Awww…snap! Summer is in season, my friends! Before we jump into June, let’s rewind on May. Check out the list below of my May favorites – places, products and passions. As per usual, if you have a suggestion of a workout, product or recipe I should try in June, let me know in the comments. Happy kick-off to summer!Roll out the red carpet, here’s the top 10 places, products and pastimes from May!

1.) Favorite Places to Lolly Dolly: every spring I look forward to the opening of the Green City Market Lincoln Park. It’s my favorite farmer’s market in Chicago for the rows of fresh produce, divine bits like fresh tamales and a great spot for Moose to meet new pooch friends. I love how the market evolves as new produce pops up throughout the season!

2.) Favorite Brunch Spot: Mindy’s Hot Chocolate is a staple in Wicker Park and while it may be most famously known for the rich cups of hot cocoa and decedent desserts, it’s one my absolute favorite brunch spots for its rotating seasonal menu of fresh fare like the creamy spring pea risotto I had there recently. My husband is a die hard french toast fan and inhaled the strawberry rhubarb french toast with sweet cream. I’m more of a savory brunch fan, but it was hard to keep my hands off that french toast.

3.) Favorite Workout: with all that brunching, something needs to offset the decadence. This month, the first of my favorite workouts was flowing to Cardi B at Y7Studio in NYC. This hip hop yoga studio gave me all the positive yoga vibes.  And I absolutely NEED every piece of apparel on their racks, including the “I make yoga moves” tank.

4.) Favorite Workout Jams: nothing gets the body moving like good tunes. Get my personally curated playlist featuring my favorite mash-ups of May on SoundCloud. Catch these songs as I return to teaching spin as a guest instructor at Cycle X Studio Monday mornings in June! First class is free!

5.) Favorite Beauty Hack: when you’ve got a 9-5 and side hustles as a blogger and spin instructor, time is a hot commodity. Thanks to Amazing Lash Studio Lincoln Park, I can roll out of bed looking gorgeous with lashes for days.

6.) Favorite Indulgence: my willpower may have been at a low, but I did not regret stocking up on a stack (literally) of Vosges Haut Chocolate Bars at O’hare earlier in the month. I wouldn’t have expected it, but my favorite of the bunch was the Coconut Ash & Banana Super Dark Chocolate Bar. It was just the right amount of island sweet to offset the bitter, but rich dark chocolate. Close second was the Matcha Green Tea & Spirulina Super Dark Chocolate Bar. Give me all the antioxidants and superfoods!

7.) Favorite New Product: The Trader Joe’s Cauliflower Gnocchi is worth the hype peeps! Seared in a pan, it had the perfect crispy exterior and pillowy center. Paired with a simple sage butter and…perfection! Get the sage butter dEATs here.

8.) Favorite Workout: there were too many favorites this month to pick just one, but the Peloton Tread class absolutely killer! I literally booked the class before I even booked my flight when I had a business trip to NYC earlier this month. Now the wait begins until the new tread is released this fall! Check out my blog post on the class and treadmill here.

9.) Favorite Way to Restore: Chill Meditation + Massage in Chicago’s River North turned this busy bee into a believer. Living in the moment and tuning out the noise is not my forte, but Chill helped me to see the light and pause in the moment. Walked out feeling the sweet sweet nirvana of a mind at rest. For more on my experience, check out my post.

10.) Favorite Recipe: it’s always SO HARD to choose just one because I love all of my babies! But, if I had to pick (which I force myself to pick just one), it’s hands down the vegan red pepper crema that I paired with everything from fresh veggies, to strips of baked avocado in tacos and even pasta. This one is a must try, my friends!

I hope you enjoyed these May favorites. Excited to see what June brings and hope you are too!

The post May Favorites appeared first on The Shooks Life.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every while in a while, you could miss it.” Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?

After a hectic two weeks of workshops and travel, I was swimming in a bottomless abyss of emails. Rather than continue to tread water, I hopped out of the endless pool of email to take a chill pill. Quite literally, at Chill Meditation + Massage in River North. The studio opened in Chicago about a year ago and hosts yoga as well as mediation classes that offer a bit of stillness in an urban oasis just down the street from the Merchandise Mart.

I’ve always been one to fight stillness – with the mindset that stillness means you’re not moving forward, progressing, driving towards your purpose. So needless to say, meditation was not my jam and even the thought made me a bit twitchy with anxiety. But, I’m also a big believer that the most uncomfortable situations offers the biggest opportunity for growth. So, here goes nothing with this meditation massage studio.

Given my angst about mediation, I chose to do a combo yoga + meditation class so I could at least flow through some of the jitters before sitting in silence. When I entered the studio, I was immediately welcomed and offered some relaxing tea to enjoy before class. Once I was settled, Darrell, the general manager, gave me a tour of the space, which included the retail space upfront filled with reads about finding calm and fun swinging chairs, a tranquility room with loungers and a flowing fountain for relaxation pre/post class, a dimly lit yet airy yoga room with mats and head rests already laid out, as well as a few curtained spaces for chair or table massages.

I enjoyed a bit of peppermint tea while I waited and since I’m a bit challenged to just do nothing, I chatted a bit with Darrell. I mentioned my meditation angst and that I couldn’t fathom completely shutting off my brain. He had some helpful advice that meditation isn’t about stopping. It’s about pausing to take in the moment. Your brain is like a spring, so it’s near impossible to just stop, but we can slow down the vibrations, allowing thoughts to flow in and out of our mindset. When we choose to rejoin the rhythm, we enter back into the story with intention – whether that be an intention to be more present, calm, understanding, loving, etc. I thought to myself, “pausing, I can do”.

The yoga plus meditation class was 30 minutes of restorative yoga, followed by 20 minutes of guided meditation and 10 minutes of, basically savasana. Rajni, the instructor, led us through something similar to sun salutations to warm up our bodies and build awareness of the present moment and how our bodies were feeling. As she phrased it, “we build heat from within so we can purge our bodies of everything that is unnecessary.” It was just the right amount of movement to feel worked and open to the next stage of stillness.

During the guided meditation, we sat upright on pillows with eyes closed as Rajni shared some mantras about breath and accepting the fact that stories might flow in and out of our mindset, but to let them pass through. I breathed a mental sigh of relief. I wasn’t the only one who was fluttering between restful meditation and my to-do list. It was more restful vs to-do’s though. The time flew by – though my feet did start to fall asleep towards the end. I was sitting cross-legged, so perhaps I’ll try another pose next time.

Following the class, I indulged in a quick 20-minute chair massage. The meditation massage studio offers an express recharge package for $50 that includes 1 class plus a 20-minute massage. Jose, my massage therapist, was fantastic. Despite the fact that we were in a curtained area vs separate room, I really didn’t notice my surroundings. And it was just the right amount of time to loosen up the constant stress that I hold in my shoulders.

While I feel like I “cheated” a bit by taking the yoga + meditation class, I left feeling much more grounded and open to the idea of taking a full 30-minute meditation class when I come back. Notice the phrasing “when I come back”. It’s active language like this that sets you motion to act. While I’ll always be an action-oriented person, I hope that I’ll have a little less angst, and a little more patience, next time I’m behind a slow-walker on the sidewalk.

Happy National Meditation Month. Take some time to accept the pause, knowing that it’s not setting you back, it’s clearing away the obstructions so you can run that much faster in the direction you choose.

The post Sunday and Chill appeared first on The Shooks Life.