Hi!! I'm Lena, someone who just invented “Wholy Blueberry Bliss Point”. I´ve made it my mission to inspire people to take responsibility for their own bodies (physical, mental and spiritual). Hopefully, by looking at health holistically and considering our own needs and values, together we can create a world where health, happiness and peace are central. :-)
If you haven't read the philosophy of Wholy Blueberry Bliss Point but are interested, you can read it here - Philosophy.
Here is the little background story of how my idea and the concept behind it came about.
Click on the picture if you want me to wave at you.
I attended my first yoga class with friends when I was about 12 years old. I really enjoyed it. But as life sometimes goes, I didn't stick with it. Years went by when I didn't practice yoga. That's all I can say about my yoga journey now. I'll come back to that in a moment.
As a teenager I often had problems with acne on my face, I took medication for a while but as soon as I stopped taking it it came back. At the age of 16 I started reading about skin problems on the internet and what I can do about it myself. I found face mask recipes online with avocado, tomato, cucumber, etc. so I started putting all of those on my face. When I think about it, I feel cringe because I walked around my house with a different fruit/vegetable on my face every day. (It would be funny but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it.) I did this until I realized that maybe I should start eating the healthy stuff instead of just smearing it on my face. Up until this point, my diet consisted of fast food, sweets, and lots of soft drinks. That's why I kept reading about nutrition and what interactions it has on our skin/body.
Back then, I spent a lot of time outside with animals, and when I started questioning what I was putting into my body, ethical concerns began to surface alongside health concerns. That´s why I started to get more and more interested in vegan nutrition. So I wanted to try. I slowly started eliminating meat from my diet. After two years I also started giving up fish, and after another two years I was finally able to give up dairy and eggs. After a four-year process, I became a vegan.
In my case it was a combination of health and ethical reasons. It definitely wasn't an easy transition. I was used to eating all animal foods my whole life and my taste buds were addicted to it too. Since there was no one in my family or in my circle of friends who was already eating a completely plant-based diet, there was little understanding at the time. In contrast to today, there was almost no choice in the restaurants and many plant-based foods were only available in the organic market. So the organic market became my second home, I was so fascinated by all the special foods there. For me it was just paradise. It took a while to make the transition, but I had a strong "why-power", and that's why you'll find plant-based recipes here. :-)
In my senior year of high school, when I was 17, I was still passionate with nutrition and how it affects our health. I knew I wanted to do something with it professionally. That's why I decided to take the entrance exam for dietetics. Unfortunately, this happened at a very busy time at school, so I wasn't prepared at all and didn't make it.
After graduating from high school I had no idea what I wanted to do instead. I have started a social volunteer year which I thought would give me enough time to think about what I would like to study in the future. There I worked with people with special needs. The year I was working and doing my voluntary service there was no entrance exam for dietetics and nothing at university that interested me. With the pressure mounting as to what I'm going to do next, I did a little research and found out that the nursing school entrance exams were about to start. At least I thought it had something to do with people and health, so I signed up and somehow passed the exam.
So I started attending nursing school without even knowing what a nurse actually does. So you can imagine that there were many surprises.
A LOT. A journey began with many life lessons that I didn't expect. I have experienced and seen what the situation is like in the healthcare system, how overworked the doctors and nurses really are and that people are getting older but not really getting any healthier. It broke my heart to meet beautiful souls and see them suffer. Through these experiences, I felt even more empowered in my attitude to help people lead healthier lives in the future. To prevent suffering and relieve the health system.
Back to my yoga journey. When I was about 19 or 20, I took some yoga classes at my gym and did some yoga at home with a few YouTube videos. And I loved it. Since then, it's been an ongoing ritual that I keep coming back to. There were months when I did a lot of yoga and then life happens, and there were weeks when I didn't do yoga. But I've always tried to come back to it whenever possible. It has helped me a lot in calming my mind, especially in moments of high stress and anxiety. And my body always felt a lot better afterwards. (Even if I only managed 5 minutes a day, it already helped!!). It had such a positive impact on my physical and mental well-being that I thought it might be another great tool to bring better health to other people.
When I was about 21, I still dreamed of bringing yoga and nutrition to the world. Since I had a month off from nursing school, I decided to attend a yoga seminar in Andalucia, but only for a week. We did a lot of yoga there and I heard more about the basics of yoga.
As much as I loved the aspect of helping and talking to people, after three years of nursing training there were still tasks I just didn't feel comfortable doing, no matter how many times I did them. That's why I couldn't think about doing this job for the rest of my life. For example, I still break out in a sweat when I think about giving an injection or drawing blood from a vein. That's why it just felt wrong for me to get the diploma. To be honest, I felt terrible. I felt that being a nurse just wasn't for me. I couldn't identify with it and couldn't imagine working in a hospital again. After I got my diploma, I went to a plant-based restaurant with my family and I was so desperate that I even asked the waitress if they would hire me when I came back from Thailand.
The morning after graduating from nursing school, I grabbed my backpack and, as I said, headed to Thailand with some friends. We spent a month there touring around. This was totally out of my comfort zone as I have never been outside of Europe and have never been away from my hometown for more than a week. We didn't plan much beforehand. So it gave me a great opportunity to live in the present moment, mostly because I was too scared to think about what I'm going to do next in my life.
About a week after I got back from Thailand and still didn't know where to work, I went to a party and heard about a project called "Healthy Living" that offered me to live in a house in Portugal for a month and to work . In addition, the project wanted to give us knowledge about nutrition and yoga so that we can lead a healthier life in the future. I couldn't believe it?!! I thought this was the sign of my life that I've been waiting for so long. So a very good friend and I decided to go there. Along with a few other people, we lived there for a month, doing yoga every day, cooking lots of fresh food, helping the local community clean up the beach, learning about nonviolent communication, and playing with kids at school. It was a great experience but I thought that after this month I would be sure of what I'm going to do with my life or that this month would give me a sign or a chance in my life but that didn't happen. So I came home a bit lost and lived with my parents again.
Two weeks passed and the pandemic hit my hometown hard. Everything was closed and it was safer to stay at home. So it gave me the opportunity (you guessed it….) to still be running away from the question of what to do with my life.
A few months passed and as the government relaxed some regulations I started working in a bakery for a few months. After that, a friend offered me the opportunity to work for a doctor. (They accepted me even though I had no affinity for handling needles.)
At the same time I started my yoga teacher training. And two weeks after completing my yoga teacher training, I started my nutritionist training, which took me another year and a half to complete.
A few months before I graduated as a nutritionist, I sat in my room for a moment. I've been thinking about all these past years. I reflected on my rocky journey with nutrition and yoga and my own experiences in the healthcare system. I thought about the crazy years of social distancing and separation. I thought about climate change, the plastic situation I have seen in Thailand and my experiences cleaning up the dirty beach at Fuzeta in Portugal. And I got goosebumps when I saw the media and heard about all the wars that were raging in this world. There was so much noise in my head and I felt so helpless that I thought I just had to do something. So I took a pencil and started drawing my vision on paper and creating an outline for the logo.
