Whole Body Wellness Journey Part 3

Now it is about 18 months ago and I am feeling very disconnected form my body.  My body feels weak and frail, sick.  I can't do a lot of things with my hands.  I spill things and need to take breaks when cooking dinner or shampooing my hair.  I can't really hold a hair dryer for long or stir when I cook.  Holding my kids is really difficult and walking the dogs seems daunting.  I am also packing up an entire house to move in with my mother for 7 months and then move 2.5 hours away from everyone I know and love.

But I'm digging.  I won't give up.  Something isn't right

Then one day while packing up food items and cleaning out the fridge I pick up a block of frozen beef and for some reason it looked different.  It actually looked dead.  And there I sat with my laundry list of symptoms, my borderline fatty liver, my insulin resistance, my higher than ever cholesterol, my higher than ever weight, my high inflammation markers, my arthritis and my carpal tunnel holding the very thing that likely caused these problems in the first place. And in that moment I woke up.  I mean I woke up like my ass was on fire and I immediately knew things needed to change.  I woke up in the way that makes it impossible to sleep from now on and you know what, it felt so good.

Now it's all me. Now I am back onto my own path.  I am dusty and tired and thirsty but I am ready.

Now comes the digging.  The reconnecting.  The awakening.

Now comes the healing.

Just that shift of bringing awareness back to my own body felt so powerful, but we were literally on the last few days of our move and emotions and tempers were high.  I didn't bring anything up, I knew the time wasn't right.  But my brain was in over drive and unfortunately the first thing that came up was massive shame and guilt!

How could I have let myself become so disconnected!?  How could I have fed my children meat!?  How the hell did I allow myself to eat meat?!  Why did I let myself be so easily convinced that somebody else knew better than me!?  My head was a mess of questions and answers and shame.

Then came more research.  Only this time I wasn't looking for some kind of magic bullet.  I wasn't looking at other peoples journey's and trying to pick what might work for me.  I wasn't desperate to see how they did it, I was looking and digging for myself.  What speaks to me!?  What will nourish my body and soul!?

As you can tell I love to research, probably a little bit too much, but I don't like to blindly follow the norm.  I have always resisted what is commonly accepted.  I love learning and even if I don't agree with something I hear I still like to have heard it.  I like to know what is actually happening not just what the government and industry want me to know.  I love science and research and data which makes it all the more strange that I didn't actually do any scientific research about meat, animal products and the diet I was eating!

I mean I did a ton of research but it was all anecdotal!  It was people who changed their health in a positive way or it was health coaches and bloggers with no real scientific data to back themselves up touting this or that as a cure all.  Sometimes it was a doctor but not a doctor who had actually preformed any research!  I think this is a really common problem in the age of the internet.  Anybody can play doctor!  They of course disclose that they aren't one but the way they speak and cherry pick others research can make it feel like they really know what is going on.  They don't!

Nobody knows your body better than you do!

Once we were settled at my moms house I sat down to talk to Ryan about everything I have been thinking and once again he is totally supportive and amazing.  He kinda didn't know how I was doing it either but didn't want to bring it up as I was so fragile and quite frankly, bitchy.  I was worried that the kids would be confused and so was he.  He doesn't want me to change my mind again I assure him that will NEVER happen, EVER.  Mama is woke as fuck and she ain't going back to sleep.  The kids didn't really care and were perfectly happy with vegetarian or vegan substitutes.

As for me, I felt an immediate and intense shift in my body and deep in my soul.  I never really liked eating meat and was always kinda disgusted by it even when I disassociated the food I was eating from me, it just never felt quite right.  Which brings me to the last part of this very long journey to whole body wellness.  Becoming vegan again and WHY!

I should also note that many people call it a plant-based diet when the reason for eating no animal products is for their own health reasons rather than animal rights.  Veganism is more of a whole lifestyle that focuses a lot on animal welfare and some on personal health.  I am kind of all of the above but at this point in my life I am not willing to throw away leather boots that I have had for years or donate the down comforter from my bed.  This is not very vegan of me so I'll call myself a plant-based mostly vegan person.  Actually I won't because it is way too wordy.  I will simply use vegan.

I hope you will keep reading part 4 of this journey and my blog in general which I promise is not going to turn into Anne makes you feel bad about all of your food choices.  I simply want to share some information that might make you go hummmm, I never thought of that.  I also want to share some resources in case you are interested in learning more.


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