DAY SIX: Conscious Eating
About twenty years ago I was a stay-at-home mother for a couple of years. During this time I was focused on how I showed up in relationship to my young two-year-old daughter. I noticed that I had enormous amounts of patience unless I ate chicken. I have since learned that there is a disease for people who cannot eat poultry. At the time, I did not know about this disease and I took the dilemma to my quiet meditative time. What I heard during that quiet time was that I take on the energy of whatever I eat. If I eat an animal that has been raised in fear, I ingest that fear. This made sense to me. Instead of releasing poultry all together, I started getting my chicken from a cooperative that delivered the goods to my door. There were farmers in the co-op who were raising their chickens humanely and with loving care. I could eat this chicken, not get mean, and express the patience I had cultivated.
Now I eat grass-fed beef, free-range chickens and vegetables from local farms that care about the food they are nurturing. You don’t need to go to this extreme, but I invite you to begin bringing conscious awareness to the foods you consume. Who was it that said, “We are what we eat.”? My experience has demonstrated there is truth to this statement.
Self-care could be releasing the consumption of those foods that give you gas, or bind your stomach. If you feel bloated after eating them, perhaps your body is saying they no longer resonate with you. You might even venture out to try new foods that would be absorbed more easily into your body. Nourish and nurture the body you have. I find when we do, it serves us well.
INTENTION: Set an intention to notice how different foods make your feel physically, and also notice your moods and emotional expression after eating different foods. Write what you notice in your Self-Care Notebook.
EXERCISE: Eat foods that nourish and nurture your body. Write how you did today with food choices in your Gratitude Notebook before you go to bed.
SUMMARY: of self-care routine so far. Please include writing in your Self-Care Notebook in the morning and your Gratitude Notebook in the evening:
· When you get up in the morning, check-in with your body and ask, “What do you need from me today?” Listen, write in your Self-Care Notebook, and follow the guidance you receive.
· Notice 5 positive things happening in your day. Write about them tonight before going to bed.
· If there is resistance to following through on focusing on you, write about it in your Self-Care Notebook and practice not beating yourself up about it.
· Drink 1/3 of your body weight in ounces of water per day.
· Scan for what you are doing to express self-love in your day.
· Pay attention to the foods you eat and how they make you feel. EXERCISE: This is how resourced your Inner Well might be, if you have started more self-care. Draw a picture of your Inner Well at the bottom of the page on your Self-Care notebook. How full is your Inner Well now compared to the first day?
