Nourishing ourselves

My partner has embarked on the first month of her commitment to eat better. This profound change has brought me face-to-face with the question of nourishment: what truly nourishes me, and what do I consume that is a substitute for nourishment? This might be easiest to see with food and drink, but it has gone way beyond for me. What about the media, T.V., newspapers, the Internet? The books I read? The music I listen to? The activities in which I’m engaging? What do I put into my body that is actually just a different kind of junk food?

This exploration has catapulted me into a new level of awareness. When I give myself the space to experience how my body is responding, there is no question as to what is life-generating versus life-draining. I almost immediately deleted some apps from my IPhone, the ones that it is so easy to spend my last moments before sleeping “just checking.” Oh, ok, so then there’s actually being on my IPhone and computer–while my laptop is a key tool for me these days, I can’t pretend that I feel happier after spending time on it. Facebook is not an energy-generator for me; neither is the Huffington Post.

David Hawkins (the author of Power vs. Force) has calibrated the energy of newspapers, magazines, famous people, entire countries, movies, the Bible, the Koran, and even the U.S. Constitution. Much of what surrounds us is actually calibrated as being “below the line,’ supporting us in staying in levels of consciousness of Reactive Brain–where fear, anger, shame, and despair can be found. All of these states “use up” energy. I can feel that–can you? When I “consume” energies that are from “above the line,” in Creative Brain, that is equally palpable to me. I’ve spent the weekend catching up on Ode Magazine and reading The Field, by Lynne McTaggert, in preparation for the upcoming Creative Field conference. My body feels like a flower that has re-oriented itself to the sun, taking in ideas that help me to stretch towards possibilities instead of contracting from the fear and anger that has become familiar in absorbing the mass media I’ve been feeding it.

What do you notice about what you are feeding yourself? Do you feel nourished? What steps might you take to become more aware of what is life-giving and what you might want to let just drop away as not serving you?

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