For those of you following me regularly, you know I took a break one week from blogging. Be it physical exhaustion or mental fatigue, I knew I needed this break. After over two years struggling with my mental health I recognize the signs my body and mind are giving me when they are tired and need to recupe and rejuvenate. And that is what I did.
I focused on myself a bit, took a step back (well as much as I could because you know.....) I cooked a few less stressed suppers, washed a few less loads of dirty laundry, and took the time to book a massage. I took the time to listen to relaxing reflective meditation music, and allowed my mind to slowly, little by little, lessen its ruminating and anxiety. For anyone , like me, who struggle with anxiety and resultant depression, this is hard work. It is hard to turn down worrying in your mind, the endless list of things I should get done...... Hard to stem the jitteriness and increased heartbeat of anxiety. It's not a simple matter of stopping thinking a certain way. Patterns of thinking become stamped into your brain, and chemicals reactions to these result in your neuropathways shooting off more than normal . It's like water running down a mountain, creating paths of flow that becomes deeper and more engrained as the water increases in quantity. To change the pathway of the water after a trough has been created is very hard, almost as if impossible, and this is how creating new ways of thinking more positively , with less worrying and anxiety has been for me, trying to change the ways I think and react to the hardship and challenges in my life. I also still struggle with not expecting perfection from myself. Expecting to be able to do and be all things to my career, business, husband, children...... What perhaps is also one of the most important aspects is that I do have and have had a huge amount of stresses in my life the last few years and in my daily life. For many, the burden and load of dealing with a son with special needs results in burnout and depression. It is an all too common journey so many of us parents of kids with special needs go on and also for those who care for their elderly parents as we do as well. It also may be that what is not such a huge thing for one is insurmountable and a catastrophe for another who has much on their shoulders. As one therapist so bluntly told me, I had been struggling with depression and anxiety for almost 20 years I just didn't know it, and it hadn't as yet broken me. At one point it will. At one point, the last drop will fall in the cup and it will runneth over.....
My reason for even blogging about my journey in conjunction with my business is that with both I want to make a difference. I want to open the eyes of someone to mental health issues and show someone, just one person, what struggling with mental health issues really is like. It can be subtle. It can be lurking in the background and it can happen to ANYONE. Even someone as strong as people thought I was. Life threw me for a loop. It surprised me. Just like microgreens have.
My journey with microgreens has been just that, a journey of ups and downs. Not unlike my own life. Of little surprises along the way and of sudden shocking moments that stopped me in my tracks and sent me reeling into another direction.
A few weeks ago, I described the thrill of growing speckled peas and of how wonderful mighty they were. Well, how times change. Once I sold many ounces of containers of them and gave out samples as well, I received back comments that I too myself had noted when consuming them. Although the flavor of this microgreen was sweet and subtle, they were a bit stringy and chewy, and several clients commented on this, one even asking not to have these speckled pea microgreens in their weekly deliveries. I had harvested them too late and they were too mature. This mighty microgreen was no longer mighty after all. Like so often in my life and like my journey in mental health, what stopped me in my tracks would send me in a completely new direction and perhaps a better path as well. I experimented with another variety of pea - the yellow pea, and found them to be much better , especially if harvested a bit earlier than I did the speckled peas.
And so, like the name of my microgreens business, my microgreens surely are a microcosm of life, how they could surprise me completely, and send me off into a new path. And hopefully, like my journey with my mental health, it would lead me to be a better person, make a difference for and a better product choice for my clients. What is important is how we get there and not the destination. It's not the summit that's the pinnacle of a mountain but the journey to get there.
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For those of you wishing to try my new yellow peas microgreens, I have some extra at $2 an ounce, as well as extra fresh, nutritious red cabbage and red radish microgreens as well. I offer free delivery within the Montreal area and have a weekly community membership as well, where I deliver 8 ounces of microgreens each week to your front door for $15...... freshly harvested, to be freshly eaten by you.
