I Thought Food Was the Answer

What healing my relationship with my body taught me about Right Relationship

Nine years ago, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. At the time, that diagnosis became a turning point in my life. I changed the way I ate. I adopted a whole-food plant-based lifestyle. I learned to cook differently. I learned about nutrition in ways I never had before. And over time, I brought my blood sugar back into a non-diabetic range and kept it there.

It changed me so profoundly that I went back to culinary school, Then I became a health and wellness coach and went onto study food as medicine. I wanted to understand what had happened in my own body, and I wanted to help other people discover how powerful nourishment could be.

For a long time, I thought food was the answer.
I don't anymore.

Food was one of my teachers.

And it eventually led me to a much bigger question:
What does it actually mean to be in relationship with my body?

When Wellness Becomes Another Battlefield

There is a version of wellness that can look beautiful from the outside while still being rooted in war.

Eat the right things.
Lose the weight.
Get your steps.
Fix your hormones.
Improve your numbers.
Sleep better.
Drink more water.
Reduce your stress.
Optimize this.
Track that.
Do better.
Try harder.

And none of those things are inherently wrong.

I believe deeply in nourishing food. I believe movement matters. I believe our daily choices influence our well-being. Those beliefs are part of why I studied nutrition and wellness in the first place.

But somewhere along the way, I began to recognize something:
You can do all the “right” things and still be at war with yourself.

You can eat beautifully, look amazing on the outside and still hate your body. You can exercise every day and use movement as punishment. You can monitor every health marker and live terrified of what the next number will say. You can meditate, journal, go to therapy, attend ceremonies, read every self-help book you can find, and quietly continue believing that you are a problem that needs to be fixed and not be at peace with yourself.

Eventually, I had to ask myself:
What kind of relationship am I having with myself while I'm trying so hard to become well?

That question changed everything.

My Body Changed the Conversation

Recently, perimenopause has invited me back into this lesson in a new way. The body I thought I understood started changing. Things didn't always respond the way they once had. My needs shifted.And I found myself frightened at times by the unpredictability of it.

Then one morning, I was afraid to check my fasting glucose.I stood there with that little meter knowing intellectually that it was simply going to give me information.

But emotionally?

It felt like it might give me a verdict.

Have I been good enough? Have I failed? Am I okay? Is something wrong with me again?

I finally checked.

90.

I felt enormous relief. But after the relief came something much more interesting. I realized that if the meter had shown me a number I didn't want to see, I could have turned that number into evidence against myself.

And suddenly, one of the teachings I've been developing became incredibly tangible:

Information is not a verdict.

My glucose is information.
My weight is information.
My energy is information.
My hunger is information.
My need for rest is information.
The changing needs of my body are information.

None of those things determine my worth. My body is not a report card and I don't want to spend the rest of my life standing over her with a red pen.

Being in Relationship Means Listening Again

There is something I understand now that I didn't understand nine years ago:

Being in relationship means listening again when the other changes.

We understand this in human relationships. If someone we love changes, if their circumstances change, if their needs change, if life changes them, a healthy relationship requires us to become curious again.

We cannot simply say: "But this is what worked for you nine years ago." Why would our relationship with our body be any different? My body is not required to remain the woman she was nine years ago.

She gets to age.
She gets to change.
She gets to communicate new needs.
She gets to ask me to pay attention again.
And my job isn't to drag her backward into a previous version of herself.

My job is to meet her where she is now.

That doesn't mean abandoning responsibility for my health. Quite the opposite, it means caring enough to listen accurately.

Maybe I need different nourishment.
Maybe I need more rest.
Maybe I need different movement.
Maybe I need less.
Maybe I need medical support.
Maybe I need to change something.
Maybe I simply need patience.

Right Relationship isn't passive.
It is responsive.

Food Is More Than Fuel or Pleasure

This is also why my relationship with food has changed. Yes, food provides nutrients. But human beings have never experienced food as nothing more than fuel.

Food is memory.
Culture.
Pleasure.
Creativity.
Connection.
Celebration.
Care.
Ritual.

Food can also become fear, control, shame and punishment. I mean have you ever so obsessively counted your macros because you needed to lose x amount of pounds, only to not actually be happy when the results arrive?

The question, then, isn't only: “What am I eating?”

I am increasingly interested in asking: “What relationship am I creating through the way I nourish myself?”

Am I eating something because I care for my body, or because I am terrified of her, or need her to be something she doesn't want to be?

Am I making a choice because it supports me, or because I believe I need to earn the right to feel good about myself?

Can I make a nourishing meal an act of affection rather than another item on my self-improvement checklist?

Can I enjoy food?
Can I listen?
Can I adjust?
Can I remain curious?
Can I care for myself without making care another form of control?

These questions have become much more interesting to me than perfection ever was.

“Rejoice. You Are Healed.”

Recently, during ceremony, I heard something very clearly. It came with extraordinary tenderness:

“Rejoice. You are healed.”

Those words stayed with me. I don't receive them as a medical diagnosis or a promise that my body will never struggle again. Bodies are bodies and they change, they age, they become ill, the recover, they require attention and sometimes they surprise us.

So perhaps those words weren't asking me to believe that nothing would ever happen to my body again.Perhaps they were asking something much more profound:

What if I don't have to identify myself by what I'm healing from anymore?

That question stopped me, because there can be an identity hidden inside healing. We can spend so many years working on ourselves that eventually we forget what all that healing was supposed to make possible.

We are healing the trauma.
Healing the nervous system.
Healing our relationship with food.
Healing our relationship patterns.
Healing childhood wounds.
Healing our bodies.
Healing our money stories.
Healing our attachment.

Healing, healing, healing.

And healing work can be deeply valuable, but at some point I wonder whether we also have to ask:

When do I get to live?

What if I am not required to spend the rest of my life monitoring myself for evidence that I am still wounded? What if I don't have to make every uncomfortable emotion another problem to solve? What if I don't need to endlessly excavate myself? What if there comes a moment when healing asks me to stop staring at the wound...

and look at the life growing around it?

Maybe rejoice, you are healed means:

You are allowed to live from somewhere other than the wound now.

That possibility feels enormous to me.

You Are Not a Project to Be Fixed

This realization sits at the heart of what I call Right Relationship.
Right Relationship is not perfection.

It isn't a destination where everything is finally balanced and nothing difficult ever happens again.It is a living practice of listening, responding, adjusting, repairing, honoring, and participating in our lives with greater awareness, and it begins with the relationship we have with ourselves.

I have spent much of my professional life learning different ways to support the human being.

Food.
Movement.
Touch.
Yoga.
Energy work.
Spiritual practice.
Embodiment.
Ritual.
Coaching.

And increasingly, I don't see these as disconnected things. They are different doors into the same room because underneath so many of them is the same question:

How am I relating to myself?

Am I listening or overriding?
Nourishing or punishing?
Responding or controlling?
Trusting or constantly second-guessing?
Growing or prosecuting?
Living or endlessly trying to fix myself before I believe I'm allowed to live?

That is why one of the central ideas underneath my work has become:

You are not a project to be fixed. You are a relationship to be nurtured.

And relationships require presence.
They require listening.
They require honesty.
They require accountability.
They require repair.
They require boundaries.
They require flexibility.

And sometimes they require us to recognize that the person—or body—we are in relationship with has changed.

You Don't Have to Hate Yourself Into Becoming Well

This is also where my newest work, Put Down the Battle, was born. Because before we can create Right Relationship with ourselves, we have to notice all the ways we may still be treating ourselves like the enemy.

The criticism.
The shame.
The comparison.
The perfectionism.
The second-guessing.
The punishment.
The constant belief that we should be further along by now.
The belief that if we are hard enough on ourselves, eventually we'll become the person we were supposed to be.

But I don't believe we can create a life that feels like home while continually attacking the person who has to live inside it and I don't believe suffering is proof that we're taking our growth seriously. You can still change, have goals, still make different choices, still take responsibility, still care deeply about your health. You can still want to feel stronger, more vibrant, more peaceful, more connected and more alive.

But you don't have to hate yourself into becoming well.

Perhaps the question isn't: How do I finally fix myself?

Perhaps it becomes: How do I create the conditions in which I can flourish?

That's a very different relationship.

The Woman Who Is Already Here

Nine years ago, food opened a door for me and I'm profoundly grateful it did. It changed my health. It changed my education. It changed my professional life. And it started me down a road I am still walking. But today I understand that nourishment is much bigger than what's on my plate.

Nourishment is also the way I speak to myself.
The people I allow close to me.
The boundaries I keep.
The rest I permit.
The movement I choose.
The spaces I inhabit.
The creativity I make room for.
The community I participate in.
The relationship I have with the Earth.
The way I tend my spiritual life.

The way I respond when my body whispers and the way I respond when she has to shout. All of it is relationship. And perhaps that's the invitation I want to leave with you.

Whatever you're currently trying to change about yourself, pause long enough to ask:

What kind of relationship am I having with myself while I'm trying to change it?

Because you are allowed to grow without becoming your own adversary. You are allowed to care for your health without making your body the enemy. You are allowed to learn from your past without living on trial for it. You are allowed to change your life without withholding love from the woman who is living it today. And maybe healing isn't finally becoming the perfect version of ourselves.

Maybe part of healing is realizing that the woman who is already here deserves to be met.

Listened to.
Nourished.
Protected.
Enjoyed.
Loved.
Perhaps even celebrated.

And maybe, every once in a while, she deserves to hear: Rejoice. Not because the journey is over. Not because nothing will ever change again. But because she no longer has to wait until she is perfectly healed to begin living.

Your body was never the enemy.

And neither were you.

— Melia
Mystical Moon Haven

Mystical Moon Haven
7634 Kathleen Road #5151
Lakeland, FL. 33810

⚠️ Important Note

All services offered are for spiritual wellness, personal growth, and holistic support only. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical or mental health condition, nor do they replace professional medical, psychological, or therapeutic care. Please consult your licensed healthcare provider for any health concerns.

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