancer that can potentially shut off cancerous cells from multiplying and make them more receptive to current treatment options. |
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| This month’s suggestion is not so much about mental health but it’s all about life – real life with all its messiness, both grey lines and rainbow colors instead of the proverbial black and white/right and wrong notions. This book is about love, the kind that gets through to your bones and literally stays with you through life and death. This book is about questioning the accepted narratives and looking beyond what’s considered the norms. This book is about faith, peace, and tranquillity that often transcend God Himself. If you do decide to invest time into reading this book, to truly understand the narrative and historical nuances, I suggest some CliffsNotes reading on Soviet history during 1920-1930s and works by Dante.
Here’s my favorite book that I’ve read more times than I can remember, in both Russian and English, a Russian classic “Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov. |
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Useful Links and Resources
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| This month’s shoutout is about a great company that produces pure grade CBD oil for humans and pets. CBD is beneficial for so many conditions and symptoms but is especially helpful for sleep issues and anxiety. My whole family takes CBD from this particular company and can personally attest to its purity and superb quality. Contact the owners directly at espeoplellc@gmail.com or purchase through their website. |
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| Autumn is in full swing so I have this great apple and spice quick bread recipe that’s good for breakfast or dessert, or really anytime in between.
A quick note about all the recipes I post: I’m always using gluten-free (or naturally gluten-free) flours in all my creations as I have celiac disease and can’t allow any regular flour in my kitchen at all. All recipes are fully adaptable to regular flour with 1:1 proportions. A lot of the recipes can be adapted to the vegan lifestyle by using flax eggs, nut milks, and vegan butter.
My family is used to eating gluten-free baked goods that I make even though I’m the only one who has to eat gluten-free. I’m quite an avid gluten-free baker, and at some point, I considered opening up my own gluten-free cafe. Here I am though, still, a psychotherapist, as I couldn’t pursue both passions at the same time and decided that healing people through words and hearing their stories is more meaningful than creating sweet desserts. |
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Apple and Spice Oat Bread
2.5 cups oat flour
1 cup natural apple cider
1/3 cup avocado or melted coconut oil
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 egg or flax egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp apple spice blend
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 medium apples, cored and chopped
Sugar and cinnamon to top
Instructions
- Whisk together all dry ingredients.
- Combine all liquid ingredients and egg.
- Gradually add dry mixture into wet one till everything is incorporated. Reserve some apple pieces to top (optional).
- Fold in apple pieces.
- Pour batter into a lined and greased large loaf pan.
- Top with extra apple pieces, coconut sugar and cinnamon.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 1 hour or until the top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.
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| Go back in time to any age between 10 and 18. Pick a particular timeframe within those years that you feel you needed help and encouragement the most. Write a letter from your adult self to your child self at that time, describe yourself, in both physical characteristics and personality traits, using only positive descriptions and qualities (look hard to find them even if you feel there were none). Write everything that you’d say as a loving parent to a child of that age if you had one, praise, encourage and comfort your child self in ways you feel would be helpful at the time.
How do you feel after writing this letter to yourself? What thoughts patterns you had as a child still persist with you right now? What can you say to your current adult self that would help you cope with those thoughts and feelings? |
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