3 Rituals to Help Heal Your Relationship with Food

Perform One of These Three Spells to Establish Healthy Eating Habits and a Food-Positive Perspective.

Food is a sacred gift from the earth, and your body is sacred too.

In our modern world, we are often disconnected from the source and nature of our food. Commercialism makes living produce seem like lifeless products on a shelf, and can cause us to feel that our bodies are products as well. This doesn’t mean the magical connection between people, food, the earth, and the sun is severed (because it could never be), but it does sometimes seem to be hidden.

These rituals can help you rediscover that profound connection, and heal your relationship with food. Imagine how you’ll feel when you’re planning your meals with celebration and joy, heartily enjoying the process of eating (without guilt or worry), and regularly charging up your health and vitality with the high quality sustenance that is a precious gift from the earth and sun.

Do one of these rituals or do them all.

1. Reawaken Your Body’s Natural Desire for Healthy Food

While our modern world can give us a taste for unnaturally sweet and overly processed foods, our body is still a natural creature, possessed of a powerful inner knowing of what will nourish and sustain us in the healthiest possible way.

Ingredients:
1 bottle raw apple cider vinegar (make sure the bottle says “with the mother”)
28 12-oz bottles or cans chilled sparkling water (flavored is OK, but make sure the brand uses healthy flavorings)
1 bottle essential oil of rosemary
An oil burner or diffuser

First thing in the morning, before eating or drinking anything, shake the apple cider vinegar and add one tablespoon to a glass, then fill the glass with 12 ounces of sparkling water. Hold the glass in both hands, visualize it filled with bright sunlight, and align with the earth and sun by saying:

Lady of Earth, Lord of the Light, this new day is healthy, this new day is bright.

Then, drink the entire glass at a pace that feels comfortable for you. (This will help cleanse and rebalance your body and tastebuds.)

Next, still before eating or drinking anything (besides the vinegar drink), put some drops of rosemary in your burner or diffuser. While you diffuse the scent (possibly on your altar), sit comfortably nearby on a meditation cushion or chair. Take deep breaths and revel in the invigorating, energizing scent. Continue to breathe deeply as you connect with a sense of being anchored in your body and centered in your mind. Know that you are re-awakening your body’s natural state of health and re-aligning with your inherent inner knowing about what will help strengthen that health. Feel and sense your aura brightening and your immune system getting stronger.

After just a few moments of this, feel gratitude to the earth goddess and sun god for all the delicious and healthy food the day has in store for you, knowing that you will naturally desire it and heartily enjoy it.

Repeat this process every day for 28 days (one full moon cycle).

2. Make Friends with Food

Like so many of us, there have been times in my life when I have felt like food was my enemy. This is a tragically disempowering relationship to have with something we literally need in order to survive. The good news is that turning this perspective around is not only good for our health, it’s also good for our simple, everyday enjoyment of life. And pleasure heals: by enjoying healthy food, we digest it better and assimilate its nutrients more effectively.

Ingredients:
A whole grain muffin mix or a favorite whole grain muffin recipe that looks good to you, plus all required ingredients and tools
1 teaspoon whole flax seeds in a small dish or bowl

After assembling all muffin ingredients in your kitchen, take the bowl of flax seeds outside, ideally somewhere with grass on which you can safely stand barefoot. (A park, natural area, or your backyard would all work.) Take off your shoes and feel Mother Earth’s loving aliveness beneath your feet. Hold the seeds in the sunlight and feel them soaking in Father Sun’s inspiring light. Begin to contemplate the fact that an abundance of food grows out of the earth in response to the bright sunlight that is so abundant during this season. Cultivate a sense of amazement that Mother Earth and Father Sun provide for you so generously and deliciously, fueling your vitality and aliveness every day of your life. With love and gratitude, pour the flax seeds upon the earth as a gratitude offering to the earth and sun.

Go back inside. Bake your muffins reverently, with an awareness of the sacred source of all the ingredients. When they’re ready to eat, go outside and savor one of them, with this continued reverent awareness. Open your heart to food in general and vow to think of it as a friend from this moment forward.

Share the rest of the muffins with loved ones or eat them yourself as desired.

3. Feel at Home in Your Body

Considering that our bodies run on food, your relationship with your body and your relationship with food go hand in hand. When we feel happily at home in our body, we naturally choose foods that nourish and heal us. We eat with presence and enthusiasm, and look forward to mealtimes with joy.

Ingredient:
Crabapple flower essence (this is a homeopathic remedy available online and at most health food stores)

Go outside in the sunshine, somewhere where you can safely stand barefoot on the earth. Take off your shoes and hold the flower essence dropper bottle in your right hand. Touch your lower belly area with your left hand. Feel love coming through the soles of your feet from Mother Earth. Feel love coming from the sun and directly into your skin. Feel this love merge and mix within you, and send it to your belly through your hand. From your heart, speak words (aloud or silently) to Mother Earth and Father Sun. Communicate that you haven’t loved your body as much as it deserves to be loved and that you’d like their help with learning to do so regularly. Apologize to your body for negative thoughts you’ve sent it in the past and vow to do your very best to learn to love it exactly as it is. Feel gratitude to the earth and sun. Feel gratitude to your body for always being there for you and supporting your physical existence, day in and day out, with loyal, loving commitment.

Go back inside and add 4 drops of the flower essence to a glass or bottle of drinking water. Drink the glass or bottle of water a natural pace until it’s gone. For the next 28 days, repeat this final step once per day (i.e. take 4 drops of the flower essence in water).

You can absolutely begin to love your food, love your body, and love your beautiful self. Starting today.

…Did you try one of these rituals to heal your relationship with food? How was it? Please share in the comments.