Nourishment Is Safety

I’ve always been a foodie. I love to cook, I love to eat, and the science of food has always mattered to me.

For our 10th anniversary, my husband — who is just as much of a foodie — and I went to a seven-course chef’s tasting. We analyzed every dish, every pairing, every flavor, imagining how we could recreate them at home.

But even with all that passion, I was missing the bigger picture:

I didn’t understand what true nourishment meant for my body.

Deep, grounding, intentional food is safety for me.

As a kid, I always wanted to know when the next snack break was. It wasn't a hunger thing so much as a comfort thing.

Predictable. Safe.

But I didn’t honor that. I wouldn’t prepare, I’d go too long without eating, and it led to plenty of hangry meltdowns.

I didn’t understand yet that I was overriding myself.

When Rowan was born, something shifted.

I suddenly became vocal about food:

I packed snacks everywhere.

I wanted to know when meals were happening.

On family vacations, I wanted to buy groceries and cook.

At the time, I framed it as “this is what Rowan needs.”

Now I see it clearly:

I was finally giving voice to my own need for food security — I just felt safer expressing it “on behalf of my child.”

There were seasons where I outright ignored my hunger:

Fasting even when I was starving.

Under-eating during pregnancy because weight loss felt validating.

Telling myself my baby would “just use my fat stores” (as if he wouldn’t pull minerals from my teeth and organs 😵‍💫).

Then autoimmune symptoms hit.

I began working with a naturopath who put me through detox after detox but never once asked how I was eating.

Looking back, it’s absurd.

If a body is nourished, it knows how to detox on its own.

I detoxed for a year. Lost no weight. Felt worse and worse.

She kept looking for the next thing to “fix.”

And I kept getting sicker.

Eventually, I quit.

I figured that there was something in me that was stopping my weight loss, my healing, so instead of trying to force the body, I went looking within myself for answers.

I did three sessions of shadow hypnosis: not someone “healing me,” but someone helping me access my own knowing.

Two things came forward loud and clear:

1. My nervous system had been screaming for years.

2. I was inflamed out of my mind and my food was not supporting me.

Within days of that last session, I switched from dairy-free (with all the seed-oil lattes) to A2 low-temp pasteurized milk.

That one change opened the floodgates.

After that I finally bit the bullet and started to look at my blood sugar. I used a CGM for two months and regulated my blood sugar completely.

I changed how I ate; salad before pasta, nuts before sweets.

Small changes, big impact.

In the last year, we:

-switched fully to A2 dairy

-cut out seed oils

-massively increased vegetables

-put herbs in everything

-began cooking almost anything and everything with bone broth

-drink 2–3 cups of tea daily

-added trace minerals and sea salt to our water

Tiny shifts — enormous stability.

For the first time in my life, I felt nourished.

Fast forward to this summer, we took the camper from Colorado to South Carolina for two weeks to spend time with family.

Having my own space helped my nervous system.

But the food was a different story...

We shared meals, I had less control over quality, and I probably only cooked about 25% of the meals in the 2 week span.

After a 3-day drive there and a 3-day drive back, my body was in shock.

My lymph stagnated.

My sciatic nerve flared for six weeks.

I later realized my lymph was bottlenecking in my pelvis.

Once I cleared that, the sciatica faded…

…but the root-chakra issues didn’t.

For months afterward, my hips, low back, and pelvis felt unstable and unsafe.

I had worked SO HARD to feel nourished and safe in my body.

And suddenly, I was right back in survival mode.

Fast forward again to this week, a few months after the South Carolina trip.

My in-laws just left after being in town for 11 days.

I’ve been surviving, not thriving.

Hosting, cooking, cleaning, absorbing their stress, trying to maintain my routine — and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why my body was reacting so intensely.

And then two days ago, at peak exhaustion, everything clicked.

I stood in my kitchen thinking about dinner and all I wanted was peppers and onions.

I wanted nourishment.

The realization hit me HARD:

I hadn't been feeding myself deeply nourishing meals the entire visit.

Because it’s harder to cook that way for a crowd.

My body is screaming because it feels unsafe.

Food is my safety.

And when my nervous system is already taxed by company, I need more nourishment, not less.

So here's the big lesson: Nourishment is the Root Chakra. Nourishment is Safety.

My root chakra — my sense of safety and grounding — freaks out when I am under-nourished.

It sends signals:

-hip pain

-low back tension

-pelvic congestion

-inflammation

-emotional overwhelm

Not necessarily because there is layer to be healed but because my body does not feel safe when I am not nourished.

And honestly it has made me ask bigger questions:

How could anyone feel safe in a body that isn’t being fed well?

How could your root chakra be okay if what you’re eating is inflammatory, depleted, or disconnected from your body’s needs?

I don't know many that will truly resonate with this thought process, and that's okay.

We live in a world conditioned for:

-convenience over care

-speed over presence

-processed over nourishing

Most people don’t get enough rest to even feel what real food does for them.

So the idea of spending more effort on food feels like too much.

But for me?

Effort in food is effort in feeling safe.

If Any Part of This Resonates With You…

You don’t need to overhaul your entire life.

Start with one nourishing act a day:

-A cup of tea and five quiet minutes.

-Trace minerals or a pinch of sea salt in water.

-Choosing bone broth instead of bouillon.

-Eating veggies before starch.

-Cooking one meal intentionally with herbs and good fats.

And each time you nourish yourself, tell yourself:

“I am safe.”

Tell your body you’re listening.

Ask it what it’s craving and why.

And for a fun science moment:

next time you crave something, look up what nutrients that food contains.

It’s rarely random.

It’s usually your body whispering:

“Here’s what I need to help you feel safe.”

Nourishment doesn’t have to be complicated.

If food doesn’t feel accessible right now, tea can be a beautiful place to start.

A cup a day is a way of telling the body: you are safe enough to receive.

My herbal tea blends were created with this exact intention: to support grounding, regulation, and nourishment from the roots up.

✨ You can explore my tea blends here