Hi y’all, it has been a while, in fact two years with my other blog “Bon Appétit for Life”. As several of you know, I started my other blog when I started graduate school (two years to be exact). My plan was to write about my experience while maintaining a healthy lifestyle through food. How to eat like a Queen (or King, or Royal, whatever suits your fancy) with a limited budget. But I need to confess. I FAILED. Yes, you heard me, I failed. Not only did I spend more money of food, I ate out or did takeaway at restaurants more frequently than I cooked at home. In fact, I spent so much money on groceries. And on a weekly basis, I kid you not, half of my fruits and veggies, if not more were always thrown out. Y’all I was bad. And what was worse is I am a classically trained chef and food researcher! Shouldn’t I be able to cook healthy within a budget? I am here to tell you that even professional chefs fail.
I think what made it the worse is cooking for one. And I am not saying how cooking for one reminded me of being alone with no food to share with the ones I love, what I am saying is that when you buy food it always comes in large bags or bundles of produce. Hello? Does the food industry not realized that many people are cooking for one and if you don’t cook or eat your food fast enough it just dies, like my wallet and soul every time I see a rotten bag of lettuce or better yet, cilantro! Y’all when I see a bag of slimy produce at the bottom of my fridge, I just think to myself, why do I even try to be this health-conscious millennial who you know is craving a burger, fries, a cold beer, and some chocolate cake. When I get those “unhealthy” foodstuff cravings, I feel like the kid in the movie Matilda who eats the whole cake in one sitting, just because I can – seriously why can’t cake be healthy?? If it was, I would be the expert at healthy food if that was the case.
So, now that I hopefully have your attention, I would like you to know that I have decided to change the focus of my blog – hence why a whole new website!
What is the direction I am taking you might be asking yourself?
Well, it is about the “bumps in the road” that you just keep moving forward from. When you feel you have failed and you are at your lowest point and have no hope, what do you do? Follow me and my journey as I learn how to pick myself back up and keep moving forward by surrounding myself with radical self-love.
You might be asking yourself, “yeah this seem similar from other motivational blog post I have come across,” but why should I read yours?
Well, we can all use a little encouragement these days, with Covid-19, a presidential election, a social movement for Black Lives Matter, a jobless job market, and loads more. The past few months have been hell for me, hitting my lowest. But I am listening, I am learning, and I am growing. I might hurt like hell, and to be honest I probably will for a while – as they say you can’t have growth and comfort at the same time. I am not here to sugar coat it, in fact, I might throw some salt on the wounds because I think it is time, we are honest with ourselves and stop having the rose color classes on.
I started a detox two weeks ago, and guess what I failed the second day. On the day I “failed”, a very emotional and heart-breaking situation had happened, and as always I use food as emotional support. So, what did I do? I drove my fat ass to a fast food restaurant and bought myself fries and a burger. I failed my own detox. I felt like a failure in my own life on many levels: school, romance, relationships, health, and just adulting. As I cried for hours with a broken heart and a failed detox – I just wanted to restart my life. How did I get to where I am? What went wrong? What did I do to deserve this? Why do I feel like I am always fighting and never win? Why could I just not do things right? Did I screw things up? Did I make the right decision? My mind was filled with negative thoughts – it was as if the enemy was attacking me.
But, as I sat there crying uncontrollably, I was reminded of two things: how much God loves me, and all the powerful women warriors before me (and with me today). This blog (and later podcast) will be about women and their journey down their salt road (I will explain the meaning of salt road in the next post). Each blog post I will talk about my life experiences, my failures, my successes, and me learning about life – my growth in radical self-love. I will also write about influential women from the past or present, along with a recipe of the week to feed your soul with some yummy food! We, women, are strong, are brave, are loved, and no matter what life throws at us, we will push forward.
I chose to begin The Salt Road blog because over the past few weeks I have had several conversations with women of all different background all expressing the same sort of feeling of failure, disgust, hurt, and even exhaustion of life. I realized this was unacceptable that all these amazing women are so hard on themselves, have gone through hardship after hardship, they felt lost, they felt unheard, they were seeking something that I had already begun – RADICAL SELF-LOVE! I felt within my heart it was time to create a tribe of women who want to grow in self-love, to know that no matter what life throws at them they will thrive, they will continue to grow, they will not be shaken. So, please come along with me on my journey down my salt road to grow and become a warrior, a queen, and goddess in radical self-love.
For now, my warriors – be loved, be kind, and know you are loved!
Until next time…
-Alyssa, the salt woman
The Salt Road Journey 