40 days for 40 years

From the very first moment that we enter into the physical world in our brand new physical bodies, we eat. First from our mother's breast, then from nature, and the food provided to us. Food isn't only there to fill us: it nurtures us, cares for us, cures us. We are born knowing when to eat and what we prefer. We don't consider the health of our mother's breast milk. We are simply nourished by it. By the connection it gives us to our nurturers. By the nutrients that fill it like pure liquid gold.

That liquid gold turns solid, and by design nature gives us the nutrients that we need, and for most of human history, we were able to sense what each ingredient could give us. Garlic to combat illness, beans and lentils for gut health, ginger for digestion. Lists of foods and what they do weren't created yet, and while they are beneficial to our learning and reconnection to nature and our bodies (as we are nature), our bodies have always known.

Now, we live in a culture that prioritizes convenience and our senses have been misguided with added sugars, artificial flavors, and high sodium that our brains respond to like drugs. This is by design. I grew up in a household where disconnection from the body showed up through diet culture and "healthy" options that villainized carbs (which literally support our brain function) and celebrated not eating all day with a glass of wine. My initial connection to food came through this avenue. I was constantly looking at ingredients, measuring my portions, and making everything as bland as possible. I would research diets on bodybuilding.com, and count my almonds (5 to be exact). This evolved to look different in different seasons of life, from seeing how long I could go without eating to absolutely refusing to breathe the same air as a loaf of bread, pasta, or the yolk of an egg. A lot has changed since then, and I learned how unhealthy my relationship with food was. My interest and curiosity for what ingredients do in our bodies, thankfully, didn't leave with the toxic diet culture.

In my late college years and soon after, family members were experiencing autoimmune diseases, and I was (and always had been) dealing with panic attacks and levels of depression. As I continued making food, I found so much joy in cooking: chopping vegetables was a meditation, and gathering friends together for some chili was healing. Certain ways of eating not only nourished my body, but they changed my spirit and my mind. My favorite moments have been around a meal that I've gotten to make for others, knowing that the nutrients were filling them, and that we could be fully present with each other around a table. I became more intentional about what was going into the meals I was preparing when family members experienced flare-ups from certain ingredients, and that allowed me to serve them by trying new recipes with healing attributes that might support them, and making suggestions after experimenting and trying them myself for a while. This experimentation, play, and meditation with food has become such a deep and dear part of me that I've rarely considered what I was doing. 

In later years, all of my time with friends was spent preparing meals for them. I nannied and prepared meals for big families. I've gotten to connect to people's stories and cultures through making cuisines from their homes. In the process, I've been invited to reconnect to the ancestral wisdom living in me. All of the mothers down my family line have cooked and I now see how almost all mothers are cooks. They'd just say they were caring for their families. Maybe they would even identify the food as medicine. Now, I get to intentionally step into this role for others. Community looks very different in 2026, and I bet our ancestors didn't imagine meals delivered to our doorsteps without a full day's work of gathering, chopping, and boiling. What hasn't changed in a thousand years is a need for community care and nourishing foods that offer nutrients that heal.

Inna Body is a space I created that is centered around collective healing through connecting to our bodies and learning from the wisdom in our bodies that has existed before we were even born. As we continue to live in a more individualistic society, loneliness is at an all-time high and care is at a low. We used to have literal villages to raise families and care for one another. Some cultures honored a 40-day rest period for new mothers to heal and be nourished while caring for their newborns. In "Medicine for All People," Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark references ancient wisdom as it relates to healing after birth, "40 days for 40 years," explaining the practices surrounding mother care. A mother's first 40 days after birth will be experienced over the next 40 years, so not resting and being tended to doesn't only make the postpartum period that much more challenging, but it affects a mother's health longer than Western culture has paused to acknowledge and take action. While I won't be able to care for everyone, I can start with the community around me, in Austin, TX, providing nourishment to mothers or people in transitions where nourishment can change the trajectory of the next 40 years. This endeavor has introduced itself as a longing in my heart that has always lived there: to care for community through deeply nourishing and nutrient-dense food, while bringing people together.