Author: groundedafrican

Proudly South African mum to a bright and gorgeous young human. Employee. Life Coach in the making. Blogger. Fascinated with and passionate about people and helping them grow.

Letters to my son: #1 You are enough

I read somewhere recently that as parents, we are mere shepherds whose role it is to guide our children while they are in our care. I hope these letters will help him navigate life and help him find the path that God intended for him to walk.

mother and son in shadow on the sand
Just the two of us


Dear Alex,
Throughout life, you will meet people and find yourself in situations that will make you question your worth and abilities, and sometimes, you will even question your sanity. Sadly, a lot of the time, they will be people that you love and thought you could respect.
They will pick on your appearance, what you say, and what you do. They will also try to use your beautiful golden brown skin against you. They will try to belittle you in every possible way.
Don’t let them. Stand tall in the knowledge that you are enough just as you are. Everything about you is unique and is to be celebrated. Don’t ever be ashamed of who you are. Don’t let this make you arrogant, though. Remain humble and grounded. You will accomplish so much more by doing this.
Marianne Williamson says in her book “A Year of Miracles”: “The perfect you isn’t something you need to create because God already created it.” Please always remember this. You are enough as you are.
This is one of my favourite passages from Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love. Let it help you when your confidence is low.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

All my love and then some more,

Mum ❤️

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Not All Eating Plans are Created Equal

Hello Everyone! It’s been a while. How is it that we are halfway through the 2nd quarter of the year already? Anyway, I have popped in to share a recent experience with a weight challenge I joined. One this for sure, not all eating plans are created equal.

Maya Angelou famously said, ‘ When someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them.’ Well, I have learned that this is not only true for people but for programmes as well. I recently took up my medical aid’s healthy weight challenge (yes, I am still on that journey😅). That was my first mistake.

Assumption is the mother of all…

The first alarm bells started ringing when I did the little survey when I signed up. There was no diabetic option under dietary requirements. I figured they already knew my diagnosis, so my diet would automatically be diabetic-friendly. I was wrong. I was pretty excited by the recipes they had provided. They looked simple enough and relatively tasty. More alarm bells went off when I saw the mention of low-fat yoghurt and what looked like a lot of carbs. Given all the bad press and the growing scientific evidence that low-fat is not as healthy as everyone thought it was, I was surprised that they are still recommending it. The other crucial red flag was that nutritional information was unavailable for the meals. The data was also kept from the dieticians that were supporting us. Despite all these red flags, I soldiered on. I had a dietician assigned to me, so I thought she would point out where a meal might need some adjustment for a person with diabetes. Once again, I was wrong.

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The Journey is Supposed to be Enjoyable

Nope, it wasn’t. It was stressful. I had to take pics of every meal and share them with the dietician daily. She would critique my meals which I really felt was unnecessary. Still, it was the closest I came to understanding the nutritional composition of my meals. Eventually, I resorted to using the app, My Fitness Pal to get a feel for how carb heavy my meals were. In the end, it was my body that told confirmed that this eating plan was not working for me. I was not losing weight, and I felt bloated and uncomfortable. Thankfully, I wasn’t gaining weight, but I definitely didn’t lose any. Eventually, I made a choice to stop following the plan. The dietician is still available to me as I signed up for the 6-month program, so let’s see how that goes. She would cost way more for one visit than I pay for daily access to her expertise monthly, so why not.

So I have decided to keep most of my meals low carb, high fat. I need to get back to doing the 16:8 IF. I have let that eating window slide to about 10 hours because I have been eating my last meal too late. The good news is that since I stopped that eating plan, I have lost 2kg over about 3 weeks, which is a good start. Now I need to keep these good habits up so that number on the scale maintains its downward trend.

My son and I have also joined the gym, although we have yet to make it a regular habit. I love classes and started the step class. Oh, my hat! The pace is hectic! The routine is not as simple as it was 20 years ago (Yes, it is that long since I joined a step class🫣), and the instructor includes a few Zulu dance moves here and there. It is good fun, but phew, it is a challenge.

Photo by Kseniia Lopyreva on Pexels.com

Well, that’s it from me for now. I hope all the mums have had a delightful and blessed Mother’s Day today. Bye for now!

Going Vegetarian – What a Challenge!

My son and I decided to adopt a vegetarian diet for Lent. It’s required a whole new mindset when it comes to meal planning. There are positives though.

We are a week  into lent and my son and I had decided that we would give up meat for our Lenten fast.  While I am not a religious person, there are certain Christian rituals that I still believe in and look forward to participating in.  Lent is one of them.  For the record I was baptised into the Anglican faith as a baby and had my son baptised into it as well simply because it is one of those rituals that brings my soul peace.

Photo by BULBFISH on Pexels.com

Anyway, back to my vegetarian challenge!  It’s been rough. Other than the odd margherita pizza or a Greek salad, my son and I don’t generally do vegetarian dishes.  It was also a spur of the moment decision so we were not prepared.  There we were, munching on our flapjacks (we did not have pancake mix and were lazy to make some from scratch) on Shrove Tuesday when we decided that we would change our fast from chips and chocolates to meat.  With the cost of living today, both could be considered luxuries.

Thus far, besides vegetarian pizza’s, we have yet to find at least 5-6 dishes that we enjoy and can rotate for the Lenten period.    There is still 6 weeks to go after all.😜 My son was partial to the vegetarian version of “chicken nuggets” although I have a feeling they will be wasted if I buy them again.  My vegetarian pasta was awfully boring last night so I won’t be trying that particular recipe again.  I think tomorrow I will make a vegetable curry to excite the taste buds a little (hopefully). Any tasty vegetarian recipes recommendations will be very welcome by the way.

On the positive side, it has been good to spend the first week of lent strengthening my connection to God through prayer and a bit of mediation.  I still battle with reading my bible.  For some reason, I just can’t connect to it but I don’t let it get me down as I know that God will get His messages to me in a way that I will hear Him and understand what it is He needs me to know. In the meantime I am reading Marianne Williamson’s book, Return to Love. It’s a good read if you have not read it yet. At the moment I am being reminded to surrender to God’s will. That reminder has come just in time. I can feel that my ego has been over exerting itself of late! 😞

Another positive is that I have noticed that my blood sugar levels are averaging slighter lower this week which is probably due to the increased vegetable intake. The thing I do need to be careful of is allowing too many refined carbs creep into my diet through pizza and pasta. I quite interested to see if my son’s skin will also benefit form the change in diet. I am really hoping it will. He has really had a pretty bad case of acne this past year.

Well that’s it from me. Be blessed everyone.

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