I have started to notice a pattern in my life: If I’m ordering takeout more than I’m cooking, my mental health is probably not great. It’s similar to looking at the state of my house— if my space is a mess, likely my mind is a mess.

The last few years, cooking has really become a refuge for me, almost a mediditation and a thoughtful thing to do to take care of my mind and body. Especially when I find a new recipe I’m excited about, it feels like it also peaks my creativity and is a way for me to make something from nothing. It sends a message to my brain that I am doing something positive to take care of myself and it tends to result in positive habits to follow.

The last 4 weeks or so, I’m a little ashamed to say that we have been ordering takeout multiple nights a week. And while there are many factors in this— my husband working crazy-long hours and getting home after dark— it also is a way for me to take the easy way out when it comes to health and nutrition. The past few weeks have been hard, I’ve been trying to recover from the first early weeks taking care of a new puppy in the throes of a little depression, where it felt like I really couldn’t cook with her at my feet, and so I’ve been eating frozen meals just to make sure I get in some nutrients.

I’ve been weaning myself off of the frozen lunches the last few weeks, and replacing them with Thanksgiving leftovers and takeout leftovers, avoiding cooking at all costs. And my mental health and wellness has been suffering for it: I feel sluggish because I’m eating poorly, which leads me to be less inclined to exercise, and then in turn feel even worse about myself because of the cascading bad habits.

It’s something that has been really hard to pull myself out of, and I would say this slippery slope of bad habits is one of the most debilitating things I deal with. I’m sure it’s a result of my depression, anxiety, and ADHD getting the best of me— and some seasons of my life, I get outrun by these things and it’s hard to fight back.

But without fail, the fog always clears, and I catch a wind of motivation that I try and cling to to carry myself out of it. And it finally happened, partly as a result of writing this blog and feeling like I’m actually writing my way through a lot of my struggles— I finally feel the need to pull myself out of this rut. This time, what nudged me out of this rut is a combo of just being sick of myself (sometimes that’s the best and worst way to rip myself away from a bad pattern of behavior) and some great pep-talks from my husband. I finally feel the light coming back to me, despite the crushing SAD this winter. I feel like I can do hard things and that taking the slightly less easy road is actually the right one for me. I’ve been walking more, sticking to my routine I set out for myself (with some ajustments here and there).

And this morning, I woke up feeling inspired to cook. I lined up some recipes to try for the weekend and coming week and set out to do it with my first recipe, a cozy Chickpea Curry recipe from A Pinch of Yum. It took minimal ingredients, most I had in the pantry already, and the most time-intensive part of it was cooking the rice. It’s vegetarian and dairy-free, and packed with nutrients and some protein from the chickpeas.

After cooking it, I felt not only proud of myself for eating a home-cooked, healthy lunch, but I felt inspired to make a fun new recipe for dinner for my husband. Now, I know cooking isn’t fun for everyone— and clearly for me, more often than not it feels like a chore that I have a hard time getting motivated to do. But I think my takeaway is this: you never know what one good habit, or one act of kindess towards yourself can lead to. Sometimes it’s as simple as making a 10-minute lunch to make yourself feel better and boost your confidence, but as one of my favorite creators, Kait Grange says on TikTok: “Small things lead to bigger things, my friends. So let’s not rot.”