Gretchen Schock

Mango Pineapple Pork Loin Slow Cooker Tacos

My youngest kid is a senior in high school, and I feel the clock ticking on our time together before she leaves for college. We share custody of our kids. They alternate back and forth between the two houses, so they aren’t with us for half of the month. As the college acceptance letters come in, I have this new awareness of our limited time together. And because of that, I’ve been prioritizing the time we have together differently and focusing on creating more quality moments together.

Now don’t get me wrong, we have a jam-packed schedule like most families in America. My wife and I both work full-time and volunteer with different organizations, my daughter goes to high school, volunteers, and works part-time. So it often feels like a juggling act come Sunday night when my wife and I coordinate our calendars to figure out who is driving and/or picking up our daughter from school that week.

But I’ve come to realize that I don’t want to spend the little time I have making elaborate recipes for the family right now. Instead, I need healthy shortcuts that get a meal on the table without a lot of thought on my part. And that is where this recipe comes in!

Using Sam’s Fresh Salsa in a new and different way allowed me to get a meal on the table that everyone loved! You can purchase Sam’s Fresh Salsa at: ShopRite, Acme, and Safeway. If they are not in your local store, ask them to carry Sam’s Fresh Salsa products! Seriously, it’s the best salsa I’ve had from a store.

You can purchase Sam’s Fresh Salsa at: ShopRite, Acme, and
Safeway. If they are not in your local store, ask them to carry Sam’s Fresh Salsa products!

Mango Pineapple Pork Loin Slow Cooker Tacos

*You will need a crockpot for this recipe.

Ingredients:
1-2 pounds of pork loin
Two: 12oz containers of Sam’s Fresh Mango Pineapple Salsa
One can of refried black beans
Soft flour tortillas
Cheddar cheese, shredded or non-dairy cheddar shreds
Guacamole
One bell pepper, chopped

Place pork loin in a slow cooker with two containers of Sam’s Fresh Mango Pineapple Salsa on low for 6 hours. Ensure the pork loin is covered with the salsa above and under.

When the pork loin is done cooking, take a fork and sharp knife and shred the meat and then stir. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Take the tortillas out of the packaging, wrap them in aluminum foil, and place them in the oven for 10 minutes until thoroughly heated.

At the same time as the tortillas are heating up, chop your bell pepper and cook the refried beans on the stovetop on medium-low heat. To assemble the perfect taco, smear the refried beans on a tortilla, then a portion of pork loin topped with chopped bell pepper, cheese, and guacamole.

Spend more time talking with your family around the dinner table and less time prepping the meal in the kitchen. Enjoy!

If you want to learn more about Sam’s Salsa and its various flavors, check out their website and social media handles. https://samssalsa.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SamsOriginalFreshSalsa
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samsoriginalfreshsalsa/

Switch Up Your Workout Routine

Movement

There are times in life when we need to change in order to grow and evolve, and that includes your workout routine!

The type of yoga that I practice and teach is ever-changing. It’s what I am drawn to and has kept me practicing yoga almost daily since 1999. I’m not too fond of the style of yoga that has a set sequence of poses that you do every time you roll out your mat for a few reasons.

Your body becomes used to the movements in the order they happen, and the muscles memorize where they need to be at any given time. I want my yoga practice to help me stay strong and flexible and prevent me from injury as I age. And doing the same movements all the time is not realistic to prevent injury. We need to surprise our muscles, moving differently so that the body knows how to react in sudden moments.

I need variety to work out. Doing the same thing bores me to tears, and I am less likely to stick with something if it is always the same, all of the time. My brain is constantly thinking, analyzing, and coming up with another business idea, and in order to shut it down I need to be doing something that my brain can’t predict so that I can get away from my own thoughts.

We are each drawn to something initially for one reason but why we keep doing it often changes and evolves as we get better at doing it. Your body and mind grow stronger, and you’ve tapped into the mastery of some aspect of it. Even if it’s not all of it, feeling like you’ve mastered something, whether a downward dog or a pushup, feels amazing.

I practice vinyasa yoga several times a week, but I also lift weights and walk daily, getting a minimum of ten thousand steps. Each and every one of us needs diversity in our physical activities. If you find yourself saying one answer when your doctor asks what you do for exercise, that should be your red flag warning that it’s time to add something different to shock your muscles and your metabolism.

If you walk daily for exercise, add some weight-bearing exercises once a week.
Take an exercise or yoga class.
Try using a different machine at the gym.
Change the days that you do things. If you normally run on Saturdays, try going for a run on a different day of the week. Your body has a storyline based on what you have done throughout the course of your day, and going from a weekend workout to a weekday workout is a great way to shock your system!

Print out the above image and tape it to your refrigerator, and make a plan for five days this week to move your body in various ways. The key is to move the body differently. If you feel stuck, I want to help you past that stage. Let’s jump on a coaching call and create a plan to get you moving again and feeling more confident in your body.

Mindful Consumption of Clothing

Minimalism

I’ve been conducting an experiment for myself this year, analyzing my relationship with shopping and clothing consumption. My spending on clothes is not extreme compared to others, but I felt the inner stirrings at the beginning of the year to look closer at my habits around shopping because, for me, it felt as though the clothes purchases had gotten out of hand. I had every intention not to purchase any clothes in 2022, but as I took daily outfit pictures on Instagram, I wasn’t liking what I saw reflected back to me on my grid.

Examples of outfits I don’t feel represent me as my best self.

As a yoga studio owner and someone who teaches yoga almost daily, it’s hard not to fall into the habit of wearing yoga pants and flowy cardigan-style wraps, along with the studio-branded t-shirt. I realized my clothing didn’t really represent who I wanted to present to the world. Yes, I teach yoga classes and have private personal training clients, but I also coach people throughout the week, and many of those folks are managing directors and division heads within a company. I had the hope of cultivating a more elevated fashion style for myself.

Examples of outfits that I want to continue cultivating.

It seems superficial to even think about all of this because bigger problems beyond what I wear are happening in the world. I know that. But how we present ourselves does matter, especially when you are running your own business. People make a decision about you in seven seconds. And though we like to believe that we aren’t judging a book by its cover, you and I both know we totally are! First impressions for most people are visual, and in those seven seconds, are you representing the best version of yourself?

All this is to say; I bought some clothes throughout the year. I don’t consider this a failure. But rather an adjustment to my own goal. The shift that took place for me with clothes shopping was that I was more mindful. I was intentional about what I purchased, keeping items only if I saw a need in my wardrobe or if they filled a gap that was missing. For example, I purchased several summer dresses. I didn’t have any and being the age I am, pre-menopause, I felt the need to have looser clothes during the humid Maryland summer weather.

In the past, I would only shop the sales rack, which would mean that I wouldn’t purchase what I truly wanted but would make a purchase because it was a great deal, or I’d save even more money if I bought two. I have learned through this experiment to let go of that shopping habit. Instead, I thoughtfully considered colors vs. patterns, brands I wanted to support, how often I’d wear the item and if I could sneak it into other seasons by adding leggings or a sweater.

As I became more mindful about my purchases, I saw how the same behavior around clothes shopping was trickling out into other aspects of my life. I did the same thing at the grocery store. I was a sucker for deals, coerced towards the Buy One Get One sign. This would result in a pantry stocked with food that either no one in the house wants to eat or it takes too long to get through, and folks get bored with eating it.

So I’ve allowed the new habit of being more mindful with clothes shopping to influence my grocery store behaviors by buying what we need, not necessarily buying only on sale. Asking myself what we will use the ingredient for in this week’s meal plan.

I’m not sure yet if I will continue this experiment into 2023. I don’t think I will set out to complete a “no buy year,” but maybe limit the number of items coming into my closet so that I can continue the practice of being intentional about my purchases. I enjoy the reflection and the growth that pushing my personal boundaries exposes me to. What about you? Are you contemplating changing your shopping habits in the new year?

Four Steps to Process Traumatic Experiences

Coaching, Mindfulness

I recently went to the hospital for a ruptured appendix, and the doctors all remarked that it could have drastically gone another way. The chief of surgery told my wife that if we had waited an hour, he would have been having a different conversation with her. There were times when my blood pressure and heart rate were so low that later the technicians told me that they couldn’t believe I was alive and chatting with them, that I came through the worst of it without having a stroke.

I understand that that was a near-death experience, and I’m not taking that lightly. I often feel that we have these moments in life to shake us up, a way for our Higher Power/Universe/God to work through us so that we can be more in line with our destiny or the vision for our lives.

I’ve been pondering that a lot. Am I fulfilling my purpose? What am I here to do, and am I doing it? Pema Chödron, a Buddhist nun, refers to this as the “Big Squeeze.”

There’s a discrepancy between your inspiration and the situation as it presents itself, the immediacy of the situation. It’s the rub between those two things—the squeeze between vision and reality—that causes you to grow up, to wake up to be 100 percent decent, alive, and compassionate. The big squeeze is one of the most productive places on the spiritual path”
— taken from the book Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chödron

I know I’m not the first to question their direction or destiny after a near-death experience, but I also don’t want to dismiss these internal questions just because others have experienced it. Instead, I want to channel this energy to gain a deeper connection to my Higher Power/God. I want to use this experience as a compass to continue doing my work and be a conduit for good in the world.

Years ago, I worked with a former Tibetan monk who then turned therapist to guide me through processing some challenging life experiences. They took me through a four-part process that I still use today when presented with these moments of uncertainty. This is not their exact formula but one I have modified from our work together.

Step 1: Identify

Identify what is happening or happened. View it as though you are watching a movie about someone else’s life. Who was involved? What happened? When and where did it take place?

Step 2: Emotional Connection

What emotions did you feel during and after the experience? What emotions do you feel now? Identify the emotions to peel back the layers of why you feel the way you do about the experience.

Step 3: Go Deeper

This is the stage of true processing. Connect these emotions to past experiences. Have you felt this way before? What was the outcome? Are you associating that previous experience with this one because you are experiencing the same emotions? How can you look at it differently?

Step 4: Toolbox

Pull out the tools you have used before that helped you get through difficult experiences. If you are in recovery, that may mean going to a meeting or connecting to your sponsor—schedule additional appointments with your therapist or life coach. For me, it also means rolling out my yoga mat consistently to work through the emotions physically and within my meditation practice inviting the emotions into it and leaning in to become more curious as I continue to process all that I feel.

So often, I see folks get to step 3 and don’t want to do the additional work. But we need to go deeper and then get out our toolboxes and do the work so that we don’t continue hoarding this emotional baggage in our bodies. Trauma is like a frozen memory in your body that needs to be thawed and removed through emotional processing and physical movement and meditation. Numbing the feelings or pushing them aside doesn’t make them go away. They will come back up, but when they do, you won’t have the clarity to know what you are processing and why. Instead, it will feel like sadness for no reason or deep rage that isn’t directed at the right person.

I am now documenting and noticing my connection to all things big and small as I process my recent near-death experience. I don’t want to miss these signs of a deeper relationship with the universe. I believe that by continuing to do the work of emotional processing, I will move through this experience with a greater sense of living my true destiny.

If you need assistance processing a complex experience and want to create a plan to move forward, I will happily work through these steps with you to gain a deeper understanding of your life’s purpose.

They Grow Up So Fast

Mindfulness, Parenting

Often we don’t appreciate the parenting phase we are in when we are in it. A lesson learned from a stranger hits home.

This article was originally posted on Greenbelt Patch; it has been rewritten and updated.

When my kiddos were babies, older men and women would “ooh” and “ahh” over the handlebar of the stroller at my angelic sleeping child and often remark with a sentence that I only now understand, “they grow up so fast.” At the time, I’d kindly nod my head and smile, exhausted from lack of sleep and counting down the days to the monthly Moms Night Out when I could drink way too much and pretend I was 25 again—of course, paying for that decision for hours the next day.

One day, I was at the doctor’s office for my annual physical and having small talk with a nurse. Inevitably the conversation came to children—”Do you have any? How many? What are their ages?”

Gretchen holding the hand of her younger kid with her older one slightly off to the side. They are standing in front of Native American Powhatan longhouses.

I shared my kids’ ages, and she immediately got a nostalgic look in her eye, “Oh, that’s such a wonderful age. Legos, Star Wars…Oh, I just love that age.”

I nodded my head, “Mm-hmm.”

As a parent, you know that when you are knee-deep in any stage, you aren’t really appreciating it. I didn’t appreciate the stage when my youngest as a baby wouldn’t let anyone hold them but me—all the time! Now that they are teenagers, I have to sneak hugs and kisses in when I can.

I didn’t appreciate the stage of having to constantly hold my children’s hands. Hunched over, my back in pain, while they learned to walk. Or the sticky residue left on my hand when they needed to cross the street, or walk in a crowd. Now, I can’t even remember what age they were when they wanted to do it alone without help.

What I do remember about that stage, during the conversation with the nurse, is vacuuming another small Lego piece into my Dyson—a piece that inevitably was the all-important piece to complete the Starfighter— that also broke the Dyson and required it to be serviced. And I admit that I did not appreciate that stage.

The nurse then told me about her 20-something son and how she blinked, and he was graduating high school, she blinked and he was graduating college, and now she doesn’t see him but a few times a year. I got a little misty with her as she looked off into space, telling me—the heartbreak was apparent on her face.

She remarked that if she could go back in time, she’d put him in fewer activities. I asked her more about that because it was often a conversation among the moms on the playground: what sport will your kid play this season?

My children were not inclined to play any sports. But I felt pressure from other parents about the decision not to force my children into sports. I would get looks when I would tell the other parents that I’m not enrolling either of my children in a sport, baseball, soccer, football, or otherwise.

“They need to learn how to play on a team,” they say. “How will they learn that you can’t win every time.”

Of course, I knew that my children would learn these lessons from being in school, in summer camp, as members of a rather large family with divorce and step-relatives. We can learn how to work on a team by being members of our community, and my children are very aware that they aren’t the winners every time.

I’ll be honest—I also didn’t want to give up my Saturday standing on the side of a field in the sun. And that is exactly what the nurse mentioned—that she spent most of her son’s childhood standing around on the side of a field talking to parents that she didn’t especially like, some she did. Still, looking back, she wished that those years were spent listening to her son’s ideas, his dreams and seeing him…really seeing him.

I got it. The message was loud and clear.

I believe that people come into your life when you need them. And ten years ago, I needed this nurse. I needed her story to remind me to listen and to hear my children. To enjoy the dull, non-organized sports moments so that when I looked back on their childhoods, I wouldn’t have regrets of precious time wasted on rushing from one activity to another, eating meals on the go, and stressing about getting their homework done in time before practice.

That one encounter hugely influenced my parenting, affirming my decision around overscheduling kids and giving me a quick sneak peek into the future. I am grateful that I was able to hear her. Today as I am on the cusp of being an empty-nester and we are knee-deep in college tours and applications, every moment feels like a clock ticking in the background. The conversation with the nurse is a lovely reminder for me now; time is almost running out! How I felt back then, that desire to not miss out on their lives still rings true today. And as that clock counts down the days till both kids have flown the nest, that reminder to be present and enjoy the moments comes back to my mind. I don’t want to miss any of this!

Thank you, Nurse—they do “grow up so fast.”

Easy Broccoli “Cheese” Soup – Vegan, Gluten-free, Non-Dairy Recipe

Recipes

People often assume I am vegan or vegetarian simply because I am a yoga instructor. I can’t think of other professions I have encountered where people assume the food you prefer to consume is based on your occupation. It’s such an odd thing, wouldn’t you say?

This train of thought is linked to one of the yoga principles, Ahimsa, which means non-harming. And yes, many yoga folks take that to mean that they won’t harm animals to eat. However, Ahimsa is rooted in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, so the water can get a bit murky regarding vegetarianism and yogis when you practice and believe in a different religion.

Here is a little Merriam-Webster dictionary fact: Ahimsa has been part of the English language since at least the late 19th century, but the word didn’t gain the attention of the English-speaking world until the first half of the 20th century, when it was recognized as an important component of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. Ahimsa comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “noninjury,” and Gandhi’s policy of nonviolent protest played a crucial role in the political and social changes that eventually led to India’s independence from Britain in 1947.

I believe that each person needs to eat in a way that nourishes their body, vegan and vegetarianism are not the right fit for everyone, and that’s okay! But, let’s be honest with ourselves here; even meat eaters can consume a bit more vegetables! That is why I created this veggie-packed soup that offers a nice cleanse to your system and is perfect for the start of fall.

Please note that this recipe will need a high-end blender or food processor.

Ingredients:

One onion, chopped
Five large carrots, chopped
Two medium potatoes, chopped
Two stalks of celery, chopped
Two Tablespoons of avocado oil
Three teaspoons Better Than Bouillon Soup Base
Five cups of water
Four cups of almond milk or other non-dairy milk
Two teaspoons of minced garlic
Six cups of broccoli, florets, and stalks are okay
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper to taste

First, begin by chopping all of your vegetables, and then put the onions and oil in a large pan over medium-high heat to brown. Then add the celery, carrots, potatoes, and more oil if necessary. Cook over medium heat, covered, often checking to stir until the carrots can be sliced in half with a spatula. This should take around 15 minutes.

Add three cups of water and the bouillon base to the pan. You can use 3 cups of vegetable stock instead of the bouillon base if you prefer. Bring to a boil. Then add the broccoli, garlic, and non-dairy milk, stir and then cover and cook for 5-7 minutes.

Ladle out some of the soup into the blender or food processor; this will need to be done in batches, so have a soup pot ready to transfer the blended soup into after you have pureed it. Blend the soup until smooth by adding the additional two cups of water to each segment to make a creamy consistency. Once you have blended all the ingredients, return the pot to the stovetop over medium heat, and add the nutritional yeast. Stir until blended.

Side note: Nutritional yeast adds a cheesy flavor to vegan foods. It is also gluten-free. It is an excellent source of dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

This recipe makes six hearty servings but could also be stretched to eight servings if you also serve a salad and bread. I prefer to make large batches of soup to freeze individual servings in ziplock bags for weeks when our family schedule can become insane with commitments.

For toppings, you can try croutons or sliced almonds. If you have folks who can digest dairy, you can top it with shredded cheddar cheese or goat cheese gives it a nice earthy punch! Enjoy!!