Soup Was My Self-Care and Now I’m Spiralling

That Time Laksa Broke My Heart

My ex-boyfriend-turned-bestie is absolutely convinced I have the tism*. Which, for the record, I find amusing, mildly accurate, and entirely too convenient when he’s losing an argument. Personally, I think he just doesn’t understand the Taurus lifestyle. I mean, being a creature of comfort, having routines, loving soft lighting and familiar foods? Classic Taurus. But I’ll admit, the day I cried in Coles over a discontinued soup, I may have given his theory a little bit of weight.

Here’s what happened. I was doing my usual evening shop, low on serotonin and high on hopes that my beloved laksa would fix my life. You know the one. Five minutes to make, full of flavour, spicy enough to make you forget your troubles, and comforting enough to make you believe everything is going to be okay. I turned down the aisle, reached for it with the confidence of someone who’s found emotional stability in a foil pouch… and it was gone.

Not just sold out. Gone. The label had that horrific red sticker of doom: “deleted line.” I stood there for a full five minutes, blinking at the empty space on the shelf, Googling in panic, frantically checking the Coles app, asking the young lad in his Coles vest for help, and yes, crying. In public. Tears. Genuine heartbreak. All over a soup. It was in that moment I thought, right, maybe, just maybe, my nervous system is a little bit spicier than I give it credit for. A little bit spicier than my discontinued laksa, at least.

Call it autism, call it Taurus energy, either way I’ve been personally victimised by a supermarket shelf.

*note: I am diagnosed Neurodivergent, but have not been diagnosed with autism or ADHD.

The Ritual of the Soup

The thing about comfort food is that it’s never really about the food. It’s about the ritual. And this laksa? It wasn’t just a meal. It was my post-chaotic-workday reset. It was my sad-girl dinner after crying unashamedly on the bus. It was my soothing balm after the Brad’s of the world deliberately close the door in my face..

There’s a reason we cling to these rituals. Life gets messy, people let us down, the bins don’t get taken out, and sometimes our last pair of clean undies is hiding at the bottom of the laundry basket and have that weird hole in that one spot. You know the one.

But soup? Soup is consistent. Soup doesn’t judge. Soup doesn’t gaslight you. And when that soup is spicy and creamy and perfect in every way? It becomes sacred.

So when Coles decided to play God and remove my sacred soup from the shelves, I spiralled. Not in a cute, aesthetic Pinterest way either. In a “I ate peanut butter from the jar with my finger and watched four hours of kitchen restock videos on TikTok” kind of way. It was grief. Actual, proper grief. Because it wasn’t just about the soup. It was about what the soup represented. Comfort. Consistency. A tiny slice of control in a world that feels anything but.

When Self-Care Starts to Spiral

Here’s the thing I’ve realised since that tragic soup incident – sometimes our self-care routines become our lifelines. Which is fine, until that lifeline gets yanked. Self-care is meant to support us, not become the only thing holding us together with the fragile glue of instant noodles and denial.

It’s easy to romanticise rituals when they work. But when your one comfort gets taken away, and your whole nervous system goes into fight, flight, or feral mode, it might be time to ask if we’ve crossed the line from soothing into survival. My laksa was never just soup. It was the emotional equivalent of a weighted blanket, a therapist, and a heat pack rolled into one. But that level of reliance? Not exactly sustainable.

So I’ve had to reckon with that. Because the truth is, I was using laksa to cope with… everything. My grief, my loneliness, my post-divorce dramatics, my ongoing perimenopausal rage, and every moment Jennifer made yet another HR-reportable comment. And yes, comfort food is meant to be comforting. But when the comfort disappears and you feel like you’re spiralling into the void? That’s not self-care. That’s a red flag with extra noodles.

Rebuilding Comfort from Scratch

After the soup-spiral incident, I did what any heartbroken person does: I tried to recreate it. I bought a bunch of laksa pastes. I watched YouTube tutorials. I even asked ChatGPT for a five-minute cheat version (which, let me tell you, was not helpful unless I wanted to make my own coconut milk from scratch. No thank you).

None of them worked. They didn’t taste right. They weren’t spicy enough. They didn’t fill the emotional void in the same way. And honestly, that made me feel worse. Because if I couldn’t have my laksa, and I couldn’t recreate it, then what was left? The idea of comfort had become tied to this one brand, one packet, one perfect pouch of soup. And without it, I felt lost.

But here’s the thing. That feeling? That’s where the work is. It’s not in the soup. It’s in reminding ourselves that comfort can come in many forms. It can be a different meal. A new ritual. A moment of softness that isn’t reliant on a discontinued product. I had to start finding new ways to care for myself that weren’t so precariously balanced on a supermarket shelf.

Finding New Anchors

I started by giving myself permission to mourn the soup. Sounds dramatic, but it helped. Then I made a list of other things that made me feel safe. A hot shower. A really soft pink hoodie. Rewatching my favourite episode of Lower Decks. Sending my sister a dozen ridiculous voice notes. Lighting a candle that smells like opium and denial*. Slowly, those little rituals began to hold me up where the laksa once had.

It wasn’t about replacing the soup. It was about expanding the comfort zone. Making space for more than one lifeline. Because the truth is, the world is chaotic. Things change. Products get deleted. Relationships shift. Sometimes the door literally closes in your face (Brad). So we need multiple points of comfort. We need backup plans for our backup plans.

It’s not about becoming self-sufficient in a cold, unfeeling way. It’s about learning to be gentle with ourselves when the ground shifts. About knowing that our self-care can evolve with us. And that we are allowed to feel unhinged about soup, but we also owe it to ourselves to build something steadier underneath.

Maybe it’s neurodivergence, maybe it’s Maybelline streaking down my cheeks in the middle of the World Foods Aisle… Or maybe Coles just needs to bring back my Laksa.

*The candle’s actual scent name is Opium, but let’s be honest, it smells like heartbreak and tax season.

Self-Care Isn’t a Single Ingredient

Looking back, I can laugh at the Coles aisle meltdown. It was peak chaos goblin energy. But it also taught me a lot. That even the smallest things can carry deep meaning. That our comforts, while powerful, should never be our only coping strategy. And that sometimes, the spiral is the sign we’ve attached too much of our healing to something external.

Self-care isn’t a frothy oat latte in a beige mug by a sun-drenched window whilst wearing a beige linen dress. Sometimes it’s eating cheese (Kraft Singles, obvs) on toast in your dressing gown while emotionally dissociating to Kmart haul videos. And more often than not, it’s messy, emotional, and often deeply personal. It can be a face mask, a rage cry, a walk in the rain, or yes, a damn good soup. But if we’re not careful, those things become a crutch. And the moment the crutch gets kicked out from under us, we’re left flailing.

So now? I’m building new foundations. Trying new recipes*. Letting myself be a bit chaotic in the kitchen. Accepting that some nights will still involve peanut butter from the jar, but also trying to balance that with something a little more intentional. Because I deserve to feel comforted in more than one way. And so do you.

*The perfect Laksa now consists of 1 heaped tbsp Laksa paste, 1 tsp chicken stock paste, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup light coconut milk, thick rice noodles, broccolini and sliced chicken breast.

A Little Reminder for Anyone Spiralling Over Soup (Or Anything Else)

Your comfort doesn’t have to come from the same place every time. You are allowed to grieve a discontinued product. You are allowed to spiral and then rebuild. And you are absolutely allowed to feel like a hot mess in the Coles aisle, as long as you remember to come back to yourself afterwards.

Comfort isn’t the soup. It’s the part of you that keeps showing up, even when the shelf is empty.

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In today's episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why we need to stop clapping for basic decency. You know the script. A man texts back within twenty-four hours and we're screenshotting it to the group chat. A man plans a date more than three hours in advance and we call him a unicorn. A man manages to listen, pay attention, and behave like a fully formed adult, and our nervous systems short-circuit because we genuinely don't know how to receive it.Here's the truth nobody is saying out loud. The bar has been dragged so low that Satan himself needs a chiropractor after a competitive round of limbo. We've been culturally trained to be grateful for behaviour that should not require gratitude. We've been told these things are bonuses when they're actually the entry requirement. And in the meantime, women have been quietly doing the basic decency thing forever, without applause, while men get standing ovations for outputs we generated for them.Today we're talking about why a great man is genuinely just an average woman, who benefits when the bar stays low, the invisible labour women have been performing for free for centuries, and the friend-test that cuts straight through every excuse we've ever made for mediocre men. Let's get into it.For more visit BryJaimea.com or follow over on IG @BryJaimea

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