When I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2006, my first line of treatment was diet. Celiac Disease and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity diagnosis arrived at the same time.
So, after all the proper tests, I embarked on a pretty intense food elimination diet. The list of food that I was “sensitive” to was surprising. I removed those foods and all food in the same family. So, as I was sensitive to radish, which is in the Cruciferous family (Cruciferae Brassicaceae), I also eliminated all foods from the Crucifer family, including cabbage, kale, broccoli and cauliflower, among others. I also removed a shocking amount of other food, including sugar, caffeine, all grains, all dairy products, legumes and eggs and other esoteric ingredients like fermented foods and vinegar… I was on a 6 week candida, elimination and rotation food cleanse.
Before this cleanse, my MS symptoms were pretty severe, inhibiting my mobility and energy.Though daunting, the diet proved to be incredibly transformative. I survived that, learning which foods I could no longer tolerate as I began to reintroduce them. This food shift put my MS symptoms in remission. My energy was boundless. I was so inspired by the power of food to shift disease, I got my degree in Holistic Nutrition, became a culinary instructor of the College, directed the program, became the primary instructor and advised private clients of changing their diet to overcome health challenges.
I had a mission to inspire people to embrace natural food for wellness and ended up opening three food based businesses in Boulder, Co. called Fresh Thymes. A restaurant, marketplace and bodega, dedicated to serving the healthiest, tastiest and most local food in town.
Ever the fixer, I enthusiastically catered to everyone’s food challenges. Whole 30, Candida, Vegan, Carnivore, Sugar Free, AIP Paleo, FODMAP. Pretty much, I nailed any diet in a high end, hip, fast casual place serving hundreds and hundreds of people a day. Somewhere along the way, in all the hustling, my food vigilance expanded. And it showed in my menu creation. It was silly in retrospect. Fun, outrageous, over the top extra, but silly. The lengths I would go to for ingredient purity. We had serious conversations about monkey labor and coconuts given the huge glut of coconut milk we used from Thailand. Concern for avocado cartels in Mexico. Only natural wine! Our own natural wine brand even. The local GF beer on tap. House made ferments, bitters and shrubs.The BROTH!!! The butter churned from fresh local milk…There was literally no end to the lengths I went to keep it all together.
In my personal life this hypervigilance and constant fixing looked like control of food and sourcing obv, but also my sleep hygiene, fitness regime, water quality, mold and environment. Hypervigilance in the name of protecting me and my family from those health detriments.
Despite my incessant fixing, my diet and subsequent health was pretty up and down. I went through a huge gut healing decade and generally identified as Paleo with more rigidity. During that time, I also didn’t eat eggs, butter, dairy, legumes, nuts, fermented food, anything overly spicy. If I indulged, I would pay the price with pretty intense MS symptoms the following day. That feedback loop kept me pretty rigid and militant about the role of diet in keeping my MS managed. The thousands of dollars I spent on Functional Medicine were more about fixing my gut and diet than MS.
What made it all manageable was that I had a tribe. A Fresh Thymes Food Tribe. Everyone in Boulder with a health condition, dietary need, food challenge, triathlon or crossfit training regime was my friend. We would swap tips and chat about the local holistic doctors. We talked religiously about the latest dietary trend, supplement or ingredient to eliminate in addition to kvetching and bemoaning all of our symptoms. I thrived on my mastery of all of that.
By walking away from that life and immersing myself deep in nature, alone, cooking simply for one with local ingredients of the moment, deep in nervous system transformation, I began to perceive things differently.
With distance and wisdom gained, I began to perceive a particular energetic frequency that can be felt in the field of hypervigilance. Its texture is enmeshed in the fibers of our nervous system. Hypervigilance ruled my entire life, orchestrating from the shadows. It built on itself in earnest once I changed my diet. However, that distinct frequency of hypervigilance was born in childhood. As a survival strategy. Hypervigilance emerges from a foundation of control, which rides on the fear frequency. Regardless, it masquerades in our lives in very commendable ways on the outside - caring for our health, love and care for the health of others.
Most importantly, as my system softened, as I allowed the deepest rest of literally my entire life (getting to the mental place of allowing rest at all was a challenging process unto itself), as I learned how to allow for all the pent up, unexpressed and unseen emotions of a lifetime, as I built nervous system capacity with gentle allowance and fledgling inner trust, meeting my emotions with compassion and not judgement, anger, control or fear, my health began to shift as well.
As my nervous system soothed and became more fluid, I began experimenting with taboo food. An occasional local egg. Fresh cow cheese. A dab of fresh churned butter…. Even, gasp(!) rice, and incredibly, semolina flour from this strange, little Italian Import storefront in Costa Rica… And guess, what? I was fine. Better than fine actually. I began to ponder, was I ever really allergic or sensitive to any of this food I deprived myself of? Was this story of food sensitivities accurate? Why were my MS symptoms so triggered by food that now is not at all? Was it always a nervous system in overdrive, always trapped in the sympathetic fight or flight, one that didn’t have enough inner space or capacity to allow nourishment to be received? Was my parasympathetic nervous system finally turning on with all the resting I was doing? Was I also beginning to actually digest as well?
My refrigerator began to fill with all of it! 12 eggs! All the cheeses, omg the fresh butter! Hmmm, sourdough flatbreads and local pasta….enjoying food like a normal healthy human. I battled the ingrained perception these taboo foods would cause me to gain weight, change my physique, cause skin inflammation. But, again… no. My weight was not impacted. My skin glowing.
I began to perceive that in my hypervigilance around food, my environment and my restaurants, there were a number of other difficult emotions that would tag along, affirming said vigilance.
Outrage (why can’t other food businesses make it easy?) Resignation (I’ll show up with food so I have something to eat) Victimization (why is it so hard to be nourished outside my home? Travel is impossible) Guilt (I shouldn’t eat this) Anger (look at all these people who can eat anything!) Judgement (Can you even believe what people eat or how they disregard their health?) Anxiety (can I trust this food?) Saviour (I must be the one to make all the food people can’t eat outside the home! I’ll save us!) Dancing with the drama triangle is energetically exhausting and deeply wearing on the nervous system.
What if (my favorite question) we replace the idea of a “diet” to fix our health challenges and instead look at our relationship with nourishment and the capacity of our system itself? Doctors who prescribe rigid diets, don’t ever inquire or intuit the state of our nervous system when they impose stressful dietary restrictions. From an energetic and nervous system frequency perspective, what if the key to those longevity diets such as Blue Zone can’t be reduced to the exact macronutrient ratio or how much seaweed you eat, but rather, the energy in which generations of that culture approach the role of nourishment itself? Basking in the sun, watching the sunset, caring for neighbors and local stray dogs, grateful for what is provided, gathering in community to enjoy the new mangoes just falling from the trees…moving at the pace of nature. What if it’s about immersion and alignment with the natural world, gratitude and deep trust in the food that grows around us to nourish? What if being immersed in that frequency modulates the nervous system and we just never had that level of perception, making those energetic connections?
And what would it feel like in your body to just….. Receive…? To relish the truest flavors nature provides, relieved of icky food emotions? Relieved of your own food vigilance? To actually have the space in your system to gently hold two polarities - holding both the sad truth of our food supply as it relates to our health choices and needs with no emotional grip, but with presence and awareness, responding - not reacting - while also creating space for the opposite polarity - allowance, gentleness, a living relationship with nourishment as an act of reverence for our body, our bridge to the abundance of nature, enjoyed with gratitude and surrounded by loved ones. And what if that feeling within can be achieved as a byproduct of nervous system work?
Back to the Fresh Thymes Food Tribe. I believe I did create a space that was a living relationship with nourishment and a safe home for the community. The food I created was in reverence and love to both nature and our body. But beneath that, how did I, along with everyone, help stoke the tightness of our collective system? By feeding the energy of hypervigilance with righteousness, that energy feeding the malignant fear grid in us and in the collective, keeping it fully nourished and self perpetuating, by hijacking our own health in the process.
Today, as part of the restoration process, your authentic inner wisdom as it relates to eating for your own health, begins to emerge from within once the body begins to respond to the nervous system work. What if we begin to align naturally with the foundation of vital health we are innately wired for? That which nature intelligently provides for our innate vitality. Unadulterated, local, fresh food.
I guide the softening of the system, moving through those emotional fields that bring tightness and inhibit our ability to take in the nutrients bound within. Moving into expansion, gratitude, trust, and co-creating with our bodily wisdom to discern the optimal diet for ourselves. Creating trust in the tides of evolution and change that reflect in our shifting diet over time. Creating space in our system for allowing the full range of food to be enjoyed. Deepening into communal eating. Deepening into eating in silence, in nature and truly enjoying what you consume. Tipping a glass of wine while watching the sunset and reflecting with gratitude on the good parts of our day.
It would be interesting to reflect on your relationship with diet, food, health, vigilance and other emotions that limit your internal ability to receive nourishment. And how that in turn is affecting your health. It would be interesting to note how that relationship corresponds to the state of your nervous system and what emotions arise within your body as you bring gentle awareness there…..
What if…. Doing nervous system work first and deep diet work later changes your relationship with food, health and healing entirely? With innate gnosis, your body begins to turn toward health like a flower to the sun, all on its own…
I work with local clients to now provide my food as nervous system nourishment (feel free to inquire about that if you live in Boulder)
I am hosting a free live webinar on Wednesday May 27 at 1PM MST if you are interested in exploring how to meet your nervous system with gentle allowance, learning to build the internal capacity to hold all that you are - AND to fully invite in true nourishment. I would LOVE to see you there!
The recording will be sent to all registered participants even if you can’t attend the live webinar.
Of course, please comment, email, message me! I love a good chat
With love and deep nourishment
Christine
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