True Nourishment
Something interesting happened when I switched from a corporate career to an entrepreneurial vocation. Any excess weight I was carrying dropped without effort. I was at my ideal weight, the lightest I had ever been in my adult life, within five weeks. How was that possible?
Major life changes can be the perfect opportunity to re-examine longtime habits. In those early post-corporate weeks, I stopped adhering to my strict dietary rules. I rested more. I stopped tracking my activity and exercised less. Add to this equation the potential for elevated cortisol and insulin levels given that I was taking on more risk by leaving a steady paycheck to venture into an unknown start-up world in my mid-fifties. But yet I found myself staring at scale numbers I hadn’t seen since high school. It all sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it?
Consider what the word nourishment means – sustaining energy for growth and wellness, which reaches far beyond feeding the physical body. True nourishment includes a life that feeds the mind and soul as well.
Here’s what I noticed during the first few weeks of my new routine – I:
Ate when I was hungry, not when I was scheduled to eat
Enjoyed my meals without multi-tasking
Stopped eating around 6pm and didn’t eat again until mid-morning
Spent the morning writing my first book, a challenging task but one I loved
Took a walk in nature once a day
Touched base with a friend or colleague daily
Did not overschedule my time
Learned new things every day
Practiced meditation in the form of silence or gratitude
Went to bed around nine pm and slept between seven and eight hours
Felt blessed for who I was and where I was in my life
In short, I was feeding my mind, body and spirit, as well as being mindful of what my body needed in my new reality. I dropped the superwoman persona I embodied for decades, the one who carried the weight of responsibility, seriousness and was always traveling or on the go. In her place, I embraced the emptiness of not knowing, which turned out to be a much lighter load.
Journal Reflections: What truly nourishes you? What might you drop from your routine to increase that nurturing? How could you further enhance your energy for growth and wellness?