May 19, 2021
Food & Nutrition | Natural Healing
“We tend to think of nourishment only as what we what we take in through our mouths, but what we consume with our eyes, our ears, our noses, our bodies are also food. The conversations going on around us and those we participate in are also food. Are we consuming and creating the kind of food that is healthy for us and help us grow?”
Thich Nhat Hanh
In this day and age of social media, gadgets and mobile phones, as well as a global pandemic that has significantly altered people’s sense of well-being and connection with themselves, we have become increasingly disconnected from our bodies and live much more from overactive minds.
Haven’t we all been there – scrolling mindlessly and fixating on our screens so much that we completely lose track of time. So many of us are opting for the instant gratification of connecting through our phones and whilst that’s easy, it plays a monumental role in the ever increasing detriment to our mental, emotional and physical health as this recurrent behaviour causes us to energetically disconnect from our physical bodies and hearts.
What humans need is to connect – to put the gadgets down and connect to our breath, our bodies, through our hearts, touch, actual person to person connection to replenish and nourish ourselves. Transformative shifts can only happen once someone is back home in their body and this is possible when one is able to feel, be present and breathe.
That is why I’d like to share my 3 pillars with you to guide you back into your body and to begin really ‘being’ with all that lies there. The 3 pillars I share here are simple but not necessarily easy. It will take dedication and commitment to yourself and your well-being for you to be able to see the results of these changes.
- Conscious Cooking – Introducing whole-food cooking back into your life. Not only reconnecting to natural seasonal produce which allows us to reconnect to nature and the environment we live in, but the cooking itself slows us down. There is a difference between throwing a meal together and cooking. To cook can be simple, it doesn’t need to be cordon bleu, but it forces us to be back in our bodies and back in the moment. To cut and prep veg, to stir a simmering pot, to create a nourishing meal which we will then feed ourselves with. It slows us down back into our earth energy and our body and can be very grounding and nurturing.
- Relationship to Body & Movement – Moving the body regularly or daily. You’d be surprised how often we ‘exercise’ in a way that we use it to disengage our body. Trust me I did it for years in my eating disorder days. Running on the treadmill for hours so that I didn’t have to feel anything. What I’m talking about in this pillar is to spend time each day to be present in our own body, to move it, stretch it, be connecting to our breath. To be in relationship with our own body so that we are not strangers to each other.
- Emotional & Spiritual Wellbeing – This one for some reason tends to get missed out the most, and yet to me seems to be one of the most important. It is our emotional and spiritual wellbeing that tends to dictate everything else. If we are bypassing this part we are disengaging from ourselves. But if we can really allow ourselves to feel again, to be present and available for our emotional needs and spiritual callings, then we can really begin to feel much more empowered in this relationship we have with ourselves and begin to feel much more peaceful and joyful in our lives. What’s the point in being physically healthy if we are full of anxiety in our internal world?
The key for us to reconnect and nurture ourselves is to first be aware that there is a need for us to come back to ourselves. Once we can commit to slowing down, creating time and space to tune into what we really want and honouring that desire, we can then turn our attention to actually taking small steps to changing our daily routines to allow us to nourish ourselves as we deserve.
If you feel called to reconnect to your authentic self, and re-create rejuvenation and a fresh sense of purpose and joy in your life, I invite you to join me in The Homecoming Process, an 8 week programme that I created to guide you to come home to yourself on a holistic level, across mind, body and soul.
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