Wow. This has not been simple for me.
I had a vision of sharing this process and connecting deeply, but I had a nasty cold (not Covid, thankfully). It took me down for a couple of weeks.
Now I am caught up.
But I keep doing other things than dealing with my pantry. Why is that? I used to be a professional cook.
The reality is I feel like I live in a small space. I don’t get to include all of the geeky culinary gear that I love in my kitchen. My pantry is tiny, and I just have some issues around it.
What better way to work through them than in a public forum like Instagram, right? Damn. What did I get myself into?
The thing is, when we have obstacles to overcome, it requires strength to just dive in and do the work. This can be applied with any obstacle, including clearing out my pantry.
Why we overlook the kitchen we a gathering place.
I tend to rush through domestic duties to maximize the time that I have around my other work. I love writing and creating for Gismart and for this brand, Beautify. I find it a treat to contribute to my family in this way. I’ve found my niche! Yay me.
But what about the home life?
As a culinarian, I run a busy kitchen. We eat homemade meals, three times a day. I prep the lunches the night before or the kids get leftovers in the thermos. It is important to me that I gift them the gift of a healthy microbiome. Giving them the opportunity to grow in a way that is natural and not filled with dry, processed foods is my way of saying, “I love you.”
This tends to mean that the overran kitchen is a bit grimy. We don’t have the best air circulation in our house, and that means that the grime sticks into the walls and floors. It needs a daily scrubbing, quite honestly.
I know this because cooking professionally, we scrubbed work stations multiple times a day. It is the mark of a professionally ran kitchen space. The salvation in most people not getting sick from eating out are kitchen standards.
The reality is some kitchens are ran better than others and right now, I am sad to share that mine needs a face lift. I have prioritized other parts of my life over doing a deep clean on the kitchen. It feels like a luxury, actually.
Cleansing home spaces before cleansing the inside of the body.
I am sharing this process here to give you a homespun look at cleansing the body from the inside out begins with cleansing our kitchen (and home spaces) first. Clearing out old ways of doing things are the very best re-set to the body.
As we approach October, this is a great time to begin this cleansing process that our bodies need. Summer has taken a toll. That end of summer, early autumn cold I had is one of the signs that I need to cleanse. Maybe you are in the same situation.
A cold is a definite sign that my body is challenged and I need to reset the body to fortify my immunity for the coming months. If I don’t I may have a low immunity through the Fall and into Winter. This isn’t the best way to approach the tail end of a pandemic, right?
A seasonal cold is one sign, other signs that your body needs to cleanse are these simple signs:
- Digestive Issues, Foul Gas
- Extra Smelly Sweat
- Brain Fog
- Congestion
- Insomnia
- Bloating
- PMS
- Mood Swings
- Allergies
- Feeling down or uninspired
What is going on is you may have unprocessed waste floating around in your body. Some folks call these toxins. Its a great name for them, because if it isn’t promoting vitality, it is definitely trapped waste that is impairing your body’s higher vibrational function.
Expanding this idea, when you have this kind of build up of gunk in your body, you begin to crave more of it. It is reflective of the idea that like creates like, movement from lesser concentration to greater concentration. This experience mimics a natural process of expansion.
In the coming weeks, I will share my personal gentle Fall Cleanse with you. You can follow me on Instagram @beautifyfaceyoga to learn the way I do this in consideration of:
- My age
- My sensitivities
- My allergy to propyl & octyl gallate
- My lifestyle
This may be a unique cleanse and if you want to follow along with me, just go to Instagram and I will share my shopping lists, nutritional supports, and the gentle natural way that I flow with this for three weeks.
Why a three-week cleanse?
Three weeks enable a course of action to ease into a cleansing time and then rejuvenate the body. So to be clear, we follow this course
Preparation —–> Cleanse —-> Rejuvenate
In this way, we are able to not only be gentle to the body, but we are able to establish new practices to reset our eating style to enter the season that can be rife with indulgence. With the preparation and rejuvenation phase, we are able to embody intentionality and respect for ourselves and for the natural world.
The natural world is communicating to us in availability of produce, temperature, moisture, and the changing of flora. We find tree leaves changing color to remind us of the idea of turning inward in this way of cleansing.
The first autumn squashes help to facilitate cleansing with the clearing and supportive nature to the tissues of our digestion.
Additions of fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary, lemon thyme, and sage, are examples of seasonal herbs that foster cleansing in dynamic micronutrient-dense ways.
Fortifications of other seasonal spice that we associate with Fall help our digestive system in robust nurturing ways. The flavors of cinnamon, star anise, clove, and cayenne bring forward a nurturing stimulation to the digestive tract that helps to eliminate during the cleansing process.
All of these vegetables, herbs, and spices help to carry us through the season as we continue to use them in heartier meals. The additions of herbs and spices can be beneficial and medicinal in use. We’ll explore that in this public cleanse that you can follow on Instagram with me. It’s free and easy. We’ll work through the pains and bond over the signs that we are cleansing (like clearing acne, digestive surprises, and release of fatigue that is sometimes annoying).
But first, we clean the kitchen.
So join me this weekend on Instagram, as I share this foundational Ayurvedic practice of sadhana, साधना, in Sanskrit, this refers to a daily spiritual practice. We’ll apply sadhana to the kitchen and spiritually cleanse the space with joy and intention.
This is important to cleanse the kitchen space of the old season’s grime and ingredients, but to also re-establish the kitchen space as a gathering place for spiritual and communal connections. Lifting the vibration of the kitchen space means we will dine with intention. We’ll look forward to creating foods in this space.
I will look forward to the delight in my partner and children’s faces that they are also invited into the space.
As far as history goes back to the first humans huddled around a fire, we know that the hearth, the oven, the fire brings people together. When we prepare food together, we share a sacred action of preparing foods in love. Food made in love always tastes better, right?
When we connect over food prep, we can do intentional actions enlivened with conversation about the day’s events. We engage in a communal activity that is as healing as any talk therapy could be. The open actions of including the activity of meal prep means that we can be open in a way that is safe. We are with family and that is safe (hopefully), but it is even more fun to share a work task and a story at the same time.
We can instill the work ethic of our ancestors into our children or mates with a little kitchen food prep. We can enjoy taking part in the primal activity all humans have done for thousands of years, since the beginning, to eat.
In this way, we can share our personal experiences through the magic of social media. ✨
Join me as I share my vulnerability and fear around opening up my pantry publicly. OMG! Let’s do this! Here’s where to find me:
October 1 – 22: Follow me @wellpantry for the nitty-gritty about cleansing my pantry and resetting it. I’ll also share recipes and tips about how to use fruits and vegetable to help nurture the body throughout this process.
October 8 – 22: Follow me @beautifyfaceyoga for the detail about gentle cleansing internally and the yoga and exercise you want to employ during the healing and rejuvenation part of the cleanse.
I can’t wait to see you there!
