My life prior to the GAPS diet

This is a follow up post from my previous post about my healing journey with the GAPS diet.  If you didn’t read my previous post, it may make sense to read it either before or after this one.

I have thought a lot about how to write about my life and how I have come to the place I am right now.  I feel as though I have walked over a landscape of mountains in my life and have arrived at a cozy meadow in a beautiful wood.  Things are pleasant and beautiful right now.  And while I believe that life is about growth and continually walking towards deeper healing and love in our hearts, there is something different about the meadow I am finding myself in right now.

While I know I will continue growing, something really profound has opened up in my life the past few months.  In short, I believe this beautiful meadow is here to stay as a presence of happiness in my heart and in my life, despite any changes life may bring on the outside.  A couple months ago, I wrote this in my journal:

“This is how we were made – all of us – full of joy, happiness, beauty and creativity.  But what happens to us during our life can take this away, and it is our journey to find it again, and to know it is the truth and realness of who we each are.

“Although there is suffering in life, life is not about suffering.  It is about finding a way through our suffering to find the joy again.  To discover that it was there all along, but we simply didn’t see it.”  I would add now, “couldn’t feel it” as well.

And while I have touched this experience and knowing before in my life, it had been quite some time since I had felt it when I wrote this in my journal.  I remember running an errand that evening and on the way back, I felt myself start dancing (in my car seat) to the music on the radio.  I was happy again.  I wanted to dance again.  And it was coming from a deep place of joy in my heart.

Now that more than three months have passed since starting the full GAPS diet, I can whole-heartedly say that my change in mood and ability to cope with life without freaking out with inappropriate frustration is greatly due to eliminating grains, sugars and starches from my diet as well as taking coconut oil, cod liver oil, and probiotics daily.

I will add something here; things are not perfect.  I am still very much healing in the inside (namely my guts) and I have yet to do the Intro diet for GAPS yet because I am still nursing my son.  And it is suggested that people adhere strictly to the GAPS diet for at least two years, so I have a ways to go.  But with the results I am already getting, I am so grateful and I wouldn’t give it up.

So, let’s rewind a little bit.  I’ve told you about where I am now, but little about my symptoms or where I’ve been previously.

I pretty much consider my life in two parts as of now – before pregnancy and postpartum.  Everything that happened before pregnancy was important but everything that happened after the birth of my son was life changing.

I’ll start with my life before pregnancy.  In my next post in the series of my healing journey, I’ll  focus on what happened postpartum.  This is where things get really interesting, so make sure to read the next post about my postpartum adventures.

I’ve had signs of digestive distress ever since I was a baby.  I was a shy and introverted child but I loved art and was very creative.  I had several different skin rashes as a child and was sick very often with strep.  I took antibiotics very frequently for these infections and later for urinary tract infections.  I also had hay fever.

As a teenager, my digestive problems worsened into terrible stomach aches.  I also remember being fairly depressed in high school and was extremely anti-social at school, having only a few close friends.  The only thing I was really interested in was art and looking forward to college and traveling.

After high school I discovered by doing an elimination diet that I was sensitive/allergic to wheat, dairy and sugar.  I later was tested and rye also came up as a problem food.

Despite this knowledge, I wasn’t able to  stick to my diet free of these allergens.  I was essentially addicted to them and I couldn’t break free of them.  Gluten free products and cook books simply didn’t exist or I didn’t know about them.  So, I continued to go back and forth with my diet.  I gained and lost weight several times, and a few times I was at least thirty pounds over weight.  Then there were times I was too thin and malnourished.  I also continued to have skin rashes and digestive problems for years.

Much of this time, I felt like I never really fit into life and I was often depressed without realizing it.  It was almost like I had been dropped on this planet but it really wasn’t my home and I didn’t know how to cope here.  In essence, I was extremely unhappy on the inside and looking for all kinds of “things” on the outside to make me happy.

I was mostly interested in spirituality, art, creativity, and children but had a hard time finding work to support these interests.  I was also very much interested in alternative healing modalities, mostly because I was seeking help for myself.  I studied/tried out acupuncture, acupressure, essential oils, chiropractic, breath work, art therapy, meditation, and others.  Everything helped a little bit.  But I continued to have emotional highs and lows, never feeling stable or very grounded in life.

Another key factor during my early twenties was my inability to stick with anything.  I never finished college, became a nun at an ashram for a year, then studied massage, then acupuncture and then art, each for a year’s time.  Every time I tried to commit to something, I couldn’t finish it.

During this time, I met my first husband and married, but this ended in a separation after only six months.  My heart was broken, but when it broke, it showed me all the places I already felt so lost in myself.  I really didn’t feel like life was worth living.  I had several thoughts during this time that I just wanted to die.  I was also very depressed even before my husband asked for a separation, so it wasn’t necessarily the separation I was depressed about.  But everything that I thought was stable in my life was being taken away which deepened my despair in life.

The only thing that pulled me through this time was my experience with healing in the Sufi tradition through a healing school I had recently started attending.  The people I met at the school supported me and helped me to find a new life for myself, even if I wasn’t sure I wanted one.

The Sufi healing school changed my life and I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.  Mostly, it reconnected me to God and helped me feel the love in my heart amidst all of my feelings of despair and hopelessness.

From there, life really started improving.  I started to sell my paintings after years of dreaming of doing this and moved across the country to start a new life on the east coast.  I ended up taking a job as the head cook at a spiritual retreat center and ended up finding my passion in cooking for people on limited diets.  Within a year or so, I decided to start my own business as a personal chef.  It took a commitment on my part that I had never had before, and business shortly took off.

During this time, I focused on personal healing with close relationships.  Eventually I met and married my second husband who I am still married to and enjoying a beautiful relationship with.  We quickly became pregnant after we married and here is where the second part of the story begins.

Despite all the great changes that happened during this period, I still went through periods of depression.  At this point I was still eating some wheat while trying to use spelt most of the time as an alternative.  I didn’t eat much refined sugar but plenty of agave and maple syrup.  And if bread was put in front of me I still couldn’t keep myself from eating it. And, even though my diet was causing a skin rash on my legs, I didn’t really want to change it.

I hope I am not boring you with all these details, but I felt that I needed to preface my life a little bit before I go onto writing about my postpartum experience.  It will just make more sense that way because my experiences postpartum were quite intense.  And while I don’t normally share the details of my life so in depth  for public view, my heart is telling me to share my experience with others because I feel there are some who may read this and see the potential benefits of the GAPS diet in the context of their own lives.

Again, if you didn’t read my previous post about my healing journey and what has changed for me the past few months, you may want to take a peak at it.

Have a happy day!