Using Passion to Find Your Purpose

In Feb­ru­ary, we are sur­round­ed by images of pas­sion and thoughts of love – bright red hearts, cupid bal­loons and choco­late ros­es are prac­ti­cal­ly over­flow­ing out of every aisle at the gro­cery store. But the truth is, pas­sion can come in many forms, and in this month’s spe­cial edi­tion of the Hatch Health and Hap­pi­ness newslet­ter, we are talk­ing about the pow­er of pur­su­ing your pas­sion. In stick­ing with this theme, I’ve decid­ed to walk you into a more per­son­al and vul­ner­a­ble chap­ter of my world that I have rarely spo­ken about, and how it fueled my per­son­al pas­sion for help­ing oth­ers to heal.

In 2011, I was diag­nosed with gas­tro­pare­sis (among many oth­er things). I was hand­ed a sin­gle-sided, over-pho­to­copied piece of paper telling me to eat exclu­sive­ly chick­en broth, Ensure, Car­na­tion Instant Break­fast, and mashed pota­toes. That’s it. I remem­ber sit­ting in the car after the appoint­ment and just star­ing at this piece of paper that had come from a very rep­utable doc­tor whom I respect very much. This is going to be my life? Forever?

It’s hard to believe now, but I did what so many do, and what I am guess­ing many of my read­ers can relate to – as ridicu­lous as it seemed, I fol­lowed the doctor’s orders. When you are so sick and des­per­ate to get bet­ter, you’ll do or try near­ly any­thing – even when it seems pre­pos­ter­ous – because maybe, just maybe, it will work.

So I did. I fol­lowed that “diet” with the addi­tion of egg whites and white bread, and shock­er, lost 32 pounds in 6 months and was diag­nosed as “fail­ure to thrive.” Mere months after receiv­ing that piece of paper, I was lying in a hos­pi­tal bed fol­low­ing com­pli­ca­tions from feed­ing tube surgery. I was blue, freez­ing, and the new own­er of a frontal tail at age 27.

I began the painstak­ing process of try­ing to gain weight while eat­ing next to noth­ing and pump­ing my body full of cans of gross­ly processed for­mu­la that it reject­ed with alarm­ing speed. I was sup­posed to try and eat more, but every­thing made me sick and noth­ing at all felt “safe.” Food became a huge source of fear – a stress that only fur­ther slowed down my very delayed stom­ach. I was putting on my pants with safe­ty pins to try to keep them from falling down and was so weak and tired that it was hard to walk up the stairs.

And yet, despite it all, I vivid­ly remem­ber the first time it hap­pened. I was walk­ing down the hall of my school and a par­ent of a for­mer stu­dent greet­ed me and exclaimed, “WOW! You look fab­u­lous! You should have done this years ago!”

Obvi­ous­ly, she had no idea why I had lost the weight.

Obvi­ous­ly, she NEVER meant to hurt me.

But I was floored. My cowork­er and I glanced at each oth­er with uneasy smiles. And the words stuck.

Was this pur­ple-hued, frontal-tailed body what makes me look “fab­u­lous?”

I knew that I was dan­ger­ous­ly under­weight. I knew that I was nev­er over­weight in the first place. I now knew that “fail­ure to thrive” wasn’t just reserved for babies. But I’m also human. And I had to work hard to swal­low that com­ment down and keep pump­ing myself with for­mu­la, and forc­ing down food, day in and day out.

And it hap­pened again. And again. And again.

One per­son went so far as to say that she wished she had gas­tro­pare­sis so she could lose the weight, too.

I crawled my way back to a healthy weight with dai­ly weigh-ins, food record­ing, and more feed­ing tube com­pli­ca­tions than I can begin to describe (hel­lo explod­ing feed­ing tube in the Min­neso­ta air­port bath­room…), all the while fight­ing the demons of the com­plete loss of my self-con­fi­dence and body image. All the while try­ing to con­vince myself that food was not “bad” – both for my mind and my body. All the while relearn­ing how and what to eat to main­tain my health.

Years lat­er, when I met with a new doc­tor who was thor­ough­ly flab­ber­gast­ed by my case, she pro­claimed “Well, I guess my best rec­om­men­da­tion is to lose 20–30 pounds, so when your mus­cles con­tin­ue to weak­en you have less to car­ry around.”

Yep.

Know­ing my full med­ical his­to­ry, she asked me to lose all of the weight I had worked so hard to gain. And just like that, I was back in the trench­es fight­ing the demons that may always be a part of my story.

I, like many peo­ple with aller­gies, autoim­mune dis­ease, and diges­tive dis­or­ders, fol­low a very reg­i­ment­ed diet. In a nut­shell, I am a gluten / dairy / soy / legume / most­ly grain-free low-residue pescatar­i­an (say THAT five times fast). I fol­low this plan because it is the lifestyle that I have learned through YEARS of tri­al and error works best for my body. It isn’t easy to go out to eat and I may nev­er have the lux­u­ry of pick­ing up a bite when I’m too tired to cook. I may always be the girl with a lunch­box at bridal show­ers and birth­day par­ties. I still chal­lenge myself to re-try things every once in a while, to both test the waters and to remind myself that food is meant for nour­ish­ment, not harm, and that no mat­ter how sick it makes me feel, that feel­ing will fade even­tu­al­ly – it’s not for­ev­er. I don’t try things because I have to, I try things because I GET to – the choice to heal on my own terms has been, and always will be, mine and mine alone.

My clients will tell you that I adamant­ly refuse to label some­thing as “good” or “bad” (much to their dis­ap­point­ment). If I had a dol­lar for every time I’ve heard, “Is this food good or bad?” I’d be a very wealthy woman. Cat­e­go­riz­ing some­thing that has the poten­tial to nour­ish our bod­ies and minds as good or bad is detri­men­tal to our psy­che, and it fills us with huge­ly unnec­es­sary guilt and shame. Even in the case of an aller­gy or Celi­ac dis­ease, the offend­ing food isn’t good or bad – it’s just not right for you. What makes one client feel full of light and ener­gy can make anoth­er one feel slug­gish and ter­ri­ble – diet and lifestyle are huge­ly bio-individual.

This is why I do what I do. This is why I’m pas­sion­ate that my clients learn that food is a good and won­der­ful thing that we NEED to nour­ish our bod­ies and our minds. This is why I’m pas­sion­ate in teach­ing my clients with alter­na­tive diets about new and excit­ing ways to not just eat, but to ENJOY food again. I have to remind myself every day that food is not some­thing to fight. I have to remind myself every day that the weight I worked SO hard to put on is not a sign of weak­ness or fail­ure, but rather a sign of strength. When peo­ple no longer com­pli­ment me on how I look, I have to remem­ber that it’s because I look healthy – nor­mal even. Like all chron­ic con­di­tions, my gas­tro­pare­sis symp­toms are infi­nite­ly less severe when I do every­thing I can to man­age my stress – and that means fac­ing my demons head-on every day. I can­not run and hide if I want to live a life where I thrive – and help oth­ers to do the same. I am pas­sion­ate, because I have walked this road every step of the way myself, and seen first­hand the dam­age that an extreme­ly restrict­ed diet can cause. I will walk that road the rest of my life and hope to always pas­sion­ate­ly help oth­ers walk their own road.

See you on the trail, friends.