The Bean & Seed

Drinking Beans & Planting Seeds

A blog about food, health, and disc golf!

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  • Shifting Gears

    The gearshift from my old VW GTI! I do miss it…

    This post really isn’t about cars, but I am shifting gears in my personal life and just wanted to check in to say I haven’t abandoned the blog. I know it’s been a while, but I’ve had some things going on that have kept me away. Some unexpected circumstances have necessitated some tough decisions, other goings on have been planned but are taking longer than expected to work through. In either case, I’ve had to devote my attention to what I’ve been involved in and will for a few weeks yet. Once I’ve got life back on track and the dust settles, then I’ll get back to posting more regularly.

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  • Letting Go

    Looking to the road ahead.

    Sometimes it’s our own insistence to cling to the past that stops us from reaching our future potential. Today was an exercise in letting go for me. I feel relieved. I’m happy that my thoughts have lead me to a place that now seems so obvious. It was hard to get here, but I would like to encourage you to reconsider activities, endeavors, or ideas that you have clung to that no longer hold the value they once did. Also, think about why you’re holding onto such things. For me, it was a feeling of expectation. However, I realized that, when I looked around, no one had any expectations but me. I was holding myself hostage in a way. I’ve freed myself to move forward. I’m leaving behind this idea that was imagined by my former self. It dominated my planning and helped shape who I am, but I am no longer beholden to this antiquated thought process and agenda. I never did the thing I said I’d do. It’s ok.

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  • Where I’m Going From Here (My Mental Health Journey, Part 5)

    Following the path before me. It may look like I’m wandering aimlessly into the forest here, but this is a disc golf course. There is a goal in there somewhere. With that in mind, life can be like this. There is a path; there is a goal. We just have to stay the course and recognize that sometimes we’ll bogey… but, with enough practice, maybe someday we’ll birdie. Also, par is just fine!

    So, after a couple of weeks off and some time spent thinking about parts 1-4 of this series on my mental health journey, how do I wrap up? Well, to be concise, I’d say I just need to follow the path that’s been set up before me. Of course, if you’ve been following along, you know I’ll now need to elaborate. What I have to share in this post will both be a recap and a plan for moving forward in life. While I’ve been talking about my own struggles with anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), my hope has been, and remains to be, that you’ll be able to take something from my experience that will help you on your own journey.

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  • New Year and a New Subject for My Blog – Disc Golf

    My home disc golf course, Dauberton Park. Still decorated for Christmas!

    Since I started thebeanandseed.com, I’ve been posting about food, healthy body, and healthy mind. While I will still continue writing about all of these topics, I intend to include more regular posts on disc golf. With that in mind, this is now a blog about food, health, and disc golf! Read on to understand why this distinction is so important to me rather than my simply mentioning disc golf here and there.

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  • Finishing Strong; Starting Stronger (Getting Ready for the New Year)

    Make sure to nestle in and rest up in order to finish 2025 strong, and to start 2026 even stronger!

    While watching any post-game interview, when the reporter asks, “what contributed to your success?”, you’ll often hear the athlete say, “coach had us prepared and we executed the plan”. Similar words could be shared by a student who did well on a test; they prepared; they were ready for whatever questions were thrown at them. Life is like this in general. The more prepared you are, the better you’re likely to do. Today, I’d like to talk about finishing out 2025 strong and getting ready to start 2026 even stronger. The thing is, right now, I think the biggest thing I need in order to be prepared… is rest.

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  • The Effects of Sugar & Artificial Sweeteners

    Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles!

    Historically, my family has really liked its soda. One of the comical disputes amongst us when I was growing up was Pepsi vs. Coke. Myself, I definitely prefer Coca-Cola. And when I say prefer, I mean I’d take anything else over Pepsi. With that said, I really started to dislike the feel of sugar in my teeth and switched to Coke Zero. At the time, I thought this was a healthier alternative. But the reality is that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose are not “good” for us; they just aren’t sugar.

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  • Mental Bandwidth and Anxiety (My Mental Health Journey, Part 4)

    Anxiety can act like a vice on our mental bandwidth by limiting and constantly compressing it.

    Mental bandwidth; one’s cognitive and emotional capacity for processing information, making decisions, and dealing with demands. As stated in my “Redefining Normal” post, there are many things in life that eat away at our mental bandwidth and force us to make choices about what we can take on. Because of this, our bandwidth factors greatly in determining the manner in which we respond to life events. It is easy to draw a link between our mental bandwidth and our mental health. Increased anxiety can negatively impact our bandwidth and lead to degraded mental health. Decreased mental bandwidth can lead to even more anxiety and a vicious cycle begins. In today’s post, I want to share some thoughts on mental bandwidth and where I believe my issues with anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) began.

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  • The Bean & Seed Guide to the Holidays

    Have a happy Thanksgiving! But keep your goals in mind.

    Admittedly, this title is a little more grandiose than the post will be. Mostly, I just want to share some of my goals going into the holiday season. As an adult, holidays have always been a little rough for me. To put it bluntly, they aren’t what I remember from childhood. I wouldn’t say I’m just “getting through” these events, as I do enjoy them, but they can put a lot of pressure on us. With that said, here are some of the objectives I have for the season.

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  • Redefining Normal (My Mental Health Journey, Part 3)

    We will all face hardships. The important thing is to keep moving forward.

    Someone recently said of me, “You know that’s not normal, right?” What is normal? In this post, I’m going to be talking about what daily life looks like, what some of my mental health issues have been, and how I’ve come to deal with them. It is important to understand that what is “normal” for one person may not be so for another. What is considered normal is subjective based on factors such as life experience, beliefs, and the mental preferences that I talked about in part 1 of this series, “The Mind I Was Given“. Since normal is subjective in so many ways, it is also important to know that how we define it isn’t fixed; what we find to be normal today, we may feel differently about given time and further understanding. The most important take away from this entire mental health series is that we must keep moving forward. I hope that what I have to share here shows perseverance and determination; I hope that my will to survive and improve my situation, regardless of how small the wins sometimes are, can be seen through any “abnormal” behaviors. A win is a win, after all.

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  • Updates Around the Blog

    Check out these recently updated areas of the blog!

    As you can see from the open tabs in the screenshot above, I’m hard at work on part 3 of my ongoing series discussing my mental health journey. You can read part 1, “The Mind I Was Given” and part 2, “The Day the Switch Flipped” by following the links. With that said, part 3 is going to need some more time in the oven. Instead, this week I want to share about some other updates I’ve made around the blog!

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