Beans Got Me Here. Something Else Might Get You Here. Both Are Right.
Before I went to sleep last night I had a download. The kind that needs to get out before you lose it. So I sleepily recorded it. And from that, I wrote this.
I always talk about beans. The bean protocol, my gastritis, the inflammation, the healing. And it’s true. Going on the white diet, eating beans, adding soluble fiber, clearing out the toxins; that healed me the quickest. That was my bridge.
At the same time I was eating my beans, I was also journaling. I was meditating. I was setting boundaries. I was doing Reiki. I was listening to the Expanded Podcast and joined their TBM community. I was learning Human Design through the HDX community and aligning myself with how I am actually built. All of those things were happening at once.
The beans got me there fastest because my stomach was the loudest problem. It needed the most immediate attention. So that’s where I started.
But if I had been someone whose greatest problem was stress, and I had started with boundaries instead, those boundaries would have created space. And in that space I might have looked at my career differently. I might have come home to dinner with my family instead of going back out for another work obligation that was looping, slowly emptying me.
If I had started with meditation, the stillness might have led me to journaling. And the journaling might have led me to eating differently. And the eating might have led me to movement. And the movement might have led me to the rest.
They are all bridges. And there are more than one.
I used to say this to my students. “There’s more than one bridge to Newport.” In fact there are three. And I would use it when we were in design class or advisory and there were multiple opinions on something and nobody was wrong, they were all arriving from different angles.
One bridge is fast and straight, the modern one, with a toll. One goes the scenic route through Bristol, slower, a little cheaper, worth the extra time if you let it be. And one goes the way your parents went, through Fall River, over the Braga Bridge, no toll, not scenic, some potholes, but familiar. Conditioned into you before you had a say.
None of them is the wrong bridge. None is more right than another. They all get you to Newport.
Which will you take? It doesn’t matter. Take the one that feels right for you.
If you see me on TikTok talking about beans and you think, that’s not how I got here, I got here through movement, I got here through yoga, I got here through finally sitting down and writing something true in a journal, good. That is your bridge. And it is a real one.
What matters is that you got here.
Because once you’re here, once something has cracked open and you are listening to yourself, even a little, that is when the rest becomes possible. Your body starts to speak and you start to hear it. And you realize you have been trying to get your own attention for a long time.
This growth cycle is much like watching a dahlia bloom. It does not open all at once. If you watch a time lapse you will see it open, then contract a little, then open further, then pull back again, and then one day it is fully in the light. That is biology.
And so are we humans. We are doing the same thing. It’s only natural that we may contract a bit before fully blooming.
For me the beans were the beginning of everything else. One month, six weeks, and then the first three months were the most significant. And what the beans did, beyond the physiology, was give me enough calm in my body that I could hear what else needed attention.
That is what I want to pass on.
Whatever your bridge is, take it. Journaling, movement, meditation, boundaries, beans. Are you feeling something? That is your inner voice. Its you. And you are worth listening to.
Do you want a gentle place to start, the Bean Blueprint is a great place to begin. Think of it as your couch to 5k. Three weeks. One tablespoon at a time. Everything you need is at startwithbeans.com/.
Start with beans.
Mad love, Denise
*If this resonated, share it with someone who needs it. Come find me on TikTok for the behind the scenes. And if you have questions, I am always at startwithbeans.com.*
*Note: I am not a doctor. I am an educator with a doctorate in educational leadership who healed her own GI issues through food as medicine. Please consult your doctor before making changes to your health routine.*