Healing in the Kitchen: From Survival to Nourishment

When my mom died, I could barely step into the kitchen without breaking down, let alone decide what to cook and stand at a stove. Grief took my energy, my motivation, my joy. I spent months ordering takeout, most of it not very healthy. I wasn’t worried about health, just surviving.

I’ve been in survival mode most of my life. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD before my 20s because of constant childhood trauma. I’ve been in and out of the hospital and through seven therapists (with only one I didn’t like), and it has always felt like there was something new to heal from. Just when I finally started to heal my sexual trauma, my mom died, and I felt stuck all over again. But I didn’t want to stay stuck. I wanted to keep moving toward my goals. I had made so much progress, and I didn’t want to let grief hold me back the way I once let abuse hold me back.

So I took action. I found grief groups in my area, looked for a therapist, and prioritized giving myself the space I needed to process my grief. If I hadn’t given myself that space, I probably wouldn’t have had room for my energy, motivation, and joy to return. I found my way back to the kitchen one day at a time, with help from an incredible support system.

Sometimes “back to the kitchen” meant baking a cake or brownies for someone else, pouring my love into food I might not even taste.

Other times it meant hiring my own personal chef and simply being in the kitchen while I allowed myself to be cared for, instead of only caring for everyone else. Little by little, those simple moments around food stopped feeling like chores and started feeling like small, deliberate acts of care for myself.

Learn to lean on your resources and recognize that you have needs too. When you don’t know where to start healing, start with nourishment. Your body deserves gentleness, even when your heart is hurting.