I’ve made it a mission in life to be cognizant of my actions. I believe that awareness brings the opportunity for change through new choices. So naturally, when I realized that my eating habits were out of alignment with what I want in life, I had to take a step back and look at what I was doing, and why.

After a week of eating meat, gluten, dairy, and refined sugars, I didn’t feel right. While I don’t believe that eating any of these things for a period of time is inherently wrong, I personally knew I was out of alignment.

My diet

My diet fluctuates quite a bit. I will go months without eating meat and months with eating meat. It all depends on where I’m at on my spiritual evolution. I think it’s good to give my system a variety of foods, as long as they are supporting me.

When I was going through and navigating a depression, I found myself eating more meat. The denser energy of meat was able to ground me and bring me into my body, which is where my journey of depression was primarily based.

I have found that lighter food aid me in my spiritual communication. A more vegan diet allows me to feel untethered to my body and I will use this for periods of deep spiritual growth. I use food from a physical standpoint and also from the vantage point of what is going on in my life.

Quality foodie

Even though I eat meat, I make sure that the meat I consume is not factory farmed. It is really unhealthy to be consuming the flesh of animals who’ve spent their entire lives in fear and pain. Not to mention the antibiotics and hormones that are pumped into these animals. This is something that you don’t want to ingest and put into your system.

I avoid factory-farmed meat at all costs and, instead, eat organic farm-to-table. With so many labels out there, I consider myself a “qualitarian.” I eat high quality food and rarely ingest dairy, gluten, refined sugars, or coffee.

I don’t think it’s bad to have periods of eating meat, gluten, or sugar as long as it’s still in alignment with what is serving me in that moment. We can support ourselves on our spiritual journeys through food, as long as we don’t use them as a way to escape our feelings.

The most important thing I do when I look at my eating habits is to make sure that I don’t judge myself, but rather, address the choices from a reflection standpoint. I sit with the “Why?”

Asking why

After a week of pastries and refined sugars, I was regretting my food choices because I knew I was ignoring what my body wanted. But instead of shaming and judging myself, I decided to reflect on why I was eating more sugar and meat, even though my intuition was telling me no.

I realized that I was using food to comfort myself. The pleasure of taste is comforting and I enjoy the chemical reaction in my body from the release of endorphins. While pleasurable sugar rushes feel good in the moment, in the long run, being aligned with my absolute truth is more important to me. So I stopped to ask myself, “If I’m leaning into sugar more, why do I need it to feel good right now?”

The answer I got back was because I was feeling lonely. Being so used to living and traveling with a romantic partner or friends, doing these things alone caused me to reach out for comfort. Since I no longer had the pleasure of a woman to reach out and smell, snuggle, and touch, I replaced those sensorial experiences with pastries.

I realized that I was medicating with food. Being lonely is okay, however, the way I was responding to my loneliness (i.e. through food) was something I wasn’t proud of. I knew it was disconnecting me from my intuition and was upsetting my blood sugar levels.

I’ve learned to ask questions and sit with the answers. Being honest and aware allows me to make new choices. With my new awareness that I was using sugar to comfort my loneliness, I decided to shift the pattern.

Honesty is the best policy

Food is not the only thing that we can use to medicate our uncomfortable feelings. We can also numb out with drugs, sex, social media, Netflix, or a number of other distractions. The most important thing is to be honest and seek answers to why you are doing these actions.

Are you able to sit with yourself and ask, “Am I using food or drugs to run away from my emotions?” If you’re making choices that are out of alignment with who you want to be, then you can make a decision right now to change that.

With a clear vision for your life, if you find yourself straying, you get to take action to shift and recalibrate to get back on track. Rather than admonishing yourself for doing something out of alignment, you get the chance to bring awareness to what you’ve been doing and then make new choices from there.