How You Eat is How You Live

Have you ever heard, "How you do one thing is how you do everything?" 

Have you ever considered that how you eat, can give you information about how you do other things in your life? The way that we nourish our bodies is often indicative of how we feel about what we deserve, and how we feel about what we deserve often deeply influences the trajectory of our lives. There are many ways to eat. We can indulge, we can restrict, we can tell ourselves what we should and shouldn't do, and what we should and shouldn't have. We may soothe ourselves with food, or numb ourselves with food. We may try to reward or punish ourselves with the foods we eat and the amounts we consume.

In my journey of healing my body from autoimmune disease and cystic acne, I began observing my habits and tendencies surrounding how and what I ate and why. I realized that I'd used food to gain a sense of control. Usually this meant restricting what I was eating or overindulging as a form of punishment. It also meant eating things I knew didn't make me feel good, because everyone else was doing it, so I reasoned I should be able to as well. As I looked more closely, I realized the way I was eating gave me information about how I felt about myself and what I believed I deserved. If I was honest, it revealed that deep down I didn't feel deserving of nourishing myself or feeling pleasure. And even more startling, I could see how that pattern showed up in jobs and relationships and the way I spoke to myself on a day to day basis.

I knew that to heal my relationship to food and to myself, I had to change my mindset. I had to believe that I and my body were worth loving, worth respecting, worth caring for and deserved to feel good. Over time, as I implemented these beliefs, I started to see them reflected in my eating choices and patterns. I started listening to what my body needed and was asking for and I learned to honor those desires and needs. I began to choose foods that would nourish and sustain me - whole foods, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, clean proteins, whole grains, lots of pure water, and the occasional matcha, coffee or other treat. And guess what, my obsession and guilt surrounding food slowly disappeared. I became excited about being creative in the kitchen, trying foreign fruits and vegetables, finding recipes that were colorful, nutritious and delicious. The more I believed I was worthy of feeling good the more ways I found to make that happen. And the more I started implementing these changes in the kitchen and on my plate, the more I became aware of changes I needed to make in other areas of my life to reflect the beliefs that I am inherently worthy, deserving of feeling good, and thriving.

Now it's your turn, maybe you've never considered any of this before, but I encourage you to take stock of how you eat, because how you eat can teach you so much about how you live.  No matter what, know that you are worthy of care, worthy of love, nourishment and pleasure.  

Sending you love. xo