You are what you eat. This does not mean just the food you eat – literally, through your mouth – to feed the physical body. It also means the food you feed your other 3 bodies.
In the session on dis-ease and pain, we learnt how to connect with our bodies and listen to what messages it is giving us through dis-ease and pain. We got a better insight into our body’s consciousness. Today let us take a similar journey with food and get a deeper understanding of what kind of food and nutrition do our 4 bodies require for us to experience good health, vitality and a sense of overall well being. Let’s learn more about the consciousness of the food we eat, how it impacts our life on many levels and what we can do to leverage this learning to create a healthier version of ourselves.
A lot has been spoken about the impact food and nutrition have on our mind and body. And how they create our health and wellness or ruin them. There are several aspects to food and how it shapes the bodies we live in and the experiences we have. Read that again. The food we eat not only shapes our physical bodies but also creates the realities we experience.
So let’s explore the consciousness of food
- How does the food we eat create such a deep impact on our bodies and our emotions?
- Understanding the nutrition needs of our 4 bodies.
- Manifesting optimum health and our ideal weight.
How does the food we eat create such a deep impact on our bodies and our emotions?
Food is the stuff we eat and drink for energy and to stay alive. On the other hand, nutrition is a part of food that is used by our cells and metabolised by the body to make all the contributions that our body needs. Let’s take a look at how the physical body satisfies its hunger. When the physical body is hungry, your stomach growls and signals to you to get some food. So you open the fridge, or go to the kitchen to eat something. These days we also look into our phone when we are hungry – and order from food apps.
The truth is, most people confuse thirst and hunger, often mistaking the former for the latter. Clinical studies have shown that 37% of people mistake thirst for hunger because thirst signals can be weak. To figure out if that feeling is hunger or thirst, each time you feel hungry, first drink water and then wait 15 minutes. If you were truly hungry, you might still feel a stomach pang, whereas if you were just thirsty, you’ll feel satisfied.
What if two people (say twins) are eating the exact same food? Will they get the same benefits from it? Definitely not. There are many reasons for it. While on one hand there is the body composition, metabolic rate and many other physical parameters, on the other hand is a very important aspect – the thoughts they think, the emotions they feel, and what is their outlook towards life.
Just like the physical body lets you know when it is hungry, our other 3 bodies also have a way of communicating with us when they are hungry. But very often we don’t feel them because we have not built our awareness of listening to our bodies and what they require in order to feel satisfied and fulfilled. They too need food and nutrition to feel healthy and function properly. Let’s understand what their needs are.
Understanding the food and nutrition needs of our 4 bodies
Based on what you feed each of the bodies, they will draw nutrients from it and turn it into energy to function properly. The quality of your food (input) is directly proportional to the quality of your life (output). The food you eat is the life you live – SJ
Physical body
Food requirements – A good balance of fruits, vegetables, fresh foods, water, rest, exercise and ample sleep.
The body draws the many nutrients from these foods like sodium, potassium, protein, calcium and so on and converts it into energy to use for the functioning, growth and repair of the body’s organs. Consuming a healthy diet and taking care of your body, helps you feel nourished and fulfilled. When you feed it junk, processed food or unhealthy foods, it is forced to draw whatever nutrients it can from the food you feed it. And with the limited supply of nutrients, it needs to work harder to maintain upkeep and functioning of the body. Over a period of time, if the deficiency in input continues, it begins to show in your body in the form of excess fat or illness.
Mental body
Food requirements – Intellectually stimulating inputs through learning, reading, watching and listening to content.
When you listen to uplifting, inspiring and positive content your mental body draws nutrition from it in the form of hope, inspiration, and fearlessness. When you consume harmful content through news, social media or listen to people who have a negative outlook towards life, then your mental body feels fatigued, fearful and hopeless.
Emotional body
Food requirements – Conversation with a loved one, sharing touch love, intimacy, feelings of being loved, cared for, supported and a big sense of feeling safe.
When you enjoy a good relationship with yourself and with those around you, your emotional body thrives and feelings of joy, happiness and safety fill your heart. When you feel disconnected with yourself or are in a non serving relationship, your emotional body suffers with the lack of love and stops feeling safe.
Spiritual body
Food requirements – Being in nature, connecting with the divine, a deep sense of being connected to all of life, feeling gratitude, being in divine spaces, knowing you are part of the universe and being in surrender.
When you spend time in nature, meditate, feel a deep sense of gratitude for all that you have and feel connected to this universe and the divine, your spirit body feels very nourished and you feel calm and centred. You feel disconnected when you think you are separate or isolated from life.
Applying This Knowledge for Holistic Health
Now that we understand the food and nutrition requirements of our 4 bodies, how can we use this information to make our lives healthier on all fronts?
Oftentimes, we eat food as a way to break away from boredom, or escape from emotions. For instance, when one of your bodies feels hungry for the kind of food it needs, but you are not able to either sense it, or provide for it, then you tend to fill that void with food. The requirement of the physical body for real food and water is limited to what it needs to keep the body moving, feel energetic and fit. It also requires the nutrition to repair and renew itself. The rest of the food that we consume is simply a way to fill the void of the other 3 bodies. That food may not turn to energy, since the body does not need it. It puts extra strain on our digestive system, leaving us feeling tired and not at optimal levels of health.
So the next time you feel hungry or end up eating before you are hungry, you may want to use this new awareness to question which body is hungry and what are you feeding it?
- Are you eating to satisfy your emotional hunger for love?
- Are you eating to kill your boredom and a lack of purpose?
With practice you can lovingly start feeding your bodies the food they crave for. Instead of reaching for the fridge, pick up your phone and talk to a loved one, or go for a walk in nature, get a hug, meditate, journal, exercise or simply breathe slowly so you feel centred again.
Remember what you feed one body, affects all the bodies. Your bodies grow and feel healthy when they feel safety in the environment that surrounds them. Otherwise they begin to shut down, creating imbalance. And the truth is that environment is stronger than will power. Environment has both good and bad aspects in it. You have a choice. What you are feeding yourself decides how your internal environment is going to be. It is a big unlimited buffet spread out there for all your 4 bodies to indulge in. What foods will you pick? What you consume will consume you.
Manifesting Optimum Health
Once you become aware of how your 4 bodies feel nourished, then you are in a space of power to manifest your optimum health. The final key to unlocking the bounty of good health is by simply integrating the above knowledge with these 4 steps.
Forgive the past – Understand that the past is over and cannot be changed, no matter what you do. So stop using your priceless energy to keep remembering it, dwelling on it and sulking over it again and again. All this saved energy can be used for more productive thoughts and actions to create a better present.
Drop negative thoughts – When we release negative thoughts from our body and mind, we let go of our need to overeat, which we do to dull our guilt, grief, anger, hurt and hate. Our hunger pangs reveal more clearly what kind of food and nourishment they want at a particular time, and it is not always for stuff to chew and eat.
Let go of resentment – All the energy of resentment – is about resending our thoughts, feelings, attention to a moment in time that is not real any more. It is a waste, an energy leak. When we drop resentment we release energy into the present. Since energy is an actual physical phenomenon flowing through our bodies, it burns calories, dissolves fat, removes disease.
Stop being victims – When we release self-pity, self-loathing and blame, we let go of the helplessness that has prevented us from mastering our bodies. We will be released from the layers of fat we think protect us from past and possible present pain; we will be released from the constant, gnawing hunger that keeps us gobbling and gorging without thinking. When you do this, you will automatically create an internal environment for your 4 bodies to thrive in. You will shed all the extra layers of protection around your body, once you start feeling safe. By releasing excess weight in our minds and hearts, we release excess weight in our bodies too.
We will be released from appetites never satisfied by food that does not and cannot nourish because our resistance, fear and resentment have blocked the experience of love. We will, at last, be full and free, fulfilled and satisfied. Starting today, with this new awareness around food we invite you to indulge in a few rituals to maximise the vibration of the food you eat. The person cooking a meal adds the vibration of their own emotional state and thoughts into the food they prepare. And this affects the vibration of the food. If you are the one cooking, remember when you are angry, upset or sad take a moment to bring yourself to a higher vibration and then prepare your meal.
When you now feel hungry, you are going to be in a state of great awareness to identify which body of yours is feeling hungry and for what. There is one more crucial aspect when it comes to eating food DROP THE GUILT.
Imagine your favourite food is in front of you. What will you do?
- Will you resist saying – this is not good for me, so I won’t eat it and feel deprived?
- Or will you feel the guilt and eat it anyway? And beat yourself up thereafter for not having enough self control and will power. Both the above lead to the toxicity of guilt entering your food. This causes more harm to the body than the food itself.
Can you take the power of good health into your own hands from now on? Give yourself the permission to indulge with all your senses into the food that you enjoy. Be fully present while eating it, chew slowly, allow the flavours to fill you with their wholeness and tell yourself, just like you have the power to eat anything you wish, you also carry the responsibility to eat that which serves you in the highest. This way, you will eat without guilt, allowing the food to turn to energy and not to stay stuck inside you in the form of fat or undigested guilt.
The food I eat only makes me healthy and beautiful. – Sondra Ray (The Only Diet There Is)
In order to bring the food to its optimum energetic vibration before you eat it, you can bless your food. Sidra Jafri says – Blessing your food is a simple yet deeply powerful way to infuse your meal with the right vibration before you consume it.
Blessing the food by Sidra Jafri – “I bless this food and everyone who has contributed towards bringing this food to my table. Please allow me to reprogram the cellular memory of this food to my optimum health. I absorb and retain only that part of the food that gives me optimum health, vitality and energy, and allow the rest to pass through. I ask the consciousness of my emotional stomach, my mental stomach, my spiritual stomach and my physical stomach to come together and bring awareness through this food that which part of my consciousness requires feeding. I ask the energy of this food to be transmitted into that stomach that needs healing. Thank you.”
I hope you enjoyed learning something new through the insights provided in this blog. Wishing you days filled with loving awareness around your hunger pangs and undertsanding what they mean before you start to feed them.
