Autumnal Equinox / Finding Balance Within through Holistic Nourishment

Today I celebrated the autumnal equinox, a significant turning point in the year when night and day are equal in length — highlighting the need for maintaining balance in our lives. As we enter this period of restoration and reflection, it’s important to get in touch with our core needs, connect internally, and understand how we’re investing time in all areas of our lives in order to let go of that which no longer serves us, while opening space for rebirth and renewal.

I want to take a moment to share my own journey this past year finding balance with food and nourishment — especially as I’ve been recently working on rebalancing and healing my root chakra which governs stability, survival and security and is associated with basic needs of food, water, shelter and safety.

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To celebrate this important natural holiday, my father and I spent the afternoon and evening making chili together — following his tried & true recipe which involves lots of veggies, and a whole lotta love too.

As he mentioned while we began to chop and prepare the vegetables, cooking is not only a “process-oriented” activity that requires careful attentiveness and mindfulness (lest your pot boil over!), it’s also an activity that fosters connection and can bring people closer together while nourishing heart, mind, body and spirit.

Mealtimes have historically been one of the most important times of the day across cultures, and it’s not hard to see why. Eating, especially together, “is a central part of social relationships and cultural rituals, as well as a symbolic and a material means of coming together. Across cultures and time, food sharing is an almost universal medium for expressing fellowship; it embodies values of hospitality, duty, gratitude, sacrifice and compassion.” (Vanier Institute).

And yet, in present society, we have all but lost sight of this importance.

With the busyness of modern schedules, people within the same household often eat whenever they’re hungry (or whenever they have time!) and rarely sit down to a shared meal at the same table. So many individuals regularly eat with their phone, scarfing down their food or mindlessly snacking as they scroll online or watch a show.

And yet, on the contrary, mindful eating has become an increasingly prevalent practice in recent years, with numerous articles and studies emphasizing the benefits of paying full attention to our food, on purpose, without judgment, and using all of your physical and emotional senses to experience and enjoy the food choices you make.

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When I was living alone in NYC in a one-bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen that I frankly didn’t like and didn’t feel safe or comfortable utilizing, I often found myself eating or ordering out instead of preparing food at home. 

“It evens out in the end, because even if I buy groceries, they all go bad before I can use them, and I end up wasting money. When I get food from elsewhere, at least I know it’s made well and I end up enjoying what I’m eating” — I told myself; and found that as a young professional in the Big Apple, I was not alone in this logical argument.

I also told myself and others that “there are just other things I’d rather be doing with my time.” 

Working all day alone in my apartment in my mostly remote 9am-6pm day job, it’s true that the last thing I wanted to do after the work day ended was another activity that I felt I “should” do, as the “responsible young adult” that I, like many of my peers, am trying to be.

I would often out-source my meals, which allowed me to do other things with my time like make jewelry, read, go roller skating, or even admittedly, lose myself in mindless scrolling — all while waiting for my food to arrive that someone else had just spent precious time and energy preparing and delivering.

Ordering out seemed to alleviate metaphorical and literal pressure from my plate, but in reality, I deprived myself of the essential ability and practice of taking care of myself, and reinforced the core negative belief and fear that I was incapable of doing so.

The mindlessness with which I fed myself and the anxiety-inducing cycle of “spend 15 minutes scrolling through countless options to see what I’m in the mood for, then decide what to pick from the menu, then wait 35 minutes for it to be prepared and delivered, then pretend to enjoy lukewarm, oily, fried or mushy food” kept my body and mind in a dissatisfied perpetual state of flight-or-flight scarcity & survival mode.

Really acknowledging that I was doing this was difficult. It meant being honest about the ways in which I was impeding my own growth and using ignorance, complacency, laziness and fear as a crutch.

But once I externalized this problem and saw it for what it was, I could work on addressing it. 

In fact, I have a sticky note to myself from January 14, 2023 that has become a sort of personal mantra for me: “Never use ignorance as an excuse not to do something!” Very pointedly underneath, I had written: “Do you really not know how to do something, or are you being willfully ignorant to avoid doing what you know needs to be done? i.e. cooking, therapy, etc.” 

Wow, that’s a wake-up call from my higher self if ever I heard one.

I continued, “Never be too proud to admit you’re wrong or yet more commonly, that you are either ignorant (and can learn), or misinformed (and can accept new information).

Ignorance, from the Latin root ignorantia, in its simplest definition, is a lack of knowledge or information about something.

Once I reframed my problem with food as a mere lack of knowledge about how to prepare foods that I would enjoy eating, it no longer became a personal attack or statement about my lack of self-worth and became a challenge to learn new skills.

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And now, thanks to the small but powerful changes that have accumulated over time, including the knowledge I’ve re-learned about food, how to prepare it, and how to enjoy it — and my ongoing practice of intuitive eating and mindfulness, my life looks very different from how it used to a year ago, or even 9 months ago, from today.

Now, I look forward to nourishing my body with healthy, whole, solid foods instead of depriving & distracting myself and overcompensating with unhealthy habits, ingredients and appetite suppressants.

I am now able (and willing!) to cook for myself and to have fun in the process. And most importantly, I enjoy mindfully consuming my meals (often with a book, if I’m alone — to nourish my mind and spirit as well) — but best of all is being able to share a meal with someone else. Bonus points if it’s with a loved one, like tonight. We’ll both be enjoying chili for several days to come, I’m sure!

Sharing food together is certainly more enjoyable than eating alone, and I’m grateful to have made some nice recent memories in sharing mealtimes with friends and family. 

But I also now know (and am still learning!) how to take better holistic care of myself in heart, mind, body and spirit, even — and especially — if I’m the only one to witness it in the moment.

Here’s to finding balance within and cheers to the start of a fresh, new season for abundance, nourishment and growth.

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