This past week, I had the pleasure of chatting with a phenomenal coaching client and fellow entrepreneur about the intersection of her health and happiness (and the resulting intersection of health and happiness within her business). She shared with me her hesitancy about trying to change her nutritional and lifestyle choices all at once — overwhelmed, like many of us, about the seemingly daunting task of making sustainable, long-term changes to her health, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Especially since she had spent much of her life trying “diet” after “diet,” always assured that this would be the quick fix that she had been craving.
So, I shared with her the secret that all the diet, self-help, and lifestyle books leave out of their bindings:
HOW YOU EAT IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT YOU EAT.
When I was growing up, my family ate dinner together almost every single night. It didn’t matter if my three siblings and I had back-to-back soccer practices, we would wait until everyone was home for the night to gather around the dinner table together. It was around that table that inside jokes were created, daily learning was downloaded, and our family discovered how to know and love each other without distraction. To this day, I hold the stories and songs composed around that table close to my heart.
It’s this experience that has created within me a deep value for distraction-free, communal eating. Even when it’s just me and my sweetheart grabbing a simple dinner at home, there is something sacred about the communion that we experience, something set apart from the rest of our daily routine.
“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him – the people who give you their food give you their heart.” – Cesar Chavez
The connection that we experience when we share a meal with someone — without distraction or haste — is intimate and telling. It’s why we gather in the dining room for holidays or meet at a coffee shop to catch up. The sharing of a meal is a sharing of souls, and it has the power to inspire, enliven, even heal. And the research backs it up – with families who frequently eat meals together showing better nutrition and fewer symptoms of depression than those who eat out or in front of the TV.
But the quality of the meal and interaction matters, too.
When we scarf up our meals together in front of the television or grab a quick bite of fast food, when we sit down to dinner and rest our smartphones on the table beside us or barely chew, inhaling our meals – we miss what is so sacred about the space (not to mention the nutrients our bodies desperately need).
Slowing down, enjoying our meal and the company (even when we dine alone), opens us up for magic to happen. Intimate conversation, pleasurable eating (rather than the sticky, guilt-drenched, and all-too-familiar emotional eating), and community are born — providing healing for our bodies and souls and fulfilling our most fundamental needs. It’s nutrition for the spirit.
MY CHALLENGE TO YOU THIS WEEK IS TO PUT DOWN THE CELL PHONE, CLEAR THE BILLS OFF OF THE DINING ROOM TABLE, AND EAT WITHOUT DISTRACTION.
Invite your best girlfriends to dinner. Chew each bite (this might seem like “duh!” but it bears repeating… chew. your. food.). Savor the flavor and share a little gratitude for the food and the company (even if it’s just you!). And watch how it shifts your interaction with your meal.
“People who love to eat are always the best people.” — Julia Child via @katekmccarthy
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Kate McCarthy is a holistic health coach, writer and professional shame slayer. She leverages body love as a transformational tool to unlock freedom and help women create massive change in their lives. You can find her free eBook, “The Body Love Kit, on her website here. Find her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Image courtesy of Death to Stock Photo.
