Malathi experienced overwhelming life changes ten years ago when she lost her husband. Life was tough, having to care for herself and her 10 year old daughter, with no one else to fall back on. The anxiety, loneliness, fear and insecurity caused her to slide into depression. She stopped caring for her health until a severe skin fungal infection shook her up. She turned to her childhood friend for help under whose guidance, using principles of Natural Living, Malathi fought back. Now she lives a life free of depression and full of abundance. Read on to know more about her heart-warming story.

Malathi P S
42 years, Admin executive
Bangalore

The first major change

All my life I have been very healthy and overall I had no major health issues. Around ten years ago, when my daughter was just ten, my husband passed away. I did not have any close friends to fall back on. I felt really lonely and I had the responsibility to take care of my daughter and myself. I had trouble with my brother in law on property issue and I had to literally fight for it in my name. Because of living life with fear, I had kidney stones in both the kidneys and also was attacked by urinary tract infection. I was cured through blasting and was given lots of glucose injection and tablets. The side effect was I put on lots of weight within a year. I always felt people would cheat me and was upset I had to deal with everything on my own. I went into depression.

Fascinated by the concept of reverse aging

I gained weight and felt I had started growing old and was looking like 40yrs plus, though I was 38. It bothered me, so I began researching on the internet. I came across articles about veganism (based on whole plant based foods) and how it leads to reverse aging, I found it very interesting. In 2015, I turned vegetarian. I stopped eating dairy, non veg and junk food as I wanted to reverse my aging and lose weight. I lost around 5 kg in 6 months.

Life got tougher

In the beginning of 2017, there were lots of changes in my office and I had to look out for new job. I was in a financial crisis. I also had a friend who was really discouraging and abusive. The next 2-3 months were really stressful. My lifestyle was sliding and I didn't even notice it. Amidst all this, I had also stopped taking care of what I was eating.

I got a new job immediately but due to the stressful nature of my job, I did not get time to go out for my regular walks or be out in the sun.

My struggles with fungal infection and depression

One fine day in 2017, I developed a severe skin allergy; it was like a fungal infection. I had no idea why it happened. I thought I was already off dairy, non-veg and junk food, then why would I get an allergy? I was very upset; I thought life was only about loss and failure. For three continuous days I didn’t get up from my bed, I neither took a bath nor brushed my teeth.

I didn’t go to a doctor because I wanted to address the real cause of my allergy. In the recent past I had not paid much attention to my diet, so I decided to be more careful now. Initially, since it was just itching, I felt I could manage by taking neem and mud baths. However, it did not help. I struggled with this condition from January till April 2017 on my own.

Life turned around with the help of a friend

In the month of May 8th, I decided to discuss my condition with my childhood friend Smitha Hemadri. She gave me emotional support and also advised me on how to incorporate whole plant based foods with more focus on raw foods into my diet. I just followed her advice unconditionally. I started having lots of fruits and my breakfast would be only fruits. I used to ensure that I eat a lot of vegetables as part of my cooked meal. I switched to only one cooked meal a day, which was for lunch. I learnt that less cooked and more raw food means that the body gets digestive rest as raw foods are easier to digest. If digestive load is less, body can focus on healing.

A period of intense detoxification

As I moved to more natural foods, for three months my skin issues continued, in fact they increased. I started getting boils and blood used to come out of them. It was extremely painful; I could not sleep at night. I could not lift my arms or legs. I used to get puss in my ears and boils on my eyes. I used to have lots of rashes and pain below my breast, I couldn’t wear any undergarments. I used to have high fever every evening. For 15 days I was on fruit and vegetable juices as I couldn’t open my mouth and chew.

But I had understood that because I gave the right support to my body, I was going through intense detoxification. Body was getting rid of all the accumulated toxic waste and that was good for my health.

Non food elements of health and healing

• On hindsight, I feel not spending enough time in the sun was one of the reasons for my fungal infection. So I used to do sunbath for one hour daily.
• I did a lot of dry fasting as well. For 14 hours a day, I used to do fasting without even a sip of water. The rationale was the same as I mentioned above – digestive rest.
• I used to do an enema every day and it helped my weight loss tremendously by throwing out toxic waste.
• I got in touch with lateKevin Hinton, a Nature Cure expert. He taught me about a hydrotherapy technique. Basically, after a hot water bath, you have to end with pouring cold water on the body. You have to wrap up your body with a towel and take rest for some time before you dress. Once I started this, immediately my body started feeling relaxed from itching and I felt my pain subsiding. The itching part was very annoying, I was not able to work at office. With hydrotherapy I felt better.

I lost excess weight in three months. My weight reduced from 68 kgs to 45 kgs. The skin symptoms started reducing and by August, my pain and itching stopped. It was almost a miracle! Till the end of 2017 December, I went through some more detoxification. During my detox period it was definitely hell, but I shared everything with Smitha and she continued to keep my spirits high and reminded me that there is light at the end of the tunnel. She would occasionally ask me about my health and follow up on me and filled the role of a mother to a healing child. It’s very important that a person healing gets emotional and mental support and speaking to Smitha helped me face all these hardships. Looking back, I sometimes can’t believe if I did have the stamina to go through all that.

My life is abundant now and depression free

I realised that mental health and physical health are interlinked, one can’t view the mind and body separately. The emotional turmoil in my life had manifested into weight gain & skin issues. And these in turn were further making me upset. I knew I had to break this cycle and view my body and mind as a whole. Therefore, while dealing with my skin issues, I also started focussing on mental health.

I learnt that there is a lot of negative talk happening in the mind and it has to be replaced with positive thoughts. I watched a lot of videos on positive thinking on the internet. I started believing that whatever happens in life, you should feel happy and know God is always with you. I began raising my positive vibrations through self talk.I also started meditation for mental poise.

If I have to list three main things that helped me in beating depression, these were -

1) Increasing intake of raw foods – yes, change in food habits, automatically made me happier

2) Inculcating a feeling of gratitude – know that everything in life comes as a blessing, be thankful to god

3) Trust in yourself and be happy

It’s been more than 1 year 11 months now since I have been depression free.

My journey towards health continues

While I was dealing with the skin issues, concerned people around often advised me to visit a doctor and get blood tests done. However, I decided to stick to a natural way of healing and have faith in my body. Eventually, out of curiosity, I did end up getting my blood tests done and it was gratifying to see that everything was fine. This gave me more confidence and I started respecting my body more and further supported in detoxification.

From the beginning of 2018, my skin issues are almost resolved. I say almost because some bit of detoxification is still on, I believe it’s the last leg. I hardly get any boils now, maybe one small boil in a month, but no puss no blood. I have beaten my ten year old depression. Having lost weight and that too through the natural way, I feel my body is so light now, I feel very energetic. I look younger and many people have complimented me, it seems I have reverse aged indeed!!

Having experienced the transformation, I continue to enjoy eating whole plant based foods. I do hydrotherapy regularly. I have a routine to go out in the sun every morning-evening. I have started listening to my body better, I ensure I eat only when I feel hungry. My daughter is also gradually making changes in her life after seeing how I have transformed my health, she eats a lot of fruits with me now.

My journey to heal myself started with doing certain changes in food and routine. At that time my only reason to not go the medicine route was that I wanted to address the root cause. But I was truly amazed to witness the miraculous self healing capability of the body. It has changed my outlook towards life and I really know now what it means to trust in your body.

(About Malathi P S- A commerce graduate by qualification, Malathi works as an admin executive at a firm in Bangalore. In her spare time, she loves to listen to music, cook, draw and garden. Nowadays, creating dubsmashes has caught her fancy).

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