My Challenges. Meditation & Cooking Therapy

We all go through quite a lot of challenges in our lives. I’m not an exception here as well. Nowadays, when looking back at things that happened in my life, I find it rather therapeutic to talk about it. 

I’d start from a childhood trauma of being unloved. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had quite an ordinary childhood, with no major drama, but overall the whole family atmosphere was quite cold. Factual information has been exchanged, but nothing warm and personal. While I didn’t have any issues fleeing the family nest at the first available opportunity, this cold-heartedness will come to bite me in the ass later.  

I had a blast in my first Uni – better social connections, parties, and long hangouts with my classmates over dozens of beers. I’m not exaggerating here. No wonder I found myself quite overweight. It kinda also coincided with my first dating experiences and a few rejections based on my looks were quite dramatic. Right about the time I got my first full-time job as an interpreter, I took more control of my body image. That was a grueling 3 months of a calorie-controlled diet and gym exercise. It is still quite amazing to recall being able to drop 30 kgs as a result. I needed an entirely new wardrobe!

This event has probably kick-started my ever-lasting challenge of weight management and feeling good about my body image.  

Since that time I’ve tried low-carb, protein-rich diets, intermittent fasting, whole foods and a few more options. Mostly to discover that whereas minor changes could yield some results for me, they were not that sustainable and also did not make a radical change in my body image. When I combine this dissatisfaction about myself with the above-mentioned lack of self-love, it becomes more of a serious issue indeed. 

I found a plant-based regimen to be most effective for me to feel better. It made a lot of sense to me. After being a strict vegan for 8 years, my current relationship with food is more of a flexitarian nature. It means I still eat 90% plant-based with the occasional addition of other foodstuffs when I want to. It gives more freedom and scope for experimentation in the food industry without being too rigid and restricted. 

I also feel truly blessed that around 10 years ago or even earlier, I stumbled upon meditation practice. I can confidently say that without it, I wouldn’t have survived a few major life-challenging events in the last decade. Meditation also helps to keep me grounded and more in touch with reality, calmer in my world-view, cope with stress with ease and slowly but surely love myself a tad more. 

A note on stress – apart from my daily meditation and some sort of yoga or stretching practice, I take a rather large dose of magnesium before going to bed. It has also helped my nervous system during drastic periods in my life. Whilst I also love a few glasses of delicious natural wine, it helps to de-stress and the flavorsome sip makes the now just so much more bearable. 

One thing many people do not realize about me is that I feel very lonely. I haven’t had a partner for most of my life and don’t have one now, unfortunately. In addition to that, I’ve been moving so much – to Gibraltar, to Malta, to the UK, back to Ukraine, and to Georgia now. It definitely does not help my social life and feel like I’m a part of a community. One thing that helps me to live kinda ok with my loneliness is my love for cooking. You can call it cooking therapy (I plan to write about it in more detail later). It’s been many years that my happy place is having a go at the kitchen. It could be something simple like those tortillas for tacos I love so much, a bit more elaborate like vegetarian moussaka or even some sort of cooking experiment. 

To keep up with my self-love practice, cooking therapy helps to take a moment and think about how I can treat myself better, sometimes through better nutrition, sometimes through some amazing flavors, and sometimes simply feeling special about just being me and lighting some candles and dating just myself. 

Cooking therapy indeed helps with the loneliness issue and I also have high hopes that soon I can treat my friends and hopefully a partner with some of my cooking and share the joy, love, and those connections together. 

Whilst I’m rather content in my professional life dealing with marketing, crypto gaming, restaurants, bars, natural wines, and kitchen operations, I’m just some sort of screwed-up human who also wants to be happy, love and feel loved. Fingers crossed!