9 Ways to Improve Your Diet and Eat Less by Making it Sacred
One of the issues people often speak about when switching to a more conscious diet is also how to stop over eating - eating more than the body really needs, and thereby gaining unnecessary excess weight. Personally I've experienced the challenge of this when doing highly energetic work at the Openhand workshops and gatherings. Here's an essential view to consider....
The soul is looking for a completing loop of experience. As the light flows in, then it's 'wanting' to animate some activity and behaviour. This is intensified when you infuse more soul, when you're highly empathic, or else when you consider yourself to be an 'energy worker'. If you can't find a way to ground the energy and to channel it into something, then eating food tends to absorb the energy and give some that sense of completion - it's entirely understandable.
The risk is if you then get addicted to excess eating, which also has the downside of lowering vibration. It can make you feel heavy and lethargic. Plus the risk is to become a target for Opposing Consciousness. The question is, how to address the cycle? Generally I would say it helps enormously to make the act of eating more sacred.
9 Sacred Suggestions for Breaking the Cycle of over eating
1) Overcoming self-judgment: I would say it's essential not to beat yourself up and judge oneself for the behaviour. Because this just creates other cycles of negativity. Be honest and clear that it's happening, and accept that it's often a problem of this density. Practice the exploration of self acceptance and self forgiveness.
2) Consider the Bigger Picture: You're here to forge the soul in the crucible of life. You're acting on behalf of the macrocosym - The One - bringing light into density by exploring distortion. It is not your fault that such distortion exists. So accept and honour the distortion as a vehicle for growth. But then commit to the inquiry and realignment. Be clear with yourself - aligned soul behaviour is the way to absolute freedom.
3) Bring increased awareness to the act of consumption: It's crucial then to bring in increased awareness to consuming - so not to eat mindlessly. When you eat, taste the food fully, be sure to have full attention in the experience and the feelings internally. Eat slowly - it is said that to eat in an aligned way, "we should chew our liquids and drink our food".
4) Enjoy what you Eat: we should NOT get the sense of feeling bad about enjoying eating. Clearly its a pleasurable thing to do and does generate the sense of completion and at-one-ment with the Universe. Eat slowly and consciously. The more you enjoy it, the deeper you go into the experience, the likelihood is you'll start to need less of it, because you're gaining more from it.
5) Make eating a Sacred Event: It will help greatly to make eating a scared event. To enjoy the food more by blessing the meal, thanking the universe and giving maximum attention to every mouthful. Try lighting a candle before meal time and take a few moments of meditation. Thank the Universe for your blessing of food (you could even set aside a small plate with a little of the food to give back to the Universe).
6) Feel the sense of completion, even before you eat: the soul is looking for a sense of 'completion' with the Universe. The cycle of kundalini flows down from the source, through the base, through the experience of life, and then back to the source again. In your meal time meditation therefore, practice deep consciousness breathing, so that you already start to feel some form of completion internally even before you eat.
(sample this Openhand Breakthrough Breathing Meditation)7) Investigate the nutritional value of what you're consuming: If you tend to be drawn to stodgy fast foods of low nutritional value, your body will still want to consume more, even when the stomach is full. Be exceptionally mindful about reducing the amount of processed sugar. This has been described as 'cocaine' in the diet - it creates rapid blood sugar spikes, the rapid storing of fat, followed by sudden energy lows that make you want to eat more. Switch instead to naturally sweetened food (apple juice, date and agave syrup for example).
8) Explore the balance between carbohydrate foods, fats, sugars and proteins: So for example, reducing sugars and fats by increasing the amount of protein intake, such as through beans, lentils, chickpeas, quinoa, millet, hummus, buckwheat and hemp. This will help to reduce the amount of sugar and fat that you eat, becasue they give that sense of completion, are nutritional, and yet don't bulk you out and lower your vibration.
9) Practice intermittent fasting: this is about reducing the amount of hours you eat in a day to around a 6 to 8 hour period. And when you're fasting, work into any hunger cravings. The body will welcome the rest periods and you get to realise how much you might have been eating through conditioned behaviours. The crucial points are when you get most hungry - see these as the moment of maximum soul growth opportunity. Get really conscious in these places with meditation and breathing. Tranform the sense of hunger into the emptiness of potential. Work to simply hold the sense of potential energy without needing the immediate completion. This will greatly raise vibration and increase your higher dimensional manifestation capability.
(Here's our forum thread on Intermittent Fasting)
So here are some of the pointers to explore. For sure, diet is a major exploration on the path of raising vibration and expanding consciousness. What are your experiences? Do share below - I'll happily work with you on it.
In loving support
Open
- Add new comment
- 912 views
Comments
9 Ways to Improve Your Diet and Eat Less by Making it Sacred 🍏
Comment
Okay, so I know it's a bit of a mainstream cliché - to focus on diet at the beginning of the New Year! - but that said, it is a good time for deeper internal introspection, and to find greater alignment in one's life. Of course in the alignment/expansion of consciousness, diet is a key consideration - your body is your temple to the divine! That's why I felt to feature this forum thread today...
9 Ways to Improve Your Diet and Eat Less by Making it Sacred
(scroll to the top)
For me personally, diet has been a constant exploration during my incarnation here - there've been countless challenges and iterations, so I have plenty of experience to reflect back - if you're facing challenges yourself. So do share.... what dietary challenges are you facing right now? Increased awareness is always the key....
In loving support
Open
Diet challenges & entering the Void
In reply to 9 Ways to Improve Your Diet and Eat Less by Making it Sacred 🍏 by Open
Comment
Hi Open!
Even though we had a wonderful week of healthy food at Eden Rise thanks to star chef Tilly I experience a huge challenge going back to a healthy diet in my daily life. I wanted to write something about it yesterday but felt the inquiry needed to go deeper than my initial thought of it merely being a matter of discipline. I had the question up: what is the difference between discipline coming from ego and discipline coming from soul? In the past my super healthy eating habits had a strong goal around my appearance, but as that identity is crumbling I find myself eating the processed diet I had as a child. Now at this point I also don't feel I'm trying to suppress feelings with it and it also doesn't feel like comfort. When the inquiry went deeper I realised I'm holding on to a sense of myself as identity, a reference to the old me. I now see myself standing on a precipice staring into the void and the invitation is to jump, but there is an internal panic of "who am I when I let go??" The old behavior gives me a reference to something I know. Ok it's not entirely diet related but I still felt like sharing!
🧡🌸
Identification around behaviours
In reply to Diet challenges & entering the Void by hannah
Comment
When the inquiry went deeper, I realized I was holding on to a sense of myself as identity, a reference to the old me. I now see myself standing on a precipice staring into the void and the invitation is to jump, but there is an internal panic of "who am I when I let go??" The old behavior gives me a reference to something I know
I can relate to this. I've noticed that there will be an old sense of self or identification with certain behaviors. Even when we fully realize that the behaviors don't serve, the sense of comfort of being in the old identity can pull us back. I think the key for me is to be completely honest about it. And to watch myself when I go into the limiting conditioned behaviors, but much more consciously—to be in the feelings when I'm in them and not to judge myself. When we touch and express the aligned behaviors like eating healthy food for instance and how we feel about it, it becomes easier to know where we really need to focus and put our attention. Then it becomes natural and not a matter of discipline. I sometimes purposefully go into the old habits, just to see how I feel about them at this point. Even those become learning opportunities if we are conscious of them.
The likelihood is that all the conditioned behaviors would have some karmic source pain in them. The behaviors are formed from it and, in a way, stop us from fully going into the source feeling. We have to unpack the identities and thought patterns to go right into the karma. When the karma is resolved the behaviours wouldn't have a place to hook on. I hope that make sense.
Vimal
Who am I when I let go?! Diving into the Void 🏄♀️
In reply to Diet challenges & entering the Void by hannah
Comment
It's a great inquiry for sure Hannah (and Vimal) - identity is a safety net, that keeps people safe and secure. Whereas the Void is anything but that - it feels like complete dissolution. And so there can be a fair degree of dancing around the edge of it for some time. Even spiritual practice can become an identity at this point. But you will tire of that - of the resistance and avoidance. At some point, you'll just let go into it and surprise yourself that you're welcomed by it.
The key is to keep working consciously with it and not avoid the feelings when they come up - even if you know you're blocking the final surrender, then be honest with that. But keep illuminating the feelings inside. Ultimately you will break through. How do I know? Because it's destiny calling!
Open 💙🙏
Food cravings and binge eating - finding "completion"
Comment
Hey Hannah
I think the crucial thing is finding the aligned sense of completion. Yes this kind of energy work will open you up and unleash the soul. The question is how best to express that? It's about channeling the energy into something aligned and positive. I would say it will require a look at how one generally spends one's time - instead of the old patterns, spending more time giving space for the divine connection. Then you'll probably find the urge to lower the vibration through binge eating will diminish.
Wishing you well with that
Open
Cravings
Comment
I was just talking about food today as well and how I suddenly have cravings for junk food after the Openhand weekend in Cologne. I'm normally very conscious about what I eat, but these cycles of bingeing always return, highlighting control issues and the attachments I have to physical health as well, so maybe it arises to work with it. But, Open, you say over eating is also something that can come up after doing a lot of energy work.. Exploring what to do with it, those suggestions (especially the first 6) really speak to me!
Hannah
This is how it feels when love it gets so real
Comment
Hey Charlie - I knew I was not dancing alone! Great to meet you in the space between the spaces my friend
Wherever you are, start right there. Look into the mirror of every single experience you're having, for these are the gateways to the mystic. Diet is a classic one. It's so conditioning, so tightening, so contracting, so demanding. Feel in. Break it open. Transform the feeling. Unleash the soul. There is simply nothing like it. This is how it feels, when love it gets so real...
Sitting in the space between spaces.
Comment
Hi Open, This will not be the last time the small "i" I am when writing here will say thank you for all that you are. Many thanks to all openhanders for their heart felt sharing, this one is from Wayne Dyer [you are my greatest teachers] so true to me.The place that grows from your soul is lighten up in all that I do. Just yesterday I when to see a friend and the inquiry was about diet. Synchronicity at it's best.
I called this [Sitting in the space between spaces.] you see, this is one of the ways that without attachment to inquiries answers flow in for me.
Everything Open, that you cover in the above article I have touched base on with my friend.
It seems every-time I think of writing something here, it is already here for me.
Watching the vales uncover my truth WOW
Much love
Charlie
Add new comment