This post was previously published on another blog that I was writing a number of years ago.  It is a ramble and a jumble of thoughts and feelings. The feelings that I expressed at that time are still very valid. I read it over and over again and I see that I was stuck at that time in a place that was not as healthy yet having desires to move towards healthy living. I see the same thing in so many people today. I hear the same struggles.  It has been a journey as I have moved at times more towards that place of "junk food/sugar addiction and at times, away from that place to a healthier/ happier place.  It was a struggle as I swung back and forth, confused by labels and the misinformation out there and giving up often because it was so hard and confusing.  Life and food was a struggle for so many years, but now I have some better skills to cope and better relationship skills with others and myself. As I have learned to have a new relationship with myself and food I am healing and becoming more whole in mind, body, and spirit and it is a wonderful place to be! 

This is why I have been drawn to education and coaching to help others be able to sort out the jumble in their minds and spirits and to educate them and arm them with practical skills that will bless them and transform their lives for good.

 I am working on making my body and mind healthier. I am making strides, but sometimes old habits die  hard. Sundays can be a challenge because my husband and I both grew up with the notion that Sunday afternoons are for baking something yummy. I have been pretty good at resisting the urge to make something sweet on a Sunday afternoons, but this week it didn't happen.  "I want chocolate" my body was screaming at me.  I thought about making brownies from scratch, but that will not do, oh no not today.  If it is brownies, it has got to be fudgy brownies from a box.  I wanted that taste that you only can get from a brownie box mix.  I didn't want it all healthified (like some people I know) by mixing in beans, applesauce, pumpkin or other ingredients.

I made the brownies from a box and devoured them along with the family.  It worked, it filled that void and craving.  I don't know what chemicals they put in it that makes it cravable but yesterday I couldn't resist.  When I was in chef school one of my fellow students asked a very simple question.  Why can't I make a cake like Betty Crocker?  He then went on  " I have tried and tried, but I can't replicate that taste."  We grew up with that flavor profile and we think that cake is supposed to taste like that. I grew up thinking that all casseroles tasted like condensed soup. We are such a bottle, can and box society.  We are really good at opening packages, adding a few things to it and viola! dinner is served.


What has happened to real food?  Two years ago at Thanksgiving time this question was put past me; "Since when does Thanksgiving come from a box?" Instant mash potatoes, Gravy from a packet,  stove top stuffing, Rolls from a Tube, Pie from the freezer, and the list could go on.  I wondered that myself.  Thanksging used to be a time that we would get away from all the box stuff.  We would gather around the table and enjoy good home cooked food.  A number of years ago I offered to make the turkey.  I did this so that I could enjoy the flavorful, wonderful gravy that comes with the drippings that come from a roasted whole turkey.  I brought back my Grandma's pumpking pie.  I got tired of old yuck store bought soggy on the bottom pumpkin pie.




my son as a baby with a bowl of vegetables

  One of the questions that was posed to us at chef school "Where does the clients health fall in your duty as chef? Do you make your meals healthy, or do you give them what they want regardless of the calorie count?"  We all agreed that butter makes it better and making the customers taste buds happy was where it counted. As an example; On the way home from a trip we stopped at a hometown burger joint. Listed on the menu was a fruit plate.  When I asked about the fruit plate, the gal behind the counter told me that they no longer offered that.  She said that "people were asking for it, but when we actually put it on the menu, no one ordered it". People would think about it for a moment, but in the end  they would make a comment like "We are in a burger joint, I'll have a big juicy burger."

What about Value?  As stated in a previous post  I grew up where the Value menu hamburgers were what we ate at times. That is what my parents could afford.  A neighbor recently was talking with us about how his grocery bill has grown over the last few years, but his income has not. He talked about how all he can afford is junk food.  He said that they tried to eat healthy for about six months but could not afford it. I am a couponer and a frugal shopper.  Coupons have made it easy to supply my family with junk food. Coupons for truly healthy food (and the Staples) are few and far between.  I do have a stratagy, I use my coupons for buying toiletries and other goods.  Then I have a bit more in my budget for the good food.

But what is good food? We have been marketed to think that alot of things are "good food" It is amazing. healthy claims all over the boxes and bags of things we eat.  Just recently, in a hurry I picked up some juice for the kids; looking at the banner across the juice box reading 100% I placed it in my cart and when I got home realized that I had made a mistake.  100% daily recommened amounts of vitamin C not 100% juice. I could have kicked myself for that.  I usually do try to get real juice and not flavored corn syrup.  We drank it anyways.

Time for dinner now, but I will be back later with thoughts about our food choices, recipes, and more.

 This post was originally posted on a blog that I started 6 years ago that I never took off the ground.  (It was really the only post I posted on that blog), but it speaks of the journey that I went through over the next few years that were so bad as I totally fell apart. I am grateful for the journey then as much as I am grateful to see the other side and able to enjoy the joy of healing and wholeness

As I write I pray that I can speak hope to the heart of those who are depressed or in the midst of a major mental/emotional storm.  I also pray that I may aid others in gaining understanding what may be going on with those they love and care for.

Where to begin?

For years I have associated and cared for  people that suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental/emotional illnesses.  I, like so many others would try to encourage and help as I could. I would try to be upbeat and downplay their troubles thinking that if I could just help them to see the sunshine or "the silver lining in the clouds" that it would help them to feel better about whatever was going on in their lives.  I myself had felt down at times and others would help me see that there was hope. I wanted to do the same for others.  I would listen and try to put myself in their shoes, yet I would often hear, "you don't understand, no one understands."  I have recently experienced something that helps me to understand more fully what these people may be experiencing.

What I experienced was incredible. It was a huge bio-chemical storm in my brain in my mental/ emotional area that was so very real. My inner self, my soul, my emotional center, was rocked to the very core. The mental storm clouds started gathering in November. I sensed something strange happening as anxiety, depression began to grow, by mid December I could tell that it was no normal kind of storm. Anxiety, panic, depression all started culminating inside of me at a quicker rate than I could manage.  I started preparing for the worst.  By the time it got to be just a few days before Christmas I was in an emotional/mental and physical panic. The mental storm had grown into a hurricane and it was spilling out into my physical world. The winds were blowing hard, the rain was coming down in droves and the storm was picking up speed.  I was just trying to hang on and make it through the Holiday season. I had experienced some of this before, I had experienced some postpartum depression after my last child and often felt anxious, but this was somehow different, the storm was much bigger, stronger, and more ominous then the postpartum depression.


This storm felt very real inside and out, and the preparations for weathering the storm were taking their toll on me mentally and physically. When there is a biochemical storm going on in the brain, the physical body feels the effect.  As the storm raged in, I felt very real physical effects. I felt drained of physical energy as well as emotional energy. I was no longer sleeping well. I spent my nights struggling through the emotional rainstorm not sleeping and worrying about how I was going to survive the busy holiday season when all my physical, mental, and emotional energy was being pulled to fight this mental/emotional storm that was swirling inside of me, yet it seemed that it was not just inside anymore. My stormy inside world had collided with my outside world and it was a massive storm system.

I was beginning to be unable to tell the difference between physical stress and the mental/emotional stress. I was just plain stressed out. There was something going on and I felt out of control. I felt like I was being pulled apart. The winds and rain were getting stronger and I was not able to hold it together much longer. I was trying to keep my mental/emotional self together for the family, (after all it was Christmas.) The physical world with its normal Christmas stress was pulling at me.  I was coming apart at the seams, but I had to hold on there was no other choice.  By Christmas eve day, I was drained of all physical and mental energy and the storm began to reach epic proportions. I tried to talk with some people (who trying to be sympathetic) said things like "I know the holidays can be hard and stressful. It is for all of us. Take a bubble bath break and all will be ok" and I wanted to scream at them "How can I take a bubble bath when there is a hurricane beating at my doorstep!" 

The huge mental  hurricane hit with full force later that evening and I was mentally tossed and turned, I was tumbled about, picked up and thrown up in the air, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was in the eye of the storm. In my physical life things were  being tossed and turned about also, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were both disasters, kids were sick etc.  I was physically and emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed beyond belief as I climbed into bed.

As morning broke the day after Christmas I was able to assess the damage a little bit. Physically (on the outside) things were in a state of disaster, but nothing compared to that which was once my mental/emotional self. The hurricane that had taken place inside of me had left me emotionally and mentally broken, bleeding, and gasping for every breath. The best I can describe to people so they can begin to get a glimpse of what I felt...... Is the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz as he was torn apart by the flying monkeys belonging to the wicked witch. I felt emotionally that I had been picked up, torn apart, ripped at the seams, tossed about,  and pieces of me were strewn across three states. I was a wreck. I don't know how I managed, but  I picked up the pieces and found my way to my parents house where I  thought that my loving family could and would be like the tin man and the lion who helped the poor scarecrow. My family, they could help stuff me and stitch me back together.

I got to my parents home, stumbled into the house then collapsed in a heap on the floor. I began telling them how hard Christmas had been and they were like the loving friends who on Christmas eve  had told me to take a bubble bath. They told me things like, "We all have Christmas stress, I am sorry the kids were sick etc. cheer up, things will get better."  All of a sudden I found myself on the other side of things. The tables had been turned.




My eyes of understanding were opened and I could see that my family had no idea the scope and size of the storm that had plagued me mentally and emotionally. They could not see that I was broken into a billion pieces.  In their eyes, it was like I had fallen and skinned my knee. They kissed it better and told me to get up and go on with life. Could they really not see me bruised broken and torn to shreds? How could this be? Here I was lying in pieces in front of them and they can't see it.  I found myself saying "They just don't understand!"  I had heard those words before so many times.

Oh my, how I cried, I felt bad for those who had come to me broken and bruised having gone through a large storm and I had not seen them as bruised and broken, I had only seen a skinned knee or bumped elbow. How I wish I could go back in time and have done differently, but I can't. What I can do, is to be more aware.  They may tell me of the physical woes, and I may try to understand and sympathize, but the mental/emotional wounds may be much deeper and far reaching than I can understand. I often cannot see the swirling storm taking place inside of others, but I can be aware that it is happening.

To those who deal with persons afflicted by mental illness, depression or anxiety.....be extra kind, and remember that the mental/emotional experiences they are having are very real. You may not see nor experience their storm, in fact you may not even see a cloud in the sky, but they are experiencing it in a very real way at the moment.  Try to explore beyond the obvious that you can see, and try to see  deeper into the soul of that person.

I hope that I have described my experience in a way that helps those suffering to know that they are not alone even when it seems that no-one understands there are others out there who have experienced the same type of thing.


Hang on, and know that not every storm will be category 5 hurricane.  Dark clouds may gather, but not every cloudy day ends in a major storm. I have since had stormy days inside, and I have sensed myself hunkering down preparing for the worst, and I have reminded myself often that there will be stormy days, and that sunshine follows.

Happy Momma

 

Welcome!

I am excited to share with you my journey.  I am Melanie Keck also known as Happy Momma or Momma Keck. I love to cook and serve others.  I am a Momma bear.  I love to take care of others. I have spent my life working hard serving others as I journeyed through school and motherhood working with the elderly and handicapped, and most recently with those who suffer from the mental and emotional pain of addiction. 

I have always showed up with a smile on my face and words of encouragement for those that I serve. I have always served others well, but put myself last on the list. I was showing up for others in a good way, but not showing up for myself at all. 

 It hurt me as I got worse and worse inside. I began to hate myself,  I became obese and unhealthy,  my Metabolism slowed down to the point where I could not function hardly at all. I was stressed to the point of exhaustion, I hurt everywhere, and autoimmune diseases were setting in like a big black cancerous tumor. I was a total wreck My mind, body, and spirit were dying. I could not go on living like this.  

I began a journey to turn it around. I knew that this path was not a good one. I had to put on the brakes and stop the mental and emotional abuse of self. I had to turn it around. I have stopped the abuse of self and now I am on a journey to better health, wealth, and well-being.  I'm excited to share with you some of my experiences in living a joyful life  (now as well as from the past as I will be including some of the best advice from some of my previous blogs).  The best part is that I am taking and living that advice that I was giving. 

I have a wellspring of knowledge in my brain and soul. As I have journeyed I have spent many hours learning and understanding health and wellness from the inside out. There is so much to learn and I will continue on as it has become my passion.  I am ready to share this knowledge and help others begin on the path to healing and wholeness.