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“No Mud, No Lotus.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
Over the years I have been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. I refused any medications that I needed to take on a daily basis, only accepting one prescription that I could take on an as-needed basis. Don’t get me wrong, regular medication can help people. I just feel like the “magic pills” can do a lot more harm than good. I mean, have you heard the lists of possible side effects that come on at the end of a prescription drug commercial? And what about medications being addicting? It’s CRAZY! My thought is, “Why can’t I take control and change my situation to get a better outcome?” I’ve done it before… Now is just the right time to do it again. Time to bloom!
(Insert Flashback trill here)
It’s 2010, I head to the doctor with a list of foods and notes on all of the symptoms I experience after eating them. It seems that I have some kind of Animal Protein allergy. They say they can inject me with steroids or I can take pills to continue eating meat/dairy/eggs… I deny both. Changing my diet would be enough for me and just as effective. Helloooo vegan diet. For 7 years I’d document my recipes on Tasty Kaiti’s Kitchen. Making the foods I miss most (mac & cheese, meatloaf, etc) in a new way so I can continue to enjoy them. A recipe of mine was even featured on ABC’s The Chew!
Fast forward to July 2017. My blog crashes. No one, including tech support, can figure out why or how to fix it. I also discover that my allergy to seafood was just a fluke! Turns out that seafood was only guilty by association (dairy and egg). Despite the excitement to eat seafood again, the identity I held for 7 years was, all of a sudden, gone. My depression took a turn for the worse as I struggled to find myself again. Locking myself in my room and making no time for friends… it wasn’t healthy! I missed myself and missed writing. I made the decision to go back to therapy and in the downtime between sessions, I started writing again. This time, a simple gratitude journal. Just like that, I changed my focus which changed my situation and my light continues to glow brighter each day!
Introducing My New Blog…
After much consideration, I come to you with Garnished with Gratitude. A place providing nourishment for the body, mind, and soul. I am doing my best to recover my old recipes to make them accessible again and will also be sharing new recipes, DIYs, challenges, self-care tips and more! My hope is that this blog will also be a community for people to feel comfortable sharing about their mental health. I think that it is an important topic and if we have a place to talk about it, it’ll help in all of our healing. Realizing that you’re not the only one going through something has a strange comfort to it!
That said, I’ll be doing my best share new content on Mondays and Thursdays. I hope that you’ll sign up for my Mailing List to get a little additional inspiration every other week.
If there’s anything specific you’d like to see, questions you’d like answered, or need some extra positivity/motivation please let me know!
Channel the Lotus, and Bloom!
We all have had tough times, and health (mental, physical, spiritual) is not something to be ignored but as the quote that I chose for this post says, “No Mud, No Lotus.” The lotus flower is one of the most beautiful, and yet it blooms from the most deplorable environment, mud. It’s just a matter of rising like the lotus, bloom from your own situation.
