What drives me is a deep reverence for the natural world. It sustains me physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
I believe all humans need this connection for true health to exist.
I believe that when we take care of our personal health, the health of the planet thrives as well. When the body is operating in a peak state, we make space for our hearts and minds to reach higher levels as well. When we feel healthy, strong, and resilient, we make better choices for ourselves and others. We turn our attention outwards, towards serving others and the planet.
I believe that caring for the body is an act of self love and self respect. When we fully love and respect ourselves, our cup overflows, and we have love and respect to give others.
It’s a circle. Healthy people create a healthy planet and a healthy planet creates healthy people. When we choose to eat sustainable, organic, unprocessed, local food, we nourish the land and our communities. We build more resilient bodies and a more resilient planet.
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” -Steve Jobs
In college, I studied plant molecular biology and minored in ecology and evolution with the eventual plan to go into conservation science. After a few internships doing research and working with conservation non-profits, I was disillusioned with academia and was losing passion for the path. I saw the importance of the work I was doing, but I also saw so much wasted time and money. I wanted to feel like I was doing something that was making an impact NOW.
True to Jobs’s quote above, my path only makes sense in retrospect.
Taking a break from academia, I was drawn to working at an artisan cafe, learning the culinary arts. I enjoyed the tactile experience and fast pace of food service, became entrenched in the local food scene, and started an organic market garden. You can read more of my story here.
While I loved this part of the journey as well, I knew there was something else. Another step. At this point, I felt like I was at a fork where I either needed to pursue environmental conservation or pursue nutrition, public health, and food reform as a career.
When it came down to it, having learned about the food system, health, and environmental conservation from several angles, I knew that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, way I could have a positive impact on the planet was to be conscious of what I chose to eat every day, 3 times a day.
It was this belief that led me to focus my studies and efforts on personal health and lifestyle choices. We’re currently facing a health crisis in this country (and beyond) and by improving personal health, we create a better environment in the process. We create societies of people who are giving their best selves to solving the world’s greatest problems.
We all have greater sovereignty over our lives and a greater capacity for self-healing than we’ve ever been led to believe.
Each of us can decide to help create the world in which we want to live.