My Year of What If? A Somatic Approach To Nutrition

Today I would like to tell you a story of what cultivating a trusting relationship with food can look and feel like.

When I met my husband, I had been eating the same way for a very long time fearful of bringing back digestive pain and how various different foods might affect my health.

Being in a new relationship, I had a desire to relax a bit around food and see what happens. I like to think of this year as my "What if?" year. What if I ate this? What would happen? 

I stepped into an abundant amount of curiosity. At first, it felt great. I felt more relaxed around food in years and noticed I was not experiencing any of the digestive pain I feared experiencing.

If all food was suddenly completely neutral, I got the opportunity to slow down with every food and notice how it felt in my body. I also got to notice that a handful of something felt fine where a bowl of the same food might leave me feeling bloated and uncomfortable.

Over that year of time, all the things society tells us to label as "bad" happened. I gained weight, I started to experience some intense pain with my cycle, and I noticed my mood all over the place. I still don't see these things as "bad." It was all just information. What I was eating and the quantities in which I was eating those foods led to this kind of reaction in my body. Not good. Not bad. Just what it was.

As I continued to listen deeply to my body, the foods I had been nervous about eating became not so scary where I then got to engage in a new exploration I had never been in before of how do I want to feel in my body? It wasn't about don't eat this or that out of fear of what would happen and instead became how do I want to feel on a daily basis.

From there, any symptom I experienced after I ate I just noted as information and got curious if that was how I wanted to feel in my system. This slowly guided me toward the foods that supported me in feeling how I desire to feel. Those foods I was eating, they are still not good or bad. I can eat them whenever I want. And, I get to explore what is going to feel best to me at any moment. Sometimes, eating those foods has been the most supportive thing, and other times not so much.

To add on about my health, I get my blood drawn every year to check and make sure everything is running smoothly and nothing ever looked off. Even as I gained weight, even as my symptoms changed. Inside, I was still a healthy thriving human being.

This is where we need to move our relationship with our food and body. One infused with deep trust and profound listening that our body will speak to us and we just get to make decisions based on the information we are receiving. No right or wrong decision. Just a decision that leads to other decisions. If you don't like how those decisions are making you feel, experiment with making different decisions. No matter how your body shifts and changes though, no food and no body shape is right or wrong or good or bad. You will always be deserving to be met, seen, heard, acknowledged, and respected.