The Power of Food

As an absolute lover of food hearing my diagnosis for Crohn's Disease was the worse nightmare I could have. Actually I had no idea what this was and what it all meant. All I knew was that I was in the emergency room for way too long and in excruciating pain. I also was a new mother and had not seen my son in 7 days and, on top of all that, I am being told that I have an overactive immune system that attacks and damages the digestive system. They said this disease was causing my horrible pain, swelling, and inflammation and that there is no cure but there are treatment options, like pills, that need to be taken for the rest of my life. Also all the foods that I absolutely love I wouldn’t be able to consume, to over indulge in and bliss out in - bye bye taste bud ecstasy!

I'm having difficulty imagining myself having to now accommodate to this condition in my body. Imagine then, I had a 6 month old baby. I had just gotten back to teaching my Yoga classes and on my way to getting back into shape. All I would talk about is self love and self healing. And I had ZERO energy. I was embarrassed. Here I was faced with a huge challenge. To put into practice all my preaching! I had to make the decision that Crohn’s Disease has no place within me and I needed to get to the bottom of why it showed up in the first place. What was my body trying to tell me?

Any illness is an indicator of your emotional state, caused by your thoughts and focus which create vibrations that attract diseases.

I had to come clean with what I was going through at that time in my life. I had to admit to myself that I wasn't as happy as I was pretending to be. My smile was actually fake. My body was filled with worry and fear and the never-ending sensations of never feeling good enough. I had created a fake image of myself in my mind and huge expectations on how things should be. Especially with my relationships.

I was a big mess and in absolute denial.

We can try to trick our minds to convince ourselves that certain things are working out but our bodies cannot be fooled. They soak up all the lies.

Our bodies are constantly communicating with us and it's sad to know that this very important information is not taught in schools at an early age. The disconnect to our bodies is real.

My journey to healing my life and my body began, right there and then - in the fear of what I was being told in the ER room.

First things first, I had to implement rules in my home that nobody was to speak of this Crohn's Disease. I refused to label myself and to be labeled. My family especially my mother needed to step back with her comments of "your not supposed to eat that", because I was like "I can eat whatever I want". I began to experiment with my reality and my food. Everything that was entering my body was now a magic potion. It was filled with prayers and intention for healing and releasing. I was also swimming deep within my oceans of emotions. I was visiting with an energy healer that I was working with, and received many many energetic treatments. I dove into wonderful world of chakras and fell deeply in love with its wisdom.

I was learning how to be with myself and be present to all my chaos and still remain loving and gentle. I was learning how to accept and work through my emotions and express my disappointments with love and respect.

Within a month of this intense work and all the treatments, I had to go for a colonoscopy to see how the ‘disease we shall not speak about’ was doing only to discover that it was now NON-EXISTENT. It was gone! In fact the doctor expressed to me that I have beautiful organs. This news was liberating and exactly what I had prayed for.

But sadly nobody cared about how I managed to heal myself. The doctors were not interested at all in hearing about my journey. I said to the doctors “But wait, I thought this condition had no cure yet it lived in me and now its completely gone? And your not curious?”.

This current healthcare system, was clearly not interested in my healing process. The doctor gave me a pat on the back and that was that. I quickly realized that we need more natural healing modalities and to be introduced to intuitive eating! Pills and life-long medication plans are not the only solution. What this entire experience woke up in me was the power of of self healing and giving myself the time to do it! And how whole foods were my pills and my medication - my medicine.

Why do I love cooking for others? Because it IS medicine!