Ch. 3- Nutrition, Running, & The Search for Existential Answers.

You know, the world is so quick to label. Because we really don’t know anything at all. So what joy it is, to attempt to figure everything out, to keep us busy from the meer fact that we have no fucking idea why were here and what were all doing. And so it always sort of irked me, when someone would say “you’re such a talker” but then another person might say “you are so relaxedl”.

I’d be so confused. What was I? Was I talker? Was I a “chill person?”. Someone might look at me in a particular season of my life and say “you’re so chaotic” but then someone could see me meditating before yoga class and think, “wow you’re so centered.”

Sometimes people would say “you’re such a good person doing good things” but I’d feel so bad inside, because I had anger and sadness. Who am I ? I thought.

The reason it bothered me so much was because I didn’t feel like I was any of those things in particular. I felt more than that, like a space container filled with many contradictory things. I experienced myself as sad, sometimes happy. Sometimes I was in a talking mood and sometimes I felt quiet. Sometimes I felt in love and sometimes I felt pissed.

I felt chaotic and other times I felt so calm. There were times I felt like a good person doing good things, and many times I felt like a failure who couldn’t hold a solid connection with anything. We really don’t know who anyone is at all, we barely know how life works how can we say who someone is?

The truth is we we are all changing at a constant rate, someone could be one way one day and the next a different. How much time do we spend labeling things and figuring things out just for life to abolish it all in one big sweep? You can have a solid idea, gather all the research, and believe to be totally true and life sound so effortlessly sweep right in and destroy it all proving it not so. So then what do we do? Is it worth trying to math out life? Is it worth, trying to figure everyone out? Or is more like an opening, to what is already here only in each moment at a time? Because if I were to look at what truth really was, the true that was really true…then it would only be in momentous spaces of time. Where time doesn’t even really matter except to measure in language.

After experiencing, what I knew to be as a “dark night of the soul” or existential crisis or the beginning of an “awakening” I began asking some heavy questions like THE questions of life. They say once you open that door there is not looking back “Who am I ?'“ “What the fuck are we all doing here? and what is the purpose of all of this?” It really messed with my head. I began listening to traditional meditations and picking up some ancient texts that addressed these topics. No therapist was willing to discuss this stuff with me except to put me on drugs to prevent me from thinking them. So I went into my own investigation.

From one teacher to another, I was flooding my brain with these lectures or “satsangs” where a spiritual teacher would speak. Most of them had some sort of awakening. I wanted more of it, I wanted to know truly, how was I all peace inside? How was my true nature at home? I consistently felt like I was looking for the feeling of home, and I could not find it. I was hoping at every retreat someone could give me an answer.

This context of meditation led me into a journey that changed my life and continues to nourish the chapters unfolding in each moment.

I became part of a meditation group, a sangha, and we would gather every week to watch our breath and read ancient scriptures. There was no particular religion whatsoever, but merely, just a space to investigate what we are together. To ask questions and discuss desires, fears, ego motives, and most importantly explore our natural state as consciousness through silence and meditation.

The spiritual deep dive has forever brought me to a place that I can no longer explain.

Nutrition + Running + The Failed System

This is where health entered the picture.

I was trying to emerge from a long fog—a year marked by losing my first love, living on my own for the first time, and watching everything that made me “me”  begin to shift. It felt like a complete identity reorganization. I later learned this phase is often called a Saturn return—the age when you’re no longer a kid, when adulthood arrives whether you’re ready or not, and old wounds begin demanding to be healed. Also called, “The Dark Night”.

And demand, it did.

I decided to take myself off antidepressants (I do not recommend doing this—please always consult a doctor) and off birth control, which I had been on for ten years—both at the same time. My therapist suggested increasing my medication dosage, but I knew—deeply—that the meds weren’t addressing the root. My heart was screaming for something to be heard, and the medication was numbing that scream.

I knew that intuitively.

Coming off both at once sent me into another dip.

So I started listening. To podcasts. A lot of them. I kept hearing about nutrition and movement—especially running—as powerful tools for people struggling with depression. I began growing my own lion’s mane mushrooms, sprouting broccoli seeds, reading obsessively about nutrition and functional medicine. I listened to doctors speak for hours at a time. I was consumed—in the best way.

With Elisha by my side, I found myself visiting health cafés, learning about herbs and plants, blending smoothies, and rediscovering small joys. Something was stirring.

My therapist noticed how low I was after coming off pharmaceuticals and gently suggested I go back on them. I asked her, “Please—let me try one more thing.” She agreed.

I sat down with a coworker at a local Starbucks—a runner—and said, “I want to train for a half marathon. Will you help me?”

He smiled and said, “Let’s do it.”

From January to April 2020, I went from never having run a full mile in my life to consistently running eight to twelve miles. And I loved it.

Running cracked the fog.

As my body moved, my mind opened. I dove deeper into podcasts, spiritual conversations, and long internal dialogues. Beauty returned. I had a reason to wake up. Ideas flooded in while I ran—visions of going back to school for nutrition, telling my story, starting a podcast.

And that’s when The Healing House was truly born. This journey continued for a very long time in peace and joy.