Plot Change

In 2007 I was diagnosed with what I was told was a ‘rare and incurable autoimmune disease.’ I was put on a lifetime prescription of ‘industrial strength’ cortico-steroids, just to stay alive. It was a confusing time. My physical health had never been an issue for the first 30 years of living. I had a bulletproof body that never let me down, a bulletproof digestive system that could eat anything in any amount without putting on a single kilogram of weight. I ran, cycled, hiked, swam, bodyboarded, was the last to leave the dance floor and the first one onto it. I was a fearless solo backpacker and intrepid adventurer, and never once needed to consider my physical health.

And then came the inexplicable fatigue at age 30.

That, together with brain injuries from a near-fatal car accident, began to rewrite the script. For the first time I am aware of, even if only in an infantile way, I began to feel my body. To feel into my body, my brain function, my mental and emotional fluctuations, my energy levels – which I desperately needed to manage, just to survive. Somehow I had moved from a thriving young man, to someone just trying to survive. I wasn’t finding any answers from the outside, so with nowhere else to go, I began going inside.

And the most immediate and obvious thing I noticed was the radical and direct relationship between my food and literally every part of me that was crying for help. What I was eating, when I was eating, how I was eating, how much I was eating, where I was eating, what I was doing while I was eating …  all had almost-immediate impact on my mood, energy and brain function. Certain foods triggered fatigue, mood swings and brain fog (fuzzy thinking and an inability to focus). Whether I was eating at home, at a take-away or restaurant, in front of the television or sitting in the garden, who I was eating with and what conversation was happening while eating … all of these I began to notice and feel. And I would keep a daily journal of all of this. For a couple years, from South Africa to India – living in Amma’s ashram – being vegetarian, then vegan, then monitoring the effects of a chicken curry or a mutton biryani after not eating any animal food for a week, or a month. I did the same with eggs, dairy, sugar – everything really. And on and on it went. It was probably one of the most in-depth research projects I ever undertook.

During 3yrs living between Amma’s ashram in India and my mates’ outdoor cinema project in Nepal, I started becoming aware of Ayurveda. It was a gradual thing that happened by itself. I saw an Ayurvedic doctor in the ashram, an ancient man who wandered around in his robes talking to trees while picking leaves, roots and god-knows-what-else. He took my pulse, prescribed some herbs, and told me,

“No spicy food.”

I asked why and he said,

“If you want to know why, go and study. If you want to get better, do what I tell you.”

So I said that I’m Indian and ‘no spicy food’ wasn’t a reasonable instruction without an explanation. And he handed back the money I paid for the consultation, with the words:

“You are a foolish boy, get out.”

It took about a year of me practically testing out the ‘no spicy food’ theory before I gave in to it. I would not eat anything spicy for a week and journal exactly how I felt in my body. Then I would eat spicy food again until my entire system was close to shutdown, when I would reluctantly go onto a spicy-food-fast until I felt better. And round and round I went,  until I could no longer escape the obvious. And that was just the chilli story. I also began reading about Ayurveda and started learning how it was all about Balance and Alignment. It was about observing how the natural world operated and then consciously aligning the habits of the body with these natural rhythms and cycles. And without conscious intention, I began building a relationship with my body, something I didn’t know existed. My days became endless ‘date nights’ with my body, feeling it, asking it questions, listening and waiting for answers. Because apparently it was talking to me, telling me exactly what it needed . . . except I hadn’t learned to hear it yet, nor understand it.

Over the years, I collected all my research, with myself as the guinea pig. Trial and error. Good days and bad months. ‘Aha!’ moments and ‘Ah shit!’ moments. Moments of hope and weeks of despair. Weeks of belief and months of doubt and cynicism. My healing wasn’t linear. Sometimes it felt like I was winning, and then other times I spiraled downwards without understanding why. It was frustrating.

My health affected my ability to jump fully into my life. It affected my relationships, my work, my sports and physical exercise, my creativity, my joy, my everything. I could start anything, fearlessly, but inevitably, I’d hit an invisible wall where energy vanished, my breathing became shallow, heart palpitated, my mood swung to the lower rungs, mental focus dissolved, and anger stormed the castle like a raging bull that’s just been castrated. And all without warning. Sometimes after two months… sometimes after two hours.

And then Death Spoke With Me

In June 2021 my father, aged 75, passed away quietly in his sleep. The autopsy said ‘heart disease’. For me, my family and all his friends who knew him through his life, this made no sense. The man was an athletic machine. He played competitive football, he ran, swam, played tennis, squash, cricket, golf, hiked, cycled, coached high school children in sports, and even on the day he passed away, he speed-walked 10 kilometers and did three sets of thirty squats. People like this do not die from heart disease. This is what I knew. This is what I had learned from school and society. But I was wrong.

For several months I sat silently by my shrine, with an open heart, waiting. My father and I had always had a deep spiritual connection and I knew that while his body had left, yet he was still very much present.

“Dad, this all feels too abrupt. It feels like there is an unfinished conversation. If there is anything you need from me – for the peace of your soul – then tell me. I am here, and I am ready.”

So, with my own private questions in my heart, I sat daily by my shrine and waited.

And then one day, a couple months later, he visited. As if he was sitting right next to me, speaking in that voice that only I could know, as clear as when he was still in his body, he responded to the questions I had been asking – the ones that never left my mouth, but hung around in my heart like a hungry cat waiting by its food bowl.

He told me it was his eating habits that weakened him in a way he could never see. And that this had been going on for decades under the surface. He affirmed what I had been passing through and learning about my own health over the previous years. And then he expressed his concern over my brother and – by extension – my niece, his beloved granddaughter. His concern was that they were both following his food lifestyle habits, and that this needed to change.

“Teach them how to eat. Take care of them. Do this for me, boy.”

It was an epiphany; my Trigger-Point – the why behind my 15-year journey with food that carried me to India, my ancestral land. And everything I had passed through since childhood. It was my Invisible Thread. Something far bigger than me. Dad was now officially an Ancestor, which meant – in my understanding – that I was receiving an ancestral directive; something I was born to do to as part of my lineage. So I shifted my focus and began formalizing my years of studying and research.

In that process, what I learned about Food, Gut Health, Emotional Balance, Immune System Resilience, Cognitive Function, Disease Prevention, and the Early Onset of Death was startling. And it happened by itself that the realization struck me. Taking care of my brother and my niece was not the endpoint – it was the beginning. I had an appointment with all of humankind. Because there was something we had all forgotten, and which Earth Mother was calling us all back to re-member.

Four years later, Eat Feel Heal was born. And now, here we are.