Eat. Pray. Love

I meditate in bed; unlike normal people, I don't immediately open my eyes as soon as my brain awakes. I lay there and I feel my body, I quietly thank each organ as I feel the sunlight radiating through my long length windows.

As a child I used to do this when my mother and stepfather would argue, I would lay in bed and tune out every single sound just to focus on my favorite song; my own heartbeat.

In the Latin household food is therapeutic, our grandmothers and our aunts would over feed us to ensure that we were happy, regardless of what was happening around us, I remember our neighbors were very loud when arguing, this was in Puerto Rico, our homes were less than 15 feet from each other, and just like thin walls, we knew what Marco was doing with the grocery clerk at 2am on a Tuesday, because Sara his wife was yelling it to the top of her lungs at 5am; on my way to the bathroom, my mother sat quietly at the dining table with a cup of bustelo coffee, I knew she had been awaken just like I had but instead of running to the window to check out the drama, she was drinking her coffee as if it was a peaceful morning before work.

She asked me what I wanted to eat for breakfast, to which I replied " mom, it is 5am " she looked at me as if time was as unimportant as the drama outside.

It took me years to realize that the coping mechanisms I used as a child and as a young adult were worsening my lack of for a temporary understanding; a wise woman once told me " stop fixing long term with temporary " I was able to temporarily escape from my room when they argued, as I was able to eat my emotions instead of talking them out.

A lot more people are coming into the healing journey these days, fixing long term with temporary though as we often hear " I am going to therapy " which is awesome, I did therapy myself and it was the best starting point I could ever recommend; however, therapy is not only an hour a week in a room, therapy is deep work everyday, every minute, in every category of self. Therapy is having those conversions with your parents, understanding why they coped the way they did, the way you saw and therefor learned.

I left my marriage because I couldn't talk about what I was going through emotionally with postpartum depression: I didn't speak to my own mother for years because I couldn't hear her side of the story; emotionally I was not ready to know if she knew and she chose to ignored or if she never knew: I fill my mouth with whipped cream when I start stuttering, right before I shut down emotionally, till this day, this is still one of my hard to let go coping mechanisms; though I have been working through my shitty basement full of childhood traumas I am still dealing with releasing these coping mechanisms I visually leaned as a kid.

As I found myself in a healing journey I also found myself in a healthy eating journey, some would say that healing and food intake go hand in hand to which I would agree; healthy eating didn't only enable me to talk instead of doing damage by emotional eating but it also taught me how emotions communicate with the body, and so both journeys merge.

I am not a professional emotional talker, I still struggle like everyone else, but the immense difference that it made in my life has changed how I care for and show love to, it has definitely opened me up to being affectionate, to show emotions regardless of what they might be; being mad, hurt, happy or confuse are all emotions, good or bad being able to talk about it would make way for a better you in the future, I am able to communicate way better with my kids today then ever, I worked hard on finding emotional balance between talking it out and eating it out, sometimes an order of tacos is just not enough to fill you up!