Eating Spiritually Part II

It’s been quite some time since I’ve written the original Eating Spiritually post and quite a lot has changed since then. The principles all remain the same but after some of the expansion and revelations I’ve experienced, I wanted to elaborate on it all a bit further.

The fundamental pillar to Eating Spiritually is and always will be striving to feel the best in your own physical body. From that place, you will have the strongest foundation to thrive, achieve your goals, be the best you can be, and be the clearest channel if that’s what you’re seeking. What I want to emphasize more in part II is that doesn’t mean one thing for everyone. What makes you feel the best, might not make me feel the best, and vice versa. A lot of the spiritual rhetoric will tell you that this means eating as cleanly as possible. With the underlying intended assumption being, eating vegan. I’ve been vegan for years up until recently and definitely leaned toward that belief system until I started poking outside the box and learning that the vegan lifestyle I was living was definitely not making me feel my best and therefore I was absolutely not my clearest channel. I’ll give more detail in a bit, but the point is in all of nutrition you’ll find a million studies that disprove each other and dictate the BEST method for eating (which are never the same). Therefore, there isn’t a definitive way to Eat Spiritually, rather I invite you to focus on trial and error and what works for your uniquely individual makeup.

I absolutely still believe living a vegan lifestyle can have tremendous benefits and for some people, it is going the strongest and healthiest way to live. I’ve been vegan for a number of years, vegetarian for 10 before that, and hadn’t consumed red meat in 15 years for a multitude of reasons. I’ve been having health struggles for longer than I wanted to admit and finally got to a place where all functioning was becoming pretty difficult. Everything I ate made me feel sick and look severely pregnant, I was wildly fatigued all day long, the symptoms go on and on. I sought out a trusted (and incredible) professional to help me address some of my concerns and while there is a lot of work to do to get my overall body back in balance, you can imagine based on the theme of this note, that the first change to make was dietary. So, you can imagine my hesitation when I was told eating meat would be one of the best things for my personal body. More importantly, it was removing the things that were causing me so much inflammation (which was pretty much everything I ate all day long) and therefore having to replace that with foods that were clean, healthy, and going to give me the energy I needed while not causing me intense stomach pain.

While it sounds like this would be even more restrictive, it has been shockingly liberating. Although I have to remove grains, beans, and most fruit/sources of sugar right now, the addition of foods that I have unconsciously labeled as ‘bad’ for so long gives someone with a history of restrictive eating, so, much, relief. I am likely incorporating/removing the same number of foods as I was before but the simple mental switch on expanding what I can cook and order out feels really healing for me, personally. The most surprising part was my body’s reaction to all these new foods. It didn’t have one. It didn’t bloat. It didn’t send me running to the bathroom. It didn’t interrupt my sleep. It made me feel more ‘normal’ than all the ‘perfect’ foods and diet I was eating before. Of course, I chose the cleanest sources possible (more on that in a bit too), but the key takeaway here is not that eating vegan or grains or fruit is good or bad. It can all be great or it can all be not great for you. What matters is how you physically feel and that what is serving your favorite spiritual guru may not be serving you. And most importantly, you are allowed to change your mind.

Now, as I said earlier, I haven’t eaten meat or most animal products in years for a multitude of reasons beyond just believing it was the best for my health. I also have strong concerns surrounding the environmental impact and the spiritual/energetic exchange of eating something that was killed. And that all has been harder for me to reconcile. If this is something you think about or struggle with, I can offer you some of what I found/pledge to do to help.

First, for the environmental impact. Yes, it may be a bit more expensive to pursue what I am about to describe but in my opinion, the cost is well worth the reward, and the opportunity cost of some of the trade-offs far outweigh the dollar amounts. I will not be willing to eat products from any industrially raised animals. The quality of life for these poor creatures is so, so, so sad and unfair to use for our consumption. Beyond that, the environmental impact here of the methane gas emissions, water production required, and the unbelievable amount of waste is what’s primarily contributing to our beautiful earth’s decline. Not to mention, the low quality of food they are fed and hormones/antibiotics they are given are not something you want to put into your precious body. Therefore, I will solely be purchasing meat from farms with regenerative practices, that utilize the full animal, treat them exceptionally well, and feed them a natural, healthy diet for their species. I can consume products I feel good about while supporting small farmers who need our help to stay in business outside of the cattle farms previously mentioned. Helping others makes me feel better about the energy I am putting into the world by making these changes.

I am still working on the spiritual component, but there are a variety of thoughts that are helping me work through it. Consuming an animal or its products from poor living conditions, with some of the really atrocious slaughtering practices is not something I can ever willingly support. The energy that animal feels its whole life, especially at the end, is not an energy I want to put in my field nor is it something I want to support the continuation of. On the other hand, an animal that had a beautiful, happy life and lived out its existence to the fullest, completing it in a gentle way is, in my belief, going to give off a more healing energy to the recipient. In addition to ensuring the animals are treated well, I’ve also cultivated a mini ritual of thanking the animal for giving its life for my ability to continue mine and heal my body. It can be a small note you say silently, a brief bow of acknowledgment, or holding your hands over your food for a little charge of good reiki energy- whatever works for you! The gratitude, to me, is very important in completing the circle of life. Last but not least, there is a belief in the Ayurvedic practice that animal consumption can be very positive and healing in that it ‘uses life to give life’. Similar to what I stated above, in that Ayurveda does not believe in removing animal products but that when they can be used properly, to heal and with gratitude, they can have a meaningful place in a healthy diet. Seeing as its an ancient, proven practice, I am all about it pulling from it into our now, more futuristic lifestyles.

This is all a very, very lengthy diatribe to essentially say ‘Eating Spiritually’ does not have to be so black and white just like spirituality itself is not. We have layers and dimensions and what works for you is unique and something worth embracing once you’ve figured it out! Allow yourself the space and freedom to experiment, to not be so rigid, and to change your mind when the time feels right to do so :). Eat to be the best you, fill your life with joy, fulfillment, and as a result clarity and connection to the divine you.