I became passionate about understanding my own emotions after some painful life experiences––the last one was the tipping point. In the recovery process, I learned some very interesting things about the way we construct our emotions. My new book delves into the world of emotions from a different direction, using the concepts of cooking in a restaurant. This fresh approach is relatable and consumable.

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I am a person with very eclectic interests. Having such a broad range of curiosity aided my journey to write Yucky Yummy Savory Sweet. However, I didn’t always use that gift to its fullest potential. After suffering through these significant life events, I realized developing my curiosity muscle would help me through my healing. 

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As a business consultant,  I love repeatable processes and procedures. I’m known for simplifying the complex. In jest, I would tell clients that, ultimately, I am lazy, so I want to find the most efficient and simplistic way to enhance their business systems. 

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A few years ago, I took Gallup’s Clifton Strengths Assessment. It is a test to see what you do best and where your strengths lie. Of my five strengths, “Ideation” was number one. The remaining strengths were "Connectedness", "Command", "Woo" (winning others over), and "Positivity." 

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Ideation was a newer word for me, as it might be for you, but the definition Gallup Clifton Strengths provided will help you to understand a bit of what drives me and what is to expect from me not only in Yucky Yummy Savory Sweet, but in my work with people and groups:

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“Ideation: You are fascinated by ideas… You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle.”

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Yep, that is me. It was amazing to have it described in so much detail and still be me. 

 

While my background is in accounting, my need to find better answers about how emotions work led me to investigate neuroscience, quantum physics, psychology, and energy medicine. When I was in school, I hated science. Now I love it. I take courses, read books, and watch videos on consciousness, neuroscience, perception, brain health, gut health, and more. I don’t think we can talk about emotions if we don’t incorporate these fields of study.

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The book that made the most significant impression on me, shifting how I view and experience emotions, is entitled How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. I thought that people and events made me feel a certain way. Barrett explained how the brain constructs emotions. We aren’t born with built-in emotional responses for every life event. However, we are born to feel emotions, and the emotion we feel is up to us.

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I wrote Yucky Yummy Savory Sweet: Understanding the Flavors of Emotions because emotions feel hard for so many. Without having to journey deep into your past, is there a way to identify and process them? Given that emotions can be a very sensitive subject, how can I help you “see and hear” them in an understandable and non-threatening way? How can we make emotions more palatable?

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Food.

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My intention for Yucky Yummy Savory Sweet is to give you a new way to create a connection to your emotions by using something familiar to you, like food and the recipes we use for cooking.

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