Nature vs Lifestyle & Culture; a story of blood ⋆ Earth and Water

When I was in high school, I passed out in geometry class. No one noticed initially as my head fell silently back onto my friend’s desk behind me. I remember feeling panicked in my seat as my vision darkened around the edges to blackness and my hearing faded.

It only lasted a moment. I don’t think I even lost awareness. Suddenly my senses returned and I hoisted myself up out of my desk and to the back of the room where the teacher was, leaning nearly my full weight on each desk as I passed. I can still remember the look of terror in her face.

That was the first time I passed out but definitely not the last. It took me 4 years to get my now husband to take me fishing again after I bottomed out twice in a thirty minute period on a trip.

I battled what the doctor’s called rebound hypoglycemia. When I ate something sweet, my body over compensated with insulin which made my blood sugar tank. A precursor to diabetes they said. But that was all they said. Advising me no further.

I lived with it from then on into my mid twenties. Unable to do any physical exertion or get too hot without passing out.

On top of this, my allergies were so bad that I couldn’t step foot outside and breathe at the same time. My eyes would swell, water and itch. So I just stayed inside, growing paler and unhealthier. Permanent dark circles around my sunken eyes. Living off of a diet of pizza rolls, noodles and tortilla chips.

Loss and Premonitions

My health wasn’t the only one suffering. I nearly lost my grandmother and father in law a year after my husband and I were married. We spent our first wedding anniversary in a hospital room being told they may not make it. But they did both make it and it made us decide to start having children because we wanted them in our children’s lives and no one’s ever really “ready” anyway, right?”

So after another year of trying and failing, we were pregnant. And while I was pregnant was my grandfather’s first aneurysm and stroke (the first of 3 so far). He should have died and I believe to this day that the only reason he held on was because I was pregnant. I believe the only reason that baby came into our lives was to make sure he held on because soon after he was in the clear and home, our baby left us.

3 days in the hospital and a D&C later, I was home and broken. Shattered into a million pieces.

Why was my body so useless?
Why was everyone so sick?
Why was I so sickly at only 22?
Why did everyone I know above the age of 50 have to live off of a buffet of pills morning, noon and night?
Was I seeing my fate in the form of my grandparents?
Full of countless surgeries, pills, procedures and hospital stays?

Nature’s Formula

I didn’t understand. Nature doesn’t evolve to be THIS bad. Nature passes on helpful traits and discards the non helpful ones. Sure there are some flukes but they’re rare and what I was seeing was the norm. What was rare to me was someone who was in GOOD health.

This meant there had to be something WE were doing to tip the scales against our favor.

And so I began to google.

And so I began to discover and learn.

I attended countless health summits. Hanging on every word of each speaker. Searching for my answers in their teachings. I read, I read and then I read some more.

Turns out, it was our lifestyle. Obvious, right? But this was news to me.

The standard American lifestyle and diet is full of conveniency and laziness which had taken lead way in everyone’s lives. We were opting for the microwavable dinners and packaged noodles and essentially starving ourselves of nutrition.

It’s in our Lifestyle & Culture

The only “eating healthy” myself or my family knew of came in the form of bland, tasteless salad and a sour grapefruit.

Our bodies are resilient. They fight for us day in and day out but they can only do so much with what they have available to them.

I spent years believing that having your stomach hurt at some point in the day, every day, was just part of being female. All of the females I had ever discussed this with had agreed!

But as I began to learn, I began to implement and soon my stomach stopped hurting so often. That was the first change I noticed.

Slow and Steady wins the lifestyle

I cut out all of the junk that made up 100% of my diet and started opting for healthier solutions. I wasn’t “clean eating” or any other drastic lifestyle change at this point. Just making one better choice after the other when it arose.

I would order the grilled instead of fried.
Eat 2 rolls instead of 4.
Order a salad every now and then.
Started buying fruit.
Learned to cook a thing or two.

The changes I made were small. I never “went on a diet”. I just started making better choices when they presented themselves. One by one.

By the time my son was born, I hadn’t passed out in about a year or so. Although I was still pale, still unhealthy looking and feeling, I was getting better. This first picture was taken the week we brought him home from the hospital. Note how ridiculously sickly I look.

I kept researching and learning. Discovering lifestyles of:

Ayurveda
Zero waste
Minimalism
Clean eating
Veganism

I became fascinated with the various lifestyles available to us. Taking pieces of them all and putting them together for a unique to me way to live. My own personal, individualized lifestyle that was best for my body.

You see, being healthy isn’t only about eating healthy. It’s about caring for all aspects of yourself. Cultivating positive thoughts and actions are equally as important.

A lifestyle of the Whole

Healthy living advocates focus completely on the body and the physical but no one ever talks about how to heal your traumas, your chakras. How to change your mindset from lack to abundance. How to open your heart and become in tune with your spirit.

It’s now been a solid 5 or 6 years since I’ve dealt with my hypoglycemia problems. I don’t struggle with seasonal allergies anymore. I’m finally free to live in the sunlight, doing as I please. I both look and feel better than I ever have in my life. But my biggest achievement in all of this has been my overall wellbeing. That which is deeper than the skin and expands into our aura.

This second picture is my daughter and I taken 4 years later from the first.

Being healthy isn’t hard. It’s just different from all we’ve ever known and not on the common and convenient path that everyone else is on. It’s more of a path you beat yourself than a paved one. A journey of self discovery as you find your unique-to-you way to live.

I’ve put everything I know into a community I call Body Buddha. It touches on aspects of being healthy not only in body but in the mind and spirit as well. I want to make being whole and healthy easier for my children and others than it was for me.

I had to figure out things on my own. Piece together aspects of myself I hadn’t even realized were missing so that I could chip away all of the sickly parts of myself until I was left with only the marble underneath. You don’t have to do it alone.

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