Take it from a former dumpster fire…

Look, I get it. We all make excuses when it comes to our health. “I’ll do it tomorrow” you may lie. “It’s just not that important” you tell yourself weakly. When you hit age 40, however, it starts hurting when you get out of bed, and you’ll wish you hadn’t scrolled away the health of your youth.

I didn’t take care of my physical, emotional or spiritual health for nearly two decades. I turned into a flaming garbage heap of a person because of all the excuses I made when I was younger and trust me, those excuses were ample, so I know more about excuses than most people. I also know what it’s like to live a life extremely sick and have no idea how to heal it.

When I was 23 years old, I got married to the love of my life, and then he died in a motorcycle wreck five weeks later.

Yeah. THAT happened.

Everyone in my life thought I was so strong for simply soldiering on and trying to paint on a brave face day after day. What I didn’t know was that the same toughness that helped me survive that had also made me numb to pain because I always ignored what that pain was trying to tell me, and when your body hurts, there’s a reason for it. Instead, I just bricked my pain away and pretended like it wasn’t there, and doing that made me a very ill person. That sickness manifested outward and harmed those around me. If you suffer from chronic disease, you know it makes everything hurt, and when you hurt on the inside, you often make others hurt, too. Hard truths, but there’s going to be a lot of those coming from me.

When it comes to our spiritual and emotional health- when the egg cracks from the outside, life ends, and when the egg cracks from the inside, life begins. Nothing external can cure you. It starts within you, and you have everything you need inside of you.

Again, I know better than most.

My life went from average, to blissfully happy, to shattered, to elated while still depressed, to drunken, to homeless, to remarried and burying my pain, to utterly broken nearly beyond repair… to finally repairing.

The repairs only came when I began to address what I was putting inside of myself.

I used to be a major comfort eater. I used to be depressed I had no money, so I’d go charge fifty dollars worth of Thai food and say “Okay, I’ll treat myself tonight then cinch up the belt.” And then never cinch up the belt.

It’s a vicious cycle that poor people often find themselves in- we tend to waste more money because we tell ourselves we have no nice things, so we might as well treat ourselves once in a while. Newsflash- those “treats” eat up half your disposable income, especially if you don’t know how to cook, and if you are focused on enjoying your poverty rather than saving to improve your circumstances, you’ll remain poor. It’s a mindset- one I lived in for many years.

Even if you’re not poor, if you don’t know how to cook for yourself, you are poor in health. I guarantee. No one orders a salad EVERY night if they’re ordering, and you have no idea how much hidden sugar is in those salad dressings anyway. Also, here’s a fun fact to make you want to barf: two of the salads from the Cheesecake Factory have over 1,700 calories each. I don’t think I eat that many calories in a given DAY.

If you follow along with me on this journey, I guarantee, I will help you heal from the inside out. I’ll be your friend who holds your hand, looks in your eyes, and says “You deserve to live better than this.” And I hope you’ll nod and agree. A lot of it is food related, but what we “consume” is so much more than that. It’s the media we read, the movies we watch, the horror and atrocities we see on social media, the music we listen to, the vaccines we take. It’s all connected- what goes into you makes a huge difference to your health.

The thing to remember first and foremost- is that you are the one person you can not lie to.

People think that makes sense, but reeeeally think about it.

What lies do you tell yourself?

What lies have you told others that you later believed because you told it so many times?

When you tell your significant other nothing is bothering you, is that true?

Part of what I aim to heal is what makes us tell those lies. Usually it’s a trauma response, or a feeling that you’re just not good enough.

That’s the worst lie you’ll ever tell yourself, that you’re not good enough. That’s the worst lie. You’re magnificent. Yes, you. We’ve just got to uncover you from all of what the world said you were or weren’t, and let the real YOU shine!

After all, if a former human dumpster fire can learn to self-love, anyone can.

Next post- on why I never judge anyone for their history. Ever.

Not you, either.