What if the secret to a more peaceful, joyful, and fulfilling life starts with an understanding of what you are feeding yourself-not only through your mouth, but through your mind, your emotions, and your soul? Awaken your senses and nourish your mind, body, and soul.
Every day we sit down at the table of life and make choices about what we will consume. We think about the foods that nourish our bodies, yet how much time do we take to consider the thoughts we are feeding our minds? Sure, we understand the quality of our food influences our physical health, energy, and vitality. What about the quality of our thoughts? What happens when we continually consume resentment, anger, judgement, worry, self-doubt or disappointment? Just as a poor diet can leave the body drained, a consistent diet of negative thoughts can leave our emotional and spiritual selves feeling exhausted, unfulfilled, feelings of failure, and disconnected from our light and purpose in life. It is time to change what is being served at the table of your mind.
Your Five Senses: The Doorways to Conscious Living
When we entered this world from the “Mother’s Womb” we came into physical form with extraordinary gifts. We have the ability to experience life through our senses, such as, sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. These senses are so much more than physical functions. They hold key pathways through which we experience memory, connection, pleasure, beauty, and the beautiful knowledge of the gift of being alive.
Have you ever walked by or near a bakery in the morning hours and smelled the most amazing smells of breads and pastries being made for sale? What about a warm sunlight beaming down on your face or the colors of the sky when the sun is rising? Have you ever heard a song that the words or the music notes brought you to tears? Or what about a freshly made meal that was prepared from a heart space of love? Each of these experiences evokes an awakening within you that brings good feelings and awakens your senses. Think about this for a moment; Are you truly experiencing your life through your senses or have you become so consumed or clouded with the noise of your thoughts that you have forgotten how to feel about the power and beauty of all that you are?
Many humans live in a consistent state of discord, worry, overthinking, emotional distress and are disconnected from the present moment. How many times have you eaten without tasting or taking the time to dine? Have you ever listened without actually hearing because you are not present in the moment? Did you look at the beautiful forest without seeing all of nature and the trees? Our senses invite us back into the present. We are not meant to just survive but to thrive.
The Mind Has an Appetite as Well
Let’s think for a moment about walking into a beautiful restaurant where you are handed an artfully designed menu filled with amazing choices. Some of the selections offer nourishment, vitality, and satisfaction to our palate. Other choices may provide temporary comfort but leave you feeling bloated and depleted after you choose them. Now visualize that this restaurant represents your mind. All your thoughts are items listed on the menu of your mind. The thought of fear may be today’s appetizer. With self-doubt, it may be your main course along with resentment as your side dish and followed by a generous helping of regret for the final piece de resistance as your dessert. Unaware and not realizing it, you have ordered from this same menu for years and then you wonder why your life has been going this way. Let’s explore the possibility of changing your order for a new experience. Today, I am ordering gratitude as my appetizer. I think I am going to try self-love as my main course, my side dish I will add forgiveness, and my favorite of all, joy as my dessert. Your thoughts repeatedly entertain the influence of your emotions, perceptions, and actions. What happens over extended time, these patterns and shapes of this energy form the way you are experiencing your life. All of your thoughts are not the truth of who you are. They are a reflection of what you have learned, experienced, feared, and believed. You have the power to change them. This is where conscious awareness begins to take you to transformation.
Spiritual Connection Between Food, Thoughts, and Soul
We all know that food nourishes the physical body. The experience of nourishment can reach far beyond the physical realm. What happens when you prepare a meal with gratitude, love, and excitement? You slow down, you become present, you notice all the colors of the ingredients, the textures, the aroma, and by tasting you test it for flavor. This completely changes the act of eating and becomes an opportunity for mindfulness and connection. In the times we are living in with so much pulling us in all directions, we need to be reminded about the importance of connection.
Let’s think about bringing these same intentions to your thoughts. When a thought enters your mind, before consuming it ask yourself, does this thought nourish my spirit or does it take away from my peace? Is this thought moving me towards love or is it keeping trapped in fear? Nourishing the soul involves awareness of what strengthens your connection to the truth of who you are. Recognize you are more than the painful experiences you have survived, the judgements you have received, or any limitations you believe you have. You are now and always the living expression of possibility, and you are a limitless being. Choose thoughts that support your self-worth and create a healthy environment for healing and personal growth so your life can flourish. You have not chosen all of what life has placed before you when you entered this world, but you can gain knowledge, learn, seek truth, and allow nourishment as you maneuver the seasons of your life.
When Your Soul Feels Hungry; Understand Anxiety, Depression, and Emotional Emptiness.
How many of us have become overwhelmed? With the demands of work, financial pressures, loneliness, family responsibilities, and constant noise from the outside world, it can leave us emotionally spent. There are times when we feel trapped in our overthinking thought by replaying yesterday’s failures, uncertainties, and worry. Sometimes we have used food to squash the pain with emotional eating in hopes it would numb the pain. Anxiety and depression have given us these places that have kept us stuck and frozen and these experiences have left us influenced by psychological, biological, and all the social season of the times. All of this brings us to a lack of spiritual awareness and results in negative thinking. Being in this place energetically is a place of darkness. By nourishing our mind with compassionate self-talk, time in nature, healing, gratitude, valuable friendships, and embracing spiritual practices supports our wellness. Healing begins with compassion not criticism. Your mind is longing for stillness, purpose and a connection of love within your soul. This journey within to do emotional healing is not about believing everything is perfect or wonderful. It’s about understanding and discernment that yes, I was hurt but I remember that life holds endless possibilities beyond those painful moments.
Awaken Your Senses to Reawaken Your Life
Wake up in the morning with the intention of awakening all five senses.
Sight-Choose what you allow your eyes to receive.
Before you reach for your phone, getting on social media, or listening to the negative news channel, wake up to something beautiful that brings you to a smile which opens your soul to many great possibilities for the day. Look to nature for fulfillment such as the sunlight in the sky, the breeze blowing the trees, or the person you love. Beauty reminds us we are blessed and gives us a sense of knowing that there is goodness, grace, and mercy all around us.
Sound-Listen to what restores your inner harmony.
Listen to your breath and receive this moment of calm. Hear the birds singing welcoming a new day. Read uplifting words that leads you to the quiet reverence of hearing your heartbeat. Play instrumental music or brush against hanging chimes and hear the vibrational frequency of the tones as they lift your energy. Being conscious of voices you allow in your life which includes your own inner dialogue can either support your nervous system or take you into an energy that takes you down.
Smell-Breathe in the essence of the present moment.
Think of the aroma of freshly made hot chocolate, freshly cut herbs, or a favorite meal your grandmother made that evokes memories in you that slow you down and you can smell that familiar moment in your memory. So often we forget and it goes unnoticed all these simple pleasures that add up more than we realize. Seek these moments to embrace that you are alive grateful to be alive and given another day to experience life, learn, and grow.
Taste-Savor the nourishment life offers.
As food is placed before you slow down as you eat and eat every bite with awareness and gratitude. Pay attention to the textures, flavors, and the nutrients that are nourishing you. Slowing down gives you a better understanding of how some of the explosive flavors affect your palate. What you will experience are moments of the passion of dining, savoring every bite. Moments that are meant to be savored and enjoyed instead of rushing the experience.
Touch-Reconnect with the comfort of being alive.
This is where the art of grounding comes into play. Take your shoes off and walk barefoot, feeling the earth beneath your feet. The feel of a warm blanket when it is cold outside brings comfort. The sensation of a hug or a loving embrace sends endorphins throughout your body and calms your nervous system and brings you back into your body and into the present moment especially when you are being comforted. Connecting with your senses gives your mind the reminder and the opportunity to step away from chaos, overthinking, overdoing, and helps you step away from this energy cycle and return to the amazing experience of living.
Your Thoughts Are Seeds: Think About What You Are Growing.
Let’s consider thinking about your mind as a beautiful garden. All the thoughts you are thinking repeatedly nourish is much like a seed planted in the soil of your consciousness. Some seeds are healthy and grow with confidence, compassion, peace, and self-worth. Other seeds of thought are weak and grow with fear, insecurity, emotional suffering, and anger. Difficult emotions should not be buried or brushed aside. We must learn to be better detectives and pay attention to the ones that need to be released. The thoughts you nurture influence your attitude when you are out and about in the world. Those actions become choices and shape your experiences and relationships. Begin to recognize that the life you desire requires you to awaken to greater consciousness. You must participate in making changes otherwise nothing is going to change. When you change the nourishment, you are offering on your thought menu, you start changing the way you show up and participate in creating your life.
Healing the Soul Begins at the Table of Self-Love
So many of us have spent our lives searching all over the world for happiness, peace, and acceptance. We have looked for the approval of our parents, relationships, and our accomplishments. Yet we still live with the dissatisfaction of our lives and have not pinpointed the lasting self-worth we long to experience. It is time to learn to give it to yourself this self-worth you seek. A wholeness that when you sit at the table of your own consciousness, you become aware of just what you are serving yourself. Are you at the point of surrendering to a different kind of nourishment? Nourishment that fills you with greater understanding, courage, love, and wholeness. Spiritual healing and wholeness asks you to seek beneath the surface of your repetitive thoughts and recognize the emotional wounds of things you experienced in the mother’s womb that have been influencing your life experiences. It is asking you to honor those experiences for learning and growing without allowing them to have a permanent place at the dinner table of your mind. What you need is to lighten up, breathe, love, nurture, and discover the light within you. You are a survivor and survivors are not victims but strong warriors of light.
The Thought Menu: Choosing a Different Way of Life.
The heart of the message I share in my book, Thought Menu, is to challenge you to live a more positive and purposeful life. Each day you are presented with a menu of thoughts in your mind. Some of those thoughts are too familiar and need to be deleted. Other thoughts may feel unfamiliar, but they invite us to progress to a new level of awareness and embrace our self-worth and confidence. Conscious living holds much beauty in that it challenges us to discover that we do not have to accept every thought that enters our mind or wishes to sit at the dinner table of our mind. Pause, reflect, and redirect your choices. Thought Menu, encourages you to embrace the “art of daring” to think differently and live from a hearts pace of love. It invites you to recognize that your mind, body, and spirit deserves thoughtful care and nourishment.
Final Serving of Food for Thought
Think about the final season of your life. Do you really want to regret all the years worry that consumed you, of all the things that did not happen, or the times you wasted trying to please others? Did you forget to taste the sweetness of the simple moments? Did you forget to experience the beauty of your own existence? Did you forget to listen to the music of your heart? Did you allow yourself to receive love when it was at your door waiting for you to accept it? Did you forget to know that you deserve to be worthy of feeling peace, compassion, and joy? There is no time like the present to fill your senses with all the beauty around you. Allow your mind to receive thoughts that strengthen you instead of diminishing your light. Your soul is ready to receive all the extraordinary possibilities that are waiting for you to open your heart to. Life is not just about what you consume. It is what you allow to nourish you, what you choose to cultivate within you, and what you are responsible for bringing into this world before returning home someday.
Today I am consciously choosing to nourish my mind with possibilities with gratitude and care as my soul is filled with love and compassion. I awaken all my senses to the beauty of my life and release all thoughts that no longer serve my highest and best good. I open my heart and receive peace, balance, harmony, and abundance with meaningful experiences. I live a worthy life that nourishes every aspect of my being. I am not just a guest at the table of my life. I have a voice in what is being served. I choose wisely, nourish lovingly, and savor the extraordinary gift of being alive, well, and whole.
JoAnn Kisler, Author of Thought Menu
Founder of Breath of Energia Healing
