Jeanine Abraham is the expert who first brought the concept of “primary foods” to my attention. This week I asked her to share about it more in depth with you. Here is what she had to say:
Nourishing the Soul
If I were to ask you to name some primary foods I’m sure you would quickly answer: Vegetables! Fruit! Lean Meats! Healthy Grains! What if I told you that those answers were incorrect. Veggies fruit and all the rest are actually secondary foods. Yes, we physically are what we eat and the nourishment we receive from physical food is vital to build a healthy body, but there is more to nourishment than what we place on the dinner plate.
Remember when you were 7 or 8 years old and the summer lasted forever? Riding a bike with the wind blowing your hair or floating in a pool gazing at the blue sky and feeling the cool water beneath you? The feeling when achieving a goal, doing work that really fills your spirit or spending quality time with good friends laughing late into the night. These experiences are not limited to the past, these experiences are available to us right now. They are the primary foods that nourish our souls! Relationships, Career, Spirituality are a few examples of Primary foods.
When our Primary Foods are out of alignment many of us turn to secondary food for comfort. Or we deny ourselves secondary food for punishment.
I invite you to take a moment in silence and consider your relationship to your own personal Primary Foods. Where do you stand? It’s a hard question to answer, so I’ve provided an exercise. Click below to see the Circle of Life:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=18oQ2VomXUAmYB1yqPtZqQnX3VN0TY5izSLk6iX8OmLr9Mj8O09tqMmUWCeb3
Use it as a meter of balance to chart your Primary Foods. There’s more to life than exercise and eating veggies. Happiness begins when we connect to nourishing the soul.
Jeanine T. Abraham, Certified Health Coach,
JourneyDance™ Facilitator
http://www.jeanine-abraham.healthcoach.integrativenutrition.com