Nourish: provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition.
Every soul needs nourishment to blossom
As we continue through the alphabet in the A to Z blogging challenge, today is 
day. And——
N is for Nourish
Nourish is such a lovely world. And it can be applied to every level of our being–physical, emotional, spiritual. Nourishment consists of whatever we take into our selves that contributes to our growth, health, and good condition.
Of course, our bodies need to be nourished. Good, healthy food nourishes our bodies and souls. Water and air also nourish our bodies.
Many things nourish our emotions–feeling satisfied and healthy in our bodies is one of them. But friendship and family can also nourish our feeling life. Being part of a community carries much importance, even for an introvert like me.
And spiritual nourishment includes the nourishment of body and emotion but also includes something more.
What are you hungry for?
Sometimes we have cravings for things that nourish us and sometimes we have cravings for things that tear us down. When I’m feeling a craving, I try to ask myself what I’m really hungry for. What do my body and spirit crave right now? And honestly, I don’t always know. Especially when I feel tired or overwhelmed–or over-hungry, for that matter.
I’ve learned, at least for now–and more or less–what nourishes my body. And I know that with celiac and histamine intolerance I must choose very carefully what I consume. ( I wrote about this in my sad manicure story) I was distressed to find out that many things I thought would nourish me actually contributed to my ill health. Things like tempeh, kombucha, cashews, summers beauteous, bountiful tomatoes all made me feel unwell.
Similarly, living in Chicago, which used to nourish me, began to feel like eating too much rich food–I couldn’t digest all that I was taking in.
Learning to truly listen
It has been difficult to learn to truly listen to my body and soul. I’m still learning. It’s taken a lot of work to strip away the things that I thought I should do, the things I’d learned were the correct way to do things–and which worked just fine for many people, the expectations of myself and others, and the not caring if it’s healthy or not because I want to do it anyway.
When I gave up gluten, I gave it up completely for several weeks (I don’t remember how many). Within a few days, I felt immeasurably better. Then I ate a little bit and felt horrible again. After that, not eating gluten became easy. I just thought about how I felt when I ate it and I didn’t want that more than I wanted whatever tempted me in that moment.
But not every choice carries such dire consequences (thank goodness!). And with those, it’s easier to choose, well, what’s easier rather than what’s nourishing. I do this even when I know I’m not making the healthiest choice.
As I get older, though, it becomes more important to me to make choices that nourish me. I’ve become more aware that I don’t know how much time I have left in this life and I want to make the most of it. Nourishing myself, making healthy choices as best I can, allows me to keep my commitments. To give my time and energy to those things that really matter to me.
That’s all for today. Thanks for stopping by! xoxo
