Baking fuels connection, food tells a story, a bakery does both. 

While I wish the creation of Beyond Measure Bakery by Bake it Till You Make it LLC was as smooth as our buttercream frosting, that is certainly not the case. I don’t think great things come from smooth though, as cliche as it may sound. I truly believe as an entrepreneur, my best work comes from darkness. 

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I have struggled with my mental health for years. Having been diagnosed with depression and OCD about nine years ago, I have come to know what “flare ups” bring. And yet, whenever they come, they seem to knock me off my feet. As much as I tell my story of living with mental illness as well as being in recovery from an eating disorder and a survivor of sexual violence, there is still something that scares me about being depressed. Maybe it is the fear of landing back in a place of relentless suicidal ideation or maybe as much as I have fought stigma publicly, it still feels like an uphill battle, depression scares me. 

For years now, my answer has been the same: advocacy. Whether it has been creating a documentary film,  writing a mental health cookbook, my memoir, or organizing a full scale fashion show dedicated to survivors of sexual violence, I create and I heal. 

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But that didn’t work this time and it scared the sh*t out of me. 

Creating a mental health bakery has always been a back burner dream of mine. I always thought I would get to it, when I was older or had more finances at my disposal. So getting to take this dream “off the burner” and into reality now, felt like an easy win over my depression. But it was hard, I so badly wanted the bakery to be the end of this depressive episode but when it wasn’t I doubted if it was worth pursuing. But like my therapist Dena said, “it is nothing we haven’t handled before.” I smiled when I heard that but with total emotional depletion and little “fight”, it was hard to believe her.

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It wasn’t one moment or one thing that helped me realize this bakery is bigger than me and my depression but I do think the name helped. I decided to name the bakery “beyond measure…” because one of the founding principles of my mental health recovery and my life, has been “my worth is more than enough.” In fact, it is so enough it is beyond measure, it all is. It’s beyond our body’s measure, it is beyond the comparisons we draw, the way we think about ourselves…our worth is not measurable. Rather, it is an endless current of acceptance, love and undeniable “enough-ness”. It is bigger than my depression and it is bigger than me. I was reminded that yes, I create to heal internally but I also create to lighten the burden of the next person who comes to battle the same things. 

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I am not going to say this epiphany was the end to the loss of interest of things, lethargy or tearfulness, because I like it to keep it real here, but I do think the perspective shift helped me better understand why I am out to do what I am doing. Not only to provide education and resources but also love and humanness to all I can, because we are more than enough.