Feeding Yourself

Since the beginning of your life, food has been the messenger of love. Thoughts of food can create an anticipatory reaction of satisfaction.

We long for the pleasures of taste and textures. The food media knows this about you, so it appeals to your anticipatory longings to sell you its products. In your personal transformation, feeding yourself must become an expression of self-recognition, self-adoration, self-caring, self-vigilance and self- satisfaction.

Think about the number of times you have shopped for others, prepared for others and planned for others—a feeding experience that would pleasure them. Now it is your turn to embrace your life by feeding it!

Have you ever taken yourself out on a dinner date? Have you ever gone food shopping for you alone?

How easily can you tell yourself what food you long for?

If you have a hard time knowing your food pleasures, then it’s been too long since you asked. It is a much greater pleasure to feed others when you are fully dedicated to feeding yourself.

Who you are when you feed yourself should be the same person who loves yourself.

From: Kiss Your Life... 365 Reasons to Love Who You Are

Reason: 354 Page: 372

By: Ann Mody Lewis Ph.D.

Commentary:

How many times have you said to someone: Oh, it's no fun cooking for myself!

Feeding yourself goes far beyond cooking.
It involves planning, noting your food desires, buying and
preparing the foods of your choice.

Feeding yourself is by far the most important decision you make multiple times a day. How you execute your food desires tells a lot about your self-opinion.

For women especially, eating becomes a major challenge because food is considered a threat to their pursuit of beauty. Skipping meals, eating out of boredom, cutting out essential food groups, and counting calories block their passion for food and the self-satisfaction it gives them.

Thinness is praised, while having a full body is isolating. In today's world; dieters far outnumber free eaters! The emotional complications of feeding ourselves has created a cultural epidemic of disordered eating.

I believe that only spirituality can save us from our fears of not being good-enough, thin-enough or desirable-enough! If we remember that God created each of us uniquely we would begin to develop food-freedom remembering that:

food is a gift from the earth
eating is an act of self-love
food is the first medicine

We were created to be eaters. Being vigilant about your body does not include fearing and resisting feeding ourselves. This blunt truth connects the impact of our psychology to our need of feeding ourselves.

“I don't stop eating when I'm full. The meal isn't over when I'm full. It's over when I hate myself.”

–Louis C. K.

Our November discussion will take us on the journey of our relationship with food; because, after all, it is not about what is in your mouth that is important, it is what is in your heart that determines your health.

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularlystop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”

–Luciano Pavarotti

Topics will include: The psychology of eating determines health.
How what we eat determines how we live. Love yourself with food.
The connection between food and culture.

Ann