The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.
As a child, I was weak and feeble. I was sick till the age of 6 years, so my parents were always worried. I did not consider myself clever like my sisters. In school, I was a below-average student. This was my identity, an identity given by the outer world.
Inside I was quite confused and didn’t know why I am there. I grew up with the belief that if you don’t excel academically, you are no good. This thought in my mind was so strong that every time I connected with anyone, I had that feeling that I was no good.
After school came college. I found an opportunity to create my own identity and by that time I had started exploring myself to find jewels within me. I partly succeeded. I was better in my studies. I wanted to be independent so started working and studying at the same time. This was also driven by a financial crisis in the family.
I had a great interest in drawing and painting but never pursued them as a career. I took up the commerce stream as I didn’t like literature. After completing my studies, I got married.
After my daughter’s birth, I had to leave my job because there was no one to look after her. My father was suffering from cancer so my mother could not support me.
Again, life had its own plan. Our business was not running well and so I asked my husband to search for a job. Basically, I had a problem with the word “business” since childhood as I had experienced so much because of it. I didn’t want to experience the same pain again. On the other hand, my husband had a problem with “job” or “service” as he had seen his father working day and night for a bank and never got his father’s time. We decided to make a deal. I told him you try working for 2 months and meanwhile I would run his business. If the job did not work for him, he could come back and take over the business. After 2 months, he did not come back. He excelled in his profession. I also did good in his business, but I did not have a passion for it.
Our thinking has so much impact on our minds. There are so many blocks created by us. My husband removed his blocks and blossomed. I carried the baggage that I had to be the one to adjust … leave my job. I carried this baggage for 18 years.
This volcano was building inside me. I lost my flexibility mentally and physically and became hard like a rock. I was depressed. I started falling sick again. I would wake up with a lot of pain in my whole body as if someone had beaten me up.
A little before, my husband was detected with an autoimmune disease. He read a lot about it. He expected me to give him clean food. Every time he would come up with some new rules and regulations which would make me wild. I was not in the mode of accepting anything. The thought in my mind was that he wanted me to adjust once again.
I did not believe in a world where medications and hospitals were not necessary. Yoga, meditation, and proper food meant nothing. I felt what I ate was the best, which included a lot of non-vegetarian food. I did not understand the pain my husband was going through. I thought that the medicines are there, and they will take care of him. He repeatedly told me medicines have many side effects, and the side effects could kill the person instead of the disease.
Then came Covid time. My husband had resigned and taken a break. During his research, he came across a webinar on Farmizen, the food app from which we procured organic food and groceries. He heard Saee’s talk and got to know about the whole food plant-based diet and nature practices. He asked me to follow it as I also had a lot of health issues – swelling and water retention, increased weight, and more.
I was reluctant to join as I didn’t want to leave non-veg, oil etc. I again got wild but somehow, he convinced me, and I joined Saee’s 7-days program. I felt better after the 7 days program so continued with the 21 days program, which helped me even more. Right food, right thought, right movement, and right rest brought a significant change in me.
I started looking inwards. I regained the joy enough to start digging and finding jewels inside me. Life was different now. My perspective toward life had changed. There was no anger, depression, and anxiety. There was lots of love and acceptance. I could let go and let live.
To keep our life flowing, we must remove the blocks created by us. Mostly the blocks are mental blocks created by persons, situations, conditions or places that we need to accept and let go. The obstruction in flow automatically gets dissolved. All unwanted experiences in our life make us stronger and there is a lot of learning from them. To keep our flow going, creativity is very important. Creativity helps us remove our mental blocks and gives us direction. I started to paint and draw after nearly 35 years. This helped to find me.
In this process, I also started my creative occupation. When I started my clean eating journey, I never imagined that I would someday be a chef. In fact, I never imagined it as a part of my career. I was conditioned to think that woman need to cook for the family, and it was hard to imagine taking it up as a career.
I felt a bond with Saee and continued my conversations with her. She found out that I loved cooking. She encouraged me to try making whole food plant-based foods. In just a few days, she figured out that being a clean-eating chef was my Ikigai. And that started me on a beautiful and fulfilling journey. I am grateful to God for bringing Saee into my life.
I started taking live sessions on Facebook on Saee’s page. It was unnerving, to begin with, but I received encouragement from Saee and other friends I made by joining the WPower Synergy group. Very soon, these sessions expanded to longer workshops. People would often ask me for recipes.
As I loved cooking, I began to experiment with whole food plant-based snacks and desserts at home. I started taking orders and in a year’s time, I launched Poshak Foods, a whole food plant-based snack cloud kitchen that took weekly orders. Now, we ship across India.
Poshak Foods is part of Poshak Life now, another beautiful chapter in my life now with Saee and Monica, another friend I am grateful for in my life. Together, we experience so much joy and nourishment that no work seems burdensome. I feel high on life. My days are joyful, even when they are tiring.
And I am super excited about Poshak Life and where it will take us! All of us believe in service. And we believe we can help more people gain health and happiness through our services.