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February 14, 2022

Mental Health Monday–Meal Planning

I know meal planning isn't a typical mental health topic, but just hear me out on this. When I ask my adult clients or client parents about the most stressful part of the day, 9/10 times they say dinner time. 

Everyone is tired, there is homework to do, there might be activities to get to, yet everyone is hungry and needs to eat. And there is nothing more stressful than wondering what's for dinner while everyone is whining at 6:00 pm. 

This isn't about making fancy or inflexible meal plans. In a world that's full of so many things we can't control, we can make an attempt to turn dinner time into a time of peace and connection in our homes, rather than a time of stress and chaos. I learn again and again, both from clients and in my own home, that there's something deeply important to be said for that time of connection. 

This DOES NOT have to be complicated. This is a logistical thing that I work with clients on very regularly to help them clear up mental space to make room to tackle issues that may be much more difficult. The important part isn't creating a "perfect" plan. It's creating a plan that's practical for you, for your season of life, and your family. 

A Few Things to Consider:

  • Food is not a moral issue. It's not bad or wrong to feed your family boxed macaroni and cheese or frozen pizza in seasons. Diet and wellness culture have taught us to put labels on food, but putting forth effort to feed your family in a way that is practical for your time,  budget, and mental health is a good and noble work. Always.
  • Make a meal plan that works for you. Do you have soccer late one night? That night might always be Chick fil a night. Do you enjoy cooking a more labor intensive meal on Sundays? Make enough to freeze for a busier night later in the week.
  • Make use of your crockpot.
  • Sandwiches with chips and fruit or easy breakfast meals are perfectly appropriate dinners. 
  • Not knowing specific days for specific meals, but knowing what you have available in general works well for plenty of people.
  • Having a general rhythm to your weekly meals might be helpful when grocery shopping. For example, this is what I tend to do each week in my family's current season:

There are so many ways to go about making a meal plan that works for your family. There's no right or wrong way and what you decide to do now will likely change as your seasons change. But one thing will stay the same--a few minutes of planning will help bring a little peace to mealtimes (some days--other days will be wild but we can always give it a good shot and have grace for ourselves along the way). 

My mom texted me a couple of months ago and told me she was proud of me for always working hard to cook for my family and I thought it was the nicest thing. I'd never thought about it in this way before, but cooking food in any way or form takes effort, energy, and work. It really is something to be proud of yourself for, no matter what the "cooking" looks like. I hope you'll remember that you're doing a good and worthy work when you cook for your family or for yourself this week:) 

By: whitneycaves · In: Counseling, Family, Uncategorized

About Me

About Me
Believer, wife, mama, and Licensed Professional Counselor. Book lover, part time pretend gardener, and full time expert in little girl drama. Sharing lessons I’ve learned as a counselor and the things I love the most. I’m so glad you’re here and I hope you’ll be back soon!

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  • Cape Cod and Nantucket 2022 Travel Recap
  • Mental Health Monday-Meal Planning, Back to School Edition
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Hello friends! I’m going to start a super simple Hello friends! I’m going to start a super simple, literally no commitment, just for fun private Facebook group to go along with my meal planning posts. It will be a place for sharing easy, quick recipes and ideas for making dinner time less stressful. I’ll share the official post later this week, but if you’d like to join go ahead and DM me. I’d love for you to tag your friends and share this post because we could all use less dinner time stress and more peace! 

Hope your week gets off to a great start!
I’m feeling so grateful for a great first week o I’m feeling so grateful for a great first week of school AND for a slow Saturday after a big week! 

I’m feeling especially grateful for teachers, assistants, and everyone else who works at a school today. I’ve always felt strongly about the importance of this job and the level of respect and gratitude that we owe our teachers, but it becomes a whole new thing when you send your 5 year old into a new school and she’s taken care of so well. I’m challenging myself to pray for her teachers and school everyday! And to generally try to be more of a help than a hindrance 😂

Thank you thank you teachers and assistants. You are the very best of us 💕
These are a few of the verses I’ve found most gr These are a few of the verses I’ve found most grounding during my hardest seasons of anxiety. I hope they’re an encouragement to you too. 

Head to the link in my bio for a free download of several of my favorite verses for anxiety. I also write about mental health, faith, and easy ways to help children memorize scripture 💕
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Reading is my greatest hobby and a life long love. As a little girl growing up in rural Mississippi, books showed me that there was a big, beautiful world out there, just waiting to be explored. Books helped me learn to imagine, to dream, and to have empathy for others. They taught me about other places, parts of history, and that this world is full of people who may be different than me, but that different is very often not a good thing.

I’m so grateful to the people who encouraged me to keep reading, especially my parents, who were always ready to sacrifice to buy me and my sister just one more book. 

When I asked my daughter what she’d read on her own first she said “something wonderful”. I hope you’ll also pick out something wonderful to read sometime soon. I’m always glad to give you a suggestion if you need one, because I’ll never get tired of talking about books 💕
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I printed everything out yesterday from the @fernandinapaperco digital library. My friend @mckenziefussell adds new things to it monthly and it just gets better and better. A monthly subscription is WELL worth the money and helps me remember that even little things are worth celebrating 💕

I’m so grateful for these kids that are such good friends to Lily. I hope they always love being together this much!
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