What to Eat When You're Feeling Scattered, Gloomy or Moody

My client Julie once arrived at her session feeling very unsettled and overwhelmed due to her recent apartment move. I sent her away with a seemingly unconventional prescription for sweet potatoes. She ate some that night and immediately felt more grounded.
 
More Than Fuel
Food is far more than just fuel. We tend to think of it in terms of nutrients, calories, good or bad. How often do you consider its energetic quality?
 
All food has unique energetic properties that affect your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. When, where and how it's grown, raised, produced or prepared determines its essential character and the energy it imparts.
 
By understanding food energetics, you can prepare balance-restoring meals based on the energy particular foods create in your body.
 
Let's take a look at vegetables.
 
Plant Prescriptions
The direction a vegetable grows can impart the same qualities in you when consuming it. Here are a few plant prescriptions for when you're feeling...
 
Scattered or Overstimulated
Root Vegetables: Because they grow in the ground, root vegetables like carrots, sweet potatoes, turnips, parsnips and beets have a strong downward energy. Eating these hearty vegetables can help you feel more focused, anchored and grounded.
 
Gloomy or Tense
Dark Leafy Greens: Kale, Swiss chard, collard greens, beet greens and other dark leafy greens grow upward collecting energy from the sun. Eating these chlorophyll-rich foods infuses your blood with oxygen, ultimately boosting your mood and spirits.

Light and cleansing, they also supply your body with flexible energy and remove physical and emotional toxins literally helping you lighten up.
 
Moody or Erratic Energy
Squashes and Gourds: To maintain an even keel, eat veggies that grow at ground level like butternut squash, spaghetti squash, pumpkin and edible gourds. These can help steady your mood and energy level.
 
You Are What You Eat
A food's life force directly impacts your quality of life. By selecting foods based on their energetic qualities, you can better nourish not only your body but also your soul.

Are You Breaking Your Own Heart?

This passage from author and wise woman Anne Lamott really resonates with me:

“Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.”

In the past, I’ve shared how I let my so-called inadequacies and imperfections stop me from fully living.

I let the size of my body dictate the size of my life.

It breaks my heart when I think about how much time, energy and life force we waste berating ourselves for not having a better body and obsessing about how to fix it.

I often wonder, if we weren’t thinking about this, what would we be thinking about?

Where would we be putting all our energy?

How different would our lives be?

How different would the world be?

My highest intention is to help end this needless suffering so none of us dies wishing we would have gone swimming.

Pick a New Direction
I’ve seen with myself and with my clients that it is possible to replace criticism with compassion, judgment with curiosity, loathing with loving, rejection with acceptance, playing small with living big.

As Anne Lamott says, it all starts with the willingness to...

“Pick a new direction, one you wouldn’t mind ending up at, and aim for that. Shoot the moon.”

My Two Thanksgiving Wishes for You...

I have two Thanksgiving wishes for you...
 
1. Slow Down
Years ago, I spent hours with two other women preparing a delicious Thanksgiving feast, only to watch our guests scarf it down in less than 15 minutes, then leave the table. Barely a sentence was spoken throughout the entire meal.

They grabbed dessert and headed back to the TV leaving the cooks behind as we stared at our half-empty plates.

I was disappointed and, well, really annoyed.

My first wish for you this Thanksgiving is to slow down.

Savor every moment and morsel.

Linger over your meal enjoying good conversation with your table mates. Truly taste and savor each and every bite.

My family has a fun tradition of posing questions to the entire table then taking turns answering them. Everyone participates, from ages 6 to 80.

Questions range from “What movie character would you like to be?” and “If you could be any flavor of ice cream, what would you be and why? to "What was your best day ever?”

By slowing down, you will experience greater pleasure and satisfaction and feel much more energized and connected to your body and your loved ones.

2. Write a Thank You Letter…to Your Body

Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time criticizing our body. 

Doing so causes unnecessary stress and suffering. It drains your energy and life force.

My second wish for you is that you begin to adopt a policy of kindness, compassion and acceptance toward your body.

As you count your blessing this Thanksgiving, take time to write a thank you letter to your body. Tell it absolutely everything you’re grateful for.

For example, thank your…

• heart for beating on its own and for feeling all kinds of love

• legs for enabling you to walk, run, dance, hike or ski

• arms for carrying your child or hugging a loved one

• eyes for seeing all the beauty and goodness in the world

• nose for smelling blooming flowers, baking bread, brewing coffee and freshly cut grass

• hands for performing millions of tiny miracles throughout the day, from tying shoes and texting friends to scratching your dog's belly and selecting a perfectly ripe avocado

This simple yet powerful act can put you on the path to creating a more loving, relaxed and peaceful relationship with your body.

For more tips on cultivating an attitude of gratitude, head on over to here.