Dreaming to relieve stress, digestion, & plum galette

THE ABOVE PHOTO is where I would like to be today. This is because in the U.K. we are moving through a week of grey, winds and storm. Back to winter weather, though warm.

When this happens I spend my spare time looking at photos of the Mediterranean, it works wonders because I’m lighting up my positive neural networks which fills my body with all that feel good chemistry. The happy carefree chemistry of the feelings that the above photo fire up in me, course through my system, which is great for managing stress, and this in turn is good for my digestion.

Warm words also light up our positive neural networks which helps a stressed brain relax. And so, my sections on digestion and managing stress cross over; you may like to check out both streams of posts.

Warm words

As the rain comes down outside, spilling onto and through the leaf topped tree out front, lighting up the red roof tops with shine and gloss, quenching the soil, feeding the plants and nourishing the ground; I sit in my boat looking at pictures of bright sun and blue sky, seascapes and blossom, bourgainvillea and the cobbled streets of Vejer de la Frontera, before putting on a waterproof and heading out to get watered myself.

Outside I smell the wet day on the gardens along the road, before turning onto the main street, where I find myself enjoying the splash of puddles, the bright colours of traffic lights reflected on the wet glossy road, the cyclists swishing past and the sound of rain on my umbrella.

joy dots

Joy dots are a quick way to exercise your positive neural networks and are very powerful over time if you are feeling low — one of the brains responses to stress. Even just writing three joy dots down three times a day, and speaking them out loud, will start to create a shift of done every day.

My joy dots today

Silver skies

Raindrops

Sunny blue skies

Bourgainvilliea

Fresh mint tea

Friendship

Trees, always

Homemade pesto

Turquoise satin cushion

Favourite chipped cup

Cobbled streets

Digestion

Soon I will start recording my book ‘Your Peaceful Belly’, which explains how to heal digestion with Ayurveda, and how to create an Ayurvedic preventative healthcare plan. Digestion is at the heart of any Ayurvedic approach to health. The ancient seers of Ayurveda understood that we are an eco-system and that when digestion stops functioning properly, the conditions that allow disease to develop are being created. Healthy digestion is crucial if you want strong immunity, a body that can cleanse toxins and regenerate, as well as a balanced diverse gut microbiome. These are all things that I will go into more detail about in future posts. For now I thought it might be good if I explained my own journey into understanding digestion.

Journey back to health

The symptoms of IBS, leaky gut and SIBO arrived into my life while my children were young. They became worse over a 15 year period. I visited my doctor’s surgery a few times but IBS, SIBO and Leaky Gut (the terms given to my growing collection of symptoms) were not recognised in the mainstream back then. All the different symptoms were viewed as separate problems and the patient was viewed as psychologically troubled, perhaps even imagining the symptoms!  Western medicine is now discovering the state of your digestion affects how you feel and think and that it underpins many of today’s chronic diseases.

I tried all sorts of things to sort myself out. I juiced, smoothied, gave up gluten, sugar, alcohol and caffeine. I tried to be a vegan, a vegetarian and a meat eater. For short periods of time I thought I’d found the answer, but in the longer run the conditions just kept getting worse. I started to learn about Ayurveda, then for a number of years I began a 5-day cleanse, but only ever managed one day! This all changed while I was away on a gap year that turned into three. 

After a decade of working in sustainability, with my children out in the world, I decided to go for a gap year. I’d never been out of the U.K. and had been working since I was 14 so, moving through my midlife years this seemed like a great thing to do.

The kitchen I worked in at Ecodharma

My journey took me to 2 Eco-projects – Embercombe in Devon, Ecodharma in the Catalan Pyrenees; and the Schumacher College. I had a great time meeting lots of people who were trying to change the way we do things, to create a fairer more sustainable world. While I was volunteering at the Schumacher College I began an Ayurvedic healing diet which lasted about 3 months, completing this at  Ecodharma – the off-grid project in the Catalan Pyrenees where I  skill shared around food and community through an EU funded project.

Before returning to the UK I decided to walk the Camino de Santiago which runs across the north of Spain. I had to eat whatever came my way and discovered I was completely healed.

When I left Ecodharma I caught a train that rambled slowly through green hills and valleys. It was so peaceful to look out at the lakes and tiny ancient villages scattered along the way. The train I was on rambled slowly to Logrono where I began a new journey. 

Along the Camino as the red soil turned brown

Along the Camino

Early morning start along the Camino

A cafe along the Camino

After four weeks and 670 km of dirt track and old roads where the earth changed from red to dark brown, with tiny villages and ancient albergues constantly appearing on the horizon, I arrived in Santiago as the sun was rising.

It felt amazing to have been able to walk all this distance having just recovered from 15 years of IBS, SIBO and Leaky Gut which had led to a continued state of malabsorption, dehydration, exhaustion, losing 5 teeth, and a vast number of changing food intolerances.

Midday found me attending the Pilgrim Mass at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. This Cathedral is huge with lots of different rooms inside its great frame. The stonework has ornate painted decorations; cherubs the size of real people in many colours and gold, gold, gold. I’d never seen anything like it, nothing like this exists in the UK.

Towards the end of the service four men lowered a huge incense container –  Botafumeiro (smoke expeller). Fiery coals were solemnly carried and placed inside the Botafumeiro and frankincense added to these. The four men in their red robes – tiraboleiros (incense carriers) started to work with long thick ropes attached to the Botafumeiro, pulling at them until this great cauldron of burning incense started to swing back and forth on a huge chain across the width of the Cathedral I was sitting in.

The heady frankensense smoke billowed out spectacular and beautiful as had been my journey. Well in fact all three of them; the three years exploring sustainable approaches to community, the journey to feel well again, and walking the Camino.

I returned to the UK at the end of 2014 with £1.50, my health and so much more. A friend asked how I felt when I realised I was completely healed and I said, “I had a peaceful belly”, they said, well that’s your business then!

A new journey began; training as an Ayurvedic consultant with the American Institute of Vedic Studies and setting up my Peaceful Belly business selling freshly made kitchari – the Ayurvedic healing food that was central to healing my condition. It was at this time that I had the idea for the ‘Your Peaceful Belly’ book which was to be a practical resource for my case studies.

Once I began writing the initial idea, which centered around the Ayurvedic cleanse and how I adapted this to heal my condition, the book quickly turned into something bigger. As I learned a compromised digestion weakens our immune system and underpins many of today’s chronic diseases, I decided to write a book that would support people to create their own Ayurvedic preventative healthcare plan.

During this time I also started to develop a better understanding of how the health of the microbiome in the soil we grow our food in, the water we drink and the air we breath, is so important for the health of our microbiome, that a healthy microbiome in the soil, water and air is the foundation for our own good health.

Research shows that farming with chemicals kills off the microbiome in the soil, and that the use of the herbicide glyphosate since the 1990’s has led to the steep increase in allergies, cancers and chronic health conditions since the 1990’s  (Zach Bush MD carries out research in this area). The good news is regenerative agriculture (no till and no chemicals) puts the microbiome back into the soil in just one season, while drawing down carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil.

And so I have come full circle, bringing together my love of growing food, my concern for the planet, with my continued learning about microbiomes and Ayurveda.

Alongside writing ‘Your Peaceful Belly’ I also trained as a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist to support people to address the stress in their lives – it was the stress symptoms of complex PTSD that led to my gut problems.  The combination of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and Ayurveda is a powerful combination for addressing gut challenges.

One third of the royalties from ‘Your Peaceful Belly’ will support urban community food projects through Sustain; and one third will support a charity I’m involved with – Sakya Dechen Buddhism. Of course as a self-published author who is still learning about marketing i haven’t raised much money yet and may never, but I reckon that’s no reason not to have a go. One good thing has come from following this vision, a publisher invited me to work as a freelance writer for them on a little book introducing Ayurveda, which will be out next spring, and they kindly agreed to put my real name on the cover, as well as a bio inside the book. I’m over the moon, that could really make a difference.

Well that’s enough of me. I just wanted to give you a little background to what I’m doing.

Recipe

Plum Galette

Substack is telling me I am near the email word limit so here is a link to the recipe for a simple plum galette.

Till Wednesday, wishing you the warmest of weeks,

Lucy x