Nourishing the Mind

I am often amazed at how much easier it can be to take care of myself physically than to take care of myself mentally or spiritually.  Years ago I would have laughed at the suggestion that I had even had a spiritual side that needed to be nourished.  And now that I know better, and am grateful for the knowledge, the question becomes HOW am I nourishing it?  

When it comes to eating healthy, being active and generally having a healthy lifestyle I feel confident that I am making good decisions that will carry me well into my later years.  I am at the point where the choices I make aren't even choices anymore, they are just the way I live my life.  It took some time, some trial and error and lots of reading and education to get here, and all of that work has definitely paid off.  What I am noticing now is that despite all of the healthy habits I have fostered on that side of the equation, I seem to be faltering and lacking on the less tangible side of things.  

And maybe that is just it - the mental and spiritual side of things are not necessarily tangible.  Sometimes we may be able to feel when things are "off" but might have a hard time putting our finger on exactly where the disconnect lies.  For me, I often find that things need to build to a point where it is so obvious it is like stepping on a rake and being hit in the face by the handle.  The slow build sometimes includes sleep issues, mood issues, having a hard time being physically healthy and generally a sense of blah.  Finally that handle comes along and I stop to assess what the heck just happened.  Then the light bulb goes off and I realize that although I might have been going through the motions elsewhere, there is a lack of nourishment taking place where it counts the most.  In my mind and my heart.

Although I rarely eat junk food, I certainly feed it to my mind more often than I care to admit.  This mental junk food takes the shape of negative narratives, unrealistic expectations and a need to please others in order to feel good about my accomplishments.  I find that this mental junk food has a tendency to not only impact my mental, emotional and spiritual well being, it can also play havoc with the physical side of things.  It is hard to be motivated to move your body and nourish yourself while you are in a negative spiral mentally or emotionally.  So, what can we do?  

By learning to recognize the signs when this is taking place, I have found an ability to turn this around much more quickly than I used to.  This is absolutely not to say that I have fewer moments when I need to stop and rewire my thinking.  Actually I feel like I am doing that much more often than I used to.  Awareness of the pattern allows me to jump on it before it catches hold and start to make subtle shifts required to change the direction of my thinking.  Allowing myself patience and understanding has also been key - there is simply no good that will come from scolding myself and putting even more undue pressure to be "perfect".  Instead I am trying to insert moments of mindfulness here and there in my days - a minute or two when I need a break to just breathe and feel grounded again.  

Learning to nourish our whole selves is a practice that is built over time and in my experience definitely looks like a step or two forwards followed by a step or two backwards.  What I am encouraged by is the slow and steady progress that starts to take hold when those forward steps begin to outnumber the backwards ones.